Month: January 2006

Count Your Blessings #49 – Sky Blue

Beverley Snow

There is a lovely clear sky in Lancashire today. I love blue skies whatever time of the year. I particularly like the blue as it deepens just before nightfall. Skies in the Winter seem to be bluer than they are in the Summer.

Clouds add drama to a sky sometimes pressing down on us; blue skies draw us out of this world reminding us of the stars beyond.

“May flowers always line your path and sunshine light your day. May songbirds serenade you every step along the way. May a rainbow run beside you in a sky that’s always blue. And may happiness fill your heart each day your whole life through.”

Irish Blessing

Change to Comment Security

Jimmy and Grandad do the dishes

I have changed the comment security on this blog so that it requires authentication.

The reason for this is SPAM, but not the usual blog comment SPAM. Nik posted a comment and put in his email address because it was required, but he didn’t put in a web address. In this circumstance it turns out that TypePad displays the commenter’s details with a link to their email address. After this Nik noticed a significant increase in the SPAM he received, not surprisingly.

So I’ve changed the security so this won’t happen in the future and to protect you all. it means you need a TypeKey account but they are free it’s just a bit more hassle. I’ve also removed Nik’s comment so that the email link isn’t there – and not because I was offended by his comment .

I could have gone the other way and not required an email address but that wouldn’t have actually fixed the problem and I didn’t figure that reducing the security was the right way to go .

Six Apart are supposed to be changing things in this arena so it may all change again in the future.

Become successful, become big – become evil!

Time for bed Jimmy

Has the demonisation of Google started? They have been in the news a lot over the last few days and mainly for the wrong reasons.

Scoble highlighted a new web site “Google: Evil or Not?” joking that Microsoft wanted it’s evil back the other day.

Today’s Guardian is running an article: Should we fear Google? which highlights resent press coverage:

Since I began writing this piece Google has been in the headlines several times: for governments’ complaints about the spy-friendly -potential of the all-too-detailed satellite maps in Google Earth; for a new feature called Music Search, which does what it says on the tin; for announcing a plan to take a 5% stake in AOL; for being vulnerable to “black hat” tactics from Search Engine Optimisers, who specialise in boosting Google results; for hugely expanding its nascent Google Video service; for a dispute with the US government over data; and for this week’s rollout of a restricted Google site to China. The media are obsessed with Google, not least because they are so worried by it. (The general consensus is that Google, having once been seen as a technology company, should instead be regarded as a media company. You may not think it matters, but money people like to see things through the prism of a “business model”.) Other recent stories have concerned the company launching Google Talk as a potentially disruptive way of making free phone calls over the internet, pressing on with its ambitions for Google Book Search (formerly Google Print) to “make the full text of all the world’s books searchable by anyone”, and launching Google Base to take over the world’s classified advertising market. In the meantime, the company has launched a Toolbar, including a Desktop Search tool that searches for information on users’ own PCs – something Microsoft, the world’s biggest software company, has been trying and failing to do for a number of years.

It has an interesting conclusion too:

Google is cool. But Google also has the potential to destroy the publishing industry, the newspaper business, high street retailing and our privacy. Not that it will necessarily do any of these things, but for the first time, considered soberly, these things are technologically possible. The company is rich and determined and is not going away any time soon. It knows what it is doing technologically; socially, though, it can’t possibly know, and I don’t think anyone else can either. The best historical analogy for where Google is today probably comes from the time when the railroads were being built. Everyone knew that trains and railways would change the world, but no one predicted the invention of suburbs. Google, and the increased flow of information on which it rides and from which it benefits, is the railway. I don’t think we’ve yet seen the first suburbs.

It has always fascinated me that organisations that become big and successful soon get to the point where they are regarded as evil. Google has grown big faster than anyone else before them and have met the evil tag earlier than anyone too. One of their problems is their tag line, all tag lines are a target. So when you say ‘Don’t be evil’ people, and the press in particular will take it apart piece by piece and you’d better be sure it hold true. That’s one of the reasons organisations like Nike choose a line like ‘Just do it’.

A few years ago we had a prime minister (John Major) who’s tag line was ‘back to basics’, by this he meant that we should return to all that was moral and good. The press used it as an opportunity to take apart his government through a series of scandals and revelations. Google, you have been warned, mind you Microsoft seems to be doing OK with it’s evil.

Count Your Blessings #48 – Islands of Security

Borrowdale Boxing Day

Over the last few months I have found myself repeatedly in situations where the people I have been with have been insecure; insecure about their marriage; insecure about their health; insecure about their faith; insecure about their position; insecure about their standing. The thing about this insecurity was that it was evident and visible. These people all reacted in particular ways which demonstrated their insecurity. The thing is, for most of the people, in most of the situations there was no reason for them to be insecure at all.

Insecurity is a massive issue in our society. Being a member of that society I am obviously not immune and regularly find myself in situations where I am nervous and edgy. There is no logical reason for these nerves, they demonstrate an insecurity that is deep seated and defies logic.

I am blessed to have a number of islands of security, places where I feel secure, situations where I can be myself. I know that for many people their islands get smaller as they get older; I’m thankful that my current experience is that the islands are getting bigger and I feel secure in more places and more situations than I think I ever have.

One of the reasons that my islands are getting bigger is because I feel like I am becoming less bothered about what others think of me. I used to worry about the opinions of others a lot, even people of no consequence. I try to see things differently these days; I tend to think that people’s opinions of me are their issue and not mine. It doesn’t always work, but I feel like I’m getting their.

There are many reason to feel insecure. Nothing in life is certain, after all. But we can’t live our lives dwelling on the uncertainties. We need to find and expand our islands of security because it is only in these islands that we are truly ourselves. We tend to do strange things when we are insecure. People only see the real us when they see us on our islands of security.

I don’t have any silver-bullet for expanding an island, or even finding a new one, but the investment required is definitely worth it. To expand my islands I return to a story that Jesus told and the promise it included. It’s a well known story and includes a wonderful principle:

“Anyone who listens to my teaching and obeys me is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse, because it is built on rock. But anyone who hears my teaching and ignores it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will fall with a mighty crash.”

Matthew 7

Count Your Blessings #48 – Islands of Security

Borrowdale Boxing Day

Over the last few months I have found myself repeatedly in situations where the people I have been with have been insecure; insecure about their marriage; insecure about their health; insecure about their faith; insecure about their position; insecure about their standing. The thing about this insecurity was that it was evident and visible. These people all reacted in particular ways which demonstrated their insecurity. The thing is, for most of the people, in most of the situations there was no reason for them to be insecure at all.

Insecurity is a massive issue in our society. Being a member of that society I am obviously not immune and regularly find myself in situations where I am nervous and edgy. There is no logical reason for these nerves, they demonstrate an insecurity that is deep seated and defies logic.

I am blessed to have a number of islands of security, places where I feel secure, situations where I can be myself. I know that for many people their islands get smaller as they get older; I’m thankful that my current experience is that the islands are getting bigger and I feel secure in more places and more situations than I think I ever have.

One of the reasons that my islands are getting bigger is because I feel like I am becoming less bothered about what others think of me. I used to worry about the opinions of others a lot, even people of no consequence. I try to see things differently these days; I tend to think that people’s opinions of me are their issue and not mine. It doesn’t always work, but I feel like I’m getting their.

There are many reason to feel insecure. Nothing in life is certain, after all. But we can’t live our lives dwelling on the uncertainties. We need to find and expand our islands of security because it is only in these islands that we are truly ourselves. We tend to do strange things when we are insecure. People only see the real us when they see us on our islands of security.

I don’t have any silver-bullet for expanding an island, or even finding a new one, but the investment required is definitely worth it. To expand my islands I return to a story that Jesus told and the promise it included. It’s a well known story and includes a wonderful principle:

“Anyone who listens to my teaching and obeys me is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse, because it is built on rock. But anyone who hears my teaching and ignores it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will fall with a mighty crash.”

Matthew 7

Notes "Hannover" Screen-shots

Jimmy helps Grandad mend the car

Ed Brill has some screen-shots of the upcoming Lotus Notes “Hannover” interface.

So what can we make from them.

First impressions are good, it looks a lot cleaner than the current Notes implementation. They’ll hate me for saying it, but I’m struck by how similar it is to Outlook hen in the Inbox and Calendar. The issues for me with the current Notes interface have only partly been about the way it looks. Most of my frustrations are with the actions that the interface takes, the gestures. If I double-click on an attachment I want it to open, that’s what I expect. Whether these things have been fixed I don’t know because I’m just working from some screen-shots.

Perhaps I should take the time to look at the real thing.

(PS: does anyone else think that Ed Brill has to be a made up name.)

Do comments drive interest?

Jimmy and Grandad still don't understand the end to 'Lost'

I have been running a bit of an experiment recently. I’ve decided that I need to be less of a viewer and do more interacting. So I’ve been adding comments to posts a lot more. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that I would like more comments on my post and you can’t expect what you don’t do yourself. the second is that I was intrigued to see whether my interactions would drive any traffic back to my site. I suppose I was seeing it as a bit of a mutual response and respect thing.

In normal conversation it’s polite to respond when someone makes a comment and I wondered whether we had naturally built the same etiquette in blogs.

The results have been quite mixed to be honest, but mostly people don’t check back. They certainly don’t leave any comments on my site, some respond on their own site but that’s really difficult to know if they have a long comment list.

The real question, though, is whether I care. Well on one level I don’t, because I have no massive aspirations to be a super-blogger or anything like that. On another level I do care because I want to know I am noticed, but that just some deep seated insecurity complex that most of us experience every day.  Does it puzzle me why some people get noticed and others don’t – definitely; but that isn’t limited to blogging it’s always been a mystery to me.

Google Earth Updated

Google earth pictures have been updated with even more detail:

“Now for many areas around the world you can see a lot more detail than you could before,” said Google Earth team member Chikai Ohazama. “Take a look at people standing at the gates of Buckingham Palace in London, or jump over the pond and see the Statue of Liberty in New York.”

Via: BetaNews

Sametime 7.5

Tyke doesn't think Grandma and Grandad are up to a walkFeel I should say something on Sametime 7.5 because it’s just been announced at Lotussphere – but Stu said it already.

The one comment I would add though is the similarity in the interfaces between Microsoft Live Communicator, Sametime 7.5, MSN Messenger and GoogleTalk. If they get too similar we might all be struggling to work out who we can communicate with where. I suppose we could all dream of communicating with everyone in one interface but I don’t think it’s going to happen any time soon even with the new announcements.

Windows Catches up with Netware – in one respect anyway

Jimmy

A long, long time ago I used to support Netware environments. When we moved people over to Windows file servers one of the biggest complaints from people was that they could now see all sorts of directories that they didn’t have access to and it made their world all cluttered.

Back in those heady days we just told them to get a life. Well now the option is available (just) for Windows file servers. It’s called Windows Server 2003 Access-based Enumeration. Now isn’t that nice. Not sure why it should become available now, or whether anyone still cares, but I’m passing on the information anyway.

From my perspective it’s something that would make users lives look cleaner and hence make file navigation quicker. This should then make them more productive which has to be a good thing. And as file navigation is something people do lots of the potential productivity gain is high.

First Skype SPAM

Grandad

Got my first Skype SPAM today. I’m not going to give them the pleasure of reprinting it here but it was the usual “Mr Chastney we are looking for…” type, this time from Moldavia.

It there is a technology someone will find a way of abusing it; it’s been the same since we invented fire and since we worked out how to sharpen things.

Count Your Blessings #47 – Spring is coming

Early SnowdropI know lots of people who have a favourite season. It is sometimes Summer because of the long warm days; sometimes it’s Autumn because of the colours; sometimes it’s Winter because of cold crisp days; for others it’s Spring because of the way it burst into life. My favourite season always seems to be the one that we are about to enter into. Perhaps I don’t actually have a favourite season and the thing that I love is the change of the seasons.

Most of us have different ways of identifying the seasons too, for me it’s normally the garden. Over the last few weeks my small patch of land has been telling me that it’s ready for Spring. Seems a bit of a strange thing to say considering we haven’t even exited January yet but that’s what it’s saying. The picture of the Snow-drops was taken today, there are some even further on but I couldn’t get a decent shot of them. They aren’t the only thing growing either, everything seems to be popping through the ground or shooting leaves.

It’s clearly time for a transition and transition brings transformation. There’s absolutely nothing I can do to halt it, it’s coming. When we were kids we used to play hide-and-seek (actually we still do, but that’s a story for another day) and the person who was ‘on’ used to count and when they had finished they would shout – COMING, READY OR NOT. I feel a bit like the garden is currently gently whispering – coming, ready or not – but soon it will be shouting – COMING, READY or NOT.

The garden is telling me how small and powerless I really am. I can type words on this computer and people around the world can see them, but that’s nothing compared to the changing of the seasons. It happens every year and there is nothing I can do to stop it. I know my place.

It reminds me of the story of King Canute who tried to stop the sea from coming in. It depends on which version of the story you read as to whether it was Canute trying to teach his people a lesson or whether he was just completely arrogant. Either way the lesson is clear – it doesn’t matter how powerful we are we can’t stand against the seas.

There once was a king in Babylon called Nebuchadnezzar he was a mighty ruler – powerful and rich. One day he had a dream and it troubled him. Nebuchadnezzar called for Daniel to try and interpret the dream, after some time God revealed the meaning to him. The result of the dream was that after his death the great king’s kingdom would be replaced by something much smaller and inferior. Everything that Nebuchadnezzar had worked for would be torn down and there was nothing he could do about it.

Daniel gave praise where praise was due:

“Praise the name of God forever and ever, for he alone has all wisdom and power.


He determines the course of world events; he removes kings and sets others on the throne. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the scholars. 


He reveals deep and mysterious things and knows what lies hidden in darkness, though he himself is surrounded by light.


I thank and praise you, God of my ancestors, for you have given me wisdom and strength. You have told me what we asked of you and revealed to us what the king demanded.”

We might not be able to stop the seasons, move the seas or change history, but the dream that Daniel interpreted had a promise in it too, a promise that was fulfilled when Jesus died on the cross and continues to be fulfilled today:

“During the reigns of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed; no one will ever conquer it. It will shatter all these kingdoms into nothingness, but it will stand forever. That is the meaning of the rock cut from the mountain by supernatural means, crushing to dust the statue of iron, bronze, clay, silver, and gold.”


Daniel 2