Author: Steve

Senna

I’ve never written about a film before or my former interest in Formula 1 motorsport. So I’m breaking the silence with this post I suppose.

I sat and watched Senna the film last night, it focused on his time in Formula 1 or should I say his short time in F1 when he was tragically killed on 1 May 1994. That day is etched in my memory more so than any other race I suppose.

I thought the film was very good, and it’s a must watch for any F1 fan, past and present. It sets the scene as to how F1 got to where it is today in a lot of ways: safety, politics, money and the sport in general.

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Google Analytics

Anybody who has a blog or a website loves to know how many people visit their site. In early days of the web these took the form of simple counters, but they don’t really tell you a lot of information about your visitors.

I’ve been using Google Analytics for about 5 years or so now, and it’s very easy to implement on your site or blog and once set up you just look at the reports and data that Google collects on your behalf from your visitors from a cookie. It is a free to use service, I have it set up on a lot of sites, so I can look at them all at the same time.

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Steve Jobs 1955-2011

It was with some sadness that I checked my iPod Touch early this morning to see the breaking news about the death of Steve Jobs. I had never met the man himself, but his attention to detail that people have been talking about today in various tributes certainly came across.

If you have any iOS device, just take a look at the screen detail under a magnifier and you will see what I mean, the detail and the colour gradients are very delicately done, yet most people will not notice them at normal viewing distances.

The design of the packaging of Apple products goes well beyond other items I’ve ever bought in the last 10 years, they are an art form in themselves, you don’t want to dispose of the cardboard box because it’s so nicely designed.

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Music Makes My World Go Around

My love of modern pop music dates back to my childhood. I have a very vague recollection of going to see the film ‘Hard Day’s Night’ at the cinema, which would have been about 1964, I was only 5 then hence why I say vague. I was born ‘across the water’ in Bebington, which is the other side of the River Mersey from Liverpool, where the Beatles thing all sort of exploded during my childhood, although I don’t remember much about them apart from their appearances on TV.

The first album I can recall buying was by Simon and Garfunkel, although I’m not sure why I bought it, may be it was to impress a girl I knew at the time!  Anyway my musical interest sort of laid dormant for a couple of years or so. Then a friend of mine introduced me to the guitar, he was in a band and I went along to see them play a few times. I bought my own guitar and tried to learn how to play it, not very well I may add.

One of the first guitar pieces my friend Peter tried to teach me was the lead guitar from a Steely Dan track off of their album ‘Can’t Buy a Thrill’ called ‘Reelin’ in the Years’ which I feel I’m doing now! I literally tied up my fingers in knots learning that one track. I can just about remember how to play some of it still, but not at the speed required!

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I have been blogging around the world!

As well as my normal activities on Philofaxy, I’ve been taking part in the Philofaxy All Stars Tour, which is about a team of blogging doing guest posts on a variety of blogs, connected to readers of Philofaxy. The tour is going very well. Here are some of my contributions: