Spy Journal 3.0 Filtering the web for you

Here's a little known story about me. I used to live in New Zealand. Specifically in a little sleepy seaside town called Motueka. We even had our own "resort", a beach side caravan park at Kaiteriteri beach. There was a general store, petrol station, boat wash, bait and ice, tea rooms and fish and chip and ice cream counters. I worked there three summers in a row. I actually had a full time job but I used to work there while on my paid vacation. It helped defray the costs of the holiday - petrol money travel, food and drink etc.

I don't even remember exactly which year this was, but it would have been somewhere between 1988 and 1993. At the time I owned a Hillman Avenger. In fact I purchased it explicitly for the holiday - I think I swapped $700 for it. It was a bit of a scrubber, but it went ok.

Following is a list of the social networks I participate in. Feel free to check my profiles out, add me as a friend in your network, join them etc.

Face book http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=802918101

Linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=11408554

Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/alborath/

Delicious http://del.icio.us/jethrocon

Twitter http://twitter.com/spyjournal

Tangler http://www.tangler.com/people/id/9318

I have a cold.

Productivity is decreased.

I have deadlines.

Colds suck. 

Did you know that a simple piece of paper fixes 70% of failed iPods? Stephen Ironside, a student at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville once faced a modern problem that his iPod that had filled his life with music had stopped working. As it was out of warranty he put it away until one day he read on a blog that it could be fixed with a small folded piece of paper.
As neighbourhood repair shops have disappeared, fixit websites have developed to fill this gap. Peter Wayner has written an article on this phenomenon. Some of these websites focus around questions that are answered by anyone who has faced a similar problem, those who offer advice are rated on the quality of that advice. Other sites offer repair services and sell replacement parts.