It’s my duty as Canadian to post today and wish all fellow Canucks, in the homeland and abroad, a wonderful, sunny, lively Canada Day. I’ve been away from home for quite some time and won’t be doing much partying, but I may have to cook something involving maple syrup tonight.
Have a good one!
Credits: Image by Just-Us-3 on Flickr
The wonderful team at Wikio gave me a sneak preview at the July rankings for the UK Tech blogs. Amongst the ranks are some of the usual suspects and, just off-the-podium, yours truly coming in at #29 30 this month - up by a smashing 81 places from last month!
Fingers crossed you’ll see That Canadian Girl in the Top 20 next month. 
| 1 | dot.life | = |
| 2 | TechDigest | = |
| 3 | gapingvoid | = |
| 4 | Coolest Gadgets | +1 |
| 5 | TechCrunch UK | -1 |
| 6 | The Guardian Technology blog | = |
| 7 | The Red Ferret Journal | = |
| 8 | xlab | = |
| 9 | Technology Blog | = |
| 10 | Speckyboy - Wordpress and Design | +2 |
| 11 | jkkmobile | = |
| 12 | E-consultancy News Blog | -2 |
| 13 | BlogStorm | = |
| 14 | Dial-a-Phone | = |
| 15 | Wonderland | New |
| 16 | hicksdesign | +2 |
| 17 | NevilleHobson | -1 |
| 18 | Gizmodo UK | +1 |
| 19 | confused of calcutta | New |
| 20 | Simon Willison’s Weblog | +1 |
I’m a bit torn.
Poke, a digital agency in London, created this funky campaign for Orange mobile’s Pay As You Go tariffs - you know, the raccoon, camel, canary and dolphin balloons? Yeah, well, if you see a camel called Vero fly by, don’t adjust your medication - it’s just me floating by.
The campaign involves floating from one website to the next, in a StumbleUpon random-new-site manner, using your air canister to boost yourself along. You pick up stars, more air canisters and rainbows along the way. All this nonsense for the sake of an Ibiza holiday for the winner.
It’s cute, it’s entertaining, but my one gripe is that the entire site was developed as a gigantor Flash animation. I’ve been known to whinge about Flash before, and I’m just not a fan of sites that have no deep-linking or easy ways to navigate. Plus, it makes my Mac whirr itself into a frenzy!
But I just can’t help it, I keep on travelling! So go on, Boost my Camel, baby!
Quick post to tell readers that things do happen up here in Cambridge, interesting things!
Cory Doctorow is a blogger, science fiction writer and journalist. He is an editor of Boing Boing, the 11th best blog in the world (according to Time Magazine). He was the 2006-2007 Canadian Fulbright Chair in Public Diplomacy at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy. He founded the software company Opencola which was later sold to the Open Text Corporation. He also writes regularly for The Guardian newspaper
Cory will be speaking for one hour at 5:30pm on July 22nd 2008 at
ARM, 110 Fulbourn Road, Cambridge CB1 9NJ.Robinson College, Grange Road, Cambridge, CB3 9AN.
If you’re thinking of coming to Cambridge for this, get in touch and we’ll make an evening of it.
When designing a new site feature or planning a new campaign, I always create with a rule of thumb in mind: “Lower cognitive friction and make it as effortless as possible for the user to participate.” Less fields in the signup form, less clicks to a destination, a better FAQ page…
Then I heard Ted Hunt from Innocent Drinks, during Fuel Conference on Friday, who talked about the +400,000 hats that were knitted during The Big Knit campaign for the Age Concern charity.
Knitting. Four hundred thousand hats.
Nobody’s getting paid to do this, and some participants even learned to knit specifically for the occasion. That’s when it struck me; far more important than reducing friction to participation is engaging the community so that they’re willing to do something crazy - like knitting hats - to support your cause.
“Someone just knocked on the door to deliver a parcel, kids shouted “Dad can you sign, we haven’t got signatures yet..”..funny, v funny!”
- Kevin Dixie, on Twitter
Doing my usual news browsing while having a morning coffee and trying to wake up, I came across a video of Rory Cellan Jones making a clown of himself doing something I’d expect a 5 year old to do with ease. He was evaluating the benefits of the “new idea” that is the milk bag, as an alternative to glass bottles and plastic pints which are the norm in the UK.
First off, Rory, I’m not sure what kind of bizarre contraption you bought but if you’d bought a straightforward milk bag jug, like the one on your right here, you would have been done in about 3 seconds flat.
Step 1: Put milk bag (which in my lifetime, I’ve rarely seen leaking) into the jug.
Step 2: Snip the corner of the bag by holding the very corner and using scissors or these tiny fridge-magnet bag clippers.
Step 3: Pour the milk into the glass.
Step 4: Drink milk.
It’s far from new, it’s been the most common way to buy milk in Canada for my entire 26 years of life. The milk comes in a bag of 3x 1.3 liters transparent bags, and the best part is that these milk bags make the sturdiest lunch snack bags ever afterwards and create a hell of a lot less waste than bottles or plastic containers.
So it’s happened. Saint Jobs announced the Second Coming of his child, the Holy iPhone.
Like Ben, I sat in front of my MacBook watching MacRumors, TUAW and Cali Lewis liveblog and report on the Keynote. Unlike Brian, I wasn’t mad (or privileged) enough to attend the Keynote at the Moscone Center, in SF.
Keynotes are a bit like circus acts. The event is rehearsed to the second, we all watch and wait with bated breath for the grandiose final scene, wondering whether anyone’s going to fall flat on their face along the way. While the keynote was light on substance, the short of it is the new iPhone hardware includes 3G, GPS, and there are a number of software changes - MobileMe particularly appeals to me.
However, the biggest change isn’t in the physical device. It’s all in the perception. Last time around, Apple was looking for early adopters, geeks and IWOOTs* to test-run their product in a giant, live usability testing session. Now that they’ve been able to watch us use the device, it’s time to reach out to the normobs with lower upfront costs. While the tariffs are still in the upper end of the scale, unlimited data makes it completely worthwhile.
As an existing user, I’m grateful that under O2’s reign I’m not given the “brand new customers only” treatment. I can upgrade without getting stung for breaking my contract. All first generation owners shedding their skin in prep for the Second Coming means there’ll be a number of orphaned first-generation iPhones floating around. Mine, for example, will most likely find a new home with my father-in-law, Roy. I’m curious to see what the trickle-down impact of giving second hand iPhones to unlikely buyers like Roy will have on the profile of future buyers.
I think Apple will continue to own marginal marketshare, because the iPhone remains too expensive, too complex and too closed for most, but it’s about to take a significant leap ahead. Are you jumping with me? Or kicking back and shaking your head at the fangirl* that I am?
[* Def. IWOOT: “I want one of those”, otherwise known as saddos like me who can’t resist the latest gadget, even at exorbitant prices.]
[* A fangirl who began supporting Apple back in 1986 when it definitely wasn’t cool to own a Mac!]
[Cross-posted to the Taptu blog]
A few moments ago, I subscribed to the 4mations “Keep me updated” mailing list, out of curiosity of what it’ll turn out to be (how did I get there anyway?!)
I’ve got a past in email marketing so even though that subscribing should, in theory, be fine, I hesitated. I’m aware of how dodgy or how careless/naive some senders can be - recently, it took me a battle with an agency that shall remain nameless before they acknowledged that I’d requested repeatedly to be unsubscribed, so things like that peeve me off.
But I subscribed. And it was immediately followed by the familiar green tick mark from Campaign Monitor confirming I was subscribed.
And you know what? I definitely had a fuzzy feeling inside thinking “yup, I can trust this sender. Even if they write total rubbish, I’m confident I can unsubscribe, should there be a need.” I bet you I would’ve bypassed the hesitation had the subscribe field been accompanied by the Campaign Monitor tick. Think that could help increase subscriptions or give users confidence?
What brands do that for you? What logos give you the confidence to hand over money, personal details or your precious time?
It’s Sunday and I’ve got tons to do, but I couldn’t help taking a break to make some yummy homemade chicken nuggets. These were inspired by a Sainsbury’s recipe I found a few years ago when they started making these tiny meal ideas cards you can pick up on your way out. It’s evolved a bit since, getting tastier every single time we have them.
The chicken nuggets are as healthy as you want to make them, and leave plenty of room for creativity - and whatever you have in your cupboards.
Ingredients
Let’s get cookin’
Turn the oven on to 190 degrees celcius and find yourself a baking tray. Mix the yogurt, lime/lemon juice and mint/coriander and set aside in a bowl.
Put your stale bread, crisps, Parmesan cheese and spices into a food processor and whizz to turn into breadcrumbs.
Now, time to start the action chain. Take your pieces of chicken, dip them into the herbified yogurt, then into the breadcrumbs. Cover with breadcrumbs and press the mountain on top of the chicken to make sure it’s well covered. Put the piece down on the baking tray. Continue until you’ve done all the pieces.
Put in the oven and turn after about 10 minutes. Usually, I leave them in for about 15 minutes, but all depending on the size of the pieces and the mood your oven is in, you may need more or less. Just cut one piece in half when you suspect it might be ready, and for Dog’s sake, don’t leave them in til they go dry! 
Enjoy with some Fiery Guava sauce or some fresh yogurt and mint sauce. (Just don’t reuse the one you used to cover the raw chicken in, that’s not good for you!)
What’s that I hear you say? Om nom nom nom! That’s right!
Jack getting comfy in my towel on this lovely Sunday morning.
Taken outside the office this morning, we just couldn’t resist. Find more funny om nom nom nom pictures here
Recently, a friend of ours, Simon, moved to Over, just North of Cambridge, UK. He was moving to a lovely property, with a nice garden and a pond.
Simon wasn’t so keen on the pond though. It’s not very child friendly, and with two young ones running around the garden, he thought it would be safer to get rid of it.
A few buckets and hours of sweating later, Simon lifted the pond lining to discover a laminated piece of paper sitting at the bottom of the gaping hole that once was the previous owner’s pond.
Go to Flickr for the larger image
Whoever created this, come forward. You’re weird and you’re funny. And you’re creeping the hell out of us!
Thanks to those who linked in to this post:
(and here)Update: For those who don’t want to read the image, here’s the full text. I waited for someone else to type it up, since I couldn’t be bothered - I think they call that crowdsourcing?
10th July 2003
To whom it may concern:
If you are reading this then I can only assume that you have removed the pond under which this note was buried.
Of course, as I am not around at the moment, I am not in a position to comment on why you may have chosen to remove the pond and, it is fair to say, that there could be any number of reasons for doing so. I will not try to list those potential reasons right now but there could be quite a lot of them. One of the more bizarre reasons could be that the removal of the pond was the direct result of a bite on the ankle from a Wildebeest, but I shall not speculate.
Anyways, I would like you to be aware that the digging of this pond and it’s subsequent filling with water and stocking with fish and aquatic plants took a considerable amount of personal effort. It’s not just the digging of the hole you know (although clearly that is a major part), but also the consideration that had to be given to the sitting of the pond, its shape and size, its location close to a convenient electrical supply, etc etc etc.
I have to admit that I am a bit miffed about all this. You have just destroyed (yes, I know its a strong word to use but there are principles involved here) something that took me a long time to do. If I came along and destroyed something that it had taken a long time for you to do then I think you would be a bit miffed as well, so just think on that.
Enough of this. Just get on with what it is you think you are doing, you snivelling pond destroyer.
Oh, and by the way, I hope your head falls off.
More funny stuff on That Canadian Girl:
Earlier today, I saw Jim Louderback, CEO at Revision3, tweeting that there had been an outage at Rev3 this weekend and he could now shed light on the issue. Honestly, I hadn’t noticed the downtime. I’ve got Diggnation, The Totally Rad Show and Web Drifter being drip-fed into my iPhone (via iTunes sync) and watch the shows when I’m on the train/tube looking for something to do. I’ve also got a total school-girl crush on Alex Albrecht, which makes the show all too easy to watch, but I digress…
I expected the downtime to be Twitteresque in its incapacity to deal with our adulation and traffic. However, Jim’s story shows the issue they faced this weekend was a whole more serious.
In a nutshell, Revision3 exploits the fantastic peer-to-peer system that is BitTorrent to distribute its shows. Rev3 hosts the tracker, but doesn’t have to take the weight of every single download. It makes technical sense - the Rev3 crowd are technologically up to date and love BitTorrent. It makes business sense - Jim doesn’t have to put quite so much of his revenue towards more servers just to cope with the peaks of traffic, he can count on the distributed network. And it fits right in with the attitude of the Rev3 shows, irreverently addicted and up to date to the latest technology.
Jim writes… “But someone, or some company, apparently took offense to Revision3 using Bittorrent to distribute its own slate of shows. Who could that be?
Along with where it’s bound, every internet packet has a return address. Often, particularly in cases like this, it’s forged – or spoofed. But interestingly enough, whoever was sending these SYN packets wasn’t shy. Far from it: it’s as if they wanted us to know who they were.
A bit of address translation, and we’d discovered our nemesis. But instead of some shadowy underground criminal syndicate, the packets were coming from right in our home state of California. In fact, we traced the vast majority of those packets to a public company called Artistdirect (ARTD.OB). Once we were able to get their internet provider on the line, they verified that yes, indeed, that internet address belonged to a subsidiary of Artist Direct, called MediaDefender.”
MediaDefender was the one hitting Revision3 servers with a Denial of Service attack. (Read Jim’s post for details on who MediaDefender is and what denial of service attacks are. I’ll skim over that bit.)
According to my eye witnesses, MediaDefender received a less-than-warm reception at South by SouthWest when Randy Saaf, CEO at MD, took part in a panel on “How Piracy Will Safe the Music Industry”, where the legitimacy of such a service was questioned by the audience and fellow panelists.
Revision3 is out there, showing off BitTorrent in a good light, using it for legal and completely legitimate purposes, and in comes MediaDefender, like a bull in a china shop, crushing their servers. It’s naive on Revision3’s part to fail to keep a closer eye on their trackers and letting MediaDefender inject their torrents unauthorised for such a long time, but it doesn’t justify MD’s backhanded and disgusting behaviour.
Jim chose his words carefully and expressed the issue very clearly - For this, I’m very grateful, as it exposes MD as a total fraud blindly attacking legal and illegal services.
It’s hard enough being at the cutting edge of any technology without needing twisted organisations like the RIAA, MPAA and Sony hiring online hitmen to destroy perfectly legitimate of technology! I’m not personally a very active BitTorrent user these days, but I’m livid about this.
I hope that Jim, the Revision3 crew and all other technophiles making legitimate use of geekery like BitTorrent see this as a rallying call and an opportunity to educate people. There’s too much good technology out there to let old technophobes in their ivory towers dictate where we can go with it.
Woke up this morning to discover I’ve been described as a SOB by a fellow blogger - a Successful and Outstanding Blogger. Liz Strauss regularly publishes her list, which I really enjoy readging, so it’s an honour to be added to it.
Thanks Liz, and most of all, thanks whoever you are faithful readers since 2004.
South by SouthWest, Future of Web Apps, Future of Mobile, Fuel Conference, Mobile World Congress… Yes, I love conferences and, most of all, I love meeting new people.
Coming up soon is Being-Digital, a conference organised by the Mashup* events crowd, and I’m going along with Bob Last, from Taptu, who’s going to be speaking alongside with some other great speakers and entrepreneurs.
Being cheeky as I am, I asked the organisers whether I could extend the invitation to attend the conference to the Taptu blog readers. I now hold one precious ticket, worth £325, and I can’t wait to give it out!
So take part in the competition to win the ticket by creating a video, showing off some pics or leaving a blog comment telling us about the most unputdownable gadget ever.
I’ve got a goooooooolden ticket, come and get it! And see you at Being-Digital on the 10th of June, right?
Hilarious dance moves for this Summer’s Britvic Drench campaign, produced by Clemmow Hornby Inge.
Summer has officially landed in the UK. Not a single cloud in the sky and scents of burnt barbecued meats wafting around. Oh and plenty of people also burnt to a crisp, based on my supermarket observations this morning.
Every BBQ must be accompanied by appropriate drinks. To me, that means a great big pitcher of cold, juicy sangria. After last weekend’s humongous BBQ/Garden warming party where pitchers of it were drunk faster than I could make it, I thought I should share my (not-so) secret recipe.
Ingredients:
For this recipe, don’t worry about using your best bottle of vintage red. A reasonable supermarket’s own brand red wine will do the job just fine. We tend to use Shiraz, since it’s less heavy than, say, a Merlot.
When getting lemons and limes, leave them out of the fridge the day you make sangria and roll them around under your palm before cutting the fruit. You’ll get much more juice out of them that way.
If you’re expecting to be on a marathon drinking session starting with a lunchtime BBQ, you might want to lighten up the recipe with more juices to avoid feeling woozy too early in the day.
Alternative recipes:
White sangria:
Substitute red wine for white wine, use apricot brandy instead of cherry brandy for a lighter, tannin-free sangria.
Cava sangria:
Substitute red wine for a bottle of Cava or sparkling wine for a celebratory, bubbly sangria.
Bellini sangria:
Using red, white or sparkling wine, replace brandy with Archers peach schnapps and put in pieces of soft, juicy peaches instead of lemons and limes. This makes a less acidic, sweeter alternative to the classic sangria recipe.
Looking for more great summer cocktails? Check out Cocktail Happy for loads of great, easy drinks recipes!
