iPod reboot

For some reason (probably a protest about my lousy taste in music) my Nano locked up - nothing short of running it under the wheels of a car seemed to be going to make any different.

After a bit of Googling, the following solution presented itself:

• Toggle the hold switch ON
• Toggle the hold switch OFF
• Press and hold the Menu and centre buttons together for about 5 seconds
• Err
• That’s it.

Nano is once more a happy iPod, and filled with dubious crap.

A is for Meme

From Alex Halavais, this one: type each letter of the alphabet into the address bar of your browser, and watch as your life is revealed. Or not, in my case - whether it’s something to do with the way Safari caches previous sites or something else, most of these I haven’t visited for a loooong time. Strange…

a is for ABP Marine Environmental Research

b is for Binary Bonsai

c is for Company Reports Online

d is for Delia Online

e is for Ecademy

f is for Freepint

g is for Glish

h is for Hays Recruitment

i is for IGD

j is for Jeremy Zawodny

k is for Kuro5hin

l is for Lego

m is for Magnatune

n is for Neo Office

o is for Opensource CMS

p is for Punchbaby

q is for Quicktopic

r is forRackspace

s is for Scirus

t is for Timzilla

u is for UK Wire

v is for Version Tracker

w is for Wordpress

x is for X-Plane

z is for Zope

Memetime

Via d2r, here’s one related to the ‘grab a book’ meme that was going around a while ago:

Open up the music player on your computer.

Set it to play your entire music collection.

Hit the “shuffle” command.

Tell us the title of the next ten songs that show up (with their musicians), no matter how embarrassing. That’s right, no skipping that Carpenters tune that will totally destroy your hip credibility. It’s time for total musical honesty

Write it up in your blog or journal and link back to at least a couple of the other sites where you saw this.

If you get the same artist twice, you may skip the second (or third, or etc.) occurances. You don’t have to, but since randomness could mean you end up with a list of ten song with five artists, you can if you’d like.

So, here goes:

1. The Same Day - Beth Orton
2. Neon Wilderness - The Verve
3. Moon Over Bourbon Street - Sting
4. I Feel The Earth Move - Carole King
5. You Owe Me Nothing In Return - Alanis Morissette
6. Gus’s Blues - Roachford
7. 12 Sniff - The Kleptones
8. Get Over You - Sophie Ellis Bextor
9. Clocks - Coldplay
10. Biko - Simple Minds

I can’t decide if this is representative of my overall collection or not…

FQ TOPIC: Search

FQ1: In one word, describe a luxury item you would want if stranded on a desert island for a year. Why?

The internet. Because then it wouldn’t matter that I was stranded - at least I’d be able to contact the outside world…

FQ2: In one word, describe a food you wouldn’t mind eating every day for a month. Why?

Bananas. Maybe then I’d actually convince myself that they were good for me, and I did like them…

FQ3: In one word, describe an occupation that you wouldn’t necessarily want as a career, but wouldn’t mind trying out for a week. Why?

Plumber. Then I’d be able to find out just why it’s so damn difficult to find one when you need one, and whether it’s as lucrative a trade as the urban myth would have us believe…

FQ Search: Enter your first name PLUS the above three words into a Google search and see if anything interesting comes up!

Erm - a runner-up World Conker champion and star of “Rabbit Fever”?

Honda ads

I saw the new Honda advert for the first time last night (actually, that wasn’t the only first - Garrison Keillor singing? WTF?) and then this morning came across the Flash game based on the ad. Bizarre doesn’t even come close. But I’ve sent off for a bag…

Roll out the writs

Good to see that the British record industry has learnt from the PR disaster taking place over the other side of the Atlantic, and have decided that embracing the possibilities of new technology will be a better option long-term than propping up an aging business model with lawsuits. </sarcasm>

After all, home taping killed music, didn’t it?

Actually, I’m not altogether surprised by this particular development. A couple of months ago I had some interactions with a fairly senior individual in the online division of a major entertainment brand. Nice guy, very professional - but in an incredibly insular kind of way. It was the kind of environment where they thought they were cutting-edge because they used IM in the business - but the sites themselves looked like they’d been designed by a database administrator. There was just no imagination there, no insight into the way that the world is now - and this was a supposedly creative business. It’s not altogether surprising that the writs are now flying…

Satan for Bush

Now currently ROTFLMAO…

Productivity losses, Tom Watson MP-style

Thanks to Tom Watson MP, my productivity has taken a dive…

Webboggle

elwire.com - your electroluminescent wire source

elwire.com - your electroluminescent wire source.

Red Arrows over York

There’s an air show going on at the moment at the Yorkshire Air Museum in Elvington, about three miles down the road from here, which means we’ve currently got the Red Arrows hurtling around over York in tight formation.

I’ve always found it hard enough to manage to fly in accurate circles, so watching them maintaining formation in a 400 knot climbing turn is making me alternately a) impressed and b) jealous. And they get paid to do it…