Alex's space

the new template - lazy days

the new template is a port by stuart of a wordpress theme from fullahead its called lazy days and at the moment i am learning about it so that i can tweak it (i have already tweaked the header images to be a bit more like home)!

The new template

Apart from the plain grey header, the new template is the recent winner of the textgarden competition for new templates for textpattern it was designed and coded by Vladimir Agafonkin any way, apart from trying to now photoshop a new header image of the mountains at home (waiting on a new photo) this was an incredibly easy template to install (textpattern continues to impress me with its flexibility, simplisity and power) and Vladimir has provided very good instructions for deploying his work.

Crimestoppers most wanted - redux

Following up on an earlier post

Crimestoppers have released some information on the first months action on their mostwanted site you can see the official press release here

the head lines … 7 major arrests so far

that number is just the begining.

The site achieved 33,302 unique visitors in December and is receiving an average of 553,319 page views per month. Since the launch of Most Wanted, Crimestoppers has received hundreds of online forms with anonymous information. They have proven to be a valuable tool as a lot more useful information has been passed on to the police.

TV programs such as Crimewatch also are causing spikes in interest.
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So from a very busy start Crimestoppers have turned this project into a great success.

also Clearchannel are putting Crimesstoppers and mostwanted posters in bus shelters, I have seen a few about in Brighton and in London.

Crimestoppers Most Wanted - Stars of CCTV

Today Crimestoppers launched a new service the Most Wanted Website

From BBC News:

The public can view the photographs, CCTV footage and descriptions of the wanted suspects at www.mostwanted-uk.org and contact police by phone or online.

see the full BBC News Online article here

unfortunately the site has proved very popular and they servers were quickly overwhelmed by the volume of users trying to see who is ‘today’s most wanted crim’

(basically the site shows the most most wanted on the first page based on an algorithm taking into account type of crime and when it occurred etc to work out who should be shown on the first page nationally)

This means the site has been up and down (form a user perspective) today as the server has been trying to serve the tens of thousands of visitors. Crimestoppers are on the case and will rectify this asap.

the good thing about this is that crime is a national issue and criminals move around. this site allows all the local police forces to make their appeals both at a local and national level (internationally too) coupled with the ability to call not only the police directly about anyone featured in the site but also it is possible to call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 if you would rather not give your details to the police (good for crims dobbing in other crims)!

possibly another way to look at Hard-Fi’s Stars of CCTV

Tech guru O'Reilly mashes it up [ from BBC Online]

In the first segment of a two-part interview, technology guru Tim O’Reilly outlines his views on open source in an interview with the BBC World Service programme Go Digital.

Tim O’Reilly interview part 1 on open source

[In part two of the interview to be published on Wednesday November 9th, Tim O’Reilly explains the impact of Web 2.0.]