Carbon footprint of ads!

There is a drive to start measuring the carbon footprint of online media.

I find it hard to believe that the C02 output caused as a result of a fan cooling down a server which is getting hot because it is distributing some web pages is really worth worrying about compared to Hummers or cheap airline travel.

Apparently some digital agencies are interested in being carbon neutral in terms of the media they produce. Sounds weird - its dependent on site traffic surely, so how is that going to work?

Interface design

Jakob Nielsen said:

"The big lesson here is the need to stick with the design conventions that
users know."

<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/dialog-box.html>

Apparently he found a badly designed dialog box - arrrgh, no!!! On the SIG-IA list, Ziya had a typically caustic reply (which I 100% agree with):

"Of course, the most glaring evidence against the brain-dead fatwa that can
only be made by a small-minded bureaucrat, 'if it's different, users won't
get it,' is the iPhone: not bad because it has "non-standard GUI behavior,"
but great because it manages to transcend Nielsen's conventional
straightjacket."

Poor old Nielsen, he does sound incredibly dull. If we all stuck to the idea of making everything the same just in case some people don't 'get it' when we try something new, the world would be pretty awful. Obviously the more new things you try, the bigger the risk that something will go wrong - but its worth the risk isn't it?

Flickr widget for blogger

This code, which I stole from David K works really nicely as a little flickr photo widget. You can customise the number of thumbnails, and how many rows to spread them over - it's shown in action at the top of the page, under the blog title...

Click here to get the widget code

Then you just need to add a widget to your blog of the 'html/javascript' kind, and paste in the code in the file above.

Make sure you edit the flickrUsername and flickrApiKey fields - you need to get your own flickr api key from here.

My 2 yr old Jonny Rotten

We had a great weekend with Leigh, Rich and Ella (Ikey's girlfriend, sort of).

On Saturday we went over to theirs for a BBQ. We had triple chocolate ice-cream for pudding - which Isaac and Ella also had. NOT a good idea. Too much sugar that close to bed time.

Although afterwards, Isaac and Ella got on little stools that kids use for going to the loo and starting basically free-styling an improvised medley of songs / nursery rhymes / general observations to a sort of spasmodic alternative crazy body popping dance. Isaac added some sort of general spitting, growling weirdness to it all just to top off the 'possessed by Satan' feel for the event. I was in stitches with Clare and Leigh, whilst Rich was looking a bit shocked when he commented 'I'm not sure if its cute'. I have some nutty photos to go with this - will upload later...

I think...

Isaac at breakfast: "I think Rosa is cute, and Daddy is big and Mummy is tiny."

A flickr plugin for lightroom

One day, when Adobe release their Lightroom plugin SDK, I am going to make a plugin which synchronises collections between Flickr and Lightroom.

It's probably impossible, but I want it! Fed up with having to create collections twice!!!

Or perhaps someone else will do it...

Flickr and Lightroom

This is great - if you use Lightroom for photo editing, you can add Flickr Uploader as an export action - saves a few clicks!

http://blog.mayyan.net/2007/03/27/lightroom-flickr-uploadr-set-up/

ER

As a cunning follow-up to a headlong backwards dive onto a hard tile edge, yesterday at creche Isaac decided to run over his own finger whilst driving a plastic car around. It was the kind of car you sit in, so he had his whole weight + the car squashing his titchy little digit . The nail has gone black already!!!

I said to him this morning that he was hurting himself all over the place, to which he replied "I'm not hurting myself all over the place any more Daddy." Hmmm, we'll see.

Head glue

Isaac decided to jump in the shower yesterday, and slipped - causing him to fall back and smack his head on the edge of a very hard sharp tile on the bathroom floor. His head split into a mouth shaped cut so Clare took him to the doc - who literally glued it back together! He went to creche, but we had to bring him home at 11 because he was clearly concussed - very drowsy.

Last night we were told to wake him up every 2 hrs to check on him - which by a cruel twist of fate just happened to be the first night EVER that Rosa slept ALL THE WAY through the night. Not that we got a full night sleep of course - no, up every 2 hrs weren't we!

Poor Ikey, he keeps saying 'You hurt your head Daddy, I think i want some medicine'. His grammar is not quite perfected yet...

A rather delightful picture of my beautiful daughter.

Isaac quotes

"There's only one Daddy" - repeated multiple times over a period of weeks, football chant style.

"Banana pie...pfffffththhhhhhh" - ordering dinner over the plastic telephone.

"I think I don't like something" - having zinc cream put on his bum during nappy change.

"1,2,3,4.....fiiiiiiiiiive" - no matter how many there are, it always come's to five after the count.

How many

Isaac quote: "How many brokens you got Mummy?"

Potty training

Isaac is officially a genius. I think I'll send off for the MENSA forms now. Yesterday Clare and I briefly discussed the fact that we should really start potty training him, up till now we've done almost nothing and he's 2 and a bit. Suddenly this morning, he came running over to Clare shouting 'Mummy wee wee!!!'. He then went and started dragging out the potty from under his table and Clare helped him do a wee in the potty. 'Training' complete!