almost witty » Online life

Vote For Me! (redux)

Andrew — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 20:05:15 +0000

Apparently, that much-anticipated event in the Welsh blogging calendar is here again, and it’s time to vote for me (for the last time!) in the Welsh Blog Awards.

I’m up for Best Media Blog, Best Specialist Blog and Best Eclectic Blog, apparently. And all you have to do is email the awards organiser. Which is nice.

Shame I don’t live in Wales any more

I’m NOT a Best Welsh Blog winner!

Andrew — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 13:25:08 +0000

~~Somehow, I’ve managed to be the winner of the Best Media Blog and the Best Eclectic Blog in the Welsh Blog Awards.~~

However, given I only got 22 votes in the first category and 8 votes in the second category, I won’t be quitting my day job *just* yet.

But *sob sob* thank you all for voting. I’d like to thank my Agent, the Academy, my wonderful friends and family without whom none of this would be possible. I’m so grateful for all your support. Now I’m going to crack open the cocaine and party like it’s 1974!

False alarm! Alas, it appears that the pages I thought were the results of the vote were merely the results of the votes to decide which blogs go through to the final. Damn.

Vote for me in the Welsh Blog Awards!

Andrew — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 22:34:26 +0000

I didn’t even know there was a Welsh Blog Awards, and I didn’t even know I was in the nominations - and yet, somehow, you can theoretically vote for me as:

- Best Media Blog
- Best Specialist Blog
- Best Eclectic Blog
- Best Looking Blog (They have *got* to be kidding!!!)

Like Woody Allen, my funny days are probably behind me, but please feel free to vote for me or The Gospel According to Rhys. I’ll be sure to thank you in my acceptance speech.

I have a web-cool surname?

Andrew — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 14:05:15 +0000

Finally, after years and years of teasing in the playground and classroom from fellow pupils and teachers (hello, Mr. Anwyl) alike, my surname is now so highly sought-after that two web services have just launched, using my name. Honestly.

mister-wong.com is a del.icio.us-esque social bookmarking service that is currently on a private beta in the English language, having apparently become the most successful website of its type in Germany, a country famed for good race relations. After I’ve registered, it tells me that I’ll be able to “start wonging” soon. It even has a catchy slogan: “Wong The Web”, sends out a weekly “wongletter”, and the “wong” blog has a “wongroll”.

Thankfully, the Chinese caricature that was all over the German website seems to have been reduced to an icon on the website, although it’s still loud and proud on the various widgets and toolbars, so I’ll still be firing off an email of complaint at some point. As will, I imagine, Asian American activists such as 8 Asians.

What amazes me is how this website managed to sneak up on everyone and apparently become the second most popular social networking site in Germany – a country not exactly short of Chinese people – without anyone complaining or noticing.

It’s not just the Germans. A UK start-up has launched a website to help you borrow money from them on a short-term basis. And it’s called Wonga. The website comes complete with a terribly low-quality Flash-based video introduction telling you that “you need Wonga. now.”

I don’t know whether to smile, cry or hide in my bedroom. But I’ll probably be sticking to Netvouz for all my online bookmarking needs.

Having played around with mister-wong.com, here are my brief observations:

Good:
- AJAXy update is smooth and effective
- Screenshots of the website in question are a nice touch.

Bad:
- No way to multiple-edit bookmarks (as opposed to Netvouz)
- No automatic verification / duplication tool (as opposed to Netvouz)
- No categorisation (as opposed to Netvouz)
- The import only managed to import 83 of my bookmarks, out of 2000+ – although that could be a fault of the Netvouz export process.

Someone’s taken the comedy out of Comic Relief

Andrew — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 12:01:11 +0000

I’ve been watching a lot of Comic Relief programming this week. Forgive me if this sounds as if I’m sat on my sofa with a blanket wrapped around my lap smoking a pipe and shaking my cane at the teen tearaways across the road – but it all seems a bit too slick these days. And (whisper) not actually that funny.

When the only comedy moment out of the incredibly unfunny and dull Comic Relief single, Comic Relief does the Apprentice and Comic Relief does Fame Academy is musing on what Tara Palmer-Tomkinson was on when she was sweating profusely, one has to realise someone’s taken the comedy out of Comic Relief. Which rather defeats the “unique” spin on what is essentially a telethon. Shame, really.

Still, I’ll be tuning in tonight, making the odd donation, looking at pictures of a man who painted himself red and buying Shaggy Blog Stories, essentially a book collection of 100 funny stories from around the UK blogosphere with proceeds going to Comic Relief. I really should have offered one of my oh-so-hilarious anecdotes but I’ve only just noticed.

Shame the-powers-that-be behind Comic Relief haven’t tried to capture the UK blogosphere in the same way – there’s not even a banner you can splash on your webpage.

Why do I have a particular interest in this? It was central to one of my favourite nights at work some eight years ago, when I was behind the scenes on the web coverage for Comic Relief:

- “blogging” from behind the scenes via live web updates, in the days when blogging and broadband barely crossed the lips of even a savvy web developer (whither blog this year, web chaps?)
- encoding and uploading Doctor Who videos in full Quicktime quality live as soon as they’d been transmitted
- hanging out in the infamous BBC canteen and marvelling at how big Dawn French actually is (the camera took away pounds with her then!)
- helping out on the Comic Relief webchats
- watching the frantic goings-on behind the scenes, and realising they weren’t that frantic
- marvelling at my boss’s then new-fangled hands-free thing for his mobile phone, thinking what a prat he looked in them, and how they’d never ever catch on
- being so tired and irritated (at what, I have no idea now!) at the end I didn’t go to the wrap-up party. One of those decisions I shall regret forever.

I really wish I’d done some screencaps.

Those wacky Germans…

Andrew — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 12:55:53 +0000

Imagine you’re a German web development guru, who’s discovered this whole brand new phenomenon called Social Bookmarking. And you want to bring it to the German Hoff-loving masses. What would you call such a social bookmarking site? Would you ride on the Web 2.0 bandwagon?

Nope. Welcome to mister-wong.com. Complete with comic graphics of Chinese blokes looking like Einstein searching the web, just for you. Even better, when you dip into the German side of the site, the invitation to register says “Wong the web”. Now why didn’t I think of registering that?

Anyone got any ideas why this might be? I’d better reserve mr-patel.com just in case…

The desperation of spam commenters

Andrew — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 09:21:13 +0000

For those of us not using our own websites to blog, the curse of the spam commentator hits us daily, with the odd flurry of computers trying to clog our comments boxes with lots and lots of spam. And they seem to be getting more and more desperate. To whit, I just got this rather long spam comment which seems almost reasonable at first:

I’m really new with Web Designing. [...]

My problem is there is a network currently running in the office. … So do I need to have a separate server running NT and create my FrontPage and ASP files there? … Please help and I’d really appreciate it if u gave me step by step guidance as I’m really new.

So far so good, but then here comes the kicker:

And ones more: how can i bypass the firewall in my office to visit sites like http://adult-***.swingers***.*** or adult personals. Thanks to whichever kind souls who are willing to help.

I know they just spam every single WordPress site at random – but really, why such a huge long one? Is anyone actually going to *fall* for this?

Ask a silly question…

Let’s prove our humanity with cute kittens!

Andrew — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 15:29:42 +0000

We’ve all had to go through those moments whereby in order to prove our humanity to a computer, blog or commenting system, we have to spot and reproduce a random stream of numbers and letters. Aside from this being dead annoying, the letters/numbers are usually tiny tiny tiny and I’ve spent a good wasted five minutes going round and round trying to get the right combination. Plus it’s a bit of a computer-esque view of humanity – are we all just a bunch of letters and numbers?

So why don’t we prove our humanity in other ways? Fortunately, someone’s come up with a kitten authentication system. Instead of typing in letters and numbers, just click on three pictures of cute kittens! And there’s no way a computer can figure out what is a cute kitten and what is an evil-but-cute ostrich… is there?