Will Speaking

At a famous landmark in Barcelona is the picture above? What do you think it represents? Tags: sagrada famila , barcelona , spain

In Barcelona, this street performer proved he re-cycles. He wears bottles, including bottle tops for fingers. Some Kids laughed and some cried. Me being a big kid at heart loved it! Tags: la rambla , barcelona , spain

As I say bye to Paris, I had to blog about the new car from Peugeot. On the Champs Elysee, they have a wonderful showroom with this car. Looking like a car from the Jetsons, you wave your hands to get in. Then say the magic password and off you go. The showroom is like a fashion runway, music blasting but no Tyra Banks, just a neat looking car. Tags: paris , france , peugeot

Tonight at a late night snack after lots of walking, pizza... And boy did it taste good. I have never had pizza with egg on it, until in Paris. But though it looked a bit odd, it tasted yummy. What's on your pizza? Tags: pizza , paris , france

Ever got on a train, and thought you were at the library? I noticed yesterday that people don't say much to other people. Someone sat next to me and I said hello, and startled the other person. Then I noticed that everyone is in their own "zone". In deep thought maybe, or just vegging out? Or remembering what Mum said "don't talk to strangers". :-) Tags: twiidle

"I love Paris in the springtime". What a great city. After taking the train from London we arrived in Paris. It is such a buzzing city. Quickly checked in, and then walked... Walking many miles, just taking in the sites, the people and the culture. Wonderful! Tags: paris , france , i love paris

During my train ride to France, I read the FastCompany article "Dead Man Walking". It is a look back on the history of AOL, and contains a critical narrative of the company. It's an interesting read, but nothing really new comes up. Instead of looking in the rear view mirror or looking at past mistakes or mishaps, look ahead. 1) The Bebo aquistion is good. I've talked to different people in the UK and they are addicted to it! Did AOL pay too much ? I have no idea. But combined with AIM, it has lots of potential. It is also a clear indication of investing in Silicon Valley and (even more important) multiple brands. 2) Platform A can be big. Just tons of startups in this space, and as money continues to shift to the internet, PA has room to win $. 3) The continued bashing of Randy Falcon and Ron Grant should stop. Get to meet them, email them. They are bright people. My advice to them : If they can meet more with the employees, that would be very good for m...

Sitting on the train this morning, I noticed newspapers have coverage of new rules to help parents monitor kids activities online. This includes educating parents on ways to monitor social networks, as well as warnings on computer games. A great idea. Time for AOL to go after this and use some of the gems it had many years ago, and bring them back. 1). Relauch free Parental Controls, but name it something like KidSafe or something less boring than Parental Controls. Make it free and get it out there. 2) Dust off AOL Guardian and relaunch as Social Network Guardian. AOL Guardian was awesome, emailing a log of emails, contacts and websites your kid went too, and allowing you to block or unblock. Get this working across the web. 3) Make bebo the social network that is kids friendly, safe etc. Got to be a major play here. Educate users on the benefits. The only problem with much of this, is kids actually setting up the computer for the parents. That still happens, which means a lo...

London is a great, big city. With many different areas from Camdem Town, Fleet Street, Oxford Circus, Brixton and of course Big Ben. Not to mention Soho. At 4pm, the streets are full. Lots of people walking around. Unlike the usa, everyone seems to walk into each other - seems no golden rule here to walk on one side. It adds to the fun. The other great things about London is the mix of people. From all parts of the world, it really is great. And of course the Queen is here. She's expecting me. Cheerio. Tags: london

It's even more expensive in Europe. In the UK, about 40 miles northwest of London, regular unleaded is around $10 a gallon. Ouch! That's why small cars (like my sisters in the photo) are more standard. I love the cars here - smaller, but have many different shapes and styles. Sort of like getting vanilla ice cream presented many different ways. Um, maybe not. I think we should get more smaller cars in California. It would be purrfect. Tags: cars , small cars , gas , petrol

Sitting here in the UK, waiting to eat at Pizza Express. The weather has been spooky with snow, rain and then a little sunshine. I snapped this photo of a very old tree near a church. It seems it has a face and character. Also a little green. Enjoy :-) Tags: high wycombe

Netvibes opened up "Ginger" for public beta this week.  I've played with the site for a couple of weeks now. At the basis of the update is a public profile page, that allows you to have a "Universe" for yourself. This is a page with widgets, including ones for myspace, facebook, aim, yahoo messenger etc.      In addition, you have the concept of "status" and "friends" so you can leave messages for people on the public page. It's good, and has some nice features to it.  The widgets are nicely done, the presentation of the pages feels "new" and feature rich.    Like My Yahoo, widgets are selected from the top of the page and no separate gallery to search for (nice - it feels integrated). One confusion is the cross between your private page and public page in edit mode - it feels a little disjoined. Here's some recommendations I would make: - Many of these sites now make it hard for a user to put a page together.  It's very...

I have really loved my Blackberry phone. Email, Web Surfing and calls generally good. Easy to use,   easy to call, nice stuff. However, I've had the dreaded "App Error 523" 3 times now.   This error is the worst to get. You need to wipe the Blackberry clean using a java device tool named "JL_CMDR" (which is like a DOS command line program), then reload the software.   Everything is lost - contacts, photos, bookmarks. This has happened 3 times now, and after investigation it can happen because a number of reasons.  By far the worse is someone sending you a text (SMS) or photo (MMS) message.  For some reason, this will cause the Blackberry to crash, and have this App Error 523 fatal error. Aside from wiping and re-installing,   the Blackberry works great. I just don't get how a phone could have such critical "P0" type problems. Tags: willspeaking , b...