Internet

One of the most useful little utilities on the Mac is called Quicksilver. It allows you to get at programs or data with a very few key presses and also indexes all of your user data such as contacts, calendar entries etc. So if I want to find a phone number, I can just type the persons name from anywhere, hit return and their contact record shows up instantly. The idea is so good that Apple have stolen it for the next version of OS X, it will be called Spotlight. This obviously takes advantage of OS X’s file store which Windows can’t even get close to currently. But there is a utility which gets some of the way there…

Called AppRocket it sits at the top of your screen and at least allows you get at your applications and documents in your My Documents folder quickly. Well worth a look.

Jake found a really interesting link for Our Property. It’s only going to be of interest to those of you in the UK but it fuels our national obsession of the moment – house prices. You can enter your postcode (or that of one you want to move to) and find out about the selling prices of nearby houses over the last couple of years. Useful if you are looking to move to a new area, even better if like me you are just nosey.

I got sent this link to an episode of a tv programme called Rainbow which used to be on the UK when I was a kid. Apparently it was broadcast although I have no memory of this particular episode. If it did go out then I am staggered as every single line uttered is a huge innuendo. I suppose it was done to entertain the parents as well as the kids. Kudos to the tv company!

I am quite new to podcasting but am an eager convert. It makes a nice difference to be able to listen to talking as well as music on the iPod. I am on the lookout for new feeds though, so what are your favourite shows?

I have linked to this before, but the site dedicated to overheard snippets of conversation on the tube is well worth a visit for a laugh.

Joining the group of people who have put their Workplace servers into the public domain, here is another URL: http://www.11tmr.com:9081/lwp/workplace/!ut/p/.cmd/PrepareEnrollment. I can’t guarantee it will be around for very long, it’s mainly there as a demo for next week but if you want to use it please feel free. The performance is also pretty poor as the machine only has 1.5gig of memory and a single hyper-threaded processor.

If my server isn’t available then here are a few others you could try:

I carry a multi tool in my bag at all times (except flying) because it’s extremely useful. When someone in the office asked if they could borrow some scissors I just opened up one of the blades and they used that instead. While chatting one of the guys mentioned that he thought it was probably illegal and sent me this article in which it appears that pen-knifes with locking blades can indeed lead to being arrested.

It’s an interesting read as well.

Yet another blogger has been fired because of their online activites. Joe worked for Waterstones, a bookseller, in Edinburgh. On his weblog he mentioned work a few times (who of us hasn’t) and apparently this was enough to get him fired for gross misconduct. Several worrying aspects to this case which are well worth reading about. I think this is the first UK based blogger I have heard about who has been fired and hopefully the last. Unless you are revealing confidential information I can’t see any reason for such an extreme reaction. As Joe himself said, a quiet word would have been sufficient to stop his mentioning work in public.

Ben Rose is going to try and do something for charity far harder than any marathon – he plans to not use a computer for two weeks. At all.

It would certainly be a great challenge and not something I think I could pull off. Almost every aspect of my life involves a computer to some degree – work (obviously), leisure in the form of browsing, digital photography even booking travel. I would imagine that my reading levels might increase dramatically.

If you haven’t already then get over to one of the charity websites (Red Cross, Oxfam, Unicef to name but a few) and (to paraphrase Sir Bob) give them your f***ing money. It doesn’t matter how little.