I have over 10,000 photos up on Flickr. Not a bad number considering I stopped actively using the site once Yahoo got its miserable claws into it. But around this time last year I allowed my pro account to be renewed simply because I didn’t want my photos held hostage over there. Later today I’ll finally get around to launching the rescue mission with Bulkr. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I don’t really have a plan for the photos so will probably dump them in Picasa until a new site dominates this space.

Also had a huge digital storage mishap this month so I’ll be primarily using the cloud for everything in 2011.This has had me digging through a few personal archives over Christmas and finding a lot of stuff I’d forgotten existed. I’m now looking forward to going through my Flickr refugees and giving my own memory a bit of a shake…

Fucker finally came and I’m happy to report it’s well worth the wait.

As soon as I saw the DODOcase website back at the beginning of May I was smitten. I’m a big fan of Moleskines so this just seemed a perfect solution to my case problem. When I bought the iPad in the States I neglected to pick up a case and both the official Apple one and subsequent third party designs left me cold so I’ve been carrying the little bastard around naked.

That changed on Friday. Let me get the negative out of the way – this was a long wait. DODOcase are a small company and each case is made with a lot of care and attention to detail. Being way across the Bay from San Francisco meant I also had to wait for the international mail to do their thing. When it seemed that that was taking a tad longer than expected I dropped an email to DODOcase as there was no way for me to track the package. Sadly I’m still waiting for a response, so customer service is certainly taking a pounding while demand is high. I found out that the case hadn’t got lost in the post when I got a note from my local postal depot informing me that I had a package with a customs fee to pay. So that was $49.95 for the case, $25.00 for the shipping (basic international postage with no other option – I would have gladly paid more to have it arrive via courier) and then just over £14.00 to cover the missing VAT.

So getting the thing here was a little annoying. But fuck that, it’s a thing of beauty.

My iPad has been a brilliant travel companion up until now. If I’m not on a train or a plane then it sits on the couch waiting for me to check something on IMDB or keep on top of email while watching Michael Caine stab Brian Blessed with his helmet(!). But now it’s all dodoed up I don’t put the thing down.

In fact this weekend I started (and finished) reading a novel on it for the first time. Up until now I’ve dipped into all sorts of written content on the iPad but have always been aware of how unbooklike the experience is. Simply having the DODOcase open mimics a hardback enough to fool my deteriorating brain. This alone is worth getting one for.

The iPad fits very snugly inside. I can’t see a good reason for ever wanting to take it out to be honest (although I don’t have a dock and am told that may be an issue). Oh and you can’t hold the thing completely upside down while open and not expect gravity to fuck with you. It’s also less of a protective case and stand (although it does double as both) and more of the missing element that the iPad needed all along to become more important than your children.

My iPhone by the way has been completely neglected. I’m told the iPhone 4 is a bit of a tit and if it hadn’t been for the iPad I’d have been one of the first in line to play with it, but to be honest I’m finding it very easy to ignore in favour of its larger sibling.

The iPad 2 however…

Few more pics here.*

*Yep. Reluctantly using Flickr again despite the Yahooliganism.

I was in San Francisco when the iPad launched so have been using one for a little while now and it’s a beautiful piece of kit. I thought it would fall between an iPhone and a notebook, but it’s actually something else. I’m still working out what exactly and that’s part of its charm.*

It’s a very real relief for the UK to finally catch up if only because using one in public was a signal for people to wander over to talk about it, ask me questions and give the damn thing a prod. Not that I really minded because it is such a fun device to show off. I loaded The Elements and Mirror’s Edge on there just to give people something to play with. But the honeymoon is over and the work is piling up so I’ve been looking for a way to use the iPad for more than just consuming content.

That’s been helped by the UK app store finally waking up and letting me get my hands on Pages and a few other essentials I was missing. Charlie Stross has more on the iPad as a writer’s tool here, but as ever I’m still waiting for a decent mobile FinalDraft style editor. We live in hope.

Today I organised all my current projects on it while reclining on the couch in a sun trap listening to Regina Spektor.

It’s a decadent bastard this thing.

I’m not reviewing the iPad itself. There are plenty of blogs that have done that and in way more detail than I’d care to get into. It’s not perfect, but I think Apple will have nailed it by the 3rd generation model and even then there will be no one forcing you to own one at gunpoint. Right now I’ve been using it in development meetings once a week or so and I haven’t missed having a laptop with me at all.

It never occurred to me to even consider a 3G model and I still think if you have a smart phone in your pocket and work/home Internet access then you don’t need one with anything more than wifi. But the nice folk at Three Mobile Buzz sent me one of their 3 MiFi dodah’s to play with for a few weeks and as soon as I got outside of London it was an absolute lifesaver.

Having a little web cloud above your head at all times is handy for many reasons, but the ability to have multiple devices (and people) connect has been the real winner for me. The first few days I only used the MiFi with the iPad, but it soon became part of my everyday kit and has so far got me out of jams when normally reliable wifi elsewhere has gone flaky and also kept me sane/connected following my mother’s funeral last week.

Your mileage may vary and there are other MiFi devices and providers out there, but I went cold turkey for less than an hour after returning my trial device and bought one of my own (PAYG) to replace it. Bottom line is it’s a neat piece of kit and you should certainly consider grabbing one.

Not going into specs and speeds – I use mine for email and web surfing on the move and it’s fine and dandy. Handles video with no stuttering which is nice and has no problem uploading pics to Twitter etc. While I haven’t looked into jail-breaking one I’m told it’s a simple enough thing to do if you’re that way inclined. I’ve gotten into the habit of turning mine on as I leave the house and popping it into my jacket pocket for the day.

As a bonus it also feels a little like a Type 1 phaser from Star Trek, but that’s probably not gonna swing it for you. Right?

*But you probably don’t want me to advise you on whether you need an iPad or not. I once bought a piece of kit with a completely indecipherable Japanese operating system because it looked cool. It still does *and* makes a great paperweight.

I was explaining to @documentally on Friday the way I use index cards to help map out just about everything. I tend to over think projects and also spread them far and wide over notebooks, bookmarks, iPhone/iPad apps, scraps of paper, several laptops and the margins of books. All of that is eventually collected and ends up on index cards. I know that @sleepydog now has his own system of cards and we’ve been discussing how quickly these 6″ x 4″ blanks amount into something.

Then I saw this over on Warren’s blog:

Loose Ideas folders are great. Any half-formed idea that you think might have potential to become something someday? Type it into a .txt file of its own and fling it into a folder marked Loose Ideas. Make sure it’s linked to your backups. A Loose Ideas folder is saving for the future. One day, you’re going to find in that folder the exact thing you need at that moment, whether it be a new project or a bit of business that fixes the script or book in front of you

I was assuming that everyone did this. Maybe not.

My own loose ideas folder is where at least two of the things I’m working on right now started out. You need to make a home for those crazy 3am revelations otherwise they slip down under the bed and get eaten by something that doesn’t want you to succeed.

The stuff you write doesn’t have to make it into a library, a book or even a blog post for it to be important enough to save and more importantly you don’t know when that single sentence or word you tucked safely away won’t come roaring back and save you.

Plus .txt files take up less room on your hard drive than all the HD porn you’re saving for a rainy day.

Sadly to lots of people that just brings back bad memories of the Sylvester Stallone movie. There’s a new Dredd project gearing up that will hopefully overwrite the last attempt, but you really need to go back to the source to appreciate the impact this guy had on a couple of generations.

So when I saw that @Termight was starting to fabricate actual helmets I was very interested. You may remember I already have some incredibly cool Termight merchandise so even though I’m not a big collector of this kind of thing (or fully understand the need to have a Harry Potter wand in a fucking display case) I knew the finished thing would have had a lot of work put into it. The attention to detail on the badge and buckle are exact so I new something on a larger scale was going to be special. Here’s what happened on Friday morning:

Showing the thing off on Twitter I was immediately christened ‘Old Man Mountain Dredd’ (cheers @stml), but the video and subsequent pics sent a little wave through the 2000AD demographic of my followers. Been a bit busy since then, but here are a few more photos for those of you that don’t think this kind of thing is nuts.

It’s a thing of beauty.

“Some people visit, but we live in this world. You have Judge Dredd tattooed onto your arm for fuck’s sake…”

Which is a nice way of looking at it. I can’t oversell how big an influence 2000AD has been on me.

Talking to Sean Pertwee over lunch about our mutual love of the British sci fi comic back in the day was something to cherish. That he read the script and immediately recognised the character of GUN as a homage to Rogue Trooper is as key to me as his ‘getting’ the character of Colonel Hall. This stuff is important to me.

Subsequently I opened my iPhone in a bar the other night to find I’d been sent an exclusive peek at some new Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper art work by current 2000AD artist Paul J Holden (thanks Paul!). This week I’ll be talking to Paul about having a bash at some Slingers artwork. It seems apt as back when the thing was called ‘Ratpackers’ it was very much a 2000AD inspired comic book project. And then on Saturday morning I heard this package crash into the hallway:

I’ve been aware of Termight Replicas for a couple of years at least (if memory serves I managed to talk about them on Londonist back in the day) so it was great to see @Termight in my twitter stream. Wakefield got in touch with me a little while ago and the conversation lead to Saturday’s package. The contents?

That’s a Judge Dredd replica belt buckle based I believe on the artwork of Cliff Robinson. Along side it was this:

Now I’ve had a Judge Dredd badge before. They gave one away with Prog 300 back in 1983 and I kept it in fairly good condition up until about five years ago. Not bad for a free gift made out of plastic and gold paint. But this… well this is a serious piece of comics merchandise.

Full disclaimer. I’m not a big collector of this stuff – half the time I’m just simply baffled by the array of comics related collectibles and the price tags attached to them. And nine times out of ten I’m amazed at how poor the attention to detail is. I’m happy for other people to be happy collecting that stuff, but I’m happier knowing that particular bug passed me by.

These two items though are in a different league. First thing you notice is the weight. These guys are not messing around. They even manage to kick the ass of non comic fans. The detail is brilliant and they’ve immediately both become prize possessions.

But if you have even a passing interest in 2000AD you are going to want something from Wakefield. Turns out he doesn’t do this for a living – he’s just a fan like you and me. I guess the easiest way to say it is that he lives in our world.

Go throw money at him – what you get in return is something you can’t buy anywhere else.

File 27: PoGo a go go from Mike Atherton on Vimeo.

Testing it properly tomorrow. Full specs and stuff here.

Wandering around town after the Wordia press launch last week with Christian I was encouraged to pick up a an iPhone. Already had some well deserved grief over this one, but Jess came to my rescue (as usual) and co-opted the shiny little bastard as a belated birthday present. Now I can whip it out in public and deflect the “I thought you said the iPhone was a piece of crap?” comments with the my girlfriend bought it for me clause.

Less than a week old, but yeah it’s crappy in all the areas I expected:

battery life is terrible, most of the applications come from the same fuckwit funnel as the crap on Facebook, the camera is so-so and it cries out for a second camera and video capibility, then fails as an iPod replacement too due to the meager 8 or 16GB capacity.

Pushing all that aside and treating it as an extra gadget to throw in my bag it’s a lot of fun. Some of the apps are great, the screen is shockingly bright compared to my Archos and because this is the PAYG version I’m not tied to anyone for 18months. Having 3g means I can find more than enough uses for it to start bitching about the lack of a decent battery at least once a day.

I hear a rumour there’s a 32GB version on the way, which would at least bring it into line with the iPod Touch (we also have one of those in the house now – thin little fucks), but the 16GB one I have should do fine as I’m not really using it as an Archos replacement. I’ll probably hang on to my Viewty for the 120fps recording facility alone so I’m now one of those idiots with two phones.

I’m beta testing the new upgrade to LifeCast too so I will be using it as a blogging tool from time to time. As a pocket version of Twitter it’s exceptional (I use a Twinkle, Twittervision and Twitterific combo). I’ve also downloaded a handful of Japanese comic apps that are utilising the interface in an interesting way.

More on all this once I’ve got used to the thing, dropped it or thrown it against the wall…