that canadian girl

Category: Blogging & Online Media

  • Look, Ma! I'm in The Guardian!

    Tom & Jerry article in The GuardianYes, that is correct. I found out last night I had been quoted on page TWO of the Guardian newspaper. Of course, completely baffled why that could be, I ran down to Sainsburys in the rain and picked up a copy.

    It turns out Ben Rooney, who writes the Today on the web feature for the Guardian and picked up a selection of comments about the Tom & Jerry smoking ban, and mine is the top quote! Click on the thumbnail to read the full feature.

    I always say that journalists who quote bloggers are journalists who didn’t do their homework and are getting last-minute sources online, but in this case, thanks for not doing your homework, Ben! 😉

    Thanks to Glenda from Corrieblog for pointing this out to me, as I probably would’ve missed out on it altogether otherwise.

    Being a blogger and getting recognition, however small, in the traditional media is quite a boost for the morale. I doubt it’ll bring me any more readers or make even the remotest of differences, but it still feels great.

  • I want to meet a spammer

    I know it might seem odd, but we get so much spam, day in, day out – Howcome we never speak to anyone who’s job it is to create this spam? Granted a lot of it is automated, but certainly, someone’s looking at the new ways spam filters are catching their emails and deciding how to develop the next batch?

    I want to get into the head of a spammer. Understand what they’re doing, how and why. Figure out how they introduce themselves at their wives’ work Christmas party. Maybe “I work in accounting” is actually code word for “I send millions of spam emails a day”?

    Might sound completely random but as someone who works in (fully legitimate, I might add) email marketing, it’s a Dark Side that we are taught to consider as the scum of the Earth, but I’m hopelessly curious. I mean, where do you find job ads for spam authors? “Spam author wanted for v1@gra sales – minimum 1 million emails sent a day” Seriously, I’d completely respect the anonymity of a spammer if they contacted me and let me pick their brains a bit.

    [Disclaimer: No, I’m not looking to move to the Dark Side, mom. And no, I’m not looking to use spam techniques for our newsletters, boss. It’s sheer curiosity of a hidden side of the Internet.]

  • Do you del.icio.us?

    If you don’t, I’m not in the mood to explain what it is, so visit the site and figure it out.

    But if you do…

  • If you suffer from insomnia

    Gapingvoid.com

    [From Gaping void via Think Vitamin]

  • Latest Shiny Shiny entries

    I forgot to link to my last few articles written for Shiny Shiny, so here they are.

    This week: Be Safe, Part II: Woman looking for man, lots of money, nice car, washboard abs
    Last week: Be Safe, Part I: When Good Scams Go Bad
    The week before: Get it while it’s hot – Apple introducing movies to iTunes?

    Go on, it’s Friday… Go leave a comment then head to the pub!

  • How to ruin your day in one easy step

    This sounds like the alarm clock from hell.

    Clocky the annoying clock“Hit the snooze button on this carpet covered Clocky and it will scoot off on its pram wheels, seeking out a suitable hiding place (which will inevitably be right under the bed). When your snooze time is up, Clocky’s alarm will make merry hell under you, panicked and disorientated, locate its hiding place and switch the alarm off.”

    I don’t use the snooze button much (usually set the alarm for 6:45am, and get up at 6:50 when the first snooze ends), but it doesn’t sound like a nice way to start the day. Might as well wash your face with hot chilli oil and brush your teeth with toilet cleaner while you’re at it.

    Plus it kind of looks like a poop on wheels, which can’t be a selling point, really! 😉

    [Found via Katie at Shiny Shiny]

  • GTD Slacker Drowns in Own Disorganisation: Community Devastated

    In late 2005, out of desperation and after a few months of feeling like I couldn’t make head nor tail of the JCB-loads of projects I had on, I ordered and read David Allen’s Getting Things Done. I’d first heard of it from some truly zealously organised people and I thought if I could gain a tenth of their organisational skills, I’d be well ahead and leaving the pile of mud I felt I was on. [For those unfamiliar with GTD but curious, here’s the basic workflow chart.]

    Some months on, I’ve had flings with just about every productivity software for Mac, web-based or else. Quickly running through them, this is what I thought of them:

    • Thought I’d be brave and start with the paper low-tech version, as David Allen had given me the urge to leave fiddly technology behind and just throw everything on paper as soon as it crossed my mind. As it stands, I type a lot faster than I handwrite, and I’m much less likely to let my laptop dissapear below stacks of invoices, printed spreadsheets and other desk junk, so I deemed it best to keep it on my computer’s desktop if there was any hope of me keeping this up.
    • Having used Basecamp as a single free user before, I thought I’d give it a second go, hoping GTD would help me make better use of it. Not bad, but seemingly I’m a slightly forgetful idiot, and I would slack and forget to log in for a couple of days, letting the more random selection of tasks take over again. Nowadays, I’m a light Basecamp user for work purposes and for shared tasks with others, but not as productivity tool for myself.
    • Next I went for the other extreme, the complex kGTD: Kinkless GTD harnesses the power of OmniOutliner Pro to become a hefty productivity tool. Unfortunately, I started spending more time organising kGTD and playing around with it than working, which was completely counterproductive. To put it simply, I was worrying about the cup rather than enjoying the coffee.
    • I tried the classic text file recommended by so many users as a low-tech option, but it just turned into an immense disorganised list, causing me to forget priorities by just going top-down through the tasks.
    • At the moment, I’m in a steady relationship with Mori, which I’m sure I could use it as more than a glorified stash of text files. But I’m also having an affair with DEVONnote, though we’re still just flirting and I haven’t figured it out yet.

    So I’m still hopping around, looking for the ultimate app. I came across the demo for Thinking Rock, which seemed structurally so tightly organised based on GTD that I couldn’t go wrong, but haven’t yet installed it or played with it beyond looking at their demo. It’s not visually the most pleasing thing I’ve ever come across but it looks like it’d do the job.

    What I need from a GTD app:

    • Easily throw ideas to be processed as they happen (brain like a sieve means everything needs to be written immediately) so that the inbox of ideas doesn’t distract me any further
    • Good structure of multiple projects
    • Forcing me to deconstruct projects into tasks rather than think it’s too much hassle to break it down any more because it’s fiddly to do so
    • Good archiving of old done tasks, for when I start doubting myself about whether something was done or not and when (brain like a sieve… Is there a theme here?)
    • Hopefully, good looking and easy to use

    What are your GTD apps or techniques of choice? Any advice for a slacking GTD user?

    I do feel I’ve gained in mental organisation and planning from the book and its concepts, as well as from reading the blogs of some true GTD geeks. I’ll follow with another post of my top GTD/Productivity tips, but leave me yours too!

  • Shiny Shiny's new tech columnist

    Shiny ShinyI’ve been itching to tell you about this for a while, but wanted to keep it under wraps until it was really happening. But now, I can officially say it – I’ve started writing for Shiny Shiny: A Girl’s Guide to Gadgets.

    First post about women and gadgets went live this morning, so have a look and tell me what you think! And have a look at all the funky gadget reviews on Shiny, there’s some good stuff in there.

  • Spamtastic emails

    Just a quick note to let you all know that if you happen to get any spam that seems to come from an email address from my domain, let me assure you it isn’t from me. Some sneaky f*cker has been using my address as return address for some medication-drug-related spam.

    So there’s nothing much I can do other than reassure you all that I haven’t been so desperate for money that I’ve jumped into the dirty dirty world of spam.

  • Blogging turns on the red light

    PayPerPost.comIn a vaguely insane post-holiday attempt to catch up with all the new stuff in the RSS feeds I read regularly[1], I came across this article by Andy Beal, from Web Pro News, announcing the launch of PayPerPost.com.

    The basic premise of Pay Per Post is as follows:

    Advertisers pay to post details about their “opportunity,” specifying, among other things, how they want bloggers to write about, say, a new shoe, if they want photos to be included, and whether they’ll pay only for positive mentions. Bloggers who abide by the rules get paid; heavily trafficked blogs may command premium rates.

    Now, I have no problems with the idea of plugging someone’s product or service on your blog. Even getting paid for it in goods or cold hard cash can be alright. What concerns me about Pay Per Post is that the blogger generally does not need to disclose that they’ve been paid.

    Maybe I just need to lock myself at home and live in a little world in my own head where everyone has morals and no one can be swayed by money. Otherwise, looks like Mr. Beal and I will have to learn to cope with bloggers prostituting themselves even further.

    —
    [1] For your own sanity, I highly recommend following my friend Mat’s advice, “Just mark them all as read when there’s too many”, because attempting to scan through every new item is causing me to go cross-eyed.