Bredbyn
April 22nd, 2008
Did you ever notice that the bread from Ikea is made in a place called Bredbyn in Sweden? ;)

Did you ever notice that the bread from Ikea is made in a place called Bredbyn in Sweden? ;)

Nice watches on ebay at Poljot Watches, and if you’re a penguin-bothering type of geek, especially this one, with 24-hour dial and penguins!

Photo by Csaba_Bajko
I’m not too bad with timetracking these days. I use Billable for invoicing and as long as I keep a vague eye on the time, and add the hours into Billable as they’re spent it’s not too much of a bind.
Recently, though, I’ve started using a solution that seems obvious, but I’ve never heard of it used (I haven’t Googled it, either, so I can very easily be proved wrong!) I’ve set up a screengrabbing utility to take a shot every 10 minutes, then if I have any doubts about what time I started on something - or more usually, until what time in the middle of the night I worked until - I can have a quick look back at the screengrabs and it’s all there.
The side benefit is that while I’m looking at the screengrabs as thumbs I can see the ratio of Google Reader to TextMate (for example) is quite obviously not balanced how it should be ;)
Trying to buy a Wifi connection card last night (or this morning, to be precise) I got a message from Telefonica’s online shop: “Store open between 12:00 and 07:00″!
What, the shopkeeper needs some downtime? I’ll refrain from saying “bloody typical”. Oops, just did…

3G?

Hero to every geek, most likely, and certainly one of mine.
90 isn’t a bad age for anyone, I think, and if you happen to be able meld science fiction and “real” science for most of that time, unbeatable. I think the fact that he wrote sci-fi that was so fact-checked and rigourous that it forms the basis of modern life is inspirational on so many levels. (Like now, sat in a hotel, using a phone to make a connection, seems like a very “Arthur moment” ;)
To infinity and beyond, brother!

This is an interesting idea, that seems slightly mad at first, then starts to make perfect sense once you think about it. Then it seems really obvious. Then it makes me think about that fact that I already provide this service to family members! Cool.
Fairly surprisingly (no, really bloody amazingly) the IE team has decided to make IE8 “interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it can“.
This is a welcome change (although we’re still having to make things work for IE6, of course!) What’s interesting about it is the willingness to put themselves on the side of standards.