"Place items for storage into the slot below and push"
The humour of IT folk - ya gotta love it.
A Month of Reflection
5 weeks ago
Monday, September 17, 2007
Things you see every day but don't really notice - No. 2
Sign above the window next to a colleague of mine's desk:
The humour of IT folk - ya gotta love it.
The humour of IT folk - ya gotta love it.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Making the world a smaller place
Okay, so I'm supposed to be working but I just had to share with you all the following email forwarded to my mother from the Sunderland Echo. (Yes, we made the Echo too!) Perhaps I am in some small way making a difference in the world. Okay, so I didn't actually do anything technical, but I did get married.
-----Original Message-----We spoke to a copywriter from Telstra last night. They're planning on writing a testimonial to use for publicity and advertising purposes. Perhaps they should get together with BT and produce a "How-to". Anyway, it's nice for us to see emails such as this, as the wedding seems like a lifetime ago after all of the house hassle of recent weeks. Incidentally, tomorrow night we're off to see our official photographs with our wonderful photographer, Tanya (who, by the way, has chosen our wedding for her double-page advert for 2008!!). How excited am I?
Sent: 05 September 2007
To: Echo News
Subject: news item on 'wedcast' australian wedding-echo sept 5th
I was very interested in the above news item as parts of my family are similarly unable to attend a family wedding, to take place in Perth Australia in February next year. The groom is British and is my nephew and the bride is Australian. The idea of being able to participate in the way described is very exciting. I wondered if you might be able to pass on my contact details to the person who managed to arrange this to see if it might be possible to set this up again and what the cost might be. I would be most grateful if you could help in any way.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Addicted to Facebook?
Are you addicted to social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn? Do you spend more time online than you do working? Do you find yourself checking your email, looking at friends' photos, reading your Facebook wall and then suddenly realising it's coffee time and wondering where the morning has gone?
If so, I have just the cute little application for you. It's called Notworking, a little counter that tells you how much time you're spending networking, or not working, when you should be working. Of course, we can always justify at least part of our time online, such as checking out the Answers section of LinkedIn for your industry and when you're in the web field, such as I, there are many, many excuses ("I'm just evaluating Facebook to determine it's usefulness as a marketing tool for the University. Honest!"). So, to help out with such situations the Notworking counter can be paused as necessary. It can also be reset, useful when the truth becomes embarrassing.
You can estimate your hourly rate and stick this in. It then calculates how much money you could have earned during the time you've been procrastinating online. For example, I could have earned $4.63 during the time I spent writing this, working out my hourly rate, and creating my screen shots. Trouble is, I did earn it and it really isn't that much money so this is much more useful if you're working for youself and earn big bucks. The other thing to bear in mind (in fairness to myself) is that I am only doing this because I had to restart a development server that stopped responding, so for at least $1 of that time I would have been sitting twiddling my thumbs anyway. As it is, I have been doing a service to industry by spreading the word about this FREE application and making others aware of their wasted hours.
If you want to get this little app for yourself then you can download it from Website Repairs. It even floats over your other windows so there's no ignoring it.
Total time spent on this blog: 00:18:55
Total cost: $7.30
If so, I have just the cute little application for you. It's called Notworking, a little counter that tells you how much time you're spending networking, or not working, when you should be working. Of course, we can always justify at least part of our time online, such as checking out the Answers section of LinkedIn for your industry and when you're in the web field, such as I, there are many, many excuses ("I'm just evaluating Facebook to determine it's usefulness as a marketing tool for the University. Honest!"). So, to help out with such situations the Notworking counter can be paused as necessary. It can also be reset, useful when the truth becomes embarrassing.
You can estimate your hourly rate and stick this in. It then calculates how much money you could have earned during the time you've been procrastinating online. For example, I could have earned $4.63 during the time I spent writing this, working out my hourly rate, and creating my screen shots. Trouble is, I did earn it and it really isn't that much money so this is much more useful if you're working for youself and earn big bucks. The other thing to bear in mind (in fairness to myself) is that I am only doing this because I had to restart a development server that stopped responding, so for at least $1 of that time I would have been sitting twiddling my thumbs anyway. As it is, I have been doing a service to industry by spreading the word about this FREE application and making others aware of their wasted hours.
If you want to get this little app for yourself then you can download it from Website Repairs. It even floats over your other windows so there's no ignoring it.
Total time spent on this blog: 00:18:55
Total cost: $7.30
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Yes, we really did get married!
With all the usual stress of moving, and the added trauma of not having anywhere of our own to go to, along with the fact that we don't have a moment's rest because we're still house-hunting, it's easy to forget that just a month ago we were celebrating our recent nuptials. The day went by in such a blur that I have to keep looking at the photos to remind myself it really happened.
Well, I had another reminder today. Grandpa called last night. He turned 80 on Sunday and was phoning to thank me for his birthday present. But there was more. Gran told me she'd taken the Sunshine Coast Sunday clipping of our wedding webcast story down to the office of the local paper where she lives in South Shields, The Shields Gazette, thinking they might be interested to see it. Were they ever! As Gran put it, she "opened up a hornet's nest". My grandparents, parents, sister and brother-in-law, were interviewed and photographed on Grandpa's birthday. Gran said they had a hoot and everyone was laughing so much she was worried about how she might look in the photographs. But I think she looks great in this one. Mam is worried about what her mother, my Nana, might think when she returns from her cruise and finds she missed out on all the action. I think she'll be a bit miffed but hopefully she's having a good enough time on holidays not to mind.
If you are interested in the article you can find it online at Shields bride makes cyber-history, which makes me sound a bit like one of the cyber-men from Doctor Who (back in the 80s). It fails to mention that the streaming is only really believed to be a world first due to the use of mobile technology but there are a few other little-known facts in there that you may not have realised.
For example, the aisle I walked down was 10,000 miles long. This amazed me. The walk up the long path from the car to the park, and then scrambling through the bushes took a while but I had no idea it was that far.
You may also be surprised to discover that my pregnant sister was sipping champagne at Aunty Betty's house. I thought she was at home in Newcastle being tee-total, the naughty minx.
I love the fact that they mention the friend in York that let it slip. You know who you are. Kidding! It wasn't a big deal that I found out that morning and in fact, I think it was a good thing. It actually slipped my mind until Doug said "Wave to all the people in Newcastle" and, had I not known, I probably would have frowned at him and said "What you talking about?" which wouldn't have looked anywhere near as cool as the clip Channel 7 used of me waving at the camera.
According to Mam they made the front page (see this screenshot of the website), page 5 and an editorial. I'm sure we'll get to see a copy just as soon as we have a house my parents can send it to.
Well, I had another reminder today. Grandpa called last night. He turned 80 on Sunday and was phoning to thank me for his birthday present. But there was more. Gran told me she'd taken the Sunshine Coast Sunday clipping of our wedding webcast story down to the office of the local paper where she lives in South Shields, The Shields Gazette, thinking they might be interested to see it. Were they ever! As Gran put it, she "opened up a hornet's nest". My grandparents, parents, sister and brother-in-law, were interviewed and photographed on Grandpa's birthday. Gran said they had a hoot and everyone was laughing so much she was worried about how she might look in the photographs. But I think she looks great in this one. Mam is worried about what her mother, my Nana, might think when she returns from her cruise and finds she missed out on all the action. I think she'll be a bit miffed but hopefully she's having a good enough time on holidays not to mind.If you are interested in the article you can find it online at Shields bride makes cyber-history, which makes me sound a bit like one of the cyber-men from Doctor Who (back in the 80s). It fails to mention that the streaming is only really believed to be a world first due to the use of mobile technology but there are a few other little-known facts in there that you may not have realised.
For example, the aisle I walked down was 10,000 miles long. This amazed me. The walk up the long path from the car to the park, and then scrambling through the bushes took a while but I had no idea it was that far.
You may also be surprised to discover that my pregnant sister was sipping champagne at Aunty Betty's house. I thought she was at home in Newcastle being tee-total, the naughty minx.
I love the fact that they mention the friend in York that let it slip. You know who you are. Kidding! It wasn't a big deal that I found out that morning and in fact, I think it was a good thing. It actually slipped my mind until Doug said "Wave to all the people in Newcastle" and, had I not known, I probably would have frowned at him and said "What you talking about?" which wouldn't have looked anywhere near as cool as the clip Channel 7 used of me waving at the camera.
According to Mam they made the front page (see this screenshot of the website), page 5 and an editorial. I'm sure we'll get to see a copy just as soon as we have a house my parents can send it to.
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