http://www.mhmediaonline.eu/index.php My own mobile view of life on the streets, as it happens: a realtime blog for those with short attention spans.. en-GB hourly 4 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://www.mildewhall.com/lotr.jpghttp://www.mildewhall.com/bigblog.phphttp://www.mildewhall.com/BigBlogArchive.php?2781So much for being a road warrior! Not only is the T-Mobile 3G signal missing most of the time, the ordinary GSM signal is too! I'm hoping to write and email my report on the way back, but that looks like it may be impossible. We'll see later..http://www.mildewhall.com/BigBlogArchive.php?2780I'm off to Stockport today to see a client and am now on the 0747 train from Basingstoke. I was actually up out of bed at 0430-an early start even by my standards, mainly due to the after-effects of a colleague's leaving do last night. Yes, http://www.mildewhall.com/BigBlogArchive.php?2779I've decided that the existing gallery design doesn't do enough to actually show off the images, so over the next week I'll be removing and replacing images, reducing image count and increasing image size (and quality). Please bear with me while the change is taking place.http://www.mildewhall.com/BigBlogArchive.php?2778Dear all .. I have now put a few pix of the Battersea Power Station visit up as a gallery. I took many more than this of course but these will give you an idea of what it was like and also just how big it all was! The link is in "More..". Enjoy! http://www.mildewhall.com/BigBlogArchive.php?2777YES!!! I've been accepted onto the MagCloud magazine publishing beta trial, and after talks with V at the weekend we've decided to go into partnership and produce "Black and White" magazine. It'll be a fusion of some very hard-hitting verse and prose accompanied by dark, urban images. We have a disturbingly similar outlook on life and we're going to get that across in our content. If all goes to plan it'll be available by the end of August. Stay tuned (and please buy it!). http://www.mildewhall.com/BigBlogArchive.php?2776Never let it be said that my trips to London are spent idly wandering around: this weekend with V was pretty full-on again, with me arriving at her place by 9am, then time for a quick cuppa before setting off on the train to the Battersea Power Station open day hosted by the current set of developers, REO. The building gracefully dominates the entire area but we initially had a little trouble finding the entrance: a couple of locals put us right though and we were soon joining a sizeable crowd http://www.mildewhall.com/BigBlogArchive.php?2775This weekend i'm off to London again to see V but this time i'm armed with some serious camera kit as we're off to shoot a major London landmark. This is one of a just a couple of public photo opportunities afforded by the current property management company, and bearing in mind the radical plans for the area, not one to be missed. Personally, neither of us agree with what's going to done as it'll change the entire character of the area (think Nu Docklands) but this time there's less of a community to be affected. It'll also be V's first time on an urban shoot with me and if she enjoys it, we have plans to later do a night urban shoot too. As you can see from the picture though, the shitty British weather is against up once more so it'll undoubtedly be 'dark, moody shots'. Check out the web site late this weekend to see what happened.http://www.mildewhall.com/BigBlogArchive.php?2774Running a publicly-visible server of any kind on the Internet is like being a parent: you have to make sure that it is protected and you take every possible precaution to keep it from harm. Why then are so many organisations running servers with no passwords and leaving themselves open to attack and abuse? Suppliers of security software would have us believe that the major threat comes from the uneducated Joe Public, but recent events seem to point to educational and government establishments http://www.mildewhall.com/BigBlogArchive.php?2773It must be summer when the lame social cripples come out into the daylight and start trying to hack peoples' computer systems. Well, it's actually an everyday occurrence here and I have to keep a constant eye open for nasty tricks: that Russian porn spammer was back briefly until I blocked him at the router firewall - can't believe the nerve of the guy. Tonight though there have been quite a few exploit attempts based on widely-used content-management systems: all involve somehow planting a http://www.mildewhall.com/BigBlogArchive.php?2772Shortly after I'd left the apartment will the broadband connection working intermittently, I got a phone call from BT customer services to discuss my claim for "financial loss" during the original outage. Basically they said I wasn't entitled "due to the circumstances" but I wasn't too fussed as I'd been able to use a backup during that time. It transpired that the previous theft had resulted in an 1800-pair cable disappearing, and this time they'd nearly lost a 2700-pair cable! The soaring http://www.mildewhall.com/BigBlogArchive.php?2771It must be coincidence that the ADSL connection keeps disappearing briefly (but annoyingly) and BT engineers are working outside the apartment block.. Apologies if you've had problems connecting!http://www.mildewhall.com/BigBlogArchive.php?2770In a move that will surprise and delight ethical shoppers worldwide, the international clothing industry recently announced that as from August 2008 it would start labelling all garments indicating the amount of human misery generated during manufacture. In a leaked document, it was disclosed that a combination of worldwide recession and increasing consumer choice had forced the industry to finally "get a conscience" in a bid to keep people buying. The so-called "HMI" (Human Misery Index) labels http://www.mildewhall.com/BigBlogArchive.php?2769My love affair with things Apple ended some time ago after my kool laptop died in spectacular, expensive fashion just out of warranty: I replaced it with a Windoze laptop running that leper of the OS world, Vista. I haven't completely divorced Apple though as I have a big investment in iTunes and sometimes use Quicktime for video. Also, to give Apple their due, they update both packages regularly, but just lately they've been slipping in "little extras" that have actually pissed me off no end. http://www.mildewhall.com/BigBlogArchive.php?2768Does anyone remember a hard-hitting cartoon TV series called "Monkey Dust" in which famous comedian David Baddiel was cast as an "emergency service", such was his power and influence? I know it sounds comical but you have to liken this approach to the government's approach to knife crime: why, only today, the new Mayor of London Boris Johnson has publicly called on footballers to "help stop crime": perish the thought that we should drag the police away from filling in their paperwork to try and http://www.mildewhall.com/BigBlogArchive.php?2767The next assignment in my photoshoot calendar will the official public open day at Battersea Power Station, and V and I will be spending some of the day there. After that I'm planning a night shoot of the same location which should be interesting, if only from the point of view of gaining suitable access to a location that will provide good pictures. It's a long time since I've done a proper night shoot and I'm really looking forward to it: V is keen but nervous: we shall see.. More later.