For anyone not able to attend, or in the audience and able to use whatever wifi connection we may have, you might like to check out the slides of my talk.

I suppose in part it is the idea of having to one photo a day. Very quickly I found myself not taking photos and instead waiting for "the photo". A flaw in myself, not in the 365 idea. Then I swung to the other extreme and started taking photos of just about everything. Then I found I didn't have enough time each day to sift through them to find "the photo". Within a few days, the passion for 365 left me.

But not the sense of intrigue. In my subconscious I rolled the idea around and obviously found a way to fit it to my habits. Rather than take one photo each day as a photolog of the year, why not take a whole bunch of photos to document a "normal" day in my life.

I loved the idea and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do it. I started thinking practically and I knew I would get distracted. I had to find a way to prompt myself to keep taking photos. Well, I sync parts of my calendar from my Mac to my phone so as to get alarms and be reminded. So, I just set a bunch of reminders in my phone. More about how I did that later.

Then, last Tuesday, I woke up and immediately started getting hassled by my phone to take photos. Mostly, I achieved it, too.

The idea was to take at least one photo every ten minutes throughout the day. In the fifteen hours (approximately) that I was doing this, I took over 130 photos, discarded some duplications and utterly rubbish photos, leaving me with 107, which I think works out at one photo every 8 and a half minutes. Result!

More about the photos

Many of the photos have a short description on them on Flickr. But here's an executive summary.

It starts far too early. I get insulted by some graffiti in the toilet (don't worry, it's supposed to be there). I grab t-shirt to wear and then set off for work (I was wearing more than just the t-shirt).

I cross the main road carefully, walk past the pub and get a train to Waterloo, then take the tube to Leicester Square and leave the Underground.

I tend to wander around London like a tourist, not like a Londoner. I don't stare at the floor and walk as fast as possible, I tend to look up and admire the wonderful scenery. But all to quickly I get to the very empty office and settle down at my desk. A little while later, Tim arrives and we set off in search of crumpets. Having duly consumed said crumpets, I get to work. Only to be disturbed by another alarm to take a photo. Now, I'm going to be spending most of the day at my desk, so this could be tricky. Fortunately, I have some toys and other random things on my desk, so I can always take photos of them close-up for filler if nothing else is happening.

Later, wandering around, I walk past some post-its and snigger to myself, then head into the wilderness.

Back at my desk, I get some wise words from Mr T (Quit your jibber-jabber!) and get on with some work, which I endeavour to document for our project manager. My computer also bugs me to get stuff done.

Taking a trip to the printer I am reminded of our recycling programme and consider chucking in a can of disappointment without even drinking it first. The whiteboard and excessive number of printouts catch my eye, as does my pirate sword. Then Tamsin, of weatherpixie fame stops by to prove she really does wear a dress occasionally, and even high heels.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are when we have our (not so) super-secret meetings at work, so I have to go out early to grab a sandwich or miss out on lunch. I snap a crafty image of the building work going on, on my way to the sandwich shop on the corner of Neal Street. Returning, I find that one of the lifts has broken again and that we're still out of Diet Coke. I need to compare some stuff side-by-side and so I plug in my external monitor for a bit more elbow room, but then it's time to head off for the meeting. I consume my sparkling lemon beverage and eat my sandwich as we talk. I'm not the only one with a sandwich fortunately. Steve and Neil provide unwitting poses for my camera until we're done and return to web development.

Later, we all get a bit grumpy at the lack of Mac support in our video player, and I spend a fair bit of time with Steve working on a new site, and so have to resort to bothering him with my camera to remain on track.

Chris Kaminski provides some much-needed quality diet Coke, and I take a quick loo break (safe for work). I then queue up some music to listen to, and photograph another desk ornament.

Later, I bother Tim by shoving my camera right at his work and Brad brings us chocolate (he's awesome) and I notice a Rorschach Test on an old printout. The battle between good and evil continues, and I keep up the Steve bothering as The Broom comes by to make sure everyone's busy working. Kerin drops off my new Xbox 360 media remote with it's curious warning signs and I still keep up Steve bothering.

Of course, the downside of having my reminders for taking photos in my phone is that it's then much easier to take my photos with the phone and not with a proper camera. So I end up with many botched photos. More on the sheer frustration I had using my phone as a camera later.

I wander off to the cafeteria for some food, past some boxes and get myself some seriously expensive fruit. As I consume the grapes, I sit back and admire my handiwork with tape. But the pressure to wash the grapes down with something that isn't Coke Zero becomes overwhelming and I head out in our mirrored lifts to the local newsagent. I get nearly run down by the emergency services, and then get tempted to buy some CDs but resist.

I head back up and consume something nicer than Coke Zero. Murray returns to his desk for just moments and I get told I'm working too hard so I stare out of the window for a bit. All of this diet Coke becomes too much and I again visit the loo (still work safe). There's just time for a visit from Mike, some quick Tim bothering, a snap of ouch on Neil's desk before we head off, leaving Chris expressing his displeasure over Coke Zero ("do not want!").

Heading out, Steve grabs a last drink (he's not bothered by the lack of Diet Coke, he's a Sprite drinker) and we wander past some places and landmarks to get to Waterloo.

I am briefly amused by some incorrect signage on the train before it pulls out. We stop at Queenstown Road on the way to Wandsworth Town. Walking to the local shops I get annoyed by some government propoganda ("less is more, war is peace"), cross a busy road safely and then mooch past a string of cheap takeaway places to get to the newsagents for, yes, more Diet Coke.

As I near home I think I spot my cat. I whistle to him, and he comes running over, rubs my ankles a bit then leads the way to home where he jumps up onto the garden wall rather than come into the house. I leave him there, come inside and slip into something more comfortable. And remember to take my ID card off too.

Settling into my bean bag, I've missed The Simpsons but get to watch a bit of Babylon 5 instead. Supper is on the way, and I have to taste-test the sauce before returning to the beanbag and Babylon 5.

I grab a couple of snaps of cans and other stuff on the sofa, check some software and download some files really quickly. Then the laptop goes away for supper, and we watch some TV via the computer. Satiated, I relax and watch the show, then lastly play a few games of Wii Tennis before bed.

That's just a normal work day in the life of Norm. Any comments, please leave them on the photoset itself.

Last Thursday night you would have found me giving one third of a talk on microformats to the Web Standards Group in London.

I was up first, giving a quick walk through the history of microformats, and comparing the semantic web (lowercase s, lowercase w) that these create to the Semantic Web (uppercase S, uppercase W) initiative from the W3C. I illustrated the flaws in the most common argument against microformats (XML namespaces) and highlighted the rapid adoption of microformats in the real world in the year-and-a-bit since the launch.

Then Jeremy Keith delved into the semantics used in marking up microformats, and on developing a nose for content that can be marked up and shared.

And lastly Drew McLellan in a presentation dramatically entitled "Can your website be your API?" talked about how a site using microformats could be used to implement an API for some forms of information about an individual.

After the talks, there was time for a bit of Q&A, and then we retired to the usual gaff of Pub Standards for beer and more conversation.

Hear and see

• Mark Norman Francis: Introduction and History of Microformats
• Jeremy Keith: Implementing Microformats
• Drew McLellan: Can Your Website Be Your API?
• Podcast RSS feed

I became very used to just being able to walk away from my Mac and having several things automatically happen, including the screensaver starting (so no-one can monkey with my computer), iTunes pausing and Adium setting an "away" status. Now, not so much.

So, I wrote myself a little bit of AppleScript magic, and using Quicksilver bound it as a trigger to Command-Escape. Now things happen nearly automatically — I just have to remember to bosh that key combination as I walk away.

The only problem I have with it currently is detecting when I've really returned. I'm just testing for the screen saver going away, but that also happens if someone presses a key or moves the mouse. I don't yet know how to detect that I really have unlocked the computer. But it's a good start.

If you'd like to use it, either grab the compiled version, or copy and paste the code below into script editor and save it somewhere useful on your machine.

-- no point doing anything if the screensaver is already running
tell application "System Events"
    set screen_saver to (exists process "ScreenSaverEngine")
end tell
if screen_saver then
    return
end if

-- first off, start the screensaver 
-- (everything else can happen after this, so we can be confident of starting 
-- the script and just walking away)
tell application "SEC Helper"
    start screensaver
end tell

-- capture the current state of the computer, for restoration later
set screen_saver to true
tell application "Adium"
    set status_message to (my status message)
    set status_type to (my status type)
end tell

-- capture the current state of iTunes
set itunes_playing to false
tell application "SEC Helper"
    set itunes_running to check application availability "iTunes"
end tell
if itunes_running then
    tell application "iTunes"
        if player state is playing then
            set itunes_playing to true
            pause
        end if
    end tell
end if

-- set the "away" status in Adium, but only if you are signed in and available
tell application "Adium"
    if status_type is available then
        set my status type to away
        set my status message to "Not at my computer"
    end if
end tell

-- now loop, until the screensaver has finished (user has returned)
repeat while screen_saver
    delay 5
    tell application "System Events"
        set test_ss to (exists process "ScreenSaverEngine")
	if test_ss is false then
	    set screen_saver to false
	end if
    end tell
end repeat

-- restore Adium's state
tell application "Adium"
    set my status type to status_type
    try
        set my status message to (status_message)
    on error
        set my status message to ""
    end try
end tell

-- restore iTunes if it was paused
if itunes_playing then
    tell application "iTunes"
        play
    end tell
end if

As he writes, he finds it difficult to understand why there is some criticism over such a move. I can't understand it myself, but then I wasn't an internet famous blogger or web developer when I started here. I was just a code monkey who had played around with CSS in his spare time.

In a recent podcast for the run-up to d.Construct Jeremy Keith accused me of being brainwashed because I like where I work, and think it's exciting. He was probably being less than serious in his own inimitable deadpan way. But then, there is many a true word spoken in jest.

I interviewed for Yahoo! back in June 2004, for a position in the User Experience Design department as the second dedicated web developer in the team. Well, technically the third, as Murray Rowan had been there for years, but his job had been creating tools for web site building and a focus on accessibility.

Since then, I've watched the team grow from four web development people to nearly twenty, with more to come soon. And each and every one I would consider to be of a world-class standard. Frankly, I doubt you could get past our extensive interview process without being more than competent at developing sites with web standards.

(Speaking of the interview process, I was the person who gave Drew our technical tests. I found it rather amusing to ask him "So, what benefits do you see when building sites using web standards?" and to press him for an answer as well.)

A lot of the people who have joined us have expressed similar sentiments to Drew's: I get to work somewhere where I don't have to fight for best practises. That being with others who think the same way inspires and excites.

From my perspective, working at Yahoo! Europe is incomparable, for a developer in the UK. Where else do I get to work on sites with millions of visitors, where web standards are de rigeur, where considering performance, reusability, internationalisation, sharing and education is (excuse the pun) the norm?

The basic structure of the talk was:

1. use a couple of quotes taken from the what are microformats? page, and one from Jeremy Keith's talk In Praise of the Hyperlink to introduce the concept
2. quickly describe the W3C's Semantic Web (note capitalisation) vision and progress over the past five years
3. describe the progress made in just over one year by microformats in creating the semantic web (note lower case)
4. note adoption of microformats by some small EU Yahoo! properties and some big US Yahoo! properties
5. briefly name and describe some microformats (without code examples)
6. show how hCard can be used by the Technorati contacts feed service to take the list of speakers from this year's d.Construct and them to my address book
7. show how hCalendar can be used by the Technorati events feed service to take the schedule from this year's d.Construct and add it to my calendar
8. take questions from the audience

End result: a few more people at Yahoo! Europe understand exactly what microformats are and why I consider them important; a handful are now excited enough to go learn more (and not just in the web development team); and I should learn to save my Keynote files before rebooting my machine.

Sometime after that, I saved up lots of money and bought myself a home computer. I played so many games on that, I broke the keyboard.

However, even in the modern day with vast, twisting plots, beautifully realised 3D environments and truly terrifying action I still yearn to play board games.

The downside is that most people I am friends with are not based in my part of the world. This means I very rarely get to play board games. So, sometimes I play them in computer form.

Other, older reviews

• Review on the Mac Mind
• Review on About This Particular Macintosh

Other useful reviews

• Mobileburn N80 review
• About Nokia blog review
• All About Symbian N80 review

So, I thought I'd write what I found most useful. I had hoped that that would be the design panels, since I already know CSS pretty much inside and out and JS pretty well. As a person with seemingly no design sensibilities I thought it might be enlightening to hear Jon Hicks, Veerle Pieters and Cameron Moll talk about great design. In the end I thought a lot of it was great information, if you already understood design or even had some creative leanings. I didn't get much out of it except a greater appreciation of the point of carefully thought-out typography; and finding some amusement watching Simon fire up OmniGraffle to start drawing squirrels.

I also found Andy Clarke's presentation quite thought-provoking and worthwhile, in terms of getting inspiration for design (and semantic structure?!?) in the world around us, rather than in just copying other sites we like the look of.

But by far the most resonant thing was a single comment made in the Javascript libraries panel, I think from Stuart Langridge (you'd think if it was such a great comment, I'd bloody remember who said it, wouldn't you?). The comment was that most back-end programmers don't understand JavaScript, because in their world there's never a situation where the server's programs just don't run but the server is still running.

Now (casually ignoring situations where perl hasn't been installed on a server so that scripts break, or other such things…) I found this one of those "Of course, now it's been said out loud, it's obvious" moments. I always had this niggling annoyance with our engineers writing inline JS. But it often seemed like banging your head against a brick wall trying to explain to them why progressive enhancement is the Right Way To Do It.

I may not be able to get the concept across even now, but at least I have a new angle of attack to come at them from now.

Thirty random facts

1. In the words of flickr: I am male, 33 and taken.
2. I have mostly blue eyes (I say "mostly" because they have a subtle colour, which reflects a lot of the colour around them, so sometimes they're more green, or grey).
3. I have had at least shoulder-length hair since I was eighteen. My uncle Paul refers to me as "the eternal hippy".
4. I am a geek (obsessed with computers, programming, the internet, gadgets and toys, et cetera).
5. I collect t-shirts and moose (alces alces) paraphernalia.
6. My favourite pastime is passive consumption (television, movies, music, comics, books, magazines, you name it).
7. My second favourite pasttime is the active consumption of games; both console and computer games and more traditional board games.
8. I forget words all the time. Normally just after I've started the sentence in which I intend to use it.
9. Francis is my mother's maiden name, and the third surname I've had in my life.
10. I hate shaving, so I mostly sport stubble or a short beard. I hate having a beard too, so it's a constant battle of wills. Apathy normally wins.
11. I haven't worn a suit, shirt and tie (with the exception of a few formal events) since I was 16.
12. I had two teeth pulled out by a wrench at the age of 11 (it was in the hands of my dentist).
13. I was in my Primary School's chess club, ranked 14th of 14. I played about five competitive matches before giving up.
14. I had my first girlfriend at age 6.
15. At age eight, I had two girlfriends at the same time (it wasn't my idea, but neither did I complain).
16. I am addicted to Coca-Cola. At one point I was consuming over three litres a day of the stuff.
17. I can get very claustrophobic at times, although it is more inability to get out of a space, rather than just tiny places.
18. I have a variant of parosmia, in that I smell things incorrectly at times, and cannot smell certain smells. I don't, however, suffer badly or get phantom unpleasant smells.
19. I have difficulty in making out words at times, sort of like an auditory dyslexia. Also, I find it almost impossible to concentrate on multiple conversations — which means I detest people talking when the television is on.
20. I used to perform improvised comedy on stage, including twice at the Brighton Comedy Festival to a late-night drunken audience (drunk audiences and "Please shout out..." do not mix well).
21. I am most emphatically not a vegetarian. I like to remain at the top of the food chain.
22. I love tequila, it makes me happy.
23. I don't love wine, it all tastes like vinegar to me. Many people have tried to find a wine they think I will like. They have all failed.
24. The only musical instrument I can play with any degree of competency is the triangle.
25. I never got my rescue swimming certificate. I could only hold my breath underwater for about twenty seconds. In 2003, I spent three months suffering from a chronic cough. Since then, I cannot breathe in as much as I used to, so now I can probably only hold it for five or ten seconds.
26. I have seen Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan over 100 times. I still prefer the original series of Trek over any of the later sequels.
27. My DVD collection is over 700 discs strong, and still doesn't contain over 100 things I have on VHS that I want to replace.
28. Lego was my primary childhood obsession, and I used to have every piece of the Space Lego from inception in the late seventies through to the late eighties. My mother gave them away to my cousins. I still regret this, and collecting those kits again is my secondary adult obsession.
29. I had pet rabbits as a child, until age 9. It took more than twenty years for me to have a pet again. His name is Thomas.
30. My favourite colour is indigo.

Working for a living

You'll notice how I'm not talking about my job. I have never felt that what I do for a living defines who I am. That just pays my bills, even if it does take up a sizeable slice of my life.

However, for those of you desperate to know, I am currently a senior web developer for Yahoo! Europe, building pan-european products.

Previously I have worked full-time for both Formula One Management and Purple Interactive as a combined systems administrator, CGI programmer and HTML monkey, and City University as a systems administrator, and IT support technician.