Scottish lass seeks…

Some women deal with loss by hitting the hairdressers, what does a girl geek mourning the exit of her country from a football tournament do? Migrate a domain. As the great philosopher Doris Day once said “Que sera sera”. OK I left scottishlass.co.uk as the last domain to move over to the VPS. I held off doing it sooner because I could see a few hits from people looking for the Runrig Loch Lomond link and had landed on this blog. If you can read this then you should be getting served by the American VPS host. Next step close the old hosting account…and make sure they cancel the recurring billing. The whole move’s gone amazingly smoothly so far, suspiciously so. Just a few cron jobs to set up for RSS gubbins.

Technorati Tags: Scotland, football, Scottish Lass, domains, migration, VPS

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Any man who wants to know why women are more cautious about their privacy online please read the God awful shocking crap that Kathy Sierra has been subjected to. What are the perpetrators going to say “it was only a joke”? Tell it to the judge.

Technorati Tags: threats, bullying, harassment, women

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Pleased to see Hilary Rodham Clinton throwing her hat or is it bunnet into the ring for the race for Democratic presidential candidate in the United States. If someone like Hillary with all her insider experience doesn’t give it a go, who the hell will? I’ve seen some English press describe her as a potential “American Mrs. Thatcher”. Dear God No! Wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. If anyone thinks that by voting for a woman you’ll get a kinder, gentler brand of politics you may be in for a shock. It’s a bruising game politics, “showbiz for ugly people”, internal party politics tend to make a virtue of backstabbing and taking advantage of any faux pas by your peers to climb a very greasy pole indeed. To get to the top you need a skin of asbestos, oh and truckloads of money. I think Hilary may benefit from the support of a lot of women who still haven’t quite forgiven Bill Clinton for “not having sex with that woman”, cough. Many at the time thought that Hilary conducted herself with admirable strength of character in public despite this crushing episode in her private life and it may be this that strikes a chord in female voters memories and sympathy rather than any high and mighty policy stance. Will the US campaign be about issues or character? The Democrats don’t need another Kerry, worthy but dull. The president is a different role. Charisma is compulsory, and as George W has shown, brains are optional.

Given how many “dirty tricks” there have been known to be pulled in negative advertising/campaigning in politics with the battleground moving away from TV/Radio/Press to the internet will we start to see electronic versions of skulduggery? What if a candidate using the web for fund raising for a campaign just so happened to have a DoS attack on their website whilst their opponents stayed up? Or with a lot of sites moving to Open Source content management systems and blogs it would only take one security patch to be missed for any nefarious opposition to take advantage. Beef up your security teams and for any presidential candidates buying a one year domain name from GoDaddy you have switched on the auto-renew haven’t you? Don’t want your virtual branding to be expiring next year, do you? Barack Obama’s in it for the long haul, his domain’s secured until 28-Dec-2015, you can’t say he’s not planning ahead

Technorati Tags: Hilary Clinton, American election, politics, Democrats, CMS, Barack Obama

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The current heidie of my old school has received an CBE in the New Years Honours list. Mary McLaughlin has championed the use of technology in the school, vocational training and community involvement among other things and the girls at Notre Dame gie it a fright.
“Mary, Mrs MCLAUGHLIN Headteacher, Notre Dame High School and Principal, Notre Dame New Learning Community, Glasgow. For
services to Education. (Bothwell, Lanarkshire)”

When I was leaving secondary, the woman known as Sadie was nominated for a BEM (British Empire Medal). Sadie was unarguably the most important person in the school, even the heidie wouldn’t argue. Trust me you wouldn’t want to experience the wrath of the Sadie. Sadie was the toilet warden and patrolled the mean streets of 1960’s green and white tiling, mop and Ajax in hand, stubbing out smoking (whilst nipping out for a fly puff herself), keeping a clean patch and served over a quarter of a century. That woman deserved a medal and By George I Think She Got It! So Sadie ya bam morphed to Sadie ya bem. And the most amazing beehive hairdo with never a hair out of place. Bet she scrubbed up well for Her Majesty. So from toilet cleaners to headteachers, when it comes to serving the country, Notre Dame’s bagged them all.

You can download the audio from Mary’s (and pupil) session at SETT 2005 - ICT in a Curriculum for Exellence
BBC NEWS | UK | The complete New Year Honours lists

Other Scottish women with honours: Dame Evelyn Glennie (percussionist) just about single-handedly created the role of touring soloist percussionist, Heather “the weather” Reid (BBC Scotland weather), uber-geek into Physics, science and helping kids and women to get interested in science and technology, she spends a lot of her off-screen time supporting these kinds of projects.

Technorati Tags: New Year Honours, Mary McLaughlin, CBE, BEM, headteacher, school, Notre Dame, Sadie, beehive, Glasgow, toilet cleaner

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Thanks to American Dave Winer for pointing out that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth has her own podcast feed. If there’s been any publicity in the UK about this I’ve missed it. Gaun yersel Bessie! The Queen’s English from the horses mouth. She’s in her eighties now so she’s probably one of the oldest podcasters around too. Great to see part of the British heritage keeping up-to-date with changing technology, we already know that Andrew bought her an iPod a while ago. The Commonwealth is still nearly two billion people right around the globe so using the web for Royal Family messages makes bloody good sense. Maybe like Adam Curry’s sign-off sound of a lighter click she could just rattle her jewelry. One supposes that my podcatcher and I would receive the traditional Christmas message when it’s officially released, so sign up now in good time. Come on folks, let’s help push Bessie to the top of the iTunes charts where she belongs, it is your civic duty to subscribe. God save (to hard disk) our gracious queen.
The Queen’s Speeches podcast [via www.royal.gov.uk]

Technorati Tags: Queen, royal, podcast, speeches, Queen Elizabeth

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Sadly necessary. Domestic Abuse Campaign 2006

Domestic Abuse Radio Campaign Advert (MP3)

Technorati Tags: domestic violence, domestic abuse, women

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Listening to all the gushing predictions about Leona being the one who’ll ‘crack’ America and the global market, I can’t help thinking back to last year. Remember? Shayne Ward? He was going to be “The British answer to Justin Timberlake”, he burned brightly briefly then got throat problems and has been well out of the spotlight, in recent months though they are talking of a second album. If a week is a long time in politics then a year is an eternity in pop land, will he manage to get back into the market?

One of the guest boybands on the show had some sagely advice for Simon Cowell to say that he had a big responsibility to produce a good first album for Leona. Too true. Previous form has been to quickly punt out a CD to cash in on the first wave of publicity but the songs are usually largely bland and generic and not moulded to the talents of the winner. Will Young of Pop Idol fame went through the same curve but it was only by the second/third CDs that he really hit his stride.

It was a shame that in earlier rounds the Glaswegian Nikkita never really got given a meaty song that suited her soulful voice don’t think we ever got a chance to really see what she was capable of. Also think from a telly point of view it would have been a more interesting show if the group the Unconventionals hadn’t been booted out first week, they were certainly different.
I watched Leona’s progression it has to be said with a degree of sadness. She clearly has a natural talent but as the weeks went by you could see more and more vocal gymnastics being thrown into the mix, she has such a beautiful voice and really doesn’t need these gimmics. I hate the ghastly Americanisation going on where the audience will clap and cheer just because a singer sings a high note, is this competition now “Note Idol”. Low notes, soft notes count too not just the belters but these don’t seem to generate applause or appreciation. Whatever happened to lyrics, you know, communicating the emotion and meaning of the song, not just the notes? The more she went into this territory the less and less of the song was communicated. One of the strangest experiences was in a previous show watching her sing “Lady Marmalade”, pretty woman, cute as a button, note perfect but almost completely devoid of any sexiness, there seemed to be no connection between what was being sung and how it was performed, very strange. Ray her opponent was just about the polar opposite, he probably had one of the weakest singing voices but by Christ when he sang “My Way” you felt it was coming from the heart he meant every word and made you believe it. I’m sure Leona will win her share of fame and fortune and wish her well but to be a true diva takes more than good singing.

Technorati Tags: X Factor, Leona Lewis, Simon Cowell, Fame

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Mini Mariah/Whitney sound-a-likey Leona Lewis has won the X Factor 2006 beating cheeky chappie Liverpudian Ray. In all the madness wish someone would thank the telly host Kate Thornton. She carries the main ITV show week by week all by herself and her consumate professionalism makes it all look so smooth. Simon Cowell looks like the cat that got the cream, both his acts were in the final so he couldn’t lose, probably Christmas No. 1, another cash cow for you Simon? Totally predictably right after Kate announced that the single was available for download, visit the site and get a “Service Unavailable” on the download link. These kind of sites always go down, that initial spike in traffic must be phenomenal as millions pile from TV to computer in a matter of minutes, a few minutes later get through but page minus graphics/low bandwidth version, bet the web devs are frantic right now to get back up to flog the download Update 22:56 and graphical version back Bravo! Well done Leona and Kate and web bods in the dungeons

Update 23:13: on the post show on ITV2 Simon Cowell’s in the studio and just said “it’s the fastest download of all time - twenty thousand in five minutes”. £1.50 a throw, wow, if it kept up that astounding selling rate for a day it would be bringing in over 8.5million quid in sales, and that’s with no iTunes in sight.

Technorati Tags: X Factor, Leona Lewis, Kate Thornton, Simon Cowell

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Well Zara Phillips, Princess Anne’s quine has just won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year for 3-day eventing. Takes after her mammy (winner 1971).

Technorati Tags: BBC, Sport, Royalty

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Anyone see what I mean about media imbalance? Barely a ripple of press commentary past the purely factual on Sheilagh Kesting’s Church of Scotland appointment it was well buried in the inside pages of the broadsheets, meanwhile an opinion poll about more than 50% of Scots wanting full independence has the media hanging on every word from the Cardinal. How to interpret the lack of ‘news’? Is it good? Maybe folk just don’t see anything newsworthy any more in women being appointed to top jobs, if so good. Maybe feminism has succeeded in pushing for equality, it’s the norm. But you’ve got to set these things in a historical context, it’s a change, a female minister at the head of one of the biggest non-governmental organisations in Scotland. Is the lack of proper coverage a reflection of ignorance of history or disinterest? I can’t help contrasting this episode with the splash that Eilish Angiolini made with her Lord Advocate appointment, that was all over the place. Ah but that was politics. Sad when the spiritual life of the nation is pushed so far out of the spotlight. Can’t help think that we’re losing something.

Technorati Tags: religion

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