I get a train and a tram in to work and do my best to be courteous to those around me. Not everyone has the same idea it seems. One lad, sitting diagonally from me on the train had his music on ridiculously loud (I like to read during my commute and just can't concentrate when there's too much background noise). The same lad was munching away one some chewing-gum with his mouth open. You know when you try and block something out but you end up focussing only on the exact thing you're trying to block out? It was exactly like that!
As a result I only managed to get through about twenty pages or so of my new book, <i>Just As Well I'm Leaving</i> by Michael Booth.
I'll try and write a review of the last book I read - as promised in a previous post - tonight.
Arghhh! Where has my motivation gone? I can't seem to get up for doing much when I'm there... I think I need to keep a schedule or something to challenge myself.
You may have noticed that my posts that contain images are made with the help of Skitch.
Skitch is both a web-side and client-side image hosting/editing program currently available only on Macs.
The App
Skitch is generally focussed around the capturing, manipulation and editing of screenshots. When installed on a Mac, Skitch adds a menu bar item which looks like a small heart with a small drop-down arrow next to it. When the heart is directly clicked, this brings Skitch to the front and allows editing of the image currently opened in Skitch.
When the drop-down menu is selected, the user has the option to:
* Take a full screen snapshot
* Take a cross-hair snapshot
* Take a snaphot with your Mac's built-in iSight camera.
* Show or quit Skitch.
The crosshair facility allows the user to snap an area of the screen for editing in Skitch. Skitch itself has a number of basic editing tools which, in all honesty, are more for highlighting things rather than advanced Photoshopping.
Skitch facilitates drawing on pictures with a variety of shapes (circles, rectangles, lines, arrows etc.), adding text to the image and re-sizing and cropping the image according to your preference.
Once the image has been edited, you have the option to save it to our HDD (using a drag and drop action) or to upload it to the Skitch.com website.
The Site
Each Skitch user has his/her own personal Skitch storage site. For example, my site is skitch.com/adamtalbot. When you have finished editing the image, you click the button labelled 'Web Post' and the image is instantly uploadd to your Skitch.com space. Click the 'Share' button to go to the where the image is stored and have the one-click option to copy the direct URL, embedded URL, forum URL etc. of the image (the embdedded URL is the code required to integrate it in to your Blogger post).
I am not sure what the limit for storage is on the Skitch.com space, there is no indicator to speak of - I would expect something in the region of a GB or so but this is a just a guesstimate.
Verdict
To be honest, I didn't think I'd have much use for Skitch, screenshot sharing didn't really seem to be something I used often but I have found it becoming invaluable in capturing information. This blog post shows a 'why didn't I think of that?' way of integrating Skitch with Evernote, another service I'm a key user of. With Evernote's image-recognition software, all my Skitch screenshots that contain text become searchable and available on my Mac, iPod Touch and WAP-enables phone.
Give Skitch a try or check out some more info. from the screencast below...
The story focusses on three backpackers who decide, rather than take the usual backpackers trail across Southeast Asia, to travel up South-America. So far, they've visited Colombia, Brazil, Ecudador (which sounds beautiful by the way), Peru and Chile.
Having been to Venezuela on a recent holiday, I find that I can relate to this book and it makes a refreshing change from all the legal fiction I've been reading.
A full review of The Gringo Trail has been added to my (ever-growing) list of to-do's.
Here's a voucher for a free meal at any Gourmet Burger Kitchen restaurant if anyone is interested. We went last night and had an excellent meal. Beware though, the Garlic Burger must use genetically modified garlic... your other half won't appreciate the smell on your breath 24 hours later!
Ecto was getting on my nerves - messing up formatting, not dealing properly with embedding thumbnails with Skitch. Time to give MarsEdit a chance.
First impressions are that it appears a bit basic (not a bad thing for a basic blogger like myself) but set-up to my Blogger account was relatively simple. I'll post a more comprehensive review later on (if I can be bothered!).
I tried to post by email a few days ago but it seems that it was never received... I put a bit of effort in to that too..!
As I can't be bothered re-typing everything from my last post, here's a quick summary:
Geneva was beautiful. Click here to see some photos. The old city is particularly stunning but the place is so expensive! A lass of wine (a mere 100ml, 150ml short of what you'd normally get in a glass in the UK) is like a fiver! I don't think I'd recommend the place for a holiday if I'm honest.
Wales was good, if a little cold :( We managed to get to Abersoch and Criccieth but gave up after this because it'd started to rain!
Geneva, Switzerland - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!
We received a bloody car parking fine through the post today. A couple of weekends ago we stayed in a 90 minute car park for 98 minutes. It was CCTV monitored ( a camera takes a photo as you enter and leave the car park then times the difference between the two.
It seems that we stayed for eight minutes longer than the limit. We are planning to appeal against the fine as the sign stated 90 minutes free parking and not '90 minutes free amount of time in the car park'. The first photo clearly shows that we were queueing to enter the car park and if memory serves it took us at least five minutes to get a space. Having perused the net, it appears that a lot of people have had this problem, written to the company to complain and have been let off. I'll keep you posted on what happens.
Just watching some program on C4 about cosmetic surgery. If any woman should be happening to read this, don't ever consider having surgery. The fact is that you're not objective in appraising how you look and are likely to be far far too harsh on yourself. There are a hell of a lot of 'experts' around who hide under the guise of being doctors, beauty consultants etc. etc. and will tell you exactly what you want to hear. Be happy and confident who you are and I guarantee that 99% of what you see wrong with yourself no-one else could spot unless you pointed it out.
I'm back from my trip to Geneva - the city is beautiful, if a little 'sterile' in places.
The hotel we stayed in was very nice, probably one of the best I've stayed in, even if Laurence, my colleague told me that I was staying in once of the older, more dated rooms! We managed to wrap up work at around four which meant I had a couple of hours to walk around the city centre before getting something to eat in the evening. The old town of Geneva is very beautiful and surprisingly quiet, I always expect city centres to be very busy - probably a result of living in the UK - but Geneva was an exception but I wouldn't say I enjoyed the place as much as my last trip to Amsterdam. We ate in a Tapas restaurant in the evening which I could only really describe as mundane. Even the likes of La Tasca in the UK would offer nicer Tapas, let alone more specialised, local and family-run Tapas restaurants.
I've got the summer party this afternoon with work - hoping it should be good fun, the sun is even out (a rarity for Manchester). Trip to Wales is tomorrow, the forecast is looking good… two days of good weather in the UK is almost unheard of!
I'm in the process of trying out a few Mac blog clients. After failing to get MarsEdit to work (can you believe they have no instructions how to set it up with Blogger?) I've stumbled upon ecto. It seems like a good app on the face of things, will give it a go for a while!
I particularly like the ability to tag posts from within the client...
Tagging within Ecto - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!
... & it's ease of integration with Skitch (as you can see from the screenshot above). The clean interface is definitely a positive too...
Main client window - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!
I'll post a more comprehensive review after using it for a while but in the meantime check out the official site here.
Is Tuesday the worst day of the week?On Monday you have the energy from a relaxed weekend and from Wednesday onwards you're looking forward to the weekend to come but Tuesday? Worst day of the week hands-down.
Luckily I should be in for a good week though. I'm on a business trip to Geneva tomorrow (4AM start, eek) and will return on Thursday night. Friday is only a half day as my office is having a summer party - although the weather here in 'sunny' Manchester is not conducive towards feeling summery. Weather aside, this means only half day in the office!
The weekend should be good fun, here in the UK it's a Bank Holiday on Monday 25th so the three-day weekend begins on Friday night! We're planning on going on a trip to Wales, visiting some of the places my parents used to take us (it's useless me trying to list these places as my attempt at Welsh would be indecipherable to both English and Welsh speakers alike.) Instead, see the map for a better idea.
Not only should it be a great day out and weekend in general but when I get back in work, Tuesday will essentially be Wednesday and I'll have one less thing to moan about.
I'm new to this whole blogging thing and have to confess that I find it a bit strange putting my thoughts down on the proverbial paper. I'll try and stick to it and hope to share my thoughts in the future...
