dougbelshaw.com

Bye bye Blogger!

2007-01-07T17:02:00.000Z

I've grown tired of the basic options I get with this blog, even given the features of the 'new' Blogger. So I've defected and joined the ranks at Vox. You can join me at:

http://dougbelshaw.vox.com/

(dougbelshaw.com will automatically redirect to the new address...)

Photo credit: wave it goodbye @ Flickr

Doug's Brain Age < Hannah's...

2007-01-02T09:55:00.000Z

As I mentioned in a previous post, for Christmas I bought Hannah a Nintendo DS Lite. Although it (honestly) wasn't my intention, I've been using it almost as much as she has. We've been playing (training with?) Brain Age, an excellent game which stimulates the prefrontal cortex of your brain through various activities. The aim of the game is to get your 'brain age' down to the lowest possible - which is 20.

Oh. Look who's done it already. Hard lines Hannah (although she is 8.5 months pregnant, so I'll let her off...)

NextGen Teachers

2006-12-30T16:18:00.000Z

I've joined a worldwide group of educators who are younger than the current crop of (predominantly) 40-50 something edubloggers. The aim is to produce content which is from a younger, more 'digital native-esque' perspective.

The reason I'm posting this here is because I'm tagging this post with 'nextgenteachers'. Hopefully this will mean that, via the FeedWordpress plugin, it will show up at the blog where we want to pull together all our aggregated feeds (but only with that particular tag).

Fingers crossed...

(Image credit: One World by Genista @ Flickr)

The Best Music of 2006 (according to me!)

2006-12-28T15:17:00.000Z

It's time for me to reflect on the new music I've enjoyed this year. This is far from being a straightforward job in either conception or execution, however, as often the 'new' music I discovered through various means (word-of-mouth, Last.fm, numerous magazines, etc.) wasn't actually released this year.

So the music I've listened to most this year probably won't appear on this list. Never mind... In alphabetical order, then:

Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Easy to overlook as the album was so hyped, it's a bit of a modern-day masterpiece, really. They hail from around Sheffield, which is where I'm currently residing (and went to university) so the lyrics really hit home.

Basement Jaxx - Crazy Itch Radio
The track Take Me Back To Your House drives Hannah nuts, but I love it. The rest of the album isn't half bad either in a kind of cool-without-even-trying kind of way. The 'let's pretend we're a radio station instead of an album' is a bit annoying after a while, though...

The Beatles - Love
I may (or may not) lose all cool points by mentioning this, but I don't really care. Hey, I'm nearly a Dad! It's actually an official mash-up album done extraordinarily well. Fun.

Delays - You See Colours
An absolutely fantastic band with a lead singer who's got an amazing vocal range. I bought their other album, Faded Seaside Glamour (2003) at the same time, so get confused between the two. They're both top quality albums though.

Jamiroquai - High Times: Singles 1992-2006
A bit cheeky, this one, as it's a best of. But it does include the rather good Runaway (the Alan Braxe French House remix of which is sublime) and the average to quite-good Radio as bonus tracks. A fantastic buy if, inexplicably, you don't own any Jamiroquai stuff...

John Mayer - Continuum
An album that will no doubt acquire legendary status. We first came across John Mayer when sitting in Cafe Rouge in York in 2003, shortly before we were married. We were so impressed by the music that was playing that we asked the waitress who it was. But this album is even better than Room For Squares (2001) and Heavier Things (2003): meaningful lyrics melded great sounds and even better guitar-playing!

Josh Rouse - Subtitulo
I'm always amazed more people haven't heard of Josh Rouse. He's an American who now lives and records in Spain and who produces a very laid-back yet melodic sound. It's singer-songwriter guitar-based stuff that I don't think anyone could dislike. His other albums are great as well. :-)

Kasabian - Empire
Some say it was over-hyped - I thought the truck driving through the centre of Dublin whilst I was there advertising the album was a bit much - but I still think it's a great album. Soaring choruses and stuff to drive fast to. Great.

Scissor Sisters - Ta-Dah!
Questionable sexual preferences of the band members aside, this is good, fun music. The first time I heard I Don't Feel Like Dancin', I thought the Bee Gees (minus a brother Gibb) had made a comeback! Music to dance to, if only in a bottom-shuffling way in the car or by hand-jiving when you think no-one's looking kind of way...

The Whitest Boy Alive - Dreams
The newest project of Kings of Convenience member Erlend Oye, The Whitest Boy Alive is light electronica with Erlend's trademark vocals. Quite marvellous most of the time, only average in places. The first three tracks are the best.

Those who know me and my taste in music well might wonder about the absence of Beck's The Information, Keane's Under The Iron Sea, DJ Shadow's The Outsider and Bonobo's Days To Come. Well, they were a bit, erm... pants really...

(Photo credit: Sounds from the past by Rune T @ Flickr)

Hannah's Nintendo DS Lite

2006-12-28T13:51:00.000Z

Completely disregarding the £30 present limit we imposed on ourselves this year, I bought Hannah a white Nintendo DS Lite for Christmas. It only arrived today, unfortunately, as I missed Christmas delivery by 4 hours. It was worth the wait, though.

I was half expecting the shouty-shouty 'How could you spend all this money when we've got a baby on the way', but instead Hannah's face lit up and she really enjoyed playing Brain Age, which is the game I got her to go with it! :-D

I'm 26. What have I achieved?

2006-12-22T17:00:00.000Z

It's my birthday today. I'm becoming less fond of them, to be honest. For one, I always seem to be ill on that day - probably because it's always just at the end of the longest school term - and, for another, well, it's probably best summed up by this quotation:

One trouble with growing older is that it gets progressively tougher to find a famous historical figure who didn't amount to much when he was your age. (William E. Bill Vaughan, writer)

Let's just have a look at the evidence, your honour. Fair enough, I've managed to acquire two degrees and am well on my way to my doctorate, get married, attend various conferences where I was the youngest by at least 10 years and have a top 100 edublog. But, in the scheme of things, it's not very impressive, given what some people have/had achieved by 26:

Albert Einstein had developed his theory of relativity.
Anton Chekov had published more than 400 stories and vignettes.
Dylan Thomas had published most of the poems that made him famous.
Alexander the Great had conquered 90% of the known world by age 27 (so I suppose I've got a year...)
Steve Wozniak had founded Apple Computer.
Napoleon Bonaparte had conquered Italy.
Ken Kesey had published One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile.
Orson Welles had coscripted, directed, and starred in Citizen Kane.
Jack Nicklaus had become the youngest golfer to win the Masters (actually by age 23...).
Jean Piaget had received his Ph.D., published 20 articles, and written a philosophical novel (this was actually by age 22!)

So you can see why I need to get a move on. Perhaps a more realistic target of world domination by age 30, then... ;-)

(this post aided by Things Other People Accomplished When They Were Your Age)

The Myth of 'Keeping Up'

2006-12-12T18:27:00.000Z

Kathy Sierra has a wonderful post entitled The Asymptotic Twitter Curve in which she, as usual, cuts through our self-delusions and shows us (or at least me) what we're really like. The lower picture of those above shows the problem of 21st century life: we never get 'in the zone' or into a state of 'flow' because of constant interruptions.

The thing is, it's not interruptions from the 'real world' which are invading our time and sapping our energy, but self-created interruptions - those we do because we want to keep abreast of the latest developments.

My Bloglines account is an example of this. Although I did go through a phase of trimming back the blogs to which I subscribed, like a tree re-budding in spring, countless more have sprung up in their place. I suppose I'm just addicted to 'keeping up'.

But what really happens when we try to 'keep up'? Does it really lead to a better quality of life? To being more informed? Or is something lost in the constant 'buzz'?

I think it's time to trim again... :-)

Doug's personality

2006-12-11T06:59:00.000Z

I took a Myers-Briggs personality test (albeit designed for programmers) and came out as ENTP, which corresponds to:

Entrepeneurs, lawyers, psychologists, photographers, consultants, sales represenatives, actors, engineers, scientists, inventors, marketers, computer programmers, comedians, computer analysts, credit investigators, journalists, psychiatrists, public relations, designers, writers, artists, musicians, politicians. Very freedom-oriented, they need a career which allows them to act independent and express their creativity and insight.

...whereas teachers tend to be ENFJ. Interesting - perhaps I need a change of career!

In case you're wondering what the letters stand for:
E = Extraversion
I = Introversion
S = Sensing
N = iNtuition
T = Thinking
F = Feeling
J = Judging
P = Perceiving

But then there's the problem of being able to determine one's own personality. I think if my wife did this on my behalf, different results would obtain...

Pimped out!

2006-12-10T22:25:00.000Z

If you look at the original picture to the right, you'll see what's been done... ;-)

Does anyone really write much anymore?

2006-12-09T13:56:00.000Z

I don't know about anyone else, but I hardly actually write very much at all anymore. In fact, the occasion when I write most is when I make comments in my students' books. But even that's going the way of all flesh with me starting them blogging!

I'm not sure whether it's a good thing or a bad thing: on the one hand I can do about 90-100 words per minute which means I'm much more productive with a laptop in front of me than a pen and paper. But on the other hand, my writing's getting even worse... :-o

iTrip and MP3 transmitters legalised in UK

2006-11-25T13:23:00.000Z

I'm delighted to read of the lifting of the ban on FM transmitters that allow owners of MP3 players to play their music through their car radios. I've been 'experimenting' with a Griffin iTrip since about 2004 and in my 'tests' it has been very effective and made my driving experience a happy one. I currently use an iPod mini and an iTrip mini (both discontinued) which allows me to hide them both away quickly and easily.

Of course I'll not be using it fully until December 8th when the ban is officially lifted... ;-)

Sync any MP3 player with iTunes

2006-11-18T16:29:00.000Z

I bought my Dad a iPod Shuffle lookalike for his birthday last month. It does exactly the same as a 'proper' iPod Shuffle, except it's about a third of the price. Everything, that is, apart from allow him to transfer music onto it using iTunes.

Well, I've got round that problem too. I'd heard of a program called BadApple which allowed you to sync any MP3 player with iTunes, but that seems to no longer be in development - certainly the download link on the website doesn't work. A bit more searching, however, unearthed the excllent iTunes Agent which certainly IS in development. This sits in your system tray and, after a bit of configuring, works like a charm.

Basically, you set up a playlist to drag-and-drop files to, then - with iPod Agent running the system tray - click 'Synchronize devices' and all the files copy over. Genius!

10 Worst Company URLs ever!

2006-10-31T07:25:00.000Z

If you want to succeed as a company in the 21st century you need to be on the Internet. That means choosing a domain name. Unfortunately, some people just don't put enough effort in:

1. A site called ‘Who Represents’ where you can find the name of the agent that represents a celebrity. Their domain name… wait for it… is www.whorepresents.com

2. Experts Exchange, a knowledge base where programmers can exchange
advice and views at www.expertsexchange.com

3. Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at www.penisland.net

4. Need a therapist? Try Therapist Finder at www.therapistfinder.com

5. Then of course, there’s the Italian Power Generator company… www.powergenitalia.com

6. And now, we have the Mole Station Native Nursery, based in New South Wales: www.molestationnursery.com

7. If you’re looking for computer software, there’s always www.ipanywhere.com

8. Welcome to the First Cumming Methodist Church. Their website is www.cummingfirst.com

9. Then, of course, there’s these brainless art designers, and their whacky website: www.speedofart.com

10. Want to holiday in Lake Tahoe? Try their brochure website at www.gotahoe.com

(via Clipmarks)

Jobby Roger

2006-10-27T18:09:00.000+01:00

I'm thinking about pimping out my Macbook with one of these - whaddya think? (not sure it'll look so good on my white one though...)

1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

2006-10-23T19:19:00.000+01:00

Someone's come up with a list of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. I went through them to find out which of those I've read. Below is those on the list that I've read - you'll notice that my preference for the style prevalent at the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th century:

1900s

Perfume – Patrick Süskind
Nights at the Circus – Angela Carter
The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting – Milan Kundera
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
The Nice and the Good – Iris Murdoch
The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
Animal Farm – George Orwell
The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Outsider – Albert Camus
Nausea – Jean-Paul Sartre
Brighton Rock – Graham Greene
The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
Eyeless in Gaza – Aldous Huxley
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
The Thirty-Nine Steps – John Buchan
The Hound of the Baskervilles – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Kim – Rudyard Kipling

1800s

The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells
Dracula – Bram Stoker
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
The Kreutzer Sonata – Leo Tolstoy
The Woodlanders – Thomas Hardy
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy
Kidnapped – Robert Louis Stevenson
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy
Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy
Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
Around the World in Eighty Days – Jules Verne
The Devils – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There – Lewis Carroll
War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
Journey to the Centre of the Earth – Jules Verne
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens
Notes from the Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Les Misérables – Victor Hugo
Fathers and Sons – Ivan Turgenev
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
On the Eve – Ivan Turgenev
Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
Hard Times – Charles Dickens
The Count of Monte-Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
The Purloined Letter – Edgar Allan Poe
The Pit and the Pendulum – Edgar Allan Poe
A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
The Fall of the House of Usher – Edgar Allan Poe
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
The Nose – Nikolay Gogol

1700s

Émile; or, On Education – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe

Pre-1700

Aesop’s Fables – Aesopus

Qua: one of the best yet most pointless words ever

2006-10-19T17:21:00.000+01:00

At the end of my Philosophy degree the students on the course decided that their favourite word beloved by the professors and lecturers who taught us was 'qua'. This has to be one of the greatest yet most pointless words in the English language.

As the screenshot above from dictionary.com shows, qua (prounounced 'kway') means 'in the capacity of'. So you get people walking around 'Well students qua students aren't as good as they used to be' and 'This can of Coke, qua can of Coke, isn't bad'.

What did you say? Ivory towers? Nah...

Wikipedia on my iPod

2006-10-14T11:24:00.000+01:00

Yes, I know you've been able to download Wikipedia onto your iPod for ages if you run iPodLinux, but for those of us using click-wheel iPods, this hasn't exactly been possible.

I was delighted, therefore, to come across this HOWTO explaining how to use a Perl script to download a user-defined amount of Wikipedia to one's iPod based off an original user-defined page. I've downloaded around 10MB of Wikipedia centering around the page on Philosophy for times when I'm out-and-about with nothing to read... :-)

Something else that's caught my eye but I haven't actually tried as yet is iFeedPod, a free program that allows you to send RSS feeds to the Notes section of your iPod. Looks great!

Smallest. Horse. Ever.

2006-10-11T07:12:00.000+01:00

This is a horse bred on a farm that specializes in breeding small horses. To cap it all, though, this particular one (called Thumbelina) has dwarfism... (via BoingBoing)

When life imitates cartoons

2006-09-23T13:01:00.000+01:00

So there I was, visiting popurls as I do every day, I scroll down to the bottom, and...

Looks nothing like Hannah, but it made us laugh! :-)

No point in listening

2006-09-20T20:00:00.001+01:00

Most of the time I'm up-for-it and energetic and wanting to read more and new stuff to develop professionally and personally. But sometimes, like tonight, I just want to go to bed early and read very little. In fact I reckon Catbert's got it about right in the Dilbert cartoon below:

allofmp3.com - the end?

2006-09-09T07:54:00.000+01:00

Well it looks like my favourite source of legal music (and yes, it was legal until new laws were introduced) has gone. Allofmp3.com is no longer accessible as of this morning (although alltunes.com is still there) and it's impossible to connect via the AllofMP3 Explorer program.

Read more about what's been going on behind the scenes and how the USA has been putting pressure on Russia to introduce new laws over at arstechnica...

Update: It's back! Although I'm a bit worried about the outages over the last couple of months...

Update 2: There's a new AllofMP3Explorer for Mac available. It seems to solve the slow downloads problem! :-)

Proust on how to express your emotions

2006-09-02T14:55:00.000+01:00

I'm currently reading Alain De Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life which, like all of De Botton's work that I've read, is excellent. There's a chapter in it entitled 'How to Express Your Emotions' in which De Botton looks at how Proust dealt with this issue - both in his monolithic À La Recherche du Temps Perdu ('In Search of Lost Time') and in his correspondence with others. I'm going to quote bits from De Botton's chapter which show what he (and Proust) is getting at...

Proust had a big problem with cliché. De Botton mentions a time in which he criticized a friend's first novel due to describing a sunset as the sky being 'on fire' and a moon that 'shines discreetly'.

We may ask why Proust objected to phrases that had been used to often. After all, doesn't the moon shine discreetly? Don't sunsets look as if they were on fire? Aren't clichés just good ideas that have proved rightly popular?

The problems with clichés is not that they contain false ideas, but rather that they are superficial articulations of very good ones. The sun is often on fire at sunset and the moon discreet, but if we keep saying this every time we encounter a sun or a moon, we will end believing that this is the last rather than the first word to be said on the subject. Clichés are detrimental in so far as they inspire us to believe that they adequately describe a situation while merely grazing its surface. And if this matters, it is because the way we speak is ultimately linked to the way we feel, because how we describe the world must at some level reflect how we first experience it.

When Proust comes up with a metaphor about the moon, it ends up like this - highly individual, I'm sure you'll agree!

Sometimes in the afternoon sky a white moon would creep up like a little cloud, furtive, without display, suggesting an actress who does not have to 'come on' for a while, and so goes 'in front' in her ordinary clothes to watch the rest of the company for a moment, but keeps in the background, not wishing to attract attention to herself.

De Botton comments:

So if speaking in clichés is problematic, it is because the world itself contains a far broader range of rainfalls, moons, sunshines and emotions than stock expressions either capture or teach us to expect.

The danger of clichés being the 'end' of all that can be said rather than the 'beginning' is illustrated by the example De Botton gives at the end of the chapter. He tells of how in 1872 (the year after Proust was born), Claude Monet exhibited a canvas entitled Impression, Sunrise which depicted Le Havre at dawn:

It was universally panned by art critics as a bewildering mess and Monet was labelled with the perjorative term 'impressionist' (which indicated he had only a limited understanding of the technical side of painting)

A few years later, of course, Monet was revered as a genius and the Impressionist movement was seen as a masterful way of caputuring elements of reality overlooked by other painters. A Proustian explanation of this would be that,

...our notion of reality is at variance with actual reality, because it is so often shaped by inadequate or misleading accounts. Because we are surrounded by clichéd depictions of the world, our initial response to Monet's Impression, Sunrise may well be to baulk and complain that Le Havre looks nothing like that... If Monet is a hero in this scenario, it is because he has freed himself from traditional, and in some ways limited, representations of Le Havre, in order to attend more closely to his own, uncorrupted impressions of the scene.

I'm certainly going to try and say what I mean in future rather than rely on clichéd forms. It may take more time to do so, but I think the results will be worthwhile. I'll finish with a quotation from Proust himself:

Our vanity, our passions, our spirit of imitation, our abstract intelligence, our habits have long been at work, and it is the task of art to undo this work of theirs, making us travel back in the direction from which we have come to the depths where what has really existed lies unknown within us.

Selective Colouring of Photos

2006-09-01T10:15:00.000+01:00

Hannah and I needed a picture to go up in our lounge. We liked the full-colour version of the picture above, but thought it might detract from our wonderful Hiroshige 'Four Seasons' print above the fire. I suggested 'selectively colouring' it, despite having never done it before! I'm quite pleased with the outcome - initially I had the pink flowers coloured as well but it looked a bit daft.

How did I do it? It's all about masks and layers. I used a combination of the tutorials for the following programs, although I used Macromedia (Adobe) Fireworks:

Tutorial on Flickr - uses Paint Shop Pro
Tutorial on GIMP website (most useful)
Tutorial on photo.net on How to hand-colour photos in Photoshop

Basically, you copy and paste a greyscale version of the same image over the top of the colour one in a separate layer, setting the opacity to 100% white. Anything you colour in 'black' will now show the colour of the original through. If you make a mistake, simply colour in 'white'. Simple!

The Surname Profiler

2006-08-31T11:50:00.000+01:00

My Dad sent me a link nto a website called Spatial-Literacy.org which in turn had a link the Surname Profiler. This interesting little tool allows you to search for your surname and plots the results on a kind of 'heat map' of the UK. The map above shows the frequency of the surname 'Belshaw' by location in 1998. The map below shows the frequency in 1881.

It's fairly obvious that the name originated in the area with the purple shading (Wigan) - unless, of course, being near a port the name comes from overseas (Ireland?)

The other interesting thing is that in various phone books I've seen around the country, there's only ever a couple of Belshaws apart from the North East. That probably means that, given the 1998 map shows the North East as 'orange', pretty much my family and a couple of others make up the entire North East Belshaw clan...

And, unsurprisingly, it's a very 'white' name with probably only one Spaniard (0.07%)and a couple of Indians (0.22%) who have married into the family:

It's piqued my interest now - I may have to do my family history in my 20's rather than in middle age. Digging deeper on the Surname Profiler website, for example, shows that I've got one of the lowest-status surnames in the country! 95% of people have 'higher status' surnames than me, and the majority of Belshaws are of the MOSAIC type (a social classification indicator) 'Ex-Industrial legacy', meaning that:

Most people are in older working age groups, often with grown up children, who have been born and bred in the area. Relatively few co-habit, or are divorced, or head single parent families. By contrast these are areas which, on account of long histories of employment in dangerous occupations, have high proportions of people who are in poor health or who are permanently unable to work because of sickness. This poor level of health is reflected in low levels of life expectancy, particularly among males, and a high proportion of the population that are widowed.

Interestingly,

Neighbourhoods of Ex-Industrial Legacy occur most commonly in the North East of England and on Merseyside where by tradition most people have been employed in large plants and where few people have owned their own homes.

And it would seem that my Dad and I are typical of the 'younger generations' of Belshaws:

Many neighbourhoods of Ex-Industrial Legacy, have suffered seriously from the decline in traditional industries over many generations and are in regions where the more enterprising younger people have tended to migrate to other parts of the country.

Ah... history - you can't escape it, can you? :-)

Use your Macbook as an eBook reader

2006-08-30T21:04:00.000+01:00

I'm getting to the stage where I can read things on-screen almost as comfortably as with paper. Part of this, of course, is due to the improvements in screen technology, but some of it is due to getting used to it.

Now with Google making out-of-print and public domain books available for PDF download it would seem a good time to start reading books on-screen. The trouble is that the Macbook's wide screen isn't ideal for portrait-style books.

Unless you flip it through 90 degrees, of course! Which is exactly what Jon Udell (pictured above) and Andrew Burke have discovered they can do. Go to Tools/Rotate Left in Preview and then to View/Slideshow. Click the button on the navigation bar which comes up to get the page to fit to the screen. Turn your Macbook sideways and the brightness down and you have an eBook reader!

More mac hints & tips

2006-08-30T12:39:00.000+01:00

I'm constantly coming across new ways of doing things and new software programs to make my mac life easier. The latest of these are below:

1. I'll jump straight in with the program that prompted this post: VirtueDesktops This little beauty doesn't have the most amazing website from which to download it, but its functionality is great! Basically, it adds virtual desktops to your mac. Wow, big deal I hear you say. Ah yes, but if you go to Preferences/Application and check the box next to 'Enable motion sensor switching' it's a whole new ball game. You can now switch between desktops by simply giving your macbook a light tap!

2. You can search your del.icio.us bookmarks using the excellent, multi-functional Butler program by impoting them to Safari using delicious2safari. Next time you search using CTRL-SPACE your new bookmarks should appear!

3. And finally for this mini-update, if you use aMSN as a chat client then you can show which song you are currently listening to in iTunes via the music plugin. (thanks Nick!) There's also a Growl notification plugin which shows when your contacts change status. These are available on the plugins page.

6 years of changes

2006-08-29T10:34:00.000+01:00

I remember a while ago seeing a website where a family had taken a photo of themselves on the same day each year for the last 30 or so years. It was really interesting seeing how they changed.

Now some guy has taken this a stage further. Using a webcam (I presume) he's taken a photo of himself each day for the last six years. He's put it all into a video which is bizarre. Perhaps I should start doing the same.... :-)

Innovative use of treadmills

2006-08-29T07:03:00.000+01:00

Ah... the wonders of the Internet: we get to see what 'arty' people do with their spare time and 'everyday' objects... (via David Muir)

When Cloning Goes Wrong

2006-08-26T10:22:00.000+01:00

...or 'The Wonders of Photoshop'

I'm a sucker for anything like this - it makes me laugh out loud. :-) A couple more for your viewing pleasure, before you go and view the rest here!

PS The new beta of Blogger's pretty good - makes it easier to post from the blog itself (nav bar at the top) and you don't have to 'republish' you blog every time (looks like there's a database involved now...)

Blogger Beta

2006-08-26T10:17:00.000+01:00

I've just switched this blog over to the new beta of Blogger.com. We'll see how it goes...

Music Meme

2006-08-14T16:44:00.000+01:00

Chris Sessums' response to my request that he follow what I and others have done on my Book Meme post was great. I think you can tell a lot about someone from what they're like from what books they read. As Chris said in his post, however, many people are equally influenced by music as well as books, if not more so.

Which got me thinking... I've always liked my music, ever since my Dad introduced me to the delights of ELO, the Eagles and Queen when I was a young lad on the old record player. When I was a student I worked part-time in HMV which broadened my musical horizons a bit. I now subscribe to Word magazine which along with the excellent Last.fm informs my purchasing at the hopefully-not-to-be-soon-illegal AllofMP3.com.

So here's what I consider to be formative influences, musically speaking, on Doug Belshaw. They're not in any particular order - any one who tells you they can do a 'top 10' is either an idiot or lying - and I'll mix up albums, tracks and artists. Here goes...

1. Music that Changed My Life

Beatles - 1962-66 (Red Album) and 1967-70 (Blue Album) (some of the first albums I ever listened to, thanks to my Dad. Strawberry Fields used to go on quite a lot.)
Beck - Odelay (a crazy, scatty album but compulsive listening)
Chemical Brothers - Exit Planet Dust (this and Daft Punk's Homework used to go on my fantastic 5-disc multichanger when I was about 16 whilst I went on my multigym...)
Daft Punk - Homework (see above)
Eagles - Very Best of the Eagles (another influence courtesy of my Dad)
French House music (e.g. My House in Monmartre) (I was well into my French funky house in the first couple of years of uni. I used to like the Plasma Lounge at The Republic in Sheffield...)
Fugees - The Score (I can still remember the day when my Dad confiscated this after turning on my CD player with it in whilst doing something on my computer. He gave it back after a few days!)
Innuendo by Queen (available on Greatest Hits, but the first single I ever bought!)
Jamiroquai - Travelling Without Moving (I can remember waiting for it to come out in anticipation after listening to the singles from it)
Kings of Convenience - Quiet Is The New Loud (just the most beautiful, reflective album of music I've perhaps ever heard - reminds me of doing the washing-up overlooking the Tyne when we lived in Gateshead!)
Lifehouse (esp. Stanley Climbfall) (I realised after listening to Lifehouse that bands could actually have great Christian lyrics and rock at the same time...)
Massive Attack - Mezzanine (the pinnacle of my mardy Sixth Form years. I used to listen to this on my Minidisc player and strut around a lot)
Michael Jackson - Dangerous (I can remember rushing to Woolworths in Ashington on the day this came out. Michael Jackson was the man)
Mozart - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (I try to be a bit cultured and this is my favourite Mozart - apart from perhaps his Requiem)
Oasis - (What the Story) Morning Glory? (I suspect most English people of my generation would have this as a formative influence - Oasis were massive when I was a teenager and their attitude changed my attitude a bit, although I was never truly rebellious)
Queen - Greatest Hits II (the first CD we bought as a family)
R.E.M. - New Adventures in Hi-Fi (this album had an impact on me that's hard to describe - I still can't explain it but it makes me feel a certain way)
Robert Miles - Children (I used to listen to this a lot when I was about 15/16 - and then when I passed my driving test it was the ultimate driving album...)
Seahorses - Do It Yourself (John Squire's band - of Stone Roses fame - my sister and I loved this album, although I haven't listened to it now for years)
Shine (what a great compilation this is - all the best indie songs from c.1996 in one place. I used to love Dodgy's So Let Me Go Far especially!)
Stone Roses - The Stone Roses (can you believe that when I first bought this (albeit for £16.99 with gift vouchers) I took it back to swap it for Will Smith? A great album and one that I used to sing along to in the car)

2. Music I Can Listen to on Repeat

Bonobo - Dial 'M' For Monkey
Brian Eno - Ambient 1: Music For Airports
Susumu Yokota - Sakura
Rachmaninov - Piano Concerto No.2
Mozart - Requiem

3. An Album I'd Take onto a Desert Island

It'd have to be a long one - perhaps a box set! And it would have to have no words otherwise it would drive me mad. So, erm... I might just opt to have either no music, or at a push a bit of Mozart.

4. Music That Makes Me Smile

Music that makes me smile is music that is either inherently feel-good music or that which makes me remember happy times...

Bee Gees - Very Best Of
Dinah Washington - Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby (Rae & Christian Remix - from Verve Remixed)
ELO - Out Of The Blue (especially Mr Blue Sky)
Masters At Work - Like A Butterfly / Backfired / Every Now and Then (from Our Time Is Coming)
Shirley Bassey - Diamonds Are Forever: the Remix Album

5. Music That Makes Me Cry/Melancholic

When I was in Sixth Form (i.e. 16-18) a lot of people were into artists like Radiohead. So I listened to them a bit. However, they made me a bit down so I decided not to listen to them as much. That's to say that I realised the effect music has upon me and decided to use it for my own ends. I don't exclusively listen to what may be termed 'happy' music, but then I try to steer clear of anything that may depress me! There's still a few tracks in my (rather large) collection that elicit a tear now and then, however, depending on my mood...

Homesick by Kings of Convenience (from Riot On An Empty Street)
Porcelain by Red Hot Chili Peppers (from Californication)
Massive Attack - Mezzanine (althout I'm not sure if melancholic is the word - it certainly affects me though...)

6. Music I Wish Had Been Made

There's quite a few collaborations I wish had seen the light of day, but instead of speculating on those, how about these:

Music by John Lennon 1980-Present
Queen (with Freddie Mercury) 1991-Present
Stone Roses' third album if they hadn't split up

7. Music I Wish Had Never Been Made

Any type of death metal or inherently evil stuff like Marilyn Manson or Slipknot.

8. Music I'm Currently Into

Delays - You See Colours / Faded Seaside Glamour
Mr Velcro Fastener - Thales of Miletos

Mashups (two or more tracks 'vs.' one another - e.g. Best of Bootie)

9. Music I've Been Meaning to Explore

According to my Last.fm profile and liveplasma.com I should enjoy the following that I haven't really listened to at length yet:

Amon Tobin

DJ Food

Four Tet

Goo Goo Dolls

Pixies

Portishead

Prefuse 73

Wilco

10. Now Tag Five People You Want to Hear From

Scotland holiday photos

2006-08-14T12:19:00.000+01:00

I've just posted to Flickr some of the photos I took whilst on holiday in the Highlands of Scotland last week. Here's some highlights:

Book Meme

2006-08-13T07:45:00.000+01:00

Brian over at Bump on the Blog has requested that I contribute to the Book Meme that's currently doing the rounds on edublogs. As I don't think it's on-topic for my teaching blog, I'm going to post my thoughts here...

The point of the whole thing is, I think, to see what books have influenced and shaped people's thinking. As a result there may be some good reads recommended that may influence others in turn. A bit of background before I start may help make more sense of it, however.

I grew up in an ex-mining town going to a school predominantly populated by white, working-class students. With my father being deputy-head of that school and both my parents having gone to university, the expectation was that I followed in their footsteps. And that's exactly what both my sister and I did. I decided to study Philosophy as I wanted to keep my studies as broad as possible and because I was inspired by a couple of books which I mention below. Following my degree in Philosophy I completed an MA in Modern History, and now I'm doing an Ed.D. I've always been a firm believer in reading the classic novels which has given me a love of late 19th century/eartly 20th century history and fiction. I like Russian novels in particular (in translation!) You always know where you are with the classics - they're known and loved for a reason. I've read most in the Penguin classics series, the theory being that I'll read more modern novels when I've finished those. Having said that, recently I've been branching out a bit...

Finally, before we get started, I became a Christian at university whilst studying Philosophy. It couldn't give me any answers whereas the unwavering belief of the girl who is now my wife, could. I'm not going to mention the Bible in what comes below, but you can take it as read that it would come into pretty much every category!

1. A Book that Changed Your Life - I wouldn't be able to think in quite the way that I do had I not completed the studying necessary for my first degree in Philosophy. I was propelled into doing that degree through reading two books. The first was Jostein Gaarder's much acclaimed Sophie's World. After reading this aged around 16, I thought I could handle 'proper Philosophy' so bought A.J. Ayer's The Central Questions of Philosophy. I found it almost impenetrable! I made the decision there and then that if I could understand what it contains I would have 'made it' pretty much in life. I'm happy to say that I have now re-read (most of it) and that I understand it (well, most of it...)

2. A Book You've Read More Than Once - I don't read many books a second time, but that means that the ones I do, I absolutely love. Here's a brief list:

Dostoevsky - Crime & Punishment (my favourite novel, without a shadow of a doubt - it's just excellent)
Heller - Catch-22 (very funny and attached to good memories - I first read it travelling on trains going round Italy)
Conan Doyle - The Complete Sherlock Holmes (first read it aged about 12 and have read it about every 2-3 years since)
Angela Carter - The Magic Toyshop (studied for 'A-Level' English Literature and found it bizarre and enjoyable)
Lermontov - A Hero of Our Time (A fantastic read, I've managed it twice in one sitting!)
Thomas Hardy - The Return of the Native (I read this first when I was about 17 and it made a big impression on me - when I re-read it I still found it enjoyable but it didn't have the same impact)
The Communist Manifesto and Other Writings (keeps me sane sometimes in an otherwise insanely materialistic and capitalist world)
Most of C.S. Lewis' and Edgar Allan Poe's work I pick up 'inbetween' books as I know what I'm getting and thoroughly enjoy it...

3. A Book You'd Take onto a Desert Island - In the UK on BBC Radio 4 there's Desert Island Discs, and on that programme you get the Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare by default. So, given that, I'd make the perhaps somewhat bizarre choice of a book (like Kirk, Raven and Schofield's The Presocratic Philosophers) containing all the works and all the extant fragments of the Greek Philosophers. I'd have a great time trying to work out what they were really on about...

4. A Book That Made You Laugh - Catch-22 by Joseph Heller made me laugh until liquid was coming out of my nose. I also loved Terry Pratchett's novels when I was a young whippersnapper. Oh, and I found Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord by Louis De Bernieres amusing recently...

5. A Book That Made You Cry - I cried over one of Milan Kundera's books and over Jostein Gaarder's The Orange Girl, I seem to remember. And The Return of the Native. It all depends on how it resonates with your life at the time, really.

6. A Book You Wish Had Been Written - I wish there were more documents around (apart from the Apocrypha) from the time of Jesus. Genghis Khan: My Autobiography would have been a good read as well...

7. A Book You Wish Had Never Been Written - There's no book that I wish wasn't written. That's not to say that there's not a lot of book written with evil intent, but then it's up to individuals what to read at the end of the day.

8. A Book You're Currently Reading - I've just finished reading Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World and The Poison Belt whilst on holiday in Scotland, which I thought was great. Conan Doyle's use of language in a Verne-esque adventure! Last night I started Patrick Suskind's Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, which everyone says is amazing. The first four chapters are certainly, shall we say, descriptive...

9. A Book You've Been Meaning To Read - There's quite a few staring out at me from the bookcase (I'm a sucker for Oxfam bookshops). I don't keep a list of books I'm going to read, only of the ones I have read. Unless I'm definitely going to read them again I tend to get rid of my books nowadays as it was taking up far too much space. If and when I do get my own library in Mansion Belshaw I'll buy all my books in hardback anyway...

The three books that I've been meaning to read that spring instantly to mind are Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude (which I've started now a couple of times), Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure (bizarrely the only one of his I haven't read), and Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (which due to being extremely busy I ran out of steam with after getting two-thirds of the way through it last time!)

10. Now Tag Five People You Want to Hear From - I'd love to know what books shaped the following people's lives:

3 Things...

2006-08-01T10:21:00.000+01:00

Three things to share with the world at large today:

1. The picture above is taken from a set of politically-incorrect alphabet flashcards at the better-together website. Genius! Baby bean won't be learning 'A is for Apple' - oh no, he/she'll be learning 'A is for Atom Bomb', 'B is for Boxer', 'C is for Catapult', etc.

2. A while ago I did an experiment: I started talking in a lower-pitched voice. I'd noticed that all the men who I knew (or on TV) who seemed to be respected talked in a low-pitched voice. I've kind of forgotten to keep it up, but now it seems like there's scientific proof. So, if next time you talk to me I talk a bit like Barry White, now you know why... :-)

3. And finally, for those of you wise enough to invest in the Cult of Mac, you might want to have a look at this site which has 10 (very useful) tips for those switching from Windows to OS X.

Robin & Kate's wedding

2006-07-31T10:10:00.000+01:00

Hannah and I went to Robin and Kate Legge's wedding on Saturday and had a great time. I've posted some of the pictures I took to my Flickr account here. :-)

Dearth of Productivity

2006-07-26T12:27:00.000+01:00

So... it's the holidays and I've got all the time in the world to relax. Except I can't. My Dad used to joke that my Mam is task-oriented; it would seem that gene passed on to the eldest of their offspring. The trouble is that I'm always thinking what I could be doing or 'what is the inherent purpose in this?' whenever I'm doing anything. I find it difficult to just do something for the sake of doing it, or to relax.

To be fair, it's not just me. Hannah's the same. Perhaps it's something to do with teachers?

Skype for mac now has video!

2006-07-25T22:05:00.000+01:00

It's. About. Time. :-D

I tired...

2006-07-23T20:03:00.000+01:00

I tired. I very tired. I've spent a week doing Research Methods as part of my Ed.D. at Durham university, followed by two days at the National Christian Football Festival in Manchester. I played 7 out of our 9 games which is equal to 130 minutes - far more than my current fitness level really permits...

Like Yoda, I feel...

2006-07-21T16:50:00.000+01:00

Right now, a bit like Yoda I feel. Not in terms of intelligence (although I'm sure my brain must have increased in weight over the last week) but I think I've aged and started to produce less coherent sentences.

The reason for this? My Research Methods course: hard, but well presented. The experience of doing alongside International Students at Durham University's Ed.D. summer school was great too - much more of a sense of community than doing it alongside home students. :-)

Now I've got to get home and get myself ready for a football tournament in Manchester tomorrow. Next week will be spent writing my assignment for this module before I forget everything I've learned! :-o

Qantas Gripesheets

2006-07-19T13:37:00.000+01:00

This made me laugh: Qantas, the only airline never to have had a major crash, gets its pilots to fill out what it calls 'gripesheets' after each flight. The point of these is to report to the engineers any problems there may have been on the flight. These are then looked at, reported on, and given back to the pilots before the next flight.

Here's some actual maintenance reports by pilots (P) along with the solutions recorded (S) by the maintenance engineers:

P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.

P: Something loose in cockpit.
S: Something tightened in cockpit.

P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on back-order.

P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.

P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume set to more believable level.

P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That's what friction locks are for.

P: Number 3 engine missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

P: Aircraft handles funny.
S: Aircraft warned to: straighten up, fly right, and be serious.

P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.

P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.
S: Took hammer away from midget

Genius! :-D

(thanks to Susan Ohanian for the original post)

GNER Wi-Fi

2006-07-11T06:57:00.000+01:00

OK, so it's not the fastest (probably about dial-up speed) but it's still pretty cool to be able to sit here on my train journey up to Durham for my Ed.D Thesis Proposal meeting able to go on t'Internet wirelessly...

(GNER are doing a free wireless Internet trial until the end of July - after that it's about £3 per half-hour)

The Ten Commandments of mobile phone usage

2006-07-07T12:47:00.000+01:00

This made me laugh: The Ten Commandments of cell phone etiquette - especially the following:

1. Thou shalt not subject defenseless others to cell phone conversations. When people cannot escape the banality of your conversation, such as on the bus, in a cab, on a grounded airplane, or at the dinner table, you should spare them. People around you should have the option of not listening. If they don't, you shouldn't be babbling.

7. Thou shalt not speak louder on thy cell phone than thou would on any other phone. These things have incredibly sensitive microphones, and it's gotten to the point where I can tell if someone is calling me from a cell because of the way they are talking, not how it sounds. If your signal cuts out, speaking louder won't help, unless the person is actually within earshot.

I think I'd have to add to that 'Thou shalt not have keypad tones turned on.' Why on earth would anyone want those? Beep... beep... beep... every half a second. And why are they turned on by default by phone manufacturers? They drive me insane, but thankfully I don't have to take public transport too often...

Daddy Doug (to be)

2006-07-03T17:30:00.000+01:00

I'm delighted to announce that Hannah and I will be proud parents in around 6 months' time. We went to Doncaster Royal Infirmary this morning for her first scan and saw Baby Belshaw jumping about the place.

He's (and we're fairly sure it's going to be a 'he' - don't know why!) either going to be a footballer or has got a very early stage of ADHD... ;-)

Ants on stilts

2006-06-30T18:07:00.000+01:00

Sometimes I wish I was a scientist. They get to do cool stuff in the name of 'science'. Like put stilts on ants and then watch what happens. That's exactly what these scientists have done.

They've actually found out something quite interesting: ants find their way about by counting their steps.

That's why you don't see many ants eating crisps. They don't need the free mini pedometer...

Essential Mac OS X apps

2006-06-26T20:30:00.000+01:00

Now that I've had my Macbook (well, two Macbooks actually - see previous post!) a week it's time to roundup the best apps for it. I'll not include the obvious, such as Firefox and Skype, just free Mac-specific programs or ones that you wouldn't usually use because of Windows alternatives. Here goes (in no particular order...)

aMSN - this is the only instant-messaging program that I've found supports the built-in webcam of the Macbook.
TigerLaunch - sits in the task bar and provides easy access to all your programs, rather than having your launch bar cluttered up.
CoverFlow - access albums in iTunes through their cover art. Has to be seen to be believed!
Coconut Battery - gives you detailed battery information, including how much charge your Macbook's battery holds now as opposed to when it was new.
Flip4Mac - free download from Microsoft allowing you to play .wmv files on your Mac.
Cyberduck - straightforward and easy-to-use FTP client.
iPodDisk - allows you to browse your iPod as if it is simply a disk drive. Drag and drop music to and from your Mac!
HandBrake - rip DVDs to MPEG-4 digital video.
Neverball / Neverputt - some light relief :-)
Poisoned - multi-network P2P file-sharing program.
VLC - VideoLAN Client plays a whole host of types of encoded video.
Transmission - lightweight Bittorrent client.
Seashore - graphics manipulation program.

I'll be back with more soon, no doubt...

Macbook, Macbook woe...

2006-06-25T17:15:00.000+01:00

After lots of humming and ha-ing, I finally bought a 2.0ghz white Macbook last Friday (17 June). Apart from the memory holding it back (only 512MB - can't believe I'm saying that when that was the size of the hard disk on my first PC) I've been pleased with it. That is, until it started to discolour. Yes, that's right, it started to go bluey-pink!

According to stainedbook.info it's not just me who's had the problem. Anyway, a quick (well, relatively...) visit to the Apple store at Meadowhall in Sheffield led to me getting a new Macbook in exchange for my discoloured one. They also took some pictures to send off to Apple.

I'm a bit wary of putting my hands on the area around the trackpad now, so I've bought a Mighty Mouse which is, like, the best mouse ever...

The Philosophers' Football Match

2006-06-22T06:48:00.000+01:00

If you've never seen The Philosophers' Football Match by Monty Python, then you're in for a treat. The bits I like the best of this are when Confucius books Nietzche for arguing that the referee has no free will. Oh, and the bit after Greece score and the Germans argue against the a priori existence of reality. Classic stuff!

Fantastic Royksopp video

2006-06-21T17:34:00.000+01:00

Erlend Oye (of Kings of Convenience fame - one of my favourite bands) did the vocals for 'Remind Me' on Royksopp's first album. I've just been reminded how fantastic the video for it is, courtesy of YouTube:

There's a page on the Pitchfork website which lists '100 Awesome Videos' - have a look at the Avalanches' video for Frontier Psychiatrist (it's on the first page...)

Sick of GoDaddy's crappy hosting

2006-06-20T18:37:00.000+01:00

My blog wasn't showing up properly using GoDaddy's servers, so I'm cancelling my hosting account and just having a redirect to this free Blogger account. :-)