I’ve been reading Engadget for a good few years now, they (in particular the opinions and interests of writer phil torrone) have opened my eyes to flickr to web 2.0, they introduced me to podcasting, to RSS – I learned everything I know about PSP cracking from their blog.

They have a great staff, a cutting-edge knowledge base that no main-stream zine, blog or rolling news service can get close to. They know people, and they make em talk.

Earlier last week the creators of iPhoneSIMFree got in touch with the Engadget crowd, gave them a demo of the first application to unlock the iPhone from software. Although the app didn’t complete the process (due to the servers iPhoneSIMFree will contact to verify licenses or something being out of operation– or … something) Engadget have put a lot of faith in these guys, have even said that this is 100% legit- will work, will unlock the iPhone.

I’m just saying- this is a big gamble, no? I really hope tomorrow (when the app is ‘launched’) it’ll all work out, and when I get my mitts on the iPhone (Friday, hopefully) I’ll be unlocking it to work no-problem in the UK. Something that at the moment is nearly impossible. I love this being at the forefront of technology, not much of it really matters- i mean this isn’t real life but its a great community activity in a weird way. i’m stoked, watch it happen here.

Update: So, the day is here- and the verdict is: Yes, the iPhone has been unlocked- with a bloated price tag to go with it (end-user sales of up to $100 per license!) iPhoneSIMFree is the simple app you need to unlock your iPhone for worldwide use. See: Engadget, Gizmondo, TUAW. I’ll give my report from Edinburgh next weekend (when the phone arrives) :D

I’ve started the overhaul. Portfolio / web-photoblog… drop the blog– maybe ‘webjournal’ sounds better. maybe keep the messy combo.

Right, so I don’t know where I’m going but I’ve just deleted the Meta Comment template and starting from scratch. Don’t expect things to work in the coming weeks. Here comes Meta Comment v.4. What do you mean you don’t care.

See you on the other side. Thanks for tuning in, really. Your thoughts are welcome!

That was just a headline, I always understood how miserably self-indulgent / egotastical (yes I said egotAstical, and meant it) Technorati is. If your not a blogger, San Fran-ite or a 2.0′er I can sum up Technorati in one phrase; “what did he say?”. Its like over-hearing all the conversations online about you at once. You can type in a website address, and it’ll give you a list of pages that link to it. I guess its intended for blogs and for the ultra-cool / web savvy’s who need to know who’s commenting on thier posts, when and where.

Not impressed? Either was I – as a user / member of Technorati for a good 2 years only tonight have I noticed any incoming(!) from technorati… in fact tonight is the first time I’ve ever done a Technorati search for Callum Alden, and found worth-while data. I suppose last week’s maintanance did some good; Technorati sees me!

The whole blogging bubble popped for me a long time ago, I hate all the pretense that goes a long with it, even K2 makes me feel like I may be appearing to be one of the in-crowd. I happen to like the design / coding, but there’s a lot of fanboys out there :(

On the train today some posh twat with a painful Gordonstoun/merican accent was joking (sorry, I couldn’t help but listen she sat right next to me) about how terrible it’d be if Edward were to read her diary, maybe it was just because she was American… but she went on to read a passage out loud, until the whole carriage was bored of her. I could have punched her. It made me think of blogging. *i should develop this point… remind me*

Its not a very insightful note, more a bitch really. Here’s an Open-Letter I’m sending to the creators of ringo.com (a poor rip-off of Flickr). Flickr works, always did… Ringo doesn’t, yet I’ve heard excuses and then the ‘I don’t cares’ of family members this evening as I tried in vein to convert them… I don’t like it when I sign up for something I have to opt out of 15 (at least 15) newsletters/spam, I don’t like having to be a member of anything to keep up to date, I don’t like obtrusive ads, I hate slow servers, I hate poor quality compression, I hate lazy standard-raping design. I hate ringo too. My short letter went:

I just recieved an automated e-mail telling me I should not respond, but reassuring me someone would not ignore my e-mail, maybe read it and not respond – but not ignore my “Suggestions”. I hate fake 2.0 – I e-mailed Thor at ValleyShwag this morning, I got a personal reply in 2 minutes flat. It was 6AM where he is. damn! If you want my hard earned, don’t spam me and don’t advertise on me… don’t automate response me either- what is this 2000 again. Holy mother of Tim Curry I’ve had a bad day.

This header gets me (and I suspect a lot of other javascript fans) very, very excited. Online its pretty cool to stumble on things that stretch the browser, in this case there’s no stretching – it PANS dude! PANS, that make you stop and say “woah, that was nice and didn’t require Flash” (Flash is the work of the devil). Its not just for the wow factor, because online you can view the source, the language that created that effect and store it away for a redesign rainy day.

I always wanted my headery-thing to be animated, to pan around to reveal Tokyo, or slide into another country or another view… I did some funky Panoramas for my Art Portfolio a few years back, and wanted to do something with those images… because they’re kind of wasting away on a Zip Disk in my archvie drawer.

So Dunstans’ 1976design.com got this pretty cool header going on- go see, its an animated view from his parent’s house in Dorset- it runs off real-time weather information which chooses which animation to show; sunny, day, night, snow etc. its really simple but right on the 2 dot 0 for good thinking.

I want it. I can’t get it. I know it must be based on this nice javascripty panorama… thing. But its not as chunky as the moo.fx script. I’ve extracted the javascript i need but can’t find the bit to say “start the panorama” etc.


// set ids
var headerDiv = document.getElementById('header');
var buttonLeft = document.getElementById('buttonLeft');
var buttonRight = document.getElementById('buttonRight');


hmm, I just wanted to post something to stop this blog stagnating- I think I may have just cracked it. Anyway, I’ve got a day off work (snow, thunder, lightning, hail) to hack something together, and then knighter, bill and I are off to tha movies. Which reminds me- I saw “Walk The Line”, I suppose its a great feat that someone can learn to sing, walk, talk and play guitar (along with the CrAzY EyEbrow) like Johnny Cash, but it was pretty weak – not the story of his life, more the story of a relationship- which is nice, but I would have far rather seen the whole of the Folsom Prison gig. Oh, and flashbacks are so lame – why does anyone ever bother writing good introductions when you can flashback. pff.