I know this is of niche interest, but the Remember the Milk provider does actually work with version 3.0.3 of Thunderbird. All you do is change the version as described here (the rest of the hack isn’t needed with the latest version of the RTM app). Unless you actually use both apps regularly, you can’t imagine what joy it was to make this discovery this morning.
This probably isn't as exciting for you as it is for me. Also, time to change my desktop background.
Playing around with the retro creative colour options on the GF1
This weekend I managed to spend the best part of £100 on door hooks. Lots of doors needed hooks, and one wall needed special fixings. It was essential, but I feel vaguely sick. Still, at least our coats aren’t hanging over the stair rail anymore.
I did manage to play with the GF1 quite a bit, though. Still trying to find a reliable RAW tool which can easily fix the lens distortion in Linux, in the meantime the JPGs are pretty good. As far as Windows tools go, the software came with it is awfule. Love the fun colour settings, though.
A member of the proud GF1 owners club at last.
As an aside, I forgot my camera on Monday and saw this on special offer in duty free. I’ve been after one for month’s – the size and image quality makes the GF1 an amazing tool for journalism. Of course, the irony is that this shot was taken with the rubbish phone cam.
I should, of course, have bought the kit with the 20mm pancake lens in – but they didn’t have it at the Duty Free. Something else to save up for, then.
Before the conference started
Like most freelance journalists these days, I do occasionally supplement my income by taking on copywriting jobs. I’ve worked, on and off, for several clients including Opal, ASUS, UK:Telco and others. It’s an ethical minefield, but I’m careful not to let it colour my judgement and make sure I offer full disclosure and avoid accepting commissions with an overt conflict of interests. It says ‘Writer and Journalist’ on my business cards – sometimes I just have to be the writer part.
That side of the work is also, sometimes, a creative release. As well as press releases and news letters, I’ve worked on video scripts and blogging projects for various companies.
As more of us are going freelance, we’re forced to become like proper publishing houses, erecting small Chinese walls in our minds between the commercial and classically editorial work we take on. It’s not the most tasteful part of the job, and you might accuse us of having our cake and eating it, but with mortgages to pay and editors’ budgets getting tighter by the day, it’s that or go and work in marketing full time.
My latest corporate commission, though, was something out of the ordinary. For its press conference at CeBIT this year, ASUS had invited David Lewis – chief designer at Bang&OIufsen – to come on stage and talk about a project he’d collaborated on, the NX90 laptop. Rather than a formal powerpoint presentation, ASUS’ marketing department – who I have worked for before on a corporate blogging project – wanted to mock up a three way interview between David, ASUS chairman Jonney Shih, and a professional interviewer.
And they asked me to be the interviewer.
I did vacillate for a while – at least as long as I had to make up my mind – as I’m deeply uncomfortable with the idea of being a corporate shill. But I genuinely like the laptop, the offer was something unusual and challenging (and I do like a challenge) and I find it very hard to refuse any opportunity to get on stage. Even if that means standing in front of my peers and crossing a certain line, albeit temporarily.
Hell, there’s plenty more famous and talented journalists than me who’ve done voice overs and adverts, and many more than you know who’ve done corporate videos the general public never sees.
After I’d set my conscience straight, I had to decide what to wear, but that’s another story.
Suffice to say I’m back and actually loved being on stage, and ASUS were very lovely and complimentary about my performance. It was a really interesting experience, seeing what goes on behind the scenes, and one which I’ll be able to draw on in future writing too.
But I’m glad to be back on the other side of the fence again. To salve my moral conscience, tomorrow I’m off to the Red Cross to volunteer some time explaining what it was like to be a journalist in Kyrgyzstan last year.
Well, we actually moved last Friday, after a couple of weeks of hell knowing that our contract was up on the old place in Melksham, and the solicitors kept finding problems in the leasehold with the new flat in Shoreham-by-Sea. A lot of begging all sides not to make us homeless seemed to do the trick. That and lots of money, of course, in extra fees and charges to make it happen.
After a week of unpacking the wall of boxes is finally shrinking, having gone from this:
The kitchen after the removal men left. Unexpected finds = a hole in the bottom of the oven, and general skank in the fridge.
To this:
See, almost habitable. And cooking is now possible. Wasn't expecting all the shelving to have been removed though.
There is still this though:
It's only one wall of many, but at least it's almost clear.
Although that wall was covered two boxes deep when we first started.
We also now own a dishwasher, oven and fridge we didn’t think we’d need to.
Things have been slow because Tamsin fell down the stairs on our first night here and dislocated her arm, and I’m unable to actually work in my office yet as there’s no internet connection over there. Still, the flat is finally starting to feel like home, and I’m getting over the buyer’s remorse (it’s too small/dangerous/expensive/falling apart to have been a good idea).
Being by the sea is as ace as expected. Even if I’ve only been down to the beach once. Poor Tabby is having a bit of a hard time, all the things we promised her (like flying kites on the beach) have had to be postponed while we struggle to get on top of things.
I’m working on a proper valedictory post for Bath coming soon, along with a full and exciting explanation of the new office. Hopefully before too long I’ll be able to focus back on the developmental journalism and creative writing that have been put on hold for a while.
…I’ve actually been putting together a very rough (but better than it was) Wordpress site for my ju-jitsu instructor, whose class I’ll be leaving when we move next week.
A work in progress - most of the text has been copied from the old site.
Astonishing pre-Photoshop eyes.
There’s an story over on National Geographic about the life of an Afghan woman made the cover of the magazine (and several books) back in the days of the Soviet occupation. The photographer is the alternative Kevin Carter – he hunted her down in the Tora Bora mountains (where Bin Laden is purported to hang out) to find out what’s happened to her since.
Not only is it an engrossing story, it’s one of the first pieces of journalism I’ve read about Afghanistan for a long time that actually helps me understand a bit about what life is like there. Well worth a read.
You try to do someone a good turn, and look what happens...
I don’t know why this offends me any more than regular spam, but there’s something particularly low about registering with altruistic giving-stuff-away site Freecycle just to spam everyone who tries to use it.
This mail, or variants thereof, has popped up in my inbox several times today. We’re relocating to Shoreham-by-Sea next week, so are in the middle of clearing out all the stuff we haven’t used in the two years since we moved to Melksham. As you’re no doubt aware, Freecycle is a lovely way to do this.
Every thing I’ve posted gets a quick reply from this lady, ostensibly from someone Esther Simmons. Now it happens I may know an Esther Simmons – at least a Mrs Simmons whose first name I’m not sure of – so it took me a couple of reads to figure out what it is.
It’s a crude, but no doubt highly successful, piece of social engineering spam. Written colloquially to lull you into a false sense of security, full of mea culpa to get you to click on a link for a Freecycle-like community (’If only I’d known about this other site, I’d never have thrown good stuff away”).
The cunning part is that it tries to allay your fears that the link is going to ask you for personal details. The quote from the email is: “(I seem to recall they are advertiser supported so you may have to stick in an email or zip code or something to see what they have available)” Too people out there won’t even mentally flag this as a potential phishing attack, even though the writer isn’t sure which country she’s in. I mean, zip code? Really? You couldn’t even write a piece of spamming code that was geographically aware when posting to specific local groups? Go back to spam school, you lazy spammers.
–Update
I may have underestimated the spammer slightly. The return address (@wellnessresearch.info) is a nice touch compared to the usual random letter assortments. Makes it seem safe and respectable doesn’t it?
Not many of the kids at Simakakata could speak English, even though it’s the Zambia’s official lingua franca. The language of tomfoolery is universal though. This very quickly became a favourite playtime game.
Boomerang in Melksham. One of the few things I'll miss.
A giant indoor soft play centre. Four stories of foam filled fun.
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