Afterthought

Why you need to keep your feet moving…

Sam — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 15:18:08 +0000

A Woody Allen style pep talk from the creator of This American Life.

Tim Lilley Fundraising

Sam — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 17:48:22 +0000

My latest project is now online: a re-designed recruitment site for Tim Lilley Fundraising (TLFC). New features include a password protected area for employees, accessibility standards compliance, and (without being too self-congratulatory) a much improved design and layout. You can see the new site at www.tlfc.org

Tilt the balance

Sam — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 17:56:13 +0000

Global Witness have recently launched a new campaign aiming to recover the £50,000 cost of their recent court case against the son of the President of the Republic of Congo and build up funds to help them fight future cases of gagging orders and libel tourism. I helped create some of the graphics for their website. You can see full details and make a donation at http://www.globalwitness.org/pages/en/ttb.html

Google Sites available on Google Apps

Sam — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:55:59 +0000

I received an email from Google a few days ago informing me that they now offer their Google Sites suite to users within organisations using Apps. No doubt a useful innovation for some, however it does leave you wondering just how far Google is going to extent its product line. Is there really a need for another contact management system or WYSIWYG browser based application? Synergy between products is great, but only if each product actually meets a real demand or significantly improves upon an existing platform – so far I’m not convinced that Google Sites does either.

Free backup with Windows Live SkyDrive

Sam — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 01:12:15 +0000

This is something I missed completely until recently logging into my (almost dormant) hotmail account. Microsoft is offering free online storage space to every windows live user - up to 5 gigabytes. Great for doing the odd personal backup as I’m sure they are packing some pretty redundant hardware.

Still Life

Sam — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 16:46:19 +0000

Last weekend I went to see Jia Zhangke’s Goldern Lion winner. It tells the story of two people caught in the maelstrom of China’s breakneck development. The film is set in Sichuan’s Three Gorges which is soon to be flooded. In terms of plot not much happens, but then maybe that’s the point. Still Life is a raw unsentimental experience. I liked the way it dealt with the reality of migration and technology without overstated empathy - oh and it looks incredible. Still Life is showing at the BFI Southbank until the 28th of February.

Web Trend Map

Sam — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:08:03 +0000

Some nice work by Matt Gerber based on the Toyko train map, check it out.

Google Apps vs. Microsoft Exchange

Sam — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 17:05:47 +0000

I’ve migrated all our mail from MS Exchange to Google Apps and so far I’m extremely pleased with the results, here’s why:

My entire mail archive is now properly searchable, 10,000+ messages from the past four years, so no more slow trawls through Outlook. No need to perform backups. Increased storage, I don’t need to delete any old mail. Better spam prevention; Google’s spam software seems to actually work. I can access my mail remotely using Gmail – by far the best browser based email application. Now Gmail has IMAP support I can use Thunderbird or Outlook. Much lower cost (free for non-profits).

Of course there are disadvantages. One of the largest being privacy: Google now has access to an awful lot of my personal information. The decision to switch requires a real investment of trust in the Googleplex. You can read more here.

Cool innovation from…Microsoft?

Sam — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 15:55:58 +0000

When not making money Microsoft are busy acquiring very interesting software technologies. Photosynth is based on Seadragon technology; it creates multidimensional spaces by effectively ‘synthing’ together digital photos. Combined with Microsoft’s Virtual Earth it provides an insight into how social media can be used in a really exciting way.

Inside the congo

Sam — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:25:23 +0000

This is one of the best pieces of multimedia journalism I’ve seen in recent years. It’s produced by photographer Marcus Bleasdale for MediaStorm. You can see the 11 min report at http://mediastorm.org/0022.htm