Digital sands

Seasons greetings from Digital Sands / Silversprite here on Berneray, to readers on Scottish islands and further afield. Wishing you a peaceful Christmas and a prosperous and healthy 2008.

The Comhairle (council of the Outer Hebrides) have just launched their new online planning service.

And ... it's really good (you were expecting me to say something negative there?).

If you go to the Planning Services section of their website, then click on Online Planning Information, you get to their database.

What's really interesting is that it doesn't just deal with current planning applications, but ones from several years ago. Even more interesting is that, for nearly all applications, they've scanned in everything. I mean EVERYTHING. Application forms, warrants, correspondence with council people, correspondence between council departments, letters of support, letters of objection, even the till receipts for various applications.

That's a heck of a lot of scanning. The search mechanism is a bit fiddly - I found it easier to search via road, then drill down to the individual property - but does work.

All kudos to the Comhairle - this is a big step forward. Now if they could just overhaul their main website...

Day three of the fog.

Anyone else in the middle of a really long spell? This is like something out of a Stephen King book here.

I have been banned from my local shop for blogging negatively about it (this isn't a big loss)(to me, or the shop). nb also it wasn't my islandblogging blog but my silversprite one.

Has anyone else suffered consequences or sanctions through their blogging or other online dissemination activities?

Where dit go? I blinked and it's August and raining :-(

As an Internet research i.e. someone who researches the use of the Internet, I spend a lot of time playing about with Social Networking sites. These are ones where you slap up a profile, get some mutual friends to interlink, and communicate. Features vary, but they usually combine primitive blogging and messaging with some kind of photo or video feature i.e. the ability to upload pictures. The key leverage is community - growing one organically around your own shared interests, and seeing how they intermesh with other communities.

As ever, these things are better understood by trying them out.

MySpace I don't like, mainly aesthetically. I can see the point of it, especially if you are a band or heavily into a media-based culture which can be digitally shared, such as music. But most MySpace accounts look vile. The default settings are awful, and configuring it makes it worse. Also the navigation and functionality are not intuitive (well, to me, anyway). Worse of all is that I don't like going to any web page and immediately being hit by pounding music, forcing me to find the off button.

But Facebook ... ah. It clicks. It looks refined and aesthetically pleasing. People of my vague generation (25 to 50) seem to prefer it, so the level of conversation is understandable and not shoutey or sweary. There's also various people from the Outer Hebrides on there - was invited through one of them. Also, through looking at the friends of other friends, have discovered several ex-work colleagues and can pick 'n' choose who to add on to my friends. If that makes sense.

This is my profile:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=673766853

...or search for John Kirriemuir. Or if you are a regular Island blogging blogger and not a nutter / stalker :-) and want an invite on, then get in touch (www.silversprite.com)

Anyone know of a good online shop that sells cheap curtains, for bedrooms, that are thick enough to block out all outside light?

Yours insomniacly,
Digital Sands

This came up in conversation with another BBC Islandblogging blogger the other day.

Basically, which blogger would you like to meet - and why.

Note: this isn't an invitation or incitement to gatecrash, or stalk, bloggers. There are no prizes.

Guess I'll go first as suggested it. I'd like to meet Ruthodanort and Scallowawife, as (a) I can practise my basic Norwegian with the former and (b) the latter has good taste in food and (c) I have yet to visit the Orkneys and Shetland islands and am madly curious about the beaches there. And the shopping.

It’s the lunchtime after the night before, and I still don’t know:

- who is the largest party in Scotland.
- who will be First Minister.
- on what mysterious journey my ballot paper has been during the night.

Satisfied with the result locally. However, the way this election has been conducted, in Scotland, in 2007, makes me almost physically sick.

It does not make Scotland look good. It makes us look more like an Eastern European country before the wall came down. For whatever reason(s), the problems with postal votes and (b) the utterly shocking number of “spoilt” papers means that democracy has taken a bit of a backseat. 100,000+ papers not counted in a country of 5 million. Oh, and ballot boxes bursting open in Edinburgh, with forms being stuffed into carrier bags, the boxes themselves not being sturdy anymore but pathetic cardboard constructs vunerable to anything, software not working, remote communications not working, and not to mention the issues with transportation in Arran and here…

Locally, we had the first embarassment of the night in Scotland. To put a few things incorrectly mentioned on the news straight - there WAS NO BAD WEATHER IN THE OUTER HEBRIDES. Some complete ********, somewhere, decided that the helicopter would fly (seemingly at the last minute) from Inverness to the Outer Hebrides, then loop northwards picking up boxes on the way. Fog in Inverness meant no take-off - despite the Outer Hebrides having excellent weather, as confirmed by residents of Barra on the radio this morning. Worse, whoever was running this hadn’t learnt from previous helicopter unreliabilities.

People - that is residents and taxpayers who live here - were fuming in Lochmaddy this morning. Nobody finds it funny. Everyone expects better.

The more sensible approach would have been:

- have the helicopter in Barra SOONER.
- have a decent back-up plan. Not “Ah well, we’ll put the boxes somewhere overnight then take them on a ferry tomorrow”.
- build a few weather-proof tunnels so this kind of shambles - and that’s what it is - doesn’t happen again.
- ban the returning officer, and any other person who says “Well, this kind of thing happens in the Western Isles” on national TV, from ever having any position of responsibility, or media exposure again.

Mr officer, on your appearance on national TV last night, you made the islands look backwards. In my opinion, your comment was disgraceful and an embarassment. You have an unacceptably poor attitude, and you don’t fit into a modern island economy or infrastructure. Myself and many others here compete, against mainland companies, for mainland clients.

With your unacceptable attitude you’ve given a negative impression of these islands, which to put it very mildly, does not help local businesses. Do the right thing and resign. I hope you, and anyone else with your attitude, never holds a position of responsibility again.

Bottom line: just because we live on islands on the periphery doesn’t mean the infrastructure should be unreliable. Far more remote communities in the periphery, in Norway, Finland, Lapland and beyond, wouldn’t accept this. Why should we?

The future? As of early afternoon, the day after a supposedly hi-tech election, it looks like either Labour or the SNP being the largest party with a very narrow margin. This means four years of acrimony. Never a dull moment here.

Well, what is it?