A big overhaul was required after ETC’s last outing. Oh dear!
Here I’m testing a new function i’m thinking of implementing across rich-porter.com. Its a plugin called Lightbox which does shiny things when you click on an image. Let me know if you like it, if it takes too long to load etc and ill see how it goes!
Edit: Hmpf, it seems to be working erratically. Sometimes it works, other times it loads the photo in a new tab. More work needed.
One of the things that has fascinated me the most over the past month or so is the whole notion of blogging and how people are using it for information exchange. In my post here i ramble on about it a little without coming to any real groundbreaking conclusions.
I received this book from my parents this Christmas which i am slowly flicking through (im a very slow reader) which is slowly enlightening me on the bits i’ve missed. After all, blogging was ten years old at the end of 2007 which makes me a complete newcomer when it comes to this so called ‘new’ media form. I’ve been regularly reading blogs for maybe 18 months at the absolute most, and rich-porter.com is little more than 6 months old.
Today i’ve started to wonder, just how much original information is out there in the blogsphere ? I’ve been wading through my subscribed feeds and found maybe four or five posts all telling me about itunes leveling their prices in the UK to bring them inline with their European/American Counterparts. With CES taking place, there are copious posts from the major tech blogs on the latest and greatest gadgets we’ll all be wanting next year from the conference on the other side of the pond. Many products popping up (again) four or five times just in my feeds alone. When Robert Scoble got kicked of Facebook last week it went mental. I think i read about that 10 or 11 separate times.
Making me ask again, just how much information out there is truly original ?
The paradox is, i’m guilty as charged! I’ll regularly regurgitate and link through to other peoples information if it takes my fancy and so do so many other bloggers too. I guess that many of us take for granted or accept that information can be 3rd or 4th hand by the time we read it. For example this little 3 liner i posted the other day here i first saw in Andy Hick’s (i dont know how to link to shared items so follow for Andy’s blog) google reader shared stream. That link was to a blog called Eightface a personal blog by a guy called Dave Kellam. That post finally pointed us in the direction of the advertised material.
It’s a crazy network of posts and links.
As always with these rambles, no answers just ideas. So i’ll finish with a picture
by ciro@tokyo on Flickr
9 Days on and I’m afraid i still haven’t made any exciting posts. Just as the blogging came in fits and starts in 2007 i feel 2008 may hold the same. Every time i log into the wordpress admin panel i see a healthy list in the ‘your drafts’ section, mostly retrospect posts awaiting to be reviewed before making their way onto these pages.
The reason for my absence as ever is work, this show will be over on the 14th. So expect a flurry of post from the 15th! Anyway, i do digress. Link of the Day today is to this post on the gaping void blog. Its an interesting read on creativity in the workplace. Working in video, part of a so called ‘creative’ industry this said a lot to me and the way that i work. However, i do believe there is a lot to be take from it whatever your profession.
Photo by Every word of this post describes me exactly. Creepy eh ?
I thought it was brilliant!
So its now 2008, infact its been 2008 for 2 hours 23 minutes and nobody had seemed to noticed. It’s been a bit of an anticlimax for me. Spent my evening out in Loughborough with a few nearest and dearest which was pretty enjoyable. We ended up in a club called ‘rain’, which seemed to be less than popular. I cant DJ but im afraid to say that i’ve DJ’d infront of maybe 3 times the number of people on the dance floor (thanks to a healthy college audience). Which all together lead to a mediocre end of evening. I couldn’t however, go on without saying a VERY happy birthday to Stu Brown (no link, no blog) as it was his birthday on the 31st December 2007 and the main reason i was in an empty club in the first place!
I’ve deliberately avoided making any predictions for 2008, as seems to be the trend in the blogging community. But let me say this. Having returned home from a night out i’ve still managed to do the following: Get in, pick up macbook, check emails, check facebook, check twitter, write this blog post!
So i’m guessing that these are all going to be a continuing theme for 2008. Loving the Macbook Pro, Thanks to ETC for that one. The email malarky is a bit of a habit/kneejerk reaction to picking a computer up, but lets not forget Gmail, as thats changed the way i use my email, especially since they’ve introduced IMAP. Facebook and Twitter have both been picked up in 2007 and i’m guessing that if the last 20 mins are anything to go by, will continue to be important/addictive in 2008 too!
EDIT: And the first thing i did when i finished writing this ? Google reader for all my feeds. Lets have a little hurrah for those guys too.
Finally i’m not going to be too soppy, but a huge shout goes out to Sarah for continuing to put up with me! She doesn’t fit the 2007 hurrah’s (but the 2006 ones, 18 months 2 days ago infact! Hurrah!) But let’s face it, it’s got to be hard putting up with a geek, and she’s done a sterling job. The support hasn’t gone unoticed!
So a happy new year to all of you and i hope it brings all that you wish for. All the best!