http://www.planetbods.org/blog/build/images/me.jpg 2010-02-28T15:44:57Z Stuff about the BBC and its products, services, channels, websites and stations. tag:www.planetbods.org,2010:/blog/BBC/6 Movable Type Copyright (c) 2010, Andrew Bowden 2010-02-28T15:44:57Z 2010-03-03T08:30:00Z tag:www.planetbods.org,2010:/blog//6.1399

One of the things I'm always keen to do on large work projects is a bit of user testing - where we get real people to come in, try using our services and see what happens. The idea is to see what works, and more importantly, what doesn't.

Andrew Bowden 2009-11-11T22:51:34Z 2009-11-13T08:30:00Z tag:www.planetbods.org,2009:/blog//6.1191

Back when I was aged 9 in what we'd now call Year 4 at primary school, we had to get together in small groups to do a project together. The result was to create a sort of combined report on the chosen subject.

Andrew Bowden 2009-08-12T11:54:05Z 2009-08-12T18:22:00Z tag:www.planetbods.org,2009:/blog//6.1130

It's been kinda interesting reading the stories in the press about the BBC and its water cooler bill.

Andrew Bowden 2009-04-12T15:47:22Z 2009-04-12T14:57:30Z tag:www.planetbods.org,2009:/blog//6.1050

Yes there are some.

Andrew Bowden 2009-03-19T12:33:24Z 2009-03-19T12:28:42Z tag:www.planetbods.org,2009:/blog//6.1029

I recently spotted the addition of an option in the BBC iPlayer which asks you if you like the recommendations it shows on the programme page. It's currently an iPlayer Labs thing so isn't normally available.

Andrew Bowden 2009-04-06T14:45:29Z 2009-03-10T21:55:12Z tag:www.planetbods.org,2009:/blog//6.1023

I'm just going through one of my periodic blogging droughts, not helped by the last week and a half at work just being constant, never-ending hassle and mental effort caused by relentless firefighting. If something could go wrong, it probably did. Oh and to make things worse, half the team are either ill, on leave or exploring the delights of Manchester, on the "familiarisation trips" the BBC is running to try and persuade London based staff that Salford really is the place to be.

Andrew Bowden 2009-02-15T12:39:04Z 2009-02-15T12:35:00Z tag:www.planetbods.org,2009:/blog//6.1011

I mentioned the other week that I was in the process of digitising my VHS collection, to see what interesting things I could find for prosperity. Amongst it was a trailer from 1996 when the BBC was doing another of it's "the licence fee is great cos it gives you things no one else would" campaigns.

Andrew Bowden 2009-02-02T11:17:19Z 2009-02-02T10:43:40Z tag:www.planetbods.org,2009:/blog//6.999

You've just spent two hours getting into the office, delayed due to adverse weather conditions and ironically the worst problems see you stuck about one minute outside your destination station. You get in, past the snow men sentries outside, brush the snow off yourself and realise the office is deserted.

Andrew Bowden 2009-01-14T16:24:40Z 2009-01-14T19:30:00Z tag:www.planetbods.org,2009:/blog//6.983

It was back in 2004 that the BBC first announced its plans to move some departments to the North, thus reducing jobs and money spent in London. It's well known that part of the move, Sport, Childrens, Five Live and a slice of New Media would move from London.

Andrew Bowden 2008-09-23T12:44:55Z 2008-09-23T12:31:54Z tag:www.planetbods.org,2008:/blog//6.895

Here's a depressing thought. Well it depresses me anyway.

Andrew Bowden 2008-07-16T12:56:55Z 2008-07-16T12:49:25Z tag:www.planetbods.org,2008:/blog//6.880

By chance I noticed the an interesting case of BBC related database overload. And it's in the form of recipe databases. Boy, is there a lot...

Andrew Bowden 2008-04-23T08:45:51Z 2008-04-23T08:26:37Z tag:www.planetbods.org,2008:/blog//6.858

As I mentioned recently, the BBC's Doctor Who website recently redesigned and moved their XML feed, without putting a redirect or message in the old feed to point people to the new one.

Andrew Bowden 2008-05-07T20:34:22Z 2008-04-20T08:21:19Z tag:www.planetbods.org,2008:/blog//6.857

Launched in 1999 as freebeeb.net, and later renamed beeb.net, BBC Worldwide's ISP slowly and quietly kept chugging along. By 2001 it had entered profitability with 140,000 users. And it's been around ever since. But this year will be its last - on the 30 June 2008, Beeb will close down and be no more.

Andrew Bowden 2008-04-07T15:20:47Z 2008-04-07T12:48:05Z tag:www.planetbods.org,2008:/blog//6.854

One of the wonders of having XML feeds is that you can keep up to date with what's going on quite nicely from one place instead of having to go through hundreds of different bookmarks, remembering what you've seen and what you've not. And it's something more and more sites are now realising that they should provide, and which will bring them traffic.

Andrew Bowden 2008-03-21T18:39:16Z 2008-03-21T18:40:05Z tag:www.planetbods.org,2008:/blog//6.848

Recently finding the BBC mailing list subscription page I coded in 2001, reminded me of another blog post I've been meaning to write. Some time ago, I telneted in to one of the internal web servers at work where I had my own webspace years ago and which I occasionally still use for various bits and pieces. A lot of my old code is still there, mostly templates for long defunct CGI scripts. However one particular page caught my eye.

Andrew Bowden 2008-09-21T17:45:12Z 2008-03-18T14:29:37Z tag:www.planetbods.org,2008:/blog//6.847

It's coming up for five years since I coded my last web page for the BBC, and very little of my work remains. This is probably a good thing given the code isn't exactly what people these days would be impressed by.

Andrew Bowden 2009-02-01T15:54:33Z 2008-03-02T16:24:25Z tag:www.planetbods.org,2008:/blog//6.843

Whilst sitting down to a nice, homemade green Thai curry last night, we happened to catch the second half of "Eurovision: Your Decision" last night which meant I got to see a strange woman in a corset and an extremely short skirt, Michelle Gayle and Andy Abraham battle it out in front of Terry Wogan sat on a throne in a programme format which was clearly designed to try and stop the UK public from voting for some diabolical crap again.

Andrew Bowden 2008-02-26T12:50:26Z 2008-02-26T11:07:33Z tag:www.planetbods.org,2008:/blog//6.840

Blogs for me are a great way for the BBC to communicate with the people who use, and pay for, its services and it's great that they've been a success. Indeed, probably too much of a success if the continuing comment problems are anything to go by. The problems in trying to put up a single comment are, frankly, terrible. Timeouts... Server problems... You're not even sure if your comment has even got through to the server backend half the time.

Andrew Bowden 2008-02-11T13:26:48Z 2008-02-11T13:27:02Z tag:www.planetbods.org,2008:/blog//6.834

There's a piece in the Daily Mirror today, in outrage about the fact that apparently (and there's no source quoted, so who knows how true this is)...

Andrew Bowden 2007-12-19T10:42:36Z 2007-12-19T19:49:15Z tag:www.planetbods.org,2007:/blog//6.813

Anyone reading the BBC Internet Blog will have noticed a flurry of posts celebrating the 10th aniversary of bbc.co.uk. All the reminiscing has, to be honest, got me reminising about my old memories of working on the BBC website

Andrew Bowden