Social media

Blog advice needed

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I’m on the hunt for some blogs. I’ll trawl Technorati, but having found lately that my RSS reader is populated by over-posting A-listers (who are great, but…) I think I’d like to read some people who are writing well, in the UK (preferably), on topics I care about.

So: appreciate the suggestions on blogs about –

    * writing fiction. Specifically sci/fi or fantasy
    * gaming. Any flavour, but hopefully less prolific than the brilliant Kotaku.
    * home recording / garage band tips and tricks (US sites are fine for this one). I could use some help working out what I’m doing here. Guitaring specifically would probably be useful. And other sites that are as useful as PJ’s Chords and Lyrics and Ulitimate-Guitar.com.
    * Windows Mobile tips and tricks. I love CoolSmartPhone – but any more?
    * Windows Vista tips and tricks. I get most of mine from LifeHacker at the moment but they post too often, and wouldn’t mind a filter.
    * health. All the fatblogging stuff is somewhat inspiring, and whilst I don’t intend to do it publicly, I may set up a widget on my desktop.
    * webcomics – well, more webcomic feeds than blogs about webcomics, which could be dull. I read QC, XKCD, Ozy and Millie and Dilbert. Oh, and Hugh, of course.
    * More about the tech landscape in the UK. Enjoy Vecosys, and of course have ValleyWag, TechCrunch and a plethora of others for the US…
    * Everything I need to know about UK politics in one post per day or less. Anyone doing this one yet? ;-)
    * You. I’d like to read the blogs of people who are reading me, so if I don’t know you have one, please tell me

I don’t really need any more tech blogs, but love them so send them on if there are any that you recommend that you think I might have missed. Haven’t worked out how to share my subscriptions from Google Reader as yet (is that possible?) so afraid its not easy to list them all… Have to find some OPML sharing site. Any recommendations on that?

There are more topics that I care about. But that’ll do for now – be great to get your thoughts!

Technology

iPhone on Windows Mobile

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This is cool. I’m pretty sure that the guy who’s doing it is either Malaysian or Singaporean from the accent, but don’t know for sure as his website doesn’t have an ‘about me’ page (uncharacteristic for us egocentric internet inhabiting folk)… but its a very good piece of work and respect to the dude. What he doesn’t say is how much better the SmartPhone hardware is than the Apple hardware will be (EDGE… I mean, come on!). Really hope Apple doesn’t sue this website off the internet, those litigious b’stards…!

Via the Graun.

Gaming

The right to (small) arm bears

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Been playing Small Arms a bit, on Xbox 360. It’s fun. A lot of fun. I mean, a really small, really limited game, and if I’d stop to work out what the exchange rate between Microsoft Points (how tedious) and real money was, I probably wouldn’t have shelled out 800 points for it. But having not made that calculation, I’m pretty happy.

For those who don’t know what it is, it’s like a simplistic, real-time version of Worms. Fast paced, silly weapons and creatures bearing them, and strategic battle stages. Haven’t unlocked anything yet but even with just the basic characters and weapons its fun multiplayer and making me wish I had more than two controllers…! I especially like the knight character with his crazy exploding crossbow bolts…

Personal

Mama receives an award

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My mum won a prize for her doctoral thesis, “Language Shift amongst the Sindhis of Malaysia”, and received the award today. There was a live webcast which we managed to catch part of before work, very proudly, during the course of which she received a fantastic introduction and delivered a great speech, including an overview of her thesis. Many of my family were present (if the replay becomes available, you’ll see my Dad taking a bow for his role in supporting Mama ;-))

Congrats Ma!

Miscellany, Personal

The gentlemans’ club

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Pleased as I am with Soho house, I kind of like the idea of old school social club, like Phoenix Nights, or those places with old men playing pool in Stoke Newington. How do you get involved in that sort of thing? Where are those clubs?

I need somewhere else good to play pool, that isn’t the Elbow Room*… And maybe jam. Like Buena Vista.

* not that there’s anything wrong with that. But variety, y’know?

Internet, Software, Technology

I Joost don’t know what to do with myself

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So, first impressions of Joost.

It’s pretty. A very slick application, transparent, dissolving menus, simple, intuitive menu overlays and EPG.

The quality is ok. I guess not everyone can have 8-16 meg broadband to support HD content (the UK’s average is around 2 meg at the moment)… suspect this could come in time. On my 22″ monitor, its a little fuzzy. The TV content isn’t all the same size either; they could add VLC’s ‘crop’ function to make all the content as full screen as possible depending on the picture orientation. That’d be nice.

It’s a little jittery. For me, anyway. Despite my ludicrous broadband connection I found a couple of channels (GameStar and Green Day) had a couple of pauses during the segments of the programmes I was watching.

The content, is, erm, lacking. Don’t seem to be too many channels natively, and my limited surfing isn’t unveiling a lot at the moment. But there’s probably a way to access everything on YouTube or something, so I’m clearly missing something. And its a beta, anyway, so good chance more will come before a public launch. The search function is pretty good.

It’s pretty interactive. The ‘My Joost’ button will make watching random TV channels at home alone an oddly kind of social. Not really my thing, but, hey, I see the value. I love the random pop quiz questions that seem to be coming up around the music videos.

I already wish: there was an easier way to channel surf. That I could blog directly from Joost, embedding videos accordingly. That there was a way to ‘favourite’ videos (just found the ratings widget. And all the other widgets. Gosh this is good).

And that’s it for now. More to come if it occurs to me.

Music

The Killers: alternative lyrics

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Went to a gig tonight and we got to thinking what alternative lyrics the Killers went through before they came up with the ever memorable “I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier…”

Suggestions:

I’ve got to bowl, but I’m not a boulder
I’ve got Lou, but I’m not a loser
I’ve got a boil, but I’m not a boiler
I’ve got a foal, but I’m not a folder

Any more for any more?

Armand David's personal weblog: dadhood, technology, running, media, food, stuff and nonsense.