I'm an IT Manager based in the UK, undertake freelance web projects, mountain sports and am a husband & a father. Here I blog about web apps, all things Apple & life in general. I also highlight my posts & status updates from around the web.
As many of you may have heard, Twitter are currently testing some new functionality in beta called Re-tweets. What’s new about that I hear you cry, Re-tweets or RT’s have been about for ages?
Well yes and no. While many clients have automated the re-tweeting of existing tweets, this is not something that Twitter itself has supported and users of the web interface have been required to cut and paste to manually create the posts.
I am fortunate enough to be part of that beta release, so thought you may like to hear and see how Twitter’s implementation works. Below is the explanation that Twitter provides:

There are two main differences. Firstly you still see the author of the original post and not the author of the re-tweet as you do currently.
Secondly, while you will still only see re-tweets from people you follow, they have included a count of how many other people have also re-tweeted the same post. This is quite useful in quickly gauging the popularity of the tweet.
Not drastic changes but useful ones and expect to see third party twitter clients falling into line and supporting this functionality in the very near future.
HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.
VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player supporting most audio and video formats (H.264, Ogg, DivX, MKV, TS, MPEG-2, mp3, MPEG-4, aac, ...) from files, physical media (DVDs, VCD, Audio-CD), TV capture cards and many network streaming protocols.
It can also convert media files, transcode and act as a streaming server over unicast or multicast and IPv4 or IPv6. It doesn't need any external codec, program or codec pack to work.…
The new version of QuickTime included with Snow Leopard (called QuickTime Player X) is almost a complete overhaul of the previous version, from the look and feel of the application windows right down to the preferences menu (or lack thereof). If you were looking to change some options but don't know where to start, our Preference Pane can help you enable or disable many of QuickTime's features. It is currently at version 1.2. For more…
Screen Grab Utility With Bite
Web Snapper lets you capture web pages - exactly as they appear in your browser. You can send them to a file, as images or vector-based, multi-page PDFs. It captures the whole web page - eliminating the need to cut, paste and crop multiple screen-shots when trying to create an image or PDF.
Rocketbox is a powerful, new way of searching your e-mail in Apple Mail.app. It's never been faster or easier to find what you need.
Caffeine is a tiny program that puts an icon in the right side of your menu bar. Click it to prevent your Mac from automatically going to sleep, dimming the screen or starting screen savers. Click it again to go back. Right-click (or ⌘-click) the icon to show the menu.
ExpanDrive acts just like a USB drive plugged into your Mac. Open, edit, and save files to remote computers from within your favorite programs—even when they are on a server half a world away. ExpanDrive enhances every single application on your computer by transparently connecting it to remote data.
The Easiest Way to Build your First iPhone App:
If the idea of learning Objective C brings you out in hives, then if you’re a web developer this may be a easy alternative
Email Sanity: How to Clear Your Inbox When You’re Drowning | Zen Habits:
Good advice for everyone, a lot of these tips I already use myself. Treat it like a war on email and be ruthless!
You can read more of my random thoughts at My Brain Drain Tumblelog on Tumblr, read articles I've enjoyed through my shared articles on Google Reader or find more interesting links through my delicious.com profile.
Hi, my name is Giles Thurston and this is my personal site.
I'm based in Ely, the second smallest city in the UK just north of Cambridge. I have over 15 years commercial software development experience, spending the first few years as an application developer before moving into web development and consultancy. I've led teams, managed multi million pound contracts and have a number of years of business development experience. My day job these days tends to focus on IT management and in particular Business Development but I keep my hand in by undertaking personal web development and design projects.
In 2008, after 16 years using Windows based PC's, I made the switch to a Mac and boy was it worth it! Although I continue to use PC's on a day to day basis, my personal preference is always to go with Apple products and I hope to blog about my experiences as a switcher here on this site, with various hints and tips which may be of use to anybody following me over the fence from Windows
Away from software development and technology, I am a husband to Leanne and father to Arlo James, who joined our family in April 2009. I'm a keen sportsman and enjoy a variety of mountain sports, including mountaineering, climbing (rock & ice) and mountain biking. I've recently got back into running and am hoping to do my first triathlon in 2010.
On this site I hope to blog about web apps, all things Apple & life in general. I also highlight my various posts, links & latest twitter updates from around the web.
Feel free to get in touch and give me your feedback on the site. You can contact me directly through twitter or the other networks I use regularly, links to which you will find below. Alternatively feel free to join the discussion and comment on my blog posts, all contributions are welcome!
@stuhelm agree, was toying with idea of getting unlocked mifi like @donmcallister has but can't justify expense at mo :(
@stuhelm is that the 3 one Stu?
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