Archive for the ‘Twitter’ Category

Fail Whale

Monday, December 7th, 2009

Twitter is over capacity

There’s a sight you don’t see as often as you used to, the infamous Twitter Fail Whale.

Is Twitter down is incorrectly reporting: No. (But then it depends on what it’s doing to determine that answer. The Fail Whale is showing so there’s something being served from the Twitter servers.)

Down for everyone or just me is reporting “It’s not just you! http://twitter.com looks down from here.”

Now, I wouldn’t mind quite so much, except that earlier this evening I was locked out of my Twitter account for attempting to connect too often with ‘the wrong password’.

Even though it was the correct password. Even though I’d just reset my password. Even though I’d just successfully logged into Twitter in Firefox with my new, correct password — the new, correct password that was replacing the old, also correct password.

Despite all that Twitter still wouldn’t let me login in Google Chrome. Or TweetDeck. Or Facebook. Which was odd because I was already logged in in Firefox. How can I be both locked out and logged in at the same time? Come on Twitter, sort it out!

(Speaking of which: why is Facebook so unbelievably difficult to use when you’re trying to locate the settings to switch off the Twitter application so that it doesn’t keep attempting to login to Twitter with the wrong password?)

I guess I’ll have to wait until the morning to see if the lock has been removed and I can successfully login once again.

How frustrating…

Update: 23:45

At last! I’m in again. Although TweetDeck is now fluctuating the Twitter status between “Internal Server Error”, “There is a problem – don’t panic” and “All Good”.

Posted in General, Twitter, Web | No Comments »

Mind Mapping for effective content management

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008
A8: Mind Mapping for Effective Content Management

I’m currently in Aberdeen at the Institutional Web Management Workshop 2008 conference, blogging this during a presentation by someone at JISC. Because you can do that at a geeky conference without it looking rude!

There are currently about 30 delegates (including one of the joint chairs of the conference) sitting in front of their PC laptops, Macs and mobile devices checking e-mail, Twittering (you can read all the #iwmw2008-referenced tweets at http://twemes.com/iwmw2008), adding content to the conference Ning social-network site: http://iwmw2008.ning.com/ and probably a bunch of other stuff.

Eduroam

I’m just delighted to have connected to the Web via Eduroam, which allows users from participating institutions to connect to the network on another participating institution’s network.

So because Aberdeen and St Andrews both use Eduroam I am now able to connect to the Aberdeen WiFi connection using my St Andrews username and password. It’s a great system and I’m delighted that it works.

Mind you I had to install a piece of software from St Andrews that automatically configured my networking settings before it would work properly, and I was relieved that I’d been long-sighted enough to have saved that application to my flash drive just in case I ever needed it.

Today I needed it.

  • Install.
  • Reboot.
  • Connect.
  • Happy user.

Glorious Aberdeen

The weather is glorious! Too hot for me, I must admit … is it always like this in Aberdeen? I thought “Aberdeen … cold!” so I packed two jumpers and a couple of coats. It looks like I’ve come for a month, to the land of the Polar Bears.

I’ve been in shorts (and kilt) since I arrived.

Workshop presentation

Yesterday my colleague and I gave a 90 minutes workshop presentation entitled “Mind Mapping for effective content management” which introduced the concept of mind maps, showed why it was a good tool for use with Web projects and then gave a case study on how we used it in our university project to migrate 3,000+ Web pages into a new information architecture.

The slides are now available online at SlideShare: Mind Mapping for effective content management (and embedded above).

The workshop was really well attended, we had nearly 30 people packed into a small, stiflingly-hot tutorial room, and we both enjoyed sharing our experience and getting great feedback and questions from folks. But then it’s quite easy talking about something that you love doing and are passionate about.

On reflection, both during and after, we realised that we could have presented some of the concepts much more clearly, or at least in a more step-by-step fashion. Particularly when we made the leap from auditing a website structure using mind maps to auditing the content of a Web page.

However, with only 90 minutes to play with I think we managed to pack in as much as we could, as well as we could. We even finished bang on time, not a second before or after.

And then we could relax and enjoy the rest of the conference.

Update: You can see Mike Whyment’s photo taken during our session on Flickr.

Posted in Computer, General, IWMW2008, Information Architecture, Mindmap, St Andrews, Twitter, University, Updated | 6 Comments »

iPhone launch

Friday, July 11th, 2008

O2 Xda Orbit

So … it would appear that the new Apple iPhone 3G was launched today. (That’s obviously not a photo of the new Apple iPhone 3G above, or even the old one. That’s my O2 Xda Orbit running Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.)

I didn’t know that until today. Until I started reading folks’ posts (called tweets) on my Twitter stream, and watching videos on Qik.

It would appear that the Worldwide Apple Cultâ„¢ managed to keep that news well and truly hidden from me. Well done!

Our man in Milton Keynes

Documentally … well, documented the day fabulously well. From getting up to arriving at the Apple store in Milton Keynes, standing in line, being served, going to the Apple store loo (!), and at one point even had one of the Apple assistants holding the camera while he unwrapped the Apple iPhone packaging — the man’s a genius!

Okay, I’ll qualify that last sentence. He’s not a genius simply for unwrapping a box. That could have been done by a simpleton.

No, there was an inclusiveness in that Apple adventure today in his Qik videos, that reflected something of the excitement and camera-derie (sic) of the day.

I watched a couple of other videos on Qik today, of folks standing in other queues, outside other Apple stores, in other towns and … well, they were probably about as embarrassing to watch as they were to make: no-one wanted to speak with the poor fella with the camera.

This is my favourite Qik post — cutting to the chase — this is the moment that the boxed Apple iPhone 3G became Christian’s. I love the cheer! The Apple Cultâ„¢ as one.

What’s new?

So, what’s all the fuss about? The new Apple iPhone 3G has:

  • 3G network connectivity so you can surf the Web
  • Built-in Global Positioning System (GPS)
  • Install 3rd party applications
  • ‘Push’ email, contacts and calendars with Microsoft Exchange

Wow! Cool! I can see you’re already impressed.

My Microsoft Windows 6 powered O2 Xda Orbit mobile phone has had three of those facilities for … well, since I bought it in April 2007, and I don’t want the fourth: Push email. I’m happy to synchronize it with Microsoft Outlook 2003.

Meanwhile, back in St Andrews …

My colleague Kevin came into work today with — can you guess?

That’s right, it was a new Apple iPhone 3G. Oh, sorry, did I not tell you? Apparently the new model was launched today.

He got the last one in St Andrews. Of course, when I say “the last one” I also mean the eighth one in St Andrews.

He wasn’t even intending on getting one. He just happened to pass The Carphone Warehouse on Market Street and decided to join the small queue that was already forming.

A few minutes later the manager emerged from the store and said,

Good morning potential customers of St Andrews in Fife. Thank you for your patience. I can announce to you, the consuming public of this Royal and Ancient Burgh, that we have a grand total of eight new Apple iPhone 3Gs.

So if I may, I shall ask the first eight customers who have formed this orderly and polite queue outside the shop window of my shop to kindly step inside and off with the rest of you, to your daily routines.

My best wishes to you should you quest further afield in search of this technological wonder which, if you ask me, has three out of four of the built-in functions of the O2 Xda Orbit a telephone that came onto the market over one earth calendar year ago.

And that was it. Those eight lucky fellas got their hands on a shiny new Apple iPhone 3G.

Well, seven of them did. The guy at the front of the queue, who’d been there since 5:00 am and who had been thoughtful enough to bring with him a wicker chair unfortunately hadn’t been thoughtful enough to bring with him his wallet!

I think the official and international response to that is: D’oh!

… and finally

This coverage of the launch, which happe… what do you mean the launch of what?! This coverage of the launch of a new kind of chocolate washing powder in New York City was brought to my attention by the splendid Sizemore:

… and rudely

And for those of you who like to read rude words on the internet, like ‘bum’ and ’squelch’, there is always Maddox’s review.

This was brought to my attention by a visiting consultant today. And I thought I spent too much time on the internet!

The paragraph that made me laugh the most was:

[The iPhone is] not three devices in one any more than my laptop is you morons. Using Jobs’ loose definition of what constitutes a separate device, technically my laptop can be considered 8 devices in one:

  1. A clock
  2. A calculator
  3. An “Internet communications device”
  4. A phone (I can make voice calls with my modem)
  5. A pornographic media storage device
  6. A video player
  7. A word processor
  8. And an “iPod” (see below)

Posted in Computer, General, PDA, Reviews, Telephone, Twitter, Xda Orbit, YouTube | 5 Comments »

Meet @documentally …

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

When I visited London all those weeks ago — mid-May, although according to The Other Place it was Yesterday — I met a bunch of kindly geeky, social media types in a posh hotel next to the Beeb in central London.

For most of the meet-up I sat between @solobasssteve and @lobeliasabo and cracked on with some Web design bits and pieces on my laptop. I got involved in the conversation once or twice but mostly just listened in while trying to sort out a CSS issue I was struggling with.

Our Man Inside

One of these fine fellows was a photographer/documentary maker called Christian Payne, who goes by the moniker @documentally on various social media sites.

When I got back to @solobasssteve’s in the evening I duly added @documentally to my list of Twitter followees and have been … well, I guess eavesdropping on his public internet conversations and twitterings. And I have to say that I really wish that I’d been less reserved and engaged in a deeper conversation with Christian because his Tweets, his Qik postings and Seesmic natterings are fantastic!

Qik

Qik is an online service that enables you (with an appropriate phone, such as the Nokia N95) to stream video directly to the internet. It’s @documentally’s Qik posts that I’ve enjoyed the most. I described them recently as being like a Quentin Tarantino film with all the beauty of the minutiae but without the extreme violence and swearing!

Over the last couple of weeks he’s Qik-ed about taking his dog for a walk, petrol prices, he’s interviewed Tony Benn at Euston Station, chatted with the owner of a pipe shop, been to the O2 Festival and opened a couple of exciting parcels — including one containing a Special Forces watch and, this one above, unpacking an Eye-Fi SD card.

A lot of blogging and video blogging gets criticised — often rightly — for being mundane. Who wants to know what you’ve had for breakfast or that there are 139 cracks on the pavement between your house and the bus stop?!

But Christian’s posts are interesting, humorous, intriguing, enthusiastic and professional. I really look forward to reading in my Twitter stream that there’s another Qik video from Christian, because they sure are better than almost anything that’s on telly right now … the Tour de France aside, of course!

Posted in Friends, General, Reviews, Seesmic, Twitter, Web | No Comments »