jon – Page 64 – Hello Curns

Number One

I decided to look up what was the number one UK single on this day in 1982.

I got more than you
And you can set it free
I can catch the moon in my hand
Don’t you know who I am
Remember my name

Well, for no reason at all, I decided to look up what the number one UK single was on this day in 1982 (I don’t even know why I chose that year). Well, it’s a bit of a minefield as it somewhat depends on which chart you count as being the “official” chart. Still, it would appear that it was Irene Cara and the theme from Fame, which is, of course, one of the greatest records from my childhood.

Online Advertising Wasn’t The Same in 1996

Still, publishers need to make responsible decisions about what kind of ad content they will accept. They need to scrutinize both the product being advertised and the ad vehicle being used to promote it. Users will rebel at a certain point — and an ad like this perfectly illustrates the point when you’ll hear from more than just the “noisy few”; you’ll hear from the “loud masses.”
Eric Picard

Looking at yesterday’s Way Back Machine link again, [yesterday’s link], I am struck by the lack (almost, anyway) of commercial messages on the Yahoo! Page from 1996. Obviously, any sensible person realises that, in the end, all this great web content has to be paid for somehow. I am more than happy that the company I work for manages to pay my salary on time each month. Still, can’t help wondering if it’s all gone mad now: Is Our Industry a Modern-Day Sodom and Gomorrah?

I Like Yahoo!

A nice clean interface for the new look Yahoo homepage which is very nice indeed.

The new-look Yahoo homepage (http://www.yahoo.com/) carries on Yahoo’s tradition of a clean interface but brings a fresher look. I have always liked that clean feel about most of Yahoo’s interface. I hope they bring it to the UK site soon and make similar changes to My Yahoo! It’s so sad that this makes me happy!

UPDATE: Of course, the problem with a post like this is that it dates very quickly. Still, back then Yahoo had a very clean interface!

Congestion Protest

The people of Kennington have decided to protest against Mayor Ken’s congestion charges. I wish I knew how I felt about this. Somebody has to do something about the chronic chaos that is London’s transport system, but I am not opposed to congestion charges as such.

Did They Make It Up?

I swear some news is made up: A pair of Canadian otters brought to Britain a year ago are under 24-hour guard at the National Sea-life Sanctuary, near Oban in Scotland, because of fears they will be attacked by indigenous cousins unable to understand their “foreign accents”.

Amazon A Go-Go

I love Amazon. They’re the way the world should do the online shopping experience.

I love Amazon. They’re the way the world should do the online shopping experience. Then again, I hate Amazon. They keep recommending stuff I want, so I buy it. But just now, I love them. I got my first two reviews published:

Start Up – Jerry Kaplan
Piloting Palm – Andrea Butter and David Pogue

Scooby Thoughts

Despite differing opinions, “Scooby Doo” is successful in entertaining

Scooby Doo Movie Poster, 2002 — Scooby Doo Movie, 2002

Looking back, I do have to say Scooby Doo was a great film. If one of the goals of cinema is to entertain, then this was a successful film. If another of the goals of cinema is to provide escapism, then, again, this was a successful film. I believe I am the only person I know who thinks this. That, of course, makes me right and everybody else wrong (kind of).

In My Thoughts

My granddad was born on 1 July so it would have been his birthday yesterday. He died several years ago and I have to say that I miss him. I lit a candle at St Paul’s Cathedral on Sunday.

My grandad was born on 1 July, so it would have been his birthday yesterday. He died several years ago, and I have to say that I miss him. I lit a candle at St Paul’s Cathedral on Sunday. I just had the urge. I wonder why I did that? I am not the most spiritual person in the world, nor am I the greatest believer. St Paul’s was so peaceful and relaxing; I think I will go again. And it’s really beautiful inside – which is something I had never noticed before.

Shopping Madness

So, you would rather give me my money back than work with me to arrange delivery. Isn’t that rather short-sighted. Why would I ever shop with you again?

So, I try to buy a new power supply from a computer supplier (let’s say they are called Tell Computers).

Buy online and pay by credit card. They will only ship to the credit card billing address. No problem, I say, somebody will be there to pick it up and sign for it. Takes so long to arrive that nobody is there anymore. So, I think I’ll have the courier redeliver to work. They can’t change the delivery address without Tell’s permission. OK, I say, “Somebody will be in on Thursday; please deliver it then.” They try to deliver on Friday.

No problem, thinks I. I will have them deliver one evening. “We don’t do evening deliveries,” they say. So I say, “I’m in Saturday”. We don’t work weekends”. Huum.

“What about if I collect from your depot?”

“It is a delivery centre with no collection point. Try calling Tell to have the address changed.”

“Hello, Tell. Here’s my problem”

“Sorry, I’m in billing. Here’s customer service.”

“Hello, Customer Service. Here’s my problem.”

“We can change the address. Oh, you bought online. You’ll need to speak to our Internet team”.

“Hello Internet Team. I have a problem, and I’ve spoken to many people. I am assured you can help me.”

“No. We can’t change the address because you paid by credit card.”

“But here’s the problem. I am not at home during the day anymore. You don’t deliver evenings and weekends, and you don’t have a collection point.”

“Can’t help you. Sorry.”

So I say, “I will have to send it back and have a refund”.

“Certainly, Sir, no problem.”

“So, you would rather give me my money back than work with me to arrange delivery. Isn’t that rather short-sighted? Why would I ever shop with you again?”

“Sorry, that’s our policy. Somebody will call within the hour to confirm the refund”.

That was Thursday morning. Nobody has called.

Agggggggggghhhhh

Rod Stewart plays Glastonbury

And with the news that Glastonbury’s back (and with cutting-edge music from Rod Stewart), I’ll admit I should be in bed.

But before you sleep, you should read this– Rivaldo’s singlet and 48 other reasons why the World Cup is great- (for no real reason whatsoever):

Japanese station cleaners: there with a mop and bucket the moment puke hits platform.
–The Guardian

Paris In The Summer

I have never been so hot while in meetings – which I think added to the sense of exhaustion by the time my head hit my pillow.

I don’t know what to think. I am so tired. I had a business meeting in Paris on Monday. Travelled Eurostar. It’s usually fabulous. Up at 04.30 to make the 06.20 train was OK, but the 18:16 return train was delayed by four (count them, 4) hours (sat on the train for 2 of them), and so I wasn’t actually back at my house until nearly 1am.

21+ hour day – now that’s what I call working. And I probably didn’t achieve very much 🙂

Paris was baking. I have never been so hot while in meetings – which I think added to the sense of exhaustion by the time my head hit my pillow.

Have you ever thought about how the internet is feeling (apparently, it has emotions)?

Right now, it’s looking (honest).

Welcome To Curnow.Org

And now they say go.

My website has been online for a number of years (in fact, my first website was in late 1993 on the backend of the web servers of the company I was working for). Over the years, I have kept up various parts of the site, taken others down, and generally tended it like you would a garden that you let go “back to nature”. To be honest, I left it alone. Some of the more cringe-worthy stuff may be moved into this new look (but I doubt it), and my site devoted to pictures of satellite dishes has been, forever, lost (and, honestly, I am sad about that).

So it was time for a revamp. Time to do something different with my site, and that’s when I decided that maintaining a site was hard work and there must have been an easier way. I had been experimenting with various blogging tools for a year or so and never settled on anything I felt wholly comfortable with. Then, taking a walk down one of the web’s odder byways, I stumbled across Movable Type and decided that, if I was serious about making it easier to maintain my site more often, then this was the tool I was going to use. And so here we are …

I have now given myself the power to do this stuff quickly and efficiently. At last, I can update my site easily. But when it comes to the moment of truth, I expect the next few entries to be pointless links to (vaguely) interesting stuff until such time as I find my voice again.

Update August 2008: You may have noticed that the site is no longer powered by Movable Type. I’ve switched to WordPress, which my hosting company, Dreamhost, updates automatically for me.

Why Do You Do It?

These are my ramblings and I can’t blame anybody else for the lack of interesting, entertaining or useful content. Still, it’s much more fulfilling than the static site with a few pictures of friends on it. It’s a place to vent, a place to keep things that I want to be reminded of in the future (or remember to do tomorrow). In my head it is some kind of journey that I have embarked on and don’t know where it will finish (but that’s what life is). In the grand scheme of things, however, it is an utterly pointless exercise.

I wrote these words about why I have a web presence sometime back in around 2000. At the time as I running an incarnation of my web site that has long since vanished. I started building a personal site for myself at the back-end of 1993 when HTML mark-up first hit the scene and I had very little to do while working the night shift.

Over time, of course, many things have changed. A couple of years ago the craze we know as blogging planted small roots but grew quickly. Drowning, as I was at the time, at an internet advertising company I toyed with, but never fully developed, the concept of my blog. I played with blogger and thought of all the great site management uses it had (at one time I worked for a company that built a large, complex site with almost no concept of a content management system). Still, I kept a small site at curnow.org and thought nothing more of it.

When the internet business went into free-fall and I, fortunately, remained in gainful employment I once again investigated a blog. I thought that the hard times that faced the industry were worth documenting and I tried but soon tired of the project. So I turned the blog into a personal journal (rather, weblog) and updated it daily. It did not, however, live under the curnow.org URL. Daily updates, of course, are beyond many of us and, again, I gave up.

Of course, the logical progressions is to what it has become today – an oft-updated collection of thoughts and ramblings (akin to drunken conversations in a pub, but without the sickening “what did I say” feeling the next morning). Without the self-imposed pressures of trying to do something daily, it’s a much better experience (from the author’s side).

So, what is it?

It is, of course, a personal site. These are my ramblings and I can’t blame anybody else for the lack of interesting, entertaining or useful content. Still, it’s much more fulfilling than the static site with a few pictures of friends on it. It’s a place to vent, a place to keep things that I want to be reminded of in the future (or remember to do tomorrow). In my head it is some kind of journey that I have embarked on and don’t know where it will finish (but that’s what life is). In the grand scheme of things, however, it is an utterly pointless exercise.

It is a weblog (rather than a journal) for I comment on things that interest me. Some of those things, obviously, are directly to do with my life but, most content, is not a diarised version of my life. I have seen journals and web logs referred to a mini-soap operas before. You can see into somebody else’s life. Well, I don’t think curnow.org will do that for you. It may give you an idea of what is in my mind right now, but then there are many things that I don’t comment on, so I suspect anybody reading this will get a wholly unrealistic picture of Jon Curnow. My favourite journals and weblogs are listed in the Give Us Our Daily Blog entry.

It’s pointless then?

Despite what I said above – not really. If you didn’t read the link at the top of the page, do so now (I’m too lazy to copy the text and my impression count goes up). I think there is a great power in personal publishing. This is my little contribution.

Privacy Policy

It’s always important to know what personal details are stored for use on any site and this site is no different. Read about my privacy policy.

This page was replaced on 13 February 2024 with a new policy. See https://www.curnow.org/privacy/ for the current privacy policy.

I believe the sites and services we use online should be open about what information is collected and how it is used. In spite of some nonsense having been written about privacy threats, collecting information like this is not always as creepy as it sounds because some information is needed just to make the internet work. For example, this page mentions your IP address. That’s the way the internet gets pages, music and video to your computer, phone or TV (depending on what you’ve connected). Without that address the internet won’t work so it has to be passed around a little bit.

The internet is also global which means it might not always be obvious where this information is going. For example, although I was born and live in the UK, the machines that hold this site are physically in the United States. I also use some services from Google which is headquartered there. So, some information passes through them.

So, in the spirit of letting you know what this site does – and doesn’t – do this page aims to explain it all as clearly as possible. If it’s not clear then I want to know. Tell me @curns.

Respecting Your Privacy

The curnow.org website does not need to collect nor store your personal data in any way. You can use this site without sharing any personal information.

In common with most sites, the web server – which is the machine that sends the pages to you – may collect information from your browser, including your IP address and the page you request, This is used to identify the most popular pages or issues with this website. In addition to information stored by the web-servers of my hosting provider, Dreamhost, I use Google Analytics to help me understand how visitors use my site. It is anonymous and I do not know who you are. I have disabled any advertising related features that I can for Google Analytics because I do not use any advertising services. Google’s privacy policy is here.

Comments and Email Addresses

If you contact me with your email address it will not be sold or released to anybody else unless the law requires it.

You are able to comment on selected entries within the site. I have removed the option to store your name and email to facilitate commenting on multiple sites because I got so few comments. Your email address is required if you wish to comment or contact me. This is to help authenticate real users and to deliver your message to me. It will never be shared with anybody else (I hate spam too) and you’re not going to get any emails from me except for any automated ones I set up to confirm your comment or contact (unless your contact request asks me to get in touch, of course) or if you tick the boxes asking to be notified about other comments. For security and to prevent spamming, the system collects your IP address from which you made the comment and this is recorded alongside the comment. That data is stored on my servers which, as I have mentioned, are located with Dreamhost in the US.

I use the Akismet anti-spam service for comments. The data on the comments – IP address, user agent, name, email address, website, and message — is submitted to the Akismet service (owned by Automattic) for the sole purpose of spam checking. You can see details of they privacy policy here. The actual submission data is stored in the database at curnow.org and is emailed to me. This email will include the submitter’s IP address, timestamp, name, email address, website, and message.

Please remember that any details you leave in the actual comment on a page will be displayed. Do not enter anything you do not want to be published on the site. Please think before posting any personal details. I will remove all posts containing obvious real world information and I reserve the right to remove any posts.

Moderation

Depending on the amount of comments – or spam – I am getting, I sometimes – but not always – hold them until they have been reviewed. Don’t worry if I don’t publish your comment quickly as it can often take me some time to get round to it. You can always nudge me @curns.

Cookies and embeds

A ‘cookie’ is a small file that is placed in your browser and allows curnow.org to, amongst other things, recognise that you have seen the cookie notification on the top of the page.

Specifically, a cookie called cookie_notice_accepted is used to show you have seen and accepted the cookie message. Once this cookie is set you will not see the message for aa month unless you delete it. A cookie called w3tc_referrer may be set. This helps with speeding up the site (technically known as caching). It knows nothing about you and is used to help the site function well. You may see cookies with a name like __utma (or similar). These are related to Google Analytics which I use to understand how people use my site. Google have a whole page, here, devoted to explaining these cookies and a mechanism for you to opt-out if you wish.

I do embed media from other sites and those sites may set cookies. Specifically, I use Soundcloud and Audioboom to share some audio. Soundcloud’s cookie policy is here and Audioboom’s is here. Occasionally I may embed content from Twitter (their privacy policy is here) or YouTube (policies here). I try to use code that does not set cookies but that’s not always possible.

There are a series of posts that embed Instagram images. They may set cookies and collect data. Their privacy information is here.

I also use a service called ShareThis to enable posts to be shared. They may set cookies. You can find our more, and opt out, here.

Gravatar

I use the Gravatar image service when you comment on the site. curnow.org will contact Gravatar to see if you have a picture that you wish to set with your comments. If you have never set this then it won’t find one. It’s a fun thing to do but if you don’t use that service then it can’t magically put a picture of you there.

The sites does not use cookies for anything else. There are no tracking or advertising cookies set. For more information on cookies please see aboutcookies.org and remember that you may delete the curnow.org cookies at any time. It will not effect your interaction with any other site. If you do not accept cookies, you can still use the site. If you want to delete your cookies then aboutcookies.org has a handy guide.

Other Services

There are a few other services supporting this site. I use Google Fonts for some of the display fonts. No cookies are sent by website visitors to Google Fonts. Requests to the Google Fonts are made to resource-specific domains, such as fonts.googleapis.com or fonts.gstatic.com, so that your requests for fonts are separate from and do not contain any credentials you send to google.com while using other Google services that are authenticated, such as Gmail.

The technology behind this site is WordPress and I use some elements of their Jetpack service to provide this site. These services are provided by a company called Automattic and information about the data they collect is here.

Credit Card Details

We do not need this information ever, so you do not need to enter it anywhere on this site.

External Sites

curnow.org is not responsible for the content of external internet sites. You are advised to read the privacy policy of external sites before disclosing any personal information.

Remember The Risks Whenever You Use The Internet

There is no reason to send us any personal details other than as specified above. In addition other Internet sites or services that may be accessible through curnow.org have separate data and privacy practices independent of my site, and therefore I want to let you know that I disclaim any responsibility or liability for their policies or actions.

Please contact those vendors or sites directly if you have any questions about their privacy policies.

Corrections and Contact

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if something on the site requires correction or removal. This policy was last revised in August 2021 to clean up some references and add more details about embedded media.

Previous versions of this policy can be found via The Wayback Machine.

This page was replaced on 13 February 2024 with a new policy. See https://www.curnow.org/privacy/ for the current privacy policy.

Key

Security on the Internet is a big concern for many people. Keeping information that identifies you personally from falling into the wrong hands is important. Check for secure sites when submitting credit card information, be careful about who you give your email to and read privacy policies. This is all worthy advice.

If you are concerned about sending information (or you want to verify information came from where it says it came from), I would recommend you investigate Pretty Good Privacy. A useful piece of freeware to digitally sign and/or encrypt files (including emails).

PGP uses a system known as public key encryption. As a PGP user, you would generate a “key pair”, which is made up of both a public and private key. The private key should only be accessible by its owner, but in order to share files, etc., you need to share your public key (and you would need a copy of another user’s to send files). For more information see PGP or PGP International.

Occasionally, I use PGP to sign emails or encrypt files. If you wish to email me using PGP my public key is given here.

other resources

Visit PGP and read this message (at PGPI) from Phil Zimmermann, who invented PGP.