I ticked the wrong box

I’ve been struggling to find podcasts that I really dig. Redmonk radio lost me as a listener. I thought their early episodes (up to around 40 or so) were great. A good mix of strategy, business, and IT - in a general sense. I’m quite an enterprise focussed generalist, so that really appealed to me. However, recently they have released the RIA and IT Management podcasts, and they are not for me at all - so I unsubscribed.

I went looking last night for some new podcasts in iTunes that might appeal to me. I found a couple, but am still left unimpressed.

What I found was…

• Deloitte UK Insights - Interesting analysis from Deloitte UK - based around their recent releases of sector based 2008 predictions. I liked this, but I’d like it to be more frequent than yearly
• boagworld.com - not listened yet
• Enterprise Architecture with Jan Popkin and Enterprise Architecture: Lessons Learned - thinly veiled sales podcasts from Telelogic - authors of the Popkin System Architect tool (which I personally like as a tool, but not as much as Metis Architect)
• Manager Tools - not listened yet
• Pragmatic Programmers - not listened yet
• TelcoTalk - product reviews, US based, but features some international news. I think this has promise, but needs to leave just reporting about device press releases and features, and start to comment more on how the devices are unique in the market, their competitors, business value they create etc…
• The Web 2.0 Show - not listened yet

What I’m actually looking for is IT / Telecommunications / Enterprise / business / strategy / analysis style talking. I’m not after development podcasts (although the Ruby On Rails podcast is good, and I’m expecting PragProg, boagworld and web2.0 show to be similar), but I do enjoy the style of them - talking about new ways of working, the business value of agile methods, interviews with startups and businesses on introduction of new technology into the enterprise etc.

Does anyone know of anything that will fit the bill?

I’m doing a bit of Flash work for a mate who is setting up a website to host video. One of the problems I just solved was how to get some text to flow around an image. I was hoping there would be some sort of way to make a textfield of arbitrary shape (with vectors or something) because I really wanted an L shaped textfield, so I could place an image in the upper left corner, but sadly, they are just rectangles. I found this post though, and the solution was so simple.

Just convert the textfield to Render text as HTML,

myTextField.htmlText = "<img src='whatever'>Blah blah</>";

as ActionScript, and the text flows around the image! Easy.

That’s what I like about this whole Flash thing - it’s very easy to merge the richness of Flash with the simplicity of the web.

What I don’t like is that the content isn’t searchable by Mr. Google

Well, last friday (29th) was my last day at Vodafone Group Services. It feels a bit weird not working there anymore, although I don’t even know if it’s really hit me. After 8+ years in the same group of companies it’s just a bit strange to be out.

I’ve got a new role at a consultancy based in London, starting with some intensive training on the 10th March. Should be very interesting to start working on the other side of the consultant/customer relationship. I’m really looking forward to it - it’ll be great to be able to interact with a wider range of companies, industries and perform a much more cross-functional role. It should be great! And finally being able to feel like I’m delivering value to people and organisations again - that will be the most rewarding part of the move (of course, I have been delivering value for the past 8 years, it’s just in the last 2 it’s been in a very different way - all advice and recommendations, rather than something tangible).

The biggest thing that I think I’m going to struggle with though is having to pay for phone calls! Spending a long time with free wireless voice and data services builds up some bad habits (from my bank balances point of view!)

Arrrrgggg!

When I ordered my MacBook Air the only options I had for keyboard were UK English, and French. No US English when ordering from the UK store you see. So, I was trying to hack around with rcov today, and needed to alter some source. I wanted to copy and edit a line of code, preserving the original. To do this, I was just going to hash out the line, and put my altered line below. That’s where I encountered my issue.

THE UK KEYBOARD LAYOUT HAS NO # SYMBOL PRINTED ON IT!!!!

Luckily I found this page - Hat tip to QuiteTall.

ALT-3 for people who can’t be bothered clicking thru.

I mean come on - the keyboard has symbols such as § and ±, but no #?!?!?!? What’s going on with that?

Righto, I’ve been putting it off long enough. Got the GiST has been running on rails 1.1.6 almost since it has been launched, and I’d like to take advantage on some of that RESTful 2.0 goodness. So, I’ve decided it’s time to upgrade it.

I’ve got a couple of issues though. I currently use (shhhh, I’m about to say a dirty word) Engines to handle my user logins and roles… They don’t work with much past rails 1.1.6. I also don’t have good admin screens on the application, and whenever I need to do maintenance (which is very rare) I need to go and edit the database directly

So, there are a number of things that I want to do to the app.

1. Upgrade to Rails 2.0.2
2. Convert my user login goodies to use acts_as_authenticated
3. Get another way to handle roles
4. Implement Streamlined for admin screens
5. Write some tests - I’ve was a bit slack when I initially wrote Got the GiST
6. Refactor my code - this goes without saying - some of it is a bit shabby

The main issue I have is that I’m not sure what order I want to do this in. The issue that I have is there are a number of dependencies. For example, old-style Engines doesn’t work past 1.1.6 - and I have my complete login and role system built around that. streamlined don’t appear to work with Rails 1.1.x. acts_as_authenticated requires a simple bit of script hackery to work with 1.1.6, so that might be able to come early…

I think what I’m going to do is drop Engines ASAP. That’s the main cause of my pain. I need to recreate with acts_as_authenticated essentially the same methods for authentication as login_engine currently has, as well as find a (perhaps temporary) solution to my roles issues. Then I’ll set about writing tests. Next step I think could be to upgrade to 1.2.6, and then implement streamlined. I think I’ll then be ready for a migration to Rails 2.0.

Unless someone else has a much better suggestion!

The Economist published a story called “The end of cheap food“.

It has a couple of interesting quotes:

• The Chinese consumer who ate 20kg (44lb) of meat in 1985 will scoff over 50kg of the stuff this year. That in turn pushes up demand for grain: it takes 8kg of grain to produce one of beef.
• This year biofuels will take a third of America’s (record) maize harvest. That affects food markets directly: fill up an SUV’s fuel tank with ethanol and you have used enough maize to feed a person for a year.
• Increasing productivity means you need fewer farmers, which steadily drives the least efficient off the land.

The first two are interesting for their “facts”. The last is interesting because countries in the EU (as I have had it explained to me by British colleagues) will pay farmers to leave land fallow - ie, not grow crops or farm animals - this is in a drive to keep prices up in Europe - sort of a reverse subsidy. Local suppliers used to be encouraged to produce with subsidies, now foreign suppliers are discouraged (and this is particularly strange in my opinion because a country is giving away money offshore to not produce anything, whereas they could stimulate their own economy by spending the money internally - however this in turn will likely increase efficiency of farms, due to more funds available to farmers for RnD activity). What I find interesting (and surely obvious to all) is that increases in technology and production methods will yield greater productivity, increasing the supply, and thus, depressing the price even more. This will in turn require more intervention in terms of subsidies for supply in europe, and subsidies for lack of supply in other countries.

And of course, this all hurts the developing nations - they struggle to produce food in a manner that is as productive as the west due to lack of technology and advanced production methods.

The point I want to get across here is that subsidies aren’t good for anyone when viewing the global economy. Subsidies at home encourage oversupply. Subsidies offshore (for lack of production) artificially raise global prices and is fighting a losing battle due to advancement of production methods and technology.

My view is that if you can’t survive at a free market price, then you should seriously consider exiting that market and doing something else with your capital. Subsidies are not a long term solution. (Re)Investment is.

1. Read the guide
2. Complain

Yep, that’s the guidance for Capital Gains Tax here.

Source: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/leaflets/cgtfs1.pdf

Look what I just pre-ordered…

I already have a 13″ PowerBook that is a little over 2 years old. The battery now has a 45 minute life, it’s scratched a bit, and I think it needs a rebuild. With my new job (!) I’m going to become a bit of a power commuter, and want a machine that is ultra-portable. The original reason I opted for the 13″ PB was because of the portability, but the MacBook Air is just that bit more portable. I know the battery can’t be replaced by mortal men, and that it only has a mono speaker, and that it has no internal optical drive, but the portability and battery life for me is the key.

Oh, and it’s as sexy as hell.

wtf?

Someone needs to check the grammar rules in that thing.

AMC and I went to Amsterdam to celebrate my birthday this year. It’s an interesting place. I found the whole experience odd, but enjoyable. It’s a strange mix of people there - I guess we were there for the weekend, so perhaps got the weekend crowds. There were lots of stags/hens parties, all stumbling around the red light district, being enticed into BananaBar (or whatever it was called) for some live action, and the coffeehuis situation is a bit odd too. It’s quite fun seeing people totally off their chops stumbling around the streets.

So, what did we do/see?

• Heineken Brewery Tour
  
• Red Light District
• Flea Market
• Van Gogh Museum
• Sex Museum
• Torture Museum (not worth it!)
• Canal Cruise
• Drank Beer
• Ate Indonesian (cause it’s frickin’ hard to find in the UK)
• Saw a really funny looking little car
  

There are lots of bikes there.

And I bought a new hat.