lproven: (Default)
If I have been a bit quiet on here this month, it's because someone has been paying me to write, which always makes a pleasant change. I spent last week in-house at The Register, one of the UK's top IT news sites, famed for its sarcastic irreverence.

I did mention this on The Other LJ and I've plugged each piece on Twitter and Facebook, but if you don't read such things, you can get a quick list of the articles - nine last week and one from last year - right here.

Enjoy.

Life!

Jan. 23rd, 2010 08:09 pm
lproven: (Default)
Couple of new posts up on the Other LJ. (I flag 'em 'cos this one has a lot more Friends. Hope that's OK.)

Playing with virtualisation

... swiftly followed by...

When NOT to use a VM & what Linux to use
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Yet more coverage keeps appearing for the SimplicITy machine and the large majority of it is still good...

(In no particular order)

Daily Telepgraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6544222/Valerie-Singleton-launches-six-button-computer-to-get-elderly-online.html

InfinitePath:
http://www.infinitepath.co.uk/20091111/industry-news/new-elderly-friendly-pc-is-the-definition-of-simplicity/

Computer Shopper:
(I did a brief interview with former colleague at Dennis Jim Martin about this this morning...)
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/news/272179/valerie-singleton-launches-nettops-for-the-elderly.html

The Next Reporter:
http://thenextreporter.com/jg/simplicity-computer-older-users/082714/

Evening Standard:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23767680-computers-made-easy-for-the-over-50s.do

PC Pro blogs:
(Not so happy with the take on this one...)
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2009/11/11/we-may-be-getting-older-but-we-are-not-gaga-yet/

Bournemouth Echo:
http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/4733901.Bid_to_attract_new_wave_of_silver_surfers_welcomed_by_Bournemouth_OAP_champion/

P2P.net:
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/30983

ComputerAct!ve:
http://www.computeractive.co.uk/computeractive/news/2252995/singleton-sells-simplicity-pc

Which?
http://www.which.co.uk/news/2009/11/valerie-singleton-launches-desktop-computer--188138

The half a dozen of us at Simplicity are all stunned by the sheer amount of attention it's attracted. Of course, there's been opprobium too, but I'll get to that later. Still running on 5h sleep this entire week so far here...
lproven: (Default)
Another day, another outlet for my peerless prose. :¬)

Linutop 2 super small desktop PC: Linux lightweight – in more ways than one?

Liam appears on The Register for the first time. Comments very welcome, here or there.
lproven: (Default)
A couple more upcoming events...

Tuesday night, Dr Richard Wiseman is organizing an experimental singles' night at Borders by Oxford Circus. It's part of the research associated with his Quirkology project. I suspect we might need more females there. :¬)
http://www.borderslocal.co.uk/oxford-street/events

Aficionadi (if there are any) of my Emo Philips act might wish to know that I am very likely to be featuring in a cabaret on St George's Day down in Croydon. It will probably only be a short spot - 20min or so - but I don't do this on stage very often.

The night is called the Black Ball, upstairs at the Green Dragon in Croydon.

http://www.myspace.com/dragonsball
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=9130557571

Weds 23rd April
60 High St., Croydon, CR0 1NA. Tel. 020 86670684.
lproven: (Default)
BTW, there's some life on my Top Sekrit Other LJ [livejournal.com profile] liam_on_linux, in case it's fallen off your friendslist...
lproven: (Default)
As in, not for filthy lucre. Bit of an alien notion to me, this, but it does happen. Here, mainly.

But back in Spring, I "pubbed my ish"*, as part of the JETS race - a one-off fan fund (a sort of science fiction fandom popularity contest) to take someone to Japan for "Nippon 2007", the first World Science Fiction Convention in Japan. It was a long time ago and I'd mostly forgotten about it, and then, earlier this month, something amazing happened. I was at Novacon in Walsall, a pleasant little convention in the Midlands, when I idly scanned the ballot form for the Nova awards, a British fan-writing prize given at that convention. To my utter amazement, I found that I was listed as eligible. It's all the fault of the [livejournal.com profile] fishlifters.

Naturally, I didn't win, which was neither a surprise nor a disappointment, but what was was that so many friends I spoke to about it said "you published a 'zine?" Clearly my distribution efforts were not widespread enough.

So, in a belated attempt to rectify that, it's now online. You can find it here:
http://efanzines.com/SailingNorth/

It's a compilation and slight tidying-up of the Norwegian travelogue I published here back in '04 or so. A lot of you seemed to rather like that back then. This time, though, it has pictures. Lots of them. Bill Burns, estimable host of efanzines.com, has dramatically shrunk and compressed the PDF file, so it's a lot more manageable than before, at the cost of a little bit of loss of photo quality. It looks OK on-screen, though. And most of it's in a single-column layout, so it's fairly readable off a monitor, too.

Enjoy. If you know anyone interested in such things, do please feel free to tell them about it. I am happy to provide CDs of the full-sized version on request, which comes with hundreds more full-size photos.


* It's a fannish catchphrase. If you're not part of SF fandom, don't worry about it, please. FIJAGH, after all. If you like the piece, though, LOC me or send a poctsacrd. This is about as close to sercon fhanac as I come. ;¬)
lproven: (Default)
Did that 2nd spot on BBC Radio London last night, too. I wibbled a bit, 'cos they asked me about conspiracy theories and not about "Jonathan Black"'s apparently somewhat barking book after all.

Actually the book looks like it might be a hoot to read, but - as I pointed out - about as plausible and believable as the Illuminatus trilogy. Which is to say, not at all, just steering close enough to sanity and reality that you want to believe it.

I listened to the show for a while afterwards, until I had to do some telephone support for a friend of mine. Several people phoned in to comment on things I'd said, like the harmlessness of the Freemasons and the danger of fundie religious loonies of every and all hues and creeds.

It would be fun if this turned into a regular spot. Watch this space.
lproven: (Default)
Cheapo Asus mini-eee machine nears production
Eee bah gum


Discussion & comments welcome.

Also, hints as to where to find replacement batteries for a Thinkpad Butterfly. Mine have rotted away. :¬(
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Writer and broadcaster Liam strikes again! ;)

I never did do a write-up of my little spot on Jumoke Fashola's show on BBC Radio London a couple of weeks ago.

I wasn't able to hear the show, as I was in Sheffield that night, en route to InFest in Bradford, but I duly appeared on it from about 11.15, for 20min or so. Maybe half an hour, I don't precisely remember. Since I'd not actually heard any of the people phoning in with their ghostly experiences, I kept it fairly general, talking about things like hypnogogic states, sleep paralysis, myoclonic movements and so on. I carefully avoided talking about anyone not really having these experiences, that their experiences were real, but that perhaps in many cases, people misinterpret what those experiences actually represent. I talked about hidden cameras revealing poltergeist activity as mischievous children rather than anything paranormal, and that this behaviour might sometimes be due to sleepwalking and similar somnolent activity rather than consciously malicious or naughty misbehaving.

And of course I plugged Skeptics in the Pub!

It seemed to go pretty well - they kept me on right until the end of the show, fr'instance - and indeed, this afternoon, the researcher, Rebecca Grisedale-Sherry, has been back on to me to ask me to appear again on tonight's program, which is apparently about a book called "The Secret History of the World". The author is Mark Booth who is the head of Century Publishing at Random House. Apparently.

So tune in, folks... :¬)

Photos

Aug. 6th, 2007 02:07 pm
lproven: (Default)
It's been more than a year since I last updated, but... a whole bunch of new photos of mine are appearing on Flickr:
http://flickr.com/people/lproven/
lproven: (Default)
Another day, another article on the Inquirer. :¬)

Where's today's Sinclair Spectrum?

Comments and feedback appreciated!

L'Inqage

Jun. 30th, 2007 01:54 pm
lproven: (Default)
Social networking: it's new but it isn't News
Here's an idea to make it useful


It's a long one - 2.5Kw. I think they've invented the "Weekend" category for my ramblings. I reckon the idea in the article has legs, though.

Comments/discussion welcome!

Linqage

Jun. 23rd, 2007 02:50 pm
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How to revive an old PC: Lightweight Windows and Linux for low-end machines

As ever, comments etc. welcome!

I've discovered that the link I gave for Crux is a bit dated. Better to go to http://crux.nu/ .
lproven: (Default)
PC-BSD 1.3 mini-review

As ever, comment & discussion welcome!

Profile

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Liam Proven

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