Obama’s grandmother has passed away. Win it for her, Obama, win it for her.

Oasis, Slane Castle, 20th of June 2009, €76. Anyone want to come? My girlfriend doesn’t and none of my friends here do. I’m too old to go on my own these days. The Prodigy are supporting them (I saw them supporting Faithless in Cape Town and it was fantastic.)

World Usability Day is next week. This year’s focus is on making transportation easier and better.

I’m finding it hard to get around the redesigned WordPress 2.7 admin interface. Their Crazyhorse usability study suggests it is better. In my opinion the best WordPress posting interface is the Prologue theme. Go to your blog. Type. Press post. Done.

Use your Blackberry as a credit-card. It is a way off everyday use but I like the idea. Be cool if you could pay for your Tesco shopping with your phone. Get an onscreen proimpt “Pay €52.50 to Tesco?” and you hit yes or no. That means digital receipts too, great for long-term shopping analysis.

Amazon are offering a Frustration Free Packaging line. Great idea. Get rid of hard-to-open plastic packs, unnecessary ties and cases and what not. Good for the environment too I imagine. I wish Tesco would do the same. I’ve been choosing products (especially fruit and veg) based on the amount of packaging (less is better) for awhile now.

“Kill your blog” by Paul Boutin on Wired is unbalanced advice. Be balanced. Use Twitter, use Facebook, use your blog. Choose the right tool or venue for your thoughts.

FEBE does a decent job exporting/backing-up Firefox extensions.

Udell describes how Microsoft is catching up to the rest of the web. Proper REST with plenty of DRY though possibly a bit too much Java-like XML config. It is very good that Microsoft is coming around to REST and all those .NET developers are going to get a taste of what the rest of us have been doing for a couple of years now. Welcome to web-services that work, guys.