Life is grand

How does one associate more than one email address with a Google Calendar? Can you?

The boss sent me a Google Calendar meeting request but sent it to my pwatson@tssg.org email account. However I am registered with paulmwatson@gmail.com on GCal. So when I try and accept the meeting request Google does not tie it up to my main calendar but instead asks me to register a new Google account.

All a bit confusing. I’d like for GCal to simply add to one calendar any meeting requests sent to a range of email addresses I control.

I only just realised today that the vertical-align CSS property can take integers and not just enums. Up till now I had only been using middle, top, bottom etc. as valid values. Now I realise you can use -3px or whatever value you need. Handy.

1. The Beatles - Hello Goodbye
2. Rob Zombie - Dragula
3. Kooks - Ooh La
4. The White Stripes - Broken Bricks
5. The Beatles - Get Back
6. Queen - We Will Rock You
7. Fatboy Slim - Sho Nuff
8. Queen - Princes of the Universe
9. Team Sleep - The Passportal
10. The White Stripes - Passive Manipulation

A Tuesday list because I left my iPod at home yesterday.

Chris Shipley makes a good point about the current Web 2.0 revenue state:

The software industry, however, in large measure has become afraid to ask people to pay. Ultimately, this devalues not only the application, but also the industry.

He goes on to say:

I believe consumers will pay for value and that it is fundamentally wrong not to ask to be compensated for the value you deliver to the market.

We are afraid but maybe we shouldn’t be. I think what many of us are afraid of is launching and not getting a tidal wave of sign-ups (and blogosphere attention.) When we launch we want to be on TechCrunch, Slashdot, Digg and Reditt. Don’t we?

Which is better; a site launches, asks for a fiver a month and “only” gets a few thousand sign-ups vs. a site that launches, asks for nothing and gets ten thousand sign-ups (along with an attention-storm that leaves you as quickly as it hit and with nothing more than wrecked servers and a few stragglers.)

Before you answer that consider what else Chris said:

In the context of Google, when we are actually looking for something, a paid ad link in context might be very useful. But when we are doing any of a number of things that fee sites enable, the ads are much less valuable…

Back to the question; if you have a site that can naturally incorporate contextual ads then go for the attention-storm. Get those eyeballs, get those clicks (though clicks depend on your targeted user-base too. Don’t expect tech-savvy users to click through, they generally don’t. Try and get the moms and pops for click-throughs.) and reap the numbers.

But if you have a web-app then fitting ads into it probably won’t work. As Chris points out you are using up screen real estate, diluting your functions and the user is not in the ad-click-through frame of mind. They want to pay a bill, upload a photo or store a link, not click on an advert. They aren’t looking for products, they have a task to do.

In that case ask for a fiver and don’t be hassled if you are not the coolest Web 2.0 site of the moment. If your product is good you should get more through a hundred fivers than you will get through a thousand click-throughs.

Snook writes about namespacing your JavaScript code and asks what standards we should adopt and the best way of doing it. It is an important topic. Afterall, we namespace our Java, C# etc. code and think it is important there.

Snook namespaces in the following way:
var snook = new Object();
snook.someFunc = function ()
{...}
snook.anotherFunc = function ()
{...}

Do you know of any other ways to namespace your JavaScript?

I have some serious gaps in my music collection but have thankfully plugged it a bit by getting The Greatest Hits by Fatboy Slim. Naturally I have heard of Slim and even enjoyed much of his work but have never owned a Slim album. Scorn hit compilations all you want but they can be very useful in catching up on an artist. This one proves to not only be useful but also damned good. Most of the Slim tracks you know (Rockafeller Skank, Right Here, Right Now, Gangsta Tripping) plus a few I didn’t (Santa Cruz, Slash Dot Dash).

The bonus DVD is also quite nice. It includes an hilarious fan-made video featuring kittens.

So, well recommended if you don’t have Fatboy Slim albums already.

With a four day trip to Wales coming up and future camping trips on the cards I am looking to getting some good camping gear. Right now I need a tent and sleeping bag. I have a nice tent back home in South Africa but it is a: on another continent and b: a bit big for my needs right now. I’ll get it shipped up at some point as it will be perfect for car-camping trips.

I want a light, carriable tent now though. 2 man, small and sturdy. The choice in Waterford is sadly lacking with the only decent-seeming make available to be Vango. Any comments on it? The TBS Spirit 200 seems a nice tent but it is pricy and I wouldn’t want to go wrong with €300. Any other makes available in the Sunny South East?

For a sleeping bag I don’t need an Antarctica capable bag. A summer + autumn bag would be fine for now. Once again it needs to be light and small so I can strap it onto my rucsac and hike with it. There is a nice Sunpac bag that is just one kilo and yet cosy.

Any advice for where to get outdoor gear in the Waterford region would be appreciated.

White sugar in tea,
Brown sugar in coffee.

Whatever Bill Gates’ impact on Microsoft in the past few years has been, today marks the end of an era as he steps aside and lets Ray Ozzie take the software reigns.

One of the 1000 signed Stormhoek promotional posters by Hugh Macleod hanging on my wall. I got mine at the it@cork Web 2.0 Conference.

The winery, Stormhoek, is actually just up the road from where I used to live in Cape Town.