This was the question asked on the Today programme this morning. I didn’t hear the actual piece as we’d woken late and were running behind, but the word “Blogger” was said in a manner that rhymed with “Scum”, so I can guess the conclusion.

The question in detail was would you trust a blogger’s opinion of a book over that of a professional critic? The stress on the word professional rubbed home the fact that us mere internet graffiti artists have no proper training to be able to properly comment on whether we’d recommend anything to our friends or not.

Personally (although, obviously, I’m highly biased – reviews form a substantial part of the Prattle) yes I do trust the average Joe on the ‘net over a professional reviewer. No they aren’t as professional in writing out their review, but they do know whether they like something and I know they’re not getting paid to deceive me. I even trust the comments on Amazon far more than any newspaper review.

Of course, I do check that the reason for a good or bad review is well thought out and that we share similar views of what makes a good or bad product.

No matter how much someone raved over a horror novel, I would still not buy it – I’m a wuss and can’t sleep at night after reading even the mildest story in the horror genre. Nor would I trust someone who said something sucked without offering any explanation why. I also try and look for a consensus over a great many opinions rather than relying on one, particularly if it’s a blog I haven’t read over a long period of time. This is common sense. But these days I hardly buy anything without doing a thorough internet search first and the reviews that have most weight with me…?

… they’re the reviews on personal blogs.

So, the new version of WordPress is out and everything has been duly updated.

What did they do to the user interface? It’s like Noddy’s guide to blogging. Everything is in pastel blue shades (ugh) and with very big buttons, but at the same time they’ve moved stuff all over the place so you’re continually having to scroll and change tabs to work out where the hell they’ve put it.

And they’ve kindly put in a stats package, but you have to use your WordPress password (rather than your site password) to get in – but helpfully haven’t put that information anywhere and the input field looks exactly the same.

*scream*

• Circus Ponies – Organization for a Creative Mind
  Their notebook software is everything a Mac app should be – simple, elegant and incredibly powerful. It’s a joy to use and I’m actually sitting here making up new uses for it just so I can play with it for a bit longer.
  (tags: mac software productivity organisation writing gtd cool notebook)

unɟ ʎɹǝʌ s,ʇı sɐ oƃ ɐ ʇı ǝʌıƃ ll,ı ʇnq ‘ʞɹoʍ llıʍ sıɥʇ ɟı ǝɹns ʇou

lɯʇɥ˙dılɟ/ɯoɔ˙pɐɟʌǝɹ˙ʍʍʍ//:dʇʇɥ

… is an oven you didn’t have to clean yourself.

Okay, this post is going to sound extremely sad, because I’m going to RAVE… RAVE I TELL YOU… about how wonderfully clean and shiny my oven, hob, extractor, microwave and sink are. Just humour me. Please

The best part is, I didn’t have to do any of it myself as I enlisted the services of Ovenclean.

I cannot emphasise enough what a wonderful job these people have done.

They arrived promptly (even though our house is hard to find as our road wasn’t listed on their GPS), were friendly and cheerful with me and inquisitive children, none of the substances they used smelt strongly or had any fumes, and the end result was that everything was absolutely pristine.

Really pristine – not just very clean. The oven looks better than it did when it was first fitted. The hob looks like it’s never been used. THAT clean.

How much did it cost?

£105 – that was for a double oven, hob, extractor (change of bulb included in the price), and combi microwave. They cleaned the sink (it’s a stainless (hah!) steel one) as a bonus while there for no extra charge.

Not bad considering two of them were here for a good 2.5 hours and did such a thorough job. I cannot recommend them enough.

Of course, I can never use the kitchen again as it’ll wreck the showroom finish…

… it was the sound of my free time imploding.

I accidentally tried World of Warcraft last night for the Mac. I had to – it has iTunes support… how cool is THAT?!

Actually, I was really impressed. The download was short as the trial version sort of streams (let’s face it, when you’re trying you’re mainly in the noob areas anyway, right? You don’t need to download every zone ever designed for that).

So the end result is that I accidentally ordered the game + expansion combo pack on Amazon as soon as I logged off.

Oh well, free time is overrated anyway.

We have now had it categorically confirmed why PC gaming is far superior to console gaming.

Akra Jr lent his Lego Star Wars II The Original Trilogy GBA cartridge to his brother. I erroneously assumed that the game was stored on the console not the cartridge, but in any case set Li’l Bhaji up on Game 3 save game just in case.

The only problem is, that when Li’l Bhaji gets bored and wants to start again, he switches the gameboy off and switches it back on again. That defaults any save games back to Game 1. And Game 1 is where Akra Jr had collected 20 characters and got through the majority of the levels.

All wiped.

Akra Jr is devastated. We had ten solid minutes of body-wracking sobs once he realised what had happened. It wasn’t Li’l Bhaji’s fault – after all, he can’t read let alone understand the “are you sure” messages he just clicked his way through. If anyone knows any cheat codes that can bring back specific characters to save Akra Jr having to play through the lot again, it would really be appreciated.

What it does bring home to me though, is how crap consoles are with save games. Even on the Wii with loads of storage space, the maximum you can save is up to 3 save games (great when you have 4 in the family who all like to play games). Some games only have 1 save game (now there’s a family argument about to happen). Very few of them allow you to change the name of the save game to remind you which save was which.

Now, I may be overly conditioned with Daggerfall, which regularly used to corrupt save games, but on the PC I am religious about saving multiple copies of every game I play. It’s named something obvious like “Pewari’s Game” or “Pewari pre-quest”. I save to lots of duplicate files so if one does get corrupted or I want to revert back to earlier in the game before I cocked up, I haven’t lost too much progress. There is no limit on how many save games I, or any other family member, can make. Well, apart from hard drive space.

With memory cards becoming cheaper all the time, why are console games so limiting?

Or should I just resign myself to buying two copies of every Gameboy game just to stop sibling armageddon?

Thanks to Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, Akra Jr is now completely utterly immersed in the world of Jedi Knights, tweeting robots and women with spirals glued to their heads.

It’s great fun as we’ve sat down and watched the whole trilogy together (the original one – he’s still too young for the prequels, I think) and watching them afresh through your 6 year old’s eyes is rather special. All the magic comes flooding back, and my heart was back in my mouth watching Han go through the carbon freezing, no longer jaded after zillions of viewings.

The only problem is, I now have a desperate urge to dig out X Wing vs. Tie Fighter again. I want to fly a Tie Fighter, knowing I have to use different strategies as there’s no shields. Or take an X Wing on its attack run. I’d even settle for X Wing Alliance, even though in many ways it wasn’t as an addictive a game.

The problem? Well, even if I could find the box in the loft where it was stored, I’d also need to find the joystick. And the joystick not only used to give me RSI after about half an hour’s play, it also didn’t have a USB connector. Oh, and I have an iMac now.

Can’t they relaunch X Wing vs Tie Fighter with updated graphics for the Wii? I bet it would be awesome to play with a wiimote.

I don’t seem to have much to say for myself this week. Akra Jr has been fighting bedtimes in the evenings and waking up regularly at night, plus other things going on in the day has meant that energy has been at a bit of an ebb.

140 characters on Twitter, no problem. Engaging brain cells for a longer, more thoughtful posting on here – far less attractive.

Li’l Bhaji had his Easter Parade yesterday, and looked very sweet in his duck hat (even if it didn’t fit terribly well and he had to hold on to it all the way around).

I took my proper camera (the Canon 400d) with me and felt properly conspicuous while taking pictures (none of them are up online, for obvious reasons).

A couple of parents begged me to take pictures of their little ones, which was a bit terrifying – as getting decent pictures of small wriggly children in very bright sunlight can be a little hit and miss, but fortunately (with thanks to Photoshop’s Shadow/Highlight recovery) the pictures came out very well and said parents were very complimentary about my photographic skills.

Was a nice ego boost after a bit of a bleugh week.

My other achievement of the week was to finally get out in the garden and turn over the soil in the flower bed we created in November (well, we took the turf off, then abandoned it to become a huge muddy puddle).

I have great plans… oh okay, I nicked my mother’s great plans as she actually likes gardening… to put in some clematis, hebes and if there’s any space left some day lilies. Whether they’ll survive or not in our very shallow clay soil combined with complete neglect is yet to be seen.

I’ve also performed the annual ritual of spraying the outside perimeter of the house with Ant Stop!. I don’t particularly like using the chemicals, but it’s the only thing we’ve found to prevent a horde of ants crossing the threshold and completely taking over the downstairs of the house. The joys of living on top of one big anthill. At least it’s pet and child safe once dry.

And that’s the end of my round up. Hopefully you haven’t fallen asleep during it and I’ll try and recover some bounce for the next post.

• How to Start Your Own Podcast – wikiHow
  A maybe project for the future… if I can just settle on a topic :)
  (tags: podcast podcasting audio howto podcasts wiki tutorial resources projects)