The Blog of Ed Ross

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May 4

A chat with myself

  • Me: What's up?
  • Me: Well, it has been around a year since my last blog post. It has been a busy time! Also, the blogging service I used to use shut down, so I've had to move the blog on to another service. I went for Tumblr. I might start doing some more updates now - though I'm still quite busy.
  • Me: What sort of things have you been busy with?
  • Me: There is the youth group I mentioned in my last post, which has been going quite well. They even want to start a band and raise money for cancer research! Also there has been sad family things to deal with - a miscarriage. And just working and commuting takes it out of me so I don't have the motivation to blog! Though maybe I'll start doing some more Tumblr style blogging now, so we will see.

Posted 2 weeks ago

May 20

My past few months

Hello! You may have noticed I’ve not posted much recently. Life has gotten quite busy recently. My wife and I have been spending a lot of time planning a new youth group in the village we now live in:

Additionally, it now takes me longer to get to work than it used to when I lived in Portsmouth. We are also trying to make our new back garden in to something more than just a pile of mud, which has been especially hard for the past few weeks when it has been raining so much.

What have you been up to? Please let me know in the comments.

Posted 1 year ago

JustMigrate,

Nov 21

A Boring Report

On Saturday 19th November 2011, I got out of bed at about 5:50am and started getting ready for my day. This included making some coffee, and eating an apple. The apple was mostly red, with hints of green.
Once I was dressed and ready to get out of the house, a taxi driver knocked on my door. Actually, he knocked moments before I was ready, but they were kind enough to wait for me. By 6:30am, I was in the taxi, being driving me to Gosport Ferry Terminal. The taxi was quite large for one passenger: in fact it was almost a minibus (at least it seemed that way from the outside. Inside it only had a few seats). My wife was also supposed to be travelling with me, but she couldn’t make it in the end. I guess when she booked the taxi she might have said it would be for more than one passenger, so that might have accounted for the extra space - or perhaps taxis are just bigger than I remember them being.

The Gosport Ferry Webcam is quite good, if you like to see the sea - and ferrys.
I waited at the Gosport Ferry Terminal for a few minutes, and then the ferry arrived. I queued and then gave the ticket collector my ticket. He clipped it, and then gave it back to me. I say “my” ticket, but really it was a ticket my wife lent to me for the day.

Once the ferry had arrived in Portsmouth, I made my way to Portsmouth Harbour railway station. This journey took about 90 seconds by foot. A few minutes later, I was sitting on the train to London Victoria, waiting for it to set off.
At about 7:12 am, the train set off.

Time passed.

We arrived in London Victoria station at about 9:16am.
I got to the ticket barrier and slid my ticket in to the slot. It was rejected. I tried again. It wasrejected again. I guessed the problem was probably that my tickets were bought from an online vendor, rather than offline at a station or on the train. I walked over to the ticketinspector, and showed them my ticket. They let me though. I then realised I had been holding the ticket upside down. I’m still not sure how much attention theinspectorpaid to the ticket.

As I made my way to the Underground station, I realised I had my Oyster Card in my coat pocket from the last time I went to London. (On that occasion, I met @98rosjonfor the first time offline. It was a good meeting. You should meet him too if you have the chance). It was pleasing to find my Oyster Card, but my wife had lent me hers already, so it wouldn’t have been too much of a hardship if I hadn’t found mine at that time. But it was good that I did anyway, I thought.
I got out of my bag a sheet of paper I had prepared a few daysearlierwith theinstructionsfor myjourney on the underground system printed on it and looked for the entrance to the right set of tubes, so I would end up going the right way. Having had a bit of a false start (I started queueing in a queue designed for those with luggage, when I had none), I eventually found myself on what Ibelievedto be the right platform to catch a tube to Embankment.

I was right.
Getting out at Embankment, I walked to Bank. The walk required having more faith in the Transport For London guide, taking me down a road with very few signs pointing the way to Bank station.

I thought of “The Weakest Link”.
Idescended the steps to Bank. Bank is an oddly constructed station, with multiple entrancesspirallingout from a central circle, and you must remember which location number you entered from so you can make your way out from the same location on your return journey. I checked with the member of staff if I was at the correct location to get a tube to Bethnal Green. They grunted somethingunintelligibleback at me. I decided to take the risk, swipe my Oyster Card along the entrance to the escalators, and descend even deeper into the London underground tube system.

At the bottom of theescalators, I found two archways. One to the left, and one to the right. in front of me were two tube maps. One next to thearchwayon the left, one next to thearchwayon the right. One of the maps contained the words “Bethnal Green”. I walked through the archway next to the sign (the one on the left).
Once I found I was at Bethnal Green, I remembered I had forgotten to make a map from the station to my intended destination. I started writing a tweet along the lines of: “I’ve forgotten to make a map - how do I get from Bethnal Green to York Hall?”. Just before I was going to send it, I noticed there was a map on the wall, so I walked over to the map and first started trying toidentifymy current location. Having identified my currentlocationon the map, I then turned my attention to locating York Hall on the map. Soon after I had completed that mission, someone walked past me, turned round, and said my name. That someone was @adamcreen, who somehow had managed to identify me on our first offline meeting from the back of my head. I was impressed, and pleased to see him.

We walked to York Hall together, and talked while we did so.
We arrived at York Hall.

We attended Boring 2011.
After the conference,@adamcreen, his wife,@inRedPenand I walked to a pub in the Bethnal Green area, and @adamcreenwas kind enough to buy a round of drinks. I had a Diet Coke. We talked about various subjects. I worried about the time, knowing I would have to get to London Victoria by 8:00pm to get on the train my ticket was for. We talked some more. Then I left, and made my way back to Bethnal Green Underground station. The three others remained in the pub. I don’t know how long for, as I had left.

From Bethnal Green Underground station, I travelled to Bank. I discoveredBank is an oddly constructed station, with multiple entrancesspirallingout from a central circle, and you must remember which location number you entered from so you can make your way out from the same location on your return journey. Having made at least one complete circuit of the exits, I made my way back out to the street, and walked to Embankment.
From Embankment I moved on to London Victoria. I was pleased to find that I hadn’t got on an incorrect tube for the entire journey, there and back.

At London Victoria I bought some dinner, and walked down to the train station entrance once I saw which platform my train would be departing from. In front of me stood a man asking for entrance in to the platform area of the station. The ticket inspector checked their ticket, and told the man he had to buy a new one as that ticket had been for a train that had already departed. The man looked sad, and walked away, allowing me to show the inspector my ticket. I showed the inspector my ticket, and they let me through to the train.
The train was long. Actually, it was two trains joined together to make one longer train. I heard the instructions bellowing from the speakers: passengers travelling to Portsmouth Harbour must travel in the front four coaches.

I got in to coach 1, and consumed my dinner. After that, seeing as I had to travel in the first four coaches, I decided to produce a review of the four coaches. This actually took quite some time, and once complete, I was back in Portsmouth.(By the way, I saw the man with the bad ticket on the train, so they must have been able to get a correct ticket at London Victoria).
But I was only at Fratton Station.

After Fratton Station, the train moved on to Portsmouth and Southsea station, and from there completed its journey at Portsmouth Harbour station, at around 10:06pm. I got off the train and decided to use the stars and bridge over to the exit side of the station. I saw a woman running. I thought they might be running towards a ferry, so I started running too. Well, I walked more quickly anyway. She ran out of thestation and headed towards the ferry terminal, but then slowed down and then stopped. The ferry was not there yet. I slowed down too, and walked to the ferry terminal.
There were around 6 or 8 people ahead of me at the ferry terminal, and at first no one behind me. Then several people arrived after me, and then some more. By the time the ferry arrived, there was quite a crowd waiting to board.

I headed back to Gosport on the ferry, and decided to walk home rather than take a taxi.
I walked home.

Posted 1 year ago

JustMigrate,

Nov 9

A post about other religions

I belong to a group that is interested in studying a few different religions. I’ve recently heard some talks about different religions, so thought it would be good to send them the links so they could hear them too. Also I know of some other resources, so I thought I’d add them all to one blog post to save having to send out a big email of links.
“Truth Between Us” was aseriesof talks released in late 2011 by Mosaic, which covered the religions below. Best to right-click and Save As:

Islam:Audio/ Video
Buddhism:Audio/Video
Atheism:Audio/Video
Hinduism: Audio / Video
Scientology: Audio / Video
Catholicism: Audio/ Video
Mormonism: Audio / Video
Judaism: Audio / Video
The Lifespring! Podcast also ran aseriesabout other religions back in 2006/2007. Use the player or download links on the pages:

If reading is more your thing, then check outThe Christian Apologetics & Research Ministrywhich has articles about many different religions.

That is all for now.
Please don’t turn the comments section of this post in to a flame-war!

Posted 1 year ago

JustMigrate,

Aug 30

What have the youth ever done for us?

After the 2011 Riots in the UK it may have been hard for some people to belive the youth of the UK could do anything good. I know they can: I’ve seen it myself. I put a call out on Twitter to see if anyone else could suggest positive youth projects in the UK, and here are the responses so far:

Alan Mellor pointed out The Message Trust, specifically, their Eden Projects, and the Message Enterprise Centre.

The University of the First Age and Jamie Oliver’s work with young people were also mentioned.

If you know of any, please suggest more positive youth projects in the UK to show that the youth are not all mindless rioters.

Posted 1 year ago

JustMigrate,

Jul 24

Jonstieglitz

Welcome to Blatant Follower Promotion! In this episode, @jonstieglitz talks about:

  • His jobs: keeping us free from radition, and creating web sites;
  • His use of and views on social media and online privacy;
  • Becoming a Christian;
  • And more!

Jon online

Tweet of the week

This week’s tweet of the week is from @danlank:

Christian fundamentals: 1) Love God 2) Love your neighbour. What happened in Norway has nothing to do with Christian fundamentals.

What happened in Norway this week was awful. It should not have happened. The suggestion that the man who commited those crimes was doing so becuase of Christian beliefs is worrysome too. Jesus is the centre of the faith, and there is nothing in the way he lived his life that could lead to the idea that bombing and shooting people was a good thing to do.

Be interviewed on the show

To be interviewed on the show, please follow me on Twitter - my username is: @edaross .

Music on the show: “I dunno” by grapes (licensed under CC Attribution (3.0))

Subscribe in iTunes

Posted 1 year ago

JustMigrate, BFPinterview, podcast,

Jul 14
What would you reveal online?A couple of weeks ago I started asking on Twitter to fill in a form telling me what their greatest need is. The form doesn’t say how I’ll use the results, or if they will be made public. I got 22 results (though 2 were gibberish). Interesting to me though, are the stats for the visitors. I managed to get a screen shot at 100 visitors, which makes working out percentages easy: What do you reveal online without thinking about how the results will be used? Do you mind what service providers are doing with the extra information you might be handing to them at the same time? What assuances do you seek from service providers before you hand over your information? Please let me know in the comments section.

What would you reveal online?

A couple of weeks ago I started asking on Twitter to fill in a form telling me what their greatest need is. The form doesn’t say how I’ll use the results, or if they will be made public. I got 22 results (though 2 were gibberish). Interesting to me though, are the stats for the visitors. I managed to get a screen shot at 100 visitors, which makes working out percentages easy:

What do you reveal online without thinking about how the results will be used? Do you mind what service providers are doing with the extra information you might be handing to them at the same time?

What assuances do you seek from service providers before you hand over your information?

Please let me know in the comments section.

Posted 1 year ago

JustMigrate,

Jun 13

The podcasts I currently listen to

Here is a rundown of the podcasts I currently listen to:

Posted 1 year ago

JustMigrate,

May 29

A web log of social media and web articles

Here are a selection of articles I’ve found recently that you might find interesting too:
How do you build local engagement on Twitter?- some good tips here and links to interesting services such as Nearby Tweets to see people tweeting near you (or anywhere else). Say you’d just started a job where you needed to talk to people in your local area on Twitter, that would be a good site to start at.

Take Meeting Minutes From Your Tablet or Laptop With Minutes.io- talks aboutminutes.ioa site you can use to take minutes for a meeting. Could be quite useful with a bit of refining. Not bad for a free tool though. I wonder if they could make custom versions for specific organisations. Maybe having some sort of Twitter integration too?
Find Out What 100+ Corporate Strategists Have Planned for Social Media in 2011- leads to a 33 page PDF report on social media uses in Corporate environment (once you have entered your email address and other details). I’m currently reading other resources, so this will have to be added to the queue!

Call-to-Action Wording Best Practices- some interesting insights in to helping people follow the calls to action on your web site.
Sorry to the people I found these from - I forgot to add that to my notes. I know some were from @tweetsmarter but I can’t remember the rest. Thanks to a new feature on the site, you can now read tweets from the people I follow- the links would have come from them somewhere!

Do you have any articles on social media or web design you’d like to share? Please post them in the comments.

Posted 1 year ago

JustMigrate,

Apr 9

Posterous

Welcome to Blatant Follower Promotion, the @Posterous episode! It was great to have this chance to talk to @richiepear from Posterous, the blogging system I use to bring you Blatant Follower Promotion. I could have asked more questions for hours, but in this half hour interview, we discuss:

  • What is Posterous
  • Posting anything from anywhere
  • Technology troubles and triumphs
  • Posterous Mobile apps
  • The future of Posterous
  • and more!

Posterous online

Twitter users of the week

This week’s user of the week is: @xboxsupport who are the Guinness World Record Holder for Most Responsive Brand on Twitter and it shows. Many times I’ve seen people I follow mention their Xbox situations, and @xboxsupport always replies really quickly. Well done to them for leading the way when it comes to Twitter communications from a brand.

I see they use a tool called TweetRiver to coordinate their efforts, but apps such as TweetDeck with their instant updates and custom searches could also be useful if you wanted to track what people are saying about your brand. What Twitter tools do you use and what for? Please let me know in the comments.

Be interviewed on the show

To be interviewed on the show, please follow me on Twitter - my username is: @edaross .

Music on the show: “I dunno” by grapes (licensed under CC Attribution (3.0))

Subscribe in iTunes

Posted 2 years ago

JustMigrate, BFPinterview, podcast,