DjMagra’s stuff ‘n’ stuff

The New York Times have just published their top 10 gadgets of 2005, which is making my credit card weep, I want them, I want them all!

Something else that appears to have passed me by is the proliferation of Milbloggers, or millatry bloggers, ie. soldiers blogging from the front line in places such as Afghanastan or Iraq.

BBC News are carrying an article today on Milbloggers, how they came about, what they are writing about, and with some interesting links to active Milbloggers.

The war in Vietnam is often referred to as the first war on television, and the wars in Afghanistan and now in Iraq will be known as the first wars to be blogged.

A new generation of soldier bloggers in the US, known as milbloggers, are both fighting in the field and writing about their experiences.

It is opening up a new window on modern warfare and is creating a new genre of war-time writing.

Apparently The Mudville Gazette is one of the original and definitave resources as far as Milblogging goes, so, I shall be checking that out shortly.

I haven’t been following Express Train, a photoblog by Travis Ruse, too closely, but, it would appear other people have. The New York Times have just published a piece on him, and his photoblog, which documents a daily commute to and from work on the amazing New York Subway. From a quick browse through his recent archive too, it’s one that will be added to the list to check up on regularly.

So, I had figured that the way I had things set up here, changing themes would be a relatively pain-less task, well, I was just a little wide of the mark with that one!

Anyways, after a little gentle persuasion, I was convinced to change for something “cool and contemporary” again, so, here’s hoping this will suffice!

Ok, this looks very cool. It’s a template plugin for Macromedia Flash that allows you to create very tasty flash based photo galleries. I’m in the middle of trying to finally get my portfolio together, and think I may well end up using it. I know of more than a few pro-level photo sites that are using it to power their galleries!

I have been reading in today’s Irish Times (subscription required) that Dublin City Council is planning the introduction of a free bicycle scheme, similar to what can be found in Copenhagen, Lyon and Amsterdam amongst others.

Under proposals put forward by Labour councillor Andrew Montague, the bicycles would be free for use within a specified city area and could be collected from various on-street sites.

Cyclists would be able to release a bike for a nominal deposit and could retrieve their coin from another “bike station” at the end of their journey, similar to the use of a supermarket shopping trolley.

The system could be devised in a way that would minimise vandalism and theft, Mr Montague said, while still making the bicycles available to the widest number of users.

“The bikes would be very distinctive looking. You could only cycle them in the central city zone and there would be a fine for anyone found taking them outside that area.”

Special features could be incorporated into the design so that the bicycles could not be “harvested” for parts, he said.

I’m interested to see if such an idea would work in Dublin. It always amazes me on my daily trek into work the amount of abandoned bicycles that lie littering the streets of the city, tied up against various railings and lamp-posts with wheels missing and handle-bars bent and broken off, but, I suppose with a little careful planning, it may work…somewhat!

Come on, it’s baltic out, the isobars are in the right place for it, England are getting dumped on….let it snow here too please!!! So long as it decides to do it overnight before I have to go to work tomorrow, I’m happy! Don’t want it snowing hard whilst I’m there and leaving me stranded in the office I can tell you!!

Time Magazine are looking for people to vote for their Time Photo of the Year, which has some amazing photo’s well worth checking out!

I managed to teach my blog to tell you what I’m listening to courtesy of wp-iTunes, and display the relevant album art for said tracks, and, Barry and I have been discussing how to get album art into iTunes for him to upload to his new iPod, so, today, I’ve found iTunes Art Importer, a cool little windows app that will automatically go out and search Amazon for the relvant Album Art, and pop it straight into your iTunes. Neat, easy to use and efficent. One to check out if you’re so inclined!

I blogged this on the blogs old home last week, but, it got lost in translation so to speak, here goes again…

You may or may not remember that shortly after the September 11th attacks on the US, a well documented and publicisied exhibition sprung up in an empty store in SOHO. Soon to become know as Here Is New York, it was a place where anyone could go to post photo’s of NY and 9/11 related material. It didn’t matter whether you were a pro photographer, photo journalist, or were taking it with your camera phone, they all got put up, anonymously, and without caption.

Out of this exhibition, a book was published, which I saw recently and decided that I just had to purchase! It’s huge, and contains a massive amount of images, and from what I’ve seen so far, for any New York fan, or anyone with a passing interest in the events of 9/11 it’s an essential purchase.