Month: May 2004

Live streams for Copyright vs Community event

Cant leave your machine to listen to the lectures?

Listen right now…

http://tributary.rave.ac.uk:8100/copyright.ogg – for the ogg vorbis stream (prefered)

http://tributary.rave.ac.uk:8100/copyright.mp3 – for the mp3 stream

http://cubicgarden.com/copyright

Some of the referals on the day and the day before…
http://nobodynet.ddts.net/palm/palmntk.htm – found a more palmtop accessable version of NTK?
http://persone.softwarelibero.org/event/show.php?id=88 – Wow, can someone translate? Lycos can.

Hello to all, I invite to you to watch this link:
http://cubicgarden.com/copyright/ One beautifulst conference to the
standard of the defense of the digital freedoms them. I go to us with
a group of friends, excused if I have it marked with a little delay,
but they are enrolled to me only now

http://fravia.2113.ch/phplab/mbs.php3/mb001?num=-1&thread=1084567600 – Someone from Fravia's site jumped to cubicgarden.com/copyright without a link?
A few people came from my own blog pages which is useful to know
The link on free london list worked a treat – http://www.londonfreelist.com/details.asp?id=11024
Yahoo and Google bots were all over the site, hence – http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=fp-pull-web-t&p=copyright+vs+community and http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=copyright+vs+community&btnG=Search
Jeeves/Teoma and MSN also got into the action by the way…
Thanks Nico – http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm?contentalias=edlondon
Thanks David – http://www.blockey.com/bhd/links.html
Thanks Louise – http://www.louiseferguson.com/events.htm
Thanks Harry – http://www.harryjones.net/home/#000080

Got a few referes via
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15797
http://news.netcraft.com/
http://www.londonsocialforum.org/wiki/upcoming_events
http://udoo.org/events
We hit indy media – http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/london/2004/05/291150.html
And of course NTK was the main referer page – http://www.ntk.net and unexpectly http://www.pixelsurgeon.com/news/news.php – Thanks for that.

What on earth is this? http://radiocomments.userland.com/profiles/$6153

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Exploring Friend of a Friend RDF

I'm finally finding time to explorer the possibilies of Friend of a friend through this article on xml.com. Just created my own basic FoaF rdf for myself, looking at how to link myself to other people. I keep meaning to do more research on this whole area for ages but kept putting it off till now. Didnt realise there was a foaf-a-matic, using that now. Foaf-a-matic 2 looks like a good move, would be nice to adapt it to the pocketpc as well as the desktop.

I also in the back of my mind, I keep wanting to use the XHTML friends network but never have the site to hand when typing away. How does this fit with FOAF? and why are certain values not available? I'm very sure Xhtml meta data profiles are not as good as FOAF. Maybe I should use the XFN creator more often.

But back to FOAF. I'm quite amazed by the simplicity of foaf and the great lengths of data you can put into foaf. I mean looking at this page which describes what can go into a foaf rdf schema.
foaf:myersBriggs – A Myers Briggs (MBTI) personality classification. foaf:jabberID. foaf:geekcode A textual geekcode for this person, see http://www.geekcode.com/geek.html. foaf:weblog are just a few of the more interesting ones.

I've now completed my FOAF for now. And added links to it on every blog page. I have to say this is also a really good introduction into rdf just like RSS 1.0 because it has an outcome and tools already built so you can see the results of it.
Friend of a friend logo

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Copyright vs Community

This weeks NTK says it all

And following on from next week's ID card event semi-frenzy –
you wait all year for a hard-hitting look at copyright
extensions, and then 4 or 5 of them come along at the same
time. RICHARD STALLMAN, as ever, is responsible for some of
the most uncompromising anti-IP positions, starting with the
COPYRIGHT VS COMMUNITY event (from 11am, next Thu 2004-05-20,
Ravensbourne College, 20 mins from London, nr Elmstead Woods
station, Kent, free as in “Don't sign up, just turn up”, the
site advises), also featuring “cosmic” websearcher FRAVIA and
the (relatively) down-to-Earth EFF Outreach Co-ordinator CORY
DOCTOROW.

http://cubicgarden.com/copyright
– I think that square is top of cool shape in the world. What on earth is NTK on about?

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Toothing becoming popular

Sarahs American friend Birch keeps me updated on the toothing craze going on in London. Bizarre because I obviously live in London but avoid turning my bluetooth devices onto discoverable due to the blue snaffing flaw. Anyway I'm usually stuck in a ebook with my headphones on most of the time to be thinking about replying to any text messages.

The interesting thing about the last article Birch sent was the commercial aspect of toothing.

Dario Betti, of the British-based consultancy Ovum, said bluejacking had really taken off, helped by the fact the service was free. The element of the unknown, that you are connecting to someone around you that you might not know, it's a novelty factor that is helping it to start, he told Reuters.

I'm already starting to imagine toothing in bars and clubs. Not quite sure how money can be made of toothing quite yet. But maybe there might be something to be made about getting people together. Ah got an idea… What about meetup to get people together of a simular interest but in places like trains and tubes. Then the toothing can take place. For example meetup on the Bromley south to Victoria via Beckenham. Toothers can then move from carrage to carrage looking for others with bluetooth discovery till victoria where the public toilets or bars await. Those who couldnt wait will end up else where…

I'm also thinking about flashmobbing with toothing for slow but emerging crowd flocking. Sure smartmob's Howard Rheingold must have thought about it before.

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London Bloggers getting together [attended & enjoyed]

Ok I hope to write something here really soon about the event last wednesday. Till then check out the photos of the event, as I didnt bring my camera and it was too dark for my smartphone. I am not happy with that photo of myself. I mean any shot but not when my mouth is wide open please.

I left work at about 19:10 and made my way up to the meeting place through convert garden. On the way I read that Moveable type 3 was out and thought…who cares? Obviously I'm not a MT user and dont really care too much. I think David sums it up best. If you're abandoning moveable type 3.

Anyway back to the event. I got there about 19:30 and got a drink straight away, well actually someone else bought me a shark. If I could remember who it was I would credit them here. Then got talking to Seyed Razavi. I never knew who he was so just chatted generally about alot except actual blogging. My memory gets a little hazy about then. I remember seeing most people run towards Cory when he dropped in. I did shake his hand and he seem suprised that I was the Ian who's been writing to him for the last few months.

I sat with another celeb blogger PixelDiva. I tend to read her blog on and off and did tune in to her spot on Radio 4 a while ago. I'm glad to hear she was very down to earth and very chilled out about the whole radio show. I met lots more people, too many to mention. Ambalance driver who blogs his days, need to find that site! Didnt talk to Tom coats, he was too busy surrounded by a group of people all the way through the event. Missed Annie who won a blogging award for her site. Honestly I never seen the site till recently and thought why would it be interesting? then actually got kind of hooked and thought about doing a simular thing myself about people using technology. Sure I'll catch a few people toothing but I've seen some very interesting uses of technology while going to work everyday.
Other people worth mentioning include a student from Westmister college who understood the whole teaching and learning issue to the T. He actually mentioned Learning about learning while I talked about educational blogging. A guy who was working on a system to rate music, I suggested using metadata in blogs and looking at the slashdot methods. And all the people who stayed till midnight… Good night all round when's the next one James.

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My College comes under QAA fire

When Adam phoned me today I was very suprised to hear Ravensbourne College was in the times higher education supplement but for the wrong reasons. We had a terriable QAA this year and its hit the college hard. But honestly we knew there were things which should have been sorted along time ago, but just dragged on. No the interesting thing was the faults were focused at management rather than the people on the floor everyday. Which I would say is pretty true, even though there would be some people who I would like sorting…

Anyway so the full audit report has been available incomplete form since this year (the audit is still ongoing). While the the published piece is available here if you subscribe to the times. I have copied it for those of who do not.

College comes under QAA fire

Phil Baty
Published: 07 May 2004

Quality watchdogs have “limited confidence” in the control of degree standards and course quality at Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication.

In an audit report published last week, the Quality Assurance Agency orders the college to put in place a proper quality control system and clear quality management structures “as a matter of urgency, to ensure that the academic quality and standards of the awards… are maintained”.

The college is affiliated to Sussex University and awards Sussex degrees under a validation arrangement.

The QAA report highlights the fact that student numbers have increased almost 40 per cent in the second half of the 1990s. At the same time, academic staff numbers have decreased from 72 full-time equivalents to 45, with the institution relying more heavily on casual staff.

“Over the same period three sets of new managerial and administrative structures have been implemented,” the QAA says.

“The college maintained that it chose to restructure… in response to changes in the industry and growth of student numbers. The audit team was informed that (the restructures) resulted from staff changes and was not presented with evidence that alternative strategies had been considered.”

The QAA says that the college has not properly engaged with the “national higher education agenda on quality and standards” and is only beginning to engage with the agency's code of practice.

It added that the lines of responsibility were confused.

“In discussions with a range of staff, the audit team heard different views as to where responsibility for quality and standards lay,” the report says.

The college was “unable” to provide the QAA team with key documents.

Problems were “exacerbated” by a number of relevant documents that were supplied for the team's scrutiny without indication of source, date or purpose.

The QAA concludes: “Limited confidence can be placed in the soundness of the institution's present and likely future management of its programmes and the academic standards of the awards which it makes on behalf of the University [of Sussex].”

In its response to the report, published as an appendix, the college says:

“Ravensbourne graduates have an excellent reputation in the creative industries.

“The college is therefore disappointed that the judgement was only limited confidence… Nevertheless, the college is committed to addressing the recommendations in the report.”

Pretty damming if I do say so myself…

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Ipaq TV remote controller

tv remote in action

Honestly never thought TV Remote on the PocketPC was all that good. The default maps were pretty crummy to say the least. I learned what CCF mode was and now i'm away. Created a CCF for my 5 remote setup and its all working quite well now. Only problem I got is my ipaq usually sits in its craddle activesyncing rather than just hanging around.

6 in one kameleon remote

I bought my wife a 8 in one kameleon remote for a christmas present in the states but it didnt work so we sold it. But recently I bought her a 6 in one kameleon from the uk and it actually works after phoning one for all main times. Oh by the way the xbox remote still doesnt work on the remote yet, but they reckon they can sort that out with a bit of time.
But anyway she can pretty much control anything now. And she takes great delight watching movies from her laptop shared documents on the widescreen tv now. It actually works quite well for being over 11meg wireless.

Anyway back to my remote, I'm going to customise it to have many macros soon, and hopefully sarah will do the same once the xbox works with the remote. Only one thing about the xbox, it will not start up without you pressing the power button the front which is a crying shame really…

By the way I'm reading the furrygoat experience and laughing quite a lot. Specially the wife factor. I'm going down the home automation/entertainment route but on a small budget using open technologies and lots of simple hardware. I know i've raved about the xbox media centre but I swear its made a huge difference to the way we watch media now. I would like to get one in the kitchen a bit later so sarah can watch anything on her laptop from the kitchen. Not being sexist of course, just know sarah would like to sometimes watch things without the digital surround sound. But that also means were consuming more media off the web and this might be the time to consider a 1meg or higher internet connection. Sarahs torrents and mine are killing the half meg connection.

I know my next step is to make recording off digital tv as painless as possible. If that means buying a freeview pvr or setting up my linux box with mythtv we shall find out over the coming months.
If only the xbox had video in…

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Nullsoft streaming video

Maybe i'm out of touch but I've never heard of Nullsoft Steaming Video (NSV). Tell a lie, I did but that was years ago when it was a rumour. Now its a completely working system using the open VP3 video codec and Mpeg3 audio codec. Humm I wonder if vp3 will be good for the copyright vs community lectures.

Interesting piece. Internet TV? Yeah, We Got That. Also found a nice little plugin for tv playback and the forums for NSV. I think later on I will do some more work on NSV.

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