Crimperman.org

I’ve been meaning to write this since my own Twitter hiatus and a recent conversation on there reminded me. This is happening a lot lately – perhaps I should make a list

Social media (by which let’s be honest most people mean Facebook and Twitter) can be a remarkable place to hang out,have conversations, enagage and laugh (sometimes) at pictures of cats. But some time ago I noticed a trend. A lot of the people I connected with in either Twitter or Facebook (disclaimer: I do mostly use the former) were going away. There was a general pattern to this as well:

• make or read a statement which though honest is a little contentious at best (or which could be taken two ways)
• get involved in a “discussion” about that which continues for some time (sometimes this can get heated)
• rinse, repeat

That’s not typical of every case, sometimes people will only be witnesses to the above. Sometimes there’s a particular topic swamping the sites and you just can’t seem to get away from it.

I noticed this a fair bit and then it happened to me. Over a short space of time I found my mood was dropping whenever I came off Twitter and/or Facebook. A common reaction at this point is to walk away and decry social media as – at best – unhelpful or at worst downright evil. The temptation to close my accounts, walk away and not come back was strong but I didn’t want to do that because I knew first-hand of the good parts of Twitter and Facebook. I knew how just one quick post could raise comfort and prayer for a situation I was going through. I knew the laughter I had experienced (not about cats). Social media was great. Social media sucked. Neither statement was false and both were true simultaneously.

Instead of closing my twitter account, I kept it open. I did walk away for a short time. It did me the power of good

So instead of closing my account I kept it open. I did walk away for a short time. It did me the power of good and while I was away I did a lot of thinking about social media and whether I should return and if so under what form. I came up with a plan which I have no called a social media survival kit.

The Social Media Survival Kit

1. Walk away – if only for short periods

You don’t need to close your account, just walk away from social media for a short while. Try a week. And be ruthless. For me I knew I would automatically check if I could and so I removed the icons from my ‘phone homepage. I deliberately made it harder for me to get onto Twitter and Facebook.

Don’t make a big song and dance about leaving. There really is no need to post dramatic statements about it

Also don’t make a big song and dance about leaving. There really is no need to post dramatic statements about it. When people do that I am reminded of the dramatic exits my children sometimes make (and I made when I was their age) when things don’t go their way. (Stomp, stomp, stomp…slam….door opens…”I AM GOING UPSTAIRS!” – just in case nobody heard the stomping). I’m sure not everyone is like that but I have seen a fair number of that ilk. Then again, if you don’t say something people will worry. So what I did was post a brief “I will be off here for a while, don’t worry. be back in near future.”

2. Stop listening – filter your stream/new feed

Sometimes it’s not a discussion you are in which brings you down, it’s just the seeming flood of inane and banal stuff on a particular subject. So filter those things out of your strea,m/news feed. For Twitter use a client (I use Plume on my Android phone but there are a few which do it) which allows you to filter out or mute tweets containing certain hashtags or words. I did this recently for a certain politcal story over here in the UK and I’m pretty certain it saved me from a lot of angst.

Sometimes what you really need is not a way to remove them from your life but to just a way to turn them down a little

Filtering out people is a little harder because often – and particularly on Facebook – they will know if you block or unfriend/follow them. They don’t get tiold but they do notice after a while. And sometimes what you really need is not a way to remove them from your life but to just a way to turn them down a little. On Twitter you can use the filtering/muting service of certain clients to mute certain users. Then after a while you can go back and unmute them. Right now I imagine people reading this are wondering if I have muted them . On Facebook you can hide their status updates from your News feed. Click through to see their profile. Click the Friends button just at the bottom of their profile header and from the menu that appears deselect “Show in news feed”. You can do the same with pages you “like” as well. It’s one thing to show support for a cause or company but another to be inundated with posts from them.

3. Wean yourself off – schedule regular time away

Schedule a time in your week (or day if it’s that bad) when you do not check your social media feeds. This can vary it length but for me it’s about two hours at any one time. During this time I do other stuff – you’d be surprised how much time you have. Oh and I am not talking about times when you are supposed to be doing other stuff here. I am talking about time when you would normally be “okay” to use Twitter or Facebook.

Try to get out of the habit of jumping straight on Twitter or Facebook when you have “five minutes”

In addition try to get out of the habit of jumping straight on Twitter or Facebook when you have “five minutes”. These will be the times when you are “bored” or waiting for something. Try to give yourself some of that “free” time away from social media. Me? I’ve started reading a bit more, I’m also looking to do a bit more sketching, writing and – steady now – thinking. None of these times are very long and neither should they be but it will help your social media mood if it is part of a balanced diet .

4. Be ruthless – regularly cull those you follow

This is not those who follow you, this is those you follow. I’ve mentioned muting people above but sometimes you’ll find people who are at the edges of your circles and yet can cause you no end of bad moods. The reasons you follow these people will be varied and may be very good but trust me if they or things they say are causing you grief you need to give yourself a break from them. Yes I know all the stuff about how reading views that are contrary to your own is good for you and how you should not only surround yourself with views that match your own. I subscribe to that theory. I also agree that sometimes you can be a good influence on those around even if they disagree with you. But. But, but but. But if you follow someone purely for those reasons then I’d suggest you unfollow them because you may find they unfairly shift the up/down balance of your newsfeed or stream.

Also be prepared to cull people you follow just because you like their films/books/music/TV shows

Also be prepared to cull people you follow just because you like their films/books/music/TV shows. I have found that the greatest pleasure I get from social media is not from being able to follow a “celebrity” with a gazillion other followers but through interaction with other people – even celebrities. If someone I am following allows me to interact and interacts with me ( I don’t require them to follow me) then I will find that relationship (for want of a better term) healthier for me than one where one person broadcasts and I listen. Never forget this is called social media for a reason.

That’s it

I am sure that you will have many other useful techniques in surviving Twitter or Facebook. For some of you that will be walking away permanently but if you are considering that, ask yourself what you take away from that platform when you leave? I am sure the people who follow you (unless they have “I_FOLLOW_BACK” in their username) are interested in your posts for a reason. So if you are consieering closing your account – wait. Try step 1 above for a week or two and then consider the others if/when you return.

It’s been some years since I changed the theme of this blog so without further ado..

Ta-Da!

I’m at Spring Harvest this week. As you may expect I tend to find myself in the ‘create zone’. Our challenge yesterday was to consider who/what Jesus is. Lots of great ideas came out. This is what I did.

Something came up in my twitter feed today which I had solved a while ago and – because the solution doesn’t fit very well into 140 characters – I thought I’d share it here.

WordPress allows for indented paragraphs within it’s usual editor but not for a single line. Well you can use the “Preformatted” formatting option in the visual editor but that will change the font and appearance of your text as well. I’m presuming this is not what you want. Within the visual editor there is no easy way to have a single line indent. Thus you can have this:

Bacon ipsum dolor sit amet pastrami beef ribs boudin, ball tip ham bresaola chuck short loin venison corned beef filet mignon bacon. Meatball cow corned beef meatloaf. Shankle jerky andouille strip steak. Swine shoulder rump spare ribs corned beef, short loin andouille tri-tip jowl leberkas hamburger drumstick.

But not this:

Bacon ipsum dolor sit amet pastrami beef ribs boudin.
Ball tip ham bresaola chuck short loin venison corned beef filet mignon bacon.
Meatball cow corned beef meatloaf. Shankle jerky andouille strip steak.
Swine shoulder rump spare ribs corned beef, short loin andouille tri-tip jowl leberkas hamburger drumstick.

Wait..what?”

“Hang on?” I hear you say, I just said you can’t do that and yet I have – er – done it. Okay you can achieve it in WordPress but not with the standard editor in visual mode. The trick is to wrap a small bit of html code around the line you want to indent. In this case the first line in the above paragraph actually looks like this…

<span style=”padding-left: 1em;”>Bacon ipsum dolor sit amet pastrami beef ribs boudin.</span>

The “padding-left:  1em;” bit is where you set the width of the indent. I have used an “em” measurement which is a printers term equivalent to the width of the “m” character is the current typeface/font. You can also specify the indent in “px” (pixels) or “pt” (points). Don’t forget the quotes though. Oh and you must put the editor into HTML mode to add the styling code. To do this simply edit your post and click the HTML tab at the top left. Here’s some examples of using different units of measurement..

Bacon ipsum dolor sit amet pastrami beef ribs boudin. 10px
Bacon ipsum dolor sit amet pastrami beef ribs boudin. 2em
Bacon ipsum dolor sit amet pastrami beef ribs boudin. 5pt

Keeping it consistent

Now it’s quite possible that you will always want the indent the same size when you come to use it. That’s where stylesheets come in. Instead of specifying the indent width each time you can just refer to a “class” which is defined in your theme’s stylesheet. That way if you ever need to change the indent across all the instances where it is specified in your blog, you can just change your stylesheet and voila!

To do this you use the following code where you want an indent..

<span class=”myindent”>Bacon ipsum dolor sit amet pastrami beef ribs boudin.</span>

Now we add the class to the stylesheet. In your WordPress dashboard, click Appearance->Editor. It should open your stylesheet(css) for editing but if not just click the relevant css file from the right hand list. Now add the following to the bottom of the file and click Update.

.myindent { padding-left: 1em; }

Note the fullstop at the beginning of that line. Again you can alter the padding specified as before. In my theme this gives you …

Bacon ipsum dolor sit amet pastrami beef ribs boudin.

Hope this helps.

By the way if you are wondering where all the meaty references came from. It’s from the excellent [Bacom ipsum](http://baconipsum.com/).

A good friend of mine ran a project recently to capture a day of life on 10th November 2012. For those in the UK (and other places) the shorthand form for this is 10-11-12 – hence the name of the project.

Below is a video I made of the photos I took on that day. You can read more about and see the results of 10eleven12 here. The music is “Feelin Good” by Kevin MacLeod (I spelled his name wron gon the video – sorry Kevin). It is licenced under CC:By as is the video itself. You can find Kevin’s great Roylaty free and (more importantly) Creative Commons licenced at http://incompetech.com.

Recently I bought a new mobile phone^{* see here}. It was an Android 4 phone running on dual-core processor and with dual-SIM capabaility with a 4.3″ HD screen. I love it and I raved about it on Twitter. Because of interest from some of my followers I did a review on Twitter and also did one on Amazon – where you can buy the ‘phone. As a result of those several people bought either the same or a similar handset from the Chinese manufacturer I got mine from (DracoTek). This had two effects:

• I felt a bit nervous because people were buying phones on my recommendation
• People started to ask me questions or mostly make generic statements on Twitter about setting the ‘phone up.

One of the upsides of getting a phone like this is that it is not “locked” to a particular mobile network. This means you a) own the ‘phone outright from the beginning (no contract) and b) don’t get a ‘phone cluttered with all ther “added value” the mobile networks put on handsets they provide. For the most part this is an advantage but the only downside is that the phone will not usually be supplied set up for the UK. It’s something that’s easy to remedy but it can at first seem overwheleming.

As I feel partly responsible for people buying these phones and because I want people to have the best experience they can, I am writing this post which I hope will provide some tips and guidance on how to get your nice shiny ‘phone acting how you want after it first arrives. The tips here apply to any Android 4 phone by the way but they are particularly relevant to a phone you have bought outright rather than as part of a contract. It’s by no means an exhaustive list but it does include the most commonly requested items.

This post does not explain how to unlock a phone or how to “root” one. Sorry.

Which phone did I buy?

If you are interested I bought this phone from these people. It’s also available through Amazon but I didn’t get it from any of the sellers currently offering it there. I did however write a review of the phone on Amazon which you can see here. I am not affiliated with the seller or manufacturer.

Update January 2013: I’ve had the phone for about six months now and it is still performing as good as when I first got it. The battery is great and the only slight thing I mis sis an LED to tell me when there’s a missed call. I solved that one by install the NoLed app from Google play though.

I also teamed this up with a SIM from GiffGaff who are a SIM only network based on O2. I use one of their bundles which gives me enough minutes and texts plus a huge wodge of mmobile internet to use. There’s no contract and you can switch between a bundle or PAYG whenever you feel like it. I’ve not had any issues with the service but that may be because of my location. I do know some parts of the country have had problems at times. The link to GiffGaff I’ve given there is an affiliate link – this means if you click it and then order a SIM (which is free) I get some credit as a thank you. So I do benefit from your ordering a SIM but I would recommend them even if I didn’t.

Setting your location and language

When the ‘phone first arrives it is likely to have been set up for the country it originated in. In my case this was China and whilst the language was set to English (US) so was the keyboard. Note that the ‘phone will probably get the time and timezone from the network of your SIM though and this is fine.

• You need to go to the Settings app. If you can’t see an icon for this on your homepage tap the apps drawer using the icon highlighted in Figure1
• Scroll down to Personal->Language & input
• Tap the settings icon next to “Android keyboard”
• Tap “Input languages”
• Select your chosen language – in my case this is “English (UK)”
• Tap the Home key to return to your homepage

**Update – November 2012 ** : It seems that on some handsets the English(UK) language is not available to pick. This will be becuase the supplier has only installed a stock set of languages and not all of them (probably to save room). You can fix this by installing locale-selector apps. One I have found good is Set Locale and Language by brucedior (link goes to Google Play Store). You can install it, set the language and then uninstall it if you need spaxce or if (like me) you find it conflicts with Touchpal keyboard app.

Wireless and mobile Internet

Wireless

You can connect your phone to a wireless network (provided you have the password etc.) quite simply. The ‘phone will remember the details and will connect to the network whenever it is is range.

• Go to the settings app (see above)
• Tap Wifi
• If your network is not listed Tap “SCAN”
• Tap your network when it appears and enter the password.

When you are out and about you may find some places offer free wireless. Often to connect to this you must give your email address or inside leg measurement. In this case you should connect to the network as listed above but then go to the web browser and go to your usual homepage. You will probably be presented with a web-form for your email address. Follow the instructions on there.

Mobile internet – GiffGaff

For most SIM you will find the mobile internet is available as soon as you put the SIM in and power up the ‘phone. If you are using the GiffGaff network (in the UK) however you need to change a few settings. Under Android 3 this used to be done for you by GiffGaff but Android 4 prohibits apps from altering your ‘phone mobile internet settings (for security reasons). This means you’ll have to do it manually. It can be tricky but there is some really good help available.

I want to repeat this is ONLY for GiffGaff users.

• Download the GiffGaffAPN app – you may beed to add your Google account first in order to use Google Play (see below)
• Run the GiffGaffAPN app and follow the instructions.

The app works by posting a notification for each step showing the settings you have to use. Copy the setting and add it to the appropriate APN step.

I’m using a lot of odd words and terms here but in essence this is very simple process. Download the app and run it, it tells you exactly what to do for the rest of it. Just make sure you read it and follow the advice given. I did this and had my mobile network up in under 5 minutes.

Adding your accounts

If you want to download apps from Google play or browse your gMail you’ll need to add your Google account. In addition you can have the “eMail” app download and view your non-gMail email.

Google account

• Open the settings app (see above)
• Tap”Accounts & Sync”
• Tap “Add Account” at the bottom of the screen.
• Tap “Google”
• If you have a Google account, tap “Existing”, otherwise tap “New”
• Enter the relevant account details when requested.

Other eMail

• Open the app drawer as shown in Figure1
• Find and open the eMail app
• You will be asked to set up an account. Use the settings given to you by your regular ISP/IT people for your desktop eMail.

Make sure you leave the account so it leaves the eMail on the server. In addition you may find you have to enter a username and password for sending eMail. Many ISPs insist upon this unless you are connected to their network (e.g. via wireless at home). Some do not permit you to send via any other network. Check with your ISP about this and if that is the case you may have to set the outgoing email (SMTP) server to your mobile provider one. Check with them for details about this.

Set your web browser homepage and bookmarks

You may find the web browser initially is set to Google.cn or similar. You may also find a bunch of bookmarks the manufacturer added to test the unit before shipping. You can set these to your own choices.

Set Google as your homepage

• go to the browser app
• tap in the address bar and type www.google.commonly- tap “Go”
• If you are connected to a network (wireless or mobile – see above), Google will load for your location (e.g. Google.co.uk)
• Tap the menu key (see figure 1)
• Tap Settings->General->Set homepage
• Tap Current page

Bookmarking a page

• Go to the webpage you want to bookmark (e.g. Twitter.com)
• Tap the menu key
• Tap Save to bookmarks

Managing bookmarks

• Tap the menu key
• Tap Bookmarks/history
• To delete a bookmark hold the icon for it and select Delete
• Rinse/repeat

Notification bar and area

One feature many new Android 4 users don’t seem to notice is the improved notification area. This is near the top of the screen (see figure 1). You can drag this down to see more of the notifications and also quickly change phone settings. (See figure 2). See those icons at the top? There are three screens of those. Slide your finger left and right across them to see more. Tapping one will switch it on or off accordingly.

Battery life

In my experience the batteries on these unbranded phones work really well but it’s always nice to make your battery last as long as possible. The best way to do this is to disable some of the more power hungry apps and features such as GPS, Wireless and screen brightness. Most of these can be done through the Notification icons (see above) but sometimes you want to do it without all the dragging. Enter the Power widget. This is a bar -type widget which you can add to a homepage (see below) and which has icons for the common power saving things I just mentioned. Drop it onto your homepage somewhere and you can quickly toggle the screen brightness or GPS and save your battery even more. It’s handy for things like disabling your wifi when you are on the road and unlikely to encounter a wifi hotspot.

Adding apps and widgets to your hoempage

Adding icons and widgets to your homepage is very easy but not always as obvious as you may think.

• Open the app drawer
• Tap and hold and icon
• The homepage screen appears with spaces marked out for icons. Drop your icon into the appropriate one.

The app drawer as two tabs – apps and widgets. Go to the widget one for more interactive bits n bobs on your homepage. You add them to the homepage in the same way as icons.

Handy apps to install

Everyone has their favourite apps and flame wars are possible on which ones are best. These are not required ones but they are the ones I find useful and you might like to look into them. I am no affiliated with this in any way.

• My backup pro – backs up your contacts SMS, pictures, apps and other data on a scheduled basis to either an online storage areaa or (my favourite) the SD card in your phone.
• Advanced Task Killer – handy to see what is running and kill any apps you don’t want using up your juice
• Digital Clock – my phone came with an analogue clock widget. I like analogue clocks but not on my homepage.
• Touchpal keyboard – this is a more powerful “swipe” keyboard which I find makes typing much easier. It’s a personal preference though.
• Twitter – there are loads of these but chances are your phone didn’t come with one. Browse Google play and get one if you like to tweet.
• Facebook – ditto to the above really. Chances are you rphone didn’t come with one. Install one of these and you can “like” things as much as you er like.

That’s it!

I hope this all helps. Feel free to add comments here if there’s stuff I’ve missed or you have any tips of your own.

Work

I work in London. East London to be precise.

My journey into work covers about 13 miles and I do it by motorcycle.

My journey goes right past the Olympic park and as such most of it will be closed to me from mid July until the end of September. I will have to use an alternate route in along with everybody else.

Home

I live just outside the border of Greater London. Eastern Greater London to be precise.

A journey into London by tube, bus or rail would require me to pass Stratford (where the Olympicsi/Paralympics are being hosted).

Some of my local country park has been commandeered for use an a temporary Army barracks (and I’m not sure I trust LOCOG to restore it properly afterwards).

Another region near where I live has a number of small hotels who are apparently reporting they are fully booked during the Olympic/Paralympics. So we’re going to have a lot of tourists about.

In short: it’s going to be very hard for me to avoid the Olympics this summer. My travel will be affected, my local area will be affected, my life will be affected.

But…

So with all this in mind can I just say that I am pleased the Olympics/Paralympics are coming to London. I am looking forward to it. I have managed to get tickets for an Olympic event and some Paralympics ones for myself and my family but I was looking forward to the event regardless of whether I got tickets. I was celebrating when the games were awarded to London.

As I have seen the park develop I have gotten more excited. The Velodrome and Aquatic centre look magnificent and coupled with other new London buildings like the Shard (and slightly older ones like the Gherkin) I am excited for the way my home city is starting to look. I think the games coming to London are a good thing and I am glad they are coming.

Just saying.

“If only they could see the real me.
If only they knew what I was really like.
If only they could see through closed doors.
If only they saw me away from the public gaze.
Would they still be there?”

But..

What if they do see the real me?
What if the me they know is not fake?
What if the “lie” is the truth?
What if what I think is the truth is actually a lie?
Am I really that good at hiding myself?

And then..

Perhaps I am the one being fooled.
Perhaps I let the door shut out their encouraging words.
Perhaps they’re not as easily fooled as it appears.
Perhaps they have the same fears about themselves.
Maybe we all worry too much about what each other thinks.

If only we all knew how much we care about each other.
What if we stopped worrying and started showing.
Perhaps we could make the world a little brighter.

Which of us as a child playing with Lego didn’t wish the models we built could actually do what the real thing could? I remember building aircraft out of Lego imagining what it would be like to see those models in the air or racing down the road (of course with Mecanno i didn’t have to imagine that hard becuase it was possible – but that’s a different post).

Well these guys have releasied the dreams of every child who ever buitl a model rocket. They’ve put a Lego Space Shuttle in the air and then some – 35000m (114000ft in old money). To a seasoned Lego builder like me who has now passed that love onto another generation this is quite simply – awesome (particularly from 2:38 onwards)

As Mrs Crimperman will confirm I have been despairing of late at the way some of my favourite Star Wars characters have been sold out by being used in adverts for PC World and Vodafone. It’s not just the fact that they are being used to sell mobile phones but to be honest the adverts themselves are total rubbish (You could look them up if you want to but I really recommend you don’t).

By contrast last year VW put out a brilliant ad featuring a child in a Darth Vader costume which was brilliant. This year they are looking to top that and (while I have no affinity to them) the “teaser” (yes a teaser for an advert) and the ad itself are really very good (I think the teaser is best myself).

They made me laugh anyway.

Teaser

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