May/090
Wasting time on twitter
The beauty, and addictability of twitter lies in it's incredibly diverse number of ways to waste your time. It makes the facebook addictions of a year ago seem like very soft drugs. In that context, #spymaster is crack. Here's what tech-crunch has to say about the game.
Spy Vs. Spy: The Spymaster Backlash Begins And Twitter Needs To Fix It
Spymaster, the Twitter-based game that we covered last night, is spreading like crazy today. It’s been a trending topic on Twitter throughout the day, even ahead of the hype around Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing. Because of this popularity though, some Twitter users are getting inundated with tweets from the service in their streams. It’s not really spam, because it’s their friends doing it, but to some, it’s very annoying. Former Digg lead architect, Joe Stump, is particularly pissed off.
I think that's a bit snotty myself. It's a very clever little game. Addictive, fun, with great graphics. It's a fun way to spend a couple of hours building up followers on twitter.
Twitter is ALL about how many followers you have. Check out this site which offers to buy twitter accounts based on the number and quality of followers you have tweetvalue.com. Stephenfry's account is apparantly worth $42,542.
May/090
Trying to watch Star Wars
but it comes across a bit like this..... Brick Top from snatch talking to a bunch of space numpties. It's brilliantly funny it you like Guy Richie's film Snatch, but you won't laugh if you don't think swearing if funny.
May/090
Prior warning
Just thought I'd let you know that I'm going to be upgrading the wordpress installation on this blog soon, so it will change a bit.
May/091
Time to earth up the potatoes?
I'm loving taking short breaks from working, sitting out in the sun watching the garden grow. I like that with gardening you don't need to do everything as soon as you think of it. You can just kind of gestate the ideas for a few days before getting round to actually doing it. If the pak choi seedlings look like they're getting a bit pot-bound and need planting out, then they won't change much over the couple of days it takes me to get round to it.
It's all growing so fast now that the temperature has gone up. Plenty of rain has helped too. The potatoes are going so well I think they need earthing up. I'm assuming that out of the people who read this blog, I'm going to be the one who knows the least about growing veg as it's my first attempt - so maybe I can ask the audience here?
Should I earth up the spuds?
What do you think? Should I earth them up? I reckon I also need to break up the top soil crust a little bit too. What's that called? hoeing perhaps?
May/090
Chalet Mont Blanc – Argentiere
Listingslab Productions are pleased to annouce a new Search Marketing Client. Chalet Mont Blanc, Argentiere
Chalet Mont Blanc - Argentiere
A warm welcome is offered to all guests staying at this fabulously appointed chalet in the Chamonix Valley that was built in 2006.It has 3 Bedrooms / Sleeps 8 and is equipped with every comfort you might need, whether you are staying in the Winter for the skiing or the Summer for the outdoor activities.
Argentiere is home to the world renowned Grand Montets ski area - offering challenging and varied terrain for the more experienced skier and snowboarder.
May/090
Chalet Petit Bechar
A friend of mine who runs a chalet company here in the valley has just signed the lease on a very nice place called Chalet Le Bechar. We managed to borrow a really good camera, complete with a wide angle lens (which makes all the difference with indoor photography), and came up with this set of images which we're going to use on the website.
Does this look like a place you'd like to stay in?
May/090
Should you update your facebook status with twitter tweets?
Let's say you have both an active twitter account and an active facebook account. Coming up with pithy little updates to keep yourself at the top of people's lists is quite fun, but you've probably come across those annoying types who blog about how their coffee tastes. We wouldn't want to be one of thosewould we?
So when you've come up with something so brilliantly amusing that you're happy to share, do you tweet it to your twitter followers? Yes Definately. Should you also send that same update to facebook? What if it's a link to a nice little special offer you're doing on one of your business's products?
Sometimes Yes. Sometimes No.
Sometimes those tweets will be relavant to your facebook friends, but often they won't. If you're brave, you could get a lot of people looking at your website. If you annoy people, then you've ruined that marketing opportiunity for a while, so use it sparingly.
Here's how to do it. First use this fantastic piece or Adobe AIR software software which you get from here: www.tweetdeck.com . When you are tweeting, checking the facebook option on the update box will send tweets to both accounts at the same time. Follow @tweetdeck on twitter to help develop the software.
It depends how often you tweet, how many followers you tweet to and how much you use facebook as to whether you could benefit from this. Try tweeting a link to 200 followers and updating your 200 friend facebook profile at the same time. If you track how many people clicked your link from both those sources what do you find?
May/090
A visit from the olds
I had a lovely visit from the olds this week. They were on a road trip, first visiting me here in Le Tour before heading up into Germany to visit my sister who is currently gestating a new member of the Dorward family. I'm very excited about becoming an uncle for the first time this year. I'm hoping she won't mind me mentioning it here, but it seems far enough along in the process to be public broadcast-able?
Anyhoo - the parents and I had a great time this week. It's probably the first time I've been living in a place large enough for us to stay all together without treading on each other's toes too much. I had enough activities planned to cover all weather eventualities but luckily the sun came out for their stay. A round of golf at the Chamonix Golf course kicked things off. Keen golfers, my folks and the pretty setting of the Chamonix course impressed them.
The next day was a really nice walk down to Vallorcine where we detoured off to a waterfall called the Cascade de Bérard which a bloke down the pub had told me about the night before. Well worth the detour it was too.
And lastly a trip down into Switzerland to the outdoor thermal Spa at Les Bains De Lavey which is exactly what I needed after having a cold for a while.
Added to that we all ate well and watched a few good films together, not to mention sharing a bit of gardening knowledge and generally catching up with the family news. It's a shame we didn't get time to go cyclying and that the weather wasn't quite right for my Dad to be able to do a tandem parapente flight, but there's always the next time.
May/090
Honest spam techniques
Spam's spam and not usually worth mentioning, but this guy....... This guy made me laugh tonight when his email turned up in my inbox with the subject line "I NEED A LOAN DISTRIBUTOR".
Hello,
My name is Pat Chen,My English is not so good.I am an unregistered loan agent.I give people loan for a certain percentage.This has given me alot of money and i wish now to expand into your country.I would like to make this very short and straight to the point.
I am looking for a partner,Because am Unregistered and not paying tax.I am not allowed to leave my country with my business or not given visa because of the on going investigation.Now i need you to understand working for me, you could make alot of money.All you would be doing is taking directions from me to give out loans to my clients as instructed by me.If int rested forward with your reply,Your full information.Until your Reply.
Genius. So.... if anyone fancies taking him up on his offer - his email address is: patchen33@yahoo.com
May/092
Getting Things Done
I've always been a note-taker. I've got a pile of scribbled in notebooks stashed in a drawer to prove it. It's useful I'm sure, but there's always been something missing from my system.
Using those notes to organise myself is what's lacking. An old friend & work colleague got in touch after reading a recent post of mine about procrastination and suggested I had a look at something called Getting Things Done. It's a book by some corporate doofus called David Allen which outlines a system of capturing and organising all the stuff you want to get done in a much better way than just the usual daily to-do lists, prioritising and calendars etc which have never worked for me.
That's EXACTLY what I need I thought & bought the book immediately. Frankly, I feel a little embarrassed to be seen reading such obvious corporate-business rubbish. The same kind of embarrassment you might feel reading a cheesy self help book on a train. But what the hell. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy once helped me to learn very useful methods to get through a particularly nasty bout of depression, so I'm open to learning a new method of organisation and productivity.
The trick is to capture all the stuff that pops into your mind and get rid of it so that you don't have to think about it all the time. That bit I'm already good at. Then you need a solid system of reviewing, filing and acting on all this stuff in the right order. The point you want to be at is to have a have a perfectly clear mind, un-muddled by the multitude of shit you want/need to get done. Then you just look on your clear, concise list of the next things you should be getting on with to be getting things done. No more rabbit in car headlights. Just stress free productivity.
I'm applying the same principle here as I have done throughout my career as a Internet prO. Don't think you're inventing the wheel. Identify the need and find someone who has already done it. Then blatantly copy it.
So of course my first step is to design and half build a crazy-assed piece of web software that I can use via my iphone to facilitate this process. Just kidding.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2446/3544990945_5e0ac4ab77.jpg