Podcasting workstation management problems SOLVED!

Introducing the Advanced Podcast Platform™ from DE:CODED.

Our ingenious, hi-tech mobile podcast platform solves all of your workstation management problems.

It's all based on an MDF kitchen shelf, which allows you to clamp the mic wherever you are. But there's more to it than that!

How we made the DE:CODED podcast

When we chose to make a podcast we knew we would have a lot to learn...

This is how we made the DE:CODED podcast

At the end of 2020 we decided to create a podcast.

Five months later we have published the final episode of series one. (We're definitely doing a second series.)

Some information and advice for those wishing to do the same follows...

Creating a new security podcast

I left journalism and started SE Labs, a security testing lab, just over five years ago. But something of the media must have remained in my brain, because this week we launched our podcast.

There was an awful lot to learn, both technically and otherwise. Some of the best advice I read and heard came via the BuzzSprout platform, which we decided to use in the end.

It feels like there are more podcasts about podcasting than anything else. Meta.

But our podcast, De:Coded, is about security and how it applies to normal people. Normal people, of course, have personal lives and some work in the security business. Our hope is to provide useful information to everyone, but suspect people working in info-security will get the most from our episodes.

Blogger to WordPress URLs (permalinks)

If you have ever migrated a blog from Blogger to WordPress you might be worried that the links to your articles won't work anymore. And you would be right to be concerned.

There are lots of complicated things to pay attention to when moving a website from one hosting company or platform to another. In this article I'm going to cover the very specific issues around Blogger's handling of links vs. WordPress' approach.

Ergonomics part 2

Having previously written about the poor state of my office chair and my affection for energy drinks I was stunned not to be bowled over by Herman Miller and Red Bull in a stampede to sign me up to some incredibly lucrative sponsorship deals.

Instead I had to buy my own kit.

The chair

Back-, butt- and buck-saver

Ultimately I chose an on-sale, mesh-back chair from Staples. Specifically it was the Ergo Mesh Executive Chair, and incredibly comfortable it is too.

I'd always suspected that those who spend around £100 on an office chair will feel the benefit. Now I am sure.

It might look like something you'd see in the dentist's surgery, and it is probably too space-consuming for those who perch at a desk in the corner of cramped living quarters, but if you have the room this is a back-saver.

I struggle to imagine that if I spent £800 I'd be sitting even twice as comfortably.

I only wish I had taped myself assembling it. That farce would surely have gone viral on YouTube, earning me numerous lucrative sponsorship deals...

The drink

Blue Spark: Energy drink
of penny-pinching champions

I have long maintained that Red Bull is the least vile-tasting option on the market, while Emerge is one of the most effective.

Neither of these drinks hold any interest for me now.

What about the new 'Limited Edition' Red Bull drinks? They are, it is to be hoped, very limited because they actually beat Emerge for tasting horrible.

The discovery of the month, however, is Tesco's new Blue Spark energy drink.

Blue Spark is half the price of KX, the previously cheapest option at UK supermarket Tesco. KX is a strong contender in my book, being inexpensive, quite effective and with a flavour that nearly escapes the realms of unpleasantness.

Blue Spark has, on the face of it, identical ingredients to KX and I can't tell much difference in the taste, if indeed there is a difference.

But it only costs 35p a tin. Now that's a five-star budget-buy winner!

Ergonomics

A chair

I am a writer. I do other things to earn money but primarily I write as a profession and have done so since 1995.

That makes me both old and chair-bound. And the attractive face of a chair advertising campaign, I am sure you will agree.

Writing is my main job. It pays my mortgage and other bills. It's not a sideline. It is not a hobby. And it has been relatively good to me over the years.

Writers (and bloggers) often claim to be poor. I can empathise with this, as I work just a stone's throw from the work house mentioned so often in the works of Dickens. I've never been inside but it's just three doors down from my office at number 30 Cleveland Street.

Its proximity certainly helps keep things in perspective.

Regardless, I decided to look into the idea of buying a really good chair. I spend a lot of time sitting on one and, as it's my job to do so, I thought that maybe I should consider buying something better than the tatty £20 object I grabbed from Staples once, years ago.

My chair is rubbish. It's not particularly comfortable and, while it does rotate (much to the amusement of very young visitors to my office), I know for a fact (or, at least, suspect deeply) that any grown-ups who pass through my main work environment look upon my choice of seat with enormous, undisguised and vigorous disdain.

So I Googled phrases like, "best office chair" and, much to my own personal revulsion, "ideal blogger chair".

It seems I have a rather limited choice.

I could buy something dreadfully similar to that upon which I already repose heavily to replace my £20 Staples horror; opt for a John Lewis £100-or-so standard affair; or spend close to £1,000 on some crazy bit of Swedish ultra-design.

£800 or more for a chair sounds simply ridiculous. I hesitate to spend more than £20 on a bottle of brandy.

At the end of the day, I've always sat on £20 chairs (and drunk £20 brandy) and managed to make a living. I doubt a £100 leather number would help my back or productivity so it's incredibly hard to justify spending any serious change even on something that is possibly the most important tool in my office.

But maybe, just maybe, a really posh designer chair would make all the difference...

So here's my proposal. If you work for a swanky Swedish chair company, please send me a middle-of-the-range chair. Something good but not bonkers-expensive.

If I make £1,000 or more over my usual income while using your product I'll buy it and let everyone know.

And, if I fail to develop back problems in the next 20 years, I'll also update this blog to that effect.

In the meantime I'll perch on my decaying, cheap seat and keep on working away. If you are an aspiring writer I suggest you do likewise. It's not your chair that will keep you going. It's the RedBull*.

* If you work for RedBull, please send me a vast quantity of your energy drink, which is the least vile option on the market**.

** If you work for Emerge, please send me a vast quantity of your energy drink, which is possibly one of the most vile, but effective, options on the market.

HMV Twitter account reports mass staff firing

Twitter temporarily shut down soon
after the HMV posts were deleted

At 14:21 GMT the Twitter account used by entertainment outlet HMV started to send out some startling messages.

Apparently a mass staff sacking was taking place at the same time.

The messages were repeated by many Twitter users, who picked up on one message in particular that stated, "Just overheard our Marketing Director... ask 'How do I shut down Twitter?'"

As I and others started to track and copy the messages, tagged as #hmvXFactorFiring, it became clear that they were being deleted simultaneously.

Twitter then went offline sporadically, the site showing that, "Twitter is over capacity." This instability continued for some time.

UPDATE: At around 15:30 the BBC reported that HMV administrators announce 190 job losses. It wrapped up its report by mentioning the disgruntled Twitter messages.

Here is the complete list of messages. Start from the bottom to read them in order.

---

HMV Twitter account: @hmvtweets

Date: 31/01/2013

Time: Last (top) message sent around 14:40

---

5m
hmv @hmvtweets
Especially since these accounts were set up by an intern (unpaid, technically illegal) two years ago.

7m
hmv @hmvtweets
...and those hard working individuals, who wanted to make hmv great again, have mostly been fired, there seemed no other choice.

8m
hmv @hmvtweets
Under usual circumstances, we'd never dare do such a thing as this. However, when the company you dearly love is being ruined...

9m
hmv @hmvtweets
Just overheard our Marketing Director (he's staying, folks) ask "How do I shut down Twitter?" #hmvXFactorFiring

22m
hmv @hmvtweets
Sorry we've been quiet for so long. Under contract, we've been unable to say a word, or -more importantly - tell the truth #hmvXFactorFiring

23m
hmv @hmvtweets
There are over 60 of us being fired at once! Mass execution, of loyal employees who love the brand. #hmvXFactorFiring

25m
hmv @hmvtweets
We're tweeting live from HR where we're all being fired! Exciting!! #hmvXFactorFiring

Blogger and Google+

This morning Blogger asked me if I wanted to combine the account with my Google+ account.

I've largely ignored Google+ since it become obvious that TweetDeck, the tool I use for monitoring the limited number of social media networks I sign up to, was probably never going to support posting to Google+. After all, Twitter owns TweetDeck now and why would it add support for the competition?

However, there is now the possibility of having blog posts sent automatically to Google+. That is actually more convenient than pasting a headline and short comment into Twitter.

[You know, three years ago I would have read the above and just gone, "what?!" I don't know if I was better off in those days...]

Call to evil QR arms

Seen something interesting about QR code abuse? Have a Twitter account? #evilqr

I'll take the most interesting content you find and compile it into a report.

Desktop Blogging Software

I don't really 'do' blogging. One of the reasons is that my writing is published in a magazine and often republished on a website. There's no real reason to self-publish, and I doubt that anyone would be interested in my personal musings. I know for certain that I'm not.

However, this blog does exist. I update it using the standard Blogger web interface, which is a bit of a pain because what I see when I write it is not what I get. I usually have to edit and republish each post a few times. I'm not blaming Blogger - I probably don't know how to use it properly. The problem is, I don't care enough about blogging to learn either.

Today I received an email from Microsoft, letting me know about Windows Live Writer Beta, which lets you update your blog (Wordpress, Spaces, Blogger etc.) from a desktop application. That sounds handy for idiots like me. I've tried it. Is it any good? This post was done using it so we'll see...

Postscript: It worked fine, and the paragraph spacing is as I expected/hoped.