Month: April 2003

bookmark_borderOut of touch

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With the news that the BBC is going to be asked to justify the £112m it spends on online and interactive services, comes the feeling that, once again, the government isn’t really in touch with this internetweb thingy…
BBC dealt online ultimatum: “The BBC has been asked to provide a detailed critique of its own online operations, measured against the objectives outlined by former director general John Birt when he originally secured approval for BBC Online in 1997.”

1997! In internet time that is an eternity ago, and I struggle to see how any organisation would be able to justify itself against anything drawn up against how the internet stood six years ago. The BBC News website has won awards (and rightly so in my opinion), and News 24 is a solid channel. I would question the money spent on BBC3 (and BBC Choice before it) and of course we must remember that a portion of this comes from our TV licence fee (however I’m sure I’ve read figures along the lines of 10% or less of the money they get comes from that source).

The UK is still behind many countries in usage and uptake of the internet, the BBC as a brand is seen as safe, reliable and trustworthy, a must in the eyes of new(er) internet users. I think this should be maintained.

I have the nagging suspicion that this is about money though.

bookmark_borderCognificant

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The previously mentioned Honda ‘cogs’ advert is receiving a lot of attention today, not only did I read about it in Metro, it’s also featured on a couple of websites: Lights! Camera! Retake! (via A Blogs Life & Not so soft).

Seems like the whole thing was done in one shot (after 605 failed attempts) and with no digital trickery. All of which makes the whole thing even more impressive. (And yes, the tyres DO roll uphill, the article explains how!)

bookmark_borderGallery software

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To appease the Pink one, and fyi, the gallery was created by a fantastic piece of software by the name of Express Thumbnail Creator. It’s an absolute doddle to do, simply shuffle the images you want into a folder (of course making sure they are sized and compressed properly… ahem..) then follow the wizard to get HTML pages, thumbnail graphics, everything! Very configurable, and suits my needs as I prefer to work offline with these things before FTPing them up to the site.

I’ll be tweaking the gallery for the future, and no doubt tweaking the rest of the site too, but then I think I’ve said that before.

BTW – Have you seen any Galactic Toss Monkeys recently?

bookmark_borderGallery updated

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Well not ‘added to’ but I’ve tweaked the filesizes (mainly compression settings) and most of the larger images are under 100kb (a couple are just over but not by much). Learning, learning, learning. Also figured out how the macro setting on the camera works, so expect some wonderful close up images to appear in the gallery over the coming months.

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bookmark_borderDrowning trousers

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Darn it all, we walked past this very advert whilst we were in London… ohh no hang on, we didn’t, but it’s the same thing. Waterproof trousers in a bubbling water display embedded in a bus stop. Strangely, despite taking a stupid amount of pictures, I didn’t take any of this… just as well that Tom over at plasticbag did!.