Posts from — May 2009

I’m always looking for little changes I can make at AtP that gradually improve the site over time, and after well over 100 posts here, I decided that the categories I was working with just didn’t cut it.

For the last few months it’s rarely been clear to me what belonged where, let alone how anyone stumbling onto the site would feel. A couple categories contained the vast majority of posts while a range of others had practically none. Because they weren’t particularly useful, I never bothered to integrate the categories prominently into the UI.

After a little spring cleaning this week I’m happy to say that has now changed.

First, I’ve re-categorized all 133 posts into 7 new succinct Categories:

• Analysis – More in depth and independent review or interpretation of various trends.
• Commentary – Simple points about interesting things I’ve come across or have observed. The default category.
• How To – Step by step guidance on how to set something up or get something working. Usually related to technology.
• Photography – For sharing a selection of shots while I continue to learn more and challenge myself when the opportunity strikes.
• Politics – Less of an emphasis today but contains many posts from the 2008 elections.
• Training – Covers my Odense marathon training history plus new efforts on the swimming and cycling front.
• Travels – Sharing our travel experiences and other interesting tid-bits about being abroad.

It’s not particularly clear to me what the best practice is for deprecating categories in WordPress so I’ve just gone through and recategorized all of my previous posts to fit this new taxonomy.

Additionally you’ll now find a post’s categories indicated directly below the title to allow readers to more easily find other similar and relevant content.



Again, these are a couple basic changes but when you add them all up over time, I’m a lot happier with the site today than a year ago. I hope it’s useful!

This Memorial Day (Late May Bank Holiday) weekend we hooked up with some good friends in London for a weekend of fun in the sun. I only have pics from our Saturday trip to Borough Market but we took advantage of the amazing weather with a great picnic in Hyde Park and BBQ at home as well.

Full photo set on Flickr:

 
   
 

Wolfram|Alpha launched last night and I have to say it is truly freaky the types of data you can query via it.

Billed as a ‘computational knowledge engine’, it can quickly let you calculate, compare, and visualize all sorts of fascinating things like:

• Birth rates in the USA and UK
• Chemical properties of various acids
• Ohm’s law
• Probabilities of a coin flip
• How much that mortgage will set you back
• Differences between Google, Apple, and Microsoft

If you’re looking for inspiration, watch the Introduction Video which will walk you through a vast range of intriguing and unbelievable queries you can compute with Wolfram|Alpha.

Here’s a snippet straight from the minds behind Wolfram|Alpha:

Today’s Wolfram|Alpha is the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone. You enter your question or calculation, and Wolfram|Alpha uses its built-in algorithms and growing collection of data to compute the answer.

It’s likely too early to tell if this is the a new game-changing way to analyze, understand, and interpret complex and often disconnected data sets. Or if it will lead to more people simply accepting what the machine has told them, without actually understanding it for themselves. As a potential new method to unlock much of the world’s knowledge and experience however, it simply cannot be ignored.

Following some discussion over on my How-to: Share a single iTunes Library between you and your wife post, I’ve decided to pull together a screencast (my first!) to walk through how iTunes organizes your music library and how you can consolidate and move your library to share it with additional users. Hopefully the video serves as a nice complement to the other post.

Let me know what you think!

There are weekend trips and then there’s weekend trips and last week’s run to the States was the latter. In just over 72 hours we enjoyed a day or two with the family for Stacey’s Graduation, followed by catching up with Adam and Maria and their new baby Jonah, then a 30th birthday celebration for Sam, and finally a quick lunch with good friends and parents-to-be Chris and Jerilyn.

Despite having a jam-packed agenda, it worked out flawlessly and save one “Wait… what country are we in?” moment, we kept on top of things. Thanks to everyone that made the time to fit our schedule. It was great.

More photos via Flickr:

Google, you deserve a shout out too. Your maps truly are the best:

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