Is this what they mean by competing for eyeballs?

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[Updated] Something by way of an announcement: I’m (arguably) abandoning new media for old media in the form of Guardian Unlimited – I start on Monday as new media reporter for MediaGuardian.

I’ve been freelancing for paidContent for most of this year and have to add that I’m in awe of what Rafat is doing. It is a truly superb site and proof, if we needed it, of what can be achieved online. But he’s going interstellar anyway and will do just fine without little old me…

It feels rather like the start of a new school term. I’ll have to get myself to WHSmiths for a new satchel, protractor – that kind of thing. As for what’s in store at MediaGuardian – we’ll have to wait and see! Suffice to say there is so much going on in this space at the moment from kamikaze newspapers mashing their news teams together to the fascinating world of Second Life. That’s all only going to get bigger, wider and fatter as the pipes do. How exciting! I’m going to be extremely busy…

I know you can get business card scanners that you chuck cards through when you get back from a conference, but that seems a bit messy. I hate the ritual of entering people’s details from a hoard of business cards – usually I wait until they email me and then copy and paste their signature into my address book. But then you don’t get the visuals if it’s a nice card.

Business cards on memory sticks wouldn’t be quite right, but maybe I should just enter their phone number in my mobile when I meet them and text my card that way. These are the things that bother me…

Just planning mark II of my business card and may opt for a pic on the back, unless inspiration hits soon.

Reading about computer problems is, I admit, about as interesting as listening to other people’s dreams. Rest assured, after this one final rant/explanation, I will say no more.

Server blew up, 30 websites were lost and the back-up drive can’t be accessed. I had most stuff backed up in Ecto (an offline content management programme that means you can write and save blog entries on your desktop) but when I updated it with the new login for my re-installed site, it overwrote my full-ish back up with the seven measly recent test entries. Cross is not the word.

My brother found an old XML file of some old miserable stuff but the best and most frequent work was all done in the past year – including my very detailed coverage of the Media Giraffe conference in Boston in June – is lost forever to the evil soul-sucking vortex that is the internet.

My only hope is professional data retrieval for the server drives, but the controller key thing also blew up and that’s the only way the drives can be read, apparently.

Needless to say, if anyone has any bright ideas (archive.org and Google’s cache have nada) let me know now. I need to look at the pro data rescue option – has anyone ever used that, or can recommend anyone?

It’s my fault, I suppose. While waiting for this stuff to be sorted over the summer I’ve totally lost my blogging motivation. I nearly decided to give up, but I’m made of stronger stuff than that, dammit! I’ll slowly reinstate the photos and anything else I can find, adn start blogging afresh.

I declare this website officially re-opened!

Oh yes – forgot to say that my camera died too. Sand in the lens, which isn’t surprising given my antics this summer.

Sony charged me a hefty £114 to fix it, though they were jolly efficient. I also managed to lose my 1GB memory card (not having much luck in the technical department) but at least the camera is back.

If I met you at Mipcom this week – thanks for looking at my site. I should explain that I lost all my data when the server blew up. I might be able to retrieve it from some rather sketchy back-up disks but it’s all very annoying.

In the meantime you’ll have to make do with my scintillating conversation – drop me an email if you want to get in touch: jemima@ this domain.

Always up for drinks on boats…

Cecil was feeling lonely and felt life would be more fun if he had a pet. So he went to the pet shop and told the owner that he wanted to buy an unusual pet. After some discussion, the pet shop-owner produced a centipede which came in a little white box.

He took the box back home and decided he would start by taking his new pet to the bar to have a drink. So he asked the centipede in the box: “Would you like to go to Frank’s with me and have a beer?”

There was no answer. This bothered Cecil a bit but he waited a few minutes and then asked him again: “How about going to the bar and have a drink with me?”

Still no answer. He waited a bit longer and decided to ask him one more time – this time putting his face up against the centipede’s box and shouting: “Hey, in there! Would you like to go to Frank’s place and have a drink with me?”

A little voice came out of the box: “I heard you the first time. I’m putting on my bloody shoes…”

I just did a wee site for the NUJ BBCers. Well, I do try and make myself useful…

Losing my two/three year archive of wriitng and photos has rather taken the wind out of my blogging sails – that and breaking my beloved digital camera. A back-up drive that may or may not contain all my work is sitting on a coffee table in Brighton waiting for a connector lead that may or may not allow that data to be copied back on to a new server. I’m waiting for my camera to be repaired, for the data to possibly be reinstated and for my motivation to return. Sigh.
Anyway, I’m at the AOP conference today so all that will be on paidContent pretty soon.