Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

Microsoft used to be known as the Borg thanks to its many acquisitions.

That's not the case any more...

... as now it's Google that gets called the Borg when it buys new companies.

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!

derb points out the rather useful looking Recipe*zaar.

Perhaps best thought of as the Flickr of the foodie world, Recipe*zaar is a database of more than 150,000 recipes, tied in with a community site. Lots to browse here, and the ability to search for recipes by ingredient is rather useful if the nice man from Ocado hasn't been around for a while...

The only thing that's missing is an ingredient translator (at least you can switch between US/UK/metric weights and measures). It's an aubergine, not a bloody "eggplant" (though this recipe for Kuku does look nice)...

I wonder if it'll work on the old Vadem Clio Windows CE HPC we keep as a web appliance in the kitchen...

Now that Shozu have released clients for a whole new batch of phones, I've started using it as my main photoblogging tool

Shozu is rather nifty, and I've been raving about it every time I have meetings with mobile operators and equipment manufacturers, as this is the sort of tool that will really boost use of data services. It's a relatively simple application (that you have to kick yourself for not having thought of yourself!), that mixes a web service and a local client to offer a generic photosharing tool for Symbian Series 60 and Windows Mobile phones, with support for several popular image sharing sites, including Flickr.

All you need to do is browse your images, and choose what are to be uploaded. You can batch up a set for transfer, or send them one at a time. I use it to send images directly to Flickr with little or no hassle - there's no need to fiddle about with post by mail settings - as this is a mobile Flickr client with tagging support (complete with basic image rotation and scaling). You can even give images new titles before you upload them...

It's quick and easy to use, and works very well with my new Orange SPV C600.

This also means I'll soon be saving myself £2.50 a month by moving my security camera image blog Watching The Watchers from moblog.co.uk to a Flickr set. When I have time, of course....

The other day somewhere in Lincolnshire, powering up the A1 to see Richard Thompson in concert in Gateshead, we saw a loop of smoke in the sky slowly fading away.

"It'll have been the Red Arrows" I said to marypcb.

Just then a tight formation of shining jets rose up out of the cloud into the sun, trailing white smoke.

Beautiful and unexpected.