As I had a slight lack of Internet access whilst in Brighton, it took some time to add the Winner Buttons to the “and the winner is“ post on LibDemVoice. However as there are some 40 posts since then I think the winning (and highly commended) authors may have missed them. So here’s a plug. Feel free to use the buttons on your own site, and the same goes for all those who made the shortlist.
All posts by Ryan Cullen
Presidental Election
Whilst the press would like you to believe that the talk of the Conference bar is Ming, it’s actual who is going to replace Simon Hughes as our President in 2009!
Campaigning has started early as people arrived at Conference wearing I’m 4 Ros badges. In a panic the John Smithson campaign had to be launched much earlier than planned and Theo got John Smithson for President badges made up on the LibDem Image stand. And last night the Lembit campaign started handing out stickers as they felt left behind.
Just not sure where the Lembit camp got their slogan from 😉
Best of both worlds
One of the best things about the flat that I’ve rented in Brighton is that we have a TV with a Freeview box.
This means that not only do I get to go to all the fringes and get the free food, meet up with my friends and gather a large collection of pens, I also get to lie on the sofa and watch the Conference hall on BBC Parliament when I’m tired.
Limited Internet Access
My plans to have my laptop online in our flat whilst in Brighton has failed. Not only has everyone here got secure WiFi, but the datacable to make my phone a modem has now gone missing.
Whilst I can do most stuff on my phone, writing and reading high graphic blog posts becomes rather tricky.
So if anyone is in Brighton and has found a Sony Ericsson datacable or has one to lend, please let me know.
The Daily “Diana” Express
There used to be an ongoing joke that you knew it was Monday because the Daily Express had a Diana Exclusive on the front page. Then I started to notice that almost every day was Diana day, so I thought about writing a script to cache the front page and then comeback months later and check. So the fruits of my code is this: Daily Diana Express. It goes back to the start of March and has every front cover. A quick scan of all the thumbnails and I have counted that 34 / 178 covers featured Diana, another 20 had the royals (Harry / Will / Kate / Charles / Camilla / Ann), but more suprising and featured in this fortnights Private Eye was that 70 out of 118 (59%) papers since the 5th May have Madeleine McCann on the front page.
So maybe its time to stop calling the paper The Daily Diana Express and instead The Daily Maddy Express?
STOP SHOUTING
Hopefully a new line of code in the LibDemBlogs script should stop shouty headlines.
So this is a test.
Crap summer?
Everybody seems to be going on how this summer has just been crap, and for those who are still living in temporary accommodation after the flood it must be, however:
In June, Heather and I got married and had perfect weather all day. Our honeymoon in Sorrento was in the 30’s everyday.
We went to Kew Gardens, where it was lovely except for a small thunderstorm.
Heather sang at Bury St Edmunds, St Edmundsbury Cathedral where I sat in the sun for hours and had a great time at the Greene King Brewery.
We took Sasha and Rhys to Whipsnade Zoo, which was also a hot day, followed by me going to watch Arsenal on the Sunday which again was a fine day.
We went to Clumber Park this weekend, and yep that was a great day too.
So whilst it might have been a bit rubbish whilst I’ve been sat behind my desk, on the days we’ve made plans to go out it’s been wonderful.
A Climate Conference?
Just been flicking through the Fringe Guide for the Autumn Liberal Democrat conference, and one thing stood out: Climate Change.
So I’ve now created a nice Google Spreadsheet to help those pick which of the 47 climate related fringes they might want to attend!
Note, I may have missed some, titles aren’t always that clear, and other might not exactly be about climate change.
Name checked on the F-Secure blog
Have you recently had an email which looked like this?
If so delete it straight away. As per usual the give aways are the fact that you’ve joined something that you never visted.
I got something similar this morning, and was sure I had read about this on the F-Secure blog. Checking their site I was right, so I emailed them the one I got as the details were different to those listed. Now the site is kindly name checking me.
Thanks to ‘ew’ and Ryan
for updates on the subjects used.
Google Calendar sync’d to your mobile
Last year I started using Google Calendar to manage my few events which I had. The only problem was that it was almost impossible to update whilst on the move. However Google XHTML’d the site and shrank it down a bit and allowed you to view it on you’re phone’s browser. But I was still missing the key bit. The entries weren’t appearing in my in-built calendar. I started to look into the Google Calendar API, and found it a nightmare. There were so many different methods depending if the event was all-day, just for an hour or repeating every year, so I gave up. However recently I’ve discovered GooSync, they allow your Google Calendar to talk over SyncML. This means that any events I add to the phone are added to Google and vice-versa. The free service allows 30 days of events to be sync’d with your main calendar. The premium version gives you a full year, plus the ability to sync extra calendars including those “shared” calendars. This means that I now have the full Arsenal fixture list on my phone, which is helpfully updated after each cup draw and ammended why Sky change the kick off time. It should work on almost any phone that was launched in the last two years and I would recommend you trying it, even if it’s the free version.