that canadian girl

Latest adventures…

  • The end of an era (sort of)

    Hard to believe that today was my last day after nearly two years at my current job. It was a good two years, if a bit rocky by moments (ie. being made redundant then taken back on board with a different role last year amongst other things) but I’ve learned truckloads and met some fab people.

    Now, I’ve got three days to wind down, attempt to chill out a bit before The Great First Day at The New Job. Some people say I should’ve taken a few days just to have a gap between the two, but 1. I’m too curious, can’t wait to start and find out what it’s all about and 2. I’d end up being restless at home!

    It was a nutty week, so I’ll make the most of those three days (read: catch up with some reading, sleep lots, slob around in comfortable clothes) and then on with the new job!

    For now, I need an early night.

  • Driving test: PASSED

    A few weeks ago, I introduced my wonderful new little Ford Ka, but what I failed to say is that it was a great big giant incentive to get my ass in gear and get my British driving license. Yep, I’m 25 and still didn’t have one. Yep, I’m rubbish!

    So this morning, I made my way to Cowley Rd test centre, feeling much more prepared and at-ease than I would have ever dreamed I would be two months ago when I booked my test. Still managed to rack up 9 minor faults, but all in all, I’m pleased with the results.

    For the record, if any of you are in the Cambridge area and dreading the idea of doing your practical driving test, I strongly recommend giving Malcolm at Mallyn School of Motoring a call. I usually love a good ol’ challenge, but driving was one I just couldn’t face in the past, but I felt at ease the moment I met my instructor. I’ve met instructors who were pervy, some who were shrinking violets, but Malcolm’s an all around great guy.

    Lessons were two hours at a time, and it worked much better than one hour lessons, where you hardly have the time to get into your groove and the lesson’s over! Cowley Road is an immensely sucky test centre, especially with the awful construction that’s been going on for over a year (!!!), but I felt thoroughly ready to cope with the chaos of it after my 15 hours of lessons.

    So yup, goodbye L plates, you won’t be missed. Now I just need to find another learner to pass on the Hazard Perception CDs and the Learner books onto!

    [Edit: Yes, it was a first time pass!]
    [Edit #2: I just got back home and gave my Ka a hug. It deserves it for being patient with me. Andrew does too.]

  • Full vs partial RSS feeds

    Looking at my RSS feeds last night, I had a count of how many of my “Marketing Favourites” folder were full feeds and how many were just excerpts. As it turns out, only two of my top 15 feeds are using excerpts in their feeds, one of which “doesn’t really count” because it’s really only linking to the post accompanying a podcast.

    I came across Feedburner’s Rick Klau’s comment about partial feeds. He says:

    First of all, I think the primary justification often given for partial feeds – that it will drive higher clickthroughs back to the publisher’s site – is off-base. As people subscribe to feeds, they subscribe to more feeds. And that means they’re consuming more content, which means that each click out of the feed reader is taking the reader away from more content. In other words, feed reading is consumption-oriented, not transactionally focused. We’ve seen no evidence that excerpts on their own drive higher clickthroughs.

    So in summary, partial feed = greedy site owner and no real benefits to the readers.

    RSS iconRSS feeds have been created to make it easier to plow through the mountains of information we want to assimilate every day, and partial feeds are a significant hurdle to that. If 13 of my 15 favourite feeds are full feeds and only two use excerpts, is it possible that, unconsciously, that factor played a role in my decision to “upgrade” these feeds from the enormous Marketing folder to the Marketing Favourites one?

    By knowing I wouldn’t have to waste time clicking through to their site and would be able to read the posts while away from an Internet connection or during the routinely web downtime we’re getting in the office these days, these full feeds have made themselves more valuable.

    David Churbuck points out that full feeds are also beneficial to Chinese readers, who may be able to read the RSS excerpt but not read the full entry on wordpress.com, for example.

    What gets me even more than people posting excerpts only, forcing you to get out of your RSS reader (or at least in the case of NNW, open a new tab), is those who stick advertising at the bottom of their excerpt. Advertising in my feeds feels dirty.

    But then, this happens in feeds that belong to companies unscrupulous enough to put so many animated ads within their actual website that it makes my brand new Intel Mac’s fans rev up (and my 16 months old Powerbook hit 100%), and makes me go cross-eyed while trying to read the site’s actual content. But hrmm… that’s one for another post though.

    Am I missing any perfectly justifiable reasons to use excerpts?

    [Via The Wrong Advices]

  • Why I prefer Mac

    Ctrl-Alt-Del cartoon - Windows XP vs Windows Vista

    More Ctrl + Alt + Del cartoons

  • Warning: Blogging can result in losing your job or…

    You know how they always say “Watch what you blog about, you might get dooced?” I was never one to really listen to that nonsense, and felt blogging was a great outlet for personal woes and tales, as well as professional or work-related riffs.

    No, don’t worry, I’m not about to tell you I got fired over something I said on my blog. (Though it’d be a shot at 15 minutes of online fame!) Quite the opposite in fact.

    Five years of standing on my soapbox babbling on about everything and nothing has served an unexpected purpose, as I’ve just been offered a job as blogger for a new and exciting mobile product launching soon. Whodathunk, unh?

    I’ll have more to say about the company itself over the next few weeks and months, but first, I must wrap up work and pack up from Active Hotels, where I spent the past two years doing business development, on-site and email marketing, for better or for worse. I’m leaving behind a great bunch of people, but I’ve learned a whole lot in those two years.

    It’s been a week since I’ve announced it in the office, yet the upcoming change is starting to really hit me now that I’m telling the outside world.

    I have my fingers crossed that this change on the horizon will be a great one. It feels like the right time to be cracking into some new projects, and to be able to scratch two things from my living to-do list in one shot isn’t a bad job!

    A few last thoughts via hugh’s cartoons:

  • The Apprentice: What a bunch of incompetent twits

    I’ve just finished watching last week’s The Apprentice where Alan Sugar set the two teams the task of making as much money as possible in a single day, giving them £200 as starting funds.

    The girls decided to do face painting, which is a ridiculous idea outside of town fairs and birthdays, and then moved on to kissograms in the evening – a real class act! They made £65 profit.

    The boys did some garden maintenance (how much must equipment rental have cost?!), followed by a singogram service ’round the pubs. They made £189 profit.

    For god’s sake, they’d probably make more money panhandling or selling the Big Issue on a street corner!

    I think it’s disgraceful that these are the best businesses these supposed professionals could think of. A single day of trading or running an affiliate site online would probably make them loads more than the measly amounts they made, but even baking cookies would make more revenue and be less embarrassing than resorting to kissograms!

    I’ll probably watch The Apprentice until the end of the season now, just to see whether it gets any better. Hopes are low…

  • KT Tunstall's Big Black Horse with samplers

    I know I’m going a bit heavy on the videos these days, but this is just too good not to share. KT Tunstall is great, she’s such a REAL artist, and I think this video shows it again.

    Lone woman on a stage, yet you’d believe me if I said she was accompanied by a number of other musicians if you closed your eyes. Enjoy!

  • Colours that stay longer – Brother Innobella printer advert

    So British…

    By Duval Guillaume Antwerp for Brother Innobella printers [Via Adverblog]

  • Cadbury Creme Eggs

    Since we’re all still feeling the stomach ache from eating one too many chocolate Easter bunnies, this sugary topic is particularly suitable…

    I’ve never been that keen on the Cadbury Creme Eggs, but the envy takes me around once a year (I always regret it afterwards). However, yesterday on Digg, I came across a video from the Conan O’Brien show, where The Office’s B.J. Nowak busts Cadbury’s claim that “the eggs haven’t gotten smaller, you’ve gotten bigger!” See for yourself. Wikipedia also refers to it.

    So sure, it’s vaguely funny, harmless fun, and to be honest, the less sugar people eat, the better.

    While this product is completely trivial, what company thinks it’s a good tactic to lie outright to its loyal customers by saying on its website that it hasn’t shrunk the eggs?!

  • I ate all the ice cream

    I must publicly apologise for eating all the Skinny Cow “Truly Lovin’ Toffee” ice cream this evening. Otherwise Andrew will take my blog down again and display the following message:

    “Sorry, thatcanadiangirl.co.uk is offline temporarily as Vero ate all of the toffee ice cream. It will return as soon as she makes it up to me.”

    Sorry, I was too busy paying attention to David Tennant and Martha Jones, followed by John Barrowman and Andrew Lloyd Webber (pick the ugly one out of the four…)

    Proof that you shouldn’t mess your other half around (especially when they know web shites better than you do!)