Blogger SEO Title

an update to a post from long ago: there *is* a (relatively) simple way to get the Blogger title to be SEO-friendly (courtesy of makeuseof.com):

** warning: this requires HTML editing - and could break your layout; you have been warned! **

Instructions as of 26th May 2012:

1. go into the Blogger dashboard
2. select the "Template" option
3. press the "Edit HTML" button
4. press the "Proceed" button
5. find the bit (near the top) that reads:
   <title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
6. change this to read:
   <b:if cond=`data:blog.pageType == &quot;index&quot;’>
   <title><data:blog.title/></title>
   <b:else/>
   <title><data:blog.pageName/> | <data:blog.title/></title>
   </b:if>
7. select the Preview option (avoids saving a broken layout, right?
8. when you're happy, press the "Save template" button
9. done!

Tea and Cake

As you can tell, I am not posting here at the moment. To be perfectly honest, I can't decide whether I ran out of inspiration or whether the Great British press have pissed me off so much that I can't think where to start.

Either way, I am currently concentrating on web application development. My chronicle on playing with CakePHP is begigning to take shape in a companion blog: Cooking with CakePHP. Do drop by and feel free to comment ...

Blogger Tag Cloud

I've just implemented the most excellent Blogger Tag Cloud - courtesy of phydeaux3. It does exactly what it says on the tin.

Now if only I could find a way of getting the page title to put the blog name at the end ...

:^)

This little piggy stayed at home

I find myself wondering whether this is a cynical attempt at gaining publicity. A variation on the Three Little Pigs story has apparently been rejected by a government agency awards panel. OK, a children's educational CD-ROM called "Three Little Cowboy Builders" was never going to have an easy ride ... but I still can't see in what way this would offend Muslims. Builders, yes: I can see how they might feel offended. Still, it's a variation on banning the thing.

I wrote a piece a while ago about Muslim being the new Black - but never posted it. I'm still convinced that beliefs rather than appearance is the current target of scaremongery. Hoodies and drunks no longer hold the public in fear - but Muslims? That's almost foreign. They're obviously a rotten lot to be despised and feared, surely?

One of two things is tue of this CD-ROM: either the material is offensive - in which case the reasons should be explained properly, or the material is not offensive - in which case Becta should apologise. Reading the comments on The Register article, I know which I suspect is true.

Personally, I think a good story should be left alone. The rot set in when the story was changed so that first two pigs survived. A fat load of use as a cautionary tale when there are no consequences!

Digital dissent

I do love irony.

I have come to the conclusion that this year I will be mostly posting about stupidity and futile jesture.

Today's case in point is Tara Brabazon, Professor of Media Studies at the University of Brighton (or Brighton Polytechnic as I knew it). I do get her point, I really do .. but how can she possibly think that banning Wikipedia and Google is the right approach? The best part is, of course, that this is now recorded .. on Wikipedia (where else?)

Given that she is recorded as being a "digital dissenter" we can perhaps forgive the naiivity of not forseeing the entire internet now being full of this news. As a learned subject expert, however, she really should show more understanding of the cultural shifts being driven by new media. Surely, the better approach would be to ensure students do more online research - not less. And, yes, back up this research with other media.

The conclusion I have to draw is that this move is an example of elitism. She evidently disregards her chosen subject as having little or no worth. On this basis I must disregard her opinion as irrelevent.

Whatever happened to common sense?

Now I'm not a political animal - but the society created by the last two governments is not one I enjoy being part of. The blame is not solely theirs, of course. The popular media (and I include grown-up newspapers in that) have had a major influence in this, too.

I have gotten used to the way of life, I'm sorry to say. I expect to be ripped off by small traders. I expect the government to feather its own nest, rather than to serve the people. I am not surprised when yet another law is passed which restricts my freedom and patronises my intelligence.

The disturbing development, however, is that private companies are now beginning to follow suit. Last week say J D Wetherspoon announcing a limit on the number of drinks served to adults with children. It's bad enough having the government telling me what is good and what is not good for me. The company are not, we are told, concerned with adults being intoxicated in charge of children: their two-drink limit may also extend to soft drinks. No, the quoted reson is that children will be bored as there is no play area.

In reality, the company wants to put as many cards through the till as possible. Shifting bums is their way of achieving this. I never have - and now probably never will - go to a J D Wetherspoon. Two drinks? Keep 'em!

Happy New Year

It's that time again. I return to work, slightly bewildered and wondering what's new. As usual, the talk is of new resolutions and how this year will be different to the last.

I, too, am thinking what 2008 will have in store for me and my family. I'm struck by how much events around me affect my outlook. I guess we're all touched by the ripples of others' lives. Maybe that should be the theme of this years' blogging - an holistic view of life in which we're all connected. Or maybe not.

Enough of the cod philosphy. Back in the real world, I'm adjusting to having an independent daughter and fighting off mid-life crisis. There are practical considerations, too.

This year I'll be putting more effort into web development and will post my progress here. I may have some things to say about being the parent of teenagers, too. Assuming I ever get the hang of it.

For what it's worth, the last New Year resolution I made was many years ago. I vowed to stop making New Year resolutions. I've stuck to it.

Censorship? NO!

When, oh when will people learn that censorship is rarely - if ever - the answer?

Yes, I know that the whole Winterval thing was supposedly a big commercial exercise gone badly wrong, but the Political Correctness brigade have really got a lot to answer for. Is it any wonder we live in a nanny state when no-one can air their opinions or write conversations which might cause offence?

I will grudgingly accept that arbitrarily injected profanity can cause offence - and so arguably should be censored for main-stream broadcast. But, for goodness sake! Fairytale of New York is part of the Christmas furniture .. along with Jona Lewie, Wizzard and Slade. Changing or blanking the words now is a real horse-bolted-door-close thing. Surely, everyone's heard it by now? Even if they had not - the language is in context. This petty PC censorship is like putting a bra on the Venus de Milo. The song is an argument between two lovers - the words reflect the passion and heartache involved.

What're they gonna do next? Will tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol get disability benefit? Perhaps he shouldn't be disabled at all! What? That'd change the story? Who cares - as long as no-one's offended? Wrong! Wrong I tell you!

Right. I will now relax and look forward to Christmas - having got that out of my system. More port and stilton required, methinks.

Just because you can ..

... doesn't mean you should.

Depressed? You should be†.

I've ranted about modern medical science before; and I'll no doubt have cause to rant about them again in future. It is a classical example of a self-supporting argument. The whole industry is geared up to find solutions and then apply problems to them.

This one takes the biscuit, though. Exercise does indeed have huge benefits to sufferers of depression. What these scientists fail to realise is that this is only partly a chemical effect.

Chemicals cannot replace the satisfaction of having achieved something. Precisely the opposite: anyone taking these proposed medicines will become even more dependent on someone else - the very people indending to help. So-say.

For goodness sake! If exercise helps: encourage it .. don't try to bottle it!

† Note that I'm not trying to make light of mental illness here. In fact, I'm trying to point out that the "experts" appear to be doing their best effort to ignore the seriousness of the issues.

Christ on a Bike .. it's the 12 Days of Kitschmas!

I do love a bit of kitsch .. in the right context. Being a child of the seventies, a bit of G-Plan furtinure and a shag-pile carpet always raises a wry smile.

So it is with great pleasure that I was introduced to the Ship of Fools' 12 Days of Kitschmas. I hasten to add that I'm not recommending any of these as anything other than something to laugh at ...

Testing Flock

So .. I've been trying Flock.

Currently at 1.0, I succumbed to the lure of the Facebook plugin - and the possibility that it'll not lock up like Firefox with the current (v3.0) NOD32 virus checker.

So far: so good. Visiting the recognized sites (YouTube, Flickr, Blogger, Facebook, etc..) captures your login details and adds the hooks - loke the people sidebar (which is now populated with all my Facebook friends) and the blog editor. Which I'm using, now. Adding the image above was a simple drag'n'drop affair and the posting was .. well, let's see   ;^)

Blogged with Flock

Bloody Christmas

Don't you hate Christmas? All that hype .. the endless pretentious adverts for perfume .. and as for shop decorations - don't get me started!

I'm sure it gets worse every year. This time round there were sparkly decorations appearing before Guy Fawkes night! Now the streets are festooned with tinselled trees - largely artifical, but increasingly real - and twinkly lights.

Then again, I tend to leave present buying until at least December - on principle - which never leaves enough time. I can't bear to think about Christmas with a sixth of the year still to go, and I can't afford to leave it all until the last minute.

Chestnuts roasting on a open fire
Jack Frost nipping on your nose
Yuletide carols being sung by a choir,
And folks dressed up like Eskimos

Come Christmas morning - fuelled with our now-traditional Bucks Fizz - I will feel different. The children will have eagerly opened their stocking presents and spread them and the associated wrapping paper all over the house.

Every year we do the same thing. Er - that is, Father Christmas does the same thing. We wrap all the stocking presents. Almost without fail, we sit down on Christmas Eve and wrap what feels like hundreds of little presents. The result gives the appearance of an explosion in a Christmas decorations factory. Which I somethimes think isn't a bad idea.

Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe,
Help to make the season bright.
Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow,
Will find it hard to sleep tonight

Ah, but the thought of suggling up by the fire after eating a hearty dinner - brandy in one hand and mince pie in the other - warms the cockles of my heart. By then, the trauma of fighting though the shopping centres and scouring the internet for that elusive Wii add-on will be all but forgotten. The cold hard reality of the vast overspend will not yet have hit and I will be at peace.

Except that I won't. I will be busily juggling being a parent and a child, fitting batteries and serving drinks, giving and receiving. The children, having been wound up to fever pitch by school and television over the previous months will be bouncing off the walls and fighting over something or other. There will be disagreements over whether we should be watching the Queen's speech or listening to the Christmas Carols CD. In short, it will be Bedlam.

They know that Santa's on his way;
He's loaded lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh.
And every mother's child is going to spy,
To see if reindeer really know how to fly

Boxing day, however, we always try to make sure we can relax. Food will be cold and/or simple. Snacks will be plentiful. Fun will be had. By order.

This is when there is always the visiting and the family. I could moan - but in truth I kind of like my family, really. Deep down. That's not so say it it all runs smoothly or that there is stress involved.

So: my advice for Christmas? Go with the flow. Make merry. Wine women and wassail and all that. Enjoy.

And so I'm offering this simple phrase,
To kids from one to ninety-two,
Although its been said many times, many ways,
A very Merry Christmas to you

Merry Christmas indeed. And I'm sure the next five weeks will fly past.

The Japanese knotweed of festivals

.. as in an unwelcome import.

This really sums it up beautifully, for me.

I blame E.T. Before that, no-one in the UK went trick-or-treating .. it was something those weird colonial types did. We had Guy Fawkes Night.

These days, every child in the land wants to go collecting sweets. Everyone has second-hand stories about gangs of uncontrolled youths and eggs - or worse - being thrown. Luckily, round our way they are mostly chaperoned and relatively well behaved. We did have a few teenagers trying their luck - but I'm glad to say that they accepted sweets instead of money.

.. and that's where you have to draw a line. A gang of hoodies^†, knocking on someone's front door and demanding money is extortion, isn't it? Or demanding money with menances. Or something. Definately not right - and probably illegal. There should be a campaign to put more police on the streets for Samhain. Sorry, Hallowe'en. I should start one. I just can't gather together enough righteous indignation .. and won't someone please think of the children?

But there's more! What's all this? At work today, there is pumpkin-and-bat shaped bunting. The staff at the coffee cart^‡ are wearing masks and scary lipstick. It's all gone too far! I'm slowly going mad!! Even using three exclamation marks!!! Eeeeeeeeek.

^† Note that I strongly dislike the use of stereotyping anyone wearing a particular garment (or haircut, etc..) as being of a certain pursuasion. I onw - and wear - a hoodie. It was the best description which came to mind, however. Artistic licence and whatnot.

^‡ This is what in other places might be called a coffee shop. Here, it's where we go to buy "posh coffee". Go figure.

Ubuntu Upgrade

So .. three days on, how's the Ubuntu upgrade? [non-techies may safely assume this post isn't for them]

Regulars may have guessed that my weekend was spent upgrading Ubuntu from version 7.04 ("Feisty Fox") to version 7.10 ("Gutsy Gibbon"). The download and upgrade all executed without hitch. It did take longer than anticipated, but worked fine. I had downloaded the CD ISO image (and sharing via bittorrent - a very popular file!) before realising that there was an upgrade path. Upgrading meant downloading a whole CD's worth of updates ...

There have been a few slight wobbles with Firefox locking up and user switching getting confused - but no real showstoppers. Picasa still works - though users have to be added to the video group, now that AppArmour locks down the video devices. The icing on the cake is getting my printer working, thanks to discussion list help.


TODO:

1. test NTFS compatability


2. migrate user directories to common Windows / Linux partitions


3. encourage the family to try it out

Onwards to life beyond Windows!

The Big Turn-Off

Digital terrestrial TV ("Freeview") has made the news once again today. The ongoing campaign to wean the viewing public off analogue technology has been tweaked up a notch by today's publicity around the first analogue transmitter to be switched off.

I'm all for digital TV. No, really. I look forward to being able to have multiple interactive channels available all over the house. I'm not convinced it'll be so easy, though. My analogue TV reception is terrible. My nearest transmitter is a mere mile and a half away, but t'other side of a hill. The only line-of-sight transmitter is over thirty miles away and that is just over a hill brow, too. It's not as if I live in a valley. Far from it, my bedroom window overlooks a valley and the hills beyond. It's just that all the transmitters are the other way.

Enter the marvelous Megalithia. Here, you can enter your OS grid reference, pick a transmitter and see the terrian along the line of sight - and work out how tall your aerial needs to be. The Digitalpy FAQ pages have been helpful, too.

This is all very well, but in the absence of a transmitter in the right place, I'll be relying on satellite TV - which means I cant afford to put a TV in the kids rooms. Pah. Maybe broadband TV will come to my rescue. Progress mumble mumble in my day mutter mutter all this was fields.

The Great Storm

In 1987, those of us who lived on the South Coast of England were subjected to the biggest storm to hit Britain in living memory. In retrospect - and in comparison with, say, Hurricane Katrina - it was not so bad. It was bad enough to cause "significant loss of life and devestation". This has only come to liight as I stumbled across a page about it on the Met Office website. It'll be twenty years ago on Monday.

My personal memories are still clear. I lived in a ground floor flat across the road from the beach - a few miles from Shoreham-by-Sea. I was woken in the early hours - one o'clock or so - by the noise. It was very loud - like nothing I'd neard before. I had a gas fire against the chimney breast; it was humming and vibrating as so much air was being drawn though it. The french windows were rattling like something out of Close Encounters.

I cautiously looked out of the window to the garden. Normally, I propped my windsurfer against the wall. For some reason, I had left it lying flat on the grass. As I looked I could see it being picked up by the wind .. making it hover about. I got rather unnerved by the strength of the wind: I was worried the windows were going to give way. I could almost feel the strength of it through the glass.

In the morning, having got a little sleep as the wind had peaked, I cycled to work. The coast road was red with pulverized rof tiles .. as if someone had powdered them and sprinkled the dust all over the road. My route took me along the airport perimiter track. The scene is difficult to imagine without having seen it. The light aircraft and helicopters were scattered and broken like childrens' toys.

Many TV programmes have been made about that night - and everyone who was there has a story to tell. I'll certainly never forget it.

Quasi Universal Intergalactic Deminonation

Go on .. lend us a quid.

"None of the existing payment systems we use on earth - like cash, credit or debit cards - could be used in space," said Professor George Fraser from the University of Leicester.

"Anything with sharp edges, like coins, would be a risk to astronauts while the chips and magnetic strips used in our cards on Earth would be damaged beyond repair by cosmic radiation," he added.

... 'nuff said

A Work of Genius

I am humbled. Ronnie Hazlehurst was a popular composer of TV music, I know. What I've just read though has brought a huge grin to my face.

The theme tune to "Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em" spells out the title in morse code. No, really. A rumour was referred to in his obituary. Some bod (Jim) at BBC 6 Music has decoded it to prove it.

Now I know the theme to Inspector Morse did the same thing. But I reckon it's worth celebrating all the same.

Silly: probably. Fun: yes. Unique: well, no. Genius: definitely.

Rest in peace, Ronnie.

Stop Spam: Read Books

Now here's a piece of joined-up thinking:

You know that anti-spam thing - where you have to type in a random set of letters and numbers in an obscured image? Oh, go on .. you do. Well, some clear-thinking bods at Carnegie Mellon Uni in Pittsburgh have found a use for it. Translation from printed word to computer data.

The "random" text used in this idea is in fact the image of a word which cannot be confidently interpreted by OCR. This is already distorted - by age and distortion - and random "noise" is added for good measure. A control word is added, giving two words to "translate". The user then types in both words; if the control word is entered correctly, the translated word is stored.

By randomly assigning words to the millions of users online every day, the translation process is delegated to the world in general. Bit by bit, word by word, old texts are being computerised for posterity. All in the name of security. And, for free.

Everyone's a winner!

Fun with USB Turntables

So .. what've I been up to?

Well, recently I've been mostly ... re-discovering^† my dusty old LPs. Having suffered enjoyed another birthday, I am now the proud owner of a USB turn-table^†. And jolly fun it is, too.

One of the entertaining fringe benefits to this is introducing the children to records. Now I'm not a DJ .. and no-one^† I come into contact with these days is either. My children aren't (quite) old enough to frequent clubs yet so they haven't really seen good ol' vinyl in action. My four-year-old^† is particularly amused by them.

"So .. how do they work?"

"What: you put the needle on it and it makes sound?"

Ho, ho, yes! I'm reminded of a conversation years ago when my eldest was about 2. We saw the shattered remains of a 7" single in the gutter. She pointed and said "CD-ROM^†, daddy!"

The turn-table^† ships with - and recommends - Audacity to do the actual recording and encoding. As I already have the latest version installed, this suits me down to the ground. The kids regularly play about recording themselves and speeding it up or adding weird effects. They make up skits and songs and all sorts. My hard-disk is filling up rapidly.

Speaking of which, I have another on-going^† project. Tagging MP3s. I have ammassed some 3300-odd^† tracks on my jukebox at home - from ripped CDs etc.. It makes more sense to have them in one place and in a format I can take anywhere. It also leaves me the legacy of tagging them all. Over 2000 were unlabelled.

In steps aTunes. A delightful clone of iTunes .. without the DRM nonsense.

So now I'm listening to "Up the Junction" .. ah, memories.

^† in reaction to the recent report that the English language is losing the hypen, I have made a concious effort to sprinkle this post with them. I'm like that; draw your own conclusions.