As the first example of my [Tienda.co.uk](http://tienda.co.uk/) project, we’ve just launched [slant1996.com](http://www.slant1996.com) which sells slightly mad t-shirt designs!
Nunoya: Japanese clothing in Barcelona
I recently helped out updating a friend’s online shop: Nunoya in Barcelona. As well as the obvious stock of kimono and other clothing items, they have some cool accessories. But my favourites are the Kokeshi, which I don’t remember having seen before – slightly mad (in a good way) dolls that look a bit like Russian dolls, but Japanese. And they don’t contain smaller versions of themselves, so actually, they’re nothing like Russian dolls!
[update: forgot to mention I did some photos of Sofia in kimonos for the site…]
Tracking my time
*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 ;)
Open all hours
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…
Question Box: one-key, no-screen internet
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.
Barcelona humour.
Black humour, really. And I like black humour, but this is not that funny. I was having a quick peek at to see the lay of the land in the web/tech sector in Barcelona and it’s not a pretty sight:
– companies looking for experienced analyst/programmers and expecting to pay 900€ a month – that’s NET of tax, though!
– offers for PHP/MySQL jobs that then ask you to know Java, ASP a bit of C++ and why not? Photoshop and Flash as well! ***WTF does a self-respecting PHP coder want to know bleeding ASP for?***
When I came to Barcelona in 1999 I noted the difference between here and the UK, but suggested it would improve. It hasn’t, still. Of course, I go through this process [every year](http://domi.co.uk/2005/04/26/196/) so maybe I should just let it go?
msnbot
It’s a bit like the annoying kid at school who everyone tells to push off, but they keep coming back just in case you want to talk to them. MSNbot, on seeing my “bugger off” in robots.txt, deserved thanks to its full-on approach to spidering that comes in somewhere between a DoS and a handy revenue generation trick for your ISP, now comes back to double-check the robots.txt file anywhere between every couple of hours and every couple of minutes. Get the message, MSNbot! ‘Op it!
Seriously, though, so many web admins are denying MSNbot spidering in robots.txt that it could find itself with large holes in the index. Or maybe that’s the plan? Make holes in the index, *where there would be sites run by savvy admins*. Leading to more sites run by non-savvy, or bandwidth-ambivalent admins. i.e. people trying to run IIS and Big Corps.
But now I’m just being paranoid.
Nokia – Loudeye tie-in
¿Hablas Espanol?
Search Engine Watch has an interesting article entitled *Search Marketing & the Spanish Speaking Internet* discussing the worldwide Spanish-speaking market and its potential value, focusing primarily on Latin America. It’s a little short if you don’t subscribe, but does manage to balance the positives with the realities of doing business in this as-yet largely untapped market.
How blatant?
Check the copy on www.i-faker.com for possibly the most blatantly shameless sales pitch ever!
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