The fantastic site of Lord Matt

Addicted to facebook and working hard.

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 15:46:06 -0400

I never thought I'd actually say this but I've become addicted to facebook (and twitter) and working really hard. I've been going non stop pausing only to get a few moves in on my favourite facebook games.

The plus side is that I'll have some interesting things to talk about soon but the down side is I'm getting far too little practice at posting more than 140 characters. What to do?

Do you ever have bouts of social media addiction?

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The things in your garden are, in fact, still mine

Sat, 4 Jul 2009 06:01:56 -0400

I encountered one of the craziest things yet while doing the big gardening project. Copyrighted flowers!

In their natural state plants and animals exist with the ability to reproduce themselves. Flowering plants do this by way of seeds which form after the flower has faded (so long as a few conditions have been met). Some plants divide and spread and most gardeners are aware with the idea of taking cuttings from a plant to create a second plant in a different location.

However it seems that the law would like things to be otherwise.

Of the plants in the newly planted 8.5 meter a number come with a "peer seat" limit. It's called Plant breeders' rights

Let me be clear. These are plants that were paid for along with all the others but which without making it clear at the time of sale are licensed to the gardener and not sold. My friend does not own the flowers in his garden.

So if the plant produces seeds as plants are want to do they belong to someone else. If it splits or spreads by itself then he has broken the law and if he encourages the plant to duplicate he has also broken the law.

In effect the flowers that were sold were also not sold. They do not belong to the gardener but have all sorts of restrictions.

This is quite limiting for a gardener. If the plant suffers badly and is, say, starting to rot at the root I would take cuttings and replant later in the year (or next year) but with the copyrighted flower I can only (legally) watch it die.

This is a bit like Microsoft selling self replicating programs and saying don't replicate them. That's the whole point of flowers surely?

The above images are cropped from the regular photographs and are of a low image quality just in case that right is owned too.

Don't get me wrong - I can understand that plant breeders might want to earn some cash from their efforts but the nature of the restrictions is just silly. A far better system would take it's cues from, say, Creative Commons - after all we are talking about a creative act and what you want is fans (fanatical followers) rather than bound up consumers... or maybe plant breeders are just kinky.

Sooner or later you should be able to track this topic via: MattsBigGarden

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What is it with socks?

Wed, 1 Jul 2009 04:11:39 -0400

What is it about socks that makes them the most irritating thing on the planet?

In about an hour I finally get to go see a dentist so that (maybe) I will be in less pain when it comes to Midweek Beer. However in this hour (aside from blogging) I must find some socks.

My socks currently exist in three distinct groupings.

1. Dirty and awaiting washing
2. Wet and being washed/dried
3. In a pile of singltons without a partner

All I want to do is put my socks and shoes on and go catch a bus. Why must socks be so silly?

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2GB Memory Stick Free with .asia domains.

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:30:49 -0400

From July 6, to Oct 6 2009, new .Asia domains with minimum 2 year registrations will be eligible to receive a FREE tablet size 2GB memory stick, compliments of the .Asia registry.

While I'd like to claim that it was all me and try and say that you must register through me this is not the case. I'd like you to register through me though because then I get to pay myself a wage.

Why would I want a .asia domain

Well, over half the world's population live in Asia (56.3%). Currently 17.4% of that huge number are using the Internet. That's about 657,170,816 people which amounts to 41.2% of the worlds Internet users. By the time 100% of Asian users are on line the market place will be 3,780,819,792 people (over half the world). [source]

One TLDn to SEO them all.

In case you've been living under a rock you have two basic ways of getting a slice of the Asian web traffic.

1. Host in the country
2. Have a country specific TLDn (.asia)

For bonus points and powerful SEO try both.

Right now the Asian market is just starting to blossom but the vast majority of the sales folk in America and elsewhere are chasing home traffic or are still trying to carve the US into ever smaller niches. Many Americans, for example, would love to get into the EU (the .eu names are just $1 next month) but frankly, my dear, you are going to need some help there. Once in, of course, competition is scarce so you could really clean up (talk to me about breaking into the UK market).

Buy now or pay later

While it's true that there are 387,420,489 possible 6 letter combinations of the 26 basic letters and dash (-) the vast majority will be gibberish. There is already massive hardship getting a good .com and they have less than half of the world's population chasing them.

Even assuming that ever possible 6 character domain name is used that's roughly one domain name to every 10 Asian people.

Let's be honest the .asia domain name space is going to get crowded. This freeby could be just the right offer to tip the balance of value in your favour.

Find your perfect domain name now

Why would I want some nice free portable storage?

Because it is (a) nice, (b) portable and (c) Free. Gee - there is no helping some people.

So, in addition to a classy .asia domain name you will get a 2GB memory stick. This is completely free.

Here is the deal. You must register for a minimum of 2 years (max of 10) any new .asia domain name. After the five day "grace period" (which allows you to return the domain no harm, no foul) you will be sent an email which will direct you to the claim site.

There you will need to enter your code and fill out the form. Just as you would expect. You need to have your claim in by about the 2nd of November or it will expire and you will not get a nice freeby.

What are you waiting for? pop over to domains.lordmattandyou.com and take advantage while the offer is still hot.

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Social Widgets 3.0 facebook not needed.

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:38:18 -0400

It's time to take things to a conclusion, I thought, it's time to start stitching the threads of my social action online into a single page that I control (sort of).

While Twitter and Facebook fight it out as the most appropriate lifestream one thing many of us are forgetting is that all our eggs are ending up in only a few baskets. When linking to something it is vital to own that something. That way if twitter, facebook, MyBlogLog or whatever you use take a disliking to you, go bust or worse just block you for no rational reason - you want to still be in business.

That's why blogging will not die that fast.

However all the cool stuff happens on the social sites.

That's why I started the MyWall project. It's not ready to roll out yet (beta testers need to be members of LordMattAndYou.com) but I have looked at other ways of getting that data to an end user.

Hello widgets, hello fully controlled "wall". No all you need to do is set up a PHP/C/Ruby/ASP based OpenID under your own control and you have a fully portable beginnings for a social profile.

I'm calling mine MattBook. The first load can be a bit sluggish but after that it's not too bad. Maybe it's not ready for the prime time but it aint far off.

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shortcut and cut short - geek hell is html.

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:29:51 -0400

I've been playing around with URL shortening and text wrapping under HTML.

Th first was easy the second was a cross browser nightmare. here's the skinny on wrapping very long words. The word wrap issue only came up as a minor presentation point while working out the look and feel of the URL shortcut page.

Ah, geeking thy name is irritation...

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From 84 to 222 by feed - so have I made it then?

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 05:54:35 -0400

It appears that I have finally gotten past the 100 readers mark. Or have I?

Maybe I had always passed it and only now is the true figure showing. So what is the story and how much better off are we?

Those are my feedburner figures for the Fantastic Site of Lord Matt. When I started this blog I had nothing but a cool domain name and some vague hopes of hitting the dizzy heights of 100 feed reading followers. Back then that seemed like a true stretch goal given that I had never blogged in any serious way before.

I have been creeping up on that number for some time stuck in the high 80's shooting into 90's for a while when some rare readers switched on their feed readers for a change.

What has changed is that Google (who own feedburner) have started reporting Google reader figures and friend feed figures. Look:

See the two real big slices - friend feed and Google feed reader.

So what does that mean. Sure it adds my friend feed follower count to the social proof in the side bar and could be a boost in the upward direction but do I have any more eyeballs than before? (Probably not).

Has the bar been lowered as to what counts as a reader?

For example I subscribe all sorts of people in friend feed but I log into it once a month or less. I use it most often to feed my own activity to the Lord Matt Borg twitter account. Do other people use friend feed as an indi-facebook and do those people actually notice my headlines?

Many questions and hopefully the likes of Andy Beard and your self will give the topic a good thrashing out. Now's a good a time as any to leave a comment even if you have to leave friendfeed or Google feed reader to do it.

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Sir Tim Berners-Lee to advise UK Prime Minister

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:00:30 -0400

Gorden Brown has pledged tougher sanctions for MPs guilty of misconduct, including the power for constituents to recall MPs.

Telling the house The current system of sanctions for misconduct by members is not fit for purpose and does not give the public the confidence they need that wrongdoing will be dealt with in an appropriate way Brown is suggesting a code of conduct for MPs.

Good.

Better yet, for a geek like me Brown has invited the inventor of the World Wide Web himself to help the government "do it right".

And so that Government information is accessible and useful for the widest possible group of people, I have asked Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who led the creation of the world wide web, to help us drive the opening up of access to Government data in the web over the coming months.

Brown is also talking about changing something that I felt was truely criminal - that you would pay taxes for up to two years before you could vote. In the UK you could be taxed from age 16 (younger if you count VAT) yet you can not vote until 18. Under new proposals the voting age will be lowered fixing the British issue of taxation with representation.

Riots and revolutions have taken place over less so I feel this could not happen soon enough from a justice-for-all point of view.

on the cards is a complete reform of the House of Lords (at last), a written constitution (the absense of which Brown called extraordinary) and even more freedom of information whatever that might actualy mean. Certainly Royal Family and Cabinet papers will not be included in this extra free information flow in the UK.

And Mr Speaker, democratic reform can not be led in Westminster alone. Rather it must principally be led by our engagement with the public. It cannot be top down. That is part of the lesson of the last month. The public want to be, and should be, part of the solution. So we must build a process that engages citizens themselves, people of all parties and none; of all faiths and no faith; from every background and every part of the country.

Read the full speech here

It's about time too on almost all points but is this too little too late?

NICK CLEGG'S RESPONSE
Nick Clegg welcomed Browns deathbed conversion from, as he said, the man who has blocked change at almost every opportunity for the last twelve years.

David Cameron seemed to think it was all too late calling for an election saying isn't the real change we need not really much of an innovation at all? Isn't the answer to our discredited politics, to our disillusioned country and to our desperately weak Government a General Election? but, on the other hand, he was in favour of the suggestions saying There is much in this Statement that we support and claiming that they were mostly all his ideas anyway.

Everything is normal in London then.

So what do you think of these proposals?

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Facebook: It's alive! Go get your name.

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 15:09:52 -0400

Yes, in accordance with prophecy, you can now get an SEO helpful facebook URL. Quick, go grab yours before... yeah, whatever.

Alternatively you can own your own domain name and fully control every page on it.

Of course facebook pages have... erm, that is... they... oh heck, I guess they are not as good.

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A green and multi blog post.

Mon, 8 Jun 2009 12:03:31 -0400

Lord Matt is off to Ramsgate to help give a garden a make over. We have just under two weeks to complete this task and I will be blogging on all blogs about it.

This is probably the first ever full cross blog topic I have attempted. I think it can work too. There has already been a gardening post on Thanet Star so I might have to post an overview of the entire pan blog posting when it is all over.

That said have a look at the garden.

No not the clear bits - these bits.

It's been dumped upon heavily during a refit of the kitchen. It's not all this bad (the lawn is clear, if somewhat prone to overgrowing).

Yes that is an exercise bike and no, I have no idea why it is out there.

Death awaits those that mow here. This is what happens if you mow the cable of the mower. I hasten to add that I was not mowing at the time.

Look out for more and feel free to share your stories of fun in the garden. I'm off to work again.

UPDATE: Look for posts tagged: MattsBigGarden for updates.

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