Ross's Micro Blog

Hah. I think we left our car unlocked. And the world’s worst opportunistic thrives opened it and had a rummage around.

Mostly it looks like they wanted a light for a cigarette! 🤷‍♂️

There seem to be more and more of these “quiz”es going round. Here’s a fun one that I made up called “What’s your hereditary title name?”: https://rosswintle.uk/2014/10/whats-your-hereditary-title-name/

But also…personally…I think I’m having a pretty chilled time. Last summer the thought of a BBQ somehow seemed like stressful and overwhelming. Just did my first of the year. Little planning. With some good friends round. Nailed THAT!! 😃

Having one of those fed-up-with-tech times. Almost want to skip Twitter for a bit. People really need to be kinder and more thoughtful and graceful with their words. This is an ongoing theme right now.

I also…to my own utter horror…need some kind of fill-in light for doing video. Because I’m normally back-lit in my office. And now I’m looking at all sorts of “beauty vlogger” products. 😱😱😱😂😂😂

Tried filming myself with the camera built into my monitor yesterday. This is a new thing. I don’t film myself. But needs must.

Anyway. Turns out the camera in my old Apple Cinema Display is rubbish!!

So I need a webcam?!

I feel so noughties!

Most people, when the office internet goes down:

“Ah, internet’s gone down. I’ll go for a coffee/walk, take a break.”

Networking geeks when then internet goes down:

“Why the heck is the internet down? *ping* *dig* *change DNS settings* etc”
🙄

Since starting to take my girl to her pre-school I’ve re-discovered “The Button” by “The Tunnel”.

I’m still not brave enough to press it!

One of the great things about getting a Christmas gift of a variety pack of craft beer has been studying the branding. It’s fascination what a name and a label can make you think about a thing.

…but! Kinda amazed at how the Oikos “brand” I had 8 years or so ago has stood the test of time. Name is still right. Focus on “Communication, collaboration, community” is still right. Self-appointed title of “Creator, Engineer, Advisor” more relevant than ever. 😃🙌

Gosh. Lots of thoughts in my head today after a day of lots of chatting with people. Directions, values, branding. Definitely a year of change…

WordPress/Pinboarders: here you are. Went with the simple “sync-pinboard” name for now. This plugin pulls your pins into a WordPress post type. No display of those pins yet, but you can start archiving/hoarding!

https://wordpress.org/plugins/sync-pinboard/

Oh right. I take my sarcasm back. This is an accessibility device. It’s actually quite important. Please forgive my lack of context and understanding.

Even so…£50?!

OK. I’m curious. What the heck is this “latest technology and software product from Microsoft” and why does it cost £50?

“Big Red Switch”?! Is this some kind of joke?

Personal thing, but the normalisation of casual swearing amongst otherwise-professional people in public is really starting to bother me. I know you want to bring “yourself”, but really, can it not be held back in a professional context or with a potential family audience? 🤔

It also:
– Uses the official Pinboard API (there’s a settings screen for your API key)
– Obeys the API’s rate limits
– Allows you to choose an author for synced pins
– Syncs updated pins from Pinboard (I think!) but does not remove deleted pins

Weekend/holiday hacking: I’ve further developed my Pinboard Sync WordPress plugin. Anyone interested in having this in the WP repo? It:
– Copies Pinboard pins to a WordPress post type
– Includes tags in a custom taxonomy
– Will run through WP Cron and/or a WP-CLI command

Beautiful afternoon at Lydiard Park. Check out the girl with her pedals!!! 👍

I can’t remember who sent me this a while back, but the Eurovision Tech/AV team’s blog is full of all the insane detail of what they do to make the Eurovision party happen. 39 days to go. Geek out at: https://m-m-pr.com/index.php/eurovision-diary-2019

Despite being a super tech geek, I think this is the first trip I’ve made where I trust the tech enough to be pretty much working on digital tickets and cashless. It’s weird. My phone now does EVERYTHING!