Warmer days

We're heading into what's expected to be a rather cold weekend here in the Eastern Cape, so I figure I'll welcome it with a photo I took at the beach during the summer.

Posted via email from Andy's posterous

Thoughts on desktop interfaces

A while ago I said on FriendFeed that the only "desktop interface" I use for web services is Thunderbird for Gmail and Google Calendar. OK, that wasn't completely accurate because I was also using Thunderbird as an interface for Google Contacts.

Trouble is, that's not true any more. I don't use Thunderbird as a desktop interface for those three services any more, because the actual web interface has again gotten so much better at a rate that no desktop interface can keep up with. Calendar added tasks, which is nice, Gmail always has new exciting things in the Labs feature and the Contacts service just got a bunch of new fields added.

I don't think desktop interfaces can keep up with the original web interface. Thunderbird was good as an interface for stuff for a while, but I want my tasks list and my extra contacts fields now, not when the maintainers of those Thunderbird add-ons manage to update their stuff.

Some FriendFeed testing

This post is likely to change a couple of times after I post it, I'm testing some FriendFeed ideas.

First edit, here is the FriendFeed post for this blog post embedded. If you are logged in to FriendFeed you can comment on this blog entry right here. Even if you are not logged in to FriendFeed (or not a FriendFeed user at all) you can see comments about this post placed on FriendFeed here:

The code for this is
<iframe src="http://friendfeed.com/andykruger/87023acc/some-friendfeed-testing?embed=1" frameborder="0" width="99%" height="300" style="border:1px solid #aaa"></iframe>

Windy day

Click photo to view bigger
Windy day
Originally uploaded by Andy Kruger

I didn't go take photos at the Spar Ladies' Race (see here and here for some very good photos of that).

Instead, yesterday saw me head in the direction of Sardinia Bay and then on past Seaview to Van Staden's mouth [edit: OK, Maitlands, not Van Stadens]. It was pretty breezy and some folks were making the best of the conditions with some extreme kite surfing at Sards.

Pier

Click photo to view bigger
Pier
Originally uploaded by Andy Kruger

Shark Rock Pier at Splash Festival time.

I geotagged this photo in Picasa 3 using Google Earth and Flickr placed it on the map correctly, what Flickr did get wrong is the text of the location. Two reasons... Firstly this is not at the airport, secondly there is no H F Verwoerd Airport any more. Placing pictures on the map manually also produces "H F Verwoerd Airport", this is Hobie Beach people, or Summerstrand if you want a whole suburb.