guardian news times · 700 words
I read most of my news through my mobile - if your website isn't mobile friendly, I won't be bothered to read it. I've greatly enjoyed the BBC's Mobile News service and Guardian Mobile - but now there's a new player - The Times has a mobile site. This is a quick review of what I like and what I dislike about The Times' mobile venture. Discovery The first I knew of the site was this advert ne…
Continue reading →#cbc09 connect cwu prospect Trade Union unions · 200 words
At the Connect Conference in Blackpool we voted to merge our union with Prospect. The other potential merger was with CWU. There's a plethora of articles about the CWU ruining businesses. Is this really the union people want representing them? Let's face facts, the postal service is dying. I literally can't remember I posted a letter. Email does for me. To tie our fortunes to a sector whi…
Continue reading →browser firefox internet explorer stats · 8 comments · 250 words
It's really difficult cutting through the hype to see which browsers one should support when designing a website. There are many different measures of popularity - but many sites are only visited by techies, or only ever visited when at work, or are skewed towards the young or the old. Yesterday morning I asked the Number 10 Downing Street web team if they could provide their statistics. I…
Continue reading →#TCTC guardian news times web · 750 words
Recently I was featured in two prominent online newspapers. The Times published a short story I wrote for The Times Cheltenham Twitter Competition. Extract from The Times The Guardian wrote about my experiences with energy monitors. Extract from The Guardian What struck me was the very different ways that these "Old Media" approached the "New Media" of the web. I'll state my biases up front. …
Continue reading →dabr mobile php twitter YouTube · 3 comments · 450 words · Viewed ~404 times
I've decided to add a preview of YouTube videos into Dabr, the mobile Twitter service. The code is fairly simple - although I still suck at regular expressions. if (preg_match_all('#youtube.com/watch?v=([_-dw]+)#', $tmp, $matches, PREG_PATTERN_ORDER) > 0) { foreach ($matches[1] as $match) { $images[] = theme('external_link', "http://m.youtube.com/watch?v={$match}", "<img…
Continue reading →Energy Saving eon unboxing · 100 words
As part of my ongoing quest to save energy and save money, I decided to look into changing energy suppliers. Eon were doing a special offer in their Energy Shop for a free PowerDown Plug worth about £15. Here's the unboxing. …
Continue reading →duet energy · 4 comments · 650 words
I'll go through all the features of the Humm Duet Energy Monitor as I figure them out, but there's one that I'd like to highlight because it's a perfect example of usability and how a little improvement can go a long way. The left half of the Duet is concerned with electricity. I want to focus on the "Speed Dial" on the top and the "Daily Counter" in the middle. The units can be £, kWh or Kg …
Continue reading →data duet energy · 3 comments · 400 words · Viewed ~494 times
My Humm Energy monitor is now fully set up. It's been churning away gently admonishing me for going over my kWh allowance for the day. As I mentioned in the unboxing - there's an integrated 2GB SD card for the Duet to record the energy usage. As the trial progresses, I should be able to upload the data to the website for them to analyse. They faithfully promise to send me a spreadsheet of the …
Continue reading →blackberry browser opera · 750 words · Viewed ~246 times
(Disclaimer, I work for Vodafone Group who do a lot of work with Opera. These are my personal views.) The regular BlackBerry browser is... how can I put this politely... sub-optimal. For reading mobile-friendly sites it's perfectly adequate - but for anything more complex it tends to choke. Don't get me wrong, it's "good enough" for most basic browsing needs, but a lack of tabs, half-arsed…
Continue reading →duet energy · 350 words · Viewed ~375 times
After setting up the HummEnergy Duet electricity monitor yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy the gas monitor was to set up. Pairing the device was easy and the manual was very clear as to which pipes need to be monitored. A velcro strap makes it really easy to attach the wires to the pipes. Once it's all plugged in, this is what it looks like Clips and Cupboards The monitor now …
Continue reading →bcb4 duet energy · 750 words · Viewed ~2,505 times
After seeing a talk at BarCampBrighton on home energy monitoring, I was determined to try it out for myself. I got the Duet from HummEnergy. At £50 it's very competitive to other units in the marketplace - although that is the trial price. It's important to note, this isn't a "SmartMeter". It doesn't replace your normal meter and report your usage back to the energy company - instead, it mon…
Continue reading →Energy Saving · 200 words
Green Energy Options have sent me the Duet home energy monitor. The Duet offers a secondary display that is attached to the Solo display and provides the monitoring of up to 6 appliances and central heating. It also provides the ability to compare the energy usage of the appliances and heating over time. In addition to the Solo, the Duet displays: Current energy usage (load) Overall…
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