Summer holiday reading – a £15 Kindle store challenge

I’m going to be taking a good chunk of annual leave soon, so I’ll need some sort of summer reading list. Rather than looking at a broadsheet for a list of unlikely awards fodder, I thought I’d put this out to my pals, to see what ideas they have. Some of you make me jealous… Continue reading Summer

learning and teaching

Why graduate web designers should have an opinion on FTP software

Specialists in all fields have a tendency to fetishise their kit because mastery and selection of tools is a way of demonstrating expertise.  James Bond choose an off beam choice in his Beretta 418. That tells us something about him – he’s a maverick, a specialist, an expert. I can only find this sc

Why doesn’t the Internet want to fix my socks?

Many of my socks are broken, and the Internet is to blame. Today I was walking around the office in odd socks, that too is the Internet’s fault. Whatever happened to the man subscription? About ten years ago I remember seeing an advert for a mail order man survival kit, a subscription to being a… Co

Dear print designers, if you want to use QR codes you need to think usability too

Dear Print Designer,   I noticed your poster today at Perry Barr station. It’s an attractive enough poster, and very much in keeping with London Midland’s house style. I noticed you’d used a QR code with the call to action “scan me”. Now I’m a very obedient guy, so I did, but it was tricky,… Continu

When I had an authentic Glastonbury experience

It seems to have been Glastonbury weekend this weekend. That traditionally means that people come out telling you that Glastonbury jumped the shark and it’s not like it was in the old days. So there’s no point in going really is there? After all you won’t have an authentic experience. I had an authe

business

FAQ: a simple accountancy system using office software

“Where can I get some basic cheap accountancy software?” A common question I see on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. My standard response is “if you need something basic, just use your office software”. I’ve found that most basic bookkeeping tasks can be done using Word & Excel (or your own preferred

boxsets

A favourite ‘Six Feet Under’ clip, perfect for you Rapture watchers

We finished watching ‘Six Feet Under’ last night. I’ll celebrate by sharing this rapture themed clip with you. Incidentally I’m landscaping my garden today, so I’m going to look pretty stupid if the rumours are true. SHARE THIS: * Share * * Twitter [https://theplan.co.uk/a-favourite-six-f

Garden working

1. Find the area of the garden that has wifi range (my router is at the front of the house, my garden is at the back – I need to sit closer to the building and in the clearest line of site I can get) 2. Holding laptop wonder around the wifi area until you… Continue reading Garden working [https://th

Poppadoms: the rules

When ordering a take away curry, the situation around poppadoms may be confusing. Here’s a handy cut out and keep guide to explain how it works 1. The order guy doesn’t mention poppadoms Result: you receive 1 poppadom per main dish ordered. In most cases that is one poppadom each. No charge is levie

altbeebies

A beginner’s guide to: Zingzillas. AKA “Lost for Toddlers” #altbeebies

At first I found Zingzillas unnerving for no discernible reason, then my other half cracked the key problem: it’s  a programme where people have dressed up as monkeys who then dress up as people. That’s unsettling. Beyond that presentational issue, what else is going on? The show is about music, and

blogging

A response to the “Pen & Paper Blog”

A blog that you write on paper* and then upload each “post” as a photo is an interesting idea in principal I guess… Here’s the original *Written on a Moleskine, of course, as befits the concept. There’s being low fi and then there’s being cheap. SHARE THIS: * Share * * Twitter [https://th

Is my Kindle nickable?

A lucky escape yesterday when someone tried, and failed, to break into some houses on our road led to Corrina instructing me today: “make sure you put your Kindle well out of sight when you go out of the house” Which has got me wondering: “Is a Kindle nickable?” I’m not sure it is, really.… Continue

And all the Slipsters fell down Moore’s Chasm…

You’ve probably seen this, or heard the terms it uses such as “early adopters” and “laggards”. It’s the “Diffusion of Innovation Model” (picture credit: Natebailey via Wikipedia) which describes the adoption of technology over time. The diffusion model suggests innovation adoption follows a bell cur

How to write a polemic on social change

Distil your thesis down to one word. It should either be an adjective which you wish to imbue with new deeper meaning like “Free”, or a neologism (maybe even a portmanteau) like “crowdsourcing”.  Open your book with an account of an ordinary person who dared to think differently. They represent the

howto

Scrivener + EndNote crib sheet

After much prevaricating I’ve downloaded Scrivener. Why? Because everyone told me I should, and I was convinced after watching the demo video (10 minutes well spent). For those of you who don’t know what it is, it’s a writing tool that makes long writing projects easier to manage. One thing that I w

bearwood

A local media thought experiment: “The Bearwood Question”

So local TV is back on the agenda, offering more questions than answers. In the Guardian Media Talk podcast Matt Wells questioned Jeremy Hunt about the ability to deliver “local” in any meaningful way through broadcast television. TV, in its traditional broadcast sense, is territory based: signals h

Internet Heroes #2: Martin Lewis

This is the second in an occasional series on people who have done interesting things to do with the Internet or digital culture, but who we don’t talk about enough, or perhaps who we don’t think about as being “off of the Internet”.  Who? Martin Lewis is “an award-winning campaigning TV & radio pre

excel

Cleaning up Twitter data in Excel for analysis

A lot of academic work that draws on tweets as primary data will use hashtag archives as the basis of their study. What’s nice about that is that you can use tools that capture data and present them to you in a usable manner (e.g. a CSV file). If you’re doing something a little different, like revie

Happy New Website Footer

Happy New Year to you. I’ve been having a bit of a chat on Twitter today about copyright notices in website footers – apparently today’s the day to change them. I’m not so sure. Let me tell you why, and if I’m wrong please do use the comments to correct me. UK copyright law My… Continue reading Happ

listening

Social media listening: dear brands, please stop rewarding me for being a grumpy git

I’m getting worried about social media listening strategies. Not in a paranoid, surveillance society way. I’m worried about social media listening strategies because corporations reward me every time I moan; whinges are the new currency, and companies are incentivising me to be grumpy. Discounting s

meme

May I be pedantic about “fake memes”?

“is this meme a fake?” No. If an idea is out in the wild, being reproduced by folk then it’s not a fake meme – it is actually a meme. The given basis for starting the meme could be a total crock, but the meme itself is real. You know that because you can see… Continue reading May I be pedantic about

socialmedia

Owning conversations: the commercial TV back channel for #xfactor

Twitter’s a funny place. The folk I follow on there are passionate champions of free speech one day, insisting that my local councillor can make racist jokes for example, and the next they’re all “this isn’t the place to talk about popular culture – I will unfollow you if you tweet about xfactor you

literature

Internet Heroes #1: Geoff Ryman

💡April 2025 update: fifteen years ago I wrote this piece, mostly for my friend Ben Whitehouse. Ben and I talked about this book a lot over the years. He wished me happy 253 day on 11th January every year. Ben passed away at the end of March. He was due

learning and teaching

Thoughts on ‘The UX Design Education Scam’ by @andyrutledge: my first rebuttal

In my capacity as a course leader in a higher education programme that features the words “web and new media” in the title, here are the first of two rebuttals of Andy Rutledge’s article “The UX Design Education Scam“. Former BCU colleague Matt Machell asked for my thoughts on this. It actually rela

innovation

Conquering the fear of failure: innovating my teaching to improve students’ learning

This week my third year students have been confronting their fear of failure. I’m not a big fan of the phrase “fail fast, fail often” because it hides a bigger set of issues rather too neatly. Failure, as part of a process of experimentation, is a by-product, not a target. Frequent failure may well