Mathew Cropper

Settling In

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 12:13:00 -0800

This week I moved back up north. Here are some photos of us settling in and wandering around the Northern Quarter for a bit. More to come ;)

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Books what I am selling

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:27:00 -0800

I'm moving house. Whilst packing it became painfully clear that I still have a load of books that I don't want, haven't read, and don't intend to read. For that reason I'm selling them, but not before you fine folks have chance to get first dibs.

Books are all used, some more than others, and may have writing in them. I'll be honest, though; I didn't take my studies too seriously, so the books on language and grammar are likely to be only very lightly annotated.

I cannot promise that the Blair Years won't bore its next owner to tears, and Danny Wallace is sickeningly perky in Follow Me.

Here's a list of books. If you want them, let me know. Pay what you think it's worth (plus postage of your choice).

The Times, Top 100 Graduate Employers 2006-2007. Probably completely useless now, right?
Coffman Crocker, French Grammar Fourth Edition (Schaum's Outlines).
Danny Wallace, Join Me.
Alastair Campbell, The Blair Years. My bookmark made it as far as page 47 before I got completely bored and stopped.
Michael Gerber, Barry Trotter and the Shameless Parody.
Pountain and De Carlos, Practising Spanish Grammar: A Workbook. Hardly touched and can't actually tell whether I've opened this book before. Clearly, my Spanish grammar is appalling.
Muñoz and Thacker, A Spanish Learning Grammar. I wrote my name on the inside cover. That's all.
Butt and Benjamin, A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish Fourth Edition. As above.
Hawkins and Towell, French Grammar and Usage Fourth Edition. This one has been opened.
Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching Third Edition. This is, in fact, a very good book. If you're looking to do a TEFL / EFL course, this is a good one.
Griffiths, Before You Go: The ultimate guide to planning your gapyear. I didn't even want to go on a gap year. Lord knows why I got this.
DeLuca, Best Answers to the 201 Most Frequently Asked Interview Questions. I have never asked, or been asked, any of the questions in this book.
Shavick, Psychometric Tests for Graduates. I failed the mathematics psychometric tests twice at PwC. Not sure how good this book is.

Will add more to the list as I continue to clear out! Enjoy.

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Christmas Carol CAPTION FAIL

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 02:36:00 -0800

via youtube.com

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TELEVISION ADS AT CHRISTMAS SONG

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 02:31:00 -0800

via youtube.com

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Print - What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447 - Popular Mechanics

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 01:00:00 -0800

Print Close

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/crashes/what-really-happe...

via popularmechanics.com

A really fascinating read.

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Friday dressing is making me ill

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 04:33:00 -0700

I'm pretty certain that my slight illness has been caused by seeing this advert too many times. Who is this even aimed at?

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Find My Friends / Apple ID Issue

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 21:57:00 -0700

There are loads of posts on support forums and kicking around the web about not being able to log into FMF as it won't support the Apple ID that people have. I had the same issue, and here is my workaround.

On my iPhone 4 I have two accounts set up. One for the iTunes store (someemail@personaldomain.com) and one for iCloud email/contacts etc (someemail@me.com). I was trying to use FMF with the someemail@me.com address but kept getting an error telling me that my ID was incorrect and that it must be verified.

Solution: Go to appleid.apple.com and click the link to manage your ID. Log in with the ID you use for the iTunes store and, when you are in there, add in the other email you wanted to use with FMF. You will be sent a verification email to that address.

Once you have done that log into FMF using your iTunes store account. Hopefully it should work and it will have any invitations/requests filtered through as well as your email is now linked.

In my case that meant that I had someemail@me.com as my primary email and someemail@personaldomain.com as the secondary email on the iTunes store account. The invitations that had been sent to my iCloud (someemail@me.com) account showed up just fine.

[link to the support thread I looked at]

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Since the move to iCloud

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 21:33:00 -0700

iCloud is out there and people are using it. If you're anything like me (ie. you like a good moan) there are a few niggling issues with the overall service. Let's see if you agree.

The most annoying thing for me is that I had a MobileMe (an @me.com email) account prior to iCloud coming along. As a result I cannot use an @me.com email address as my iTunes account.

The result is that I must now run two iCloud accounts on all of my devices. One for iTunes (music, movies, apps) and another for email, contacts, calendars etc. At first glance that's lousy implementation but not the end of the world.

It gets complicated when you look at apps like FaceTime, iMessage and Find my Friends. At the moment they too will only allow me to use my iTunes iCloud ID. Why does this annoy me? It annoys me because my second email account is the one backing up my data to the cloud, meaning that I now have SMS and iMessage backups to two different cloud locations. Complicated.

It's also annoying because I can have my @me.com (which is one of my iCloud logins) email address added as a secondary email on my iTunes iCloud account (are you lost yet?!) and receive notifications to that! How are they working this stuff out?

Before putting this live Apple really ought to have found a way to merge these accounts. Having multiple accounts, with mixed up primary and secondary emails, is just confusing. I am not going to understand where all of my data is and which accounts I'm using with which applications unless I sit down and draw out a diagram.

Anyone else sharing the same frustrations?

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Happy with your bank?

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 02:34:34 -0700

See the full gallery on Posterous

Love the new campaign by First Direct. It's splashed all over the tube and the Metro today.

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Winning most sexily

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 05:11:04 -0700

I think the photo speaks for itself, really.

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Is your CV out and proud?

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 06:07:00 -0700

This week I nearly went for a job at Microsoft. In the end I decided against it, but it did give me a decent enough reason to update my CV. It's been a couple of years after all and was missing tonnes of stuff. A buddy reviewed it for me and I was taken aback by his feedback.

At Accenture I'm involved with our LGBT network and sit on the committee, and so mentioned it. Whilst the firm I work for is very progressive in terms of addressing LGBT needs I am proud of the work that the LGBT network does (eg. Stonewall WEI, LLGFF).

The feedback surprised me:

Oh and the LGBT stuff always sits uncomfortably with me - do I care? Don't give the employer a reason to discriminate either actively or subliminally.

Maybe I'm living in a bubble, or maybe I'm ridiculously lucky to work for an organisation that values its LGBT credentials, but I sincerely thought that having something like this on my CV was an asset, not a threat to how I would be perceived.

In the end I chose to keep it. Any organisation that wouldn't have me based on that fact alone isn't one I would be happy working for anyway.

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iCal in OS X Lion: All charm, no substance

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 07:00:00 -0700

Lion, Apple's most recent version of OS X in case you've been under a rock for the past few weeks, brought about a tonne of changes. I was particularly keen to get my hands on Mail and iCal as they are the most oft used applications on my machine and also the two with the greatest number of feature improvements to be had in terms of my own workflow.

I'm not going to talk about Mail here. I have a feeling that people will do that one to death amongst the journos. No, instead I'm going to have a moan about iCal.

SAY SOMETHING NICE FIRST

OK, so I should start with something nice. I know that a lot of people aren't keen on the UI overhaul but I don't mind it. It makes a nice change and in full screen the app is pretty nice to use.

I especially like the Create Quick Event functionality that lets you type in something like "Dentist at 2pm on Monday" and the calendar entry is created for you. Being able to do this is nothing that hasn't been implemented by others in their software before, but it's nice to see it made its way into this version of iCal.

Additionally, the act of inviting others to events is clean in that it will look up against your Address Book contacts as you type. This probably isn't new, but I never used to do this before so mention it anyway. It'd be nice if it looked up against your recent email contacts, who may not be in Address Book, as well.

See the full gallery on Posterous

TIME TO DO BETTER

Sticking with event invites here, this is my biggest problem with iCal. Take a look at the screenshots below.

In order to add someone to an event you throw in their email address and they receive an email with the yes/no/maybe type links you would expect. These send you to a web page where you are told that you have accepted (or otherwise). If you accept you get a link to a downloadable ics file to add into iCal, Outlook or whatever.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? A downloadable ics file? What an ugly, ugly user experience. For a start, what happens if I'm using a web client for email when I accept the invite (as I was here)? Outlook Web Access will not allow me to upload the calendar invite, so now I'm stuck and have to remember to do it when I get to my PC. Of all the ways to implement this functionality, was this really the best?

I'd be keen to hear from anyone in enterprise who uses OS X regularly. How do they get around these process flow / interoperability constraints?

See the full gallery on Posterous

Sharing calendars is no better. If you want to invite specific people, rather than make the calendar a publically available feed, they must be MobileMe subscribers to do that. Not part of the Apple ecosystem? Screw you.

CONCLUSION

iCal definitely looks nice and has some good tweaks. In terms of its core functionality, however, I'd say Apple still has a way to go before they get this right. Since my first Mac 6 years ago email and calendaring have always been the most awkward bits of the experience and, years later, I'm sorry to say that I still find myself disappointed.

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Behind the design: Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 11:02:00 -0700

via behance.net

Great piece on Behance about the Arc Touch Mouse, which I think is a really nice piece of design. I must admit, I have never used one, but the way it works is nifty.

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Leaving Facebook: Marmite for the masses

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 04:19:00 -0700

Google+ is not a Facebook killer. That is almost certain.

In terms of functionality, Facebook clearly does more. The majority of your friends are probably already there, and you'll have been amassing content for years. My first wall post was back in Nov 2005, so that's half a decade of photos, status updates, comments, friendships made and friendships lost.

So why on earth did I deactivate my account? I just don't like Facebook. It's as simple as that. I won't go on about privacy (the next major corporate will be as bad as the last), spam (I think I blocked just about every application going) or UX (bleurgh). The functionality that Facebook has (and Google+ does not have) is the key differentiator now that many of my friends are moving over, and frankly that (groups and events) is funtionality I didn't use or particularly care for anyway. Now, this pissed a few people off.

The most common annoyances

How would they invite me to events? Well, the same way they do now; I never see their invites on Facebook and need to be messaged, emailed or given a telephone call like the good old days.

How would they invite me to their amusing groups? Their groups aren't half as aumusing as they think they are, and I never join them. Diddums.

How would people find me in future? Google my name. You'll find me. Besides, my Facebook profile was locked down to the point of madness and I wouldn't have been found in the search results anyway.

Calm yourself down

Deactiavating your account isn't the same as deleting it. All of my data is still there, you just can't see me any more. If this little experiment, and that's what this is, doesn't work out and I can't survive without seeing your account get fraped one more time then I will come back. I hope that doesn't happen, though.

Also, I'm not leaving Facebook to go all out on Google+. It is just convenient that a lot of my friends are on there now, and this tipped the scales in the decision-making process. As I said before, Google+ isn't a Facebook killer and I don't see it as such. It's just enough functionality to do what I want to do without it being Facebook. That'll do nicely.

The data

Before deactivating my account I downloaded my data. After a short wait Facebook spat out all of the photos, wall posts, friends etc associated with my account since it opened. There's a nice little HTML page that lets you browse it all in a simple and clean way. Even if you aren't deleting your account you should download this handy little Facebook time capsule.

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Posterous: Defaulting to 'post by web' rather than email

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 01:13:00 -0700

Posterous, the post by email blogging platform, has made an interesting change. Not sure when it happened, but it represents a significant shift in attitude.

On many Posterous sites you will find the Posterous Bar somewhere at the top of the page. You can disable this in the markup of your site by removing the relevant HTML. When active and the user is logged in the bar gives instant access to key features like being able to manage posts or settings.

The bar has always had a green post button, which would fire up your default mail client. Makes sense given that Posterous is big on email. Personally, I was never a fan and found myself navigating through the menus to get to the web posting client.

Now, however, that same button now defaults to the web application for writing posts.

This represents a big shift in attitude, moving Posterous away from one of its key USPs- email. Of course, you can still post by email, it just isn't the default option when trying to post from your site.

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Three albums to own, one to explain

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 23:45:00 -0700

I recently downloaded three albums, all of which are fantastic, and all of which you should listen to as well if you haven't done so already. They are:

Two Door Cinema Club: Tourist History
Delphic: Acolyte
Phoenix: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

I have not downloaded anything by Bon Iver. Can someone please explain to me what the big deal is?

FIN.

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The Conservatives: Why I became a paid up member and why the left is kicking itself whilst it is down

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 05:37:00 -0700

It's funny. I have never been an overly political person. I did not join any political societies at university. I have never canvassed door to door for any MP.

I have, however, consistently voted in all but one election (I was living abroad and failed to plan) since I was old enough. I voted based on my local candidates' positions on things that were important to me or my community. Sometimes that has seen me vote Labour, sometimes Lib Dem, sometimes Conservative.

Over the last year I have become more and more disillusioned with the politics of the left. This is not purely because of their policy and direction, or more accurately the perceived lack of either of those two things, but mainly because of their party membership and activists. The attitude of every single Labour party member of my acquaintance is the same: bullish, unable to listen to any point of view that goes against their own, unwilling to entertain other ideas.

The left, and in particular Labour supporters, have driven me to the point where I would be unwilling to vote for them again. Why? I would not trust them in government, be that national or local, with such an incomprehensibly closed mindset.

The crazy thing, and the thing that will rile said supporters the most, is that I have consistently had very reasonable, open and frank discussions with Conservative supporters. I have found that my MP, Mark Field, has listened and acted on my concerns when I raised them with him.

This is where the left has left itself. In my view, and I stress that this is my own view, the Labour party specifically has suffered by hardening its support following the election defeat and becoming closed minded, whilst also [arguably] having an unclear policy direction. It appears unreasonable without any just cause for being so, and as a consequence the right now appears very, very reasonable. If Labour wants to win power in the next election, and if the Lib Dems want to have another crack at it, they desperately need to address this culture amongst their supporters.

The Conservatives appear so reasonable, it seems, that I have been willing to part with my cash and support them directly. A dig at the left? Perhaps, but more than that a sign of support for the party that has against the odds come to be the most rational and best engaged.

I'm very much looking forward to what you guys think. To the comments, folks!

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Ting Tong

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:27:00 -0700

via fotolog.com

This originally said "Ting Tings Tonight" but I rearranged it to say "Ting Tong".

Flicking through my old Fotolog is fun.

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Circuit Festival 2011 Official Promo

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 13:23:00 -0700

via youtube.com

Hilarious. Quite sure this is quite squarely aimed at the groins of the G in the LGBT. Whether any of the other letters will be enamoured with this I'm not sure!

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Things you just can't make up: Ex-Lehman chief risk officer appointed World Bank treasurer

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 01:59:00 -0700

June 25, 2011
Ex-Lehman chief risk officer appointed World Bank treasurer

by Gill Montia

Story link: Ex-Lehman chief risk officer appointed World Bank treasurer

The World Bank has appointed Madelyn Antoncic as its new vice president and treasurer.

Ms Antoncic served as Lehman Brothers’ chief risk officer from 2002 to 2007 and following the collapse of the bank, stayed on for a year as managing director and senior advisor at the Lehman Estate, helping to maximise value for creditors.

Having begun her career as an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, she has worked for Goldman Sachs in various posts (including head of market risk management), and for Barclays Capital, before joining Lehman Brothers in 1999.

In her new role, Ms Antoncic will be responsible for maintaining the World Bank’s standing in financial markets and for managing an extensive client advisory, transaction, and asset management business.

She will also lead seven Treasury business lines as follows: the Capital Markets Department; Investment Management Department; Pension & Endowments; Quantitative Risk Analytics; Treasury Operations Department; Banking & Debt Management, and Sovereign Investment Partnerships.

Commenting on the appointment, World Bank Group president Robert B Zoellick, says: “Known for her forthrightness, I am delighted Madelyn is taking up this important role.”

via bankingtimes.co.uk

There are no words. Seriously.

Hat tip to @ribeiroc for pointing out this article.

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