This is really starting to bug me. Nearly a week after Facebook’s IPO and the papers are still saying that it was a failure. It wasn’t, or at least, whether or not is was depends on who you are. And I suspect you prefer the winner to the so-called losers.

Let’s start with the basics. What is an IPO? It’s simple: a company sells a part of itself in exchange for cash. In the physical world, that’s the same as me making something and selling it to you. For the sake of this example, let’s say that I sell it to you for £1.

I’ve just been away for a week walking in the Lake District, so “Walk” should be the ideal PhotoFriday theme for me. Unfortunately I forgot my USB cable and can’t download my photographs. Instead, this is a picture from a walking holiday a couple of years ago in the south of Spain.

Please also vote for my picture in last weeks challenge, “Detailed.” I’m entry number 101.

My job means that I have to write detailed notes and designs just to keep all the moving parts in my head. “Detailed” is this weeks PhotoFriday challenge, so I think this image fits the bill.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Downward.” I’m entry number 121.

Blocking content from the Internet is getting a lot of press of late. The last couple of weeks has seen the Pirate Bay being blocked by a number of large ISPs and debate over whether the blocking of “adult” content should be opt-in or opt-out.

Unfortunately the enthusiasm to “protect the children” and “protect the copyright holders” seems to have pushed aside much of the debate of whether we should be doing this at all or whether it’s practical.

I don’t “get” many of the current entries to this weeks PhotoFriday challenge, “Downward,” so I thought I’d go for a very simple, very obvious interpretation of the theme. This is a view from the Eiffel Tower, looking downwards at the road below.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Portraiture.” I’m entry number 147.

As a new parent there is no way that I could interpret this weeks PhotoFriday challenge, “Portraiture,” to be anything other than a call for baby pictures.

Please vote for my photo in last weeks challenge, “Crimson.” I’m entry number 138.

Instapaper

• The save page bookmark works with Google Reader. That is, it saves the link I’m reading rather than the Google Reader web page.
• Page turn. Rather than display the page as a long, scrollable single page, Instapaper paginates the document. You can “turn” the page much as you do in iBook or the Kindle app.
• Progress indicators. I like that it shows roughly how long a document is and how much has been read.
• Clean, minimal interface.
• The trick of reading the current page to make site like NYTimes (with page view restrictions) or LWN (pay walls) is a great idea but not completely reliable.
• Recent updates have been less stable. Going from day to night mode — an otherwise nice idea — almost always crashes. Putting the app into the background often loses the current location (it returns to the end of an archived article).

Pocket

You’ve probably seen that it’s the Sinclair Spectrum’s thirtieth birthday today. There are lots of great retrospectives — this is probably the best single source I read — so I’m not going to rehash all that. But I thought it might be worth a few words of my own.

Like many Brits my age, the Spectrum was my first computer. Technically it was the family computer, but after a few weeks I was pretty much the only one who used it.

I’m not sure whether a “Crimson” sunset is too obvious an interpretation of the theme, but I couldn’t find a better image so you’re stuck with this one(!).

It was taken in Malta, just outside where I was staying in St Julians. The picture was taken on… gasp… actual film.

I know this picture isn’t going to win any prizes, but it’s literally true that it’s a view “From my window,” which is this weeks PhotoFriday theme. Instead it’s one of a series of shots I called “Asshole who park across my driveway” that I created last year when I was working from home a lot. Because we have our own space and don’t often have a car parked in it, people assume that they can just use the space in front. Really annoying those times where we do have a car to park…