Keeping with this weeks motorbike theme, here’s some photos of three pals bikes that I helped them sell on ebay last year.
First up is Bob’s wonderful, but insane to ride (unless you were Bob), BSA ‘Low Rider’.
Second is Martin’s Yamaha Genesis EXUP ‘Streetfighter’ (mainly fairing removed).
Third is a friend of a friends bike, in that’s it’s Ricky’s brother Joe’s bike, an almost mint condition Honda VFR.
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And yes, they all sold double quick…
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Yes, that’s right; they are all suffering from functionality issues due to design flaws introduced in their last look and feel upgrades.
Looks like this is the month for it, because in rapid succession we’ve seen changes at all three of these web2.0 stalwarts.
So how have these changes effected functionality, and what’s the real problem at hand ?
Along with the recent problems at Twitter around “outbound SMS messages” it’s turning out to be quite the month…
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Yep, it’s Dad boring the poor kids senseless with the absolutely wonderful National Motorcycle Museum; we live that close that we’ve been so often they’ve only just let me take them there again…
If you like Bikes, no scratch that, if you *LOVE* bikes, then it’s definitely the place for you.
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And that’s right, I’ve tagged this ‘Heaven’.
FAQs – blogs.sun.com – wikis.sun.com Sun blogs FAQ. …..
First reported by RiverCoolCool on his blog: https://rivercoolcool.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!D6F05428A2B8CB48!1570.entry
Then by Gizmondo: https://gizmodo.com/5035456/blue-screen-of-death-strikes-birds-nest-during-opening-ceremonies-torch-lighting
Now it’s at the Register: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/13/olympics_blue_screen_death/
But what’s genuinely amusing about this is the comments that are coming up, they range from the obvious to the really quite odd.
There are the standard comments lambasting Microsoft, but I think these should be disregarded; basically because they are boring in the extreme and especially given how interesting some of the other comments are.
Comments at the Register can be found here: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/13/olympics_blue_screen_death/comments/
The comments seem to be breaking down into a number of camps:
Frankly what’s so very wrong with the idea that the pictures are genuine, that it is a valid copy of Windows, that there hasn’t been a hardware error, and that, just perhaps, software goes wrong occasionally?
It just takes a little application of Ockham’s Razor to see the truth here.
I received the following email this morning, apparently they’ll be no more outbound Twitter SMS for Europe, the UK and most of the rest of the World. The only countries to be keeping the outbound SMS service are Canada, India, and the US. Apparently it’s all down to the charges that our mobile network operators charge us for SMS delivery, which initially Twitter had been subsidising, however they can’t afford to do that any more and have begun to “rein in the cost” by disabling the service. I can’t blame them, however I think it’s a shame that they set a precedent by enabling this functionality, only to take it away.
Oh, and good luck to them as they “negotiate with mobile operators in Europe, Asia, China, and The Americas” but I can’t see this service coming back any time soon. And I wonder how long it will be before people are trying to find a way round this decision, potentially by spoofing a US, Indian or Canadian address, given that each of the solutions they have suggested have a cost to the user (either to deliver the SMS itself or to contribute to the datalink to the WAP service)
Hi,
I’m sending you this note because you registered a mobile device to work with Twitter over our UK number. I wanted to let you know that we are making some changes to the way SMS works on Twitter. There is some good news and some bad news.
I’ll start with the bad news. Beginning today, Twitter is no longer delivering outbound SMS over our UK number. If you enjoy receiving updates from Twitter via +44 762 480 1423, we are recommending that you explore some suggested alternatives.
Note: You will still be able to UPDATE over our UK number.
Before I go into more detail, here’s a bit of good news: Twitter will be introducing several new, local SMS numbers in countries throughout Europe in the coming weeks and months. These new numbers will make Twittering more accessible for you if you’ve been using SMS to send long-distance updates from outside the UK.
Why are we making these changes? Mobile operators in most of the world charge users to send updates. When you send one message to Twitter and we send it to ten followers, you aren’t charged ten times–that’s because we’ve been footing the bill. When we launched our free SMS service to the world, we set the clock ticking. As the service grew in popularity, so too would the price.
Our challenge during this window of time was to establish relationships with mobile operators around the world such that our SMS services could become sustainable from a cost perspective. We achieved this goal in Canada, India, and the United States. We can provide full incoming and outgoing SMS service without passing along operator fees in these countries. We took a risk hoping to bring more nations onboard and more mobile operators around to our way of thinking but we’ve arrived at a point where the responsible thing to do is slow our costs and take a different approach. Since you probably don’t live in
Canada, India, or the US, we recommend receiving your Twitter updates via one of the following methods.
- m.twitter.com works on browser-enabled phones
- m.slandr.net works on browser-enabled phones
- TwitterMail.com works on email-enabled phones
- Cellity [https://bit.ly/12bw4R] works on java-enabled phones
- TwitterBerry [https://bit.ly/MFAfJ] works on BlackBerry phones
- Twitterific [https://bit.ly/1WxjwQ] works on iPhones
Twitter SMS by The Numbers
It pains us to take this measure. However, we need to avoid placing undue burden on our company and our service. Even with a limit of 250 messages received per week, it could cost Twitter about $1,000 per user, per year to send SMS outside of Canada, India, or the US. It makes more sense for us to establish fair billing arrangements with mobile operators than it does to pass these high fees on to our users.
Twitter will continue to negotiate with mobile operators in Europe, Asia, China, and The Americas to forge relationships that benefit all our users. Our goal is to provide full, two-way service with Twitter via SMS to every nation in a way that is sustainable from a cost perspective. Talks with mobile companies around the world continue. In the meantime, more local numbers for updating via SMS are on the way. We’ll keep you posted.
Thank you for your attention,
Biz Stone, Co-founder
Twitter, Inc.
Check out the new Sun / SCC partner website here: https://www.scc-sun.com
Specialist Computer Centres (SCC) are one of Sun’s main partner organisations in the UK and you can learn more about them, and Sun UK’s reseller partners here: https://uk.sun.com/aboutsun/contact/partners/
This has been out a little while now, but I wanted to make sure I brought it to your attention. There’s no nepotism here, even if SCC are based in Tyseley, Birmingham, and I once lived opposite the Greet Inn pub (not only sadly closed, but flattened as well), just round the corner to the SCC headquarters.
SCC’s main web page is here: https://www.scc.com/
And SCC Exchange, SCC’s direct retail site “exclusively aimed at small to mid-size businesses and public sector organisations”, where you can also get Sun kit from, is here: https://www.sccex.com/
Seeing as I’ve been blogging about Twitter and it’s new lack of support for outbound SMS for Europe, the UK and the rest of the World (well, apart from the US, Canada and India, that is)…
And seeing as it’s generated a ton of page hits…
I thought I’d take this opportunity to invite you all to follow me.
You never know I might even follow you back.
Here’s what I’ve been Twittering (or is that Twitting, lol) about.
So here’s the latest version of my Google Translation code for Roller Weblogger, as used to host blogs.sun.com (or ‘bsc’ as we in Sun call it).
It’s much improved over the original and Google versions.
First off it checks for JavaScript, if there then it uses it to make sure the page hasn’t been translated before as well as get the current URL to translate (Google generates translation glitches if it tries to translate pre-translated pages).
If not it still generates the language translation by using Velocity / Roller JSP code.
If your on bsc then $baseURL needs the ‘eclectic’ text replaced with whatever your bsc site is called, otherwise $baseURL needs to be your blog URL.
If your not on bsc you’ll also need to change $iconURL to where you are hosting the flag images (which I got from FamFamFam), unless of course you leech off mine.
So far this code is being used on Bill Vass’ blog and Glenn Brunette’s Security Weblog (as well as this one of course).
Here’s the code for you to have a look at and cut and paste if you’d like to use it. It needs to be embedded in your Roller template code, probably best to put it in the sidebar. You can also use it to translate from other source languages other than English, more on this at the bottom of the page.
<div style="margin:0px; padding:1px;"> <!-- BEGIN _MOD_TRANSLATE --> ## Current Language
#set ($langCur="en") ## Lang Text
#set ($langText_ar="Arabic")
#set ($langText_bg="Bulgarian")
#set ($langText_zh-CN="Chinese (Simplified)")
#set ($langText_zh-TW="Chinese (Traditional)")
#set ($langText_hr="Croatian")
#set ($langText_cs="Czech")
#set ($langText_da="Danish")
#set ($langText_nl="Dutch")
#set ($langText_en="English")
#set ($langText_fi="Finnish")
#set ($langText_fr="French")
#set ($langText_de="German")
#set ($langText_el="Greek")
#set ($langText_hi="Hindi")
#set ($langText_it="Italian")
#set ($langText_ja="Japanese")
#set ($langText_ko="Korean")
#set ($langText_no="Norwegian")
#set ($langText_pl="Polish")
#set ($langText_pt="Portuguese")
#set ($langText_ro="Romanian")
#set ($langText_ru="Russian")
#set ($langText_es="Spanish")
#set ($langText_sv="Swedish") ## Lang Code
#set ($langCode_ar="ar")
#set ($langCode_bg="bg")
#set ($langCode_zh-CN="zh-CN")
#set ($langCode_zh-TW="zh-TW")
#set ($langCode_hr="hr")
#set ($langCode_cs="cs")
#set ($langCode_da="da")
#set ($langCode_nl="nl")
#set ($langCode_en="en")
#set ($langCode_fi="fi")
#set ($langCode_fr="fr")
#set ($langCode_de="de")
#set ($langCode_el="el")
#set ($langCode_hi="hi")
#set ($langCode_it="it")
#set ($langCode_ja="ja")
#set ($langCode_ko="ko")
#set ($langCode_no="no")
#set ($langCode_pl="pl")
#set ($langCode_pt="pt")
#set ($langCode_ro="ro")
#set ($langCode_ru="ru")
#set ($langCode_es="es")
#set ($langCode_sv="sv") ## Other variables
#set ($tranText01="<a style="padding:0px" title='") #set ($tranText02="' href="%22)%20%20%20%0A#set%20(%24tranServer=%22https://66.102.9.104%22)%20%20%20%0A#set%20(%24tranCommand=%22/translate_c?hl=%22)%20%20%20%0A#set%20(%24tranText03=%22&langpair=%22)%20%20%20%0A#set%20(%24tranText04=%22%7C%22)%20%20%20%0A#set%20(%24tranText05=%22&u=%22)%20%20%20%0A#set%20(%24tranText06=%22"><img decoding="async" alt='") #set ($tranText07="' style="border:0px; padding:0px 8px 8px 0px;" src="/web/20090226230923im_/https://blogs.sun.com/eclectic/entry/%22)%20%20%20#set%20(%24iconURL=%22https://blogs.sun.com/eclectic/resource/%22)%20%20%20#set%20(%24iconTLA=%22.png"></a>" ) ## specific blog entry ? #if ($model.permalink) #set ($baseurl="https://blogs.sun.com/BVass/entry/$utilities.encode($model.weblogEntry.anchor)" ) #else #set ($baseurl="https://blogs.sun.com/BVass/" ) #end <script language="JavaScript"><br/><!--<br/>{ /* Allocate memory */<br/>strLangPage = new String (location.href); /* Catch pages translated externally and re-assign */<br/>if ((strLangPage.indexOf("/translate_c?")!=-1)) { /* Catch pages with the new google tracking code and strip */ if ((strLangPage.indexOf("&usg=")!=-1)) { strLangPage = strLangPage.slice((strLangPage.lastIndexOf("u=") + 2),(strLangPage.lastIndexOf("&usg=") )); } else { strLangPage = strLangPage.slice((strLangPage.lastIndexOf("u=") + 2)); } } document.write("<div style='margin:0px; padding:0px;'>");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_ar$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_ar$tranText05",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_ar$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_ar$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_bg$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_bg$tranText05",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_bg$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_bg$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_zh-CN$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_zh-CN$tranText05",<br/>strLangPage,<br/>"$tranText06$langCode_zh-CN$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_zh-CN$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_zh-TW$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_zh-TW$tranText05",<br/>strLangPage,<br/>"$tranText06$langCode_zh-TW$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_zh-TW$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_hr$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_hr$tranText05",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_hr$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_hr$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_cs$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_cs$tranText05",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_cs$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_cs$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_da$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_da$tranText05",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_da$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_da$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_nl$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_nl$tranText05",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_nl$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_nl$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_en$tranText02",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_en$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_en$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_fi$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_fi$tranText05",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_fi$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_fi$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_fr$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_fr$tranText05",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_fr$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_fr$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_de$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_de$tranText05",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_de$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_de$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_el$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_el$tranText05",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_el$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_el$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_hi$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_hi$tranText05",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_hi$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_hi$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_it$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_it$tranText05",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_it$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_it$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_ja$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_ja$tranText05",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_ja$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_ja$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_ko$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_ko$tranText05",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_ko$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_ko$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_no$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_no$tranText05",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_no$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_no$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_pl$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_pl$tranText05",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_pl$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_pl$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_pt$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_pt$tranText05",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_pt$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_pt$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_ro$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_ro$tranText05",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_ro$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_ro$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_ru$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_ru$tranText05",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_ru$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_ru$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_es$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_es$tranText05",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_es$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_es$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("$tranText01$langText_sv$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_sv$tranText05",strLangPage,"$tranText06$langCode_sv$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_sv$iconTLA$tranText08");<br/>document.write("</div>"); }<br/>// --><br/></script> <noscript>
<div style="margin:0px; padding:0px;">
$tranText01$langText_ar$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_ar$tranText05$baseURL$tranText06$langCode_ar$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_ar$iconTLA$tranText08
$tranText01$langText_bg$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_bg$tranText05$baseURL$tranText06$langCode_bg$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_bg$iconTLA$tranText08
$tranText01$langText_zh-CN$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_zh-CN$tranText05$baseURL$langCode$tranText06$langCode_zh-CN$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_zh-CN$iconTLA$tranText08
$tranText01$langText_zh-TW$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_zh-TW$tranText05$baseURL$langCode$tranText06$langCode_zh-TW$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_zh-TW$iconTLA$tranText08
$tranText01$langText_hr$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_hr$tranText05$baseURL$tranText06$langCode_hr$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_hr$iconTLA$tranText08
$tranText01$langText_cs$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_cs$tranText05$baseURL$tranText06$langCode_cs$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_cs$iconTLA$tranText08
$tranText01$langText_da$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_da$tranText05$baseURL$tranText06$langCode_da$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_da$iconTLA$tranText08
$tranText01$langText_nl$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_nl$tranText05$baseURL$tranText06$langCode_nl$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_nl$iconTLA$tranText08
$tranText01$langText_en$tranText02$baseURL$langCode$tranText06$langCode_en$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_en$iconTLA$tranText08
$tranText01$langText_fi$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_fi$tranText05$baseURL$tranText06$langCode_fi$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_fi$iconTLA$tranText08
$tranText01$langText_fr$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_fr$tranText05$baseURL$tranText06$langCode_fr$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_fr$iconTLA$tranText08
$tranText01$langText_de$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_de$tranText05$baseURL$tranText06$langCode_de$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_de$iconTLA$tranText08
$tranText01$langText_el$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_el$tranText05$baseURL$tranText06$langCode_el$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_el$iconTLA$tranText08
$tranText01$langText_hi$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_hi$tranText05$baseURL$tranText06$langCode_hi$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_hi$iconTLA$tranText08
$tranText01$langText_it$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_it$tranText05$baseURL$tranText06$langCode_it$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_it$iconTLA$tranText08
$tranText01$langText_ja$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_ja$tranText05$baseURL$tranText06$langCode_ja$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_ja$iconTLA$tranText08
$tranText01$langText_ko$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_ko$tranText05$baseURL$tranText06$langCode_ko$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_ko$iconTLA$tranText08
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$tranText01$langText_pt$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_pt$tranText05$baseURL$tranText06$langCode_pt$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_pt$iconTLA$tranText08
$tranText01$langText_ro$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_ro$tranText05$baseURL$tranText06$langCode_ro$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_ro$iconTLA$tranText08
$tranText01$langText_ru$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_ru$tranText05$baseURL$tranText06$langCode_ru$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_ru$iconTLA$tranText08
$tranText01$langText_es$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_es$tranText05$baseURL$tranText06$langCode_es$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_es$iconTLA$tranText08
$tranText01$langText_sv$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_sv$tranText05$baseURL$tranText06$langCode_sv$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_sv$iconTLA$tranText08
</div>
</noscript> <!-- END _MOD_TRANSLATE --></div>
As I mentioned above it can also be used to translate from other source languages other than English.
By changing #set ($langCur=”en”) it’ll translate from other source languages. For instance set $langCur to ‘fr’ to use French as a the source language. You’ll also need to transpose the ‘en’ output strings with that of the source language you want to use, because Google doesn’t like trying to translate a page to and from the same language! For instance, still using French as an example:
$tranText01$langText_en$tranText02$baseURL$langCode$tranText06$langCode_en$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_en$iconTLA$tranText08
needs to become
$tranText01$langText_fr$tranText02$baseURL$langCode$tranText06$langCode_fr$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_fr$iconTLA$tranText08
and reciprocally
$tranText01$langText_fr$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_fr$tranText05$baseURL$tranText06$langCode_fr$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_fr$iconTLA$tranText08
needs to become
$tranText01$langText_en$tranText02$tranServer$tranCommand$langCur$tranText03$langCur$tranText04$langCode_en$tranText05$baseURL$tranText06$langCode_en$tranText07$iconURL$langCode_en$iconTLA$tranText08
Remember that there are two versions of this string though, one encapsulated in JavaScript (using ‘document.write’) and the other free standing in the ‘NOSCRIPT’ element, just in case JavaScript isn’t used.
Here’s some code that produces tag links to four popular tag destinations, your blog, blogs.sun.com, technorati and del.icio.us (for your Roller Weblogger based blog, as the code is velocity).
It also ensures that the links are marked as tags, so that crawlers that look for and index tags and tag data will pick them up (microformat and semantic web focused applications, like the ‘Operator’ plug in for Firefox also pick them up of course).
I only add it to individual entries, rather than collections, which is what “#if ($model.permalink)” checks for.
Best to add just before or just after the Comments section in your main Roller template.
The code also includes some functionality to replace ‘-‘ and ‘+’ with ‘ ‘, so as to make the text fit in the table (this does not affect the tag).
You can see this functionality here, on my blog, and on Bill Vass’ blog, however you will need to look at an individual blog post to see it.
If your on bsc you’ll need to replace ‘eclectic’ with your bsc blog name, or if your not on bsc you’ll need to replace “https://blogs.sun.com/eclectic/” with your entire blog URL.
Here’s the code:
#if ($model.permalink) <!-- BEGIN TAGS: $entry.title -->
<div class="comments-head">Tags</div>
This blog
Sun Blogs
Technorati
Del.icio.us
#set ($mytags = $entry.tags) #foreach ( $tag in $mytags ) #set ($tagText = $tag.name) #set ($tagTextNew = "") #if ($tagText.length() > 0) #set ($toDo = $tagText.length() - 1) #set ($number = 0) #foreach ($number in [0..$toDo]) #if (($tagText.charAt($number) == "-") || ($tagText.charAt($number) == "+")) #set ($tagTextNew = $tagTextNew + " ") #else #set ($tagTextNew = $tagTextNew + $tagText.charAt($number)) #end #end #end
$tagTextNew
$tagTextNew
$tagTextNew
$tagTextNew
#end
#end
Here’s some code that improves on the default Roller Weblogger blogroll code to ensure that if you include an image / icon for your blogroll entries it displays the image and the blogroll entry name (good if your using icons).
Using the default roller macro for displaying your blogroll means that no text is displayed if an image / icon URL is given. The default behaviour leaves rather empty lists of course, so I see this as an improvement.
So this code is effectively a replacement for “#showBookmarkLinksList($rootFolder false false)”, although it still uses the same CSS notation for lists, so as not to disturb your design.
It works with specific blogroll folders, so you do need to dictate which one your going to display (in the example below it’s “/My Blog Roll”). However this could be improved further to pick up the current folder name if you were to cycle through the sub folders (but I didn’t need it to do that, so I haven’t).
#set($rootFolder = $model.weblog.getBookmarkFolder("/My Blog Roll"))
#if ($rootFolder.bookmarks.size() > 0)
<h2>My Blog Roll</h2>
#foreach ($bookmark in $rootFolder.bookmarks)
-
$bookmark.name
#end
#end
Check this:
Now supporting the Pound!
You can now subscribe to Plaxo Premium using your hard earned Great British Pounds. Start your free 30-day trial
You can now pay for your Plaxo Premium subscription using Her Majesty’s currency.
Plaxo Premium includes a full set of tools that help you keep your calendar and contacts accessible, organised and safe.
* Remove duplicates from your calendar and address book* *
* Sync with your Windows Mobile phone* *
* Automated backup and recovery of contacts* *
* Send unlimited Premium eCards* *
* 24/7 VIP phone and e-mail support
Once you sign up, your credit card will not be charged for 30 days. You can cancel online at any time during the trial period.
Plaxo Premium now payable by the perennial Pound! Go on give it a try!
You know what ? They won’t be getting one of my hard earned ‘Great British Pounds’.
Imagine an advert saying paying with your ‘Yankee Dollars’ or some such; next it’ll be attempting to remind me that I’m a Subject and not a Citizen, which I don’t need. Or that our unwritten constitution sits in our Law Lords heads.
If that advert hasn’t been written by a naive ‘Yankee’ marketing noob, then I’d be well shocked.
Toodle-Pip old bean, etc., anyway else you’d like to stereotype me while your at it ?
Oh, and Plaxo, get a grip, just ’cause your buy out went through this month doesn’t mean you need to spam the world for cash. Or does it ?
Although it does seem it appear that you’ve started to share *OUR* address book data that you hold online with your new masters at ComCast. Nice one. Whatever happened to probity ?
See https://blog.plaxo.com/archives/2008/07/post_1.html#comments for more info.
Not sure how I feel about Plaxo now, I mean I really enjoy social networking technology, and have used Plaxo for yonks (mainly ’cause of Sean Parker and Doug Clinton).
But now I’m worried that they are going to exploit my online contact list, and that is just not acceptable.
I’m going to watch what happens and migrate or shut down my account if I think they are being irresponsible with my contacts.
And perhaps, in retrospect, you should think about investigating how they are sharing your contact lists as well.
Congratulations to Peter Ryan, newly promoted EVP for Sun’s Global Sales and Services organisation (GSS). Peter has recently led the combined AMER Sales organisation (AMER stands for ‘Americas’) over the last year and a half, and prior to that he very successfully led the EMEA Sales organisation as EVP for the region.
Having worked with Peter during his tenure as EMEA EVP I’m sure he’ll be looking at fresh ways to engage with our customers, as he is immensely customer focused, with a real thirst for his role. Peter’s remit will also be covering a newly created Sun Business Unit, that of ‘Emerging Markets’, predominately made up the fast growing ‘BRICA’ countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and Africa).
Good luck in the new role Peter, I’m sure you’re more than up to it !
Of course all the very best of luck to Don Grantham, who is moving on to new opportunities.
The title of the post says it all: here’s all the very best to Shez Rawsthorne-Houghton who’s recently been appointed CTO for Sun’s Global Services Practice. …..
I promised a couple of months ago to do a review of the 2008 Turing Lecture, but I’ve changed my mind, and here’s why…
Basically I enjoyed it so much I think you should see it yourself, here’s the link from the IET.tv site, so go to it.
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Target Earth: The IET/BCS Turing Lecture James Martin Speaker: James Martin, Savoy Place, London, UK 2008-02-19 12:00:00.0 IT Channel |
The Lecture was done by Dr. James Martin, the “RAD father”[1], or at least the father of RAD (Rapid Application Development).
Dr. Martin reminds me of another hero of mine, E. Gary Gygax (who sadly passed away recently), the father of the RPG, without whom we wouldn’t have MMORPGs as we know them today. Of course without James Martin, and his work developing RAD, it’s likely we wouldn’t have it’s progeny, like RUP, DSDM, XP, SCRUM, or any of the other myriad of agile, re-iterative and rapid approaches to development (certainly not in the form we see them now anyway).
James went on to speak about the twelve mega-problems facing us today:
A major issue with the mega-problems, James mentioned, is that they will combine to make a crescendo of disaster.
I really enjoyed the lecture, and although I’m not going to go into it deeply (cause I think you should watch it), I did catch the following notes, which must have interested me at the time.
Growth in China is such that they are building a new power station every week and a new city (of 2 million plus inhabitants) per month. I find this staggering, China’s economic value and growth is incredibly impressive and constantly amazes me.
James spoke about a number of the predictions in Ray Kurzweil’s major work on futurology: ‘The Singularity is Near‘.
Like many people I’d already been turned onto the idea of ‘The Singularity’, but James positioned Kurzweil’s ‘Law of Accelerating Returns‘ as a significant influence on our combined ability to respond to the ‘mega-problems’.
The basic premise of this law is “an increase in the rate of technological (and sometimes social and cultural) progress throughout history, which may suggest faster and more profound change in the future”.
This first slide shows a correlation of fifteen preeminent lists of innovation, disruptive change and paradigm shift throughout history, that suggest an exponential trend.
Ray uses this as a primary source of data for the aforementioned law.
In Kurzweil’s 2001 essay ‘The Law of Accelerating Returns’ Ray extends Moore’s law to describe an exponential growth of technological progress.
He describes this as one of the reasons behind the Law of Accelerating Returns.
Many thanks to Ray Kurzweil and his organisation, Kurzweil Technologies, Inc., for the permission to reproduce these slides under a Creative Commons Attribution 1.0 license.
Another point James made was that to have any chance of resolving the mega-problems above it “needs”…”everybody (to) get the big picture”.
Of course “getting the big picture means everyone pulls together !” and that’s the real reason that vision statements and goals really do need to be clear and understandable, so everyone involved understands how their contribution ends up helping to make a difference.
Frankly I find the number of businesses that understand this is phenomenally low. I genuinely think it’s a big reason behind corporate inertia as company employees ‘churn’ around over what the ‘real’ goals of their organisation are.
A major reason that we all need to “get” the “Big Picture” is that our Politicians views reflect those of their voters and constituents, and until resolving these issues becomes important to us, our Politicians won’t really reflect them in their policies.
James also name checks James Lovelock, another of my heroes and one of my favorite scientists, particularly for his work on Gaia Theory and the related ‘Daisyworld‘ virtual world simulation that suggests bio-diversity is a key component of the mechinism of the eco-system maintaining a habitable environment.
He is probably most well known for his work inventing the electron capture detector (1956) which led to the discovery of the ubiquitous distribution of pesticide residues (initially DDT) and pollutants (Lovelock was the first to detect the widespread presence of CFCs in the atmosphere) in the natural environment and can be said, along with Rachel Carson’s seminal book Silent Spring, to have started the environmental movement.
Dr. Martin also name checks Jeffrey Sachs, and his book ‘The End of Poverty‘. Despite some negativity to Sachs methods online I still aim to get a copy soon.
Something I hadn’t heard of before, in regards to ‘Failed Nations’ was “Kleptocracy”: where a Government steals from it’s own people, a number of African Governments were given as example.
So I definitely enjoyed the lecture, thought provoking and extremely relevant, and I’m already looking forward to next years event, I wonder who the IET and BCS will get to present for 2009.
Here’s links (and synopses) to the last four years Turing Lectures, all of which have been recorded by the IET for your viewing pleasure. Well worth a couple of hours of your time rather than being exposed to the latest ‘Internet Meme’…
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9th Annual Turing Lecture Grady Booch, IBM The Promise The Limits and the Beauty of Software Lecturer: Grady Booch, IBM 2007-01-25 12:00:00.0 IT Channel |
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Lifestyle access for the disabled Dr. Chris Mairs The BCS/IEE Turing Lecture 2006 Speaker: Dr Chris Mairs, Data Connection plc 2006-01-26 12:00:00.0 Control & Automation Channel |
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7th Annual Turing Lecture Professor Frederick P Brooks Collaboration and Telecollaboration in Design Lecturer: Professor Frederick P Brooks, Jr., FREng, Dist. FBCS 2005-01-20 12:00:00.0 IT Channel |
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Cyberworld security – the good, the bad and the ugly (2004 Turing Lecture) Professor Fred Piper This lecture looks at some of the technical security mechanisms used for protecting our infrastructure by providing confidentiality for information; entity authentication over distributed computer networks and the detection of alteration to information. It discusses some of the social and political problems that can result from their use and from the fact that the same technology can be used by law enforcers (to catch criminals) and law breakers (to avoid being caught), as well as by businesses (to protect their assets) and by individuals (to protect privacy and preserve confidential data). 2004-01-21 12:00:00.0 Communications Channel |
My haiku
Washed up
Love you
Back soon
Sent via text from the 6.10 am train to London whilst rushing off to work last week, I thought it was kind of cute, can’t say Donna agreed though… not particularly sure it counts as a haiku either, c’est la vie…
Finally my new glasses have arrived. I say finally, but that really not fair, they only took a week.
I’ve been having more headaches lately, and increasingly painful ones, and it was pretty obvious that it was my eye sight letting me down.
It’s been at least fifteen years since my last pair, and they had held out for a fair while, but I could tell my sight had been degrading.
Worse than I thought though, I’ve been told I need these for anything that takes concentration, including watching the TV and driving.
Just getting used to them, it’s nice not to be so close to the screen again to be able to see what’s on it.
A number of reasons drove me to redesign the site, in part due to frustration with the existing one and inspiration to try something different.
My main frustrations were due to the fact I was posting a wide range of material whose messages I felt were getting mixed up.
One of the criticism’s people had of my blog was that it jumped around between high (detailed overviews of UK Gov. G2G sysetms) and low brow (going for a walk) too quickly. It had been my original intent to go with this, and that’s why the blog was originally called ‘eclectic’, but I’ve found it’s a little too jarring for people to handle, and I suspect was turning them off. By getting them to choose between different categories I’m hoping that they’ll pick up on that ‘channel’ and become familiar with it before trying the others. I think of this issue as one of signal to noise, however I suppose different readers signal is another’s readers noise.
Most people who have been through this learning curve move to multiple blogs, but I wanted an aggregated page, plus I had fun overloading some of the Roller macros to allow category specific functionality.
My frustration is that I’m sick to the gills of Facebook and the ilk, they are all just so much lock in to closed systems. Frankly I want all of these social applications to integrate. Now. For instance rather than have LinkedIn, Namyz, Xing, etc. keeping records of my professional contacts I just want a blended service where all my professional contacts are visible to me in a single data set, even if they are actually separate and multiple data sources (and wherever the data might actually be).
And I don’t want this applications to be shunting my data around in a haphazard manner, I’d rather just be able to view the information as a unified stream.
Just because the big three of MySpace, Facebook and Google have said that they will ‘play nice’ they are all, to a man, going to be ring fencing their user populations. They will attempt this with guile initially, then with ‘attractive’ *new* features, and finally with strong arm tactics. Eventually they will lose out, because if it’s not open, how ‘social’ is it really.
I’d started to feel that what was needed was a non-Facebook Facebook profile page, and once I’d seen Cal Henderson’s ‘iamcal‘ it all started to fall into place. Cal’s page was a real source of inspiration, and I hope that if he sees my current design that he likes it.
What I’m effectively going for is ‘Radical Transparency‘, mainly as put forward by Clive Thompson’s Wired article “The see through CEO“, and by Chris Anderson’s blog ‘The Long Tail‘ (in fact check out this recent article “You may be on Facebook, but the money’s in the Long Tail“).
Last week I was coming back from London on the late train from Euston and bumped into Chris Loughran from Deloitte, who was also doing the London to Birmingham trek. I was really pleased when, after showing him the new design, he immediately said ‘Radical Transparency’, because I knew I had ‘hit the nail on the head’ as it was obvious to him what I was trying to achieve.
You can see what I mean if you have a look at my new front page over at: https://blogs.sun.com/eclectic/
You should be able to see that I’ve collated recent blog entries, by ‘Category’, over on the left hand side (each of the Categories loads a different look and feel, which I’m hoping won’t be too disturbing for the readers, but will keep the separate nature of the contents in mind).
The centre is taken over by a tag graph combo, along with stuff I’m doing (including books I’m reading, music, films, all via All Consuming, sms via Twitter, online ‘radio’ via Last.fm, and a photo stream from Flickr).
Over on the right are some contact details, about the site, upcoming talks and presentations, and other pages accessable via the site.
The last section is a rss feed of the last blog post of my four favorite blogs, those of Alan Mather, Bill Vass, Mick Farren, and Tim Caynes.
I hope you like the new design, it appears to be popular, in that I’m converting more hits to page reads and multiple pages too.
There are a couple of things to complete, such as tidying up some of the code, finish re-implementing the multi-locale aspects of the site (although I doubt I’ll post machine translated blog posts again anytime soon), and finishing off a sitemap.