The Wrong Domain
Saturday, March 13, 2010 ~ No comments yet
For a few years now I’ve randomly been checking the WHOIS records for the mclean.co.uk domain, and throughout that time it’s sat there, holding nothing but adverts and any attempt by me to contact the owner with a view to purchasing said domain for a “reasonable” fee have fallen on increasingly deaf ears.
Yes, it’s pure vanity/ego at play but I did have plans to offer email addresses to my entire family (and a few cousins too) so it wasn’t entirely unselfish. My Mum and Dad have done a lot of genealogy research which was something else I had toyed with hosting under that domain name.
And now, it’s gone. Bought (for a stupid fee no doubt) by a record company.
I’m a bit pissed off about the whole thing to be honest.
Yes I know the person who originally bought the domain name was entirely within their rights. Yes when you visit this very site you will see that I have adverts here although I’d counter that with the small fact that I provide content as well (even if the quality is rarely all that high), and yes he didn’t have to sell it to me just because I wanted it.
I get all that.
It’s just… well, it’s fucking annoying. Alright?
Never fear though as I have a cunning plan. I’m going to find a domain name that no-one has yet bought, purchase it and change my name! Ha ha! That’ll teach those annoying domain squatters.
Yours,
Gordonisawesome (c/o www.gordonisawesome.co.uk)
All is not me
Thursday, September 17, 2009 ~ 4 comments so far
Having my iPhone not quite working properly over the past few days made me realise just how hooked into the ‘online world’ I am. I think I have a good balance though, it’s not like I spend all day staring at screens of information, cherry-picking things I’m interested in, things I might find useful in the future, or things that I think others might want to read.
Because if I did that, then I’d probably (knowing myself as well as I do) have to have a system or two in place to cope with that “information overload”.
So, for example, I might use Instapaper to track blog posts that I want to read later (either from the website or using the iPhone app), or articles that might feature in the ISTC newsletter column I write. I would probably be monitoring RSS feeds to find the articles or blog posts, checking for things for either personal perusal or professional pondering, or perhaps I’d be using a Twitter client on my iPhone that supported Instapaper to capture some of the links that people post there.
I could use del.icio.us to store links to useful bits and bobs that I might want to refer to later on, and I may even use Tumblr (which I could also use on my iPhone) as a means to capture those items of digital detritus that zip past me every day.
Of course it wouldn’t ALL be about consuming information, I do produce some things myself and if I wanted I could use Flickr to host my photos (and maybe use the excellent Flickit app for my iPhone to upload photos as well), not mention the not inconsiderable amount of waffle I’ve posted to a couple of the blogs I’ve setup over the years (I don’t just blog, I write, and tell tales).
Speaking of waffle, if I really wanted to have an outlet for the randomness that all of this information prompts in my head, I guess Twitter would be the place for that, and just because I like to be organised I’d probably set up a separate Twitter account for my professional ramblings as well.
And to make sure I’m properly organised I would need a calendar and a way to track my tasks (both at work and at home).
I’d probably use Google Calendar for appointments and as Remember the Milk have an excellent iPhone app, I guess it would make sense to use that service to track my tasks. Similarly I’d probably look to Simplenote to provide a central place to store snippets of useful information, and they too have an excellent iPhone app which, considering I have my iPhone on me at all times, would be very useful.
Of course that would all be just too much hassle to deal with and make me look like I’m some kind of geek that spends his life connected to the internet, whereas I actually spend most of my time sleeping, eating, reading books and partying.
Honest.
Ill Communication
Thursday, July 23, 2009 ~ 5 comments so far
Twitter is changing. Whilst the technology is the same, the way it is being used (or perhaps the way I use it?) has been slowly evolving.
Evolution is a good thing, but that does mean that I now find myself evolving how I use and interact with Twitter.
Maybe I need to slim down my followers list and remove those that are only making noise.
I include those who have endless conversations between themselves, for me that’s just noise.
Hashtags present another issue, whilst they can be useful they are now used in other ways which add to the noise.
I’m worried that I’m actually considering the categorisation of some Twitter posts as “types of noise”, but maybe that is what is needed?
Whilst I can use apps like TweetDeck to filter out “types of noise”, it would be better to have opt-in than blanket messaging?
But then, that’s not Twitter, is it?
I’m really not complaining about Twitter or those who I follow, although a little self-policing would help.
After all, what happens when you put 100 people in a room mostly talking to themselves?
Taking a break
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 ~ 1 comment so far
I’m in the midst of a hectic, hectic week so I’m taking a wee break from this here blog. I’ll be back at the weekend. (Of course I won’t be completely silent)
Until I return, here is a picture of Oll-E doing what he does best and what I’ll manage little of in the coming few days.
Flipping Context
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 ~ 4 comments so far
At work I’ve spent the last couple of weeks mired in planning spreadsheets, shuffling chunks of information around from here to there, from that to this. It’s the kind of work that needs to get done whilst in the full realisation that it’s a bit of a drag. But, as my Mother says “You can’t always get what you want”, well should have had my mother been Mick Jagger and, let’s be honest, if Mick Jagger was my mother then it’s unlikely that I’d be blogging about spreadsheets.
Instead I’d be blogging about the fact that I was a medical marvel, having been given birth to by a man.
That’s not to say I’m NOT a medical marvel, just that I choose not to talk about THAT THING that makes me SPECIAL (you mere mortals wouldn’t understand, so don’t ask).
So there I am, sitting at my desk, an endless series of spreadsheets full of words and numbers in front of, watching as they spin and float off the screen just like they would in a big Hollywood movie full of special effects.
But hey, it needs to get done.
And then, at home, I’m busy being creative, having just finished off a website for a client and in the midst of reworking design mockups for another.
It’s a bit of a head fuck to be honest, and I find myself taking far longer than usual to get my mindset to change.
However, that’s nothing new, I always have had a bit of an issue switching context and know that it takes me a few moments for my brain to re-engage and have tried several strategies in the past, none of which work.
Until now.
Believe it or not, the noise and chatter of Twitter really does help me make that switch. Going from a rote, line by line, formulaic piece of work, to the small and digestable chunks of randomness that is my Twitter channel, allows my brain to break away from the previous context and very soon I’m able to tackle something more creative. I’ve not tried it in reverse mind you, but certainly the effect of checking in with Twitter seems to allow my brain to relax.
Does that mean I don’t value Twitter, that I pay less attention there? Perhaps, or perhaps it’s the fact that the cognitive load on my brain is different, and the switch to reading 140 character tweets helps reduce that load and allow other areas of my brain to kick in. Sort of like shifting to neutral before picking a lower gear in your car so you can accelerate past a car.
Anyone else use Twitter the same way? As a stop gap between different types of work or task?
And, whilst I’m asking, why DO you use Twitter?
P.S. My Mother is not on Twitter, neither is Mick Jagger.
P.P.S. If you really want to know about why I’m a medical marvel, ask. I’m sure I can come up with something…
Evil Pharma
Thursday, April 16, 2009 ~ 3 comments so far
Like a lot of people, myself included, Louise is almost always on a diet. Last night, whilst I was watching the football, she was on the laptop surfing her way around some diet websites and blogs and stumbled across one called Sandras Diet Secret.
The site was written by a local lady, from our home town, and her most recent blog post was about a drug that she had found that was really working well for her. So far, so what, right?
Well apart from the small fact that the pictures that “Sandra” was using, showing herself before and after her amazing weightloss – all thanks to a wonder drug, don’t forget! – weren’t of “Sandra” at all, but of the lovely Shauna Reid. The same Shauna who came along to one of the first Scottish blogmeets I organised, the same Shauna whose blog I’ve read before she even ventured to these shores, the very same Shauna who makes dieting both funny and uplifting in her book The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl
After some investigation it turns out the entire blog is fake, in fact it isn’t a blog at all, it’s a single page with faked comments, which inserts a ‘recent’ date at the top of the page and uses a script to match the IP of the visitor (you) to make it look like it’s being written by someone in the same local area. The drug is called ThermothinPlus, and all the links on the website point there.
This is the first time I’ve had firsthand experience of something most of you, my dear readers, already know. That you cannot simply con your way to having a good “online presence”, that blogs take work and effort, care and attention, and that, ultimately if you cock something up or try to con us we WILL find you out.
Similarly to the recent #amazonfail shit storm (and yes I did try and start a little hashtag storm) it highlights the new world that we live in. One where there are still mistakes made.
The optimist in me hopes that people are still learning how to operate in this new world, and that’s on both sides of the fence. I hope that when contacted directly, the people who make the drug which has the fake blog promoting it, one which deliberately tries to trick people, will realise some of the errors of their ways.
There are many examples of this happening, it does happen.
The pessimist in me sees something shiny and bright being dulled and spoiled by, what is largely, the few. The large corporation will do what many large corporations do, even if they don’t consider themselves “evil” they will still talk their way around such things, or point the blame inwards at a faceless department that will look into the matter.
There are many examples of this happening as well, it does happen.
The difference, today in this new world, is that these things happen a helluva lot faster than they used to, the likelihood of getting caught out is exponentially higher and once that happens, word travels fast.
Obviously I’ve not linked to the fake blog, nor the drug website itself here. I don’t want to send them any traffic at all (go on, humour me in my one man boycott (ohhhh new domain!?)) but for the rabidly curious amongst you: sandrasdietsecret dot com and sandrasdietsuccess dot com.
The drug in question is called ThermothinPlus, and they do have a very smart marketing campaign full of “doctor reviews” and even, allegedly, mentions on CNN and the BBC (no links to said programmes though). The whole thing smarts, in my opinion, of a very slick scam based around a gullible and desperate target audience, making it very very sleazy. But, that’s just my opinion, I’m sure you can all make your own, and I’m sure you ALL know better than to buy drugs from the internet without really knowing what is in them (aka, never trust what you read on one website).
Related links:
Informationally Overloaded
Monday, April 6, 2009 ~ 6 comments so far
Those of you who have been reading for a while will recognise the title of this post, as it used to be the name of this blog. Then I realised how naff it was and dropped it when the ‘one man’ stuff was borne.
The phrase itself remains particularly apt, probably more so than when I first used it and, with reference to the exponential growth of Twitter, it is coming back into prominence. Social media applications, and the use thereof, shows no sign of slowing. This is a good thing because I firmly believe that social media applications (think Facebook, Twitter and the like) can be useful to many and the basic model of all of these things is based on the premise that “the more people that use them, the more valuable they become”. Which, of course, is (sort of) in direct conflict with those of us fighting information overload.
Of course, we only have ourselves to blame, as the bulk* of the online information we digest is driven by either opt-in or by deliberately choosing to monitor or follow a particular thread of information. This point is crucial. If you feel you are being overloaded by the amount of information you are choosing to receive to parse, be it by RSS feed, email, or directly from a website, then you can choose to reduce that load.
Twitter remains a bit of a mystery mind you, every morning I gain another follower or two, sometimes based on a product name (hello Dyson Airblades) and sometimes on a completely random basis. Or at least I assume they are random because I don’t recognise the person following me, nor do I recognise their website (yes, I do check profiles in case it’s just a username I’m not familiar with) and, as of yet, there is still no easy way to find this out. I’m presuming that this is the same for everyone, and it is just the usual clamouring for ‘Friends’ that so many people seem to think a good thing to do.
Each new social media application brings with it yet another raft of gurus trying to exploit and harness the “wisdom of the crowd” for themselves in a hope of forcing a “Tipping Point” even if their idea isn’t “Made to Stick”. What they don’t get is that this is not just another marketing bandwagon to jump on, not this time. The phenomenon of social media and the way it allows people to connect can be very powerful, but the important piece thing to understand isn’t the fact that people all over the globe are connecting, but because it’s PEOPLE that are making the connections.
The opt-in model is still the most powerful part of all of this, ensuring that those people who are passionate about a product or service can seek each other out and share their thoughts and ideas. Over to Matt Haughey who suggests that companies should:
make awesome stuff that gets people excited about your products, hire people that represent the company well, and when your stuff is so awesome that friends share it with other friends
Twitter continues to be the buzzword of the moment, the numbers rise and more connections are made. I glad to say that I am benefitting from being on Twitter, something I wasn’t sure of even a few months ago. Particularly as some of my peers are now on there, posting ideas and links to articles of interest to my profession. The iPhone is a boon for such things, particularly as Twitterific and InstaPaper to keep a track of “to read” articles and blog posts (Twitterific has built-in Instapaper bookmarking capabilities).
So whilst I’m not blogging here, or on either of my other two blogs, you can find me on Twitter, or read the links I post to my Instapaper account, browse the random things I find and post to my Tumblr account, or keep an eye on the websites I bookmark using del.icio.us. You can see my photos on Flickr, and see what music I’m listening to on Last.fm.
It’s a bit scary seeing all of my online data listed out like that. What’s even worse is that I do have an RSS feed that monitors them all… talk about information overload!
* I’m aware that many social applications (or whatever we are calling them today) generate a lot of email notifications, but again, you can usually either turn them off or, you know, opt out of that application.