People never ask me Just who is this Norman Brightside character ?
Norman Brightside is an alias for a fictitious Oracle Database Administrator based in Solihull, near England. Norman briefly flirted with celebrity, last year, when he had the temerity to criticise Tom Kyte.
Norman Brightside is also a bastardisation of Norman Whiteside, a Northern Irish footballer who played for Manchester United in the 80's and the song 'Mr. Brightside' by the popular American beat combo - The Killers.
This morning at some unearthly hour, I found myself standing once again in the queue to clear security at Heathrow Terminal 4. I was almost at the X-ray machine when a member of staff approached me and invited me to volunteer for a full body scan.
He took me behind some screens and for one moment I feared the BAA queue monitors were going to exact their terrible revenge for my outspoken criticisms last week. However, he explained that the body scanner would take three scans of my body, each of which would pass a small amount of radiation through my body.
He added that people are exposed to such radiation when flying above 30,000 feet and the body scan would be equivalent to flying at this height for just 2 minutes.
This was supposed to reassure me but only planted the question in my mind: 'Is it dangerous to fly non-stop 24 hours from London to Australia ?'
He then offered me the option to decline but said the alternative would be a 'full body search by hand over there' (pointing to an open area).
Obviously I agreed so I then had to stand at two oblique angles with my hands up and felt like a complete idiot from the hilarious TV program 'You've Been Framed' although, thankfully, I was hidden from the view of curious members of the public behind the partitions.
He then gave me the all-clear to proceed and informed me that I had the body of a 65 year old (which was a little depressing as I am only 42) and was pregnant with triplets but I did manage to jump 4 places in the queue as a reward.
Would you like any cashback today at all, Sir ?
Oh yeah. That would be handy. £50 - thanks.
'Oh I'm awfully sorry. I haven't got enough money in the till to give you £50, Sir.'
'Oh OK - how about £30 then ?'
[Looks dolefully into depths of till] 'Hmm - not really. That would leave me a little short of cash.'
'Can you manage £20 ?'
'Yeah, yeah. £20. I can give you £20.'
'OK great. I'll take twenty then. Thanks.'
[Rummages in depths of till and brandishes two 10 pound notes which he then withholds by holding them out of my reach] - '...but it really would help me if you could just take £10.'
'Oh - wait. No problem. It really doesn't matter. Sorry to mess you about. I'll just go to the cashpoint outside to get some money. It's fine. Please, forget I ever mentioned cashback.'
Then, as I walked home, I remembered it wasn't me that broached the prospect of 'cashback' at all - it was him.
Two years ago, my hard disk failed. Completely. This was excellent news as my computer ran a lot faster after a clean installation of Windows XP but bad news because I lost email, names and addresses, documents etc.
One thing on my to-do list was to investigate offline storage to backup key data files to avoid a repetition. And, yes, this 'Next Action' had been on the to-do list for two years.
So now I am using the freeware edition of SyncBack to synchronise folders between my two PC's at home and backup key files to my FTP site. The FTP site is constrained to 30 MB but should be adequate for now. Large files (photos) are burned to CD.
As I now use Thunderbird (not Outlook Express), my email folders are simple, plain old fashioned text files that can be imported into any (normal) email client anywhere.
SyncBack is really intuitive software, fast, well documented and highly recommended.
The first in an occasional series.
No. 1 - OReillys in Brussels.
Difficult to find, particularly if you hold the street map upside down and wander aimlessly down dark, empty streets and end up in Schaerbeek.
Easy to find if you hold the map the right way up.
Stella - 4 Euro per pint. Lively pub. One big screen and several small screens dotted around. Plenty of seating available.
Blackburn 1 - MUFC 1 (Carling Cup Semi Final). Two superb goals. One melee involving Rooney.
On Wednesday, I found myself patiently waiting in a queue, talking with a nice lady from Toronto, to get through airport security at Heathrow Terminal 4. Nothing unusual there.
Although, for someone from London to exchange pleasantries with a complete stranger is a little unusual (but she started it).
However, on this occasion, only two X-ray machines were in use so the queue was a little longer than usual and slowly and relentlessly growing in length.
A BAA lady was monitoring the queue and, from time to time, would open up a barrier to allow economy passengers to join the Fast Track queue (much to the disgust of all the business people who had paid a premium specifically to clear the security checks quicker, avoid mixing with economy passengers, as they are in such a desperate hurry and are so important with their toy phones glued to their ears). This action would get smiles and thanks from those invited but would only provide a brief respite from the underlying problem.
The queue got longer. People got more disgruntled. One man walked to the head of the queue, presumably because his flight was imminent. People grumbled under their breath, in a very British way. The queue got longer.
A couple of ladies decided to follow suit and boldly walked straight up to the head of the queue. People actually dared to challenge them (they must have been foreign tourists). The lady from BAA interjected and politely requested that they rejoin the queue from whence they came. They retorted 'but the queue is big and we will miss our flight'. The lady checked the boarding passes and told them that they had a full 45 minutes before the flight departed which that was plenty of time and they reluctantly went back to a stream of quiet 'Tut's.
A man immediately behind me then said to the BAA lady 'Some people just think they're better than everyone else'. At this stage, my wait was almost over as I was nearly at the X-ray machine. However, I thought this was a little unfair so I took a deep breath, summoned up the courage and said to the BAA lady.
'The queue is so long that people are actually queuing out in the main concourse. You really need to open up another gate. That is why people are getting worried and trying to jump the queue'.
She genuinely look surprised as if I had told her that I believed in aliens and replied 'Are they really ?' [ queuing on the concourse ]. Not sarcastically but in all honesty.
To my absolute amazement, she then walked the whole length of the queue, beyond passport control and looked out to the concourse, as she slowly absorbed the full extent of the queue.
She then returned and summoned two of the four BAA staff who were just stood around, chatting about their Christmas presents, the state of Aunt Agatha's health, flicking through the newspaper, arguing over whose turn it was to get the coffee, the weather and Chelsea's domination of the Premiership
Another X-ray scanner was opened. The queue started to reduce. People were happy although no-one had the courtesy to start a spontaneous round of applause for yours truly. I asked the lady from BAA for an application form for a job as a 'customer service assistant and senior queue monitor'.
The two remaining green shirted BAA staff remained chatting, no doubt discussing those January return to work blues and how difficult they were finding it to get motivated for work in 2006.
A long time ago, there was a unique band called The Chameleons who hailed from Middleton, Manchester.
Like a lot of bands, The Chameleons made some records, built up a dedicated following, played lots of gigs and then split up.
Like a lot of bands, The Chameleons reformed.
Like a lot of bands, The Chameleons made some more records, played some more gigs and then split up (again).
However, unlike a lot of bands, the lead singer, Mark Burgess, once went to a private individual's house and played at their birthday party.
Now, I don't like to namedrop but I met Mark Burgess once. It was just before a gig at The Garage in Highbury. I had a very brief chat about his life in Hamburg, United's prospects against Bayer Leverkeusen in the semi, ticket sales and whether he could put me on the guest list.
Years before that, I also had an email exchange with him. I forget most of the details but will always remember his response to my 'God - it really was you' which was 'Please don't call me God, plain Mark will do'.
A long journey starts with a single step...
I was curious about applying the concepts and ideas behind GTD to try to manage my time (both at home and at work) more efficiently so I read up a little about GTD over the weekend and actually ordered a copy of Dave Allen's book (having read snippets in a bookshop who were nice enough to give me a nice leather armchair for my comfort).
I found a lot of good information and interesting ideas at 43 Folders and Lifehacker.
I then heeded the very advice I was slightly disparaging about in a previous article and moved absolutely everything (over 6,000 messages) from my fat, bloated Inbox into a new DMZ folder.
I even spent some time trawling through the dusty, old, antique messages. As I suspected, the vast majority were well past their sell-by date and could be safely deleted immediately. Then I started to detect patterns; if I didn't recognise the author/subject, then it was pretty likely that the complete thread was no longer relevant and could be deleted. Similarly, some authors simply have nothing of interest to say ever; mostly automatons but sometimes human. The DMZ folder was trimmed to less than 400 messages and the whole exercise must have taken less than two hours (and not four days).
Some authors send me valuable technical content (mixed with some dross) so their messages had to be selectively pruned or all messages left intact and a action created to conduct a second pass.
So, today, Monday 9 January 2006, saw the dawn of my new email handling strategy.
If the message contains technical content of interest, it gets immediately filed as 'Reference'. Some messages contain interesting technical content that merits further investigation. This is normally some bold assertions that are unproven or not understood by me (not hard). These lead to an action 'To do sometime'.
If I replied to an email asking for more information, I would delete the incoming message and create a corresponding task in 'Waiting'. The original email thread is accessible from the 'Sent' folder.
I treated any email with an attachment quite specifically. If the attachment was relevant, I separated the attachment which was then filed on the file system. In most cases, the email could be deleted as the information was contained in the accompanying document.
If an email purely provides contact details (name, address, email, phone) etc, I immediately add the contact to my address book. Sometimes, if I am travelling in the near future, I will also print a hard copy so I know where I am going, who I am seeing and where I am sleeping as this always helps.
A couple of messages to lesser used email aliases just needed an new filter rule defining so that this content is automatically routed to a dedicated folder and only spends a few fleeting seconds in the 'Inbox' and my consciousness.
Similarly, I chose to unsubscribe from marketing messages from companies or if I really do want the information automatically filter those messages to a dedicated folder.
The net result is that I now get far fewer messages in my Inbox so it is easier and quicker to process them and the messages that do arrive in my Inbox are far more relevant to me.
So now I look at each email message on arrival. Well that's not quite true. I have started to turn email off if I am working on something that needs concentration to avoid the continual interruption and context switching as I am easily distracted.
Close of play. Inbox - 3. All messages that need to be acted on tomorrow.
Have a look at this blog. Lots of interesting, varied material, frequently updated, nicely presented, excellent use of images, easy to navigate, searchable, well structured and very professional looking. All in all, an excellent blog.
This blog is by Paul Stamatiou, a 19 year old student. A few months ago, I happened across this article on Paul's blog when I first started blogging but stupidly forgot to bookmark it.
This is undoubtedly one of the best personal blogs I have seen. In fact, I was so impressed I did as he suggested and nominated Paul's blog for the 'Best Teen Blog' award.
Paul is looking for a job this summer. Somehow, I don't think he will have any trouble getting fixed up.
Those busy people at WordPress have opened up a couple of forums for support issues and feedback for users of WordPress.com
This is a brilliant idea as I currently have to use the 'Feedback' form for all my brilliant suggestions and reporting minor glitches which was a little lonely and uni-directional.