I’ve just discovered, nearly two months late, that I was a CFEmmy nominee for The Best Newcomer for 2007. How did I miss that? I would have been on Todd Sharp’s <cfsilence> website voting like crazy if I had known!

You can check out the awards and results on Todd’s site: http://cfsilence.com/blog/client/index.cfm/CFeMmys.

Alas, I didn’t win (congratualtions to Kristen Schofield and Sam Farmer who did), so I better try harder. Can I still be a newcomer for 2008…please!

Sys-con Media. You either love them or you hate them, but last week I had one of my articles published by the venerable sage of the digital age.

You can check the article, Future Directions for Rich Internet Applications out on the Flex Developer’s Journal.

Google’s mantra of “Don’t Be Evil” is all well and good, but it doesn’t equate to “Always Be Good”!

I, like a vast number of websites, rely on Google Adsense for revenue, which in my case, compensates me for the material costs of running a website but not much more. To me that is OK, assuming Google actually pays up! My account has been set-up for several years, I have added my account details, etcetera etcetera. However, since they introduced the idea of a Pin, everyhting has fallen apart. Three requests for a pin have fallen on deaf ears, emailing the Adsense team has fallen on deaf ears! To add insult to injury, Google now only serve me Public Service Advertisements (PSA), which, unless you really care about hurricane relief whilst reading one of my inspiring blog entries, are not going to receive a single click!

So what can I do? Any suggestions would be gratefully received. For the moment, I will have to repeatedly email the Adsense team and hope for the best.

Rather than improving something by 100%, improve 100 things by 1%.

In a clear attempt to play devils-advocate, “Facebook is designed to suck up all your free time so that you become a slave to ‘the network’”. What we have yet to see is Facebook drip-feeding that free time back to you at a premium; it will happen!

Now, that’s fantastic if you don’t actually ever want to meet or verbalise with your so-called-friends ever again! But what if you do? You’re trapped in the spiral of needing to update your profile, poke someone, tag a picture and all the other things you can do on the site.

Ironically I have a Facebook profile, but on the premise that I wanted to check out the cool functionality (afterall I am a web developer by trade; honestly that is the reason). I am vehemently resisting its lure, but the black-hole is a powerful thing, especially if you use it for networking.

One commentator said that for LinkedIn to survive it needs to be more like Facebook; No! For LinkedIn to survive it needs to differentiate itself from Facebook and stay in the professional arena. I don’t want my not-so-many chums on Facebook to see my fellow geeks on LinkedIn, for me they are two entirely different groups.

“Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut” - Ernest Hemingway

“The only thing I regret about my past is the length of  it. If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner!” - Tallulah Bankhead

“Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life,
the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22
what they wanted to do with their lives,
some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.”

No man is an iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy firends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

William Shakespeare - All the world’s a stage (from As You Like It 2/7)

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.