My favorite place to hear music: The Astoria

Posted on January 24, 2009 by Mark

Big enough to attract the better known bands, yet small enough to keep an intimate and sweaty atmosphere in there. I vividly recall my first proper standing gig there seeing the old thrash metal band Overkill – it was a big deal about the standing because most of the bigger metal bands were playing the Hammersmith Odeon at the time and to have the opportunity to go wild in mosh pit was all a bit exciting for a teenage boy.

Sadly, the Crossrail project has brought about the venue’s demise in 2009, but I’ve got countless used ticket stubs to remind me of the giggles I had there (not to mention it’s other long-lost neighbour, the Marquee Club.)

Photo credit – “Explosions in the Sky”

by Pilot_10.

Songs for the road

Posted on January 23, 2009 by Mark

Plinky asks for just three songs for a road trip? It’ll need a few more than that, but I think these three are as a good a place as any to keep the tempo up and avoid dozing off the side of the road.

Go With The Flow by Queens of the Stone Age

It’s inextricably linked in my mind to the video that accompanies it – red skies and open roads. I can’t say I’ve seen any naked silhouetted women on my travels yet, but we live in hope.

Rearviewmirror by Pearl Jam

How many songs mention a car part in the title? Not many, I can tell you. The pace and the rhythm and possibly the fact I heard this twenty dozen times in other people’s cars on the way to gigs/clubs make it stick in the mind.

Rusty Cage by Soundgarden

Ever remember the old console game “Road Rash”? I think it was one of the first games to ever feature licensed music. I’ll always associate this track with speeding down the highway (well, a virtual one anyway).

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-01-18

Posted on January 18, 2009 by Mark

Drinking margarita’s in Causeway Bay sounds a lot more exotic than it actually is. #
Down by the beach in Stanley away from the crowds in Kowloon – now it feels like I’m on a day or two’s holiday at last. #
Taking the ferry home instead of the MTR to get some jetlag-fighting fresh air. #
Dozing the afternoon away on a beautiful beach on a little island is all well and good until you realise the last bus was at 5pm. #
It’s a bit disappointing that ‘rubbery’ seems to be a texture that some Hong Kong restaurants try to aim for in their food. #
Watching a Geordie-led jazz band in an Aussie bar in Hong Kong. Suitably random jetlag moment. http://twitpic.com/12gmh #
In a design review that’s somehow been hijacked by a heated multinational debate on audio data compression algorithms. HALP. #
On the commuter train out to the New Territories. I’m definitely the odd one out. #
Cultural learning of the day (whilst discussing chicken feet for lunch): “Even though I am Chinese, I would not want to eat monkey brains.” #
Economy downturn seems to have hit Macau casino’s. Mostly deserted and looking even more soulless and garish than before. #
Tired of: “Copy watch. Watch, sir? Rolex. Copy Rolex. Nice suit. New suit. Shirt, tie? Nice trousers. Copy watch. Nice watch for you, sir.” #
Preparing for 13 hours of air travel then back to Heathrow less than 24 hours later. Declaring my home country as ‘in orbit’ for the future. #

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-01-11

Posted on January 11, 2009 by Mark

Jobs: “So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.” http://shrt.st/25u #
Suitably enamoured with Tweetie to wave goodbye to Twitterific for now. #
A confused looking Ruby Wax has just idly wandered through my office. #
South West Trains might as well wood panel the First Class carriage and start serving brandy and cigars for those five old chaps who use it. #
Last.fm streaming over 3G to iPhone to car stereo via Griffin RoadTrip = magic personal cyber radio of the future. Love it. #
I wonder how much stuff from the iPhone App Store is downloaded in the hour or two before starting a long haul flight? #
Rocking the bloodshot eye and swollen feet look in Hong Kong today. Think it’ll catch on? #

Designing an application menu for Android

Posted on January 10, 2009 by Mark

If you’re designing the user experience of an Android application for the first time – especially if you’re porting an existing J2ME application, a quick way to get up and going with designing the UI for the menu of the application is re-use some of the system icons that are shown by the pre-installed applications.

If you install the Android SDK and extract the contents of the android.jar file (it’s just a regular .zip archive under a different name) you’ll find a whole selection of images in the /res/drawables folder; the ones used on the menu items are all prefixed with ic_menu_.

Some examples below:
Android menu icons
Most (if not all) of the icons you’ll find are freely accessible by developers and it makes good sense to stick to common imagery for tasks that the device users will be already familiar with.

Oh, if you didn’t already realise why I’m coming out with this now – you can now download the first beta for the lite version of Skype from the Android Market.

Skype mood messages and Twitter

Posted on January 8, 2009 by Mark

If you’re running the beta version of Skype 2.8 for Mac OS X, you can now integrate the new mood message chat with your Twitter account.

It’s very much experimental – it’s just one way, in as much as you can only post your current mood message to Twitter.

Enabling it will need you to be comfortable editing XML files by hand. To get started you’ll need to edit:

~/Library/Application Support/Skype/<username>/config.xml

…and then add the following to areas underneath the UI » General nodes:

<TwitterPassword>mypassword</TwitterPassword> <TwitterUsername>mytwitterusername</TwitterUsername>

You can grab the full details on the Skype Developer Zone.

Wanted, one copywriter based in Finland.

Posted on January 7, 2009 by Mark

Here’s one that reiterates the point of good copy editing and tone of voice, especially if you’re working in multiple languages.

If you’re attempting to log in to Nokia’s Forum Nokia developer site and forget your username or password, you’re greeted by a line that could have been straight from the mouth of a second-rate border guard:

“The credentials you provided cannot be determined to be authentic.”

I’m guessing this is a very literal translation from Finnish. Even with the technical audience the site is aimed at, surely a warmer tone wouldn’t have gone amiss here?

AFC Wimbledon matchday updates via Twitter

Posted on January 5, 2009 by Mark

Making use of the multiple account support in Tweetie on my iPhone, I published a bunch of live goal flashes to the AFC Wimbledon Twitter feed for Saturday’s game against Bognor Regis Town.

I dare say this won’t be a regular occurrence, but given that I managed to delight at least one person, expect to see more of this as and when I get to some more games – or if I can persuade some others to have a go at it in my absence.

To my mind, it’s probably the cheapest and quickest way for small (or even large) clubs to provide this information to their fanbase; with the diverse geographical spread of AFC Wimbledon fans, I hope my experiment sees the idea getting a little bit more traction.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-01-04

Posted on January 4, 2009 by Mark

After fighting through the teeming hordes of shoppers and traffic in Southampton today I’d just like to say “credit crunch, my arse.” #
Finally got around to uploading a bunch of videos from my flying visit to Japan: http://vimeo.com/album/53188 #
is saving you an SMS assault and simply saying Happy 2009. #
Going in to Woolworths today is basically like legalised looting. http://twitpic.com/yy5x #
is wondering how much of a tax bill you need to have before considering Celebrity Big Brother a good idea. #
Non-league football is just like league football but even colder. http://twitpic.com/z9ti #
So many drunk people in my house I need a Rock Band Polyphonic Spree special edition. #

January beside the sea

Posted on January 4, 2009 by Mark

For the first time in far too long, I headed down to the coast to watch AFC Wimbledon in action; today’s opponents being bottom of the table Bognor Regis Town. The Dons were on a great run over the Christmas period and a win keeps us right up with Chelmsford City at the top of the table.

Temperatures of -6°C in the morning meant that we were only one of four games to go ahead that day.

One of the great things about the type of places you visit for non-league games is that they’re often a little more scenic than the centre of large cities – a brief walk down from the ground led me to the beach:

The game itself was a very one-sided affair – the Dons finished up with a 5-1 scoreline in their favour, with Bognor’s management team of Mick Jenkins and Andy Awford resigning after the game.

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