Edinburgh International Book Festival

Everyone from Alfred Brendel to George Monbiot to Jack Straw at the Edinburgh International Book Festival this year.

Charlotte Square will be filled with marquees and authors, and we the public will stand in queues for the events.

10th to 26th August 2013

Rebel Mouse and Bluebells

This is me on Rebel Mouse.

If anyone can tell me what Rebel Mouse is all about - where it is going and why anyone would want a page except as a ragbag collection to look at from time to time - please let me know.

Bluebells

Meanwhile, here are some bluebells that I photographed in a churchyard in the centre of Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago.

Paddle - Bundlehunt $7 Deal - I Said Yes

Last night I got an email from Paddle - a company that does deals and describes itself as 'the easiest way to buy and discover digital content.'

Their email said they had a deal through Bundlehunt and the blurb for that said

We've partnered with 14 of the world's finest web designers and developers to bring you our first-ever $7 bundle. That's right. You just pay $7 to grab your copy of our Mega Creativity Bundle.
Don’t miss out on this visually stunning Lifetime creativity Bundle. With SmashingMagazine e-book bundle, Themify WordPress Themes, Adobe certified training courses, Vector Icons sets, design elements and more…you can create virtually anything you put your mind to.
With $463 worth of files for only $7, what on earth are you waiting for? Don’t miss your chance to get the Creativity Bundle. Hurry and get your copy before it's too late.
What’s Included?
Themes-a-plenty! - 5 top quality WordPress Themes.
eBooks - 4 Best Selling eBooks
Icons Love - 200+ high quality icons suitable for web and mobile designs.
Glorious Graphics and sets! - 1 Year Premium account with Commercial license to a huge collection of design elements.
Online courses - Unlimited access to one of the best adobe training courses!
Photoshop actions bundle- 20 "Clean and Crisp Photo Actions Bundle"
1 Premium "Privacy Policy Agreement"
2 month quality web hosting made for creative designers
Retail value: $463. You pay just: $7!
After purchasing, you'll get instant access to the full-items of your creativity bundle.
- BundleHunt Team

$7.00? How could I say no?

Well at least it was worth a look. Some bits didn't interest me, but I'd seen the themes from Themify - and here was a chance to take two and see how they behaved. And two months hosting for free with Pixeno meant I would have somewhere to host them.

I took up the offer of the deal, chose the Sidepane and Edmin Wordpress themes from Themify, (I already had a spare domain I could use) and set up the hosting.

Time will tell, but the host (Pixeno is based in the UK with its datacenter in Maidenhead) is behaving nicely and everything is working nice and fast.

So now I am just looking at the one month free Adobe training with TrainSimple. The intro panel when I joined for my free 30 days training says:

You're now ready to view our entire collection of training videos. You have unlimited access, watch what you want when you want. Each time you login to your account, you will be brought to your account page. You can manage your subscription, view recently viewed courses, and find our most recent releases. Start Learning! 

Tell the world you have access to Train Simple's training library

So, as I am writing this there are 45 hours left on the deal at Bundlehunt

European Union

European Union

This is a poster showing the reaction of some parts of the French political spectrum in the early days of the proposal for a European Union.

Since then, of course, things have moved on and France has been one of the principal actors on the political scene seeking more integration in Europe.

But the recent poll carried out by the Pew Research Centre, as reported in the Guardian and the Telegraph shows that France is falling behind Germany economically, and that the French are falling out of love with the union.

It Was Different Then

One of the things that I think of when people talk about how things were different 'back then', is that 'back then' was 'now' when it happened.

And things that seem inconceivable today because 'things are different now', are not inconceivable at all.

And that is what worries me about legislation that takes away civil liberties in the name of security.

It's never the nice people who constitute our government that we have to worry about (well, maybe we do) - it's the people who will or could stand in their shoes when the inconceivable happens and things are just like they were 'back then'

And Now For Something Different: The Grand Place In Brussels

Looking Towards The Old Town - Brussels

Hashtags in G+

Putting this here so I can locate it whenever.

Info on Hashtags on Google+

With thanks to Rupert Wood and Nick Lewis

I Decided To Spring $9.00 For Clutterless Wordpress Theme

I had a spare domain sitting there and I thought, why not? It looks clean and it might be fun.

So I got the Premium version - which gives a couple of features over and above the free version:

Responsive Design The template adapts perfectly to fit mobile devices
Theme Customizer Change template color easy, no coding needed, see screenshot
Theme Support Friendly personal email support

Image Search - My Photos Search - Google

From Google's Inside Search blog

Starting today, you’ll be able to find your photos more easily and connect with the friends, places and events in your Google+ photos. For example, now you can search for your friend’s wedding photos or pictures from a concert you 
Try it out on Google.com by signing in and searching for [my photos] or [my photos from new york last year] or [matt’s photos of food]. You can also try out this feature on Google+ Photos.

NOTE THAT these are live links and if you are logged in to Google, it will show you your photos.