Over the years I’ve tried a few methods of remote posting to this blog. My latest is the simple Markdown code that allows you to add simple formatting to text which can then be converted into HTML by programs that support it. Some people are even using it to generate blogs from static files, and Github offers a way to publish a whole site using the system. Anyway, I digress.

My motivation is that my latest favourite writing program is iA Writer and it supports markdown in text. Writing in iA Writer and then sending to my blog sounds like a great workflow and so I thought I’d give it a go. If you’re reading this post, in fact, it’s already up and running.

Last weekend Pulp played at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the Teenage Cancer Trust series.

My gf is a big fan from the old days, and we both used to live in Sheffield so we couldn’t miss the chance to see them play their own gig whilst we had the chance.

Here are a few photos I took with a Panasonic LX3. The zoom’s not very long and so they’re quite wide shots but I think they came out well all things considered.

‘Too many cars, too few buyers’ in this weeks Economist talks about how premium car brands are thriving where the mid-market volume brands are not so much. One possible reason given is…

The bosses of the German [car makers] tend to be lifelong “car nuts” whereas the French carmakers’ bosses tend to have parachuted in from other industries”

This reminded me of another thing I read this week, Steve Jobs solved the innovator’s dilemma. It’s an old post from last year but my takeaway was this:

He knew the company had to make money to stay alive, but he transitioned the focus of Apple away from profits. Profit was viewed as necessary, but not sufficient, to justify everything Apple did.

The drive for great products and great experiences has lead the way if you’re to going to make a dent, and like Hugh said the market for something to believe in is infinite.

This picture tells the story of today’s ride. A few beastly climbs mixed into a long old ride.

I met the group at 9am Sunday and over the next 4 hours we rode out to Epping Forrest and beyond. My previous personal best of 20miles got smashed by this 40+ mile round trip and my knees are telling me I should have taken it a bit easier.

Still – I wouldn’t change it for all the tea in china, or indeed all the tea in the little green hut at the 10 mile mark.

Thanks to a Songkick alert I got tickets for D’Angelo’s return this weekend. He played a sold out Brixton Academy on Friday after an 11 year hiatus with a two hour set of classic and some new material.

As a fan since his first album, I was a bit nervous that he wouldn’t be able to deliver today on his early promise. No problem – he is back on top form. Energetic as Prince during the funkier stuff, but then soulful as can be when playing his early songs. The uptempo rework of Brown Sugar was a brilliant finale. .

He seemed genuinely moved to receive such a warm response from the Brixton Academy audience. A rare mix of confidence when performing and humility when accepting the cheers from the crowd

I hope he’s back to stay.

Picture this: you want to share a bunch of photos and videos from an event of some sort. Pretty common situation. How do you share them online?

- The biggest photo sharing website in 2012 is Facebook so let’s try that first. It’s easy enough to create a gallery and upload the photos, but you can’t currently mix videos and photos. The other problem with Facebook for me personally is that I tend to only use FB with my closest friends, so it’s not good to share across a range of networks and sites.

- Let’s try the more public social network Twitter. Twitter allows individual photos but no gallery features so we can quickly rule that out.

- Google+ is next up, and it starts very well. Uploading is easy and you can mix photos with video. What it’s missing from making it a serious photo sharing site is information about view counts (I know there’s not in FB either but I’m used to that in Flickr). Disappointingly you can’t view the videos on common mobile platforms – I tried a Windows Phone, iPhone and iPad. Maybe Android would fare better, but that’s no good for me.

- Flickr’s been my photo sharing website of choice for years and they support video too. Promising support from the old kid on the block: the desktop uploader accepts video as well as photos, and you can add to a ‘set’, which is the equivalent of a gallery. The videos played fine on an iPad, which is a good sign, but the quality was awful. On G+ the video player steals features from YouTube like a range of quality options (up to 720, which the video started as).

With all this in mind, looks like Flickr will stay in first place for my media for now. If someone can show me a site that handles mixed photo and video uploads along with a cross-platform HTML5 viewer I’ll change in a heartbeat.

There are lots of passages in Man’s Search For Meaning that have made an impact on me so far. This is a particular favourite:

One should not search for an abstract meaning of life. Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone’s task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it.

I’ve got bored of cycling up and down hills in North London*. For my ride this weekend I headed east looking for something a bit flatter. I got as far as the Lea Valley from Finsbury Park and then got distracted when I saw the Olympic observation tower in the distance.

(* OK, I’m not fit enough yet)

View the route on MapMyRide

There are some great pathways for walking or cycling around Hackney marshes and down the canals, all the way to the south of the Olympic Park area.

If you haven’t been down there then go soon, it’s already looking great.