Head to continental Europe too early in the year and you’re likely to get rain. Or go too late and all the locals are on holiday and everywhere is overrun with other tourists. May seemed like a good compromise so we hired a big villa and all flew over to Tuscany.

In the end we got a bit of everything. Some rain, some sun; some areas with more English and German spoken than Italian, some parts where no-one spoke any foreign language; some good food and some really great food; and some fine wines and some fantastic.

• US imposes 72 hour pre-reg for Visa waiver travellers – And this is going to help how?!
• ID Cards: Scandalous as Well as Idiotic – More on ID cards and the lengths that the government is going to in order to make sure that we all get them, like it or not. Very sneaky.
• Want to buy Jacqui Smith’s ID? – “Four people have been arrested after the BBC bought a driving licence and utility bills in the name of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.” Yet the government insists that this is a good reason for having a national ID card? They still don’t understand…

A common refrain is that computers are too complicated for ordinary people to use. Yet mostly when I see people sat with a notebook on their lap I don’t see frustration. The confusion tends to come when something doesn’t work as expected. Naturally bad design plays a big part in this but the biggest stumbling block comes when a dialog box like this pops up:

There’s this feeling in the Mac community that you should avoid the first iteration of any new Apple product. Yet back at the beginning of this decade I went out and foolishly put £350 down on a first generation iPod. Sure, it looks clunky now. It’s bigger and lower capacity than the current revisions, has a monochrome screen and the scroll-wheel actually rotates. But for a version one product it was remarkably well rounded.

• The Dumbing Of America – “The toxic brew of anti-rationalism and ignorance hurts discussions of U.S. public policy on topics from health care to taxation.” The article is about the US but it’s also increasingly true here. Depressing.
• New Indiana Jones movie is dreadful – Oh dear. Like many people I’ll probably still go see it anyway…
• SMS costs more than using Hubble Space Telescope – “Text messaging [is] anywhere from four to 42 times as expensive as talking to the Hubble.”

This chap is a professional camel handler that led my animal, dancing, singing and laughing all the way through Wadi Rum in Jordan. This weeks PhotoFriday theme being “Professional” I thought this image was appropriate.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “My Little Secret.” I’m entry number 185.

• Senator to ISPs: “Think twice” about ‘Net neutrality… or else – It’s encouraging that some politicians understand the issues of net neutrality. Let’s hope that there are also tech-savvy MPs here in the UK.
• Peep Show for free! – If you’re in the UK this is a must-have download: the first episode of the new series of Peep Show. It’s perhaps the best comedy show on British TV at the moment. Highly recommended.
• The Free Web: 15 Years Old Today – The subject line says it all! Where would we be without the web?

Like most people, most of my photography tends to happen when I travel. I do like to branch out from time to time though, this time into portrait photography. This picture is from my first (and currently only) experience in a studio and is of a model called Lena. She was professional, fun and very keen on motor racing.

This is a cropped version of the original. I usually use the full-size, black and white version which is not suitable for work.

My Little Secret is this, the best coffee shop in Reykjavik, Iceland — it was always half-empty even though they had great drinks and even better cakes.

That’s also this weeks PhotoFriday theme. I found it a tricky subject¹ and I’m not entirely happy with this pictures connection to the topic, but I do think I captured the lighting and the atmosphere of the cafe well.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Electricity.” I’m entry number 225.

• An elephant never forgets? George W. Bush’s lost e-mails – “The administration has chafed at external oversight and shown a tendency to come up with dubious legal justifications for ignoring laws it doesn’t agree with.” Just what is Mr Bush trying to hide?
• WordPress 2.5.1 – I just upgraded to the newest version of WordPress. Looks good as far as I can see but let me know if you spot anything untoward.
• Madonna, Hard Candy – “It’s about grooves rather than memorable songs, and Madonna just doesn’t make for a convincing soul diva [as she] sings them with the emotional engagement of a sat-nav suggesting a right turn onto the A23.”