Warning, re-design ahead!

Apologies if things go ever so slightly squiggly around here over the next day or so but I'm attempting a redesign which is so far proving just how rusty my CSS skills are.

Street View from Google

Thanks to the newest development from Google Maps and, one assumes, countless hours of people effort spent taking photographs across several of the biggest cities in the US, you can now stand outside of Macy's and look around Union Square, San Francisco from the comfort of your PC.

Take a look at the introductory video:


I couldn't agree more with Valleywag who points out that, in the battle for mapping supremacy between Microsoft and Google,

In most cases, Google's implementation is cleaner and more thoughtful (compare Street View's slick in-map photo views with Microsoft's silly car-based metaphor)...

Simply look at Google's Street View and Microsoft's Windows Live Local to see the difference.

However, this still feels very much like early days and there's plenty of distance yet to run in the location based, web mapping application/information journey.


Further details from The Map Room and Valleywag.

Who's linking to my Flickr photos?

While trying to work out why my picture of Morecambe fans at Wembley on 20th May has had over 400 views on Flickr and my picture of the Exeter fans at the other end less than 100 views I stumbled across an interesting trick.

Using Technorati's search feature, enter your main Flickr photo page URL, in my case www.flickr.com/photos/apenguincalledelvis/.

From the results I discovered a number of things I never knew before, including the fact that a random photo of a lego flower I took last year has found its' way onto a german blog.

I've tried Babelfish but it's not really helping me understand what this is all about!

This trick also demonstrates why it's not a particularly great idea to delete your photos from Flickr either (unless you have good reason of course!).

All good fun, but I'm still struggling on why more people are looking at Morecambe Fans at Wembley.

NeighbourhoodFixIt.com: Local problem solving

I'm breaking a golden rule now and moving away from the world of cider, football, music and photography to mention something slightly more worthy, but definitely just as interesting.

Tom Loosemore has posted an introduction to new civic society site Neighbourhood Fix-It on his blog at Tomski.com.

Enter a postcode (e.g. B5 7QQ) and track all recently reported problems in the area via a straightforward map/text interface.

If you're inclined to be more active than passive then you can use the same interface to alert the local council to a problem of your own.

Want to view all current reports by council area?

Not a problem, simply select your council from the list and then view the outstanding problems. (e.g. Here's the current Birmingham City Council list).

Check out Tom's brief appraisal of the site for more info.

Thatchers single varieties, Coxs and Spartan.

Back from holiday and desperately in need of a drink, another two ciders take the test.

From the same Thatchers set of single variety ciders, similar to the previously reviewed Katy variety, these drinks are made purely from Coxs and Spartan apples.

First, Coxs.

A simple and stylish. yet rather boring label is only let down further by an extremely pale, watery looking drink.

Not the best of starts but in fairness the actual taste of the drink more than makes up for a poor appearance. Bags of appley flavour and quite a refreshing summery texture make a very enjoyable cider.

Name: Thatcher's Coxs, (5.3%)
Label: 2/5
Looks: 1/5
Flavour: 4/5
Texture: 3/5
Total: 10/20

For obvious reasons there are a lot of similarities with this next cider, the Spartan apple variety from Thatchers.

A similarly straightforward bottle and label, coupled with a very pale, colourless liquid, do no favours at all to its' overall score - particularly as the taste is one of the best.

An even more enjoyable flavour and texture to the Cox variety and, whilst I'm not sure I've ever eaten a Spartan apple, they certainly give this cider a real, full fruity depth.

Name: Thatcher's Spartan, (5.2%)
Label: 2/5
Looks: 1/5
Flavour: 5/5
Texture: 4/5
Total: 12/20

The overall league table now looks like this.