I started this blog over two and a half years ago and I have enjoyed my time having this an my home on the web. However, over time this blog has deviated from what I want my online image to be and the time has come for me to move on.
You can keep up with what I am up to over at my new blog HERE.
This blog has a lot of valuable content, and it will continue to be online for many years to come. However, I will not write any posts here again.
Today I followed the cue of the rest of the web and installed a new theme on my blog for mobile devices. If you are viewing this post on an iPhone, iPod or Android touch mobile device, then you probably already knew that. If not, check it out some time and let me know what you think 
People close to me know how often I complain about websites which install mobile versions. “I paid $500 so I could have a device capable of viewing your regular website just fine. Why do you force me to use this broken, useless imitation of a website?”
Lifehacker.com is a classic example of a site which installed a mobile theme because it was trendy but which is also broken and unusable. All links in the original post are removed from the mobile version (wtf?) and images are gone too. To top it off they have a “view classic Lifehacker” link at the top but this takes you to the home page, not the post you were viewing. Clicking on the post from the home page then takes you back to the mobile version >.< I still go there on my iPhone from time to time, but a piece of me dies every time 
You’ll be happy to know that my mobile version does not have any of these issues (if you find issues, please let me know). I am using a very well made Wordpress plugin called WPtouch which does a great job of handling the mobile version of things without effecting my primary theme. The best part is, if you don’t like the mobile version, you can simply turn it off (with the switch at the bottom) and you wont have to see it again
I always marvel at all the ways new content is being created for the web. A few days ago my boss twittered a picture with me in it. I never would have known if CJ hadn’t told me
Check out the SmallWorlds Twitter feed here.
Brainpower: Some of the SmallWorlds engineers gather to ponder interaction design on our interactions system
Ever since this blog was first created (over two years ago) I have been a customer of Open Host. In that time I have found them to be a responsive, reliable and affordable service, and I have never had any reason to complain. Changing providers has never crossed my mind.
Today I received an email from the asking if I could give them a plug. You don’t know if you don’t ask right? 
I decided, sure, why not? They’ve been a great host for me. There’s no reason why I can’t recommend them to other bloggers out there. (more…)
After a long and drawn out saga I finally have my Flickr account back. I didn’t think losing access to my account had bothered me that much, but when I was finally able to log into my account again I was completely elated In celebration I have uploaded a bunch of photos taken while Sarah and I were on honey moon, and I am looking forward to uploading a lot more in future! Click on any of the images below to see a larger version, or you can see my full Flickr photostream here.
I finally got around to trying the WordPress blogging application for the iPhone. I am using it to write this post, and I have to say that I’m really impressed. If you check out their website however you’ll see that version 1.2 of this app will be coming out soon, and that looks even better (more…)
I have always been a fan of flickr. So many aspects of their site just work so well. In particular, the way in which you can edit the title or description of any photo you own inline really blew me away the first time I saw it. Recently however, I have been having some significant issues with them. Although to be fair, it’s not the fault of the guys working at flickr at all.
As background to my tale of woe, you need to know that I first got my flickr account more than three years ago and registered my account using a gmail email address. Some time later, flickr was purchased by Yahoo and their site changed to use Yahoo IDs for authentication. Despite this, my original flickr login continued to work fine. (more…)
If you ever decide to upgrade the theme on your WordPress blog, don’t download any themes from www.templatesbrowser.com/wordpress-themes/. I made this mistake yesterday when I downloaded this theme (Vistered Little by Windy Road) from them.
After installing the theme I noticed that suddenly there was a link in my ‘Site Meta’ section to ‘Casino-online’. I had never seen that before, and I have no desire to promote online gambling on my site, so I immediately went into my admin panel to remove it. (more…)
I’m joining the protest against the Copyright Amendment Act which is coming into effect in New Zealand at the end of February. Specifically I am concerned about ‘Section 92A’. Long story short, this section says that ISP’s in NZ must have a system in place where by a user will be disconnected after three accusations of copyright infringement by a copyright holder. (more…)
Myself and many others have been high frustrated in recent months to hear the large number of tech journalists who have made incorrect comparisons of AIR and Silverlight. I’ve even heard respected tech journalists confusing Flex and AIR. These are people who really should know better, and they in turn create wide spread confusion within the wider internet community.
Peter Elst has started a badge campaign to help spread the word, and Mrinal Wadhwa has created a badge that people can use on their blogs (see the top of this post). What you do makes a difference! Just incase someone ever asks you about Silverlight and AIR, here’s a great quote I read on Mrinal’s blog:
Microsoft Silverlight is a browser plugin and is sort of similar to Adobe’s Flash Player and Flex Framework taken together.
Adobe AIR is cross platform desktop runtime that allows developers to build desktop applications using web technologies, it has no real equivalent in the Microsoft world.
Spread the word!
