Hello, If you want to view some video footage of  the Sanyo Xacti CG10 Dual Camcorder, here it is…

Must dash, I’m back on in about 9 mins!

What a bonkers few weeks it has been….

The reason for my spectacular failure to blog is the same as my failure to sleep and even eat adequately – see below:

at the BBC in the Click Labs!

For the last 3 weeks I have been having “unfinished programme” nightmares due to a rather gentle deadline becoming a horrible looming urgent certainty… but it’s all over now, phew.

Until the next time, that is…

I’m rather happy to report that the waveforms used in this piece are of “panda” , “pancake” and “pan-galactic gargle blaster” respectively. You can watch this programme by clicking on the picture, or by clicking here.

Now that I’ve also assuaged my “bloggers guilt” albeit with a teeny post, I shall now hope to get some proper sleep. When I wake up, I’ll see you on the internet very soon.

/LJ

Ok, I’m happy painting my life as a technology-loving geeky social network addict, it’s pretty easy because it’s true. I tweet and send pictures through my mobile on twitter and flickr, I am on facebook, qype, youtube, ping.fm and I’m on other places where I can’t even remember my username – you get the idea, some of you are probably the same as me, or worse. 

You’d think I’d be right up there, jacked in to cyberspace, fully comprehending the internet and not even seeing the code, as it were.  Sadly, I’m nowhere near where I want to be – still far too lost in the ether that is the new net-speak, although I’m clawing back some comprehension every day.

Looking back through my (and others’) twitterstream, the linguistics of the internet is in the process of undergoing yet another evolution. I’m learning a whole new language in order to keep up with my much cooler and hipper online buddies.

The emoticons we’re familiar with since I joined the internet (or before), are everywhere, even my dad texts and emails with  : – ) and  ; – )  .  Stuff like BRB is pretty easy to interpret and a rough knowledge of phonetics and/or a willingness to tilt your head to one side is enough to make a start on translating the rest.  

It’s all changed now there are so many new codes based on everything from gamer-speak to the economy of letters that Twitter’s 140-character limit has imposed. So what is the last resort of the enquiring mind?  I conclude that one needs to be either “in the know” or risk Urban Dictionary (and possible ridicule for choosing the wrong acronym) to find out the meaning and usage of the latest net-exclusive abbreviations.   

On to the reason for the post – this Wednesday, I’m going to be on the radio talking about the pressure to ‘keep up’ on the internet, not just emoticons and phraseology, but also keeping up with your facebook friends and your twitter chums.  I’d love to read what you think.

Do you feel anxious when you’ve not posted what you’re doing? Do you feel guilty if you haven’t blogged / updated your status for a while?  I’d also love to know whether you use acronyms such as FTW (or even WTF!) on the interwebs, whether you embrace it or can’t bear it, and if you have any good ones you can share with me…  Please feel free to leave your comments, and try to make sure that they are SFW kthxbai…

p.s. you can listen live to the show on BBC Radio Scotland at 10.30 GMT on 15th April 2009.

Mini Glossary for n00bs

w00t! (with zeros instead of O’s, although this font doesn’t show it as well as the header) gamer-speak with disputed origins, usage: celebratory

FTW = For The Win – usage is normally when you’re about to achieve something e.g. “eating 15 banana frittters FTW”

SFW / NSFW = Safe For Work / Not Safe For Work – usage is normally preceding or following a link where it’s not immediately obvious where it goes – can be used on twitter when posting tiny urls - stops you opening an inappropriate link in front of whoever’s lurking over your monitor.

kthxbai = OK, Thanks, Bye – Lolcats use this language a lot, pop over to http://icanhascheezburger.com/  for detailed exploration. You will waste time, though.

I attended this year’s Figures of Speech event in London last week which raised money for the Institute of Contemporary Arts.  Speakers included Bob Geldof, Alan Carr and Janet Street-Porter, all talking about their most treasured possessions.  Spinvox’s James Whatley, who hosted the Bloggers’ table, has asked that each of us do the same, so here’s mine.

If you see me out at night, the chances are I’ll have 2 big blue things in my ears, my beloved protectors of unwelcome noise, my USA-imported saviours, the humble hearos ear-plug. Since my previous life as a 4-times-a week musical performer, I’ve always made sure to wear hearing protection when gigging – a lot of the time, the monitors in front of the stage pointing at the band would be as loud, if not louder, than the speakers pointing at the audience. Whilst it looks a little unconventional, wearing my most treasured possession is worth all the good-natured pointing and laughing I get for the moment I step outside.

I pull out my earplugs and my hearing is crystalline, compared to my companions, who are shouting incoherently at each other over the ringing in their own ears. I generally put my earplugs back in at this point until they have calmed down.

what?

The most painful thought for me is that if I lose my ability to hear, I won’t be able to navigate my world anymore. I spent such a long time getting used to the many dissonances of daily life, vexed by the microtones in each new scenario until I was taught how to process those sounds as music. It turns out that if you use the appropriate scale, then your audio landscape can become a wonderful, if chaotic, symphony*.

I would be devastated if I could no longer use this method to interact with the world. I recognise people more easily by the sound of their voices than their physical appearance, which is another source of great amusement to those I see regularly.

If I lost my sense of hearing, I fear I will lose the friends I can’t recognise by sight alone. Even sitting on the tube, as I write this, I can hear someone’s headphones at an ear-splitting volume. I wonder momentarily why we seem so relaxed about protecting something that’s fundamentally irreplaceable, before replacing my earplugs, letting the sounds of the Jubilee line recede to a blissfully tolerable volume.

NB *Within reason, of course – I’m not counting the downstairs flat’s questionable and mystifying 125dB musical interludes at 1am on a Monday morning.

Here’s some footage of my trip along the Thames on the Thames Rib Experience!  I got to see the Thames Barrier close up, which was incredible.

I wanted to test out the Panasonic SDR-80 with its 70x optical zoom and Optical Image Stabiliser, I’m on QVC with it in a few minutes or so.

Thanks also to Warriorgrrl and my friends at www.qype.co.uk  for organising this day out. I write restaurant reviews on their site!

Short blog post as I’m off to catch a plane to Kenya (!)

I went to visit the British Music Experience in London’s O2 venue last Friday.

Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, officially opened it.  My flickr pictures are here : http://is.gd/msdQ

I probably won’t get a chance to blog while I’m in Africa, but on my return there will be pics.

One of the things I had to do over the weekend was to find some crazy-looking online web shops, and thanks to everyone on twitter who kindly suggested some sites when I was struggling !  Thanks are also due to http://webpagesthatsuck.com, I spent much longer than needed on there.

It’s for a piece on BBC Click that I’m producing,  just at the beginning of the feature – all will become clear when it’s aired on the 28th February.

I promised that I’d put my favourite ones on my blog, so here they are:

http://www.fabricland.co.uk/  – WOULD YOU LIKE SOME FABRICS?????

http://www.cccp.com/  Errr, hello, I’m a person, just walking out of my webpage.

http://www.yvettesbridalformal.com/  Ow! my brain!!

Finally, these two are fabulous but not online shops, so they don’t count, although I thoroughly enjoyed the craziness of both of them.

http://www.havenworks.com how much can you fit on one page?

and lastly,

http://fletchowns.net/ NB please do not  click through to this if you suffer from photo-sensitive epilepsy: it’s a very, very, bright flashing site filled with bright flashy stuff that repeats over and over until the end of time. It felt like I’d looked at it for about 10 seconds, but I missed QI as I was under for 4 hours.

Right, I’ve finished my filming, will update you on that once I’ve done the edit at the Beeb!

Twitter Article on the Beeb!

The pictures in this article are by @lateral - you can see more here.

In case you’re wondering, the article is all about how I think Twitter has changed in recent times as more people have joined. Click on the picture, or here: http://tinyurl.com/ljbbctweet to read it.

I’m going back to bed…

With the recent mass adaptation of Twitter in my immediate surroundings, it has been suggested by people who aren’t yet on it that it would be rather nice to have some kind of guide to Twitter etiquette for those who are new to it.

I’ve been tweeting for around a year and although I’ve learned a lot about how to make the most of this continually evolving social network tool, I still remember how bewildering it all was when I first took the plunge.

So here’s a guide for those who want to join in.

I’m assuming you’ve already logged in or you’ve joined twitter (go to www.twitter.com and join from there), then you’ll see similar screens to the ones below, albeit with different background colours.

OK, so what is it?

Twitter is, essentially, a micro-blog, or a mini online diary. You can type the answer to “What Are You Doing?” in 140 characters or less as frequently as you like, a bit like your facebook status. 

If you keep updating (but not too often!) you’ll end up with a profile that looks a bit like the page below –  a list of your updates.

This is what other people will see when they go to your twitter page.

You can see what other people are writing by “following” them.  Their updates (or “tweets”) will come up on your Home area in chronological order.

Other people can follow your updates – they are called (predictably) your “followers”. You can see how many followers you have underneath your profile picture.

To follow someone, find them on twitter while you’re logged in, then click “follow”. Their updates will now appear in your stream.

Once you’ve joined up, it’s good to find people to follow – good places to start are http://www.twitter.com/bbcnews , http://www.twitter.com/towerbridge and of course http://www.twitter.com/ljrich (if you want to see what I get up to!)

Tweet Notes

1. There aren’t really many rules about frequency or content when you tweet, but be aware if you are doing 20 updates a day, people might be less inclined to follow you as it will bung up their timeline and stop them seeing their other updates.  I try and tweet between 0 and 5 times a day – with a ratio of (I hope) 80% interesting to 20% pointless, ranging from random thoughts through to music tech and hyperlinks.

2. Engage with your followers! if someone asks you a question, reply to them with an @ symbol in front of their name, (like this: @ljrich ) – this tweet will come up in their “replies” section and not get lost in the stream. 

Using the @ in front is the way to make someone’s twitter name clickable. 

You can also “Retweet”, which is effectively to forward someone else’s tweet, normally with a view to helping them get answers, or to disseminate information.  The usage is to add “RT” at the beginning of your retweet – for example:

What are you doing?

RT @ljrich how do you use twitter? I’d love to hear from you.

3. Twitter Hashtags: You can tag your own tweets so they can appear in “filters” – for example, #ces09 will show all tweets that have been tagged with this consumer electronics show marker.  Rather like football chants, these tags appear to proliferate organically until everyone is using the same one.  Let’s take a newer hashtag to show you the usage:  #lunchtweet .

What are you doing?

#lunchtweet salmon sushi set, sesame spinach and soba noodles. Mmm Tokyo Diner.

It doesn’t matter where you put your hashtag in your tweet.

4. Be aware that everything you write is EVIDENCE, and will be on the internet FOREVER! 

5.  It’s the interactivity aspect that trips so many people up - to make the most out of Twitter, remember that it’s not just about broadcasting your thoughts, it’s also about having conversations, answering queries and adding your voice to a debate.  Tweeting should be human and reasonably informal. 

*

Meet ‘n’ Tweet

In summary, there’s a lot of fun to be had on Twitter, as long as you’re not expecting to monetize.  In my experience, it’s first and foremost a site for socialising and sharing the minutae of life as we live it, although it’s becoming a valuable networking tool for linking people together in a relaxed manner. 

I tweeted a while back (and got retweeted – the ultimate accolade!) that ” if LinkedIn is the office, Twitter is the pub” – the corollary of which appears to be: it doesn’t matter what you drink, as long as you’re reasonably sociable.

See you at the bar.

Oooh comments please…

Tell me, what do you use Twitter for? When did you join? What do you like about it? How has Twitter changed in the last few months? Feel free to leave comments here or on my twitter account.

Here are a few pictures of the “extreme weather event” in London and the South East last night.  It took over 3 hours to make a 45-minute journey, complete with car-pushing and buses getting stuck.

London Embankment

City of London

Trafalgar Square

Piccadilly Circus Snowball Fight

Near Charing Cross

Piccadilly Neon in the Snow

Taxi on Truck, East London

Safe journeys today, everyone! Back with more gadgets soon.