Meriblog: Meri Williams' Weblog

Some Exciting News

2012-04-16T10:41:21Z

Head on over to Geek | Manager for some very exciting news: http://blog.geekmanager.co.uk/2012/04/16/joining-the-revolution/

Reflections after 1000 uses of The Eatery

2012-04-09T15:30:17Z

What Is It?

The Eatery, from Massive Health, is a social food tracking app. Rather than focusing specifically on calorie counting, you take a photo of what you’re eating, (optionally) provide a description and then rate how fit or fat you think it is.

Other users also rate your meal (and like/comment) giving you an average score out of 100. It also has some nice features, like a weekly review feature telling you how you compared to the rest of the user population and key stats including where you eat most (and least) healthily and the healthiness of your meals by time of day. The latter is especially helpful to pinpoint the mid-afternoon vending machine visits that are derailing you…

The Eatery Dashboard

My Experience of the App

I’ve been using the app since last October and recently hit 1000 items recorded (milestone prompting me to write up some reflections). For those of who have instantly done the maths and your reaction is “Stop eating 6 meals a day and you’ll lose some weight!”, bear in mind that drinks are also recorded

Overall it’s easy to use, intuitive & nicely designed, though could be a little speedier. Sometimes there’s a bit of a delay between snapping a photo and getting to describe/rate, but it is getting slicker with every update. Adding the ability to retrospectively add meals if you forgot to take a photo has been a most excellent addition for 2012.

Key Thoughts

It helps to combat “all or nothing” thinking: a bad choice is a blip rather than the beginning of a binge. A great improvement on just “good day” vs “bad day” approach many of us default to.
Since it is SO much less laborious (just snap & rate) than detailed calorie counting, it is easier to keep tracking.
The community rating aspect is great – gives you a reality check on what you’re eating – and although some folks have some funny ideas about what is (un)healthy, the average tends to be pretty good.
Whilst you might argue the opinion of a crowd of strangers is not exactly reliable, I find I object to calorie counting apps for the same reason – since I mainly eat non-prepackaged food, I find it hard to trust the calorie estimates since diff apps vary so much.
Some of the little gamification elements help you stay consistent – the quirky “streak” messages from Andrew Carman are particularly awesome.

All in all, one of the most helpful health apps I’ve found – and certainly the one I’ve used most consistently for the longest!

So Long 2011, Rock on 2012

2012-01-03T11:46:58Z

2011 was not my favourite year. Frankly, it sucked. My immune system recovered after 6 years of severe sleep apnoea had beaten it into the ground. Sounds like a good thing, right? I thought so too, but it meant scar tissue started forming from injuries during those years & nasty stuff started happening. And that the allergies I thought I had grown out of came back like a bad sequel. Prawns 2: This Time There’s Anaphylaxis!

So 2011 will sadly always be the year in which I suffered 28 shoulder subluxations, 2 full dislocations and the permanent removal of shellfish from the menu. Add to that deaths in the family and I’m sure you understand why I’m glad to see the back of it.

I don’t usually do new year resolutions and certainly not public ones. I’m a big believer that it’s our habits that make us – and habits are best changed one at a time, rather than in the traditional big bang, guilt-inducing approach that is enshrined in crappy magazines across the land. For more on the sustainable habits approach, check out non resolutions advice from Dan Pink via Buster Benson.

That said, I’m going to change some major things in 2012. This is going to be a rocking year.

I am going to:

Get back to doing what I love and loving what I do
Write more, both code & prose
Participate more in my community. Geekfolk, I have missed all y’all. Let’s do lunch/coffee/Barcamps/SXSWs/werewolf/geeks-with-guns/stuff yeah? I’ll be looking for you all on Lanyrd and turning up more. Come say hi!
Figure out this hypermobility/EDS thing and *kick its arse*

So 2012? Watch out, I’m coming to get ya!

My Year in Cities (2011)

2012-01-01T19:43:42Z

The year began in Thailand where we were at the tail end of our 100 day sabbatical. I moved roles on our return, so had much more Western Europe-focused work travel than in previous years.

INTERNATIONAL

Bangkok, Thailand (right at the end of our sabbatical)
Brussels, Belgium
Geneva, Switzerland
Rome, Italy
Stockholm, Sweden
Aarschot, Belgium
Madrid, Spain
Istanbul, Turkey
Port de Pollenca, Mallorca (Spain)
Cork, Ireland (incl Ballymaloe, Castlemartyr)
Bucharest, Romania

UK

London
Richmond
Weybridge
Manchester
Windsor
Matfen
Bath
Bristol
Tiverton

Lessons from Being Hacked

2011-11-20T14:29:05Z

So you might have noticed I was hacked prettily nastily on this site and a couple of others. I’d taken my eye off the ball and not done a really close inspection of my WordPress installs in a while, as well as being a bit lax in updating the moment a new version was out.

So What Actually Happened?

A couple of files have been snuck into theme and plug-in directories that allowed upload and editing of other files. If you find the files r.php or temp.php anywhere in your WordPress install you might want to check on them.

Through these, a file called function.php was added, full of evals and base_64 encrypted code. The regular WordPress functions.php and load.php had been modified to include the function.php file. This then replaced the normal blog content with all manner of spam.

The Cleanup

With the help of the fine folks at Sucuri, all the corrupted files were put back to normal and the backdoors plugged. I also deleted all unused themes & plugins (unfortunately the otherwise very useful Dreamhost One Click Installs do litter the place with “extras” you might neither want nor need).

For anyone investigating similar hacks, the Linux command to find recently edited files is find . -mtime -1. This will show you anything edited in the last day (replace the 1 with a different number to give different number of days). Though there are ways around the Linux file times, a cron job checking for recently modified files is helpful to keep an eye on things.

Useful Links

Sucuri’s Advice for After the Cleanup
Dreamhost’s advice on troubleshooting hacked sites
Sucuri’s explanation of the recent pharma hacks and how to clean it
Tips for searching for backdoors in a hacked WordPress install

Gastronomic Cork

2011-10-05T22:12:29Z

We’re in Cork this week, celebrating our anniversary and looking forward to both the Rugby World Cup quarterfinals and a close friend’s wedding at the weekend. We’ve never visited here before so it’s been nice to explore the city … and to eat our way round it!

Food so far has not disappointed, with an excellent pancakes with bacon & banana breakfast at Liberty Grill and a gorgeous ribeye steak at Strasbourg Goose particular highlights. Intending to keep up the gastronomic exploration over the coming days…

My Year in Cities (2010)

2011-11-20T15:50:43Z

2010 was a massive travel year, not least because Elly & I took a three month sabbatical from Oct-Dec. We had an absolutely amazing time travelling and since I bought a proper digital SLR just before going, we are still sorting through the 33,000 (yes, really!) photos I took in those 100 days! Many are already on Flickr with more to follow, and highlights are on our travel blog.

ABROAD

Austin, USA
Cincinnati, USA
Faro, Portugal
Lagos, Portugal
Frankfurt, Germany
Johannesburg, South Africa
Durban, South Africa
Port Elizabeth, South Africa
Mossel Bay, South Africa
Cape Town, South Africa
Melbourne, Australia
Cairns, Australia
Townsville, Australia
Airlie Beach, Australia
Brisbane, Australia
Auckland, New Zealand
Paihia, New Zealand
Rotorua, New Zealand
Napier, New Zealand
Wellington, New Zealand
Picton, New Zealand
Kaikoura, New Zealand
Queenstown, New Zealand
Dunedin, New Zealand
Christchurch, New Zealand
Sydney, Australia
Bangkok, Thailand
Hanoi, Vietnam
Hue, Vietnam
Hoi An, Vietnam
Saigon, Vietnam
Phuket, Thailand
Ko Phi Phi Don, Thailand

UK

Bristol
Bath
Tiverton
Exeter
Weybridge
London
Southampton
Marchwood
Brighton
Cambridge
Market Bosworth
Reading
Richmond / St Margarets

links for 2010-02-07

2010-02-07T23:03:10Z

best of craigslist: Hey Crackhead

I feel for this guy — poor vandalised bike!

(tags: funny craigslist rant drugs culture comedy writing urban crackhead)
Multipotentiality – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is my word of the day. Pretty much most of my friendship circles at school, university and now work have consisted of people who experience this (suffer seems a strong word for something with such a positive background but I suppose potentially a truly negative impact)

(tags: lifehacks personality genius psychology multipotentiality smartkids smart geeks choices lifechoices)
Polymath – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Interesting how our formal education processes in many countries have really reduced the capacity for polymaths to develop. I suppose those most so included are likely to develop any way though! Last couple of years I've sponsored a scholarship at my old highschool for a student displaying polymath tendencies.

(tags: wikipedia polymath science education inspiration knowledge genius)
How to recognise a good programmer

Insightful article about how to spot good programmers.

(tags: programming hiring career development jobs management recruitment talentspotting talent)
Open Innovation | Innovation Management

This is a really interesting site: pairing up problem solvers with complex problems and the people who want them solved (and can pay for solutions). Sort of like an innovation / solutions marketplace.

(tags: inovation collaboration research competition science ideas business crowdsourcing innovation outsourcing)

links for 2010-02-05

2010-02-05T23:03:36Z

Student sells virginity for $45k – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Wow. Hell of an innovative way to pay for college! Not sure how I feel about this, on the one hand sad that anyone has to do this to get an education, on the other hand good on her for getting that much…

(tags: business3.0 businessmodels prostitution studentfees)
YouTube – GNILLEY presentation at Game Jam Sydney

Very entertaining game demo where shouting at the screen kills things! Looks hilarious

(tags: games funny cool humour gaming gamejam sydney rapiddevelopment)
Information Is Beautiful | Ideas, issues, concepts, subjects – visualized!

Gorgeous blog with beautiful graphs — true meaning of information visualisation

(tags: information visualisations blogs graphics statistics data inspiration graphs visualization infographics design)
"Farmville Is Getting a Little Too Realistic" by Jason Michaels on CollegeHumor

This is really really funny, especially if you're constantly exposed to Farmville by friends & family on Facebook as I am!

(tags: facebook farmville funny humour)

Awake After All These Years

2010-01-09T20:08:38Z

Some of you know that I’ve been having trouble sleeping over the past couple of years. Actually, more accurately, having trouble *staying* asleep. Only being able to sleep for an hour or two before waking got annoying enough that last November I checked into hospital overnight for a sleep study for an uncomfortable night covered in electrodes.

What they found astonished me. I wasn’t just waking up every hour or two. I was stopping breathing over 75 times an hour — waking each time so that my breathing restarted, without being aware of it. They have diagnosed severe sleep apnoea. The condition wasn’t necessarily a huge surprise (anyone unfortunate enough to have had to share a room or even house with me knows my snoring is pretty epic – my dad is just the same) but the level of severity was.

They immediately gave me a CPAP machine which forces me to breathe during the night by blowing a gale through a mask at me. The effect has been pretty much immediate — the first morning I felt infinitely more awake and I have a huge amount more energy than I have had in years.

The weird thing? You’d assume that having had no REM in over 18 months, I’d *know* just how tired I was. But I really didn’t. I’d occasionally fall asleep in front of the telly, but otherwise I experienced hardly any daytime sleepiness (one of the key symptoms of the condition). But having had some decent sleep over the last week since I was given the machine, I can suddenly feel the difference. I have more energy, I feel smarter, more awake and much more balanced.

Net, my one and only resolution for 2010: To sleep more and get more done.

Any of this sound familiar, either for you or someone you know? The Sleep Apnoea Trust has a decent FAQ section, more info available at NHS Choices.