Flickr adds 3,000,000,000th image

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

The three billionth image has just been uploaded to Flickr – that’s an astonishing nine zeroes.

I’ve helped to contribute several hundred of those myself, although only the most recent 200 are shown, as I’m too tight to pay for a professional account. I wonder how many of those 3 billion images can actually be viewed?

Luckily, the 3 billionth image is rather tasteful; a moody, monochrome snap of a doorway. The 2 billionth image, uploaded almost a year ago to the day, is also rather artistic; a gnarled tree stump shot from below against a startling blue sky. I’m not suggesting that foul play is afoot, although it is quite lucky, isn’t it?

As if to prove that nothing is being manipulated, I can’t find any reference to the one billionth image. One presumes it’s horribly pornographic, violent or, even worse – among the Flickr community at least – poorly shot. Perhaps the subject of the image is just too horrible for Flickr to have promoted, such as this one.

A plea: abandon Excel 2003 graphs

Friday, September 19th, 2008

I’m writing this from the Budapest World Congress Centre, at Acer’s grandiose and beautifully presented Global Press Conference 2008. It’s a chance for the company to set out its strategy to over 200 journalists, to essentially show off.

So it’s perhaps surprising that it’s still using what I wholly believe to be the world’s worst graphing tool: Excel 2003.

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1,000,000 keys and a celebratory holiday

Friday, August 22nd, 2008

You may remember that a while ago I reviewed a Logitech keyboard that tracked key presses. Well, I’ve been using it at my desk since then, and I’ve just passed into seven figures. It’s still going strong despite a few coffee-related mishaps, although I’m still not using any of the more esoteric features.

Considering that I only use it in the morning – I tend to migrate to the PC Pro laboratory in the afternoons, like a goose heading South for the winter – that’s a whole lot of typing.

To reward myself I’m going to take two weeks off work and go on my first holiday since time immemorial. Bye.