It’s interesting that web designers put so much reliance on Description and Keyword Meta Tags when major search engines like Google don’t even use them. This is probably why Google works so well; it only caches the one true indicator of what the site is about: its content. This site has some interesting information on Googles submission and ranking process.
I feel like I’m sitting in a greenhouse. The sky is completely overcast; stopping the warm, moist air from escaping and making everyone feel hot and bothered. It’s certainly stopping me from being able to think clearly and write things here as often as I would like.
Randomising Images with PHP & CSS: A quick and easy method of creating an image randomiser for your XHTML and CSS designed website.
Did that headline cause a slight twinge of fear when you read it? It did with me when I read this article on the BBC’s new Science and Nature section. So is this a case of the BBC sensationalising the issue, or have we really got something to worry about? The fact is that scientists are uncertain at the moment, so a headline such as ‘Space Rock maybe ‘on collision course’’ would perhaps be more appropriate. If this 2 kilometer wide lump of rock is going to hit the Earth at 28 kilometers a second, we’ve certainly got a while to prepare ourselves for it; it’s not due until the year 2019. Hopefully, by that time, we’ll have the technology to do something about it; I think a 50 mile long, fusion powered baseball bat should do the trick.
Old-computers.com is a nicely designed site dedicated to the history home computing. Here’s a list of computers I was lucky enough to use when I was growing up:
Stu could be starting off a new blogging craze.
The guy who did Amazon Light has had a ‘Cease & Desist’ order from Google, who obviously weren’t very happy that their UI was being used to sell products on Amazon. Everyone else thought it was brilliant though, and it demonstrated how the relatively easy-to-use interface that Amazon has can be simplified even further.
The Guardian have launched a competition for the best British weblog. What is this? Crufts? There is no model for the ultimate blog; by their very nature, they are a means of communicating something to who ever wants to read it; a blog may be badly written and badly designed, but if it communicates something to someone on any level, then it has made an achievement. I sympathise with the judging panel; they’re going have a tough time deciding between the hundreds of submitted blogs, if they’re going to assess each one fairly that is.
Macslash has a round up of all the announcements at Apple’s Keynote speech a few hours ago. The highlights for me are: Rendezvous, Sherlock 3s Web Services, and Junk Mail. However, there is one lowlight: the ‘Del Boy’ style fur.
A day after Apple release Quicktime 6, Real release a beta version of the RealOne Player for OS X.
Keynote update: iTunes 3 has just been launched, now with smart playlists.
Build your own Red Meat comic. Hours of fun.
Do you ever find that, when shopping in Marks & Spencer, goods are never in the place you expect them to be? I believe Marks & Spencer regularly move their products round the store for a reason, which is this: people who are brand loyal will not shop elsewhere, so if M & S sneakily move everything round, they may slightly annoy their customers, but they won’t lose any.
Now, imagine that Mrs Smith goes into the store to buy one item only: her favourite St Michael Fruit Scones. She goes to the place where she bought them last time and finds that they aren’t there any more. After looking high and low to see if they’ve been stacked on a different shelf, she eventually decides to look for them elsewhere. She won’t ask a member of staff where they are because she wants maintain her independence, besides, she has been shopping in M & S for years and she likes to think that she knows the store like the back of her hand.
Eventually, Mrs Smith finds the fruit scones she was looking for, but not before discovering a vast array of other products as she wandered around the store trying to find the scones. By the time she gets to the check-out, Mrs Smith has a handbasket full of goods, including not only the scones, but also a packet of cherry bakewells and a packet of some foreign food that she might like to try for the first time.
The fact is that market researchers at Marks & Spencer stereotype people like this all the time. They know the shopping habits of every type of person that comes into the store; they do not care for or respect Mrs Smith as an individual, they just want to maximise the amount of money they gain from her when she comes in twice a week.
Most people recognise that Marks & Spencer and other supermarkets exploit our impulsive behaviour when we shop. This is most evident when we reach the checkout, where treats are strategically positioned alongside other necessary items which we might otherwise forget, like batteries.
We know we are being manipulated in some way when we shop in supermarkets; most people would say that it’s the nature of business. I say it stinks.
Frownland.com is proud to be involved in the Minimalist Web project. Less is more, more or less.
Plink is a new little project of mine. It’s simple really: a collective of music lovers recommends albums by adding them to a weblog. The information is also stored as an RSS feed which can be added to your favourite news aggregator or can be added to your own site using an XML parsing script [here’s an example]. More details about aggregators and scripts will be added to the site when I get chance. In the meantime, be sure to check out the recommendations, it’s all good stuff.
Great! Reid has used RSS Monkey to add Plink to his site. Check it out.
Here’s a preview of a new song from Beck. Thankfully, he doesn’t sound like Prince anymore.
Slashdock is a great little OS X app that sits in the Dock and supplies news headlines via RSS. It also has built-in support for Versiontracker; just go to the preferences panel, enter the number of results you want displayed and you’ll have access to the latest OS X software directly from your desktop.
We would like to welcome you to historic Sealand. Set in a tranquil location off the coast of England, we’re sure that your time here will be relaxing and fulfilling. Our accommodation can offer guaranteed sea views as well as the unique benefit of satellite internet access, courtesy of HavenCo. Why not take a dive in our large saltwater pool, or while away a lazy afternoon catching your supper [we are told that we have the best fishing for miles around]. If you are too lazy to cater for yourself, why not stroll along to our restaurant where you’ll find the best in nouvelle seafood cuisine; our Haddock et Pom Frites is the best you’ll ever taste! There’s plenty to do for the kids as well; our playground sports a giant metal and concrete climbing frame which we’re sure you’ll have difficulty getting the little blighters away from. So, come to Sealand – it’s like Waterworld, only better.
I thought Minority Report made for good Saturday afternoon entertainment, but it didn’t really meet my expectations. Spielberg did a decent job of representing Philip K. Dick’s strange vision of the future onto the big screen, but yet again, he makes you leave the cinema with the film wrapped up for you and finished off with a nice ribbon. I want to leave the cinema with my head saturated with the film; I want something to chew on, something that zonks my brain for a while as I walk home. Instead, my walk was spent thinking about the washing-up and the fact that I’ve never left a Spielberg film fully satisfied. The film gripped me until it turned into The Fugitive; from there it had its ups and downs including some classic Spielberg silliness – pre-crime might happen, but human glazzies will never roll along like ping pong balls. Of course, I liked the cinematography and the acting was good, but I think Spielberg could have made a more intelligent film with the material he had.
If you liked Minority Report and you want to read some books by Philip K. Dick, then The World Jones Made is a good introduction. It contains many of the themes from Minority Report, including a pre-cog called Jones who constantly sees one year into future. I wish I could do that.
Susan Kare has designed some very famous user interface graphics. The t-shirt shop is particularly cool.
I like to think that Apple’s aim isn’t purely to make as much profit as they possibly can, but instead, to enrich humanity with technology that makes our lives easier and more enjoyable. Of course, this is what Apple wants me to think; to think different[ly], use a Mac. Naturally, those who are passionate about Apple Computer and the insanely great products it produces want to know what Apple has planned next. Because of this, rumour sites have become a staple part of every Mac users surfing habits; no where else offers as much insight into what is happening behind Apple’s cloak of secrecy. A few days ago, Apple denied these rumour sites press access to Macworld Expo in San Francisco. Bad move. As you can imagine, the people who run these sites are very unhappy about this; they have been punished by Apple for being good at their job, to report the news that Mac fans want to know about. It seems that Apple are trying to control what news we read and when we read it, as far as they are concerned if something hasn’t been officially announced by them, then you should ignore it. Like the RIAA trying to control music distribution on the web, it’s a pointless effort; information will always be leaked and there will always be a rumour site ready pick it up and publish it. Annoying the well-meaning independent sites that report Apple news is not going to help their cause. Indeed, in this case, it is Apple who need to think different[ly].
Plaid’s Itsu vid is a satire on the activities in the corporate workplace and is alarming yet strangely familiar. This video, as well as other beautiful pieces of motion design can be found at pleix.net.
On the subject of electronic music, those in the north east of England may be interested to know about an event this Sunday. Radio 3’s Mixing It are doing a live broadcast of electronic music from BALTIC as part of the Arts Centre’s opening celebrations. Artists include A Tree Full of Monkeys, Zoviet France, Wauvenfold, Kaffe Matthews and Laub. There’s more info at the BBC Tyne website.
Did anyone else receive an email from themselves this morning, which links to a site involving Mr Bush and a rather poor card trick ? I’m not sure whether this is an elaborate piece of spam, or my email account really has been hacked into.
VideoLan is an open source video player available for most operating systems, including OS X. Built primarily for streaming MPEG video across networks, it also plays DVDs [just]. I don’t know about DVD players on other platforms, but one thing you can’t do on the Apple player is capture stills. With this software, you can:
They say hindsight is a wonderful thing, well I think it’s rubbish. For the last couple of years, I’ve been thinking of buying a house; feeding the fat wallet of landlords is not something I want to do for the rest of my life, so it makes sense for me to invest in a house instead. So, just when I think it really is about time that I do something about it, house prices shoot up like they’ve never shot up before. Living in the north east of England – where house prices tend to be lower than anywhere else in the country – has caused me to be apathetic to the fact that they have been steadily rising; I never thought they would go up to the point where I can’t afford to buy one. So, prospective first-time-buyers like me all over the country are put into a difficult situation: whether to wait a while to see if house prices drop to less ridiculous figures, or buy a place now and risk all that nasty ‘negative equity’ stuff. Are there any mortgage advisors out there?
My music buying frenzy continues with Murcof’s debut album Martes which can only be described as minimal electronic music á la Morton Feldman; here’s a review.
According to BBC News, the one billionth computer has been sold. I wonder if there was a big celebration… “Congratulations Mrs Smith, you are our 1 Billionth happy customer!”. A pointless statistic, really.
After almost 2 years of using Blogger to manage this site, I’ve decided to transfer the role of content management to my own somewhat clunky PHP / MySQL driven system. I feel as though I’m saying goodbye to an old friend; there’s no doubt that Blogger has played an important part in my realisation of what the web is all about. Now I get it.
There will be a few bugs and inconsistencies here and there as I make the transition so if you find any strange things happening, be sure to let me know. I also need to find a neat way of archiving my posts into monthly html pages using PHP / MySQL, so if anyone can help me out with that, it would be appreciated.
