Naquada

Today marks 10 years in my current employment with IBM, although not all my time has been with IBM, my acquired years still count, and hence I have received my 10 year service award.

It’s funny the things I have experienced in the last 10 years, the changes to both people and things. The people that have come, and gone..

Who knows what this year or next will bring..

..we will have to see.

The internet life’s been like a roller coast ther last few months.. Obvisouly my blogs been going for a good few years now, with intermittant random posts about just about everything and anything.

Then I started work on the Home Counties Magicial Society website, and then went from strength to strength, I then took over the Magic Convention Guide, which again has met with great reactions and feedback, after that I was asked on-board at The Magic Woods, a modern magicians forum, and then last week, Justin Robert Young over at iTricks asked me if I’d like to take up a role as a weekend poster for them.

Phew!!! between all of those forums and sites, I actually reach a huge number of readers on a regular basis, but it’s safe to say that I think now I’m full on the intenet writing side!!

It was a real blast, honor and somewhat nerve wracking writing this weekend writing for iTricks, I can’t quite remember how I found iTricks initially, but it’s been a staple part of my daily life for quite some time, reading the posts and listening Justin’s dulcet tones drifting through my earbuds from my iPod and now my iPhone on the train into London. So it’s been kind of strange sitting on the other side creating the content!!

I’d really like to thank Justin and the iTricks team for the opportunity to help out, and I hope that weekends will be just as good for the iTricks readers as weekdays are. Even if they do have to listen the slightly insane rants and babblings of an Englishman…

iTricks really does break some HUGE stories, and you’d be surprised who in the industry actually keeps a very close eye on them… so make sure you head over.. pick up the Podcast on iTunes and enjoy…

FISM Europe in sofa seems to be canceled according to their website;

Dear All,

Due to unforeseen circumstances, restricted organizational capacity and unexpected financial strains, jeopardizing the initial budget, it is with great regret that the FISM European Executive Board has to inform you that the FISM European Championships of Magic, planned to be held in Sofia, Bulgaria, from 6 to 9 November 2008, have to be cancelled.

The first European Championships of Magic are postponed to a later date, to be announced as soon as possible.

Best regards.

FISM
European Executive Board

Andre Ciocca
Interim President

Seems a few others have spotted this as well.. as to what it physically means, and the decisions behind it are unclear…

Ooh, a strange letter arrived today from Buffalo, NY. At first I thought it was junk mail, but on opening it was my first Google Adsense cheque (or Check as the Americans say!).

Admittedly its not a huge amount of money, so I wont be giving up my day job yet. But it’s a nice reward for pretty much doing nothing!!

It will however pay a few of the unpaid bills hanging around.. I just need a way to drive up traffic through here a little (although weirdly I do actually get a fair bit of traffic per day!)

So.. Adsense really does work.. surprisingly enough!!

So I’ve decided that Dougs request for a Flickr Pro Account in my free flickr pro account for a year post was the most worth while… sorry to everyone else..

Although there were a few community requests.. I think maybe his was the better… (that and help from a pin and a bit of paper!!)..

Doug, theres an email in your inbox waiting your reply.. Well done.. Just ask the big fella upstairs to look out for me..
If i get any more I’ll let you all know!!

Marc Orchant over at The TabletPC Weblog just sent me a Gmail invite following his email to me a few days ago.. Way to go Marc!!

So I’ve just updated all my Trillian installs with the You’ve Got GMail! plugin, and my Konfabulator system with the GmailGeiger Widget.

Oh happy days. This now means I can keep an offsite email account for my web hosting company.

Thanks again Marc!!

Update there seems to be a sourceforge project to allow GMail access via PHP from a blackberry called gmail-mobile this makes life even better since I cant get to any other email from my little black bundle of joy..

Well, I’m on annual leave now, hence the less than often posting to the blog. I’ve been using the time to do all those things I didnt get time to do the rest of the year.. Including the Christmas Shopping..

Now call me a humbug but I HATE Christmas shopping, its not the fact I dislike the buying of gifts, I love that, its the crowded shops, the getting knocked and bumped, and the ’sorry sir we dont have any of those left..’

So this year, if you cant get it online.. your not getting it!

I managed to do pretty much 99% of our shopping this year online, and before you wonder, no it didn’t all come from Amazon. There are some pretty good e-commerce sites out there.

Obviously Amazon is one of those. Boots is pretty good as well. Unfortuantly there are some really dire ones, that lost my business just because their sites are either difficult to shop from, or, they just dont have the range, providing only a ‘token’ online effort.

Muji is a great (or bad) example of this. They have next to nothing online that they sell in the shop, the round light I wanted for my sister (sorry can’t show you the link..!) isn’t sold on-line.. The lighting and electrical section covers 10 items (including of the same torces!).

There is absolutely no excuse in these days no to be able to fulfill web orders, applications such as osCommerce provide great order systems for small or large business needs. With the majority of homes now having high speed and always on connections, the business of online ordering is now common place, its a shame alot of businesses still dont see that. I want to be able to order a toaster at 3am!!

I use A9 as my search engine. When I was shopping at Amazon (.com not sure if it applied to .co.uk which is a bind!) it seems that i get a π/2% discount on all purchases because I use A9 as my search engine..

Andrew Webb, since you’ve been using A9.com recently, virtually everything at Amazon.com is automatically an additional π/2% (1.57%) off for you. Collecting this discount is zero effort on your part. It will be applied automatically at checkout (it will happen whether you use the shopping cart or our 1-Click Shopping