My hand luggage usually contains my 11″ Macbook Air, plus my iPhone, Kindle, and associated chargers. I also carry a UK 3G dongle, and several USB drives (including one I can reinstall my Mac from should I need to). I sometimes also carry various adaptors and cables, depending on where I am travelling and what I am there to do. I also plan on taking plug adaptors for any country I will be visiting, chargers for all my devices, and an additional device to charge my phone if a plug socket isn’t available.

Usually I don’t take a bootable clone of my laptop with me, because it makes more sense to keep my backup drive somewhere safe whilst I am travelling. For a two week trip I may invest in a new external drive though, or will at least have a smaller USB drive with a bootable installation of OSX with my settings and applications intact – just in case of emergencies. I should also look at how often I think I will be able to get online in Canada, and perhaps pick up a cheap pay-as-you-go 3G device to cover any shortfall.

I will also have my old iPod with me as a backup music device, and will also wear a watch rather than relying on my phone to tell the time. Time keeping is even more important on trips which involve a lot of travelling between places, and I need to make sure any timekeeping anxiety is minimised.

I also plan on packing slightly differently for this trip. Part of the reason for travelling is a family wedding, and so I need to make sure I have smart clothes with me. I will fly in the usual combination of loose many-pocketed combats with no belt, slip-on shoes, and a loose cotton shirt. But I will also style the rest of my wardrobe around things that can be work with a suit jacket and/or waistcoat. This should cut down on luggage, and ensure that everything can be worn with everything else.

I also plan on packing a second bag for the shorter (English) section of my trip, and arranging for it to be waiting for me when I get back to the UK. That way I am not carting things all over the world that I won’t need until the last few days of my trip.

Yes, I’m not travelling for ages, but I find it is useful to have these thoughts sufficiently early enough to do something about anything I may have forgotten.

Things I have discovered so far that are well worth a listen include:

• Primal Scream – More Light
• The National – Trouble Will Find Me
• Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City
• The Indelicates – Diseases of England
• !!! – Thr!!!er
• Bill Ryder-Jones – A Bad Wind Blows in my Heart
• Mark Kozelek & Jimmy LaValle – Perils From The Sea
• The Postal Service – Bankrupt
• Daft Punk – Random Access Memories
• The Fall – Re-Mit

I’ve probably missed a few, but those are the ones that I am most impressed with on first (or second or twentieth) listen.

28th April - Hannah and her Sisters. This one follows on thematically from Closer, although that was very much not intended as they were recommended to me by different people. It’s a Woody Allen film, and it is one of the good ones. I don’t think there is much more to say than that, apart from that I enjoyed it and will now be hunting out more Woody Allen films with a view to watching a few of them over a weekend at some point.

28th April (later) – Adaptation. This has been on my list a while, and was another recommendation (like most of what I have watched recently). I really enjoyed it, and found that it explored a fair few themes that I can relate to quite closely. It also makes me want to watch ‘Being John Malkovich’ again at some point soon, as I think the two movies have quite a lot in common.

29th April - Blue Velvet. Heading back to David Lynch, because I wanted comfort viewing, and apparently I find Kyle Machlachlan and Laura Dern comforting (maybe because I’ve seen them in so many David Lynch movies). I’ve seen this a few times, but it is still something I come back to every now and again and I always seem to see something new.

python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8000

Useful for testing simple websites.

My department have done so much to promote sustainability and green issues, but in this article I am going to concentrate on the work done by my team – the IT Service Desk.

In 2012 IT Services were awarded a Green Impact Gold Award for the first time. As part of that initiative we looked at the way we work and made some changes. We cut down on paper, explored virtualisation technologies, and set up a green board in the office to make everyone aware of environmental issues and how each person could contribute.

In 2013 we went a little further, and started a more proactive approach to bringing down the carbon footprint of the team, and raising awareness of the role each of us has to play in building a sustainable future.

Initiatives we undertook in 2013 include:

Putting together a whole workstation by re-using and scrounging furniture and IT equipment. We have used a lot of the old kit from Aston Web C-block that was going to be binned, and have actually saved a fair bit of money by doing things this way. People often forget that reusing things is generally better than recycling them, and this initiative nicely demonstrates that. Also, we did it all in about two hours, and carried all the furniture ourselves rather than using a van.

Along similar lines, we have also just refurbished another office using furniture from C-block, and cascaded our old furniture to other parts of the library.

We have a new Green Board, in the corridor outside our office. We have all the usual things, plus a Green Ideas Tree. Students can write suggestions on it, and we can pass these on to the relevant people periodically. We also have a poster detailing iPhone and Android apps to do with sustainability and environmental concerns (including QR codes so people can download them).

For years we have re-used old PCs as servers, test machines, and as a way to have access to as many different OS/browser combinations as possible for testing purposes. This year we measured the power consumption of these older machines and found they were using significantly more electricity that the other computers in the office. As a result of this we now use virtual machines for anything that doesn’t involve running something on specific hardware, which has cut down massively on power consumption, as well as making the office feel a lot less cluttered.

And finally, we’re also trying to raise awareness with our staff. Just little things like asking them to justify having a second monitor, making sure PCs and printers are switched off when not being used, and trying to avoid using fans, heaters, and anything else that consumes a lot of power. We also use an online Knowledge Base as our primary way of disseminating information to students, which cuts down on the amount of paper we use.

Hopefully what we have done so far has made a difference, but we already have plans for the next twelve months to build on this good work and hopefully aim for a Gold Plus award this time next year.

11th April – Proof. Having seen a rather excellent performance of the play, I thought I should probably see the movie. It’s a good adaptation, that works well, and I enjoyed it nearly as much as the play (although didn’t enjoy some of the performances as much).

13th April - The Man Who Cried. A really beautiful movie that I had not even heard of until this weekend. It is well acted, well directed, and looks and sounds amazing; as well as having a story that will likely bring a tear to the eye. The soundtrack is also great, despite containing a lot of music that I would probably not listen to without it being associated with a movie I really enjoyed. Also it features Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci and Harry Dean Stanton. What’s not to like?

14th April - Shinobi. Something a little different than other things I’ve watched recently, but also something that is suitably dark, and touches on a lot of themes I’m quite interested in. I also think it is visually spectacular movie, with some great fight scenes, and was obviously made with a lot of love. Very highly recommended if you like action-orientated Japanese cinema, or anything with an equal mix of fighting and thinking.

29th March (Good Friday) – Youth Without Youth. I had been meaning to watch this for a while, but I knew it was quite absorbing, and I have not really had a great deal of time recently. I’m glad I waited though, because this is definitely something to watch in one sitting in a darkened room. And also it is probably one to watch alone. I enjoyed it enormously, but would probably not recommend it to everyone.

30th March – (Easter Saturday) – Shutter Island. Something else from my backlog list, which explores some interesting themes and is a really well made movie that I should have watched ages ago. I am reminded of Lost at various points though, although I suppose that is not surprising seeing as it is set on an island and features a lighthouse.

31st March (Easter Sunday) – The Red Dragon. I must have watched this at least ten times already, but I am a big fan of the Hannibal Lecter films (and in fact the books), and wanted to watch something familiar while I was doing other things as well. This is probably my least favourite of the first three movies, but I do enjoy watching them in chronological order (rather than the order they were made, which is different).

(and also) – The Silence of the Lambs. Because I’m on a roll, and because it remains one of my favourite mainstream/blockbuster movies. The subject matter is not pleasant, but it is familiar, and familiar is what I needed today. I suppose I should watch Hannibal tomorrow now.

1st April (Easter Monday) – Hannibal. This one is always a treat for me, because I’m a fan of Ridley Scott’s directing in general, and this was always my favourite book (although I prefer the ending of the book to the film). I find it hard to watch without having just seen the other two movies, but to me this is the one that stands out and the one I keep wanting to come back to. Next up, I think I would like to watch something I’ve not seen before, but that might have to wait a few days as I am pretty busy for the rest of the week now.

25th December – Twin Peaks : Fire Walk With Me (I just received a boxed set of David Lynch movies for Christmas. I thought I would start with this one as I’m a little full of food and wine and wanted to watch something with a vaguely linear narrative. It’s also Twin Peaks, which means I could pretty much watch it all day)

26th December – Dune (Something else from the David Lynch box set. It’s still one of my favourite movies of all time, and I thought it was quite suitable as a Boxing Day treat before diving into more challenging things tomorrow)

27th December (a.m.) – Eraserhead (Very strange and surreal, but I think it actually makes sense on several levels, and I do really like the music and think it adds so much to the narrative. I have seen it once before, but I think it is something that is worth coming back to every few years to encounter new perspectives on what it actually means)

27th December (p.m.) – Lynch: One (80 minute documentary that came with the Eraserhead blu-ray, and which was on my wish list in it’s own right. I like watching how creative people work, as I think it helps me understand the creative process itself)

27th December (and into 28th) – The Krays (This probably doesn’t count, because it is actually on TV, but is is very surreal seeing the Kemps playing the Krays)

28th December – Three Colours : Blue (A trilogy I have wanted to own for ages, this was my Christmas present to myself this year. I was utterly transfixed from beginning to end and may have to watch the other two in fairly short order)

28th December (later) – Three Colours : White (See above. I really enjoyed this one too)

29th December – Three Colours : Red (Absolutely perfect, and a very fitting ending. I need more movies like this in my life I think)

30th December – Wild at Heart (Something else from David Lynch, and one of the few that I’ve not already seen. I like it, but it doesn’t quite stand up to everything else I’ve watched this week)

(and a couple watched after I posted this)

31st December – Lost Highway (I saw this ages ago, but could remember nothing about it. I actually quite enjoyed it this time round)

1st January – Mulholland Drive (An old favourite, but every time I learn something new).

The experiment is now over, but it has taught me that I should certainly find time to watch more movies once I’m back at work.

1. Shearwater – Animal Joy
2. The Twilight Sad – No One Can Ever Know
3. How to Dress Well – Total Loss
4. Lana Del Rey – Born to Die
5. Bill Fay – Life is People
6. Scott Walker – Bish Bosch
7. Chromatics – Kill For Love
8. Craig Finn – Clear Heart Full Eyes
9. Metric – Synthetica
10. Moonface – With Siinai: Heartbreaking Bravery
11. The North Sea Scrolls – The North Sea Scrolls
12. Paul Heaton – Paul Heaton Presents The 8th
13. A.C. Newman – Shut Down The Streets
14. Stars – The North
15. The Indelicates – Diseases Of England
16. David Byrne & St. Vincent – Love This Giant
17. Simon Joyner – Ghosts
18. Swans – The Seer
19. Paul Buchanan – Mid Air
20. Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz – Abraxas: The Book of Angels Volume 19
21. Pog – Between the Station and the Sea
22. Tennis – Young & Old
23. Lambchop – Mr. M
24. Errors – Have Some Faith in Magic
25. Tame Impala – Lonerism
26. John Zorn – The Gnostic Preludes
27. Japandroids – Celebration Rock
28. Allo Darlin’ – Europe
29. Yeasayer – Fragrant World
30. Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Psychedelic Pill

19th December – Let Him Have It (the story that inspired the Elvis Costello song ‘Let Him Dangle’ which has always been one of my favourite songs)

20th December – Pollock (the artist Patti Smith named her son after. I listened to her new record this morning and it blew my mind. The music at the end of the movie is ‘World Keeps Turning’ by Tom Waits who I also adore)

21st December – Prozac Nation (I read the book ages ago, but somehow managed to miss the movie. Mental illness is a subject close to my heart right now, and Lou Reed playing Lou Reed is always worth watching in any movie)

22nd December – A Dangerous Method (I love David Cronenberg as a director, and thought I would round off my series of movies based on true stories with this. Despite only being made last year it does a very good job of looking significantly older, and it makes me really look forward to Cronenberg’s next movie which is an adaptation of Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis and which will feature music composed by Metric)

23rd December – Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe (I’ve just read Patti Smith’s ‘Just Kids’. This movie-length documentary covers roughly the same period of time, and adds new perspective to an already familiar story)

24th December (a.m.) – New York Stories (This is probably one of my favourite movies, and one I keep coming back to when I want something familiar and not too mentally challenging. It also reminds me a little of Paul Auster’s ‘New York Trilogy’ which is one of my favourite books)

24th December (p.m.) – The Last Waltz (I stumbled on a CD of ‘Music From the Big Pink’ in a bargain bin this year, and I keep coming back to these amazing songs that I couldn’t get enough of at University. I think this is a fitting way to see in Christmas)

There will be more over the next few days. Largely a lot of things I’m getting for Christmas with one or two old favourites thrown in. I may also start documenting some of my listening habits regarding records made before I was born, which I’ve not really touched on elsewhere.

• Albums of the year (which I always do), and which will be ready on or around 31st December.
• One movie a day, where I will watch one decent movie a day, and list them all with a few notes on why I chose them and how they all fit together.
• A writing project, which I’ve started, and which might end up being a “one poem a day” type exercise.

It is good to have some time to work on this sort of thing, and I’m hopeful it will redress the balance a little after a year of too much work, too much responsibility and not enough creativity.

Shearwater – Animal Joy
The Twilight Sad – No One Can Ever Know
Craig Finn – Clear Heart Full Eyes
Metric – Synthetica
Veronica Falls – Veronica Falls
Pog – Between the Station and the Sea
Moonface – With Siinai: Heartbreaking Bravery
Crystal Stilts – In Love With Oblivion
AAAHHHRCHESTRA – Denmaaahhrk
Lana Del Rey – Born to Die
Thieves Like Us – Bleed Bleed Bleed
Tindersticks – The Something Rain
Paul Heaton – Paul Heaton Presents… The 8th
The Wedding Present – Valentina
Maxïmo Park – The National Health
Bear in Heaven – I Love You, It’s Cool
The Flaming Lips – The Flaming Lips And Heady Fwends
Errors – Have Some Faith In Magic
Tennis – Young & Old
Julian Cope – Psychedelic Revolution
Guillemots – Hello Land!
Stevie Jackson – (I Can’t Get No) Stevie Jackson
The Kabeedies – Soap
John Zorn – Templars: In Sacred Blood
Holograms – Holograms
Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz – Abraxas: The Book of Angels Volume 19
Allo Darlin’ – Europe
John Zorn – The Gnostic Preludes
Yeasayer – Fragrant World
David Krakauer – Pruflas : The Book Of Angels Volume 18
Swans – The Seer
The Indelicates – Diseases Of England
Craft Spells – Gallery
The Fall – Your Future Our Clutter
Amanda Palmer & The Grand Theft Orchestra – Theatre Is Evil

I also maintain a VM of Debian testing, as well as a really minimal version of stable and unstable (I run stable physically as well).

And then I have several minimal webservers, which are running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS or Debian stable.

But I digress.

I think this version of Ubuntu is important because it will be around for 5 years and will form the basis of the Linux strategy for a number of organisations. I would certainly recommend it highly, and think it does a good job of providing a decent desktop experience for users of all levels (and particularly non-technical users).

I carry technology with me wherever I travel. I don’t always take the full range of devices, but I generally have something to read, something to listen to music on, and some sort of communication device at the very least. I actually find that being able to access my books and my music relaxes me, and I do enjoy having internet access when I’m away as it allows me to research what the weather will be like, and what local customs I need to be aware of. On this trip I’ve limited my net access to one session a day (usually around an hour), but in that time I’ve researched what I need to research, as well as reading (if not replying to) all personal email and skimming through articles of interest from my growing list of RSS feeds. It interests me that this activity takes less than an hour a day, because when I’m at home it often takes significantly longer.

We already have a couple of Debian machines in our house (one physical and one virtual), but I wanted to get to grips with installing it on a machine that has some fairly unusual hardware.

All in all it was a smooth install. I created a USB installer with UNetbootin, and installed the base system without issue. It didn’t find my broadcom wireless card, but after enabling all repositories and installing the driver (search for B43 in synaptic) I had a good wireless connection and was able to unplug the ethernet cable.

I then upgraded to a 3.2 kernel, and enabled Mozilla’s Debian repository to get an up to date version of Iceweasel. Both of these went smoothly as well.

The only outstanding issue is the trackpad. The 3.2 kernel has helped a lot, but it is still a little jumpy at times. But it was also a little jumpy under Ubuntu on occasion as well, so I’m not too worried.

Debian runs well on this machine. It seems noticeably faster than Ubuntu, and boot time is significantly faster. If I could sort out the trackpad properly then I would certainly rely on this machine for short trips and coffee-shop web browsing, and it’s nice to see a low-powered and quite old computer running smoothly again.

I’ve been working with Macs and with OS X for most of the past 18 months. As a result of this, most of my hardware has shifted from generic Dell and Sony machines running Linux, to Macs running OS X. I still maintain a couple of physical Ubuntu/Debian machines, but mostly virtualise now, especially as by using powerful Apple hardware I can create VMs that are significantly more powerful than their physical counterparts.

I do most of my work on either a Macbook Pro or Macbook Air, both of which were the absolute bottom-of-the-range at the time they were purchased. I generally have one of these machines with me wherever I am. I also have access to a more powerful Mac desktop, as well as several VMs covering OS X, Windows, Debian and Ubuntu.

At home I have a 2011 Mac Mini, a generic monitor, and the same keyboard and mouse I was using 5 years ago. I back everything up to a large external hard drive and a NAS device that also streams media to an ancient Mac connected to the TV in the living room. I also have several laptops set up for specific purposes, but am in the process of moving everything important onto a series of VMs hosted on the Mac Mini.

I also have a Kindle 4 (the £89 no frills model), and am really enjoying being able to read books on the train without breaking my back or zapping the battery on my phone.

Since I went truly cross-platform, I’ve simplified things a fair bit. I use Chrome (home) and Firefox (work) for browsing, and use Google’s web-based apps for pretty much everything. At work I use Microsoft Office 2011 for those things that require it, but am getting to the point where I can be fully productive with a web browser and a terminal session. This makes moving between Mac OS X and Ubuntu easy, as does having everything I’m working on in Dropbox so that as long as I’m on one of my machines I can sync my changes back home instantly.

I think if I was starting again with setting up what I needed to make me truly productive, I’d go for a maxed out Macbook Air coupled with a 27″ Thunderbolt display in every place I worked. I’d also want a Debian or Ubuntu server to deal with backups, storage, and working on Linux specific tasks. None of this is out of the question, but is hard to justify until the machines I currently use cease to be of use.

Next up will be iOS and Linux. iOS is a new thing for me, but Linux certainly isn’t, and it was quite soothing today to open up my Linux laptop and do my first bit of Ubuntu work for nearly a year.  I’ve also (finally) given up Gnome 2, and after a brief dalliance with Gnome 3 have decided that Unity is the interface that I’ll use on all my Linux machines from now on.

Not that I’m giving up my Macs though. Unity and OS X are actually quite similar in a lot of ways, and I see both of them featuring heavily in both my personal and professional future.

1. The Indelicates – David Koresh Superstar
2. Destroyer – Kaputt
3. Radiohead – The King of Limbs
4. Elbow – Build a Rocket Boys!
5. PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
6. Marissa Nadler – Marissa Nadler
7. The Twilight Singers – Dynamite Steps
8. British Sea Power – Valhalla Dancehall
9. Luke Haines – 9 1/2 Psychedelic Meditations On British Wrestling Of The 1970s and Early 80s
10. 8in8 – Nighty Night
11. Frank Turner – England Keep My Bones
12. Craft Spells – Idle Labor
13. Veronica Falls – Veronica Falls
14. Widowspeak – Widowspeak
15. EMA – Past Life Martyred Saints
16. Wilco – The Whole Love
17. Toro Y Moi – Underneath The Pine
18. Anna Calvi – Anna Calvi
19. Amanda Palmer – Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under
20. Akron/Family – S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT
21. Timber Timbre – Creep On Creepin’ On
22. The Horrible Crowes – Elsie
23. Dum Dum Girls – Always in Dreams
24. Grails – Deep Politics
25. Mogwai – Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
26. The Horrors – Skying
27. Tori Amos – Night Of Hunters
28. Soft Metals – Soft Metals
29. Los Campesinos! – Hello Sadness
30. The Decemberists – The King Is Dead

This slight shift in focus has lead to a shift in the hardware and software I use, and I’ve found myself (finally) using the GMail interface more and more for email, and  almost reaching the point where I do pretty much everything through a browser of some sort. I’ve also used about 10 different Macs over the last 6 months, so might get round to writing some sort of comparison post at some point.

Oh, and the other change in the way I work comes from Google+, which seems to be the place where I post videos and babble about music.