ThePickards
standards, accessibility, and ranting and general stuff by the web chemist

Last week, to mark the 30th anniversary of the very first spam message (sent over ARPANET, the precursor to today’s internet), Sophos have put forward a spam pledge. If everyone followed this pledge, there would be no financial benefit to anyone sending spam and so we’d get an awful lot less.

And just as importantly, buying anything from any of the spammers continues to fund their spamming activities. So repeat after me…

I, [NAME], do solemnly promise to you, my fellow internet users, that I will do my bit to fight the problem of spam, resist the temptation of weight loss adverts, fake Rolex watches, pump-and-dump stock market scams, and ways to increase the size of my body parts. And so henceforth, I make this pledge. To not click on links in unsolicited mail and never buy goods advertised via spam.Sophos Blog: Sophos Spam Pledge

[Image used with permission: thanks to Sophos]

Continue reading Repeat After Me »

I’ve been sorting stuff out.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m changing jobs next week and so I’ve had to prepare to take home all the personal crap I’ve accumulated in nine and a half years with one employer — which appears to consist of a family photo, about nine and a half years worth of payslips, a dilbert desk calendar (much to the disgust of my colleagues who were hoping that would remain), and perhaps least usefully, a little device that was embedded in a chocolate advent calendar back in December 1999 that produces a Bart Simpson laugh when you press it.

You know, important stuff.

Continue reading Of Studies And SEPs »

Earlier on in the season, I mentioned Gateshead FC: I could get used to this, in reference to the fact that my local non-league club had won their first seven games of the season, and were flying towards promotion from the Unibond Premier League to the Blue Square North.

(For those of you not up on football stats, the Premier League is England’s top division. Below that, you have the Championship, then League 1, then League 2. Below that is what is referred to as ‘non-league football’ and there you have the Blue Square Conference as the premier non-league division, and the lowest division that is national - as below the Blue Square Conference, you have two regional divisions, Blue Square North and Blue Square South).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it wasn’t possible for Gateshead to continue winning all of their games, and they slipped down the table a bit, eventually finishing in 3rd place, enough to secure a play-off spot (the champions get promoted automatically, positions 2-5 play off for one remaining promotion spot). Although we did manage to finish as the joint highest scorerst in any of Englands top divisions, scoring 93 league goals (and a total of 133 now in all competitions this season).

Continue reading Chasing Promotion »

I believe I may have mentioned before (Knock the F***er down) that I didn’t like Owen Luder’s Brutalist car park in Gateshead’s town centre.

Nevertheless, I was intrigued to see the other week that Gateshead Council were offering one Last Chance to Get Carter — or rather, a last chance to visit the car park featured in said film — by opening up the normally closed parts of the car park to the public on the 26th and 27th of April.

As the building is scheduled for demolition, and it’s been dominating the Gateshead skyline for forty years, and it’s my last chance to visit it, and I think it’s an ugly monstrosity that should be knocked down, and I realise not everyone agrees with that (although most residents I speak to do), and I realise that some people who might have wanted to visit it won’t get the chance, so I decide to pay a visit.

Continue reading Getting Carter One Last Time »

I bought a new phone.

Owing to the fact that my new job won’t involve working in the same office as my wife and the friends I tend to go drinking with, I had a sneaking suspicion that I was likely to be spending more on telephone calls.

So I decided to go for one of those ‘pay monthly’ contract things. This is a little unusual for me. You see, the main reason I’ve been on pay-as-you-go for so long is that I understand exactly how these monthly contract wotsits work.

You know, where you work out how much you currently spend per month on your phone (£12 to £15), add a little bit to cater for the increased usage and then end up with a contract that’s setting you back £60 a month for the next four years because you get a phone with a camera and so many other add ons that not only can you make calls whilst on the lavatory, it will wipe your backside for you.

Well not me, I said. So on thursday I took a half-day off from work and headed across to Newcastle to work out what the best value phone I could get would be…

Continue reading Geeks And Gadgets »

A phrase you might have come across, if you’ve looked into disability issues at all, particularly as they relate to the web, or you’ve looked at the topic of web accessibility is people who are sometimes termed internet disabled.

Now this isn’t an official term (at least, so far as I know), but from the contexts I’ve seen it used in, I understand this to mean someone who has a disability that affects the way they access computers and the internet.

This is to reflect that while someone who uses a wheelchair to get around more easily may not need any special adaptations in order to use a computer (and doesn’t need sites to be specifically designed to be accessible) but someone who can’t see, can’t move their arms, or don’t have sufficiently fine motor control to use something like a mouse are likely to encounter problems without adaptive technology and accessible websites.

And this week I’ve been internet disabled myself, through the most mundane of methods.

Continue reading Being Internet Disabled »

The Music Intelligence Quiz via Very True Things.

Your final score was 129/180

Mix-Tape Master (109-144 points)

You are a music evangelist: the person in your network of friends who always has the coolest new song, the one whose iPod gets picked to DJ every party. You understand the art of the segue, how the key to the best mix-tape isn’t just the songs you pick, but how they interlock with each other. You also know who the up-and-coming acts are and are quick to recognise where their influences lie and whether they will make it big. You work hard at the pursuit of this knowledge, scouring music blogs, magazines and record stores. Most importantly, you are generous with your passion – and your friends should be very, very grateful. Still, it’s always good to get new inspiration for your latest mix

No, I’m not lying. Apparently I’m a mix-tape master and a music evangelist. It’s as much of a surprise to me as it is to you, honestly… particularly since I don’t visit make mix tapes, visit music blogs and generally the only time I visit record stores is to look at comedy DVDs.

Oh, and the Very True Man scored three points more than me. Swine.

Continue reading Music IQ Meme »

…no, this isn’t the cue for some sort of set of racist jokes about how “all them foreigners talk funny, don’t they”, it’s an idea for a blog post.

Basically, the idea is to write a blog post for Sunday 1st June — about whatever it is I would fancy writing about in a particular day — but to write the entirety of the post in a different language. It doesn’t have to be a long post. It just has to be in a foreign language (and not provided via one of them automatic translation thingummies). If it’s any consolation to the anyone reading this who is absolutely terrified by the idea, I can assure you that my foreign language skills are at a similar, if not lower, level.

I can vaguely remember a few German words, and I can remember more in French, but other than explaining how I go to school when it is raining, or to explain to someone that I am not a fitted carpet (why I ever thought that was likely to crop up in conversation, I’m not sure)

Je ne suis pas une moquette

Anyway, if anyone thinks that they fancy the challenge, let me know… I’ll keep a list of anyone who fancies trying it!

Continue reading Foreign Language Day »

Okay, about six weeks ago I said that Newcastle Will Stay Up. Probably, and showed how I thought the bottom 6 of the Premiership table would look by the end of the season.

My predictions for the bottom 6 were, I think it’s fair to say, wrong. For a start, Bolton and Newcastle already have more points than I predicted they would achieve after 38 games, whereas Fulham need 7 points from their remaining three games to match the total I’d predicted for them.

So I’ve decided to have another bash on the BBC’s Premiership Predictor, particularly now that Newcastle have beaten Sunderland. Again. I wouldn’t normally gloat (as I’ve seen enough reverses to know what it’s like on the other foot) but as I’ve heard quite a lot of comments in the last few weeks about ‘putting the Geordies in their place’, I have to gloat a bit.

Continue reading End Of A Season »

Once again, back is the incredible
The rhyme animal
The incredible JackP, public enemy number oneAlmost Public Enemy’s “Bring The Noise”

Okay, I’ve been away for nine days or suchlike. Bizarrely, I’ve not actually been away as such, I’ve just been completely and utterly shagged out is I think the appropriate term.

The GLW has been poorly, the kids have been bouncing full of energy and I’ve been working like a bastard at work (as I need to finish up all the stuff I’ve been doing for mumble mumble in the next couple of weeks before I head off to start working for mumble mumble mumble).

But as far as you lot are concerned, I’ve been away. Not at my desk. Not filling your RSS feeds with the most delightful and delectable samples of drivel. But I’m back, and my goodness, haven’t I got an awful lot of drivel to talk about?

…and I’ve got about 50 emails to wade through as well. sigh. Well, best get started then…

Guess who’s back
Back again
JackP’s back
Tell a friend
Guess who’s back, guess who’s back, guess who’s back, guess who’s back …Almost Eminem’s “Without Me”

Continue reading Pause! »