Why I miss my commute…

It may seem a strange claim to make, however, I do genuinely miss my commute. Okay, so yes it does mean that I will be working, and as I enter my fifth month of redundancy, I can’t ignore that. Yet the commute between Brighton and London was more than a means to an end.

With a journey time of just over an hour between Brighton and London Bridge, I had plenty of time to read my latest book of choice, catch up on podcasts, maybe even do some work (crumbs).

So rather than ploughing through a book a week, an album a day or several podcasts, I now have:

1. 12 unread books, including these works in progress

2. 3564 unplayed tracks in iTunes. (I am still buying music at the pre-redundancy rate of consumption)

3. 121 unplayed podcasts

4. Four yet to be started audiobooks

Photo Credit: Heather via Flickr

My day to day tools and apps

I thought I would share both the online and offline tools I use that help me keep connected, informed and help make the day-to-day online experience just that little bit easier

General admin

Gmail – my email platform of choice

Google Reader – my daily news hit

Google Calendar – keeping track of everything

Social Media

LinkedIn – For connecting with people I have worked with, and probably my main social platform. At the moment it’s getting big props for its job board.

Twitter – I’m not great at it but I am trying. Essentially, I am using it as a news feed, and as a search engine.

Facebook – For connecting with people I know and see outside of an office life

Friendfeed – I don’t use it often enough

Delicious – I have found new love for this

Adium – Not really been using IM since being made redundant. However, Adium is the best IM app for the Mac.

WordPress – my blogging software. It was simple to set up; That’s why I used it.

Photography

flickr – Huge fan of this site for many years. I don’t use to host snapshots, rather this is where I put my “one day I will be able take this more seriously’ shots.

Lightroom – My photo editing software of choice. I don’t really need Photoshop, I need a simple photo centric workflow

Music

Last.fm – been using the site for years. Don’t really maximise my profile, but it continues to scrobble my itunes content.

emusic – This is where I buy my drm free digital music, though amazon and 7 digital should get a shout for being competitive.

Last.fm plays last 6 months

A summary of my Last.fm plays over the past 6 months, all styled by the neat wordle app. Here’s a quick tutorial on transferring your last.fm data into wordle.

Me, myself or anon?

Photo: By Graeme Fraser (Acker Milk) via Flickr

Interesting section in last week’s TechnologyGuardian on the merits or otherwise of using a real name or a pseudonym when interacting online. I therefore thought I would share my experience of having an online ‘alter ego’.

My online pseudonym is ‘Acker Milk’, I use it for my Last.fm, emusic and flickr accounts and it is with the latter that I, ‘Acker Milk’, had my 15 minutes of fame. In 2007, Tate Britain announced that as part of it’s exhibition celebrating British photography  ‘How we are’, they had teamed up with Flickr. ‘How we are now’ would encourage Flickr users to submit images which they felt represented Great Britain. I duly entered with above image and was one of the lucky 40 to be selected and exhibited.

So, my image along with all the finalists was publicised. It got great coverage on Radio 4, it was featured in The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph. All this was fantastic of course, however, it wasn’t my name in shining lights, it was a pseudonym based on a childhood nick name.

Interesting?

Photo by Graeme Fraser via Flickr

Spotted this agenda for Interesting over at  Russell Davies. I’d go. I guess I just admire the brazen openness and fun of it all. I have endured, and that is the right word, too many ‘company events’ where the content is, whilst not without purpose, formulaic.

Imagine what could be achieved by giving staff the opportunity to talk about what inspires and drives them, what makes them tick. At the very least you have an internal community discussing, referring and acknowledging. Five minutes would be enough…