Published on
October 1, 2009 in
General.
Thanks to recommendations by friends I’ve been getting into the location-aware game Gowalla. The idea behind the game is you wander around, checking in to “spots” (i.e. locations) to add to your collection. Spots can be anything from landmarks to shops and when you check in you’re randomly awarded with collectable icons which you can either keep or drop in other spots. If a spot doesn’t exist at a location, you can add it yourself for added kudos.
Anyway, I found myself looking at quite a few spots on Google Streetview but getting the location of a spot over from one to the other is a bit tricky. To help make things a little easier, I’ve created the following bookmarklet which embeds Google Streetview directly into the spot pages on www.gowalla.com. Continue reading ‘Gowalla Streetview Bookmarklet’
Published on
June 19, 2009 in
General.
Time for another off-topic blog post! 
This time on the 63rd annual Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF).
I’m not sure if it’s my taste in films, the excellent work of the festival staff, or a general trend in filmmaking, but this year’s line up at the festival seems pretty spectacular. There’s been a few films every day so far that I’ve been keen to see, where during previous years, I’d be lucky to find a handful over the whole festival. I think the success may be down to all these, but also that the festival is now reaping the rewards of moving from August to June. 2008 was the first June festival, and it felt a little subdued; I think film makers, delegates and the public didn’t know what to expect.
Thankfully it didn’t take us long to get used to the change, and with June being a quiet time in the Film Festival calendar yet also near the start of the summer blockbuster season, there seems to be a lot of films vying for attention. There still isn’t quite the buzz that’s associated with the main Edinburgh Festival season in August, but the line up of films (and the simplified logistics of getting around the city) makes up for it. Continue reading ‘Edinburgh International Film Festival’
First up, it’s pretty unusual for me to post about politics; I normally keep such thoughts to myself or moan about the general ineptitude of politicians to friends and colleagues, however I’m a keen follower of what’s going on regarding UK politics, as it has the opportunity to be an exciting time of change.
Today a report was published by the Calman Commission; who were tasked by the opposition parties of the Scottish Parliament, with the support of the UK Government, to look at the relationship of Scotland within the United Kingdom. This relationship or “devolution settlement” is already a very misunderstood and highly politicised thing, which pretty much everyone will admit is so riddled with problems and patchy half-thought-out legislation that something needs done. I’m neutral when it comes to both party politics and on the independance debate; as with most things there are reasons for, reasons against and a lot of spinning in between – but one way or another, the problems with the status-quo need addressed. Continue reading ‘The Calman Commission Report’
Last night VidZone, an interesting new free service cropped up on the PS3, curtesy of the lovely people as SCEE and Rants Ltd. VidZone in a nutshell is a music video channel where you choose the music; you queue up tracks from VidZone’s playlists, search by artist, song or genre, and build up your own playlists.
Despite a few teething problems, common to any new free service these days, VidZone works remarkably well. On my connection videos start streaming within a couple of seconds, there’s a good selection for a fledgling service, the video quality is decent for the majority of videos and the audio quality is as good as any other streaming service or music channel. There are however a number of minor niggles: Continue reading ‘PS3 VidZone Critique’
Published on
September 23, 2008 in
General.
Operation: Sleeper Cell has gone gold (if such a term exists for a web-based game). It’s been a lot of hard work but also a lot of fun and heading up the tech side of such an ambitious project has been a great experience.
So what is Operation: Sleeper Cell? Well, simply put it is an online fundraising game (probably one of the first, or at least most ambitious.) Players, or Agents, form teams and compete to solve puzzles for points whilst donating to Cancer Research UK and encouraging their friends, families, colleagues, complete strangers to sponsor them. Donations and sponsorship generate our in-game currency which can be used to unlock further puzzles and progress the game.
Most of all it’s fun and for a good cause, so please head on over and give it a go…
Published on
March 12, 2008 in
General.
What am I upto these days? I’m still CTO of Workwithus.org and when I’m not building fundraising websites for charities or keeping our email marketing system running smoothly, I’m, erm doing more of the same!
I’ve been spending a lot of my spare time lately working for BT agilemedia, developing their social fundraising platform BT iDonate. We’ve got a number of big charities on board and it’s being well received. We’ve so far launched facebook applications for: Dogs Trust, Childline, Scope (New Media Age’s Website-of-the-Week 28th Feb 08!), Great Ormond Street Hospital, Crisis, Help a London Child and Missing People.
The remainder of my time is being spent on the tech team bringing Law 37’s Alternate Reality Game for Cancer Research UK to life.
On top of all that, I’m in the process of sprucing up the busy forums SE-NSE which I’ve helped run for the past few years. In the near future there will be a major rebranding and very funky mobile version.
Published on
September 20, 2006 in
General.
I’m currently involved in an alternate reality game called Perplex City. One of our remaning puzzles is to find a man from only his photo! Can you or your friends help? There is a reward!
Published on
August 9, 2005 in
General.
Hopefully I’ll get some of my photographs up here, including my winning entry to the Scottish Parliament Opening competition, which has been exhibited in New York Central Station, the Scottish National Photography Centre and Holyrood itself!
I’ve also a few photo-essays I’d like to do over the summer if I get time.
