OFT taking banks to court over unfair charges
Posted by Alex on Thu 26th July 2007
Flood + plod + blues & twos = grin
Sorry…
(No video? Click here).
Posted by Alex on Tue 17th July 2007
Two years late,
… and the end of the HE tunnel is approaching - tomorrow morning, on stage in front of a Guildhall packed with people, I'm going to trip arse-over-tit graduate from Portsmouth University.
And about time, too ;o)
Good luck to everyone graduating this week, have fun if you're going to the Grad Ball, and have a really good summer no matter what you end up doing, plus a special good luck to everyone who - like me - is having to take resits to get their “Hons”.
Right, that's everyone covered - I'm off to the pub. Who's joining me?
Posted by Alex on Tue 17th July 2007
More Twitter thoughts
Twitter is a way of posting mini-updates onto the interweb about what you're doing, and works in much the same way as Facebook's status, except you can do more with it. It's perfect for the narcissistic and bored; two areas in which I excel ;o)
I mentioned playing about with Twitter a little while ago, but never really got into it because I couldn't figure out how to pull the updates onto web pages, so I couldn't see how it would add value to a website.
A couple of weeks ago I spotted BBC reporter Ben Hammersley was touring Turkey to cover the country's election, and was using social networking sites Twitter and del.icio.us (to name a couple) to syndicate content back onto his BBC homepage which had been set up specially to cover the - experimental - feature.
Since I'm supposed to be working my socks off on my Final Year Project, I decided to do something else entirely and, having read all there is to learn about video standards (don't ask - been trying some DIY with an expensive piece of a/v equipment), I turned my attention back to Twitter.
I've now signed myself up for an account (despite the worrying - but not unique - feeling I might already be too old for this. Then again, maybe not ;o), found out I can easily post updates from my mobile by SMS, and found how to add a list of my latest updates from Twitter in my sidebar.
Ok, now I've kinda done it, I want to figure out an easy way for everyone on UPSU.net to add their Twitter information to UPSU.net, so I've put a new to-do in the to-do list: add a box for “my Twitter ID” to peoples' public profile edit screen, then automagically display their latest x updates in their diary sidebar and their profile page. Maybe we could even display their latest update with their forum posts…?
And… Well, that's the rub; since the point of all this - if there is a point - would probably be to attract more students to use UPSU.net, what would Pompey's students want out of this? How would we make it easy and intuitive to add and use? How could we make it obvious what it does? And, of course, how much peripheral marketing will we have to do to let people know why they should bother with all this Twitter nonsense? Maybe a little market research might be in order…
The finer details aside, the SMS updates aspect definitely makes this worth looking into a bit more; maybe not this month, but before the start of the new academic year, when I'm hoping to have had time to revamp the blogs homepage to make it a lot more understandable, I'd like to see it all up and running.
I'd also really like us to come up with some ways we can use Twitter, perhaps for a feature during the Freshers' period where freshers are encouraged to Twitter their first experiences of Uni life in Portsmouth for a live-updated feature piece on UPSU.net?
If we found the right people - i.e. bods who aren't coy with their updates - this could possibly pave the way for some really frank, insightful dialogue, and it's definitely something with potential to apply to every area of what the Union does - welfare, entertainment, academic support… Everything, in fact, apart from the kitchen sink.
p.s. BBC Radio 1 are on Twitter - could we do something similar on the Grad Ball mini-site during the event?
Posted by Alex on Sun 15th July 2007
Bit of a work round-up…
Since one of this blog's remits is to let the students of Portsmouth University know what they're getting for their money by employing me, here's the, err, “highlights” of the last month's work:
- Sabb/UPSU Media stuff: harassed, cajoled and begged until the order for the new 24″ iMac suite went through
- Sabb stuff: met with numerous Uni bods , and learnt a bit about how the University operates on a decision-making and budgetary level (fascinating stuff. Maybe…)
- Web stuff: finally finished the Grad Ball website (homepage) after plenty of ball-ache, making sure we answered as many FAQs as we could, as openly and honestly as we could
- More web stuff: asked Steve, Mike and Fraggy whether we could benefit from the services of online development chap Kris Talikowski (the chap who judged our website as the best SU site in the country) - I haven't heard back yet, but then it's a very busy time for everyone
- Answered around 300 e-mails, and junked probably twice as many again
- Played with power tools while helping (or, in the real world, “hindering”) build the new desks to kit out what was the sports office until a couple of days ago, ready for the Union's membership services bods (Steve, Mike and Graham) to move in, and ahead of the annual “Sabbatical Feng Shui” of the Sabb office's desks (and the inevitable associated fighting over space and territorial behaviour… of which I will no doubt be a part, being the child that I am… ;o)
- Found out Chill radio isn't on TV any more - bugger
- Sabb stuff: I'm going to Ibiza in September and the Malibu Soundclash is coming to Pompey (during the autumn term) - nice!
- Sabb stuff: re-read the minutes from the last SAGA meeting - thrilling stuff (sarcasm aside, quite an important meeting) and wrote a load of notes & questions I want answered
- Web stuff: created the UPSU news tracker to keep an eye on the site's health
- Web stuff: created a hee-yowge, site-wide tracking system (which the news tracker is built on)
- Sabb/UPSU Media stuff: had a looooong meeting with some Pure:FM bods about their planned forthcoming rebrand. Hopefully they don't dislike me too much after that meeting…!
- Web stuff: pickled my noodle over the various levels of group permissions interactions in the UPSU Groups system (I still haven't got it entirely worked out…) - again, fascinating… Maybe.
- Web security stuff: added a lock-out “feature” on peoples' accounts on UPSU.net - get the password wrong 5 times and you can't log in for a further 30 minutes. Handy to slow down brute-force password attacks, and a pain in the arse if you simply forgot your password.
- Web stuff: put the music survey online for Pure:FM
- Sabb stuff: attended the NUS regional welcome day in Reading (and was thoroughly impressed with Reading SU's student newspaper)
- Web stuff: posted some competition winners' CDs (sorry they're late!)
- … and a load more even less interesting stuff than all that.
… but don't be fooled - I don't actually do any *real* work… ;o)
/al
Posted by Alex on Sun 15th July 2007
Music radio dead?
Andrew Orlowski of The Register debunks the assertion by research agency Frukt that music radio is dying out because of new media. Thought-provoking stuff…
Posted by Alex on Thu 12th July 2007
A little bit of Steve Jobs in the Sabb office
I'm almost scared to say this out loud in case I jinx things, but the order was put through to Apple today for four iMacs - woohoo!
Unfortunately, the original spec I put together - 17″ machines with some upgrades - wasn't felt to be entirely appropriate for the Union's needs. That's just the way these things go with big companies and purchasing expensive kit, so I'm not too upset that we're not getting what I asked for.
We're getting 24″ iMacs, instead - hell yeah!
A 24″ iMac next to an older G3 iMac. Image (c) mvdlande on flickr.com
Ok, so I'm a shameless geek. Get over it - I have. I have to admit, I'm pretty excited about this investment - I really think it's got the potential to have the biggest benefit for UPSU Media next year (and some years to come).
Here's to the next 12 months!
/al
Posted by Alex on Wed 11th July 2007
Dead forests everywhere
Surprise surprise; being a Sabb's not the easy life it's cracked up to be: I'm in the middle of trying to type up my meeting notes from the last two-ish weeks, and I've managed to expand three credit card-sized sheets of scribbles into about 500 words. So much for conciseness. There's so much paper on my desk it's starting to resemble an explosion in a stationers…
The last couple of weeks have been a blur of meetings - meetings with the University directorate, An Audience With John Craven (Uni Vice Chancellor. He didn't sing though - shame…), a couple of free* lunches courtesy of the University, Management Development training (which involved us being videod giving a presentation. One definitely NOT going on YouTube), lunch with the Deans of Faculties (a wonderful occasion: (me) “Hi… What do you do?” (them) “I'm the head of
In all of this, I've also had to deal with having a Real Life (comes complete with realistic Bills and Rent To Pay), and working on my resits which, frankly, sucks - if there's one thing I'd like to wake up without, it's the sense of impending doom cast by the fear of not passing my resits. Still, it wouldn't be “Life” if it wasn't challenging ;o)
If there's one thing I've learnt so far in all this Being A Sabb stuff, it's that I don't know anything (and the things I think I know are wrong, too). I'm not saying I'm an idiot… ok, I am a bit… but as I'm starting to get a wider view of how the Union and the University operates, whole swathes of the things I thought I understood turn out to be completely different; it's like going down a never-ending rabbit warren.
This, of course, is probably stating the bleedin' obvious to anyone who's worked in some form of management at a University or Students' Union. Things like the committee structure of the University, which doesn't look entirely dissimilar to the Royal family tree I expect, are absolutely mind-bogglingly complex, and don't even get me started on etiquette in important meetings (hey, no-one told me it wasn't acceptable to fall asleep…).
Note to self: when in a meeting with the University head sheds, avoiding speaking is the best way not to confirm everyone's suspicions that you're a fool, and never ever start a sentence with, “This is probably completely wrong, but…”, because you're right - it *is* wrong. So don't say it… ;o)
Posted by Alex on Tue 10th July 2007
The best Grad Ball website in the world? Maybe
At last, after many hours of work, arguments and “constructive criticism” (which, I suspect, narrowly avoided descending into fist-based negotiations ;o), the Graduation Ball 2007 mini-site is up and running, announcing the Scratch Perverts and The Cuban Brothers as the headline acts:
I'm really proud of this project, because I think it might be one of the best bits of HTML I've helped to produce. It might not validate perfectly, and it might not tick all the right “boxes” for anyone else, but compared to pages I was producing 24 months - or even just 12 months - ago, the development in my coding and design is pretty clear.
I.e. I was “pretty bad”; now I'm just “fairly bad”. Something like that, anyway…
I'm hoping everyone involved in the project also feels it's come out well. I was largely responsible for the later stages of the project, so the other contributors to it haven't had much input during these stages. Hopefully, there won't be tears in the office tomorrow morning.
I'm also crossing my fingers that what's gone into the FAQs page doesn't turn out to be wildly inaccurate (although what's there is a collection of what's been communicated to students for the last couple of months, so it should be ok).
Basically, I'm exhausted but proud… And we all know what comes after pride. In any case, please take a look, join the Facebook groups (1, 2), and enjoy the ball if you're going!
/al - off to get some sleep
Posted by Alex on Mon 9th July 2007
In work on a Sunday? You have *got* to be kidding me…
I'm ok with most aspects of work. I'm ok with working a 12-hour day in the office and then going home and doing another 4 hours in the comfort of my living room, in front of a good film with a cold one to hand.
One thing I'm not ok with is Mr. Branson's cable service breaking while I'm in the middle of finishing off the Grad Ball mini-site. I mean, honestly, could you not have given it just a couple of hours? Or, even better, asked your numpties to undertake Essential Maintenance Work (whatever that is - dusting the servers, possibly?) in the wee small hours when everyone *isn't* trying to watch TV, get on the internet or use the phone?
So, having found myself interweb-less, I'm now sitting in a stuffy Sabb office on a Sunday night trying to wrap up the latest headache project, and wondering if there's a line somewhere in next year's budget for an HTML-savvy slave to do this kind of stuff for me… ;o)
/al - not as grumpy as I sound. No, really…
Posted by Alex on Sun 8th July 2007