A Consuming Experience

Google's tips: avoid money / financial scams

2009-07-10T22:49:00.004+01:00

This Google blog post on how to steer clear of money scams seems very sensible, and is certainly timely. There are too many spam emails and other fraudulent schemes trying to do people out of their cash over the internet, but too many people do get tricked by online or web "offers" and the like. See also my write up and a fascinating video of a talk by Cambridge academic Dr Richard Clayton about how some of these criminals ply their trade: evil ways to make money on the internet (phishing,...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Internet & collaboration - “Us Now” film – free tickets for Parliament or watch on TV / online

2009-07-06T08:36:00.000+01:00

The documentary film “Us Now” is screening in The Grand Committee Room of the UK Houses of Parliament on the evening of Wednesday 8 July 2009 at 6.30 pm - in association with More4 and Reboot Britain. The “Us Now” blog describes the movie as A documentary film project about the power of mass collaboration, government and the internet. Free tickets are still available to see the film live, then hear a panel discussion on the idea put forward in the film that: “Representative democracy is...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Brain music – music from brain scans

2009-07-04T19:43:00.002+01:00

A very interesting New Scientist article (video above), about researcher Dan Lloyd’s work in converting functional MRI scans of brains to musical sounds, led me to find the further videos below (see all of Lloyd’s YouTube videos). It’s fascinating that the brain scans of people with schizophrenia sound distinctly different from scans of mentally healthy people. More cynically, I can foresee the idle rich paying to have FMRI scans of their own brains made and converted to video /...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Science & the media: Guardian editor & top epidemiologist discuss + Q&A

2009-07-02T13:44:00.008+01:00

How do science and the media interact, what is the relationship between scientists and journalists, what’s the role of the media, the future of the news business and science news reporting? The video of this very interesting discussion / Q&A on 3 June 2009 with Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, and Sir Roy Anderson, top epidemiologist and Rector of Imperial College London, is now available on a general page of online videos of Imperial public lectures; this particular video is...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Curved cucumbers and knobbly carrots are back!

2009-06-30T13:08:00.004+01:00

Photo credit: Chotda Bendy cucumber fans, rejoice! From tomorrow, EU rules on the size and shape (!) of 26 fruits & vegetables will be updated. Apricots, artichokes, asparagus, aubergines, avocadoes, beans, Brussels sprouts, carrots, cauliflowers, cherries, courgettes, cucumbers, cultivated mushrooms, garlic, hazelnuts in shell, headed cabbage, leeks, melons, onions, peas, plums, ribbed celery, spinach, walnuts in shell, water melons, and witloof/chicory - they can all be of any size and...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Waterskiing granny - video

2009-06-28T10:32:00.007+01:00

I wanna be like that when I'm 77! Heck I wanna be like that now! What's better still is the name of this "look, no hands!" waterskiing Kansas granny: Avola Fitzwater. Talking about names, you've probably heard about furniture seller Habitat getting into deep doodoo amongst Net denizens for their insensitive abuse of Twitter hashtags. A big cockup there. The name of their CIO, who says they still plan to keep marketing via social media? Dekock. (If you like funny or apt names, see my...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Funny web form: salutations galore!

2009-06-22T10:25:00.010+01:00

Another funny lesson in web design and usability (not!). From the webform that gave us "Unknown" as a choice for gender and the option to locate Akita-ken in the UK, comes another gem - how not to do a dropdown or field for title / honorific! Start of list End of list Here's the full list for your delectation (3 pages long if 1 a line so I pipe separated them): Admiral | Air Commodore | Air Marshal | Air Marshall Sir | Air Vice-Marshal | AirChief Marshal Sir | Ambassador | Associate...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Anonymous blogging in UK: NightJack / Times – other worrying issues

2009-06-19T10:11:00.004+01:00

You’ve probably heard of the Times outing police detective blogger NightJack in June 2009 (Richard Horton - his name's well known now, so, for searching purposes..). The Times newspaper was allowed by a judge (Eady) to disclose NightJack's real identity despite his attempts to get a court order to stop publication (full transcript of court judgement The Author of A Blog v Times Newspapers Ltd [2009] EWHC 1358 (QB) (16 June 2009); Out-Law report). NightJack's blog has now been deleted. [+-]...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Funny food expiry date typo

2009-06-15T10:20:00.003+01:00

They must have some powerful preservatives in this sandwich! Use by, or "Die by"...? Tags: humor, photo, pic, Improbulus, A Consuming Experience

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Young Bean: review, phone number! (Korean restaurant)

2009-06-15T09:29:00.001+01:00

Young Bean Korean restaurant is now at 2-3 Bassishaw Highwalk, London EC2V 5DS, new telephone number 020 7638 4463, open M-F noon-15.00, 17.30-21.30 (or 17.00-21.00 holidays). NB It's a bit tricky to find, see directions below. That was a public service announcement for devotees who thought Young Bean had closed for good when it disappeared a while back. Although it reopened in September 2008 in a nearby location, its new phone number was virtually impossible to find online. Except here, of...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Naturally 7 gig: review - London June 2009

2009-06-13T20:27:00.005+01:00

For those who’ve not heard of them, Naturally Seven (official site, European site) are a very unusual 7-man a capella / beatboxing group who, as well as singing, can emulate a full band by mimicking drums, bass guitar, lead guitar and keyboards etc with uncanny accuracy. They call it “vocal play”. Think the next evolutionary stage on from the great Bobby McFerrin; "beatboxing" just isn't enough to describe how good they are. Superlative, magical, you just have to hear them for yourself. To...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Funny combo: ironic title

2009-06-13T14:08:00.003+01:00

Via New Scientist's Feedback column, this ironic juxtaposition of article title and access rights to it on the Nature.com website (picked out by green rectangles above). Open access, indeed!! Tags: humor, irony, funny, photo, pic, Improbulus, A Consuming Experience

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Claim your Facebook URL (vanity URL)

2009-06-13T10:22:00.005+01:00

From midnight EDT last night social networking site Facebook started allowing users to choose their own URLs to access their Facebook pages, e.g. mine is http://www.facebook.com/improbulus - before that, URLs just involved unmemorable letters / numbers. But it's first come first served so you'd best get in there fast if you haven't already. It's not compulsory for you to pick a username for your web address, you don't have to if you don't want to, but it may make life easier if you do it...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Odd Webform dropdown: gender

2009-06-10T09:14:00.000+01:00

To keep picking on the funny webform that thinks Uttar Pradesh could be in the UK (or the US, or Japan...), here's another weird dropdown from the same form, this time for "Gender": Uh, "Unknown"? Even transexual / transgender people identify with (or in the case of a hermaphrodite usually have no choice but to identify with) a particular gender. If that's a trying-to-be-politically-correct attempt to cater for those who consider themselves to be of a third gender, at least use "Other" or...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Google TOS / privacy: government access to your info

2009-06-09T18:42:00.035+01:00

Summary Google’s terms of service (TOS) for some of its products or services like Calendar, Blogger or Base entitle Google to give up your personal information if Google gets a governmental request for it – even without a court order / warrant. For instance, for a fishing expedition. Don't believe me? Here's an example from Google Calendar (click the pic to enlarge, the text and more examples are later in this post): Google’s universal privacy policy (which is used e.g. for Gmail and Docs)...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Carnival of the Mobilists #177

2009-06-08T08:30:00.004+01:00

This week ACE is delighted to host the latest Carnival of the Mobilists, for the very first time ever – you qualify to host after you’ve had 3 blog posts mentioned in the Carnival, and finally I made it. We have a great crop of interesting, varied posts – especially in relation to various conferences or meetings, as it’s clearly conference season! Rudy de Waale announces more details of the forthcoming Mobile 2.0 Europe conference in Barcelona, with Developer Day on 18 June and the Conference...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Blogger, WordPress: Google Analytics for your blog

2009-06-03T08:52:00.004+01:00

Just a heads up for those who’ve not seen it – there’s a good summary post on the Google Analytics Blog about how to install Analytics on WordPress and Blogger, with links to howto tutorials etc. And indeed why it’s useful to measure statistics / metrics for your blog using web analytics. If you’ve not installed code on your blog to track the number of your visitors (with charts / graphs etc), which pages are most popular etc, I’d advise you should do so as soon as possible. Unless you really...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Vista: how to record sound from your computer (Audacity, Freecorder etc)

2009-06-02T11:06:00.006+01:00

Can't record from your computer because your sound device isn't showing in the dropdown list of recording devices in Windows Vista? If you've had problems trying to record audio (music, speech / voice, streaming audio etc) that’s playing back on your computer speakers when you're using software like the open source free audio editing / recording tool Audacity or the free dedicated sound recorder Freecorder, it’s not necessarily to do with your soundcard drivers or anything complicated – it...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

How NOT to write Web forms! Funny but frustrating

2009-06-02T09:43:00.009+01:00

The webform above suggests that counties of the United Kingdom include places such as Abuja, Akita-ken, Alberta and BadenWurttemberg as well as Argyll. (The full list is much, much longer, of course, and ends, somewhat weirdly non-alphabetically, with Zakinthos, Odense So and Pennsylvania - bet the last two won't like being an afterhought!) Helloooo web designers / programmers - if you're going to update sub-options on a form after a main option has been selected via the coding magic of...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Fit to bust! Rigby & Peller bras review

2009-05-29T15:07:00.015+01:00

Bras are consumer technology. Seriously. Every woman or girl should have well-designed and properly-engineered scaffolding for her breasts. Hence this review. (UPDATED: pics added as requested. Above pics are "Before" on the left, "After" on the right. More (front view) pics are at the end of this post. But that's yer lot, I'm not redoing it with the hotpants, the old Lara Croftesque pic will have to do you - that was "Before" on the bra front, of course.) We’ve all heard that many women don’t...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Google Calendar: how to display more hours without scrolling

2009-05-27T18:51:00.000+01:00

When viewing Google Calendar in a web browser on a computer, it's annoying that it doesn't let you set how many hours to show starting from what time (e.g. I'd like it to show 9 am to 9 pm as standard). I love Google Calendar (especially now I have a G1 Android mobile phone so I can sync with it from the cellphone, i.e. check and update my schedule anywhere) but I hate that you have to scroll the calendar to get to see more than about 5 hours at a time. And you can't scroll with the keyboard...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Carnival of the Mobilists #175

2009-05-25T20:46:00.001+01:00

The latest Carnival of the Mobilists #175 is now up at MOBIFY - check it out for a selection of the best blog posts on things mobile over the last week. (For those not familiar with the concept of a blog carnival, see my previous post on blog carnivals). Igor from MOBIFY has kindly included my detailed howto on syncing contacts and transferring contacts between mobile phones / cellphones / Gmail using Zyb - thanks Igor! Tags: carnival of the mobilists, blog carnival, blog carnivals, mobile,...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Mobile price comparison services: BillMonitor, MobileMeg

2009-05-24T11:06:00.005+01:00

A short post to mention BillMonitor which was the first mobile price comparison service to be accredited by UK comms regulator Ofcom earlier this week. It compares vodafone, orange, T-Mobile, O2 and 3. I hope more price comparison calculators / tables get approved, which can only be good news for consumers. Ofcom's approval process involves as they say a "rigorous independent audit", so you should be able to trust accredited services to help you choose or switch to price plans / tariffs that...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Mobile developers - Vodafone Mobile Clicks contest UK / Netherlands

2009-05-20T21:12:00.003+01:00

If you're a mobile phone developer or know one, the Vodafone Mobile Clicks contest deadline for entries has been extended for UK mobile developers to this Friday 22 May 2009 - see the press release for more info. The prize: €150,000 to produce a new mobile site or service. You can enter if you're over 18, resident in the UK or Netherlands and are in a start-up or are planning to form a start-up with your idea (which must be mobile-related, obviously). The final will be held in Amsterdam in...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Zyb: export / copy mobile phone contacts to Gmail / other phone - howto & review

2009-05-18T10:00:00.000+01:00

This post is part review, part howto guide, on: how to copy or import your mobile phone contact numbers into Google’s Gmail contacts, if you have a Gmail / Google Mail account, and whether you have Gmail or not, how to easily backup or transfer your contacts between different phones, e.g. if you’re moving networks (as your old SIM card will die when your current phone number is transferred across, wiping out any contacts stored on the SIM). I recently got a G1 Android phone, and finally...

[[This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.consumingexperience.com/ for full links, other content, and more! ]]