We closed off our balcony last summer by having double glazed windows installed with aluminium frames. We were left with a kind of “jardin d’hiver” or veranda - a room that you could enter via what was the outside balcony door, but that had no floor or wall insulation and was enclosed mostly by glass. As a result, we didn’t use the space very much.

Last month, we finally had enough means to finish the job. We removed the old interior ex-exterior windows, insulated the floor and outside walls, and had the old main window framework decorated and finished with plasterboard. We also decided, thanks to a friend who did a 3D mockup of the whole idea, to remove the bar that separated the kitchen and the lounge. I have a Flickr set with more photos so you can see more detail.

A local builder quoted a reasonable price and did the work with an associate in about 6 days, during which the flat was full of dust, building materials, tools, protective sheeting and general mess. We had to live in a small demilitarised zone near the television with a path through to the hob and the kettle.

I managed to find parquet flooring (clip style) the same as that which was already in our lounge, so I took up the kitchen flooring and installed more parquet. Now the whole upstairs - our flat is a duplex with bedrooms downstairs - has the same flooring. Almost inevitably (given Yasmina’s passion for interior decoration) this work gave rise to new furniture questions what with all the new space. So after a couple of trips to IKEA we are now proud owners of a new kitchen table, chairs, a free-standing kitchen drawer unit, a metal cabinet for the ex-balcony, and a built-in microwave.

As a result the flat has a more modern feel. The bar we had previously just took up space but wasn’t particularly functional or aesthetic - friends have also admitted they didn’t like it much since it is now gone - and its disappearance has made the visual perception of space much more vast. I might, at risk of sounding pretentious, say that it has transformed the flat into a pseudo-loft style. The kitchen really is part of the same room as the lounge, and that makes it a challenge to decorate successfully. A bit more work on lighting and furniture arrangement - plus some finishing touches on the kitchen units & worktops perhaps - are needed before it’ll all be really top notch. But it already looks pretty nice now, don’t you think?

I’ve mostly been updating news over at Flickr lately. Or rather, posting photos to Flickr and possibly including information worth reading underneath them. Time constraints and other things mean that I’m not particularly productive on blog posting of late.

If you’re subscribed via RSS, you can get both blog updates and Flickr updates in one easy feed, or by email by using the box on the right hand side of the homepage. You can also follow latest photos by following the link to my Flickr photos.

There will be more soon - I’ll be picking up rhythm again shortly.

Many times I’ve been lonely but never when I’m in front of a piano keyboard. I’ve gone out of my way to ask to play pianos in hotels in New York and Dallas when travelling in the States - the former specifically to play “New York State of Mind” while in New York, which I managed to do even though I was only there for 24 hours. I’ve played dodgy pianos in pubs and got job offers because it keeps people in the bar - I’m not that good so mostly the offers were for payment in beer.

Fewer and fewer places offer you the chance to be able to just sit down in public and play, because there just aren’t pianos around any more except auto-playing ones in aseptic hotel lobbies. I’ve been refused more often than accepted when I’ve asked to play piano in those kind of places. Then again, I’m not a virtuoso, and sometimes I’ve asked at times which might well be inconvenient for the gathered public.

For some time I’ve wanted to record a quick film of my piano playing. After learning the recorder at junior school at around 7-8 years old, my next instrument was the piano. I always loved playing keyboard instruments, and had lessons on classical organ, pop organ, and piano. The piano is one of the best instruments to play solo, because it has a large range. The 88 notes on a full piano keyboard represent the range of most instruments in an orchestra - much more than a guitar. It’s also an instrument which lends itself to playing several notes at once, to explore harmony, counter-melody and playing interesting left hand bass accompaniment to all sorts of melodies. It’s harder to accompany yourself and sing with a piano, I think the guitar better lends itself to that. But the piano by itself is really versatile and a great instrument which adds to many musical styles.

So here’s a single-take shot of me playing a piano solo of a composition I wrote when I was 16 as part of my coursework for GCSE music - it’s called City Nights. It is a little bit changed from the original version, but the melody, structure and sequence is the same. I’ve just added in a few variations in a repeated section to make it last three minutes. I passed the exam with flying colours, by the way.

I’ve added recent photos from my FlickR account to the RSS feed, so if you read me via email updates or RSS you should now get photos when I update them as well. We spent Christmas in Marrakech, and most of the recent photos were taken there.

Unfortunately, Yasmina’s grandmother Ginette - who lives in Rabat - had a series of strokes on Boxing Day (the 26th) which put a rather different perspective on our festive season. Yasmina’s aunt, who we were staying with, rushed to Rabat to be at her mother’s bedside. We had to stay because the logistics of all going to Rabat, especially with Nathan with a nasty flu infection, were not easily resolved. Our host got back to Marrakech a couple of days later, and even though we were all very tired but we went out for a day in the mountains south of Marrakech to see the ski slopes on Mount Oukaimeden.

Sadly it doesn’t look like my grandmother-in-law is improving. She’s 82 years old, so the prognosis is quite bleak. Yasmina is flying back to Morocco tomorrow, so I’ll be on my own until Saturday looking after him in the morning and at night. It will be the first time I’m all alone looking after Nathan, so wish me luck, and spare a prayer for Mamie Ginette.

Three related photos are on FlickR.

Nathan loves the park close to home, where he can play on the slide, a rocking horse on a spring, and a sort of spinning top. Even now with the colder weather, it’s great to get out and watch him run around and climb up to the top of the slide. I thought the cold colours and his being wrapped up, along with red, yellow, green and blue (primary colours of light & paints together) made it a nice snap.

In other news, astronomy has now reached a level of precision where no less than five planets have been discovered in another solar system around 55 Cancri. One of them is in the habitable zone - a planet that could be a twin of Earth.

China have successfully launched their lunar probe and it has already successfully positioned itself to orbit the moon. A few more maneuvers are needed before it is in fully operational orbit.

I think it’s a fascinating time, with space exploration back in the news and lunar landings likely to happen in the next ten to fifteen years. Nathan might live a childhood full of awe of space and thoughts of other worlds, a bit like growing up in the sixties?

Just what is it that makes Flickr stand out from other sites, so that it can boast an impressive 2,000+ photos uploaded per minute? That’s 2,880,000 a day, and over a billion - or a thousand million for those who think a billion is a million million - per year!

Their tour covers some of the ground, but it doesn’t touch on some of the things that make Flickr different. Most sites offer ways to upload, share, organise and classify (tag) your photos. Fewer have discussion groups, pools of photos sharing a common interest, and comment systems. Some integrate very well with digital printing of photos, so that you can order your photos to be delivered in a variety of formats and on objects too. But Flickr is more that that. It has an exceptionally intuitive interface and has built a sense of community around the concept of interestingness.

The interface makes it easy to upload photos, with large clear links to point you through the three step process: “Choose Photos”, “Upload Photos” and “Add titles, descriptions, tags or add to a set”. Perhaps they should have just called the last step “Describe Photos”, but then you can also add them to a set at the same time (tough call, I’d opt for keeping it simple). Once your photos are uploaded, you have them all displayed in front of you - unless of course you uploaded a large amount at once - and can add titles and descriptions in a very simple way. A click in the zone where a photo is to be described, or in the title zone (usually filled with the photo filename already) allows you immediately to change or add the text you want. You don’t have to reload the page. The information already there looks like normal text on the screen. But when you click it, it becomes editable in a text box, and then you click “Save” or “Cancel” and it goes back to being normal text.

This feature makes it easier to keep track of whether you are actually editing something since text that has been edited, or is yet to be treated, will not be in a text box, and will hence be completely visible. Also, text boxes have to be limited in width in order to display well, but normal text will wrap as you expect it to rather than disappearing. This also prevents errors in your typing as you see all the text at once on photos you’ve saved descriptions and titles for.

Another interface which is worth seeing is the map, which allows you to place your photo at the geographical point at which it was taken. It’s basically Yahoo! maps embedded into Flickr, with your photos listed along the bottom. You search for the town where the photos were taken, zoom and scroll around, and then just drag and drop your photos to the right place. A click on a link on the map page will allow you to see all other photos taken in the region of the map you’re looking at. This sounds very Web2.0, but in fact it is the former text editing feature which I think, for its simplicity, takes the crown. “Click to edit” relies on DHTML and AJAX - making changes to a web page without reloading it is the DHTML part, and AJAX is used to load the information back to the server when you click “Save” without making the whole page reload. The technical terms don’t matter much, the fact is that many sites could do this, but don’t. It’s complicated to start with, but it makes perfect sense to use this kind of technology — as long as it makes things easier.

Interestingness is the algorithm that allows Flickr to select photos from the millions uploaded each day while trying - as much as is possible with mathematical logic - to make them represent the very best of the site. It works surprisingly well. Behind that link, the photo was selected by a machine, but I bet you it’s a nice photo.

Web communities often have a sense of competition between members, and on Flickr the kudos awarded to photographers who make the “Explore” pages is a driving force for many. Even if you don’t care too much about public glory (who doesn’t?) you can click a link, visible only to you, to see your photos ranked by interestingness. This can lead you to start asking good questions about your shots and why they might be interesting for others. The magic formula behind the ranking is a combination of many things. One thing that makes it work well, even if it is a machine that is doing the calculations, is the volume of human input that can be used to come up with values to plug into the equation. How many people clicked on a photo (Flickr is full of places where you can see random selections or related photos); what the person was looking at before they clicked; whether they commented, and keywords in that comment (superlatives tend to abound in great photo’s comments); how many times the photo has been viewed; how many people consider the photo a favourite; the words and tags used to describe the photo itself; the resolution of the photo and the camera used to take it… there may be many more factors that Flickr might not want to reveal to avoid the tinfoil hat brigade’s wrath.

Flickr fully respects my idea of Web2.0 - which is all about interactivity both with the site itself, and with other users in the community. It’s about user interface design and bringing exciting new functionality to web sites.

Flickr drives the community via classic interfaces such as the forum, comments on individual photos, and email notification of changes and updates. These are all really well integrated with photography at the heart of everything. Finding interesting images can be done via groups, by searching, by surfing around the “explore” section and importantly just by logging in - a selection of “Everyone’s Photos” appears on your homepage.

Your sense of being in your own community is added to by your “Contacts”, who have their section on your homepage “Photos from your Contacts”. Adding a few people whose work you appreciate - or friends you want to share fun pictures with - quickly tailors the site so it feels like it belongs to you, even though you don’t feel like you’re personalising it at all.

In fact, personalisation is probably even more at the heart of Web2.0 than anything else. If the tailoring of a site to your tastes and desires happens without you even realising it, then it’s sure to become a place you visit often. Perhaps that is why Flickr is such a fine example of how engaging websites can be, and why it represents Web2.0 so well.

The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know ones gate parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (a Pan Am 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747, call sign: Speedbird 206.

Speedbird 206: ” Frankfurt , Speedbird 206 Clear of active runway.”
Ground: “Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven.”

The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.

Ground: “Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?”
Speedbird 206: “Stand by, Ground, I’m looking up our gate location now.”
Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): “Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?”

Speedbird 206 (coolly): “Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark, — And I didn’t land.”