Ok, so it's the middle of the night, I can't sleep because I have a cold. I've not done any of the things I wanted to do this week. It truly sucks ass and could easily be one of the worst holidays ever. I've been in bed for 2.5 days now and I'm not much better - 4.5 days if you count the weekend but that was because I went out on Friday :).
But, rather than moan and get down about it, I've decided to write a list of all the positive things to having a cold while on holiday.
1) I can lie in my giant, warm bed working my way through every episode of Friends without feeling guilty or like I should be doing something better.
2) I don't have to justify to anyone why I spent my whole week off doing the above.
3) I feel hot and cold at the same time - it's strangely pleasant.
4) I keep hallucinating, which is amusing. I saw an advert for Nationwide whilst watching the England game that said 'proud sponsors of the England Team'. I misread that as 'proud sponsors of the England Netball Team' and laughed at how stupid they were...
5) I have absolutely no desire to venture outside where I would get cold and wet.
6) I don't have to go outside for food / tissues / necessities - people bring them to me :)
7) I don't feel guilty about work paying for me to be off sick.
8) I don't have to go the gym and I can eat whatever I want.
9) I can't smell the fridge anymore.
10) It is acceptable to wear tracksuit bottoms and a giant tshirt with no makeup for the whole week.
11) I've done the majority of my Christmas shopping online and it's not even December yet.
12) I won £7 playing instant win games on the National Lottery site (then lost £5 but I feel good about it).
13) I finished my IPA course - ok, that's naughty while I'm on holiday but so what.
14) I think I'm losing my voice - it's funny trying to talk to people on the phone with no voice and is particularly good if you want extra sympathy, not that I do.
15) I have an extra blog post now. A-woo-hoo to me.
Wow, that has worked. I feel much better. Sleepy time. x
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
Wednesday, 12 November 2008
The Content Renaissance
Social media, social networking, online communities, web 2.0 (the list of buzzwords and phrases go on and on) are hailed as the future of the web, moving people to communicate and socialise in new ways and have opened the doors to democratising knowledge and news across the world. But how new is this really?
I remember 10 years ago using a super slow PC on a dial up connection, back when Alta Vista was THE search engine of choice, before the dawn of images and video content. I spent hours reading text based websites - possibly with one image that had just about loaded by the time you'd read the page. Most companies didn't even have websites back then, or if they did, I certainly wasn't aware of them! People who knew and had access to the web had their own websites, stuck together with virtual paper and glue, proud of their text based creations that allowed them to vent to the new online world. I spent hours reading people's opinions, stories, ideas directly from their own sites and taking part in forum discussions with a community of people that was far broader than my circle of real world friends.
What's happened since then? We got fast - fast computers, fast connections. The internet became about making sites as visually beautiful and creative as possible - pushing the boundaries of what we could achieve. The shift was away from text and accessibility and towards making pretty pictures (and of course, without consideration for how easy these creations were to figure out). The more effort the site took to use, the more of an achievement it was for the creator.
Then came the content renaissance - people were bored with pictures and wanted copy again. I'm back to trawling through the web for interesting text, not pretty pictures. The difference now is that you don't need to be able to create your own site to express yourself and the tools available make it much easier and more accessible for millions to take part.
Ironically, the easier it is to communicate with the world, the more people want to limit this to small networks - people they already know, people from school, people from work. I can't remember the last time I chatted to someone from outside this country online.
Maybe we'll have a Creative Renaissance soon - and so a cycle of image vs. copy is realised, much like the unstoppable economic cycle we're experiencing the downturn of now. Or maybe I'm thinking too hard.
I remember 10 years ago using a super slow PC on a dial up connection, back when Alta Vista was THE search engine of choice, before the dawn of images and video content. I spent hours reading text based websites - possibly with one image that had just about loaded by the time you'd read the page. Most companies didn't even have websites back then, or if they did, I certainly wasn't aware of them! People who knew and had access to the web had their own websites, stuck together with virtual paper and glue, proud of their text based creations that allowed them to vent to the new online world. I spent hours reading people's opinions, stories, ideas directly from their own sites and taking part in forum discussions with a community of people that was far broader than my circle of real world friends.
What's happened since then? We got fast - fast computers, fast connections. The internet became about making sites as visually beautiful and creative as possible - pushing the boundaries of what we could achieve. The shift was away from text and accessibility and towards making pretty pictures (and of course, without consideration for how easy these creations were to figure out). The more effort the site took to use, the more of an achievement it was for the creator.
Then came the content renaissance - people were bored with pictures and wanted copy again. I'm back to trawling through the web for interesting text, not pretty pictures. The difference now is that you don't need to be able to create your own site to express yourself and the tools available make it much easier and more accessible for millions to take part.
Ironically, the easier it is to communicate with the world, the more people want to limit this to small networks - people they already know, people from school, people from work. I can't remember the last time I chatted to someone from outside this country online.
Maybe we'll have a Creative Renaissance soon - and so a cycle of image vs. copy is realised, much like the unstoppable economic cycle we're experiencing the downturn of now. Or maybe I'm thinking too hard.
Saturday, 8 November 2008
I'm an angry Blogger user
I'm shocked at how many basic usability problems there are with Blogger. First, call me naive, but I wasn't aware that Blogger was part of Google. So, on receiving an email from Google Accounts asking me to confirm I had opened a Google Account, I swiftly moved it to my spam folder. On returning to my blog later that day, I noticed an alert telling me I had not verified my account via the email I should now have received. Now I'm confused for two reasons. 1 - why would I verify my account when I am already using it and 2 - where was my email from Blogger? I requested a new email and it all became clear...
Secondly, I'm still unsure as to what I should call my blog, what the URL should be and whether I should write as myself or as an anonymous user. I won't get into my musings around these points (it's boring and the web is littered with plenty of similar thought streams) but I decided that rather than using an anonymous nickname, I want to use my real name. Where do I change how my name appears? What do I click on? Settings? Posting? My Account? No, no..you click on Dashboard of course. Now don't I feel the stupid one.
Having said that, Blogger does automatically save my post before I publish it so when my computer randomly reboots because it hates me, I'm returned to what I was writing. Sweet.
Secondly, I'm still unsure as to what I should call my blog, what the URL should be and whether I should write as myself or as an anonymous user. I won't get into my musings around these points (it's boring and the web is littered with plenty of similar thought streams) but I decided that rather than using an anonymous nickname, I want to use my real name. Where do I change how my name appears? What do I click on? Settings? Posting? My Account? No, no..you click on Dashboard of course. Now don't I feel the stupid one.
Having said that, Blogger does automatically save my post before I publish it so when my computer randomly reboots because it hates me, I'm returned to what I was writing. Sweet.
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