Graceful Exits

While I’m not particularly a net-neutrality zealot (it’s hard to care about it when most of the world’s poor are without any net connection at all), I’m nonetheless surprised by the bullishness of the recent remarks by Neil Berkett, Virgin Media’s CEO. I’m more taken aback, however, by his choice of phrase: he says that [...]

One of my resolutions this year is to try to cut down on the carbon I spend on music. Notwithstanding my purchase of the In Rainbows discbox, I’ve amassed an awful number of discs of metallized plastic in barely-recyclable containers. (I say “barely” because K. got me a pencil for Christmas made out of old [...]

I’m so impressed with Radiohead. I was a fan back in the days of The Bends (y’know: before they literally, if not metaphorically, sold out), and have more affection for Pablohoney than most. But in an era when it’s trivial to get whatever music you want for free off your mate who happened to buy [...]

I’ve created a small website for the driving instruction company who managed to get me to pass about eighteen months ago.
They’re great teachers and really highly qualified, as you can tell from the rash of logos on the homepage.

Skip intro - or three types of copy the world will never miss
… Did you think I typed in your URL so I could watch a movie? Duh! I want information and I want it now. Only a fool actively erects barriers between a potential customer and his content…
I have a suggestion for a more [...]

At Torchbox we’ve recently been building a website for Welsey-Barrell, a bespoke furniture maker’s, whose workshop is located in Ducklington just south of our offices. This site is now live:
Wesley-Barrell: the country’s leading maker of classic, quality furniture, built without compromise to last for generations… Wesley-Barrell benefits from being a family business as it provides [...]

Do you bank online? How are you asked for your secret code? Three randomly placed digits of it, hmm? The reason for the randomness is that any malicious keylogging software can’t see your screen, just your keyboard: so even if it logged every time you banked online, the fraudster it reported back to could never [...]

Assaf writes about, among other things, REST as a simplifier of development against an existing system:
REST plays the same role as open source and open APIs: It eliminates tooling and vendoring as artificial barriers to adoption.

Interestingly, a corollary to this was brought up at Barcamp Brighton this weekend. During Gareth Rushgrove’s talk about REST and [...]

Drupal, along with Plone and dotnetnuke, beat some monumentally big playas to the first awards of the OpenID bounty. This is awarded to projects which implement a number of requirements which, together, constitute agreed OpenID functionality. And these three projects passed the finishing line first, despite the likes of Microsoft’s lip-service to the OpenID cause.
Of [...]

Those who may have tuned into the long, slow rumblings of my work Drupal project may be pleased to hear that the site is finally live:

CRUDE: The new documentary from director Franny Armstrong (McLibel) and Oscar-winning producer John Battsek (One Day In September)

Was programming in Drupal a pleasant experience? Yes and no. Was it the [...]