Recipe for Christmas Cake

Christmas Cake

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 stick butter
• 1 cup of water
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup of brown sugar
• Lemon juice
• 4 large eggs
• Nuts
• 1 bottle Brandy
• 2 cups of dried fruit

Sample the brandy to check quality.
Take a large bowl, check the brandy again.
To be sure it is of the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink.
Repeat.
Turn on the electric mixer.
Beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl.
Add one teaspoon of sugar. Beat again.
At this point it’s best to make sure the brandy is still OK. Try another cup… Just in case.
Turn off the mixerer thingy.
Break 2 eggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit.
Pick the frigging fruit up off floor.
Mix on the turner. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers just pry it loose with a drewscriver.
Sample the brandy to check for tonsisticity.
Next, sift two cups of salt or something.
Check the brandy.
Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts.
Add one table.
Add a spoon of sugar, or some fink. Whatever you can find.
Greash the oven.
Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over.
Don’t forget to beat off the turner. Finally, throw the bowl through the window. Finish the brandy and wipe counter with the cat.

Bingle Jells!

Cooking up some Sweet Customer Care

I love cooking. I love cookery books. I’m not sure if I love the books or the food more. I’m also a designer and I was trained at the London College of Printing in the twilight years of ‘traditional’ studio practice just prior to Mac & DTP took over. In 1992 when I left, part of the curriculum was given over to print production and book binding.

So when I received a copy of Nigel Slater’s Kitchen Diaries for my birthday I was overjoyed. In fact I received 2 copies; one from my wife and one from my mum. The copy from my mother was duly returned as it served as a gift for my daughter’s physio and the other copy remained at home to be dipped into as and when. After only a few weeks use the bloody thing started to fall apart. It was clear to see that the binding had not been done properly, the spine too thick for the cover it seems. A tweet to 4th Estate, Slater’s publishers, resulted in a quick reply via a dm and the offer of a spanking new copy in either soft or hard back – the choice was mine. A week or so later I received the book via DHL no less and now it sits proudly amongst its peers on the cook book shelf in the kitchen. Thanks to @forthestateuk and @samshone I’m more than a satisfied customer, I’m replete.

Di Tre Bersse

I was looking for some drawings in a file and came across this. It’s a typewritten piece from my uncle and godfather, Christopher. I’ve no idea where he got it from. I recall him reading it aloud, to much amusement, many years ago. It must be read aloud, in an Italian-English accent. Just read it as you see it. You’ll get it.

 

 

Docksides

Dream Mac

Two 2.93GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere” (12 cores)
64GB (8x8GB)
Mac Pro RAID Card
512GB solid-state drive
512GB solid-state drive
512GB solid-state drive
512GB solid-state drive
ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB
Two 18x SuperDrives
Apple LED Cinema Display (27″ flat panel)
Apple LED Cinema Display (27″ flat panel)
Apple Magic Mouse
Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) & User’s Guide
Quad-channel 4Gb Fibre Channel PCI Express card

Total cost €20,000. For one mother of a Mac.

Apple Can. Canon Can’t.

Spent a bit more time with my scanner today. Discovered that you can completely do away with the lovely Canot scanning software and do ALL you need with the built in Apple software. Just go to the Print & Fax System Preference pane and off you go. My scanner was sitting there waiting for me. I am so much happier. Familiar interface that behaves in a familiar and predictable way. The results are definitely better that when I scanned the same documents through the Canot software. Some will say that I’m obviously looking at it through an RDF. Probably.

Why Canon Can’t.

This morning I had to go and buy a scanner. To start with there wasn’t a great choice at my local store Scan (A real choice for Brands… Your only choice for Service – their words, not mine. Agreed. Apart from scanners). HP or Canon. I went for the Canon. Mainly because it came in black and it only had a few stickers on (EnergyStar and LIDE). What is it about the non-Mac world that they feel they have to slap stickers on everything. It’s always struck me about PC laptops – the almost total wallpapering with shiny Windows -this and Intel-that stickers all over the poor case. This is why. (It’s old but it’s true).

So the scanner is not bad. It does it’s job pretty well. But the software. Oh dear. Apart from the fact that it seemed so clunky compared to all the apps I use on a day to day basis I was just left with a general feeling of despair.

Why did the designers feel that they should make users learn a new interface language? Ok, maybe I’m being a bit harsh – it’s not as bad as the wild-west of PC app design. But still… come on Canon, stick to the script.

Cloudtime

In the not too distant future the cloud will be ubiquitous. Your data, the applications that you need to manipulate that data, your preferences and in fact everything that you probably have on countless devices; this will all live in the cloud. What ever device you happen to use to access the cloud will be served the data, apps and preferences that you need. Metadata will be able to describe your phone, tablet, slate, laptop, fridge, toothbrush, vehicle or what ever device is plugged into the cloud.

One of the issues I have at the moment is syncronising not my data, but my apps. I use Apple’s mobile me syncing to keep my data and preferences in order. But if I need to access that data across the 10 or so computers that I have access to (my laptop, my wife’s, my daughter’s, my TV – connected Mac Mini, my media hub/home server, my Apple TV, my iPhones…) I have to make sure that I have copies of the apps on each. What if we extrapolate thus to include all the IPV6 connected devices that I will have on the next 10 years. Clearly I will not need to manipulate or change/augment data with apps on all my connected things… but there’s definitely a big step coming in the app space.

What I would like is a sort of global open directory (note the lowercase) that supports this distributed appliance framework. There is certainly a new revenue model there. ASPs dont quite have if right as its proprietry not open. Google Apps is probably the closest technology that is preempting this shift. Apple is not far behind. Who else is going to help the shift?

The Next App Wave

Here’s an Idea!  A socially aware/geolocated sports hookup app – often people need buddies to play a sport – go hiking – geocaching – kiakiing – diving -etc etc. Like  sort of dating app for activities.

There is much being said on Techcrunch, Mashable, and the like about the Gamification of the social experience. But it’s all online, virtual world stuff that keeps you in front of your computer and on your fat ass not burning calories, just the midnight oil.

Given the perilous state of western diets and expanding waistlines I am convinced that the breaking down of barriers, easing access to participation sports that are played IN THE REAL WORLD, will have incredible potential.

The biggest barrier to uptake is isolation (social, physical, psychological) . An individual seeks to participate in a group (ie more than 1!) to enjoy a sport or pass time and this will be a big driver in developing the brand and associated app.

Often people want to take part in something but need help to find an activity and find a partner or group to join in with. Its also a stealth dating strategy. A bit like going to church to meet someone other than God.

Clearly the opportunities are driven by social media; facebook integration, twitter, groupon, foursquare etc all come together in an application that has a higher purpose – something bigger than itself .

I love what Juump are doing with this – but they’ve limited the ‘platform’ to tennis.

Check out some of the dating shit that is going on:

• Top 5 dating apps
• Mobile dating apps
• Social media dating apps
• Cloud girlfriend
• Skout

Thoughts? Comments?