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Britain's Got Talent, Season 3
- bySpode on30th October, 2008 inGeneral
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My opinion of reality TV as a whole is not high. Watching Pop Idol, X Factor or the 101 other shows really alarms me at the number of truly deluded people who consider themselves to be talented. This in itself isn't so alarming, but in order to become talented, one must be able to recognise talent in others. So this trend demonstrates that a large proportion of the population has no respect for real talent.
When the first season of BGT came out, I was inundated by e-mails suggesting that we sign up for the next season and my gut reaction was to say no. I believe strongly that if someone has talent, they should do what everyone does - work hard and progress. I say this, while also being reminded of the sheer number of bands that I know that nobody has heard of, or the wasted talent out...
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Planning a Secret Santa?
- bySpode on28th October, 2008 inGeneral
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Some of you might remember that last year I launched Think Secret Santa. I unfortunately also launched this in December when most offices had already planned their Secret Santa's. Just over 400 people used the system, so I'm looking forward to see what happens this year.
I have updated the system slightly to make it more user friendly, but it's certainly what I consider to be a very simple way of organising even a small number of people. The premise is simple - put in the e-mail addresses of everyone involved in the Secret Santa. Once everyone has confirmed they want to be involved, the names are picked out of a virtual hat and everyone is e-mailed their Secret Santa.
I'm sure I don't have to tell you guys, that I don't do anything malicious with the e-mail addresses and the only money that is made from it, is via the...
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Where are the Posts?
- bySpode on23rd October, 2008 inGeneral
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Some of you might have noticed that I haven't been posting on here as much. The reason for this is I have been concentrating my efforts on thinkabouttech.com in an effort to get the ball rolling, so to speak.
As the site is in its early stages, it's very fluid and could go in many directions. I already have a number of things I want to implement to the site, and will be in the near future. I am getting more and more writers signed up and when I feel we have enough, I shall have an official launch at a London venue.
So where does this leave Spode's Abode, I hear you ask? Well, the site will *not* disappear, but I imagine I will start covering more non-technology topics, or merely taking a different angle to that I would give on TAT. At some point, I imagine I will integrate a...
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RSS Feeds
- bySpode on13th October, 2008 inGeneral
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I've just spent the weekend giving the code to the wonderful "Feed Publisher" RSS Feed extension to Vanilla a doing over. I'm talking to the developer at the moment, but I'm hoping my changes will be taken in - otherwise I shall release it as a forked version.
I have it running here in a limited capacity, as I have decided I only wanted the Blog Feed on display, but it is very powerful, allowing feeds of any discussion, category or even a specific user's comments or blog posts. It can turn *any* search result into an RSS2/ATOM feed.
If anyone wants to give this extension a try - drop me an e-mail and you can help me test it for bugs
When I first setup SA, I modified a number of the extensions that I used and I'm now looking through the list and realising that many of them haven't...
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The Sex Factor
- bySpode on10th October, 2008 inGeneral
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When I was last at the ChannelFlip studios, I had the good fortune to run into my good friend Ryan Dean. He was showing off a new spoof he'd been working on called "The Sex Factor". I watched 2 or 3 of the episodes and my sides almost split. Perfect comedy timing, lovely editing and frankly a law suit waiting to happen. Go and check out his videos before they get pulled!
In addition, here is a video of me being tickled in a dark box at the Sony Ericsson W595 launch.
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"TagThis" Vanilla Extension
- bySpode on8th October, 2008 inGeneral
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The last few weeks I've been working pretty hard on getting thinkabouttech.com up and running. It is now in a state that I'm pleased with, but I'm waiting for the writers to sign up and some content to become available before I officially launch the site.
In making the site with Karl, I have upped to version 1.11 of BlogThis, with a few bug fixes and new features. I've also taken over maintaining the "Guest Post" extension in which I cleaned up the code and re-wrote it quite heavily to work with reCAPTCHA. Some of you might have noticed this on the site, as you can now post as a Guest
But today I wrote a new extension called TagThis, which allows you to tag any discussion and gives you a tag cloud on a per user basis, per discussion basis and as a site wide cloud. You'll notice at the...
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DealExtreme 10400mAh EeePC Battery
- bySpode on6th October, 2008 inGeneral
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While reading eeepc.net the other day, I noticed a replacement 10400mAh battery for the 7/9" EeePC. At only $50 including shipping and the exchange rate going very much in my favour, I decided to take the risk.
I really wasn't expecting it to be so big, but then it was during my morning news reading that I decided to buy it. Logically thinking, I guess it has to be. But to say it's just a little bit bigger is an understatement.
It fits in place, but it doesn't feel like it locks in place properly. As there is a tendency to want to carry it by the battery, I worry about what leverage this is putting on the device. It also doesn't fit back into the original neoprene carry bag particularly well. On the plus side, when sitting on a desk, the angle is a little better for typing and skyping.
Annoyingly,...
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T-Mobile Showcases Google Android and 3G Router
- bySpode on2nd October, 2008 inGeneral
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Yesterday T-Mobile organised a product showcase, giving Journalists an opportunity to check out all the phones that T-Mobile are partnered with as well as their mobile broadband packages.
Naturally, most people were crowded round the G1 phone being passed around like some technological joint. Whilst this was happening I checked out a new product T-Mobile will be offering.
The picture itself is fairly explanatory, but allows you to share out your Mobile Broadband over wireless or even across your wired network thanks to the included RJ45 port. This is incredibly useful if you set up mobile offices or live a nomadic life style, as many of us increasingly do. I see this product as a sign of the times. I wouldn't be surprised if before long many people will be like me – no longer having a BT land line and dedicated internet connection, but rather rely on wireless and 3G connections....
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BT Digital Music Awards "Good Fun"
- bySpode on2nd October, 2008 inGeneral
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BT was nice enough to invite me to the Digital Music Awards last night at the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm. Not usually a show I would tune into, but it sounded like a good laugh so I thought I'd go along. It was presented by Fearne Cotton and Rufus Hound (a man I've never seen - shows how much I watch TV...). Not being in the music industry means that the awards meant very little to me, although I did enjoy the live music and the free press bar
After the event, the tables were pulled back and the abandoned bottles of wine were soon quaffed. My calves are now aching considerably after jumping around like a complete loony. The bar maid tried to joke that I'm already on YouTube as a crazy white man dancing - I really wouldn't be surprised.
Anyway, for anyone who is interested – here are...
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Pocket Surfer 2R Fails to Impress
- bySpode on30th September, 2008 inGeneral
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Popped along the Pocker Surfer 2R launch today, and although very much liked the idea – I was sorely disappointed with the product.
The premise of the Surfer is a device that is used specifically for accessing the internet – it has no internal applications at all. Their aim is to make accessing the web as cheap as possible, with 20 hours per month for the first year after purchase at £199.99. After this, it's £29.99 to top up the year for another 20 hours, or £59.99 for unlimited use for the lifetime of the product. That's not bad, but like most things – too good to be true, as spending 20 hours a month on this device would be too much.
The device itself feels dated, with its passive matrix screen that is worse in quality than some of the PDAs I had in the 1990's. Instead of having an...
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