graham at home

Testing again with a photo

• An article on the BBC News pages remarks that : After 30 years of unprecedented economic growth, the British are richer, healthier - but no happier than in 1973.
• Read in my feeds : How to take better photos for selling articles on Etsy-Ebay etc.
• Je viens de recevoir un e-mail me conseillant de voir le nouveau portail Bluewin.ch. Ce n’est pas très beau et plutot chargé et confus… Je ne l’aime pas et vous?

I’ve been “had” by my choice of template (or rather by my use of it).

My idea here was to just jot a few notes of what I’ve been reading and drop them off for your reading pleasure. I have two badges in the left hand sidebar that take up space and if my article has only a few lines I’m left with a blank space between the latest article and the preceding article.

I’m having to write these lines - usefully I hope to explain the situation - to fill in the gap for a balanced entry.

I’m in the market for a new template. I’d like this one to have three categories as lead articles to their respective categories and older posts to fill the front page. A lot like the leaders in newspapers. That way you can go straight to the main articles of life in Geneva, to articles written in French and to others on more technical subjects. I’d also like to use the WordPress pages more efficiently for longer illustrated articles that you can get to via the front page. Any ideas?

I’ve been a member of Plaxo for 9 months now. I have a complicated calendar setup and wanted to synchronize them all.

I was using Google Calendar at home and Outlook at work. I also have an iMac (I love my iMac) so iCalendar is available. If you add Linked-In and mobile access it all leads into something complicated but reasonable (I thought).

Well I’m sad to report that although these services do synchronize I get regularly many duplicate entries and worst of all a lot of my birthdays show up (in multiple entries also) the preceding day of the anniversary.

I think I’ll be cancelling my Premium membership but will have to try and sort it all out soon. It’s becoming a mess.

I don’t want to have to simplify my multiple calendars just to be able to synchronize them!

Two things that have bothered me today.

First off I log into MySpace only to be greeted by a welcome to the Swiss MySpace and in German! The login screen had mention of French so I chose that in order to understand what was happening. Once I had logged in I was directed to the UK MySpace.

Problem is I live in Switzerland but in order to ‘benefit’ from Swiss Groups or happenings I would have to accept MySpace in French. My Web language however is English. Why can’t we have a Swiss English Speaking Group ? I’m sure that Stephanie would have something to say about this over at Climb to the Stars as she has extensive coverage of language problems on the Web on her blog.

My mind has gone a complete blank for the other item I wanted to post here but I am sure it had something to do with a site assuming that because I am living in Switzerland I must speak Germann.

I get “junk mail” from Nero, Filemaker and Iris in German and there is no way to get them to change languages so all these messages get deleted.

I’m not an exception. A recent ethnological survey lists 12 living languages in Switzerland.

Websites should bear this in mind but at least leave English (as it tends to be a common language for many) when they are localising.

A major pain is EBay that directs Swiss customers to their German website or more subtly Swiss (French speaking) sites that direct their customers to French Websites. I’ll stop there or I’ll start ranting.

Since I was a kid I’ve always been on the lookout for shiny new objects.

When I was a kid it was new Matchbox Cars, or a new Lego Box or some Meccano.

When I was a teenager it had a lot to do with Music, new singles or LP’s. I was thirsty for music and spents hours listening to it.

I continued and indeed still continue with my passion for music of most kinds in my life today.

In addition, however, with the advent of the Internet I am still on the lookout for shinies and it becomes almost unhealthy at times.

I collect sites as I collected music but unlike my music a lot of these sites lose their shine rapidly or are replaced by even shinier ones.

Life was simpler before the Internet. For a fiftysomething geek, if the genre really exists, it can become an ongoing struggle.

I don’t dare expose the number of apps I had when I was using Windows XP and know I am using my iMac (I love my iMac) my applications folder is overflowing with stuff I pick up and in reality use only from time to time.

I can’t afford (or justify using) Photoshop and I try to be ethical so I have Photoshop Elements and Pixelmator and the Gimp and strive to use them properly. I mention these apps because inevitably I tried out Photoshop Express earlier as well.

In every category it’s more or less the same combat.

It would be nice to be able to simulate an application environment by hiding or concealing applications on the fly. That way I could dip into the Lucky Bag (a childhood memory) and draw out a new toy only when I really needed it. I should be able to have categiries of applications such as -Often Used- or -Not yet mastered-. Perhaps in the Apps folder they could be sorted into categories (Graphics, Words, Games, Music etc etc).

Maybe this is possible or partly possible. I haven’t tried working with them yet.

I’ll let you know how I get on. Is this a problem for you?

Well Easter came and went, and I’m back at work after a wonderful weekend.

I’m playing around with media servers.

Last week we purchased a PS3 and changed flat screens to a rather nice 40″ Samsung Full HD, and after running around for optical and coax audio cables, I finally have it set up correctly.

One thing that irked me, was that although the TV has an optical out it transpires that this will not relay a 5.1 channel signal and only channels a stereo output. I only found out by testing it myself and asking various vendors. Samsung’s website didn’t help at all and googling it didn’t bring any answers either.

So, coming back to my media server subject, I noticed that the PS3 can connect to UpnP media servers and once I understood that you first have to pick which service you want served on the PS3 (audio, image or video) the PS3 connects nicely.

So I’m trying EyeConnect by Elgato and it’s working well. Soon I will have to pay, once the 30 day tryout expires, but this is generous compared to other “shareware” offerings. More about that later.

I signed up for ReadTheWords earlier so I can combine pleasure with exploration without even losing focus.

Here is yesterday’s post read out for your listening enjoyment. Although the voice is synthesized it’s not too bad and I can think of several uses for the service.

I need some help from you now (but if you are not quick enough I may already have found a solution). I have made a hostable badge to spread the word to find Robert but I can’t display the code for the badge here in WordPress. It always comes out as executed html even though I enclose it with the right tags. Any ideas?

How do you do it?

Powered By ReadTheWords.com

I was ill yesterday and without going into the details it was a digestive disorder sort of thing. It floored me for the day but I’m feeling a lot better today.

I came across an article on conjoined twin girls, Brittanny and Abigail Hensel, in our local free newspaper and that led me to a video on Youtube. It’s an amazing story and I’m surprised I didn’t find out about it until now. Here’s the video. There is also an article devoted to them on Wikipedia.

Finally, I received an info by email this morning. Matthieu Ricard, the Dalai Lama’s personal translator for French is giving a public talk in Lausanne on the 9th of April. His subject is “Interdependence and Universal Responsibility”. Matthieu Ricard is a Buddhist Monk and before becoming a monk he obtained a PhD in Cellular Genetics in 1972.

I really want to go and listen.

I posted about my new mobile phone last week and between then and now I’ve been installing software and getting used to the changes between Nokia and Sony Eriksson (I’ve had two previous phones the W800i and my last a K800i).

The N95 has a 5mp Camera and a GPS so of course I want to geo-localise my pics. The functionality doesn’t work out of the box but only requires an app in beta from Nokia to function. Lo and behold it works! This pic was taken on the Ikea car park in Canton Vaud and that is what it says in the Exif file on Flickr. Cool.

I haven’t posted in a week or so, which is the first “break” since the beginning of the year.

I was caught up with the sp*m problem and in the end discovered it was trackback orientated and a new plugin seems to be helping a lot. I’ve re-enabled comments without approval and hope it works out. I really don’t want to discourage comments as I haven’t had that many for a while now. It’s a viscious circle thing. The less you get the less you feel like posting.

I’ll post anyway. You’ll see!