Slightly Askew

I don’t know when or why I started reading David Hepworth’s blog.

But I’m glad I did.

He writes with the tone of a man that’s very well read. To quasi-paraphrase Bruce Springsteen, you could probably learn more from David Hepworth in ten visits to the pub than you ever learned in school. Not in a Johnny Ball Reveals All kind of way. More a well-rounded and worldly type of learning.

Now, as I mentioned, I don’t know when or why I started reading David Hepworth’s blog.

And this got me thinking.

Who was that referrer? Who was the person that pointed me in the direction of this terrific little blog? And have they got any more good suggestions for me?

But I don’t know. I don’t know where or when I made the clickthrough.

I could sift through my browsing history, but I spend half my life on the internet and frankly don’t have the time or the inclination to do that much sifting.

So I suggest a Firefox extension that records which site referred me to a particular site for the first time. I’m no programmer, so wouldn’t know where to start, but I’m sure there’s some clever bod out there that could create something to fit the bill.

I spoke about this with James and he suggested going a few steps further and plotting some kind of hierarchical tree of referring sites. I guess Google would come out top (through search). But as soon as you take Google out of the loop, it’d be interesting to see which sites have come portals to lots of interesting information on the web. Let’s call it ReferTree. (An ounce of research shows there’s already a social network called this, but meh.)

Maybe you could opt to share this information, too. So lots and lots of data could be crunched and more charts plotted. That’d be interesting.

Well, I think so anyway.

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Some cap doffing is in order methinks.

A friend of mine, the lovely Mrs Emma Kindred, has recently started her own photography business. A talented graphic designer, Emma departed a sinking ship (they’ll be remembered as publishing houses) as every news broadcaster under God’s hot sun decided that we’d slumped into the Worst Catastrophic Recession To Hit These Shores Ever™.

Scary times.

But rather than get in a flap like a Daily Mail reader listening to a Russell Brand podcast, Emma started EightyOne – a photography studio that gives you top-notch snaps of pets, tots, and the tying of knots. And good on her.

Emma graduated from the Norwich School of Art and Design after studying photography. So you’re getting someone who knows their stuff behind the lens and is passionate about their work – not some pleb with a new gadget trying to make a quick buck.

And that’s my sales pitch on her behalf. Visit EightyOne.co.uk for wedding, pet and children portrait photography. Or give Emma a call on 07834 555329. And if you’re in a social media frenzy, tweet @ei8thyone.

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Photojournalism. It’s my current fad. Not since the potato waffle phase of autumn 2007 have I experienced such salivation for anything other than a Bank Holiday Sunday boozathon.

Whether you give two hoots about Uncle Sam or not, this is brilliant. Via City and Sticks.

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There are many terrible cliches that lurk like sewer rats in the daily effluent of the advertising industry. And much like sewer rats they are always close to the surface, wholly unpleasant and bloody difficult to eradicate.

Cracking first paragraph from t’other day’s post on Adliterate. The word ‘lurk’ is key. Those cliches are there, and they’re ready to ambush you. They can see you, but you can’t see them. Give up. You’re helpless.

Great stuff.

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Most blogs aren’t funny. In fact, most blogs are barely readable.

This one, however, will make you snort like tomorrow’s bacon.

If you don’t get it, you’re stupid. But that’s your problem, not mine.

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The ability to blockquote is only the touch of a button away in Wordpress, so it’s easy to add visual emphasis when I’m quoting someone.

It’s a town for losers, but I’m pulling outta here to win.

But when using my better-half’s laptop - that’s still making use of the wonderfully archaic Internet Explorer 6 (or IE6 if you’re up with web slang) - I noticed that text underneath a blockquote was shifting to the left slightly. And then after the next blockquote it would shift even further to the left. And so on. Not good.

Oddly, I’ve managed to solve the problem by adding a simple border to the offending blockquotes. I’ve no idea why this works, but it does.

Usually, I’d never take this approach. I need to the exact cause of the problem in order to understand why the solution works.

But I’m getting older. IE6 is getting older too. Hopefully it will be extinct before me.

The moral of this story: pick your battles.

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Anybody who has used Wordpress and tried to embed a Youtube video will have suffered the frustration of code getting stripped whenever you edit a post.  Enter EasyTube -  a wonderful YouTube plugin for Wordpress.

Now, without any hassle whatsoever, I can post YouTube videos into Wordpress.

Here’s a video by Theresa Andersson.  The song makes you feel ill halfway through the second listen, but it’s a clever live performance.  Quite why she set up all her equipment in her kitchen baffles me.  It’s probably because that’s where her muse was or something (she does, after all, play barefoot, like any respectably self-indulgent singer songwriter).

Anyway, here it is:

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I’ll be honest, I never got RSS feeds.

I’m no idiot when it comes to computers, but I’d ignore that little orange box with the pulse-wave-type-design at every opportunity.

But like Sky+ (well, probably - I don’t have it, but I’m told it’s great), once you get it, you can’t really live without it.

Well, okay, you could live without it.  It’s not like vitamins or Bruce Springsteen.

Google - unsurprisingly - is the source of my new found love for RSS.  Their Google Reader (good name) allows you to read all your favourite blogs from your iGoogle homepage.  To be fair, that’s probably what most RSS Readers do - but Google’s was dead-simple to set-up.

So in love I now am with RSS (and technologically fearless), I’ve set up my own feed.  So now, you can easily add this wonderful blog to popular feed readers by clicking that icon at the top of the left-hand menu.

If you’re scared, don’t be.  Look that little orange box straight in the eye and tell yourself “if I can put up with Rhianna’s godawful music, I can do anything.”

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