Tintoy’s tox box

I just opened my fridge to find a 'soft drink posing as a fruit juice' with a name that might sound somewhat like runny gee. Apparently (according to the label) it has 'less sugar than other soft drinks'. Not 'no added sugar' or 'naturally low in sugar'. Just 'less sugar than other soft drinks'. I guess in the same way that being hit by a car is 'less lethal than being hit by a bus'. Time to realign your expectations...

Found myself with some free time and I thought I'd make a very very very crap video to show off the video out capabilities of the ever amazing Nokia N95. Plus it's quiet a nice demo of the 3D accelerated graphics it can do...

I think I might have too much free time on my hands today...

I never anything short of amazed by the ever increasing quantity and quality of web based applications out there.It's actually pretty much possible to do pretty much all your everyday computing with nothing more on your PC than a decent web browser! Plus your applications (and their state) is available from anywhere. In my mind this represents the advent of home thin computing and is they way things are going (hence Googles obvious interest in this sector!)

Here's my run down of the best I've used so far:

Google Mail (obviously!)
Google Reader - The best RSS aggregator I used. More functionality and usability than Bloglines IMHO and it has a good mobile phone interface.
Meebo - AJAX based IM for Yahoo, AIM, MSN and Jabber.
Zoho - Complete (yes, complete) office suite. It even has things like a project planner and a DB!
BBC iPlayer - Bin your telly!
Facebook - I'd consider this a web app as the functionality is so rich now. There are still a few concerns in my mind around the way Facebook approaches privicy issues (but block Beacon using the AdBlockerPlus plugin for Firefox and you'll be fine!)
Picnik - Previously my favourite online photo editing app until I discovered the next one...
Photoshop express - In beta but already stunning! How do they get so much into a Flash based web app?
Google Maps - Ever useful. Ever entertaining.

I had no idea there things could do the pavement as well as the gutters!

29012008031-001

Found a nice Flickr slidshow widget creator here

Does this:

bugger...

Been riding. Yep. Riding my MTB. Yep. Me. First time in months.

It was freezing (3 degrees acording to the car therometer) and knackering and muddy as the Somme. But fun fun FUN FUN! Goes firmly on my 'need to do more of this' list...

(Click the pic for a bigger, muddier one)

Playing with shozu

I just added a lastfm.com widget to my sidebar. For those that don't know, lastfm is one of those sites where you and your friends can warehouse information about the music you listen to (in itunes, windows media player etc) and then mine the info.

One of the coolest features is that it profiles your taste in music based on your listening habits and then provides targeted recommendations. It also allows you to see what your friends are listening to provide a little itunes store inspirations - or bit torrent, if your shaped that way ;-)

BTW - if you don't fancy ruinning the lastfm software to gather information about the tracks you are playing, and you use itunes, there is a nice itunes Visualisation plugin called jscrob2 that does a nice, unintrusive job of gathering and sending playcount stats to lastfm. It's old, but faultess AFAIK. As I said, it works as a visualisation so you need to have it slected as your current visualation in itunes for it to work. It also works with the playcounts gathered by itunes for your ipod, but you need to not 'manually manage music' for itunes to gather playcounts from your ipod (something that took me a VERY VERY VERY long time to work out...)

It's that time. Time when about a kabillion people are making resolutions for the new year. I suspect many are made as a sort of attonement for past transgressions more than a contract for the coming year (mine usally are!). Anyway, I though i'd imortalise mine on this blog to give a degree of permanace to the resolutions that I've usally completly forgotten by Febuary the first...

I will:

• Not to be so critical of my personal shortcomings and failures
• Spend an hour a week thinking about where I am, where I'm going, and how to get there (sounds a bit like a bullet point from some sort of self help book?)
• Be more dynamic and do more
• Consume less (in every sense!)
• Get back to 80kgs (damm you christmas dinners...)
• Ride my bike more and start running again

I think that'll do for the moment!