I got this idea from a Melbourne Writer's Festival idea: http://www.springwise.com/media_publishing/melbourne-festival-wireless-router...>

They had six wireless routers that told a short (almost haiku like) story via the SSID (name) of the router. Check the link out for a cool video on how it worked.

So, I decided to do my own version - a different part of the story every day on my own home wireless network. I know people around me can see my network name, because I see their names - hello there GETUROWNINT3ERNET (I always imagine this person as a slightly grumpy person who's had their wireless network attacked once too often) - so hopefully they'll get a bit of a laugh out of it, if they work out what's going on.

This is the story I decided to tell - it is a very famous book and movie (well movie more than book).

Police issue alert

For girl and dog

Wanted for

2 murders

And destroying property

Let me know in the comments what movie/book you think I might be referencing here. And if anyone's got any bright takes on classic stories, let me know and I'll issue them via my wireless SSID.

With two cats in the house, this is definitely a warning sign that should be hung on our front door. When we bought our cats we were told they were domestic short hairs which we, naively, thought meant they wouldn't shed much.

How wrong were we? Let's put it this way - VERY wrong, which is why I like this cat hair removal tip from LifeHacker Australia.

Basically (for those people who don't want to click the link and leave my site!) the tip suggests rubbing sofas, rugs, car seats etc with rubber gloves to remove cat hair.

Sticky tape versus rubber gloves

Normally I use sticky tape to 'suck up' cat hair from the sofa but it isn't very effective and it is time consuming. So since I had a pair of spare, clean dishwashing gloves under the sink and 1/2 hour to kill this morning I gave this tip a go. The results were amazing - this photo shows a small amount of the hair I collected in only 15 mins.

(ok, that is obviously a picture of my cats. I decided the cat hairball was a bit too gross to put online)

The LifeHacker site says the hair should stick to the gloves and can be removed by washing the gloves but I found the hair clumped and stayed on the sofa.

Sticky tape collected most of the hair and in future I'll probably use the vacuum cleaner to get rid of all the clumped hair quickly and easily.

Rubber is not my favourite smell

The other downside is the gloves heat up quite quickly and your hands can end up smelling like rubber (well mine did, you might have better quality gloves!)
Still, a very good tip which worked just as well on the Turkish rugs and the quilt cover - definitely a keeper.

Do you have any other tips for removing cat hair from your furniture? Have you tried this tip? How did it work for you?

How about a tip for removing the smell of rubber from your hands??

A great (in my opinion) video extolling the virtues of a new app reminding women to check their breasts.

And yes, I know that this is politically incorrect, and if it was the other way around I wouldn't be quite as pleased about the video, but this is my blog and I can be as inconsistent as I like thank you very much. (phew, breathe Priya!)

Anyway, the message is a good one done in a fairly fun way.

Very interesting quote from Margaret Gould Stewart (Head of User Experience at YouTube) on women in technology.

"A Forbes Magazine study reported that women usually wait until they are nearly 100 percent qualified for a job to apply, while men tend to apply when they are on average around 60 percent qualified. It seems the men figure they will learn the remaining skills on the job, and they are right. Women should stretch themselves with challenging opportunities; if you feel a bit in over your head, you are probably on the right track."

I know I've been guilty of not stretching myself in the past - have you? What have you done to challenge yourself and get out of that rut? All suggestions gratefully accepted!

Ok, that is pretty harsh but I'm ranting here, let me be!

So have you been seeing this status update (or variants therof) on your Facebook wall feed recently?

ALL THE PHONE NUMBERS IN YOUR PHONE are now on Facebook, included the numbers of people NOT on FaceBook! No joke - go to the top right of the screen, click on Account, then click on Edit Friends, go left on the screen and click on Contacts. All phone numbers are published!! Please repost this on your Status, so your friends can remove their numbers and thus prevent abuse if they do not want them published!

I've seen about 10 of them in the last couple of hours alone. And whilst I agree that in the past (and no doubt in the future) Facebook has (and will) do stupid things with our private information, this is not one of those times.

Those phone numbers have been there for a while - every friend that puts a phone number into their profile settings and allows other people to see that number, has their phone number on Contacts (was originally called Phonebook).

So in that case, it is you / your friend who made the decision to put the phone number up online, knowing it would be visible to other people.

The second part - where the numbers of people who are not on Facebook are available - relates to an activity that you took when you downloaded either the Facebook app or its new Messaging app. You would have been asked if you wanted to sync your phone numbers / contacts EVEN those not in Facebook to your Facebook account and you said YES.

That is how those numbers appeared in your Facebook Contacts list, and just like on your phone, those phone numbers are only available to you (and Facebook's data engineers).

So, what's the take-away from this? After all I'm ranting - I must have a solution right?

My personal solution? Keep your databases separate - don't automatically say yes to everything an app asks you to do, think about the ramifications of having all your phone numbers in Skype, Facebook, Twitter etc. It might be a bit of a pain but at least you know where and who's seeing not only your details but aslo your friends' details.

of course Google being totally not evil is completely exempt from this rant - i willingly and happily give over all information to them whenever they ask!

Have you seen the animated Google doodle today? So cool the way you can control its movement and I love the extra touch of a shadow at the bottom of the screen.

It is in honour of Alexander Calder's 113th birthday - the inventor of the toy of choice for all new parents: the mobile.

You've got to hand it to Google - they know how to keep a simple search page interesting.

Well not really. I haven't actually started a Kickstarter project, what I mean is I've donated for the first time to a Kickstarter project.

For people who don't know what Kickstarter is, it is "a new way to fund and follow creativity." Participants put up projects with a total funding amount and various pledge levels. These pledges usually come with a reward - either virtual or physical. If the total funding amount is met by a particular date then the project will go ahead, if not then all pledges are returned.

Obviously the projects range from the interesting and the feasible to the completely whacked out and there's a high number of creative projects - like artists, musicians, writers etc all looking for assistance with different projects.

The project I picked was for an Artist's Residence on a remote island - it just sounded really cool. The project has been fully funded - in fact it is overfunded which is great for the guys running the project - and I look forward to getting my reward:

So what is the best excuse not to exercise? Well (apart from being sick/injured of course) it is when you're told the ship you're on is restricting water usage and all showers are secured (to prevent unauthorised use)!

I certainly don't want to be unkind to my fellow cabin mates so no exercise tonight.

So this is an indication of what Priya will be doing tonight instead!

(Flickr image courtesy of The_bosshog)