Ok, its not like doing the London Marathon, or a parachute jump, but it is an easy and accessible way for people to take part in a charity event, raise some cash and have some fun doing it. The charity the money goes to is The Prostate Cancer Charity.

The Movember promo video;

There really is no-more to explain, its about raising money for a good cause, and growing some facial hair. Shave clean on 31st October and choose a stlye to grow into… (see below for style guide…)

Do one of two things now;

1) commit to growing a Mo, and get some people to sponsor you, or,

2) put your hand in your pocket and hand over some cash for the cause.

Im going to be taking part along with a number of other friends, and im going to document it with daily mug-shots on the web.

Click here to join my team – http://uk.movember.com/register/17780

Click here to send some cash to the cause by sponsoring me. – https://www.movember.com/uk/donate/your-details/member_id/62974

Dig-deep people !!!

Movember Style-guide…

Movember Styles

Im going to start and get to grips with the best system for us with WordPress.

Seesmic

Seesmic allows you to post longer than clips than 12 Seconds. Integrates well with WordPress, allowing you to record and post from within the WP interface, this is then published in WP and posted to your Seesmic account and Twitter should you want it to.

12Seconds

Testing more vloging tools and methods on 12seconds.tv

This uses the 12seconds plugin and shortcode to grab my feed, but its not ;
[12suser username="swinhoe" size="fat"]

Youtube

As-yet no WP plugin to record direct from the admin UI.

Vimeo – does not allow recording and posting from webcam direct to the platform.

To summarise, and i may review this at any point, I think Seesmic is going to win here. Its built right into the WordPress UI, so you can blog from the admin of your site, and its pushed to the Seesmic site and Twitter automatically, and its not forced to be a mere 12 seconds.

Youtube is cool, and will have a greater level of exposure for the larger audience, but you can work with that to get them to your site or blog are negate the issue. But I’ll prefer to keep Youtube for edits and films.

12Seconds. Well, its ok, but its not very long, and the audio compression is awful as you’ll hear below…

NOOOOOO on 12seconds.tv

Addendum

The other way….
Test video blog – via the iSight and uploaded to WordPress.
This page http://support.wordpress.com/videos/, indicates that you can upload your own video into WordPress, these could easily be recorded from an iSight and posted straight to the server. However, this appears not to be working currently, if I find out more this post will be updated. (There is the drawback with this method that the video is only posted to the WP install and not to other social media platforms…).

One of my pet-projects at the moment is the information site for Beadnell Bay – http://www.beadnellbay.info.

On it Ive created a page specifically for the surf report that im providing for the area (http://www.beadnellbay.info/surf-check/), and Ive been looking for an efficient way of running the content.

Its really not that hard, you go to the beach, take a photo, go back to the office, upload the image to the web server, and hey-presto, you have a surf report. But, doing this every day will take up more tim than is ideal, and is very repetitive.

So how can we make the process more streamlined ? how can it be easier ?

I had tried a few ideas, and had searched for the best solution online, and the best I had come=up with was to use Yahoo Pipes to push the latest image from a Flickr group into the page. The pipe is here if you want a look -

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=tgsFay003hGYXDqQBR50VA.

However this is not really what I wanted. The images do not display large enough, and whilst its nice running it through Flickr, linking out to the set is not ideal.

Enter technology and the perfect solution.

Apple iPhone

Im already using my iPhone to take the photograph and push it to the Flickr group, so ideally I wanted was something as easy to use but with a btter web presentation.

Enter the right application, and a little bit of AJAX.

FTP Picture upload provides a simple and easy way to FTP any picture from your iPhone to the web server of your choice. With a little tweaking, it was up and running in 10 minutes and i had the right image on the server.

On the page I could now print the latest image as uploaded form my iPhone. Fantastic.

However the image being displayed could not be identified as recent. How where users to know that the shot was taken today ? or even this week ?

What I wanted was a script that could find out when the shot was taken and print that to the page, telling the users the image was recently updated.

JavaScript alone can not do this, but the helpful people at http://twitter.com/javascripthelp quickly pointed out that the XML Http Request can grab the Last Modified date from the header of any file on your server.

With that, I searched, found the right piece of JavaScript and then set it all in motion. (code is below).

The surf report image now displays, is enlargeable, and has the upload date and time printed next to it. And all automated via the iPhone.

Along with this, I post a text update via Twitter and you get a pretty decent surf report.

******************  Example Code ******************

<script type=”text/javascript”>

var xmlhttp=false;
try
{
xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject(“Msxml2.XMLHTTP”); /* for IE < 5 */
}
catch (e)
{
try
{
xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject(“Microsoft.XMLHTTP”);
}
catch (E)
{
xmlhttp = false;
}
}

/* mozilla & opera */
if (!xmlhttp && typeof XMLHttpRequest!=’undefined’)
{
xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
}

var upDated

function getUpdated(){

xmlhttp.open(“HEAD”, “MyPic.JPG”,true);
xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=function() {
if (xmlhttp.readyState==4) {
upDated = xmlhttp.getResponseHeader(“Last-Modified”);
document.getElementById(“theDate”).innerHTML = upDated;
}
}
xmlhttp.send(null)
}

</script>

</head>
<body onload=”getUpdated();return false;”>
<img src=”MyPic.JPG” alt=”MBP_box” width=”500″ />
<br/>Picture updated on – <p id=”theDate”>Updating…</p>

Half an hour on the harbour with the camera proved quite worth-while.

View from above

Harbour boats

Footprints

Marram interference

Lobser Pots with Kilns

Harbour tackle

Mooring ropes

Sand texture

Sailing Club yachts

There are bigger versions in the Beadnell Harbour Flickr set should you need them.

There are a couple of projects being worked on, in the ‘slow-burner’ style that will come to surface soon.

One of the days has me in front of the camera this time with me as the focus for James’s final photography project.

A few extract snaps are below as a spoiler, the final series will be much tighter.

Quiver shot

Skim-boarding at Beadnell Bay

The Kite / Batman shot

Searching.... (sorry Rip Curl)

Surfboard silhouette

Beach walk

Point break... almost

The 'launch'

Grassy detail

Skimboard hack

Dune walking

More when the exhibition opens from this series.

Had a moment of fun creating a nice business card graphic from a lobster pot at the harbor too…

Lobster Pot

A weekend of drinking and water sports – in the freezing arctic winds – has left me somewhat destroyed.

Skimboarding at Beadnell Bay

Getting back to the desk and the safety of the internet landscape was pleasant, untill it all kicked off again.

Lobster Pot design for a business card

James has to hand in his final photography project on friday, and with the seagulls not playing-ball, i was roped in for an all-day photo-shoot and editorial profile to complete the job.

Then, I found out with a hugely sad heart that a good friend of mine from school, a fellow snowboarder, sailor, surfer and lover-of-life was killed in february whist cycling to work in Notting Hill.

Eilidh’s Memorial Ride from Giles Carlin on Vimeo.

The world is a more than a little worse-off without Eilidh Cairns in it. So sad.

And then then twenty minutes after finding out that news, this news arrived;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8035175.stm

Ben Southall is the new caretaker for the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia. Congratualtions Ben !!.

After last year and the trek around Africa (http://www.afritrex.com) he deserves some time off !.

I look forward to visiting….

Here’s the original Youtube clip for the job.

1) I should really be a farmer, or a fisherman. I’m from so far north people often have no idea where i mean. Most of the folks from around my home village are traditional tradesmen, as is my family background.

2) Cold saltwater runs through my veins. I started surfing in my early teens – in the North sea. Surfing, and sliding sideways has been with me ever since.

3) I believe. Not in god, or the lottery, but in other things. Some of them are quite conspiracy-esque, but i still like believing in them. If this confuses you, search Google video for ‘Zeitgeist’.

4) Im well known for the web-side of my life, building and running websites, but im also an avid producer of video and VJ material too. Ive played video in New Zealand, Germany, Norway and lots of the UK for many artists both large and small.

5) Despite loving the things, i am quite allergic to cats. (ok, thats not terribly interesting – but there had to be a weird one…)

6) I have a bit of a facny for street-art, stencils and spray-cans. Good friends involved in the london scene have grown my interest, I wouldnt say im a collector, but i follow and visit shows avidly.

7) Having used PC’s, Mac’s and various other audio-visual kit, i think i might be nurturing a festish for Linux.  That scares me slightly….

And so, for better or worse, seven snippets from me…  now, your turn…

My tags…

Suburbia
WebRat
Otaqui
Cisnky
Holgere
Noseblunt
Klaustrofobik

Now it’s your turn….

Rules as copied from Plasticsnow’s blog:

• Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post – some random, some weird.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

And im not proud of that, since i went and bought one, and have wanted one for a while… and now its all screwed-up.

Having now recieved a new phone, new contract, new insurance, and new round of tele-sales-muppet-phonecalls, I *think* i have a device that works, will have my number – eventually – and will hopefully change the way I work.

A few of the apps that the device is already sporting, include, Flickup, Fring, eBay, Twitterific, Last.fm, Delicious, RememberTheMilk, Oakley Surf Reports, Snow Reports, Pro RSS, Evernote, Google Earth  and some others. I’ll update this blog on how they perform sooner or, probably, later.

Along with the pain presented by Carphone Warehouse and O2, I am also suffering from a decent bout of man-flu, and have been for about 5 days. Less than fun, it has involved alot of sleeping… and not much else.

Ive watched the same film three times and not yet seen the end…  :/

We’re also working on a couple of projects in the background at the moment, things that will build momentum over the winter and produce work for the dark months. Applecore is one. Not much there right now, but its a winter project, and will tick over.

In other news, watching Fully Flared has taken up some considerable time this week, loving the insane effects at the start…  Watch it on Google Video.

Add to the iPhone fun a spot of socialising with Whatleydude and the MGoL crew..

And we had a bit of a laugh at the Newton virus malarkey…

Ive been very busy over the las few weeks, touring europe and working on various projects, as well as taking some time off to visit people.

Lets see, where to begin…

Well Easter weekend was spent up in Beadnell visiting family and friends.
A fairly uneventful  couple of days was punctuated by the train home, which i had arranged to catch with Charlie. We got to Berwick with plenty of time, and had intended to get a weekend-first seat at the head of the train.

Sadly, this is what everyone else was thinking…  it was a busy train on a bank-holiday monday after-all. Infact not only were we unlucky, but everyone was. All of first call was booked. And it looked like we were spending the full 4 hours to Kings Cross standing.

Luckily two seats emptied at Newcastle and we were in the right place at the right time. There were alot of irrate people on the train, and alot of people standing, but i dont have any issue with the train company. They sold booked seats. If you board a train without a reservation, thats the chance you take. Bank holidays are busy.

We hit london late on monday night and i headed home to pack, in the morning I was off to Austria, Mayrhofen and the JibVid.

Mayrhofen rocked, the JibVid setup was smooth, the teams late, and the various staff and crew sorted.

The riding was crappy, with soft slushy snow in warm spring conditions, and my foot was still mending from the ligament damage, so i decided not to go hard on anything… i just hit the park for the first two days… which works well, since straight-lining everything was the call.

It has to be said, the park out there is top rate. Cudos to the Penken shapers.

We were introduced to Scotties (Scotland Yard) on the first night and had instantly found our home-from-home. Cold Erdinger flowed and even colder Jagermeister was issued in test-tubes. Fantastic.

The next couple of days we indulged in the JibVid, scoping the Vans Penken Park, meeting teams, setting up, being briefed, hanging with the Oakley staff and crew and then the eventual running of the contest on the thursday. Friday however was the real highlight, with perfect blue skies joining us for the Best Trick Contest, and of course the hand-in deadline for the teams. In the evening it all kicked off with the film viewing, judging and awards, Clash DJs spinning and Devils Gun raging.

Big congrats to the Onboard crew who stole first place from the infamous Lock Down Projects…

Photos of the contest here.

JibVid Press release here.

This years 15 films here.

So, with JibVid over, we thought we had it sorted… two more days in Mayrhofen to cover the research we needed, then off to Laax.
Almost. We had almost forgotten about Snowbombing…

By the saturday evening, it was clear that something was happening to Mayrhofen. The streets were awash with northern-english accents, posters and branding was everywhere in town… had we forgotten that Snowbombing was one of the biggest prties in the Alps ?

We spent saturday in Scotties hiding from the invaders, drinking Erdinger and Jager on-piece. Consoling each other and talking into cordless 1970′s telephones stolen from the hotel by the fabulous duo of Vicki Warner and Vicci Miller (complete with broken collar bone).

Sunday we decided to venture up onto the other side of the resort, as yet unvisited by us. We walked the short distance to the bottom station of the Ahorn, and bumped into Marc and Brian fro the Clash DJ crew. Once we reached the top, it was decided that snowboarding was out and drinking was in. A quick survey found us all at the nearest mountain restaurant.. including Marc with his slipped-disk.

After a brief chat and much joviality, we decided on a quick run. A good choice as it goes. The simple, short, wide run had rollers-a-plenty and left you wanting more. Sadly the newly visible White Lounge, that we found from the chairlift scuppered plans of riding, again, and we dragged the Clash crew off to the Iglu village for tunes and beer. The weather was stunning and i used the opportunity to roast my face and forearms by refusing to wear anything but a tshirt all day.

One beer turned into many, and before we had said “four Jagereisters please” it had turned 3pm and the fellas were off back to london, the only thing left for us was to ride back down the mountain and complete our days work. Oh, and for Gaby to stack it, and destroy her ACL and Medial ligaments in her left knee.. making her even more useless than me and my bad ankle.

Injuries aside we explored the bar at the bottom of the home-run. Sunk a couple more, then went home for a quick nap before dinner.

Monday – and all was back to work…. we were in super-power mode. we tied-up all the loose ends with research, photography and contacts and then drove out of Mayrhofen bound for Laax and the Brits.

As it goes, it wasnt that bad a drive, it took longer than it should have, we took a wrong turn, and i was stopped and issued a speeding fine by the Austrian police. So about fair i thought. (all hire cars should go at 160 kmph right ?)

We eventually arrived in Laax and found some digs in the recommened Capricorn hotel. The weather was thick and heavy, and you could feel the snow pushing in.

The Riders Palace was just round the corner and we were well setup for a fun few days dodging British champions skiers and snowboarders. As it turns out, everyone else from Mayrhofen was doing the same thing, and the Crap bar and restaurants were laden with riders, staff and industry types we had seen in Austria the day before.

The poor weather and lack of any riding ability between us hampered our exploration of the mountain somewhat, and i found to my dismay that Laax has LOTS of drag lifts… so i decided to drink.
And drink we did.

On the Tuesday night coming off the hill, and after three pints in in the Crap Bar, we headed back to the hotel to change. We got as far as the Riders Palace and decided to have one more…
We immediately bumped into friends and found that the fellas i was arguing with over world politics were actually the headline act for tonights party. Well, what could we do but take them out for pizza ?

The South Central guys were a blast, and we bounced stories and jokes all night before they headed back to prepare for their set. We had a quick change (it was 10pm and i was still in snowboard boots and googles…) then headed back for the festivities. South Central ROCK. End of story.

We socialised, networked and met peope, including Kathryn Miller, winner of 5 medals this year in the various womens snowboarding disciplines – top girl, we love her. Especially her hunger for dry slope kickers and body armour.

The following two days were hampered by heavy snow, high winds and low spirits, we truly had lived beyond our bodies means.
We tied up the work that was needed, drove around the resorts covering the bits we had missed, and packed up ready to leave.
Thursday at 9am and we were driving out of the alps to Innsbruck away from heavy snow…. it felt so wrong.

By thursday night, after a long exit procedure from Gatwick, we were starring at the somewhat brighter, but still depressing sight of the London’s urban sprawl…

Roll-on next season… or at least the summer and beach-time… 

YAY !!

Now just the hard part of the twelve months on the road to complete ! – Go fellas – Go !

Also, the fellas over at GoogleMaps have been busy, releasing a ‘terrain’ overlay version of the maps UI.
Its very yummy..  and more than handy with the upcoming trip to Italy next week, we now have a completely unified mapping source for all our needs…  go Google.

And, the nice peeps in the Googleplex , have added saving the world to their to-do list !- rock on !