Dillonworld

2011 Retrospective

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:00:05 +0000

2011 Retrospective:

It’s a bit late in the year to be retrospective about 2011, but I just stumbled across Joel Goodman’s blog. Gutsy stuff!

Next time I’m in the USA, I’m gonna have to properly...

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 15:32:32 +0000

Next time I’m in the USA, I’m gonna have to properly check out Walmart.

Infographic of the week.

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 13:00:05 +0000

Infographic of the week.

Handy link showing Elektra Casa parts and construction

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 19:32:54 +0100

Handy link showing Elektra Casa parts and construction

I’m a great believer in a power nap. When I worked at...

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:00:06 +0100

I’m a great believer in a power nap. When I worked at Reuters, some of their bureaux had a nap room where you could have a doze after a hard day of news reporting. The room was a dark and quiet sanctuary away from the noisy news room.

Not every business can afford this level of luxury, however the Ostrich pillow is a good compromise. I’m not sure if there’s much in the way of air vents, but it certainly looks snug.

(Product discovery credit to Tim)

Handy Cooking Time Organiser

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 17:40:08 +0100

Handy Cooking Time Organiser

Megaphones are banned at many of the Occupy protests. However,...

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 17:22:54 +0100

Megaphones are banned at many of the Occupy protests. However, this hasn’t stopped speakers from addressing the masses.

Crowds are using a low tech way of getting around this by repeating the words of the speaker to create a human megaphone. There are several recorded examples of speeches delivered this way including Naomi Klein and Michael Moore.

I find this strangely moving - partly because it is very effective (once the speaker gets used to it!) but also because it makes a mockery of the regulation trying to surpress the speech in the first place.

I'm reading "Designing Obama". Getting a brilliant masterclass in branding.

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 13:00:06 +0100

I'm reading "Designing Obama". Getting a brilliant masterclass in branding.

All new homes in London to have a private balcony or outdoor space

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 10:46:11 +0100

I’m back from a fascinating Open House talk at Claredale Street with one of the architects responsible for designing these stunning copper-clad buildings.

Something I didn’t realise is that the Mayor of London’s new Housing Design Guide now requires all new publicly funded homes to have either a private balcony or equivalent outdoor space.

A minimum of 5 sq m of private outdoor space should be provided for 1-2 person dwellings and an extra 1 sq m should be provided for each additional occupant.

All of the homes on Claredale Street already meet this requirement and look so much more liveable than their pokey pre-80s cousins. Outside space is so important and often overlooked in London.

La Cambodge, Paris. I thoroughly recommend this place. Go for...

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 13:00:05 +0100

La Cambodge, Paris. I thoroughly recommend this place. Go for the Bobun Special Plus and you’ll be set for the rest of the day.

Preparing for parallel testing git stuff

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 18:23:26 +0100

More git notes for me.

rake parallel:prepare

rake pt

Done

How Toshiba dropped the ball and leaked my personal details on the internet (and those of 1,800+ others).

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 09:00:05 +0100

I bought a new Toshiba laptop last week. As part of this purchase I also got the opportunity to participate in Toshiba’s Rugby World Cup Competition whereby every point that Toby Flood scores earns me a £1 cash rebate.

We duly filled out the online form to enter the competition. On submission, we got an email containing a link to a Certificate of Registration.

toshibaregistrations.com/rugbyworldcup/Certificates/TOSH1500.pdf

The 1500 number in the URL seemed to be a simple incrementing integer. So we modified the URL by one digit to:

toshibaregistrations.com/rugbyworldcup/Certificates/TOSH1501.pdf

Instantly, the certificate (and personal details) from another customer came up.

This meant that, in a matter of minutes, I could have downloaded ever single one of the 1,850+ entries in Toshiba’s competition.

Immediately we contacted Toshiba about this data breach. And I’m only blogging about this now, because I didn’t want to publicise the security lapse. Toshiba have now acted and remove the PDFs.

However, now that the problem has been fixed, I feel that Toshiba’s relaxed stanch on data protection should be exposed.

What we don’t know

Why Toshiba needed such personal data for this competition? e.g. - name, home address, date of birth, telephone number, model and serial number of laptop.
Whether Toshiba will:
- contact the customers affected and offer any compensation,
- contact the Information Commissioner’s Office to report this breach, or
- be able to tell whether customer data has been accessed by third parties.

String Ray Pizza delivered

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 12:34:32 +0100

String Ray Pizza delivered:

Something to remember for next time we do an office party.

Just got back from the London Prepares basketball tournament in...

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 23:31:06 +0100

Just got back from the London Prepares basketball tournament in the Olympic village. Great fun and amazing to see some of the venues. Really looking forward to the games next year.

Streetcar to Zip car offer is epic win for founder members

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 13:25:46 +0100

This is a follow up to an earlier post.

OK, I admit it. I was wrong. I’ve just got off the phone with Ben from Streetcar. Who tells me that I’ve actually paid £150 deposit. This was impossible for me to check as it didn’t show in my online account and I didn’t have any bank statements that far back. I was going to have to go trawling through old email logs to work this out.

Only founder members with a partner membership paid £225. Not sure what the deal does for them - but for me, it’s all win.

My full deposit turns into usable driving credit - so I’m not out of pocket.
The credit does expire - but it’s nine months and I’m confident that I’ll use it in that time.
Streetcar are giving me free lifetime membership to Zip car - what’s not to like?

With this all clarified, you’d be a fool not to take up the offer.

Timezone checker

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 12:33:12 +0100

Timezone checker

Streetcar ultimatum #3 to loyal founding members

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 18:58:00 +0100

Update: Read this follow up post - offer actually turns out to be epic win.

Today I received the following ultimatum from Streetcar:

As one of our Founder Members, your support has been crucial to growing our car club. Last year we joined forces with Zipcar to create the world’s leading car club and very soon the best-of-both services will be launched under the Zipcar name, giving you access to more cars and vans across the UK and North America. As one of the first to embrace the car club concept in London, I would now like to warmly welcome you to Zipcar.

As a reward for your loyalty and custom over the years, we’re inviting you to convert your Founder Member deposit to free lifetime membership of Zipcar and driving credit of £150 (valid for 9 months) to get you started. To take us up on our offer please reply to my team by 22nd September 2011 and they’ll activate your new account. By accepting the offer your deposit will no longer be refundable and will be exchanged for Zipcar lifetime membership and £150 driving credit.

If for some reason you decide not to take us up on the offer of lifetime membership, you may switch to become a standard member paying an annual fee and have your deposit returned upon your switch to the standard membership. The two billing systems will be moving over to one shortly, so we can only hold this offer until 22nd September 2011. Please let us know either way by then.

These “special offers” have started to come out once a year. This one in particular is very disingenuous. For starters, the deposit that I paid to Streetcar four years ago, that they’ve been earning interest off (ok, admittedly not much now) - was for £250.

So in effect, Streetcar are taking £100 of my money to keep the status quo… or rewarding me, to use their words.

I really like Streetcar - they have an excellent service, however I find these ultimatums very dishonest. They don’t even mention the deposit stake that you’ve paid to them. I only learnt that it was £250 (not £150 as I’d assumed) from a tweet. And taking £100 from my deposit in return for the status quo is not a reward - it’s a penalty.

I’ve received other offers like this from Streetcar in the past. In 2010 and 2009 I had similar offers like this one.

In 2009, you received an offer from us to convert your membership type from Founder Member to standard Streetcar Member. We didn’t hear from you at the time and just wanted to let you know that the offer still remains open to you now.

To recap on the offer:

Convert to an annual membership

Receive £200 in free driving credit (valid for 9 months)

Start paying annual membership fees after 2 years (currently £59.50 per year)

We’re also adding in an alternative option:

Receive £250 in free driving credit (valid for 9 months)

Start paying annual membership fees after 1 year

Remember that if you do take either option, were you to leave you would no longer receive a refund of the deposit you paid when you first joined.

None of these options is particularly appealing.

Truly extraordinary speech by fearless West Indian woman in face of Hackney riots

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 23:12:00 +0100

Sums up everything nicely. She’d get my vote.

via @GarethAveyard

The evolution of the geek.

Sat, 06 Aug 2011 13:59:29 +0100

The evolution of the geek.

Looking forward to going here for dinner tonight

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 17:00:05 +0100

Looking forward to going here for dinner tonight