Status-Q

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The Telegraph, of course, revels in the end of the Guardian's "Write to a Clark County voter" campaign. This follows an earlier article rejoicing in how it had backfired. The Guardian is saying that it was only shut down early because somebody hacked into the site and downloaded 20,000 personal addresses (which is deemed to be worse than 20,000 people downloading one address each).

The original Guardian article turns out to have been rather insightful:

It's worth considering at the outset how counterproductive this might all be, especially if approached undiplomatically. Anybody might be justifiably angered by the idea of a foreigner trying to interfere in their democratic process.

And while the Guardian's Albert Scardino is describing the project as "an overwhelming triumph", I think the original piece may also prove to have been right when describing it as "a unique experiment".

I'm not naturally an early riser, and for some time I have, inexplicably, felt slightly guilty about this. So I have developed a philosophical principle which can enable all 'evening people' to, well, sleep soundly at night. Here it is. Read it, learn it, tell your friends, and it will change your life:

The late worm avoids the early bird.

[Original Link] An interesting observation on Engadget about the filenames that cameras use for their photos.

I'm in Seattle, staying with my very good friends Hap & C.D. Happel. You might be forgiven for thinking we were Apple enthusiasts, after this view of their kitchen this evening!

[Original Link] This looks like a nice accessory for people using Apple's iSight camera. And here's a portable version.

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I've long considered whiteboard images to be valuable documents and have captured them using my digital camera. Usually I then de-skew and tweak them in Photoshop. Since I moved to the Mac I've been meaning to write a program to make that process easier. Fortunately, Rob Frohne beat me to it.

[Original Link] The new Blackberry has an interesting keyboard layout.

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I'm a bit late on this one, but it's interesting anyway if you haven't seen it. It turns out that a very large number of high-security bicycle locks are rather easy to pick. And no, it doesn't require a complex bent bit of spring steel, or a sophisticated skeleton key. Something much easier to come by...

More information also on BikeForums.

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This is a really nice RSS reader for the Mac, which is attractive to look at and makes good use of the Mac user interface. I also like NetNewsWire, but I'm going to try this for a while, mostly because it's prettier. The fact that I can just drag subscriptions to it from NNW makes it even easier...

Thanks to my pal Phil Ashby for the link

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I've spent the last couple of days sorting, tidying and generally getting things in order. Those who know me will tell you that this is a newsworthy item!

It's inspired, I must confess, by David Allen's book, "Getting Things Done". I normally abhor these 'Self-Improvement' books, (mostly because I hate to admit that I find some of them useful), but I had started to see quite a few references to this one around the web, not least through Merlin Mann's 43 Folders blog. Try a Google search on 'getting things done' and you'll see that Allen has definitely put his mark on the phrase. So I went to Amazon, where I noted the rather large number of 5-star ratings in the readers' reviews. Amazon was sold out, so I went to a UK online bookshop and ordered the book.

Later that evening, John came round and said that he'd been wanting to download the audio version (via iTunes) but couldn't because it was only available from the US bit of the iTunes Music Store. Rose has a US credit card, so I was able to download it for him, and I've been listening to it on my iPod in the car ever since.

Now, here's the bizarre thing. Despite the book being shipped fairly promptly, the Royal Mail, a poor shadow of it's former self, has failed to get it to my door yet. However, thanks to my iPod, I've already 'read' it before it even arrives. Oh, and it gets 5 stars from me, too!