Pip Wilson

Codemonkey get up, get coffee...

2010-04-29T15:33:00.002+01:00

So its been ages since I posted here but I have been uber busy. I figured I best update with all I have been up to.

The Mythical Catflap

First off, the twice tried and never finished revenge short I wrote is almost ready to go into production for the third time.We have @thefredmk1 playing the male lead. I was very impressed with Fred (as was my production assistant @jethrobelman) when he came to the auditions last Saturday: After all this time I think I have found the perfect person to fill that role. All we need now is his 'Wife' and 'Girlfriend' (*hint* if you know anyone you know where to find me!).

Scoring goals

Second up, after two years of trying I am finally getting published in Ole, the office and lifestyle magazine. Its only a 350 word article on life in the office but I feel I have achieved one of my goals I set when I first started blogging 18 months ago, to get bloody published! I will keep you posted once it goes live (end of this month).

And if anyone else needs me to write anything you know where to find me.

The Soulman

The Soulman is looking to be one of my most epic projects yet in all ways: Lots of people to cast, realistic effects to be figured out, locations to be sourced etc etc. But its all a big challenge and progressing slowly but very well. All being well the first episode will be available for your PMP/iPod/iTampon in early 2011.

Epic Bike Ride

OK this project I am really really looking forward to. A friend of mine wants to ride his bike from Lands End to John O'Groats this summer in the name of char-i-dee. He has done this before but on his own. This time around he wants a support team and someone to blog/film it all for him. That'd be me and @jethrobelman then!

Film Night

You may or may not remember me trying to organise a local indie film night. To be honest I was never really happy with the venue (it being a pub) and I am looking at other places but with the budget of free this is proving hard. I am in discussions with various people on this and will keep you updated. I am also looking at setting up a small aggregating website to support the film night pulling together any content and linking out to indie producers websites etc.

There is a myriad of other news but for now I must keep stum. I will update you as and when the time comes.

Stay tidy peeps.

-Pip

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eMbRaCe ThE gEeK!

Tech: Discussing Chrome OS with William Wright

2009-12-07T18:11:00.009Z

Once again, William Wright has allowed me on his drive time show on BBC Radio Lincolnshire (listen here), this time to talk about the new open source operating system from Google, Chrome OS. At this stage it is meant mostly for netbooks, but Google are saying there will be eventual support for laptops and desktops too. Now when I say OS, that's not really meant in the traditional sense of the word(s): everything Chrome OS does is 'in browser'. In fact that's all Chrome OS is, a browser, in particular, the rather nippy Chrome browser. So how does that work? Take a look at the screen shot below:

As you can see, any traditional desktop type software is replaced by a web application. Your photos are stored with Picasa, your documents with Google Documents. There are no on board applications, everything is server side. This 'thin client' style of computing means that your computer will be uber-nippy. From switch on to editing documents/surfing the web should take you no more than 10 seconds. You sign in with your Google account and everything flows from there, much like the Android OS for smartphones.

As we all know, Google have been pushing for a while now for you to store all of your information in 'the cloud', in particular their cloud (Gmail, Google Documents, Picasa etc). This of course has benefits for us all: no need for personal hard drives, backups, photos and documents are universal and easy to access from any computer & of course, no duplicate files because everything is stored centrally, on one far away computer. Unfortunately this has its downfalls also. Internet connections can be shaky & unreliable. As much as I hate to say it, but we don't have 3G/WiFi coverage everywhere we go, leaving you with a very shiny, nice looking, but useless brick if your running Chrome OS and have no connection. Having said this you will still be able to access the applications in offline mode thanks to the genius of Google Gears and the advent of HTML 5 but of course without being able to send anything over the tubes.

Ultimately, Chrome OS is a fantastic idea: a light, fast & simple OS meant for secondary use to your main machine, mainly for browsing, web video & photo/document editing. In my opinion cloud computing is also a brilliant idea, but there needs to be some sort of balance. I would rather have the option to back up the information locally as well as in the cloud, just in case. I would also like the option to install my own applications on there. Having said that its still early days yet and I'm pretty sure most users feel the same. Hopefully the big 'G' will open up to the users needs and wants and build these functionalities in. Watch the video below for the official run down of Chrome OS.

eMbRaCe ThE gEeK!

Tech: Discussing Google Wave with William Wright on Radio Lincolnshire

2009-11-16T18:37:00.001Z

So once again William Wright has been kind enough to have me on his Drive-time show on Radio Lincolnshire (It's on now (or 94.9FM on the actual wireless), why are you reading this and not listening?!) to talk about the much hyped Google Wave. I have spoken about this before on this blog and rather than repeat that article I thought I would update you with a couple of links I have found useful since and I will be talking about on the show.

1. Diana Adams Bit Rebels article, Lost inside Google Wave?

5 waves to make your life easier, these are all made for the community by the community and therefore low on jargon, high on easy to grasp knowledge. From community based wave support groups to a suggestion box for wave its all very useful indeed.

2. The Lifehacker guides to Google Wave

Written by Lifehackers Gina Trapani and Adam Pash the Complete Guide to Google Wave will always be free. Absolutely invaluble and full of useful info for the beginner right through to the advanced user.

3. My Waves

As I spoke about, I have waves embeded in all three of my websites as chatrooms/messageboards/contribution areas. To visit those click on any of the following links;

Avin A Giraffe Wave

The Cocknose Wave

Pip Wilsons Wave

4. Business implementation of Wave

For anyone that is really interested, here is the link to the article on SAPs implementation of Google Wave. Its not that interesting but gives a very good example of how Wave can be used in the business world.

Thanks for listening all and thanks once again thanks to William and Tom for letting me on. Any questions we didn't answer please drop me a line, either in one of the waves, on twitter or via the contact box in the navigation bar above.

-Pip

eMbRaCe ThE gEeK!

Geek: Project Wave Pt III complete, mission accomplished!

2009-11-10T21:34:00.000Z

Just a quick one to say, Google Wave is now live on The Cocknose. Click on Contact/Wave in the Nav bar for instant access to the page. As with www.PipWilson.org and www.AvinAGiraffe.com the wave will add itself to your inbox IF you have access to Google Wave. Please use it to send us any stories, pictures or information you think we should be looking at, cheers.

eMbRaCe ThE gEeK!

Geek: Project Wave Pt II complete

2009-11-09T14:09:00.000Z

Ok, so Project Wave Part II is now complete. We have a wave up and running over at 'Avin' A Giraffe, acting as a live chat room, submissions/commenting box and a general layabout area. Please feel free (if you have access to Google Wave of course) to use the wave pretty much as you please within those guidelines. Of course this does not replace the usual channels of twitter/email etc(yet anyway), merely compliments them. Drop me a line at the usual channels if you have any problems. Embrace, engage and enjoy..

eMbRaC3 Th3 g33K!

Geek: Waves We are LIVE in The Lounge

2009-11-06T15:49:00.003Z

Ok, so this is something I have been experimenting with over the past couple of days; using the now infamous Google Wave, embedded in a page, as a live chat room/message/info exchange/general lay about area. And guess what peeps, we are LIVE LIVE LIVE. Those of you with access to Wave should see The Lounge appear in your inbox as soon as you hit up the page. One of the best bits is you can edit/add to the wave directly from The Lounge. Cool, huh? I'm hoping to implement waves in both Avin A Giraffe as well as The Cocknose in the coming days, stay tuned...

Film: Local Independent Film Night at The Jolly Brewer

2009-10-29T10:29:00.001Z

So after a successful meeting with the Landlady at The Jolly Brewer last night, I have been asked to organise (under the banner of thegrainsilo) an independent film night to be held at the pub (this is not to be confused with the horror film night that I am also organising, more details to follow on this soon). At this stage I am looking to raise interest from local (Lincoln and surrounds) independent film makers who would like some good exposure for their films. It does not matter if you’re a student or working and making films on the side and it does not matter if its abstract or story/character based; if you have some good content (preferably between 5-30 minutes long) then you are more than welcome to join the fun. If you are interested in such then contact me on twitter (@PipWilson) or via email (sayhello (at) pipwilson (dot) org) with a link to your content so it can be considered. Please send all emails with the subject matter Indie Film Night at the Brewer. Films will need to be on DVD, external hard drive or memory stick.

-Pip

Tech: Some thoughts on Google Wave

2009-10-28T11:14:00.002Z

So having had my wave account for a couple of weeks now, I figured it was time to get down a few thoughts about the service. And before anyone asks I don't have any invites left at this stage; I gave my last one away on Twitter on Saturday night.
As we all know, there has been a lot of hype regarding the wave. To me this is typical of Google. It is exactly what they did with Gmail and to some extent what they did with Android; make it available to the select few, put a couple of videos and screenshots on select sites on the internet and let the hype build in an organic fashion. So is it worth the hype? Well yes and no. Any claims that it is the future of communication online are a little far fetched to me at this stage. It takes a lot of getting used to and Lifehackers guide to wave has proved invaluable to me. Having said that and as one of my mates tweeted, if you need an instruction book then something’s rotten in Denmark. Did you read an instruction book on how to email back in the day? Or to SMS? Or even to Twitter?

It is however very cool that you can drag and drop documents and files from any folder on your hard drive directly into the wave. The live typing feature, if a little weird at first, is also very cool. Adding various bots to the waves themselves is also a very useful feature. These include a Twitter bot so you can tweet from directly within, Amazon so any keywords found in your wave will then be searched through the Amazon website and you are fed back the latest deals and prices and Wikipedia so again any keywords that crop up are searched and fed back to you to you. Also according to an article on Engadget yesterday Google themselves are getting ready to set up an app store (is that the buzz phrase of the last year or what?) for wave. This will mean that anyone that can see a particular use and has the coding knowledge will be able to write their own apps for the service.

Now obviously these bots/apps are useful in their own right, but what about an actual use for wave? Well the best two I can see so far are as a collaboration tool and as a live Evernote style notebook. As a collaboration tool it is genius. I am currently working on a film project with an old college friend of mine and the ability to post location pictures, script updates and casting notes is invaluable, especially when you consider he is over 30 miles away. And of course it’s all totally live and editable. I am also involved in the Lincoln Tweetup (#FridayDrinks/@FridayDrinks) and we have just started using wave to organise dates, food etc for the meet ups.

The second way I use the service is as a live notebook. The editability of the wave proves extra useful here as anything I delete or edit is highlighted within the document, providing a very useful workaround to the good idea/bad idea/good idea again jitters that I am sure any creative person will appreciate.

Overall I find the service very useful but in my own way. I cannot give you a blanket use for the service because there doesn’t appear to be one. Make of it what you will I think is the general consensus. Wave is very good at many different things and it’s pulling these things together in the right way that make it for me. If you are using wave in your own way let me know in the comments below. Also if you want to connect with me I’m wilsonpip@googlewave.com as well as my production companys account thegrainsilo@googlewave.com.

-Pip

Tech - The rise of Netbooks

2009-07-01T15:14:00.007+01:00

A contenscious issue, netbooks. Either you love 'em or you hate 'em. Me personally? Well I'm a lover. I own a Dell mini 9 running the Linux distro Ubuntu 9.04 and for me it works. One of the first questions people ALWAYS ask me when they see I have a netbook is, "How powerful is it?" (1.6GHz N270 Intel Atom Processor, 1GB DDR2 533MHz, Intel GMA 950 Integrated Graphics seeing as you asked). Alright I'm not about to render the title sequence for my latest film project on it but thats not the point. The point is mobility and not having to hulk a breezeblock about the place. I can throw it in my bag and run and with the SSD drive I don't have to worry about damaging hard drive platters. I can edit documents and blog posts such as this one. I can use GIMP to edit photos and have even used it to design logos for thegrainsilo.com, lifeinthecloud.co.uk and avinagiraffe.com. And with the use of its onboard HSDPA modem, I can even post remotely with full control of my blogs dashboard.

Cramped

One of the main issues with a netbook is its keyboard. There are a lot of complaints about the size and how cramped it is. Whilst I admit it was not ideal at first, with a little practice, it is something I have gotten used to. I think mainly on this, people have become used to the wide keyboard standard. Scale this down in anyway and it seems to throw most people. Having said that when I'm at home I do have an external keyboard which I plugin but this is simply because the netbook itself is up on a stand and I would probably do myself an injury reaching up and across my desk on a sustained basis.

Stream that media

Bringing me nicely to my next point. When I am in my home network and in front of my main computer I use the netbook to stream Spotify and any other media/media services I may be watching/listening to on the side. This serves two uses; 1. It saves on processing power when I'm using memory hungry software like Photoshop or Dreamweaver on my main box. 2. I don't have to flick between screens to change songs or media and therefore it's less of a distraction to my main work.

Sticking with the streaming media, I also use my mini box of wonder to stream, either directly from my home server or from Boxee, films, webcasts and other media direct to my TV. Whilst there were teething tech problems in the initial setup of this (mainly soundtracks falling out of sync with the video and stuttering video files) which I have now sorted, overall it does run smoothly. With the use of the Boxqueue bookmarklet I can save any internet video file directly to my Boxee queue for viewing on the TV at a later time. And used in conjunction with the GMote application on my G1 I can access the file server from the phone and not even have to get up from my seat to change media!

Playing with the 'Bu

In terms of OS I use the Canonical Linux distro Ubuntu (9.04). When I first got the machine it was running XP but I wanted to try something new. This has worked out very well. The distro itself is open source and free and pretty much anything that I ran in Windows can either be run under Wine (Windows Emulator) or there is a viable alternative available within the Open Source community somewhere. The ability to switch desktops is very cool, especially on a small screen and with the Compiz settings manager you can do it in extreme style. Another bonus of using Ubuntu is that with the use of the Google mobile OS Androids SDK you can run Android apps on your netbook (See my Top 5 Android Apps). This works very well with apps like Gmote, Shazam or even the recently released Qik and also means I can integrate my phone even further with my computer.

Support not replace

Overall I would say netbooks are not meant to be a replacement for your main PC. However as a secondary device working in conjuction with your main box/network they work and they work well. According to recent research from NPD 58% of the people who buy netbooks are satisfied with their purchase compared to 70% of regular laptop buyers. This I believe, is down to a misunderstanding of what these micro machines can actually do. There has to be some sacrifice for the size and mobility of the machines themselves. Having said that, the advancing of processor technologies and the development of smaller solid state drives these machines will only get faster and better in the future.

-Pip

Music - SomewhereBetweenACliche AndAMonkey 2 track ep reviewed

2009-06-30T15:32:00.008+01:00

So @luke_morton over at Music on the Mind has been kind enough to do a review of my electronica outfit, SomewhereBetweenAClicheAndAMonkey in his latest Unsigned Review post. Whilst not a glowing review I am rather pleased of course that we are getting some coverage. Just to let you know new material is being worked on as we speak. Whats that Luke, heavier bass? It's all in hand mate, along with a deeper, heavier sound overall. I will keep you posted.

"..Some bands [though] are good at what they do, one such band are Somewherebetweenaclicheandamonkey who have created a much slower/toned-down version of electronic music similar to that of Squarepusher or early Sabrepulse...(Cont.)"

-Pip

Film - Blood: The Last Vampire

2009-06-11T00:11:00.006+01:00

So I've known about this for a little while now, but there will be as of the 26th June, a live action movie of the incredible (and one of my favourites) Manga flick, Blood: The Last Vampire. I do hope they can do it justice, certainly the trailer looks amazing but, as we all (sadly) know, this can mean nothing.

The story itself centres around Saya a beautiful 17 year old who hides a dark secret. She is really a 400 year old halfling born to a human father and vampire mother. For many of these years she has been a loner trying to rid the world of vampires, her internal conflict being she can only survive if she drinks the blood of those she kills.

If you havn't seen it already I would highly recommend putting the original, directed by Hiroyuki Kitakuba (Key animator on Akira and Gundam amongst many others), in your lovefilm.com list before June 26th. Sensational artwork, beautiful animation and a rather erie soundtrack from Yoshihiro Ike all add up to make it, in my eyes, one of the best Mangas of all time. I can't wait for this. Like I say I just hope its good.

RSS and News Aggregation

2009-06-08T22:11:00.009+01:00

Taken from my spot on @mrwilliams show on BBC Radio Lincolnshire this evening (8/06/09 94.9 fm) here are some notes on RSS and news aggregation.

RSS/news aggregation

What is RSS?

RSS, (Really Simple Syndication) is a way of aggregating various web 'feeds' (blogs, podcasts, news articles) into one place, normally a reader, organising the wealth of information that is out there on the internet. Identified by a little orange icon on a page that supplies feeds, you right click on the icon copy the link location and then paste this into your feed reader. Thinking of it like getting your Sunday papers delivered but from a much wider source range.

(For a history of RSS go here.)

Feed readers

There are a number of different readers out there, two of the most notable being Feed Demon and the Google reader. The difference between the two is essentially minimal except one (Google Reader) is a cloud based service and only available on line whereas Feed Demon is a desktop based service requiring synchronisation with the web to get the latest feeds but otherwise available offline. I personally use both of the above depending where I am and what I'm doing. Google reader works well on my G1, whereas if I'm in front of my computer at home I use Feed Burner.

Twitter as a news aggregator

Whilst not a feed reader perse, Twitter can be used to aggregate certain types of news. For instance at the launch of the recent iPhone 3.0 SDK @mollywood, a cnet editor was live on the ground at the presentation. As announcements were made (the launch of cut/paste (at last)spotlight search within the iPhone/Pod itself etc) she tweeted each one, giving you a live rundown of events as they happened, much like the BBC's live text service. This I found, and when its been done with other events, have found, very useful as a tech geek. Live info from the event as it happens.

Hashtags, live search and trending topics

Hashtags are basically like a giant filing system. Basically you precede whatever you want to tag something with a hash symbol. So if you search for #susanboyle this will bring up all tweets from anyone who has mentioned the now infamous Susan Boyle. You can then save this search for future reference. Also, you can use it to file tweets on a certain subject, for instance #mymobilephotos or #facupfinal. So if your having a conversation with someone and want to reference those tweets at a later date hashtag each tweet with a relevant term and you will be able to search everything you have said at a later date. Trending topics are basically as sounds; the most popular search topics over the past 24hrs performed by twitter users. These appear on the right hand side of your page, click on one and it will take you to all the tweets mentioning that topic.

My Top 5 Android Apps

2009-06-08T11:22:00.006+01:00

The Android platform is still in its infancy and whilst a robust smartphone platform there are simply not that many developers out there making apps for the fledgling OS. This is essentially down to the lack of hardware (only the brick like g1 and the Magic/Ion at this stage, although 18 more handsets and according to reports from Computex a bunch of netbooks are due to launch with the mobile OS this year). I remain confident that once we have more hardware out there, the platform itself will become more pervasive and more people will start to develop for it. At this stage the majority of the app market for Android seems to be taken up by G1 users themselves learning to program using the SDK. This is obvious by the shaky and often buggy nature of the apps that are out there. Whilst this is admirable and I am mildly envious of anyone that can program it's not ideal when you just want apps that work and perform the function they say they can on your phone. Having said all of this there are some good apps out there and here is a list of my personal top 5.

Locale (Free)

Locale is a very useful app that I've had on my phone since I got it. It will allow you to set profiles on your phone according to yup, you guessed it, location. You can also set via time of day, date and even by contact (useful when the ex keeps calling!). So for instance I have a friend that lives opposite the pub. When I'm at his place I don't want my phone set at loud, however when we do get to the pub which is quite noisy, I like to be able to hear my alerts. So I've set two locations, one for his place where the alerts are at a reasonable level and one for the pub where my alerts are distinguishable above the noise.

The same thing with work. The moment I walk through the doors, my phone switches to silent and I have no need to think about it again. I have also set the wifi on board to switch off when I step out of my home wireless network to save on battery. However there are certain spots around where I live where I can get free wifi and when I step into one of these spots, the 3G switches off and wifi takes over. There is even a Twitter plugin which to me seems kinda lazy but I guess could have a function somewhere?? The options are seriously endless on this one. No doubt some bright spark will have it set up with an Arduino to scratch his arse at 3pm every afternoon!

GDocs (Free)

Not made by Google, but a fine example and use of the Android/Google open source ideal. This little beauty gives you view access to your Google docs. You can edit the file once you have downloaded it to the phone. Whilst I wouldn't recommend it for any heavy duty writing I did use it to write parts of this article and I have used it a couple of times now to take meeting notes at work. Dead simple and straightforward, your presented with a simple list of your current documents once you have logged in. Long press anyone of these and you can either 'View remote document' or 'Download' for later editing. There is no control over fonts or general style but I tend to format a document when I'm proofreading it afterwards anyway. The only real problem with this app is its lack of share/email options. This said it is a brilliantly smooth and simple little application, your productivity rates will soar, be warned!

Astrid (Free)

My favourite of the many to-do lists out there. Featuring easy access to your tasks via the notifications bar, synchronization with your remember the milk account, highly customizable task entry and the ability to easily add tasks to your calendar. Not much more to say about this one, except it works and works well.

GMote (Free)

An awesome little app I’ve had on my phone since day one. As the name suggests, this turns your G1 into a remote for your computer once you have downloaded the server app from the Gmote website. One of its best features is the ability to browse your computers media direct from the apps file browser and then play it in a light weight implementation of VLC on your computer. You can also set it up as a remote touchpad and even surf the web from your phone and then fling the pages over to your computer when you find something interesting. Relatively simple to setup, the only real issue I’ve had is having to re-enter the computers ip address when the phone goes to sleep.

PureRSS (Free)

Delightfully simple in its implementation, simply copy and paste your feed urls into the app and away you go. It will sync automatically (set sync from disabled to 5 minutes to 1 week) or you can reload all feeds or reload each feed individually. The thing I love about this app is that it gives you all of the available article and any pictures contained within unlike some RSS readers. Again not much more to say except it simply works.

There are of course many other applications out there, this is just my personal top 5. Let me know what yours are and why in the comments below. And of course there are paid applications out there but I have found in the true spirit of open source, the best ones are free. There are many exciting developments coming up for Android including making use of its support for 3D graphics via the openGL API (look for the Neocore demo application in the market) and my personal favourite bit of info released at the recent Google I/O, Spotify for Android. I'll keep you posted as I find out more.

-Pip Wilson

My thoughts on the G1 and Cupcake

2009-05-14T12:44:00.002+01:00

So it's been a week now since I got my precious Cupcake and I wanted to wait until now before I spoke about it to get a good feel of the new features etc. I originally bought my G1 as an avid fan of the Linux OS (Ubuntu) and its open source goodness. Whilst not wanting to sound ungrateful for the features that the G1 did have in the early days, there were some rather important details missed out as far as I was concerned. Simple things like an on screen keyboard, auto-rotate on turning the phone to landscape mode, stereo Bluetooth support etc. These may sound unimportant individually but add them up and it becomes a bit of a pain. For instance, you receive a text and want to tap out a quick reply but uh oh, no on-screen keyboard so you have to flip out the physical keyboard and take it from there. Minor I know but if your in the middle of a text battle and keep having to flip out your keyboard every five seconds it soon gets annoying. The same with auto rotation; you could switch the browser to landscape mode in the sub menus but this, as I say, was a button within the sub menus so your browser was fixed in landscape until you went back through the menus and switched it back. You could also flip out the keyboard and the screen would rotate, but if just want to do a quick bit of browsing this seemed a little unnecessary. Even more so when you consider the unit has had an accelerometer in it since day one.

All this changed last Thursday morning for me when T-Mobile kindly sent me the Cupcake update. I have found, since I downloaded, the phone is a lot swifter and smoother at what it does. There is now an auto rotate function (although it does do this weird blurred screen thing as its changing, which is a little disconcerting at first). We have an on-screen keyboard, which is incredibly easy to use with your thumbs in landscape mode unlike the iJesus phone. Support for desktop widgets is another great addition; I currently have a 70's style flip clock, 2 or 3 'post-it' notes acting as my to-do lists, the calendar widget as well as one showing me the space used and left on my micro SD card,all very useful little features in themselves. And of course, we come to the bane of every G1 owners life, that damn battery! Since I have had the update my battery will, depending on use throughout the day, last from when I unplug it from my laptop of a morning through to when I go to bed at night. A minor miracle considering I used to keep my wifi and GPS off all day and would, most days, have to plug it into my computer at work around midday. There is now of course a video recorder function with push to YouTube or g/email (but no Twitter yet) which is very useful as an amateur filmmaker.

In conclusion, whilst I understand that Google/T-Mobile/HTC released the G1 as essentially a demo of what they could potentially do, as a consumer I would prefer for them to have perfected the system and hardware and then released the phone; there have been many times since last October that my G1 has let me down on both software and hardware levels (mainly battery fails, but also system crashes etc). And yes whilst we all love the beauty of the iJesus Phone and how it paved the way for the future of smart phones such as the G1 it is a walled garden. A pretty walled garden but still. I far prefer being able to drag and drop my mp3's/videos/podcasts to my phone directly instead of having to use a memory hogging piece of software that is clearly trying to do too much. I enjoy being able to rearrange my desktop as I chose and I enjoy the close integration with my Google account (and the ability to place links to your gmail labels on the desktop). The G1, whilst not the best looking piece of hardware, is a damn fine and solid smartphone
and with the Cupcake date I finally feel we are going places with the 'Droid.

-Pip Wilson

Shits and Giggles; Pip gets a personal blog

2009-05-13T15:43:00.003+01:00

So this'd be me personal blog then. I promise, no FML feelings on display here. The purpose of this site is two-fold; First off it's a run down of what I'm upto in regards to thegrainsilo.com, lifeinthecloud.co.uk, avinagiraffe.com and my various other music/art/film/internet projects. If ever you need to hunt me down like a dog, to talk semi-knowledgably about tech, to make you a fine music video for your band or just for shits and giggles, this'd be the place to come. Secondly it will feature occasional articles on tech, the interwebz, music, film and well, anything pop/counter culture related that takes my fancy. If you need to get in touch with me contact details are to the left. Toilets are to the right and emergency exits are toward the rear, middle and front of the plane. Enjoy your flight and I do hope you fly wilsonpip.com again soon.

-Pip Wilson

The Lounge

2001-01-01T01:01:00.008Z

We are now live and have implemented Google Wave into the page below, creating a spot to chill, hang out, exchange info and post messages. Basically a live chatroom that you can edit from this very page. If you are not on Wave then you can not edit but you should be able to see the wave itself (If you can't please let me know in the regular comments box). If you are on Wave, this wave should appear in your inbox immediately. I will also be implementing waves in both Avin A Giraffe and The Cocknose when I get two seconds to scratch my own arse. This is an experiment and things will change/update as I get to to know Wave better...

Project Page

2001-01-01T00:00:00.037Z

A run down of the various projects I'm involved in and affiliated web links etc:

thegrainsilo industries - My umbrella company, under which all my projects (including thegrainsilo) occur.

thegrainsilo - My production company, a constantly evolving, on going multimedia project involving film, music and design amongst many others.

The Base Project - My first film project under thegrainsilo productions. This is also an open source project released under a Creative Commons licence. In other words the synopsis and character base is available under CC for other film makers to play with as they choose. Contact me for more details.

'Avin' A Giraffe - A blogroll of funnies, meant mainly for my mates but it seems to of taken on a life of its own.

The Cocknose - A webspace dedicated to the worlds idiots. Sunday is the main post (Cocknose of the Week) but other posts are made during the work on general idiocy from around the globe as well as the midweek Cocknose Review.

The Jolly Brewer Film Night presented by thegrainsilo - Starting this winter (2009) the Jolly Brewer in association with thegrainsilo will be hosting monthly film nights. Keep your eyes on PipWilson.org as well as thegrainsilo.co.uk & theJollyBrewer.co.uk

Lincoln FridayDrinks Tweetup - Once a month the Tweeps of Lincoln step out from behind their computers and smartphones and meetup (normally at the Adam & Eve) for a few bevvies and lots of laughs. For more info visit the webpage, follow @FridayDrinks on our beloved Twitter and get in on the action in real time with the #FridayDrinks hashtag. A wide range of people come along it's not just geeks! So if your on Twitter, don't be shy come and show your face! Here's the most up to date Twitter List of the Friday Drinks tweeps so far..

Come wave with me

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Come ride my wave, a place to chill, chat and kick back..

My Bookmarks

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This is an occasionally edited/added to post of my favourite pages around the 'tinterwebz at anyone time..

http://www.musiconthemind.co.uk/ - A music blog from one of my mates @luke_morton. Informative, incisive and on the edge of the citizen journalism/blogging vibe...

twinlizard.blogspot.com - The home of Twin Lizard, some choice free and legal slabs of Hip Hop for download courtesy of @needlegroove

http://www.lifehacker.com/ - Essentially daily reading for any geek, Lifehacker is always jam packed with hints, tips and downloads for making your digital and real life easier.

gdgt.com - From the minds behind Gizmodo and Engadget, Peter Rojas and Ryan Block comes the social networking website for geeks. Have genuine discussions about tech, list your wants/haves/hads in your Gdgt list or just hang out and drool over the thousands of products they have listed.

cnet.com - A whole heap of knowledge and resources over at Cnet, from podcasts to product and gadget reviews to downloads to webware, it's hard to pick out one single thing I like about Cnet. Make sure to check out the404 podcast as well as Mollys Mailbag.

Downloads

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Ain't nothing better in this life than free. Particularly when free involves useful and practical applications and programmes for your compy. In celebration of such I have put together a guide to some of my favorite free and open-source downloads:

VLC Media Player (Windows/OSX/Linux)
Top of the list and easily one of my favourite video players has to be VLC media player. Light and quick with a simple UI, this will play almost any video file including quicktime and the dreaded real media format (yup you heard right, no more having to download the hideous Real Player). Available over at the Videolan website.

DoubleTwist (Windows/OSX/Linux)
A viable alternative to the behemoth iTunes, this little beauty will sync to multiple devices (now including Android), download music from the Amazon market and (possibly the best feature) download, convert (to your relevant format) and sync videos to your media device of choice. From the mind of the amazing DVD Jon again this programme is light and simple, although it is sadly lacking a playlist creation function. Available here.

Spotify (Windows/OSX/Linux)
The now infamous cloud based streaming media player. I have to say thanks to Spotify I very rarely use my mp3 collection these days unless I'm on the move. The beauty of Spotify is that you can create a playlist in the cloud so it is therefore accessible from any computer in the world running the software. You can also create shared playlists and email/facebook/twitter the links so anyone can add to them. That'd be the social media revolution knocking at your door then.

Chrome (Windows/Linux(under WINE))
Now officially the fastest browser on the planet, Google have taken the browser, stripped it virtually naked and left you with pretty much the basics for browsing which to be honest was all I ever wanted. I was never a fan of plug ins in Firefox as they slowed an already sluggish browser right down. Chrome has a bookmark manager so you can import from FF and IE and a decent full screen view so you get to see as much of the page as possible. Whilst it does have certain issues with flash (I've noticed this mainly with Youtube and the stats section of the twitter client Hootsuite) it is otherwise a swift and reliable browser. Available here.

The BASE project/BASE Birth of TowerBoy

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A project born and created from a fascination with mobile communications/devices, technology, conspiracy theories and an over-active imagination. This micro series of 4 episodes was made with the emerging internet video arena/personal media player in mind. Made on a budget of zero, using a canon mv800i, an old LG laptop and a heap of, "Do it yourself, 'cos no ones gonna do it for you..", this series proves that even with limited resources you can make good sci-fi.

A man goes for a walk in the country and happens upon a mobile phone base station. The station buzzes with energy and information and within a short while he has been 'zapped' by the information and can read peoples text messages, hear peoples phone conversations and traverse the flow of information itself.. The birth of an entity no one ever thought could exist but all the while was laying dorment, waiting for its chance/The displacement of knowledge and power and human natures reaction to such...

Contact

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To contact Pip directly send mail to: sayhello (at) pipwilson (dot) org

To contact Digita from thegrainsilo send mail to: digita (at) thegrainsilo (dot) com

To contact The Giraffe send mail to: contact (at) avinagiraffe (dot) com

Photo Portfolio

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A selection of my photographs taken both in the UK and Australia..

About Pip..

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A tech obsessed geek with a penchant for good music, good films and good times. I have a number of different projects on the go at the moment and this site is an attempt at chronicling and recording them.

Pip Wilson

Codemonkey get up, get coffee...

Tech: Discussing Chrome OS with William Wright

Tech: Discussing Google Wave with William Wright on Radio Lincolnshire

Geek: Project Wave Pt III complete, mission accomplished!

Geek: Project Wave Pt II complete

Geek: *Waves* We are LIVE in The Lounge

Film: Local Independent Film Night at The Jolly Brewer

Tech: Some thoughts on Google Wave

Tech - The rise of Netbooks

Music - SomewhereBetweenACliche AndAMonkey 2 track ep reviewed

Film - Blood: The Last Vampire

RSS and News Aggregation

My Top 5 Android Apps

My thoughts on the G1 and Cupcake

Shits and Giggles; Pip gets a personal blog

The Lounge

Project Page

Come wave with me

My Bookmarks

Downloads

The BASE project/BASE Birth of TowerBoy

Contact

Photo Portfolio

About Pip..

Geek: Waves We are LIVE in The Lounge