Author: Rachel

flickr, fun

Flickr Presents

Flickr have a wonderful easter egg this Christmas – adding notes to the photo gives you Xmas hats and Santa beards. See here for an example. Furthermore they have extended the upload limits for everyone. And it’s even better to give the gift of Flickr since now your recipients will get unlimited uploads — the […]

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life, TV

Connectors and adapters

I’m trying to find some way to plug the various entertainment bits and pieces I have together without spending a fortune on replacing everything. But so far no luck. I have a PC with a VGA output but a TV with a choice of HDMI, SVideo, combination or composite inputs. And I have a UK […]

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life

Post 1000

After just over 2 years on this blog, I’ve reached post 1000, (a number with significance only if you count in base 10.) I’ve moved from the tentative steps of working out why I was blogging to a changed mindset where things I read and hear about are put through a mental filter of ‘can […]

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General

LeWeb3 – conference feedback

If you have read any kind of technology blog, or peruse the top search terms on Technorati, you will have come across the blogstorm that was leWeb3. It’s still top of the search terms on that site. Last year, the same conference garnered some controversy after a key speaker reacted to comments on the IRC […]

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General

Let’s see if this stays up

After a few weeks down (difficulties co-ordinating me, a phone, a PC and a network connection all at the same time), the site is back up. At least for now. We’ll see how long it stays up or if it is pulled again by the ISP.

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life

MIT Open Courseware

I’m a fan of continued education.   I’ve carried on learning formally though the OU for many years.  But the OU courses available in the US are few so I’ve been looking around for something else.   Many of the available courses in New York that would feasibly fit into my schedule are the more practical or […]

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blogging, GeekDinner

Girl Geek Dinner and Maryam

There was Girl Geek Dinner in London yesterday ably organised by Sarah Blow.  Ian Forrester did his usual superb job of videoing the speakers and here’s Maryam Scoble‘s speach.    From reading the reports, it sounds like I missed a great evening. I was honoured to be mentioned, along with Nicole Simon, as one if the […]

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General, life

Bar Community Marketing

The bar over the road from me has a wonderful Word of Mouth scheme for getting new customers.   Every Thursday, it opens up the bartending role to guests – that is, anyone who wants to have a go.   The only catch – you have to bring in your friends. There’s a big sign up behind […]

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advertisment, viral

Vaio Viral

This set of games has to be one of the most addictive I’ve seen. But to you by Kempt for Sony Viao, it just takes the form of one game after another. All short and suite, some of them incomprehensible (you click and something happens) it just keeps you onthe page with all the different […]

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life

Cocktails in New York

Looks like there are going to be some drinks on Friday night, the Jason Calacanis Happy Hour.  Could be a pleasant way to spend a Friday.

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UGC, video, web stuff

Web Video Hosting

How many video sites are there now? Plenty, and they are still popping up every week. YouTube is the biggest but Google are still pushing theirs despite buying YT, Microsoft recently launched theirs and Revver is going strong with the shared revenue model. Chris Pirillo takes a look at three key players in this string […]

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life

Shrinking Household

I’m sitting here trying to keep out the way of the movers who are slowly packing up all my stuff (feeling guilty, I just make them tea every hour or so).    My working space gets barer and barer; the desktop PC has gone, the desk (or what passes for one) has gone and the next […]

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TV, UGC

BBC UGC – Yes or No?

User Generated Content, Citizen media, particpatory content. Whatever you call it, it’s not going away and the number of advertisers jumping on the bandwagon with various degrees of success increases everyday. The BBC has been there for a while and now we have two stories demonstrating various successes. In the first, BBC News 24 has […]

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blogging, marketing

Choosing a Blog Consultant

Eric, over at CommonSense PR, has listed 5 key points about choosing a blogging consultant.  Some excellent points there, especially about checking the blogging history of the consultant and ther references.  I would add a further one, in that also check the variety and breadth of previous work.  One thing I have found with digital […]

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life

Packing Choices

Today, I’m preparing to pack, the movers arrive on Monday to take everything away and put some of it on a boat that will hopfully arrive in New York in about 2 months.   Unlike the last time I did this, moving to and from Amsterdam, a lot of the stuff will be put into storage.  […]

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google, web stuff

Jury’s Hotel SEO

If you use Google to search for Jurys hotel, the first result is the main page for the hotel group.  But the next few pages demonstrate the powerof a Search Optimisation strategy and 15 of the next 19 results are also jurys, but lying across a range of subdomains such as bristolhotels.jurysdoyles.com.  But if you […]

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marketing, UGC

Starbucks – It’s Red Again

Starbucks’ itsredagain is their Holiday website.  It’s definitely multilingual, having you pass through 2 pages to choose your language and even gives a subtitle choice for those lacking speakers ;-).   There’s nothing groundbreaking here, with a choice of send your own greeting card or submit your Christmas tradition to be added to the interactive map.  […]

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