boblog

spider

I just had a bath, this thing hanging over me the whole time.

Where do they come from? How do they manage to magically appear in the bathroom overnight, yet look like they've been there for ages?

reflection

Leaves on the lake near our house.

leaves

Another from my autumn walk the other week. A carpet of leaves.

dusty

Haven't posted a pic of Teh Kitteh in a while. He's really quite massive now and not in the slightest bit kitten-ish.

The sun is shining brightly in Boblogville this morning and, as I was trying to capture the dust swirling in a shaft of light, he popped his head round the stairpost wondering what the hell I was up to.

faeries

I went for an autumn walk with my camera (well, with my phone) this afternoon. I took lots of photos of berries, for some strange reason. The trees and bushes are heavily laden with them.

In the end, it was this toadstool shot that was the best of the bunch:

Emma (part 4)

Another nosedive this week, so much so that I really can't be arsed to review it in any detail. Mr Knightley still far superior, Emma still gurning, Jane Fairfax still swinging wildly between timid and outgoing. First half hour had too much crammed in, the last half hour not enough.

However, I do think I've been overly harsh in my scoring; it wasn't TERRIBLE, just a disappointment given that it was a) 4 hours long - long enough to explain things properly and b) a BBC production.

The Gwyneth Paltrow / Jeremy Northam version still, for me, sets the standard by which all other Emmas shall be compared. Perhaps that's because it was the version I saw first.
At any rate, it was half as long and twice as good.

Fourth episode: if judged on how many times my heartstrings were tugged on during the sixty minute programme:
2 out of 10.

More realistic overall grading of the series:
5 out of 10. Could have been better, could have been worse.

leaves

Emma (part 3)

Sigh. Is it that time of the week again?

Unfortunately, things have taken another turn for the worse. There were several moments when I was reaching for my copy of the book (or, I should say, one of my copies, for I have several. Well, two.), checking to see if the unbelievable things that were spewing from the mouths of the characters originally flowed from the pen of Miss Austen.
Mrs. Elton is not too far off the spot, but perhaps not obnoxious enough. But was Frank Churchill quite such a liar, slagging off Jane Fairfax at almost every opportunity?

And still, Mr. Knightley rises above it all like the gentleman he is. Now infinitely superior to the rest of the cast, he is the only character for whom I feel any emotion. Poor man, pining over such an unlikeable Emma (of whom Husband remarked 'isn't the heroine supposed to have some redeemable qualities?'). Apart from the fact she's pretty (when not pulling ridiculous faces) I really don't know what he sees in her. Emma?! Lydia, more like.

Well, one thing can be said for her, she's provoking me to blog at least once a week.

Third episode: 2 out of 10. One point for each time I felt sorry for poor Mr. Knightley.

Emma (part 2)

This week's episode was a slight improvement on last week's, partly because it seemed more faithful to the book. I'm still not warming to Emma due to her excessively expressive face. She has eyes the size of saucers in most scenes and a mouth to match. You certainly would not think her a well-bred lady.

The most likeable character is Mr Knightley, although he is still a little too lively for my taste. However, it is highly likely he rescued this episode, for it was definitely not saved by the insipid Jane Fairfax or the amazing pop-up Frank Churchill (who happened upon Emma and Harriet as they were out walking one morning, then, what seemed like several days later, reappeared again when introduced to her as Mr Weston's son).

As seen on Twitter, very badly done Emma, badly done indeed.

Still, unlike last week, I didn't spend the entire episode rolling my eyes and yelling 'gah!' and 'WTF?!' at the screen, so things are looking up.

Second episode: 3 out of 10

TypePad iPhone app

OK, so it's not entirely useless; it does make blogging on the move easier (well, that's if you only have a few words to say and don't mind your post looking a mess) and makes the posting of pictures considerably easier than inserting them manually (evidenced by the vast increase in the number of times I've posted here since getting the app). But, what is essentially a simple app has suffered from the same strange interface as it's online counterpart (I have still not moved to the 'new' TypePad; We Fear Change).

Example - the main screen. Three options are before you, when only one is needed:

Create a Post takes you to the main 'compose' screen.

Take a Photo opens your camera app, allowing you to take a photo as usual, then prompts you to scale the picture and position it within a square (no option is given to post photos taken in portrait in their full, rectangular glory unless they were taken in landscape mode), before taking you on to the main compose screen.
This option is unnecessary; surely if you wanted to take a photo you'd use your camera app?
Besides, if you were foolish enough to take a photo using the TypePad app and happen to either press cancel, switch apps or receive a call before entering text or pressing 'publish', your picture is gone forever.
Oops, I hope that photo you were so desperate to blog wasn't anything important...

Add a Photo takes you to your photos app to choose a picture stored on your iPhone. Once the chosen picture has been subjected to the same horrible square editor, you are taken to the main compose screen.
For some reason, it quite often publishes cropped pictures with a black edge on two adjacent sides.

However, on the main compose screen, there's already an option to add a photo, rendering those last two options useless.

Moving on...

So, you're ready to compose your blog post.
Here, we'll give you a teeny tiny space (5 lines at best) in which to compose it.
No, we won't let you use this app in landscape mode, to make it easier for fat fingers to type. We'll just use up some valuable screen space keeping 'categories' and 'photos' options in view while you type:

This post was initially composed on the iPhone, but seeing as I couldn't publish any of the screengrabs I had taken in their original rectangular size (and initially couldn't add more than one photo per blog post - but, strangely, I can now) or add any weblinks, I logged in online and wrote the whole thing out from scratch.

Besides, it's almost impossible to wrestle a blog post into shape when only 5 lines of text are available to view at any one time.

In fact, I've had to log in to tweak almost all of my mobile posts. This is partly because (as Kathryn reminded me) photos are automatically placed after any entered text, immediately after the last word, without a line or paragraph break or anything, making the published post look horribly ugly. Hitting 'return' at the end of your entered text sometimes stops this from happening, sometimes not.

Perhaps I'm wanting something more advanced than this app can deliver, but it would be nice to be able to format my post with html that would display properly in the finished blog post.
In the meantime, I advise you to use the mobile web interface via Safari for longer blog posts, it's so much easier - more on that at a later date.

See also:
How to use the TypePad iPhone app drafts and pending functions.
The basics of how to use this app are explained in this video.