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I'm in two minds about whether to use them or not. But it's good that there's a DNS provider I can fall back on if my ISP's DNS goes tits up that isn't sodding OpenDNS.
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Heh. I have an absolute *stack* of unwatched TV, and yes, it is daunting, to the point that basically, I'd rather rewatch an odd episode here and there of something I've already watched, than crack open the start of five seasons worth of something else. Starting a totally new show feels like a serious time commitment, whilst rewatching something old is a way to pass a spare 40 minutes. And mostly all I have is the odd spare hour here and there that needs filling up.
Category: Digitalia
Links For Thursday 3rd December 2009
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OK, this might actually give non-techy users a reasonable chance of using Ubuntu – they've made it behave more or less like the most popular version of Windows. I shall have to experiment, and see what's what.
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Here's a nice dissection of how one of the major music players is handling digital stuff. The answer is "shamefully badly", and this article explains why. For what it's worth, this dovetails very directly with my experience of working at a record label – that they could do things well, and there are probably some people there who know how to, but that there is a such a culture against digital in the rest of the business that they are ignored, and the improvements they suggest actively held back by people who like the sloppy, incompetent status quo. (Also worth it for the explanation of advances toward the end, just in case you hadn't heard that little injustice before, either.)
Links For Tuesday 1st December 2009
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Clary Shirky on the future of the bookstore. I think that the local bookstore probably has a longer future that the local record store did – I think it'll take a generational shift or two, until we've got people who are more used to reading on the screen than they are on paper, but I think he's right that they're going to need to make massive practical changes in the way they do business – perhaps becoming hubs for local POD services…
Links For Monday 30th November 2009
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My god, this is just superb. Work of total genius. Combination of the ubiquity of the digital age with the sense of magic and wonder. Utterly brilliant. I want to give these to everyone.
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Oh, look, you all know what I'm going to say by now. I'll just restate this: free/cheap public connectivity is far more important to Britain's future prosperity than the existing business models of the content industry are, and cases like this endanger that connectivity. I would like it very much if we stopped fighting the future because of a short term threat to the wallets of some rich people, and got on with embracing it so that we can have all new rich people.
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Then number of times I've written, re-written, googled for, and generally had to implement one of these is verging on the insane. This one looks good, so I am noting it so I can come back and find it whenever this comes up again.
Links For Friday 27th November 2009
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Why does Peter Mandelson favour the Analogue Economy over the Digital? | Technology | guardian.co.ukDoctorow writing in the Grauniad about why the DEB is a bad idea on a social and economic level.
Customer Communications
I spend a lot of time at work thinking about ways to improve the ways our clients communicate with their customers. This can mean things like how we assemble emails, what sorts of subject lines we use, it can mean making sure that unsubcribe links are clear, and that the customer feels in control of the communication they recieve, it can mean lots of different things, but the end goal is the same – making sure that the user feels like a valued customer, who has a relationship with our client’s brand. (You’ll have to forgive the lapse into marketing speak there – it’s quite hard to talk about the less directly technical side of what I do without sounding like a bit of a cock.) Because if we make our clients customers happy, they spend money with the client, and then the client spends money with us, and I get paid. So I spend time thinking about digital communications, and how we can use new technology to improve things.
I have just been blown away by one of our suppliers. They’ve put all my work in the shade with a five minute job. We use 37signals Basecamp as our project management tool of choice, and we have done for almost as long as the company has existed. And they’ve just sent us a personal note to thank us for it. A hand written, personal note. We’re one of their longest standing commercial customers, and one of them has taken the time to sit down and write us a personal note to thank us for that.
One worth remembering, I think.
Links For Wednesday 25th November 2009
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"I'm making a list and checking it twice. Ha! Fuck that. Drinking and playing it by ear." "I like how everyone thinks Rudolph did shit. Fact. Rudolph is an oh-look-at-me-I-have-a-red-nose diva fuck." and similar gems.
Links For Tuesday 24th November 2009
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A lawyer takes the Digital Economy Bill apart.
My own idiots guide to the DEB is at 1500 words and counting, and I'm not sure I'm even halfway through yet. So: serious question – if there anyone reading this who feels it would be useful for me to produce said guide? Is a guide that tries to use short words and explain the whole business practically from absolutely first principles worth it, or are you all going to go "tl;dr" and skip blithely past it? Who is there round these parts that feels like they don't know what's going on on this subject, and would like to?
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Dammit, these actually *are* that interesting. An absolute mine of weird crap that illustrates that the world is a pretty damn splendid place, when you get right down to it.
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I will have absolutely no need of this kernel patch at any point.
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This would violate my EULA. Obviously, I would not wish to do this, because once I have legitimately purchased something, it is completely reasonable that that manufacturer dictate how I use it.
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Tools for writers/people who generate text, rather than code, to apply more or less automatic version control to something you're working on, with tools to provide context on what was going on in your head when a given automatic commit happened.
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ZOMG! (As I believe the young people say.) Someone has made a website with gifts specifically for me and all my friends!
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Gosh, couldn't have guessed this would happen.
Links For Monday 23rd November 2009
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Ariana's been doing an excellent series about POD, and generally getting off your ass and making a thing. This, however, is the one where she knocks it out of the park, talking about community, and engaging with people on the internet. The rule is very, very simple: engage with them as humans. Give them space to talk about what *they* want to talk about. And all other things will follow.
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A Number 10 petition against the current draft Digital Economy Bill. I strongly urge all of you who are in the UK to sign it – while it will have no legal force, it'll send a message about this legislation that might cause them to back off, especially since we're now in the run up to a general election.
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Charlie Stross on the Digital Economy Bill. I am going to keep linking to stuff like this, because it is absolutely vital that this bill is seen for what it is: an attempt by corporate interests to screw small and independent creators. Even if there is a reasonable argument for fighting for copyright, this bill is for far the wrong way to do as to be 100% insupportable, and *every* MP needs to be made to realise this. I've a letter written to my MP – I haven't sent it yet, because I'm holding off until just before the bill is actually under parliamentary review and vote, because I don't want my concerns to be weeks old in his mind at that time, as they would be if I sent it now, but I may post it up later on – it's no good for other people to simply send the same text, but I'm trying to summarise the issues, so if people think it would be useful to them, I'll put it up.
Links For Friday 20th November 2009
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It's on open source font. Which is a little weird, but still: it's also a *gorgeous* font.