Claire-a-belle

I’m like, so totally into internet on my mobile lately. I often come across links while browsing on my PC that I want to bookmark on my phone. I’ve realised there are 2 good ways to send it. Either using Vodafone’s web2TXT service, or by sending myself an SMS via Skype.

Once I receive the TXT, I simply click on the link and bookmark it :)

The new ‘retro’ designs from Envirosax. I have a yellow one which I carry in my handbag and use every day, I love it. And only NZ$9.50!

The gorgeous robot designed by Bampop and here.

Delight.com - pretty things to buy.

Greeting cards by Snow & Graham of Chicago.

Egg Press greeting cards.

Madame Fancy Pants, Cuba St, Wellington.

Boy Girl Party

Greer Chicago

I can’t believe we’re in 2008 already. It really seems like just a couple of years ago I was standing in Aotea Square watching the fireworks on the Sky Tower welcoming in the new millenium (and wondering when the flying cars would arrive).

2007 was quite a strange and wonderful year really. Here’s a quick summary of my year:

• I made it out alive
• I packed up/threw away most of my belongings, and moved with 12 boxes, a sofa and a bed into an apartment in the city
• I found a new home for my dog George (and miss him every day)
• I got made redundant
• I started contracting
• I met Michael, and we had an amazing time
• I turned 30, and it was harder than I expected
• I skiied (and even improved a little)
• I made a ton of new friends
• I signed up to Facebook
• I sorted out my finances
• I met my neice and newphew for the 2nd time, when they emigrated back to NZ

Finally, I ended the year with a trip to Marahau (near Nelson) with friends. Photos here.

I’ve often thought about how I could use web 2.0 (tags etc) to organise my own recipes. Currently my recipes exist in my head, in cookbooks, on scribbled pieces of paper, and occasionally saved in word documents on my laptop.

It seems like there was a real gap for someone to come along fill. Hence, Metakitchen has just launched. Features are pretty basic so far. You can copy and paste your recipe in, and it will cleverly try to interpret the quantities so that you can scale your recipe up or down.

You can add tags, and even create Recipe Lists. For example, if you are having a dinner party for 8, you can create a Recipe List consisting of a starter, main and dessert, and enter the number of people as 8, and it will scale up those recipes, and give you a shopping list.

I haven’t used it much yet, but it seems like a really neat idea, and I’m definately going to try giving it a go.

I think it could be vastly improved with the ability to somehow share or email your recipes, or to have multiple logins, so that you can collaborate on meal planning with your partner, but I think it’s a great start.

In other news, it was a pretty quiet weekend. I’m so over winter. I’m hanging out for summer to kick in. Why does everything just seem like more fun in summer? I’m beginning to get cabin fever sitting around at home.

Any suggestions on what to do with the weekends while the weather is still iffy?

So, I’ve been a little bored lately, since I was made redundant. I haven’t had boredom problems when I’ve been inbetween jobs before. I think just the shock of redundancy wiped out my motivation to do stuff. So since M is out at a work do tonight, I thought I’d make an effort to get off the sofa, and go to the newbie night at the central shooting range.

I’ve always really enjoyed shooting and archery. It’s not something I’ve done much of, but it’s one sport I seem to be reasonably good at, so I have enjoyed it when I’ve done it in the past. I taught kids archery for a while one summer when I was a student, and I’ve done the odd bit of clay pidgeon shooting, and pistol shooting once when I was a kid.

Anyway, I realised there was a central city shooting range near my apartment, and they do a newbie night on Thursdays. $15 plus $5 for ammo.

It was bloody good fun. I got in free because they thought the guy-friend with me was my boyfriend, which was a bonus.

I think I did reasonably well, although, the target is 25 feet away, so you have no idea how many you’ve hit until they pull the targets back. My target is below. Note that the dark black squares are where I hit the target and then patched it up with black stickers inbetween rounds (to save starting a fresh target each time).

(Click for larger view)

"The New Zealand Herald’s website fell victim to a page spoofing stunt earlier today, by hackers wanting to publicise their upcoming Kiwicon security conference in November" (From stuff.co.nz).

Awesome. Some super smart web geeks promoting their upcoming security conference Kiwicon managed to display a paraody story inject a story, seemingly on the New Zealand Herald website. Users browsing with Firefox will see the spoof article at http://tinyurl.com/3ykzqz

I reckon this is genius. There were no changes made to any files on  the NZ Herald’s server, it was simply a case of taking advantage of an XSS bug to insert some javascript into the page from the client side. Good luck to them - a really cool way to promote the conference.

I wonder if NZ Herald will report it as enthusiastically as Stuff.co.nz did though…