Just Beyond The Bridge

The Obligatory Nobody’s Comment on a Device He’s Not Even Used Yet

2010-01-29T16:08:12Z

Apple unveiled the iPad, and like the gratuitous, grovelling, subservient little MacBoy I am, here is my dribble-fest of a blog post about it.

I’m hopefully adding something to the conversation by not tackling obvious things here. Obvious things like whether it works as a concept, or whether it will be massively successful, or whether Apple has launched it at such a competitive price that they are clearly aiming to stake out the marketplace for the next 10 years ahead of anyone else.

I’m not even going to mention that this device has the ability to actually do what computers have so far failed to grasp which is that they are far too complex for the vast majority of people outside of work hours and that this singlehandedly will be the benchmark format for the home computer in the next few years. I won’t even discuss how there are a load of big manufacturers now all scrambling to rearrange their current offerings and hardware to create a similar product that delivers their own format (because that really reminds me of how quickly you saw lots of touchscreen devices within months of iPhone announcement).

I insist that I will not speak of the enormous bevel which clearly set some designers’ teeth on edge, but is incredibly necessary considering how you will grasp this item, or even hint in this article about the insanely beautiful way you will be able to interact with a computer like you never have with any device before.

No, I just refuse to stoop so low as to mention any of that stuff.

What I’d like to discuss instead is the potential applications of the iPad. The bigger screen is the key here. Even if you argue it’s just a bigger iPhone, that’s actually probably the most critical observation you can make, because the thing that limits the iPhone clearly is the size of the screen.

Something you can cradle in the crook of your arm sort of starts to get all sci-fi; just like when someone introduced a touch screen phone a few years back. You can monitor stuff from a screen that is that big. The mail app they’ve created, makes the most of all that real-estate and you can look at multiple items and information displays on a single screen. I’m going to throw out some ideas of ways I think we could see this being used, even by us tech-types.

1. The Web Designer/Developer

Many have dismissed the iPad because of the limited specs and abilities. Clearly this isn’t a machine designed for you. Or is it? The fact is you’ll never be able to edit video like a pro on this, but if your a coding sort of person, you probably could work from this device.

I’ve done basic emergency web stuff from my iPhone. I’ve connected to RDC in a pub to run a script on a server at 9pm on a Friday night (cool eh? No? What do you mean?). I’ve used SSH to reboot a machine. I’ve edited HTML documents on the fly. Dropbox, FTP, SSH apps - they already make this possible, but only for minor jobs. The limitation as a workstation is screen size. You just can’t physically interact with it fast enough because switching between tools is a mission.

But I can see space for a Dreamweaver-esque app (or Coda, or whatever) that simply takes all the good bits about the iPad, either utilises the cloud or whatever storage techniques it permits, and you can then manage and edit web content. The fact they demoed Keynote/Pages illustrates that this device allows more serious applications that simply cannot be delivered on a phone platform.

We’re not talking here about running big function server sites, but certainly initial layups, markup and the like is going to be possible. Custom tag keyboards could make it like coding by numbers. With integrated Safari rendering direct in the app too, previewing your work isn’t a problem and all from the comfort of your seat as you whizz down to London on the Cosmic Teleport Train (because that’s coming the in the future too).

I mean, there have even been working demos of developer tools that work straight in the browser as web apps too (I seem to remember something by the chaps at Mozilla a while back). And so all sorts of clever things now become possible.

I think in a way we are a little blinded by the applications of such a tablet when we fail to understand a large number of new bespoke applications will be what bring out the best of it. After all, you could run old DOS games on Windows 95, but without installing some applications on your OS, you simply will get bored with using the bundled Calculator and Minesweeper all day long. I think that’s a pretty good analogy.

2. Server Admin

Okay, okay - yes another very techy one, but imagine not having to have a damn full sized fixed computer terminal to do basic admin tasks on your server. The tools will be made (to make the most of the screen size) and you will be able to glide around the office as freely as a 21st century hostess trolly - bringing all the tools you need to wherever is easiest for you to work from. That is it’s useful until you need to replace a big chunk of server hardware. The beauty of the concept sort of crashes into a wall on that point, although you could use it to beat the server tower as a way to vent your frustration. Always a silver lining.

3. Data Collection

The fact is that I’ve already pimped the idea of data collection via iPhones to some of my clients (do you know you can actually take credit card payments using certain keypad-based applications too?) and they seem pretty positive about the idea seems like this might be a really nifty application. But what if you can scale that up to taking surveys and other data collection activities with in-built validation and ultimate portability (remember this thing weights just a quarter of a normal 13 inch Macbook)? One of the biggest problems my clients face is the accuracy of paper-caught information - firstly in it’s validity and secondly in having to re-enter it into a database. This solves that, and where the iPhone fails to provide a big enough input - this would allow enough space to demonstrate additional content and allow the people being surveyed to provide their own response. Much like handing them the clipboard and pen.

Of course there are implications - cost, theft etc, but in certain environments this could replace traditional techniques and look damned impressive to your audience at the same time.

4. Controlling Your Environment

I have an app called Rowmote Pro on my iPhone which is excellent. It allows me to control applications on my Mac remotely, and if I was mad enough to buy an Apple TV, I could interact with that too.

The fact is the phone’s screen limits you to something similar to that of a trackpad. It would be lovely to VNC in at the same time and fiddle with the applications properly (without some of the restrictions of trying to control an entire iMac, blind, using just a Apple Remote). You then start getting all James Bond with your applications. Things like that car control in Tomorrow Never Dies is theoretically possible using an iPhone, but would be damned fiddly. However, on a bigger screen?

Okay, so now your driving your Aston Martin (which we all will own in the future anyway) using your iPad - but that’s perhaps not it’s real benefit. Having control panel like access to the media devices, perhaps audio, perhaps mechanical aspects of your house (blinds, garage doors, cooker, fridge) isn’t some kind of fantasy. These technologies exist already and can be found in tech-savvy luxury builds. However, the iPad opens things up a little more. The console for these types of systems probably cost thousands and have to be installed at great cost too. What if you could offer products that integrated with this as the core console and provided the same functionality, plus a (what-I-would-guess) as a much better interface, plus all the other benefits too.

I really was half expecting Jobs to wheel out a device that made the Apple TV a more useful product, but I think that will come with time as they move closer into the home/lifestyle market still.

To Wrap Up This Tosh…

I’ve only discussed a smattering of potential ways the iPad platform will allow things that the iPhone never could deliver satisfactorily, but I’ve not even spent time thinking about these. They just are sort of ‘missing links’ - I think they are things that we probably already crave.

I believe there are going to be some very compelling reasons to own an iPad, and I think those reasons are going to be almost entirely down to the software, and I think those pieces of software haven’t even been thought of yet.

Oh, and now you’ve read all that, have a look at the blog post I made about the iPhone in January 2007 after that was unveiled. It’s quite fun this nail-your-colours-to-the-mast type of guess work.

F1 Calendar Is Back For 2010

2010-01-29T01:25:26Z

Si and I have been working away to update F1Calendar.com with the the recently confirmed dates and times for the 2010 Formula One season. It’s now back online and up-to-date, so go ahead and update your calendar now :)

Whether you want to download the ICS file for Google Calendar, iCal, iPhone (, iPad!) or Outlook; it’s there and free for the taking. The calendar includes all Grands Prix, practice and qualifying sessions, so you can’t miss any of the action in what is set to be the most spectacular season in recent years (you can customise it to remove the practice sessions and qualifying if you’re not a complete F1 obsessive).

Schumacher’s return, two back-to-back British world champions at McLaren, three brand new teams on the grid with Mercedes Silver Arrows racing for the first time since the mid-1950s, no refuelling and the biggest driver shake-up in years - it’s set to be one of the best seasons in recent history.

Get your updated 2010 Formula 1 calendar here, from F1Calendar.com.

Getting a T-Mobile 3G Mobile Broadband Dongle to Work on Snow Leopard

2009-10-25T14:17:16Z

As Ant asked me this week, and I was going to tell him how I did it, I will share here the trick to getting a T-Mobile 3G broadband single to work on Snow Leopard.

Note, I can only vouch for the E180 model of modem. and though it shouldn’t really matter, a 2006 MacBook.

Since Snow Leopard came out, people have been struggling to get a working Internet connection. T-Mobile have not (as of October) updated their Web’n'Walk software, so it’s a case of a hack for the timebeing. Thankfully it’s incredibley simple.

You probably have already discovered that the minute you plug in the dongle, the software attempts to loads then just quits and claims it’s hit an error and crashed.

In fact, this isn’t a problem with the connection software at all, it’s just the auto-launcher software which is failing and you’ll hopefully discover that if you ignore this and simply delve into your Applications folder, find the T-Mobile software folder, you will happily be able to launch and connect as you had been able to before.

It’s not particularly obvious because it’s very hard to tell that there is this intermediate auto-launch software managing the main application and it took me a while to figure that out.

However, there is one caveat. This worked for me because I upgraded from Leopard - the drivers were already installed. I cannot vouch for this technique if you did a clean install of Snow Leopard or are working with a brand new Mac

So Long, Fuhlong

2009-10-13T10:08:49Z

Late on Friday evening I was waiting in the beach house for Nick and Maxine to return, and after a week in pretty much pure isolation, was surprised to see someone appear in the doorway of the house.

On the weekends, most of the english teachers from Jungli travel out to the coast for weekend BBQs, surfing and beach time, and with them come a total of 10 dogs. So in addition to Nick and Maxine’s
‘Coffee’, there was Chris’ ‘Lunar’, two golden retrievers, two more daschunds, a tugo (native Taiwanese breed) puppy ‘Tequila’, a husky called ‘Geisha’, a black and white border collie and another one I couldn’t identify called ‘Caeser’. It was pretty crowded in the beach house living room.

Needless to say there was beer, sand, hats and a late night.

Despite this, we had to be up early in the morning and had been feverishly hoping for good weather. Alas no. Nick, Maxine and I took a four hour road trip down to Taroko Gorge - a massive mountainous region further south east. It’s a national park, and usually packed, but we ended up with the place to ourselves - the rain was torrential and the closer we got the the park, less and less of coastal road was left standing.

Trying to describe the toll typhoon rains take on roads is hard, but if you can imagine a single lane road that winds it’s way around the headland, directly above the Pacific Ocean - that was our route. The rain swells the existing waterfalls that naturally form in the steep gullies at each bend in the road, and these often overshoot their normal path under the strain of the flow, so that pretty much a fifth of the time you are on the road, you are driving under pounding water from the streams above falling onto the road itself. The water then runs down the road, and as it flows off into the ocean below, it wears away at the edges of the tarmac and takes off great chunks of the surface with it - including crash barriers, houses and trees.

As the remainder of the water passes down the road like a river, it erodes the soft earth from under the surface, and the pressure of the flow underneath punches holes up through it, through which hundreds of gushing springs appear across the entire width of the thoroughfare.

It’s pretty spectacular, and that’s even before you contemplate the landslides which pepper the road every few kilometres - piles of rock washed down the steep faces of the mountains that litter the road and often limit passage to a single lane. Rock sizes vary from the size of your fist, the the size of three or four cars - thankfully we were on the receiving end of none of these dangerous hailstones.

By the time we made it to the hostel where we were staying, visibility was very low, and the road immediately past our stopping point was closed. We heard there had been a massive landslide around the corner and it had been sealed off completely. The inclement weather didn’t stop it still being a pretty spectacular spot - perched high up in valley that rises higher than the Grand Canyon in places, our accommodation was a simple hostel with a roofed but open eating area that doubled up as a car park overlooking the surrounding mountains.

We’d planned a BBQ, and Maxine prepared traditional Taiwanese skewers - bundles of spring onion wrapped in pork which we had alongside torn chicken breast and a healthy three bottles of red. Next door to our building, a large hotel was being renovated, and the only other people staying at our hostel were a group of Taiwanese plumbers who plied us with fruit (like a grapefruit, but less sour), beer, horsenuts, unshelled peanuts and a type of local and sweet Red Bull and coke (though it includes neither) that they knock back as though it wasn’t incredibly alcoholic.

As I speak no Mandarin (or for that matter, native Taiwanese) we decided cards would be a good option and played out until the early hours. We finished the evening solving matchstick riddles (like the ones you get in crackers at Christmas) but of course this is a general pastime in China, not some novelty plastic trick.

The next morning was no better weather wise, and Nick and I couldn’t find anywhere open serving breakfast, so we took a wander up past the sealed road block to have a look at the landslide. You could hear and see it still going even though it had started two or three days earlier - and we stood and watched from about 200 yards as huge chunks of rock cracked and smashed their way down the rock face into a shale pile that ran into the river below. It was incredible. All the trees around were stacked high and drooping under the weight of the rock dust which looked like thick ash - and on the road the rain water had congealed it into a thick clay-like paste several centimetres thick. You could taste the minerals in the air; it did choke and cloud up at each new rush of the rock fall, despite the persistent rain.

The road had been completely cut off by the rock pile - it had consumed the one end of a tunnel that started not very far ahead of us, and the failing rock face above was several hundred feet high - about half of which was unstable and still breaking away sporadically. With each audible ‘crack’ came a flurry of more large rocks which thudded down the cliff face then into the shale pile below with a puff of dust - then this was followed by a stream of loose grit and gravel for fifteen seconds to a minute after. This in turn would set off another rock fall and so it would continue.

We quickly discovered we were trapped in the valley as the road on which we had come was also now closed some miles behind us - so we drove to the train station in the nearest town, abandoned the car and took to the tracks. They are a bit funny about animals on public transport, so Coffee was consigned to a shoulder bag for the journey.

By the time we had arrived back in Jungli the rain had subsided, but it remained overcast. Being Sunday, Nick had Kung Fu in Taipei again, so until he returned for another jamming session with the band, I had a few beers with Rick who lives in the house opposite and had arrived here just a matter of weeks after I first visited Taiwan just over five years ago.

The practice room this week was much bigger, and there was a bigger audience this week too. Rob and Bear’s girlfriends came by, and Maxine also stayed. Afterwards we headed back to the same ‘breakfast shop’ we had been to last week for more hot sauce and savoury pastries. It really is fantastic food there.

Monday morning usually means work for all, but after breakfast (we have the same thing every day - a thin egg pastry cooked with onions and pork, washed down with orange juice and green tea - pretty goddamn tasty) Rick and Marcus came over and suggested as I had nothing better to do (which I didn’t) that we should take the motorbikes out to the next city to watch some baseball at TGI Fridays. So perhaps not the most cultural thing, but after persuading the barman to make happy hour start a couple of hours early and getting in a platter lunch; it turned out that didn’t matter too much anyway!

We got back to Jungli and met Nick at a bar not too far from home, and deciding to leave Marcus and Rick to their own fate there, Nick and I went and got teppenyaki. If you were wondering - yes, it was great.

And that brings us to today - my penultimate day in Taiwan on this trip. Finally the clouds parted and Nick, Coffee and I took the motorbike up into the mountains to a secluded watering hole tucked away and off the main routes. If you’ve ever seen The Beach, it’s a bit like that - a circular pool of clear water with a waterfall that plunges down ten meters on the one side. You can then float down a small outlet into the lower pool where the water is much more still and lagoon like. The water wasn’t too cold, but the river had clearly been swelled by the rain and trying to swim against the flow of the waterfall ahead was almost impossible. Even Coffee couldn’t resist joining us in the water, but it completely tired him out after a few minutes and he just sat on Nick’s back while we swam to shore.

One of the things I remember vividly about my first visit here was bin lan, or betal nut. It’s a type of nut the size of a grape, wrapped in it’s own leaf and chewed like a chewing tobacco. It quickly bleeds to produce a fiborous husk which you chew, and a bright red liquid which you have to graciously spit out at fairly regular intervals. This can be amusing when done badly - or from the back of a bike - but the net effect of chewing this stuff is a warming like natural high - and the locals can’t get enough of the stuff - partially because it’s quite addictive. You pick up the small bags from scantily clad bin lan girls, who sit in small glass and neon kiosks every few hundred metres down all major roads. It’s surreal and the whole experience is very much one that defines Taiwan to me. Anyway, getting back on the bikes allowed for more than my fair share of betal nut chewing.

So tomorrow evening I fly - another 16 hour adventure or so. I think we go for food again tonight. Looking forward to it already…

Beaches, Leeches and Books

2009-10-09T05:36:06Z

Taiwan isn’t really a place where you can afford to allow things like natures bad side stop you. Case in point, since I got to Fuhlong - a beach on the east coast of the island I’ve had to deal with some pretty big spiders, some pretty enormous cockroaches, and a very small leech.

I won’t tell you I’m brave about this stuff - cockroaches especially are a bit freaky (especially when they decide to make a beeline for the inside of the fridge when you open the door) but when you combine it with the remnants of a typhoon, leaky beach houses, hungry bedbugs, stray dogs and completely unusual food, you realise it’s all just part of the experience. I quite like it actually.

This is the first time I’ve been near a computer since I got here four days ago (Chris, who lives next door and speaks fluent mandarin, has been kind enough to let me use his mac) and quite happily I’ve discovered the world is not falling apart. This time up here alone in the beach house has allowed me time to read a couple of books (J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Michael Crichton’s Sphere), take it easy, do some hiking, do some mountain biking and explore the coast line.

No one here really speaks any English, so getting by can be pretty funny. My manderin is limited to saying hello, asking for chicken or pork meat and thanking people (or thanking them a lot). I’ve also learnt about five chinese characters, but it’s not particularly useful unless I something is big, in the middle and I want to go in to it or exit it.

This doesn’t stop people trying to talk to you. Usually the westerners who are here during the summer weekends do speak some (it’s a necessity if you are here for any period of time) but I think the locals expect that. One lady appeared at the back door of the house and spoke to me for a least five minutes after collecting the contents of my bin. I have no idea what she was going on about.

Nick stayed the first night we arrived here but as he had to work he headed back to Jungli on Tuesday, but not until we’d taken out a tandem bike. It wasn’t exactly the most masculine thing to do - two lads, riding a tandem, carrying a small sausage dog in the front basket while riding through the countryside. Thankfully, I’ve seen much stranger things here, so I can’t say I was that bothered. Chris thought it was funny though.

The weather has been steady - we’ve had a couple of bursts of rain overnight, but on the whole the days have been clear, and the last bits of the typhoon have fizzled out. It’s not exactly clear skies, but it gave me an opportunity yesterday to hike up to a monastery in the mountains behind the beach.

The place was pretty deserted, and the final ascent demanded some pretty ‘rural’ travel - through quite a lot of overgrown greenery. Flip flops were never the explorer’s footwear of choice, so it wasn’t entirely a surprise that I discovered that a leech had attached itself to my ankle.

From my experience in Nepal (where I had seen a guide remove one by ripping it from between his toes) I decided against that bloody course of action. With a bit of boy scout ingenuity, I headed into the Buddhist monastery and lit an incense stick and tried to burn the thing off (pretty much the only option unless you’re prepared to wait for it to get its fill and drop off naturally). Thankfully no one was around to witness the thing - it doesn’t hurt - that is the leech bite doesn’t. But what does hurt is if you manage to burn yourself with the end of the incense. Turns out it works like a dream, but it took three separate attempts to get the bastard, who initially recoiled, but then bit again. Twice. Eventually it worked though and I went on my way, burn marks, leech marks and all.

I’ve drunk more beer and played more chess than I’ve had in a longwhile, and it’s quite refreshing being in a place so deserted and empty. The Chinese who do live here don’t really venture outside at this time of year, and with no westerners around (because it’s not the weekend) I’ve pretty much had the place to myself.

Nick’s back tonight and we’re going to make a decision about what we will do over the weekend - either stay or head south to Taroko Gorge. Anyway, time to take the bike out…

Hong Kong & Typhoons in Taiwan

2009-10-05T08:16:38Z

It’s a long flight to the other side of the world. About 16 hours in total to get to Taipei airport including a transfer in Hong Kong and a fifteen minute delay at Heathrow.

It’s my second time here; the first visit just over five years ago, and although most of the people I met have moved on, not much else has. My cousin, Nick, is still living in the same building, a big and airy house near Jungli (pronounced Djong - Lee) which is in the north of the country and south west of the capital, Taipei.

Since my last visit he has taken in his fiancé - Maxine, and a excitable daschund - Coffee, who follows you around as though his life depended on it.

I arrived late on Thursday evening and after a few beers took a good long sleep which seems to have prevented any jetlag outright. With Nick and Maxine working on Friday I spent most of the day taking it easy in preparation to get back on a plane - a trip to Hong Kong organised at the last minute. Nick has to get a visa renewal every 30 days or so, and it’s a regular journey, although not generally anything more than getting a passport stamp then heading back into Taiwan. This time however we were staying for two nights and being as I’d never been before, a bit of a general exploration.

A few more beers later, it was Saturday and Nick and I headed into the centre of the city - a packed metropolis that rises up out of the edge of the water and one of the most densely populated places on the planet. It’s pretty hard to take in the size of the buildings - we were on the 18th floor of our hotel and yet we couldn’t see over any other building out of our window. Most were double to three times the height, and every one adorned with some glowing neon advertisement or video board.

We took a cab to the Peak Tram - a steep train ride to a vantage point that sits upon the mountain directly behind the main business and residential district which gives a panoramic view of the whole harbour, and Kowloon, which sits directly opposite. The clarity was fair, but despite being overcast, the clouds diffused the sunlight so brightly that it was with regret I realised I hadn’t brought my shades with me. We walked the path that circumnavigates the top of the mountain - peering through the fences that protect the opulent mansions that sit right up here, well away and above the crammed apartment blocks and skyscraping offices below.

We ate well here - and in true Hong Kong fashion - an almost entirely western experience at Bubba Shrimps. OK, so not particularly cultural, but they do make bloody good cajun shrimp with fried bread…

We got a cab to the town of Stanley in the afternoon - a trip that took us to the other side of island and past several busy beaches but deserted waters (it appears people don’t swim here, for whatever reason) and after briefly skipping through the packed market made our way to the ferry pier.

We sat and waited under the pontoon watching the locals mussel-picking and line-fishing until our trip back to Hong Kong arrived - a traditional sailing junk (powered entirely by a very noisy engine) but on which we managed to get the best seats and enough beer to take us right around the island again and then onto Kowloon.

This busy shopping district heaves with people pouring in and out exclusive shops and malls - Boss, Cartier, Prada, D&G etc but with a little extra searching, yields some truly hidden gems. Little local markets and malls which are practically unvisited by tourists or Chinese - they swarm with Hong Kong’s African and Indian communities.

We stopped harbourside to watch sunlight disappear only to be replaced by the garish glow of a thousand neon billboards and a million office and apartment lights flicker on across the city. If there is ever a place to try and gauge the size of a city population in one eyeful, this is it.

We stayed for the daily light show (and as Nick pointed out, disappointingly not accompanied by live music) then fell back into the hustling market halls to find a small Indian restaurant somewhere in the heart of a building which served a fantastic meal of poppadums, lamb on the bone, saag (spinach) chicken and naan amongst others. It’s the best Indian food I’ve had since Delhi, and cost us next to nothing.

The next morning was much clearer, a symptom of an approaching or nearby typhoon, but we had to catch a flight back to Taipei and so took ourselves back to the airport for the 90 minute jaunt back across the channel.

By the time we got back, the wind had really picked up and although we didn’t get any rain, it was pretty clear from the cloud that Typhoon Parma was getting close. It’s not hard to see the menace in the skies - the clouds split into layers and move rapidly. As the weather system revolves, the tail brings the rain, and so the further out you are from the centre, the less frequent the downpours. We remained pretty dry until late afternoon when Nick needed to get into Taipei city for a Kung Fu class - and so while he got on with that, Maxine and I braved the weather on the streets of the city - getting to Memorial Hall to watch changing of the guard, and trying a few local delicacies.

I’m pretty good with most food, and tried ‘stinky tofu’ at one of the night markets on my last visit, but there was a real mix of stuff this time - some good, some I wasn’t that so bothered about. The small fried ‘snack fish’ and shrimp (which you eat, shell and all) were nice, but I wasn’t so keen on the the peanut-powdered pigs blood lolly (too spicy) or the deep fried tofu (I don’t really care for tofu anyway, whatever you do to it). The nicest thing was definitely the white rice sausage and the luminous green sugar cane juice.

We made our way to Taipei 101 - the largest building in the world since 2004, and though we didn’t go up to the observatory (visibility was pretty much negligible at this point) the structure itself looks incredible amongst the swirling clouds and inside is every bit as huge as you might expect.

In the end we had to rush back for the final event of what had otherwise been a pretty packed day anyway. Nick plays in a band and there was the weekly jam session back in Jungli. Squeezed into a tiny little padded room on the fourth floor, it was great to get to hear some live music and meet some more long-term Taiwan-resident westerners. Following a pattern fast emerging on this trip, after a few more Taiwan Beers, we found food at a small, family run, late-night patisserie.

And so today is Monday and I have another chilled out day. The typhoon hasn’t truly struck (much to the chagrin of everyone, who it turns out were all looking forward to a day off work) but the rain is persistent and so this evening I’m heading to Fulong - a beach on the east of the island where I will be staying alone for the next few days to get some respite, read a few books and hopefully see so whatever of the typhoon remains.

Oh, and I’d forgotten how much I liked this place and how strangely crazy it all is.

The Impact of Google Chrome Frame Could Be Colossal. Really Colossal.

2009-09-28T13:31:50Z

So, I initially greeted Google Chrome Frame with some skepticism. It’s not very often that something comes along these days that truly revolutionises the ecosystem for us web designers, but I really thing this could be it.

My reasons are these.

1. Google did it.

Had Microsoft done it, it would have been complicated. In fact, it’s unlikely it would ever have crossed their minds to do it. The idea of rendering engine portability is one I remember talking to people about a few years ago, but of course I wasn’t technically minded enough to understand what that might involve, just that it would be really nice and potentially solve some future issues if your browser rendered with an engine hosted online (and that could be updated silently).

Well, this isn’t quite that, but it uses a quite similar principle.

And the really massive thing is, despite what Microsoft says about it’s security - the remaining home users using IE6* are not concerned about security, or are they likely to install updates or read Microsoft’s blog. What they are likely to do however, is to visit google.com.

So imagine if Google made the decision to request the plugin install every time you visited google.com?

OK, perhaps a little underhand, but with some (IE) browser targeting, it’s not beyond them. They’re going to be doing it with YouTube, so why not with their main search? It doesn’t make sense not to capitalise on this. You already get an advert asking you if you want to download Chrome itself, but with a little well written copy or a plugin download request on the homepage, Google could potentially bite a huge chunk out of the IE6/7 and even 8 share. I’m not thinking they’d deny anyone access to their own site, but they might start really pushing it.

I really think if this takes off, Google will determine the end of IE6’s life, not Microsoft. And that could be very humiliating - and liberating.

2. It’s not a beta.

Quite amazingly for this day and age, a piece of software that isn’t launched in ‘beta’. Google have gone out of their way to say this. That means, it is ready to deploy today (whether it actually performs like a beta is another matter entirely, but for marketing purposes… very shrewd).

3. We’re ready to push forward.

I don’t think it’s jumping the gun to say that HTML5 and CSS3 are now rolling stones. I’ve said for a long while that we should expect a second wave of hyper-activity soon (I class the first wave as the valid/semantic code switch, which lasted 2-3 years and is now almost entirely washed out). It’s not happened quite yet, and the reason has most certainly been the browser limitations. IE6 has been the sticking point for months now and although is still fading, still must be considered in most cases.

Clearly the industry has been baying for the next big shift; by nature we love to explore new territory, but at the moment there is all this potential building up, but no way to release it. It’s like the dam has a few holes in it, but really we’re still stuck behind it.

IE7/8 is soon to become the annoyance. If you’re thinking “all my sites look fine in IE7/8, so I really don’t think it’ll be an issue”, just remember that if we have another big boom of activity now as it appears we will, most of the HTML5/CSS3 stuff won’t be possible in either of these browsers, and without a solution like Chrome, we will be bemoaning them for years.

Conclusion

So my conclusion is this. We were heading for the edge of the waterfall anyway. If Google uses it’s savvy and does push Chrome frame as a ‘requirement’ or otherwise throughout it’s primary products, it’s going to speed things up tenfold. I had estimated that we’d be in full swing of a HTML5/CSS3 revolution within 18 months to 2 years. I now think it has the potential to be much, much sooner.

* Commercial users will be last to ditch IE6 for a variety of reasons, but essentially Chrome Frame offers a get out clause. Some will take it, some won’t. But it doesn’t matter. The pressure will only really mount on these businesses to upgrade when they discover they cannot use/do any of the new stuff possible with the new technologies. The web industry needs to move forward before these remaining businesses will ever move themselves. It’s like trying to explain the benefits of Twitter without a demonstration.

OS X: Setting Your Default Email Client to Yahoo! Mail on a Mac

2009-08-29T16:55:26Z

OK, so I should have found this years ago - it’s been a issue that’s been the bane of my life for a long while, but like all these things, you just accept the solutions you develop and forget that you are living with a problem that still needs addressing.

The difficulty I’ve been having for years is that as a heavy Yahoo! Mail user (all I can say it don’t knock it until you’ve tried it) it means that any time you click an email link on a webpage it tries to load your default mail application - usually Mail. Because Yahoo! Mail doesn’t support IMAP (because they want you to use Zimbra Desktop to access your mail if you want to do it from the desktop) it means that the occasional and accidental click of an email link just starts loading all sorts of Mail related windows that are simply useless.

Firefox realised this was a problem for people who prefer or who are forced into using web based mail products and introduced an option in their own preferences recently, but Safari - my primary browser - has never tackled this successfully.

The answer is actually a very old one.

There is a program out there called Yahoo! Mailer. It’s a tiny app, weighing in at a crushingly small 68Kb - and which, despite my initial skepticism, runs happily on Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) despite not having been updated since 2006.

All you need to do is download it, and set it as your default email app in Mail’s preferences. It will then delegate all emails to your Yahoo! Mail account using your default browser. Bingo!

Download Yahoo! Mailer and save yourself from the pain of using web based email on Macs (also configurable for use with Hotmail and Gmail).

Geek In The Park 2009

2009-07-24T09:14:24Z

It’s that time of year again.

For the third time, Geek In The Park descends upon Royal Leamington Spa’s Jephson Gardens this summer for an afternoon of picnicking and web chat, and with any luck, a bit of sunshine.

The free (as always) event will be on Saturday 15th August 2009 from noon (talks start later at 7pm).

This year we’ve upgraded the venue for the evening talks, and we’re in the famous Royal Pump Rooms. Our speaker line up is also very worthwhile; we have both Simon Collison - creative director, author and founder of Erskine Design, and Remy Sharp - JavaScript and HTML5 go-to man.

As always, it’s open to all - friends, kids and family - and in two halves (so that your other halves don’t have to endure the talks, but get all the benefits of the picnic time). You’ll also need to bring your own food. Of course, all the information you need can be found at GeekInThePark.co.uk and if you are coming, please don’t forget to add your name on our Upcoming.org event page so we can get an idea of numbers.

Finally, there would never be a Geek In The Park without the hard work of Trevor Morris, who once more has been the lynch pin for the event, and thanks must also go to The Design Frontier for an excellent 2009 website too.

I’ll see you there!

Revealed! Does The ‘Birmingham Web Scene’ Exist or Not?

2009-06-29T17:31:29Z

Yesterday evening I sat in a crowded pub in Moseley, an attendee of my first barcamp event. Well it didn’t strictly follow the barcamp format, but it had a collection of short presentations by local webnorati and social media types. It was good, and I’d do it again (photos here).

If you decide not to read all of this post, I urge you to read the final paragraph (but it’d be great if you did look at the rest too!).

One question that has been raised and discussed recently is that of the stability or existence of a ‘local web scene’. Matt bravely volunteered himself to poll the masses at the barcamp, and put the question to the floor, “Well, is there one?”

There was most certainly a mixed response, but the most noticeable thing is that is was nearly all positive. People seemed deeply passionate about the topic, and I thought I’d summarise the salient points.

Clearly some people already believe Birmingham has very much a thriving ‘web community’. A few people highlighted that there had recently been some extremely positive praise by communities in other regions, including specific examples from London and Spain, which came as a surprise to me, although it quickly became apparent that there are two different things we are talking about here.

Firstly is the idea of what the web community is. Someone from the floor pointed out that Birmingham does have a fantastic reputation for Social Media - and this might be considered a group of it’s own - web development and design is another, and perhaps this is why there is some disparity. Despite highlighting this difference (which quickly became apparent through the comments from the floor) this particular contributor suggested that there might be a difference now, but he personally believed that greater overlap of the two web communities would benefit everyone.

There also seemed to be a feeling that, to quote another contributor, Birmingham sometimes feels like “an echo chamber”, a place where a lot is talked about, but sometimes, not all that much materialises. Several people agreed with this point, and others mentioned that although there were pockets of vibrancy, it did seem to lack wide-scale co-operation and joined-up-ness.

Despite this, it was possible to intone that people were not keen on ‘branding’ Birmingham; something which I happen to agree with. Umbrella organisations wouldn’t benefit anyone here and with so many strong identities already here, this should provide the groundswell that lifts the city’s profile alone. Several people commented on the uniqueness of the community, and one person specifically said that they didn’t want to interfere with it’s natural development or an attempt to perhaps ‘commercialise’ the process. There had been suggestions during the evening that some central shared space might benefit the community and stimulating more collaboration.

This however leads onto the second thing I observed. There seems to be a marked difference between the internal and external perceptions of The City. From my very unscientific canvassing of @media attendees last week, it seemed the perceptions of folk involved in the web industry in other cities were not necessarily negative, but certainly nothing more than neutral - mostly responding “I don’t think anything happens there”. Nobody I asked seemed to be aware of anything that was going on up here, and there was general feedback that they didn’t believe the midlands had any web based networks at all- perhaps strange considering we may have more networks here than in many of the major northern cities.

This seemed in stark contrast to many local people who contributed opinions suggesting we have a very strong and feature-packed web scene.

As part of external perceptions, Stuart proposed that we might need to be careful about losing out to Manchester in becoming regarded as the Second Digital City, which seemed to rub some audience members the wrong way, who fairly questioned why we couldn’t be the First Digital City (in a way that seemed to suggest that some people believe we are already in pole position). Although it seemed not to have been received well, I think it actually proved that people are very passionate about this, and would go as far to say it seems people do want to give London and other potential digital destinations a run for their money. I think they were simply irked at being told that we might have no chance of achieving that.

Earlier, Stuart had suggested to me that we are potentially at a tipping point and I very much agree. In three years time, we may either be ‘the place to do digital business’, or we may miss our opportunity because we failed to promote our efforts externally more effectively. It’s a crown up for grabs, and I think it would be a great shame for a city like Manchester to add that string to it’s bow, especially if regionalisation does remain important (and I still believe it will, because great community seems to breed excellent output).

In my view, those who are heavily involved in projects locally (Social Media Cafe, Likemind, Social Media Surgeries, Multipack etc etc) do a great job of engaging local people who are seeking involvement, but struggle to attract wider audiences or change the wider perception that Birmingham doesn’t appear to have a great digital offering. I don’t doubt that groups of people who come to work here leave very impressed, but I don’t necessarily think that is enough to win widespread external regard - especially since Birmingham has a long standing image problem that is still dogged by stereotypical regional perceptions (something I have experienced on a number of occasions in the past few weeks).

Someone made an astute point that perhaps continually asking others might be part of the problem and suggested we might be better acting as amplifiers for the successes of regions existing communities. Perhaps we should be actively talking to people in purely positive terms about the existing scene here. I think as West Midlanders, we tend to be a fairly modest people and I worry that we do indeed miss a trick when representing ourselves to key parties. As the guys from Created in Birmingham interestingly pointed out, we do enjoy being the underdog and I do wonder if it is perhaps a reason why external views on the city are almost inexistent - we simply are not wired to better our lot.

OK, so I think I’ll sum up my views on this. Clearly ‘scene’ is important and we’re still in the formative stages. In some sectors we are well regarded already, in other sectors more work is needed. Work is needed to promote Birmingham’s digital merits externally to competitive cities and regions, but also we need to engage people within this area who still are not aware of the cauldron of activity that apparently is present in The City. The tools are appearing to do this, and with the launch of Josh’s digitalbrum.co.uk (and the various partner sites) it’s becoming easier to tackle some of these issues.

But no matter your opinions, I would suggest one thing to help grow the outwards facing image of Birmingham and the Midlands as a digital centre. The next time you engage someone from outside the region in discussion, refrain from the negative, refrain from indifference and proclaim some of the great stuff going on here, whether you know the details or not. Reference it, use it, make examples of it. I think a shift in the way we talk about ourselves might just improve the impression we maybe conveying already - whether we realise it or not.

@Media 2009 in Brief

2009-06-27T18:19:02Z

I think I need to establish early on here that attending a web conference was a new experience for me entirely - well not entirely - I once attended a bee-keeping conference. Yes, you did read that right, and no, it didn’t have many similarities.

For me, @media is pretty synonymous (if not the definition) of ‘a UK web conference’. I was the first I ever knew of, and pretty much has therefore remained top dog in my mind ever since.

A major reason why I never made it to @media previously was cost. As start-up self-employed, it can be hard to budget the hundreds of pounds for tickets (and the rest) which other larger organisations spend without so much as a moment of hesitation. But when I saw this year’s lineup, and combined with a change in the circumstances of the business in the last two years (e.g. the limited status) it made it far easier to finally say yes. And so I went.

I don’t think I’m alone in saying that there is a general agreement that 2005 was a ‘buzz’ year, and since then the industry has perhaps has slowed down a little (not loads, but a little). One of the problems I’ve found when contemplating my attendance previously has been the potential problem of paying to attend talks on subjects you felt had been discussed to death and just wouldn’t be worth the investment of your own time.

And so it’s with pleasure I can say I wasn’t disappointed that I waited. From amongst the well-weathered attendees that I spoke to, the consensus seemed to be that this year has been one of the best to date.

I don’t want to sound utterly gushing in praise, but over the two days, I met some fantastic people and enjoyed every talks I sat through. Admittedly some were more useful to me than others, but absolutely nothing disinterested me.

Day One took a strong design perspective, and the speaker lineup comprised of Malarkey, Jon Hicks, Dan Rubin, Colly, Mark Boulton and Jason Santa-Maria. Of all these, I’ve only ever seen Jon talk before, and I was pleased to see that although he was talking icons, it was a significantly different and improved version of the very enjoyable talk he did at Geek In The Park 2008.

Andy’s piece really was beneficial to the understanding of his most recently aired views on IE6, process and CSS envelope-pushing. I had a wide variety of half-formed views on this bucket of ideas already, and I came out with a greater sense of clarity.

Simon provided some really nice insights into working practices at Erskine and I scribbled quite a few notes here. I wasn’t sure I’d call it a toolbox like he did, but there were loads of really useful pointers on things like content auditing, audience grouping and then some genuine physical tools for getting the job done.

If there was one real gem in Dan Rubin’s enjoyable presentation (and there were a few others), it was the demonstration of the Offset Filter in Photoshop. However I lived without it before I don’t know - it automates the worst part of image tile-making and so I am eternally grateful.

Mark delivered insights into typography on the web, and although I felt the climbing analogy was a bit tenuous, the demonstration of typographical imbalance and an explanation of potential pit falls over the coming months was good food for thought before people rush out and just start implementing every font under the sun into their websites.

Rounding off the talks for the day, Jason delivered a beautifully designed presentation as you might well expect from the man with the wonderful blog posts. It left me creatively yearning, and with an urge to just get going on something of my own. Genuinely inspiring.

If day one encouraged you to break down walls and start implementing all this stuff, day two could have been a list of reasons why you couldn’t implement any of it yet. Despite my cynicism, it turned out that was not the case.

Douglas Crockford opened with his witty observations on the work methods of developers. It could have been dry, but I really enjoyed the humour and it set a good tone for the rest of the day.

Molly (and sidekick Bruce), replete with arseless chaps and cowboy hat) answered some really useful questions about HTML 5 and where we’re at with it now. I was surprised to see how far some of the implementations actually go already and would recommend that you keep an eye out for the HTML5 doctor project launching in the next week or so. The whole event did feel like we’d all accidently turned up to a Opera away day though :)

You could tell that Chris Wilson from Microsoft was being eyed with a degree of suspicion before his talk, and although of course there were the inevitable clashes of doctrine, he came bearing apologies (which were more for amusement than genuine recourse, but which were accepted well) and a very useful perspective on to the state of IE now and going forward.

Andy Budd’s guerilla usability testing proved very useful and really filled a gap in my practical knowledge of these things. I’m now feeling geared up to start directly applying some of the methodology he suggested and might seek out one or two of the book recommendations too.

Robin’s discussion of accessibility in today’s web was an eye opener. I’ve never seen a first hand demonstration of JAWs, and came away with what I felt were some really useful insights and bringing me a bit closer to the realities of access on the web in 2009. I’m really pleased there was some decent accessibility stuff provided to supplement everything else that had gone so far.

And then Jeremy Keith’s hot topics, which was a good amalgam of all the things that had already been discussed so far, but interspersed with beautifully dry contempt of the whole internet by Douglas and a fantastic piece of facial hair modelled for the full hour and a bit by Jon Hicks.

I couldn’t complete this without mentioning the other major aspect of a conference like this, but I really did meet some great people, and spent much time chatting and discussing things with really interesting folks including Natalie and Paul from ClearLeft, Chris Mills, José, James Smith, David from Beggars, Remy, Marco and Andy from RNIB, Aussie Sheila and everybody else who I ended up chatting too. There’s a stack of business cards here which need filing.

Naturally I also spent much time with Owen and Paul doing our utmost to present the acceptable side of the Multipack too, and between us all, I would think many of the restaurants and bars can remain confident of their own futures based on their performance over the past couple of days alone. And what brilliant sunny days they were too.

Demonstrating Colour Blindness

2009-06-08T09:34:43Z

A few months ago I was introduced to two guys through a mutual friend of ours. They have devoted a significant amount of their time while at and after university to the development of products which assist those with the most common forms of colour blindness.

The two Lukes (as they are known) generated algorithms to simulate the effects of dichromatic colour blindness, and they have just launched an iPhone application, Huetility, which allows you to effectively simulate how nearly 1-in-12 men, and a smaller proportion of women see the world.

The app is being promoted as an educational aid for parents, teachers and opticians to demonstrate and understand the effects of colour blindness, however there is no reason why this should not be part of every designer’s toolkit. All too often overlooked - badly thought out design decisions can prove difficult to those with an inability to perceive colour - and although not every design is colour critical, a quick check using this tool can help to eliminate these problems.

At £1.79, I think it’s a snip. You can find out more about Huetility here, or you can download the application from the App Store today.

How To Compress PDFs As You Create Them On A Mac

2009-04-21T09:20:29Z

If you’ve ever created a PDF using OSX you’ll know that it’s very simple. Macs come with out-of-the-box PDF support which means you don’t need a program like Adobe Acrobat Reader (or anything more heavyweight) to open or save your files as such.

However, you’ll also know that emailing the files it creates takes much longer than it should - the created files are massive in relative terms.

I’ve created one-page invoices using PDFs for a long time, and thankfully, due to this great little PDF compression plugin, they are crunched down to a sensible size from the outset. However, I recently switched to let Billings handle my invoicing and it uses the default OSX PDF creation tool to generate it’s PDFs - big files ahoy.

To give you an idea of the difference in file size between a compressed one page document - Billings chucks out a 1.4Mb file, whereas my compressed versions of the same documents are about 19Kb. Not ideal when you quickly want to output an invoice, attach and send it.

So how do you solve it? Well there are some nifty features in OSX that you may not be aware of (or at least not use), namely Folder Actions. Essentially folder actions allow you to run a script every time a file is placed in or removed from a folder on your Mac.

This creates a great little hook on which we can run a script to compress the files in a specific directory then move them to a ‘Compressed’ folder once done.

Step-by-Step: How to Do It

1. Download and Install Compression Plugin

Download and install the PDF compression plugin. It’s a Quartz filter workflow that uses well-chosen settings to reduce your file size down. You will also now benefit from the use of it everytime you encounter a save dialogue from now on.

2. Create an Automator Workflow

Automator is a free program bundled in every OS X Mac (have a look in your Applications folder). It allows you to run series of tasks automatically in a single process. You simply need to create a workflow consisting of:

Get Specified Finder Items (once added to the workflow, click Add to select the directory which will contain files to be compressed.
Get Folder Contents
Apply Quartz Filter to PDF Documents (Select ‘Compress PDF’ from the drop-down - this will only appear if you have installed the plugin as above)
Move Finder Items (change the location to a place where the final, compressed files will be automatically moved)

3. Test The Workflow

Place a test PDF in your ‘Compressor directory’ (specified in step 1 of the workflow) then run it. It should compress this PDF, then move it to the ‘Compressed directory’ you specified in step 4, leaving the ‘Compressor directory’ empty.

Once you’ve got that working, you can automate the process, so this executes every time a PDF is saved or moved into the folder. Click save, and Save as Application (as opposed to Save as Workflow, otherwise every time you run it, the Automator program will want to load up fully instead of run in the background).

4. Create A Script

You now need to create little AppleScript which can run this workflow application.

Go to /Libaray/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts/

Duplicate one of the existing scripts, and rename it to something sensible like PDF - compressor.script

Open it and paste the following. You must manually alter the path to your Automator application as appropriate.

The code below is wrapping because of my thin blog layout. Best idea is to copy and paste directly, or View Source of this page to determine where the line breaks actually are if you are not sure.

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving added_items try tell me do shell script “open -a /Users/Andy/Documents/My\\ Mac/Compress\\ PDFs.app” end tell end try end adding folder items to

Note! All spaces in the path must be double backslashed as above. To test if your typing is correct, paste the bit between the quote marks (e.g. open -a /Users/Andy/Documents/My\\ Mac/Compress\\ PDFs.app) into Terminial and run. If it runs the Automator application you created, your script will work. If it doesn’t, check the path you have typed.

Save it and close the Script Editor.

5. Set It Up

Find your ‘Compressor directory’ (specified in step 1 of the workflow) and right-click on it. From the menu that appears, select More > Configure Folder Actions…

Tick the ‘Enable Folder Actions’ box, then press the Add icon (+) to add the ‘Compressor directory’ as a trigger folder. Select it, and make sure the ‘On’ tickbox it ticked.

Next, click the Add icon (+) for the right hand pane to add a script. You should be able to find and select the AppleScript you have just created (something like PDF - compressor.script).

6. Done!

Close the window and you’re done. Every time somebody pastes or saves into the ‘Compressor directory’, the folder action will kick in, launch the AppleScript and that in turn will execute the Automator compression tool and move the compressed version of the PDF into the ‘Compressed directory’. Sorted.

Of course, there is lots more scope with this. Automator means you don’t need to know much AppleScript to get this going, but you can really push the boundaries if you are willing to experiment. This setup suits me, but it’s likely you’ll need to experiment to get it to the way you need it.

Wordpress: Moving From Development or Staging to Live

2009-04-17T11:13:48Z

It’s been a long annoyance of mine that Wordpress insists on writing paths directly into the database, so when switching from staging or production to live you have to alter these paths.

However, if you also find this an irritation, a quick way to solve it is to define a couple of constants in the wp-config.php file. You simply define the url and home addresses as below, and as long as you are running a server that supports the server variable HTTP_HOST (e.g. Apache) the switch should be automatic and override the settings in the control panel.

// WordPress address on settings page define(’WP_SITEURL’, $_SERVER[‘HTTP_HOST’]); // Blog address on settings page define(’WP_HOME’, $_SERVER[‘HTTP_HOST’]);

4

2009-04-08T20:08:07Z

I once had an urge to write. It was probably born out of a frustration that (at the time) everything creative I was involved with either was being hand drawn and product shaped, or laid out using a computer.

It’s been exactly four years since I wrote my first post on this blog, and not much has changed except I’ve lost my almost insatiable desire to write. It’s not that I don’t have ideas and thoughts, but everything these days appears to be summed up in 140 characters and I rarely think of a topic that I want to elaborate on, at least in a written form at least.

I know this won’t last forever. Twitter will come and go like everything else on the web. When I think back over the past seven years I have actively used the internet and consider all those things I used to visit/were so important to me at on time or other: DeviantArt, amused.com, Rojo, Friends Reunited, My Yahoo!, my Angelfire and FreeYellow websites, BoltBlue, Facebook - you realise things can only last a finite (and apparently increasingly short) period of time.

I also know I will get back my desire to write again one day. I tend to get these bursts of energy which have to be captured in words, but I think since I started running the business as a full-time occupation, that energy has been channelled via other routes.

I really have thought long and hard about the future of this blog. I’m not sure I want it all to remain online, especially in it’s current form. Malarkey did something a few years ago which was to archive anything interesting for anyone who really wanted to find it, but otherwise stopped it being immediately obvious. That appeals more and more.

Realistically, I don’t have to do anything about this site. It’s not doing much harm to anyone, except to me. Every time I visit it, it looks so forlorn and badly kept that I feel bad I don’t make many contributions to it anymore. But then again, for the two years that it truly shone I was in a state of overdrive and made commitments to write near daily - no matter how poorly - so comparisons to ‘the good old days’ are simply unrealistic.

I suppose also that in a way I feel like we (the ‘interneteers’) have created a bit of a primordial swamp over the past few years. Our general creativity, outpourings, projects that never went anywhere, willingness to ditch one web-based product for another at a moments notice and slimy trail of media (videos, podcasts, blog entries) can now be viewed with some hindsight. We’ve really worked hard since we got our hands on the controls, however now behind us we’ve left a soup of semi-useful stuff and we’re finally venturing out a little from it’s murky waters. Well, perhaps we’re not even that advanced. Maybe we’re just developing fins or something. A lot of effort has gone into getting us to this point, including a significant number of my own hours that went into this chronicle that I’m now seriously considering wrapping up on.

I wonder what the value of all of this will be in years to come.