Aug 14 2008
We’re having another BTUB meet-up for all Twitter folk. This one will be at The Ship Inn at South Bank, down near the Goodwill Bridge. We’ll kick off at 6:30pm on Friday 29th of August.
I’ve put the event details on Upcoming http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/1007838/
The BTUB blog at btub.wordpress.com will also have the details shortly.
All Twitter folk and friends are welcome!
Jul 09 2008
On Friendfeed today I saw a pointer to a post by Orli Yakuel about Picsviewr, so I thought I’d check it out, seeing that it had a good Web 2.0 name with a vowel missing and all..
Picsviewr basically grabs your publicly viewable Flickr images using the Flickr API and offers 8 templates for displaying your images as different ’slideshows’. While it doesn’t have many features other than the slideshows which appear within your browser, I was quite taken by a couple of the templates - the ‘Polaroid gallery’ and ‘Tiltviewer’ in particular. As I store more personal photos privately on Flickr than I post publicly, I couldn’t help think that it would be nice if it would allow you to login to your Flickr account to view your sets etc and use the Picsviewr slideshows to have more fun viewing your images that are marked private for family or friends only. This would likely add another layer of complexity for the Picsviewr folks regarding the sign-in process, so perhaps this is something for the future.
As Orli mentions, there is not much else to the service, but my family and I were quite taken with the ease with which the slideshows were created and rendered so beautifully.
The Picsviewr news page (which seems to be the closest thing to a blog that they have so far) hasn’t been updated since launch date in March 2008, so it’s hard to tell what is happening behind the scenes and where the service is headed next. The FAQ page says that new features are in the pipeline, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens from here..
Jul 08 2008
If you have a Wordpress blog you may wish to have it verified with Google Webmaster. In order to verify your blog with Google Webmaster, Google offers two methods: verification by uploading a specifically named HTML file or by adding a meta tag into the HEAD section of your home page.
Having had some issues with the HTML file upload method (namely that it appears the Verified status drops off if Google can no longer crawl to the HTML file, if, for example, you created a page with the HTML file name and then marked that page as private, having previously had it verified successfully) I decided to try and find how to use the meta tag method on my hosted Wordpress blog. *Note that you won’t be able to use this method if you are on the out-of-the box Wordpress.com blog, as far as I am aware.
A Google search led me to this post by Jalaj on Jalaj.net which got my hopes up. It was in trawling through the comments on the post that I found what I was looking for in this helpful comment from Kim Böndergaard (comment number 24.).
In the Wordpress console go to Design->Theme Editor and edit the header.php Theme File. Then add in the meta tag information which Google Webmaster Tools gives you when you choose the meta tag verification method by pasting the meta tag in the HEAD section, which will look something similar to this sample from one of Google’s troubleshooting pages on this:
<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Your Title</TITLE> <META name="verify-v1" content="String_we_ask_for"> </HEAD> <BODY>
Update the File to save the changes and check back with the Google Webmaster page to be sure that your site is now marked as ‘Verified’.
This method seems to have worked for me - I felt compelled to put up a brief post about this after having a little difficulty finding a solution which worked.
Jul 07 2008
Saturday the 5th of July saw the inaugural Gold Coast barcamp, held at the Griffith University campus at Southport. This post is just a brain dump of some of my thoughts from the day - there are other more complete wrap-ups which I’ll link to at the bottom of this post.
Despite the very cool, rainy day (or maybe because it encouraged folks to stay indoors to talk) there was a really good vibe amongst attendees. Some of the talks that stood out for me were the four below.
Data portability - Chris Saad/Ashley Angell
Chris and Ashley gave a brief talk on where data portability is up to. While those in the room appeared to be already well versed on the data portability push (there was another session running concurrently next door which may have had some folks who weren’t so familiar with the topic), there were a few questions raised which prompted some discussion. One of these questions was to do with the current usability of OpenID from an end-user’s point of view. More info on data portability at the data portability homepage.
Ajax pushing techniques - Ben Novakovic
Ben gave an easy-to-follow presentation on three different pushing techniques available when using AJAX for web applications. I, for one, have been interested in finding out more about AJAX and the possibilities it opens up, so the content of this presentation was particularly useful. Ben has blogged about the presentation on his blog.
Panedia - Aaron Spence
As was the case at the last Brisbane barcamp with the MS Silverlight demonstration, one presentation at the Gold Coast barcamp stood out for being visually spectacular. That presentation was Aaron Spence’s look at his company Panedia’s offerings. Spence and his team have developed their own workflow/method for producing stunning panoramas reminiscent (although of much better image quality, as Aaron pointed out) of the Google Street Maps images. Panedia also offer static images which can be used as desktop wallpapers and Aaron talked about some of their strategies for monetising their content going forward. Panedia.com is well worth a look if you’re interested in seeing some great australian images.
Social Media Club - Des Walsh
Des gave an introduction to the Brisbane Chapter of the Social Media Club. Although Des is from Tweed Heads, he has volunteered to lead the new Brisbane Chapter, at least initially. The barcamp discussion indicated there is a lot of enthusiasm both in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast for more meet-ups, and the Social Media Club will likely be one vehicle which facilitates the growth of gatherings where the ‘Social Media’ tag brings people together, but won’t necessarily be the only topic du jour. Personally I feel that there is a lot of value in bringing Social Media, New Media and Web/Enterprise 2.0 people together to have conversations on a wide range of subjects, and I feel that SMC is going to be a good start in connecting people in South East Queensland.
All in all it was a worthwhile trip down to the Gold Coast for me and one that I intend doing again when the next Gold Coast barcamp is on! Many thanks to Steve Dalton for un-organising the day - all seemed to go off without a hitch, thanks largely to Steve.
Other links/wrap-ups about the day:
Michael Rees: http://mrees.wordpress.com/2008/07/06/inaugural-barcamp-gold-coast/
Steve Dalton: http://dalts.net/node/123
David Novakovic: http://dpn.name/index.php/2008/07/06/barcampgoldcoast-thoughts/
Des Walsh: http://deswalsh.com/2008/07/07/barcamp-a-first-for-the-gold-coast-and-for-me/
UPDATE: DJ Paine has posted his photos from the day in a set on Flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/djp72/sets/72157606022985427
May 27 2008
Last Saturday the 2nd Barcamp Brisbane was held at the East Brisbane Bowls Club. This was my first Barcamp and here are some thoughts on the day and on future meet-ups I’d like to see happen in South-East Queensland.
We managed to take over the bowls club for the day, with over 40 people attending. There were two areas - one for slightly more formal presentations with a data projector and the other for informal sit-down discussion of topics of choice. All but two of the presentations were tech-focussed, and varied from an introduction to Adobe AIR to ‘Why I changed to Ruby on Rails’. Easily the most eye-catching presentation was the Silverlight Deep Zoom Demonstration.
Cameron Reilly kicked off the day with a talk which challenged all of us geeks and semi-geeks to wake up to the amazing inheritance which our forefathers worked and fought for. Cameron challenged us to use our talents and technologies to make the world a better place. After a bbq lunch put on by the bowls club, Ian Kath took the stage and shared his passion for podcasting while pointing out to us that the tools which we use as geeks are not at all simple to layman end-users - a fact that Ian challenges all of us to remember as we undertake our tech. journeys.
The highlight of the day for me was the talk by Elias Bizannes on Data Portability, not least of which because DP is a topic which I follow with interest. Elias flew up from Sydney specially, and it was worth hearing him speak. He drew attention to a number of the issues surrounding DP and (judging by the flurry of questions and comments) he certainly got us all thinking about this very topical issue, in these days of seemingly never-ending sign-ups as we all race to try out new web services.
I took time during the day to meet as many people as I could get around, and managed to fit in some evangelising about the uses/benefits of Twitter. I also had a conversation about Twitter’s inability to scale, which sadly reared its head again in the days leading up to the Barcamp. Friendfeed ‘Rooms’ were announced the day before Barcamp, and I took the opportunity to tout those as well. To me, FF rooms allow the possibility of better conversations than can be had on Twitter, and it will be interesting to watch how the rooms idea is taken up. I digress, however..
All in all Barcamp Brisbane 2 was a fantastic day, and I came away thinking about how I yearn to meet more South East Queensland folks more often. Once every 6 months will not do! It is my intention to do more to organise Twitter Underground Brigade meet-ups and also to go to other Barcamps, such as the Gold Coast Barcamp, tentatively slated for the 5th of July 2008 at the time of writing. I also hope to catch up with people over coffee etc in order to keep the momentum of some great conversations going.
A big shout-out to Peter Ward for ‘un-organising’ the day, and Steve Dalton for assisting on the day, even though not in an official ‘un-organising’ capacity.
Links:
Wrap-up of the sessions by Chris Vincent
http://www.brisbaneishome.com/brisbane-barcamp-2008-post-1/
http://www.brisbaneishome.com/brisbane-barcamp-2008-post-2/
Google groups
May 12 2008
Well, I’ve finally gotten around to registering a domain and starting a blog, some 5 months after I first got enthused and started playing around with Wordpress.com. I found the level of control using Wordpress.com to be somewhat frustrating and quite limited in terms of being able to customise, so I’ve gone with a Wordpress.org installation now.
Inspired by the bold approach taken by Stilgherrian last week when he undertook his first experimental live stream podcast, and greatly encouraged by fellow Brisbane twitterer and budding podcaster, Ian Kath, I’ve decided to bite the bullet and just get started, even if things are a little bit clunky and I don’t have the blog setup exactly as I would like it to be. I’ve realised that while tools such as Twitter have been a real boon for connecting with people, and the BTUB (Brisbane Twitter Underground Brigade) meetup last weekend was a great way to meet some of those people in the flesh, people are going to be able to get to know a lot more about where I’m coming from if I start blogging.
This week I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what it is that goes on in my head relating to tech. I have spent a number of hours trying to come up with a term to describe my approach to tech. The best thing I’ve been able to come up with so far is that i do IT Knowledge Management. To me, this means that I am fascinated by the use of information technology to formulate knowledge bases which facilitate a better workplace, organisational improvement, or deeper social connections, depending on the type of tools/systems etc being used and the scenario in which they are being used. I may post more on this as I have more conversations about it and my own thoughts crystallise more. For me it has been a real breakthrough to be able to put some kind of label to my approach, rather than being labelled by my job title.
As far as the blog goes, it will have a primarily tech. focus, and I will likely post about the things that I have been following closely for the past 6 months or so - social media, attention management, aggregation and online identity, to name a few. Hopefully this will serve as a good dumping ground for my thoughts and who knows, some of it may be of interest to you too!