Sidingsound

A quick update on the weekend ahead: according to the friends we’re staying with, the area where we’ll be going may not have 3G network coverage (or at least not as much as I’m used to), and we won’t have any WiFi.

This means that whilst I should be able to get some Twitter and blog posts out (providing there’s at least GPRS or GSM data), I may have to wait a couple of days to upload any batches of photos (and more likely, any videos) I take while we’re away. Be sure to keep an eye on my Twitter feed and this blog for updates as I have them, and hopefully I’ll have more 3G access than I’m expecting to.

Posted by Wordmobi

This being the middle of the worst recession in most people’s lifetimes (as the media seems to take a little too much pleasure in reminding us most days), the Walker family is taking a somewhat modest summer break this year, and it starts this Saturday (raaaaay! ). It’ll be great to just go away and do/be somewhere different to the normal routine, and I’m looking forward to it a lot—not just because it’s a holiday…

…but in true Sidingsound style, it’ll give me the first proper test of whether I can ‘run’ this blog, and post multimedia to it, all from my mobile phone

I’m calling this a “road trip”, even though we’re not likely to be driving that far by US standards. We’re going to stay with some friends in south Wales for a couple of days, and then… well, you’ll just have to wait and see. I’m planning to blog the journey and the places we visit—certainly in words (this blog and Twitter), and depending on access to 3G data and/or WiFi hotspots, in photos (Flickr and/or Picasa) and videos (YouTube and (suitably fast data connection permitting) Qik).

By the time we go away, I intend to set up a separate page at the blog, with an embedded Google Map so that you can view photos by their geotagged information (i.e. they’ll show up as markers on the map), and hopefully any videos which I can upload while we’re out. I’ll also tag any Flickr photos, YouTube videos, etc. with “walkerroadtrip09″, which should help you find them.

More details nearer the weekend…

You may be aware (or probably not) that I have a few other outlets online for my various jotterings, pics, vids (occasionally) and so on. It’s been a while since I referred to many of them in any depth, and I don’t actually remember mentioning them all together, so here is my attempt to corral my online “presences” (or at least the ones I use much) into one post, in no particular order…

• I’ve been saving photos to our Flickr account since at least 2005, though I didn’t start using the service in earnest until 2006. The majority of our photos are there, although lately I’ve been considering a move to Picasa Web Albums, owing to a few advantages it currently has over Flickr (e.g. no limit on the number of items in a photoset RSS feed—Flickr can only output the first fifty—and apparently, better integration with Blogger (a fellow Google-owned service). However, with over 550 photos in Flickr, and no easy way I know of to migrate, I think I’ll be sticking with Flickr for the time being.
• For about the past year, I’ve posted regularly to my Twitter feed—i.e. long before the media found out that Stephen Fry rather likes Twitter and thus made it the Next Big Web Thing Usually, I “tweet” at least a couple of times a day, most days, though my usage fluctuates depending on where I am, what I’m doing, etc. It’s probably the Web service I use most often, and is therefore most likely the best way to keep up with what I’m generally up to.
• About two months ago, I discovered Delicious, where you can save Web bookmarks and comment on them (a sort of “bookmark blog”. To cut a long story short: here’s my Delicious page.
• I dabble with video, but have only posted very occasionally to the video pages I have set up so far: my blip.tv and Qik accounts. My videos go out under the name “Digital Ramyun”, which will be the name of my video blog if I ever get the time to make it regularly! As I write, I am also setting up a YouTube channel for Digital Ramyun, so that the many more who use that service will be able to tune in, but more to the point, because YouTube integrates a bit better with another service I’ve just signed up for…

As of today, ladies and gentlemen, I have joined Tumblr. Basically, Tumblr is one way of integrating many different kinds of content into one big “super-blog”, so if by some immense stretch of the imagination you were hoping to find all my different writings, tweets, videos, photo uploads and so on, all in one handy location… well, here is Digital Ramyun @ Tumblr, to provide you with your regular fix of all things Tim Walker-esque.

My Tumblr page is currently very much “out of the box”, but I’ll be customising it with new feeds, visual tweaks and so on, just as soon as I figure out how to do most of them It currently pulls together my Twitter updates, Flickr photos, Delicious bookmarks and YouTube video uploads, and you’ll also see posts from the Sidingsound blog, once I find out why Tumblr doesn’t seem to like the details I’m putting in.

And before I go: no, I haven’t joined Facebook yet, but I suspect it’s only a matter of time now…