VIVA – News re: Date (well, not quite…)

Today, I phoned the research registry people to ask whether they had set a date for the VIVA yet. They haven’t, as they haven’t heard yet from the external examiner.

The info that I got is as follows:

• it will either take place in the week beginning 27th Nov. or in the week beginning 4th Dec.
• the internal examiner is available in both weeks so he doesn’t mind which week it’s going to be
• the external examiner hasn’t got back and said which week is preferential
• the time is likely to be AM

While I thus haven’t really found out any specific date yet, it’s definitely now narrowed down to two weeks. I.e. it’s not going to take place next year! They’re keen to get it out of the way before Christmas. What I have done is said to the guy arranging it that I would prefer the second week out of the two – i.e. the week beginning 4th December. This is because I’ve structured my timeplan for preparation accordingly and I need all days up to Dec. 3rd.

I’m therefore hoping that it’s going to be the second week. In any case, the guy is getting back to me either this week or next week, so I’ll soon know for sure. I’ll start counting down 15 days prior to the date to wrap it all up nicely.

It’s going to be a great Xmas and end of year, and an excellent start to the new one! I can have a truly fresh start and truly leave my PhD behind

I’m going to be very happy and excited I think, and the world is going to be my oyster

edit: I’ve just noticed that my blog has had over 200000 hits. w00tage. 

Obligatory Blog Check-In 061030

Earlier today, I installed Firefox 2.0. I’m going to test it and find out about its new features etc. over the next few weeks. My first impressions aren’t that good. I don’t like the rounded aesthetics of the new tabs – I prefer proper square forms to round, organic ones. Incidentally, that’s why I prefer my old Renault Campus to my BF’s Fiat Punto. Square and more powerful.

The other thing I noticed was that the ‘open link in new tab’ feature doesn’t always work. It slows down and doesn’t bring up the actual menu (in fact this might be related to a ‘random freeze’ bug reported here).

Overall though I’ve only used it for the last hour or so, so I’m in no position yet to evaluate FF2 properly! I just hope it’s not a step back – I was quite happy with its predecessor. I will definitely look into it more and might go back ot the earlier version (I can always upgrade once the bugs have been fixed). 2 quick links: BBC news item on FF2; and the Zdnet guys are asking: Is Firefox 2.0 a dud?

In other news, I’ve been irritated over the last few days by pop-ups on the Guardian Unlimited technology blog which I read (and have as feed). I wondered why my pop-up blockers didn’t do their job as I kept getting an annoying Orange pop-up. I then realised ti was a Flash-pop up rather than Javascript or some such. Do pop-up blockers not block Flash – pop-ups? I shall investigate this one and try and find a solution. I’m a bit annoyed about it (though not tragically). Here’s a screen shot:

VIVA Preparations – 16th Oct. 06 – 29th Oct. 06

Just a quick summary of what I’ve done so far. According to my (self-imposed) timeplan, I was supposed to have finished the summary of my thesis today (29th). I had given myself 2 weeks to do it. What I have in fact done is 210 out of roughly 320 pages, though the last 20 or so pages is the list of references. Realistically I don’t have that much left to summarise but it would have been nice if I had managed to stick to my timeplan.

The next item on my list (for the next two weeks) is this entry:

Compile document with R’s and M’s [= my two supervisors] criticisms that I didn’t have time to deal with before submission. Deal with their points in detail (particularly related to introduction/conclusion and Methodolgy)

Now, this is some of the stuff that I should have rectified before submitting, but that I didn’t have time to. I’ve got a w0rd document with these points and so I can just work from there, i.e. simply addressing them in chronological order. I’ve allocated 2 weeks for this but may be able to do it in a week, which gives me enough time to finish off the thesis summary. Obviously the thesis summary is more important. Next week I’m going to be quite busy so I don’t knwo how much I can fit in – unless I get up really early and work on my Viva preparation before my telework (I’m working mainly daytime shifts next week). Not ideal.

The other point of concern is that I don’t have a date yet for the VIVA. Surely they have to tell me 6 weeks or so in advance? I’ll have to read up on the procedures and, either at the end of next week or the beginning of the week after I’m going to phone/email them and ask re: the date.

It might even be that it’s not going to take place in December at all. I was warned it may be postponed to January because December isn’t ideal due to Xmas coming up etc. I reckon it will either be at the beginning of December (say, within the first 10 days or so) or else they’ll postpone it till the new year.

As usual though, communications have been very unclear and it’s me who needs to be on their case. Luckily I’m quite independent and self-motivated. People who need more guidance would have been failed by this system.

How Much is a Billion?

Serious question here. I’m currently preparing for my VIVA and just reading through (and summarising..) my discussion of some web entertainment portals showing short films. When I started my thesis, there were two main players: ifilm and atomfilms. This was in 2002, before youtube and the whole Web 2.0 thing. Anyhow, I think it’s a good idea for me to research youtube in-depth before my VIVA and compare and contrast it to the two Web 1.0 short film exhibitors.

The ‘How Much is a Billion’ question relates to ifilm’s purchase by MTV Networks and its comparison with Google’s recent purchase of youtube:

In October 2005, MTV Networks purchased iFilm for $49m.

In October 2006, Google bought YouTube for $1.65bn.

I’m not very good at Maths and don’t know how much a billion is (is it one thousand million??). If it is one thousand million, this would mean that Google paid $1650m , is this correct? I.e. approx. 33.67 times as much as MTV paid for iFilm? Are my figures correct? Excuse my Maths. TY.

Obligatory Blog Check-In 061026

just a quick one. Today has been very busy even though I haven’t really achieved much. BTW I do have problems getting up at the moment. It might be that it’s simply too cold or my bed too comfortable, but I’m currently very tired in the mornings.

I’m actually pretty healthy just now – I stopped drinking alcohol a while ago as it really messed up my ability to sleep. The only drug left in my system is caffeine – I love cups of black tea (soy milk, no sugar) throughout the day and especially now it gets colder, I go totally OTT with it. I do have decaff teabags but I wonder whether they really don’t contain any caffeine. I’ve also got some herbal teas but my all-time favourite is black tea. I might buy some hot chocolate to get me through winter. Haven’t had hot chocolate since I was a kid but I used to love it!

I transferred my W0rd – CV to a Europass format today – I first came across this format when giving automatthias feedback on his CV. It’s actually quite a good little template and my CV now fits neatly onto 2 pages. However, there are some serious errors on the UK CV template and also the instructions. The worst of all is the use of ‘work experience’ which is supposed to mean ‘experience you gained while in paid employment’. Now, in the UK, ‘work experience’ means something else entirely. Namely: ‘internship’ (AE). Wikipedia has the following to say on the matter:

The phrase is sometimes used to mean a type of volunteer work that is commonly intended for young people – often students – to get a feel for professional working environments. This usage is common in the United Kingdom (the American equivalent is intern)…..

 

Work experience is offered on the national curriculum for students in Year 10 in the United Kingdom (4th year in Scotland) and Australia.

Now, I haven’t seen the people at Europass mention this in their instructions and they even use ‘Work Experience’ on their CV template. The thing is, I have _never_ heard ‘work experience’ being used as actually meaning ‘professional, paid experience in a work environment’. I’ve only ever seen it being used as meaning ‘internship’ or some such (‘Praktikum’ in German). Actually I’m going to ask some native speakers about this – both my friends work as retail managers so they have plenty of experience employing people, reading CVs etc. and they’ll be able to clarify this for me.

Once I know for sure, I’m going to email the Europass people and make suggestions for their UK documents and templates, because I did spot some funny expressions here and there. For my own CV, I’ve followed autom’s example and used ‘Professional Experience’.

/me notices that the post again is pretty long, despite wanting to write a ‘quick one’

I’ve spent all day today on the CV and another application, and ahven’t done anything for my VIVA . Must get back to that tomorrow.

Also, my BF has now signed the contract for the London flat and he’s well happy with it – excellent! I’m going to have to split myself in half or send a copy of myself down to live in London

Using a Blog format with Web 1.0 elements

Yesterday, I started working on a blog for an aquaintance in Italy. Basically, I said to her that I could create a website to support her ‘business’ selling and renting properties in the Abruzzo region of Italy. It’s not really an official business and she’s not an agent – she acts more as middleperson/translator and the site was meant to simply present the properties on a dedicated online platform. I asked her a while ago to send me a CD-Rom with some images and information etc. as I had some spare time just after I had submitted my thesis. Well, I submitted over a month ago, and the CD only arrived last week! I don’t really have time for it now. When I said to her that I had a bit of spare time I really meant there and then, and not 4 weeks later!

Anyway, I’m stuck with it now and it’s not all bad, as it gives me a good opportunity to waste all my evenings in front of the computer screen and not have any spare time at all for myself get stuck into the WordPress platform even more and learn much more about it, also to use Flickr and WordPress together and really make the most of it. Which is what I did last night.

I’ve come across a number of problems – I’ll start from the beginning:

• What I want ideally, is for the blog to be on this domain: www.abruzzohouse.net. This is because we own the domain and some webspace on there, and eventually want to use it for ourselves (holiday home in Abruzzo – don’t ask :S ). While we’re not using it for ourselves, I thought I’d offer it to the aquaintance for her ‘business’. I DLed the WordPress kit to install it independently (i.e. the publishing platform) but then found out from my BF that he doesn’t have the logon details for abruzzohouse.net. They are on his laptop HDD which is corrupt, so it’ll take a while to get the details back. Hence, in the meantime, I simply put it up on WordPress. Obviously, I’d need to find out whether or not this can easily be exported to the publishing platform-format and then used independently on abruzzohouse.net, once we’ve got our logon details back! The alternative may be to just cloak it, so that the URL is abruzzohouse.net, but it’s simply a cloaked WordPress-hosted page. I don’t know whether or not they’d mind

• Problems with Flickr: I’ve finally started using Flickr properly, i.e. for this particular project, and have come up with some annoying limitations and problems which stem from my need to use some Web 1.0 elements on a Web 2.0 platform. Namely: The free version of Flickr only allows 3 different sets, i.e. as means to organise your photos. The CD-Rom was full of photos from a number of different categories, including categories for individual towns and provinces, coastal towns, tourist attractions, properties for sale in different areas, etc. etc. So, I’ve got loads of different categories that ideally need to organise as such. But on Flickr, I’ve only got three bloody sets! So I’ve had to make do with these headings for sets: (a) Abruzzo: Landscape and Places (b) Abruzzo: Holiday Rentals and (c) Abruzzo: Property for Sale. I haven’t created set (c) yet, as she sent me a huge amount of pics in different sizes and of different quality, so you can imagine how long it took to get them all into an acceptable format :S

• Related to that: I’ve studied the WordPress sidebar widgets in more detail as I wanted to have the Flickr RSS of the abruzzohouse pics on the blog. the problem is that I cannot seem to control _which_ photos are being displayed on the sidebar widgets. i.e. since it’s a live bookmark kind of thing, it displays whatever pics I uploaded last. At the moment, that’s unfortunately not the photos htat i want to be displayed. That’s web 2.0 for you :S – I need to have some more control please! I think whta I’ll have to do is simply ensure that the last three pics that I upload will be those that I want displayed on the sidebar

• Generally, I do have a problem with putting all the content onto the blog. For example, I need ideally a naviagtional structure that I can fully control, so, for instance, I use categories as navigational links (Web 1.0) rather than as networking, tagged, categories (Web 2.0). To that end, I’ve created an individual category for each rental property. So far, I haven’t touched the properties for sale yet, as it’s a huge amount of work! I’ll slave away for free tonight, and do some more. I’m actually a bit taken aback because when I suggested to do it for the acquaintance, I was under the impression I’d simply have to upload a little bit of content and then swiftly give over control to her. The reality is though that the project is pretty massive. A huge amount of pictures and of written ifnormation, and she hasn’t even translated most of it into English. I’m not going to do that for her though. She can translate the content herself and then I’ll just correct it (her English isn’t that good so even proofreading will be enough work)

• Overall, this project is interesting though as I’m assessing the suitability of blogging for a more ‘commercial’ purpose and I’m also attempting to create a blog with Web 1.0 elements, i.e. make it resemble a traditional homepage. The good thing with the blog is that it’ll allow visitors to ask questions about the properties etc. on the site and overall, I think it’s better to use this platform than a traditional homepage. It remains to be seen how successful the finished product is. NB it’s meant to be relatively static once it’s finished and not dynamic and blog-like! Ideally I would like to give control over to the acquaintance once I’m done but I don’t think it’s realistically going to work. She won’t know what to do.

• Lastly, I hope that WordPress don’t mind my use of their space for this blog! I don’t want to commercialise or give bad press to what has been a wonderful platform for me – if they do object, I’m happy to move it elsewhere. There again, it’s only meant to be hosted on WP temporarily while I wait for my BF to access the logon info to the domain.

• And here is the result so far (unfinished, so please be kind. I haven’t started on the actual properties for sale yet, neitehr on the blog nor on Flickr, and the properties are going to be the main thing!!):
  Abruzzohouse (WordPress) — Abruzzohouse (Flickr)

PS: I’m going to change my lenina widgets :p – also I still need to continue reducing the bloody categories even more…

Preparations for a Life Indoors – Online Supermarket Shopping

just a quick news flash: I’ve just applied for the ASDA credit card, which means if I get accepted they’ll deliver my online supermarket shopping for free

While being a total online person, I’ve only once ever tried online supermarket shopping. What puts me off normally is that the delivery charge is way too high – on average £5 per delivery. In Saturday’s Guardian however there was an article on oonline supermarket shopping and i found out that, if you pay your ASDA shopping wiht an ASDA credit card, they deliver for free. Great!

So, I’ve applied for the credit card just now. I do like leaving the house occasionally, but I want to at least have the _option_ to _not_ go out to do the shopping. I can see myself using ASDA throughout the winter. Let’s hope they accept me for their credit card (shouldn’t be a problem..)

edit: this will also come in handy in London. I honestly don’t want to go into supermarkets there. Though there’s an organic farmers’ market (farmer’s market? farmers market?) near to where we’re going to live so we can get stuff from there every Saturday

Obligatory Blog Check-In 061024

it’s annoying that I have to chose the ‘obligatory…’ heading frequently. It’s just that the content of the entry is too diverse to sum it all up under one heading. I.e. I don’t want to write 5 different short posts with 5 different headings.

(1) I’ve been wanting to provide the link to news that IE 7 has been released. In fact I think I have previously supplied the link to this story. However, today I’ll post it agian, this time to contrast with the story regarding teh impending release of Firefoxy 2.0. Make up you own mind — IE7 OR FF2

(2) My VIVA preparations are going fairly well. After yesterday’s nightmare where my whole afternoon was ruined and I had to drive around in my BF’s shitty Fiat Punto (or rather: FIAT Berkshire Hunt-o) and the engine nearly blew up in my face, today I’ve been getting on really well. I’m currently creating a thesis summary. Pages summarised so far: 171 (320). THe plan was that by the end of the week I want to have done the whole 300+ pages. All subsequent revisions can then be done via the summary, rather than having to read the entire thing again!

(3) I’m also tryign to keep up-to-date with current developments. The thing i heard the otehr day was that Keane are going to release their new song on a memory stick:

Rock band Keane will be the first act to release a single on USB flash drives, their record label says.

1,500 of the gadgets will go on sale with MP3 copies of the band’s single, Nothing In My Way, later this month.

so, while htis isn’t directly relevant to online video, it is nevertheless quite interesting in terms of new marketing strategies etc. NB Keane are shite so I won’t be buying it.

(4) What else? On Thursday, my BF is going to go down to London to get the keys for the new flat (yes, the one in Hackney – worst place in the UK to live). Yesterday I helped him clean his own flat and I got into a good swing of things. I was buzzing! I don’t know when exactly he’s moving down there – he’ll have to drive there at some point with some of his stuff. Though his car is such a heap of sh*t htat I doubt it will survive the 8-hour journey down the motorway.

(5) I keep thinking there’s something else – there must be – all the stuff so far is pretty mundane

(6) I’ll have to delete some of my categories – it’s going too far now!!

(7) Tedium.

(8) Enter/Exit.

Novelty Online Translators Overview

I’ve had some fun recently with novelty online translators and have decided to place a link to some of them. The example text to illustrate their work is from my ‘About’ section.

1. l33t translator.

   Leet (1337) is a sociolect variety used primarily on the Internet, particularly in online games. The term itself is derived from the word Elite, meaning “better than the rest,” and generally has the same meaning when referring to the hacking skills of another person.

2. ROT13 translator.

   ROT13 (“rotate by 13 places”, sometimes hyphenated ROT-13) is a simple Caesar cipher used for obscuring text by replacing each letter with the letter thirteen places down the alphabet. A becomes N, B becomes O, and so on up to M, which becomes Z, then the sequence reverses: N becomes A, O becomes B, and so on to Z

   , which becomes M. The algorithm is used in online forums as a means of hiding joke punchlines, puzzle solutions, movie and story spoilers, and offensive materials from the casual glance.

3. TXT Lingo translator.

   NOthing much to say really – if you want to be in with the kids, use this one

4. British Dialect translator (example: Scottish ).

   If you’ve always wanted to know what different British dialects sounds like, this is the translator to use. It doesn’t actually provide audiofiles (at least I haven’t found them yet..), nor is the translation phonetic. It does however give you an idea of what Scottish/Irish/Geordie and other fun British dialects look like when written doon.

5. English Phonetic Transcription – translator

   Cool tool for all language students. I used to have to transcribe English by hand when studying English at the University of Cologne. It’s a lot easier these days

Here’s my example text (from About lenina) translated in all 5 novelty translators:

1. 1’|\/| 1|\| 7|-|3 ƒ1|\|4£ p|-|4$3 (ƒ1|\|4£ ƒ1|\|4£) 0ƒ 4 |°|-|Ð 1|\| |\/|3Ð14 $7µÐ13$ 4|\|Ð $74®73Ð 7|-|3 ߣ09 70 4((0|\/|p4|\|¥ |\/|3 0|\| 7|-|3 £4$7 ƒ3\/\/ \/\/33|{$, 7|-|®0µ9|-| µ|\|71£ 7|-|3 \/1\/4 (\/\/|-|1(|-| \/\/1££ 74|{3 p£4(3 47 7|-|3 ß391|\||\|1|\|9 0ƒ Ð3(3|\/|ß3®). 7|-|3 ߣ09 1$ (4££3Ð £1ƒ3 4ƒ73® |°|-|Ð ß3(4µ$3 1’|\/| ¶µ173 3)((173Ð 4ß0µ7 93771|\|9 |\/|¥ £1ƒ3 ß4(|{, 7|-|0µ9|-| 4 ß17 $(4®3Ð 47 7|-|3 $4|\/|3 71|\/|3 4$ 1 Ð0|\|’7 |{|\|0\/\/ \/\/|-|47 70 Ð0 |\|3)(7! |-|3|\|(3, £1ƒ3 (4ƒ73® |°|-|Ð).

2. V’z va gur svany cunfr (svany svany) bs n Cuq va Zrqvn Fghqvrf naq fgnegrq gur oybt gb nppbzcnal zr ba gur ynfg srj jrrxf, guebhtu hagvy gur IVIN (juvpu jvyy gnxr cynpr ng gur ortvaavat bs Qrprzore). Gur oybt vf pnyyrq Yvsr nsgre CuQ orpnhfr V’z dhvgr rkpvgrq nobhg trggvat zl yvsr onpx, gubhtu n ovg fpnerq ng gur fnzr gvzr nf V qba’g xabj jung gb qb arkg! Urapr, YVSR (nsgre CuQ).

3. I’m n d fInL phase (fInL final) of a Phd n Media studEz & stRtD d blog 2 AcumpNE me on d lst few wkz, Thru untl d VIVA (whch wiL tAk plAc @ d beginN of December). d blog iz caLd Lyf aftR PhD cuz I’m quite Xited bout getin my Lyf bak, tho a bit scArd @ d sAm tym az I don’t knO wot 2 do NXT! Hence, Lyf (aftR PhD).

4. I’m in th’ final phase (final final) ay a phd in media studies an’ started th’ blog tae accompany me oan th’ lest few weeks, ben until th’ viva (which will tak’ place at th’ beginnin’ ay december). th’ blog is called life efter phd coz i’m quite excited abit gettin’ mah life back, thocht a bit scared at th’ sam time as Ah don’t ken whit tae dae next! hence, life (after phd).

5. ajm ən ðə fajnəl fez (fajnəl fajnəl) əv e Phd ən midiə stədiz ænd startəd ðə blɒɡ tu əkəmpəni mi an ðə læst fju wiks, θru əntɪl ðə vivə (wɪtʃ wɪl tek ples æt ðə bɪgɪnɪŋ əv dəsɛmbər). ðə blɒɡ ɪz kɔld lajf æftər PhD bɪkɔz ajm kwajt ɪksajtəd əbawt gɛtɪŋ maj lajf bæk, ðo e bɪt skɛrd æt ðə sem tajm æz aj dont no wət tu du nɛkst! hɛns, lajf (æftər PhD).

Our Future Home – Worst Place to Live in the UK

Yes, the borrough of Hackney in East London has been declared the worst place to live in in the UK, in a survey that “examined local crime statistics with environment issues, lifestyles, exam results and employment rates for locals,” (source). Hackney is on the news quite a lot anyway because stabbings and other crimes are happening there quite regularly.

Not surprisingly, this doesn’t exactly fill me with excitement regarding our impending move there. I have seen the flat in Hackney that we (or rather, my BF) is moving to and the area isn’t all bad (it’s in Haggerston, quite near the Regent’s Canal). It’s kind of up-and-coming and a bit alternative; nevertheless, the local park was full of drunks and a bit scary when I was there. I’m not a big fan. The flat itself is pretty nice though, which does help

I think I’m definitely going to stay here until my VIVA is over anyway. I’ve got my own flat and will probably keep it for a while – I’m not going to do anything too drastic for the remainder of the year. There are just too many other things going on. My BF can move to Hackney and we can both commute for a bit, I mean, I would need a properly functioning laptop first so I can work from London!

Bottom line: I’m staying put for another 1-2 months, until the VIVA over. I can always follow my BF to London afterwards. It’s not the end of the world

PS: I have way too many categories now – will have to get rid of a fair few ..