September 2010 – Cubicgarden.com…

Geeks talk sexy….

Excellent photo by hoyvinmayvin – cc: by-nc-sa

Sex and geeks don’t fit together or compute, most would say. However the truth may be the total opposite.

This quarter we take a brave step into the explicit adult world of sex, lies and alternative lifestyles by following the geek world underground.

Join us on the wild ride in to the unknown, in a series of open talks and discussions. Next stop sexy town.

The event is free to attend, but you MUST BE OVER 18.

Not many people know but every once in a while I do a talk at BarCamps titled “Sex.” I usually do it to be slightly controversial and to bring a certain edge to the talks which can be far too technical for some.

I’ve had mixed success, I think the funniest session was at BarCampLiverpool while the most serious was at BarCampLondon7. (Not sure what that says about the cities)

However while talking one night in the Northern Quarter with Samantha and Joshi about BarCampManchester3 and my plans to do another one. I mentioned the sex talks I’ve done previously and that meme must have stuck in Samantha’s head (I need to get better at doing that). She had a word with Hwa Young Jung over at Madlab (Manchester’s digital laboratory) and bish bosh boof we have a new series of talks and discussions planned for the next few months.

Of course we’re also after knowledgeable and thought provoking guests for the future, so if that interest you, give us a message on twitter.

Techgrumps – Angry people going on about technology

I’ve been taking part in a new podcast for a while now. Its called Techgrumps and is basiclly a couple of us (@tommorris, @nicferrier and myself) ranting on about the bad side of technology and the internet.

@Abizer was kind enough to write the first review on the itunes music store.

Three guys who rant about computer technology. Pro Open Web, pro Open Source; Java, Scala, Ruby, Python. Not too hot on Apple and certainly not fans of “New Media”. They don’t sound like fans of non-technical computer users either. I see them as vertex on a triangle formed with the Angry Mac B******s and Leo Laporte’s podcasts. They’ll cling on to their command lines like a hipster hugs his iPhone.

If you’re an Apple fanboy, or someone who does little more than use their computer for FaceBook and Twitter then this podcast isn’t for you.

If you have opinions, and like listening to or talking with people who have different opinions – and you aren’t embarrassed to be caught swearing to yourself on public transport while listening to podcasts on public transport – then this is worth a subscription.

They aren’t always right (well, in not my opinion anyway) but they at least try to come to their conclusions with reasoned (and expletive seasoned) arguments. And it helps that they are technically proficient so these aren’t baseless discussions. But they are always entertaining. If you can get past the parts where you want to scream, there is plenty to be learned from them as well.

I see it more as the ruder and British version of Crankygeeks and Leo Laporte’s Twit podcast. I’m not so sure about us hanging to our command lines but you get the general idea. Its very rude with lots of swearing or explicit language. No one and no topics are taboo for us on techgrumps.

Our podcast isn’t very professional, in actual fact its not meant to be, we deliberately choose the low-tech approach to podcasting, hopefully encouraging others to either join us or setup there own.

I said a while ago at a barcamp and a social media cafe manchester, that there were not enough amateur British Podcasts. I know theres the BBC podcasts and the Guardian podcasts which both have got a lot of success in this area but theres nothing like TwiT or Revision3’s series of video podcasts. We need more podcasts like Techgrumps and I’m glad to say that we have in our own unique way convinced @cbetta and @thehodge to setup there own podcast called Padaddicts (not pdaaddicts as I first saw and called it).

If we can get more british podcasts then thats a good thing! Why not setup your own?!

Devil, M Night Shyamalan really?

I watched devil recently and wasn’t really impressed. In actual fact this review from den of geek has got it down to a T.

on a big screen, with the lights out, this manifestation of the Devil proves frustratingly muted, and far less scary than the thought of being trapped in a lift with M Night Shyamalan’s recent back catalogue

Exactly! I couldn’t have said it better… What on earth has Mr Shyamalan been up to recently and I’m sorry but the devil isn’t going to smooth things over.

I’ve seen more suspense in a episode of Come dine with me… Yawn!

The people of New Islington

I was interviewed by East Manchester a little while ago about my move to Islington Wharf in New Islington. Today I discover my interview has finally gone live.

Here’s the interview bit with me, its worth checking out the rest including the Langford family and amazing story from James Gilhooly…

Originally from Bristol, Ian is a senior development producer for the BBC. He fronts BBC Backstage, the BBC’s early adopter network to encourage participation and support creativity through open innovation.

“When I first heard that the BBC were moving to Manchester,” says Ian, “I thought NO WAY. I had never lived up north before and I believed all the stereoptypes.”But Ian, who was living in the London borough of Woolwich at the time, lived up to his early adopter claims and spent some time researching the area before moving up three years ago. “I soon realised I could afford somewhere really close to the city centre,” he says, “having been used to driving across London.”

It’s close to the city centre without any of the disadvantages.

One of the first BBC employees to have moved north, Ian says he was pleasantly surprised. “It was really lively,” he said, “and there were loads of diverse areas but not so far apart.” Ian spent three days looking at flats and gauging how much he could afford to buy. He settled on Islington Wharf and hasn’t looked back.

Even in the short time he’s been here, Ian feels like he’s seen a lot of changes: “It really does feel like they’re getting on with things,” he says, “I like the idea of being part of something new and exciting.”

There are ways Ian’s life could be improved. “I can’t wait for the tram to be finished,” he says, “I should be able to be at work in 27 minutes with a change. With no change, it could be as little as 15 minutes, which beats driving across London.” And he’s keen for the community to develop a little more. “There’s a nice mix of young professionals, older people and even families,” he says, “but we could have more going on between Islington Wharf and Chips and the other buildings.”But East Manchester has the potential to be great, says Ian. “It has the potential to attract a lot of the Northern Quarter crowd and once the tram line is open, that will make a huge difference.”

It was a fair interview, not much changed from what I said. I never thought I’d end up back in the East of the city (Woolwich is in south east) but I do think New Islington could be like the east Castlefield if things are well developed in time. Like the south east of London, this area is really up and coming so its really good to get in early.

Some people have asked me if New Islington is like Islington in London? I got to say not a chance, although it would be great to have a load more restaurants.

My Kindle is here, and I love it!

I got a delivery notification in my letter box today saying I missed a deliver and the caretaker took it in. Wondering what it could it be, I looked in my inbox and found…

Dear Customer,
Greetings from Amazon.co.uk,
We are writing to let you know that the following item has been sent
to:

Ian Forrester
APARTMENT ****
** *********** ********* *****
MANCHESTER, LANCS M** ***
United Kingdom

using Royal Mail.

For more information about delivery estimates and any open orders,
please visit: http://www.amazon.co.uk/your-account

Your order #*************************** (received September 07, 2010)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Qty                           Item    Price        Delivery Subtotal

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amazon.co.uk items (Sold by Amazon EU S.a.r.L.):

1  Kindle Wireless Reading De...  £109.00               1  £109.00

Dispatched via Royal Mail (estimated arrival date: September 24, 2010).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This completes your order.

Yeah!!!! I got my Kindle3, so expect tomorrow a unboxing using my new camera. Its been ages since I ordered the Kindle and I’m so glad its came.

So now’s a really good time to sell my Sony e-ink PRS600 reader, although its got a slight scratch which means CEX won’t buy it off me. Its well used and served me very well in its short time.

I got the device in my hands now and yes there is a nice series of unboxing photos on flickr.com if your interested.

What really got me was the amazing difference between my old Sony PRS600 and the Amazon Kindle 3. I know the Sony PRS505 vs Sony PRS600 was always a challenge because the PRS600 had the touch screen over the top of it. But boy oh boy, the PRS600 vs the Kindle3 is shocking… I can’t believe how clear and crisp the screen is. Then there’s the weight of the device! Its almost too light, I feel like I’m lifting a paperback book! Just like the Sony, when you plug it into a computer (yes even Linux) it comes up as a mass storage device, allowing you to just shift stuff back an forth easily. Of course Calibre allows you to easily convert between ebook formats and sync with the kindle directly.

My own complaint so far is the wifi won’t connect to my wireless network, but actually I think what’s going on is my local network isn’t actually connected to the internet yet and its failing to touch the internet and giving up. But over all this device is amazing! They have done so much, even down to the screen saver (as such, because of course with a eink screen you don’t need one) which is displayed when your charging the device. I can’t wait to get the experimental browser working (actually going to the northern quarter later to try it out) and try out some of the kindle apps. I’ve not looked into the Kindle hacking yet but this is certainly one of the massive advantages over the Sony.

This has to be the first break through e-reader… Just over 100 quid for a amazing device! Can’t wait to sit out in the shared garden reading on this device.

BarCampManchesterX, are you in?

(This non-descriptive entrance might just be the entrance to a very special barcamp)

So following my last blog post about BarCamp, I’ve been thinking about BarCampManchester (I also mentioned it at Social Media Cafe Manchester) and how I did say I wasn’t going to get involved in BarCamp for a while. But I’ve found a venue which is excellent and perfect for a barcampmanchester.

The venue is a ex-estate agents and show home on the outskirts of my new flat. It may not look like much but in that small single level venue, theres 5 distinct rooms which can be used as barcamp rooms. 3 bathrooms, 2 kitchens and a large open room which use to be used as the estate agent office. There’s also a private garden which would be perfect for a bbq or after party.

Theres a car park right out front and plenty of room for about 150-200 people. The venue is also only 10mins from Piccadilly Station, just a leisurely walk up Piccadilly Basin (besides the Ashton canal). And its clearly noticeable from any train coming into Piccadilly. The venue use to be a showroom for one of the flats, so there’s a high standard of build across the whole venue. Of course the office isn’t still in use, they moved the estate office to the front of the building and now do tours of the actual building instead of the showroom.

BarCampManchesterX

Ideally the developer ISIS would like someone to find a good use for the venue but so far its just sitting mainly empty. Of course they have other locations they have for commercial use. But this great venue is pretty much set up for a barcamp. There’s just a few things which need sorting before everything is a go…

Security for the venue – Its meters from the Ashton canal and you sometimes get drunks and kiddies hanging out around there. So if we had a party, some security would be good.
Connectivity for the venue – There use to be a office there, so I expect there is a couple of phone lines or we could look into WiMax again, like BarCampManchester2
Overnight insurance – This is tricky at the best of times, but if worst comes to worst we could open till really late (say 4am, then open again at 8am)

So far I have convinced ISIS to give me permission to do the barcamp at the venue from Saturday daytime till Sunday afternoon and if we can sort out the overnight insurance, we have a overnight venue.

If you are interested in being part of the organising committee for this challenging but potentially fantastic barcamp.

Please drop me a message or email. Theres a lot left to do including what date we actually hold the barcamp on. I’m expecting to get everyone together for a meeting soon…

Magnetic Resonance Stimulation or MRS the lecture

So my hypo-therapist Shannon douglas on the first day talked to me about MRS (Magnetic Resonance Stimulation) and this guy called Wolfgang Jaksch, When she (Shannon) first explained about it, I honestly did think, hummmm I’m not so sure about this. Skepticism certainly did set in, specially when she explained how much the device (the matt) cost. £2000+!!!

Anyway I decided since the hypnotherapy did work for me, I thought I’d give the MRS lecture a try. Heck it was free anyway and I could voice my skepticism if needed. The worst that would happen is they would tell me to get lost. So the day comes around and I turn up at the Novatel hotel and find the room where the lecture is due to happen. Theres a few people sitting down in a school layout of a room and I take a seat at the very back.

Wolfgangs lecture

The lecture starts and well Wolfgang seemed nice enough. He went through his background and how he found about the MRS machine due to his cancer (he had stage 4 cancer at 26) which he had surgery on. Now to be clear he never said he used it to replace modern medicine, instead he talked about how it was a great comfort for afterwards when he went through the chemotherapy. He then explained how it works. So generally he said theres a lot changed in our environment over the last 150 years and electronic interference has greatly increased. While we haven’t changed enough to cope with these major changes in our environment. He used the term Electro-smog to explain it.

Then he pulled out some device to demonstrate the electronic activity of his laptop, a watch and other things around the room. As you can imagine, they all made a nasty noise while putting above the MRS matt when it was switched on, gave a much more gentle pulsing sound.

The claim is that using the matt/machine stimulates cells in the body to grow more quickly that before through its pulsed electro magnetic field. And off the back of that it can aid (He always said its a aid and not a replacement for traditional medicine) with recover of many things. This obviously is in part with a positive lifestyle, a well balanced diet and positive thinking.

There were people in the room who swear by the Matt, as you’d expect. But also there was Alex Worsley who is a alternative health adviser. I had met her earlier last week in BoConcept while getting the Todem. She sat next to me when she came in late and kept passing her broken iphone 3 over with messages to me while the lecture finished up. She came with a brilliant question in the end. Wolfgang had said how lying in the park helps rebalance our electrochemistry, and Alex asked the question "if that is true how come she always feels worst afterward spending time on the matt?" The obvious answer which I did say but Wolfgang rejected, was that Alex and everyone has slightly different body rhythm/tone/whatever and she would need to set the machine to match her’s. However Wolfgang just said there was something wrong with her and the machine was indicating that some how. Now looking at Alex (shes a homeopath and reading about her) I think Wolfgang was dead wrong. Anyway later he seemed to indicate that, as I thought people might have slightly different frequences/tone/rhythm, so you would need to set the machine to match that.

What I think

So I do think there is more to the radio interference that we really understand but I’m not so sure simply using this matt everyday will increase cell division and therefore improve the body’s natural deference. Its helped a lot of people but I’m not convinced.

Wolfgang did make a point that Animals find the matt attractive because of the natural low pulsing frequency it gives off.

I asked Wolfgang, why don’t you open source the matt and the electronics which make the matt? So it benefits society and not just a privileged few who can afford it. He came back with a surprising answer, beyond lending the matt to people for a trial, the matt and the electronics which surround it are not patented and someone could make a copy. In actual fact there are others but there not exactly the same concept, instead they do something slightly different/wrong. He welcomed me to copy the contents of the machine.

Later after dinner, he said to me his comment about google being the global search engine was much more about a company owning it that the concept of global knowledge being very accessible to almost anyone. He also admitted that he was a wealthy man and he loved traveling place to place talking about the MRS machine. If he could create a cheaper version he would love to be a part of that. Ideally he would like to see more using it, even if that means he wouldn’t get a penny from the profits. All very noble but there is a massive question mark over does it actually work (in my mind). I guess we’ll never really know unless its cheap enough for us all to use and evaluate.

Shannon, Wolfgang Jaksch and the rest of the crew are actually really nice people, I don’t think there charlatans in actual fact they base a lot in science and reason. A lot of what they talk about may turn out to have some legs, they are waiting for science and reason to catch up. But on the MRS matt, I stand somewhat on the non-believer side. I think its somewhat amazing that Wolfgang has dedicated his life to educating the world about this but it also most of the hallmarks of something unsettlingly scammy. Occam’s razer says

all things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one

If playing a ultra low pulsed signal really does increase cell reproduction then I can see how the rest of the claims are somewhat valid. But as a message in Alex’s broken iPhone 3gs said, we didnt really hear enough how that part works. Even Wolfgangs diagram of how frequencies all effect each other didn’t sound quite right to me. The radio spectrum is large/wide enough that lots of the radiospace never touch each other for example the FM space is crowded with frequencies but only runs between 87 megaherz and 108 megahertz, so a 50hz frequency will never interfere with a 1hz frequency for example, let alone a 48hz frequency.

So again, I’m thankful that I got the chance to hear and evaluate MRS, and the meal afterwards was very yummy. I wish them luck in the future, hopefully they will prove it to be helpful and it will end up just being a regular part of our traditional medical knowledge in the future.

Using Inkscape for presentations

For ages now I have been seeking a better way to do certain presentations. I tend to spend a lot of time in Inkscape mapping out ideas but I don’t really want to put slides on different layers.

I bought a copy of dan roam’s the back of a napkin a while ago and I’ve been influenced by the idea of using white boards, mood boards, etc to explain ideas. The problem is that once you put the effort in to putting down the idea on to the canvas, you then have to re-adapt it to a presentation with Open Office. Its why I kind of like the idea of the unlimited canvas.

Prezi was talked about and overused to death a while ago, now you hardly see it. I blogged about it a while ago and decided that there must be a better more open way to do the same.

I have been thinking maybe some enterprising group of people could take the SVG specification and build a tool which generates these exact same presentations. So first up you can use scripts on every element including the viewpoint attribute. There seems to be a load of things you can do with the Canvas coordinate system. SVG 1.1 has the ability to embed certain multimedia but SVG Foreign Object could be used to place a browser or a complete video within a SVG.

You could imagine a specially made tool which worked like Prezi but wouldn’t need to be propitery and locked in. They could even create and sell a player and editor backed with its online space, so the business model isn’t totally shattered. Even if a rival tried to create the same, OpenPrezi as I’m coining it would be first to the market and have a wealth of knowledge of what works and what doesn’t. Even a track record might go down well. So in my mind, there’s no way I will be using Prezi till its a lot more open. I’m sure even I could with a bit of time construct something using the SVG methods I mentioned. I’m not questioning the method or even the concept, it actually reminds me of mood boards. Its the implementation which winds me up.

Well my questions have been answered by some enterprising group of people.

Jessyink is the answer…

JessyInk, an open-source extension to the open-source SVG editor InkScape.

Perfect, so once I’ve created my master piece, its hopefully going to take a few more moments to turn it into something presentable. I’m not the only person to realise the power of this setup. Prezi vs JessyInk

The first time I heard about Prezi, I started looking for a possible equivalent in SVG, and I discovered that JessyInk was a pretty good candidate: it combines a Javascript library that deals with enabling simple navigation through a SVG document according to some conventions, with an extension to the fantastic InkScape SVG editor to make it possible to integrate effects, transitions and views from the editor itself.

But it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I got confirmation that JessyInk now provides the tools needed to build Prezi-like effects, and so, when I was invited to talk on “W3C and the Social Web” at the 10th anniversary of the W3C Italian office I decided to give it a try to build my presentation.

The resulting “slides” were OK, but they clearly remain much more “slide-based” than what I would have done with Prezi.

A big reason for that is that JessyInk still uses slide as the basic unit for its operations – slides are based on Inkscape layers across which you can have transitions. This doesn’t encourage working on a completely 2D-based presentation, even though it allows fairly easily to zoom in and out in a particular slide.

So it looks like JessyInk might have a bright future in front of it. The presentations are not quite as free flowing as Prezi, but to be fair its a good compromise. Open source comes up with the goods, and what a true test of the power of Open source! Fantastic, where do I start!

Mind over the matter

Some of you know I have a couple of great fears in my life.

dogs
needles and/or injections

I’ve been bitten by dogs many times, the last time I was walking along a quiet street and a little yappy dog came out of the front garden where the owner was cutting the hedge. Walked across the road and came up behind me, then bite me on my lower right leg! Then ran off back inside. The owner instantly ran over and took me to hospital in a car.

But for my fear of dogs, living with one for over a year was one heck of a challenge. Yep after marrying my ex-wife, she brought her dog (jack) over to the UK. I got use to him after a while, and although I’m still fearful of them I’m not so bad now. However my fear of needles has never been damped in actual fact it maybe gotten worst over time.

So why the fear?

Well I’ve had a few negative experiences which I still remember
When I was about 2, my mother took me to have my vaccinations and when the needle was going in to my arm I felt the pain. I reached out and made a grab for the needle, therefore prolonging the whole experience.
When I was at school, someone had TB so of course everyone had to have a injection, just in case. I find ways to put the whole thing off for about a year! In the end they got me and the nurses told me I almost crushed there hands when having the injection.
I had a volleyball injury and went to see the doctor to get my finger sorted out. It was going slightly green from all the puss in my finger. Anyway, the doctor looked at it, turned around and asked me to hold my hand out. When he turned back around, he held my arm and whipped out a needle from his other hand. He then quickly pierced/stabbed my finger with the needle and let the puss drip out along with some blood. It was so quick and caught me by such a surprise I was in total shock and threaten to call the police.
Every time I go to have anything done at a hospital, they want to do a Sickle cell test before anything else. So a while ago I had surgery on my arm and they did a test. This time they put some pads of creams on the back of my hand to "relax the skin" left it there for about 45mins. Then proceeded to give me a very very painful blood tests in the back of my hand (hence the antiseptic pads don’t work). However I had hidden in the bathroom for the 2nd round. It took 3 doctors to drag me kicking and screaming to get me out and and ready for the 2nd injection.

So yep I’m seriously terrified, and trust me I got more storys/experiences.

Blood testing kit

Hypnotherapy

I’ve been carrying this fear for ages and well frankly I was willing to try anything to get over it. I even considered taking drugs to numb the effects of the needle. So I decided before I go to such extremes I should try hypnotherapy.

I asked the team of physiotherapist at Manchester Hospital and they suggested I check out a portal site for hypnotherapy. Having found a couple in central Manchester, I sent out emails and Shannon douglas from Mind body balance studio, replied with a nice email suggesting I come in for a free session to discuss everything. So I did and thats where it all started.

Shannon is a interesting ex-pat Australian, shes relatively young, very thin, some would say attractive and quite charming. When I say charming, I don’t mean in a creepy, social engineering type of way. Actually shes more innocent and caring that I imagined. My natural barrier were very high when I first stepped in the room but I started to relax with everything that she said. What really got me was the fact that she was newly registered on the NHS referral index and that she could do it in 3 sessions (each session being 1 hour long).

After the first session, Shannon put me under for about 20mins. It seemed like 5mins. (when I say put me under, I really mean put me in a very relaxed state where I’m more receptive to external ideas, it not like how you imagine hypnosis to be (stage hypnosis for example) its quite relaxing and your mind won’t do anything you don’t want to do. Its like giving up smoking, you can only really do it if you REALLY want to) The great thing is that the sessions are recorded and Shannon puts them on Cd for you to listen to later in your own home. She recommends listening to them everyday between the sessions. Its works well because you can really relax in your own home and listen carefully to Shannons voice.

Funny enough Shannon uses a dj app (Virtual dj) to mix between tunes when your under as she reads aloud the pre-paired personalised script. Shannon’s great at what she does but shes not very technically savvy, We did talk about ways to improve her web profile but thats for another day. Back to the therapy and I’ll skip to the last session.

The last session

In the last session (the bridge session, as I’ll call it) Shannon asked me to look around the room afterwards. I noticed the sharps bin (yellow) behind her massive microscope. I also started wondering why she had the sharps bin and the massive microscope. Anyway she explained she does Blood analysis too and showed me what was in the bin. There were these little grey cartridges which Shannon showed me had a needle in it. They were small and very compact. I played with one for a while and Shannon showed me how it works by pushing the orange stick in and twisting it off. Then she pricked her finger by pressing the button and put the blood on a slide which went under the microscope.

It was amazing to see the blood cells so close up, I’ve never seen them like that before and Shannon pointed out certain things in her own blood. You could see tons of red blood cells, white blood cells and many more parts (I wasn’t that bothered what was there, just seeing them so close up, got me going). Anyway, I started wondering what my own blood looks like. My curiosity has just over taken my fear and I think Shannon knew this or at least identified this. The only thing was that I would need to give myself a blood test if I was going to find out.

So after a long long time, I plucked up enough courage to do it. I was almost crying before I did it but I did it!

The relief of doing it was almost unbearable, it was like something had been lifted off of me. Shannon was amazed and was close to tears herself, as she said,

"You’ve come such a long way, in such a short time. Carrying around all that fear for decades must have been debilitating… I’m so proud of you"

And honestly I believe she really meant it.

Blood testing kit

My Fear is gone?

So is it gone? Well not exactly… But I feel much more at ease with the idea of injections. I can now also watch a blood test on the TV without turning away like I use to. I still don’t like it but in my mind everything seems a lot clearer that before. Its like the grey cloud has been broken up into small manageable chunks. Its all very impressive and I’m sure the Cds will come in useful for future events.

The power of the mind is unmeasurable, this is part of the reason why I’m so interested in the flickr for dreams startup, mydreamscape. As Cob
b in inception says,

"planting a seed in someone’s mind could define a man; change him"

Shannon’s hyponotherapy certainly has helped me change my perspective on this fear I’ve been living with for decades. I wish I had it done it years ago. Thank you Shannon, I hope things pick up for you, but doing some of the things I suggested might help too. This is a giant step forward and my life will change for ever more because of this…

Massive Totem found at BoConcept

I went to the BoConcept Manchester shop yesterday and couldn’t help but buy this Spinning top which looks like Cobb’s Totem.

If you are one of the few who haven’t seen Inception, then first where have you been? And second don’t read the spoiler filled link above. Basically a totem is a device which allows the owner to decide if they are in the real world or a dream world. Your not meant to allow anyone to touch or play with your totem, because obviously that would then allow someone to craft another one in there mind. In short Totem’s are a…

"elegent solution for keeping track of reality…"

Mal came up with the idea out of necessity to help differentiate between the dream world and the real world. To that end, there were several rules to be observed with the totems – never let someone else handle your totem so as to keep them from controlling your perspective of reality by duplicating your totem perfectly. The totem was also to be something small and intimate to you for reasons of portability.

My massive spinning top is maybe a little over kill for a totem, but heck its all good fun, and its a talking point for those who have seen the film inception.

The Kindle3 has everything I asked for…

I’m going to sell my old Sony PRS-600 Ebook Reader for the Amazon Kindle 3. But why?

Well it kind of centres on a blog post I wrote a while ago when the iPad was unveiled to the world. In the blog post I touch on points which would make my perfect ereader. 2 of the main points are,

Add Bluetooth for file transfer, dialup, networking, etc.

Run an open operating system like a cleverly crafted Andriod on it

Add accelerometers, proximity sensors and some haptic feedback

Wireless 802.11b/g

Well although not all my requirements are met, the Kindle3 does have wireless and a operating system to support (as such) 3rd party apps.

Android would be great to have on there with a open marketplace so people can really develop for it. I don’t know if Android would work on a e-ink screen but you could imagine it wouldn’t take much to build a custom build just for E-ink screens. Bluetooth, Wifi and Accelerometers would open up a whole bunch of applications which the ipad has demonstrated. But the smaller screen would be much more mobile and friendly.

I assumed slightly wrongly that you would need android to have the ability to add apps, but actually Amazon have decided to go with there own OS and App platform. This might be a good idea because you don’t want apps made for a Lcd mixed up with the eink ones. Its also a good idea if developers are thinking about eink instead of building for Lcd and just converting down to eink. Battery life under ink is amazing, but I’d hate to see that going because some app took liberties with the eink technology. Kindle apps are certainly a new area with a fruitful future. I can think of some clever apps you could build with the eink screen.

I thought good and hard about swapping to the Kindle, specially with the 1984 uproar. But to be frank, I’ve never bought a ebook and won’t really be affected by this thing. I would have also perfected a open market place like Android but its the start, so who knows what may happen…

I also downloaded the kindle app on my android phone in preparation for my new Kindle (which has been ordered but I’m still waiting for stock). In the meantime I’m selling my lovely Sony PRS-600, so if anyone is interested drop me a message.

Evernote is back with Nevernote

I use to love evernote but when I moved to Ubuntu for my main operating system, I found out that Evernote was not going to be supporting Ubuntu or more generally Linux. (instead you have to use wine and the Windows version)

[[I can’t seem to find the quote in the forums, where the Evernote team diss linux saying just use Wine.]]

This wound me up big time. So I got use to using TomboyNotes and was very pleased when I hear about Snowy (now also Ubuntu One sync). I even suggested this could rival Evernote. I seeked other alternatives before, but having Tomboynotes (which runs on every operating system) built in is useful. I also tried getting on with Tomdroid but having to sync my phone every time over usb is a pain in the ass (to be frank). Someone did compile a version out of the repository which does have websync with Ubuntu One but it fails to work on my HTC desire.

So up till a few days ago I was using Tomboynotes and Tomdroid. I even considered writing a XSL to transform Sony E-ink notes to Tomboy Notes and back (although my next blog post will explain why this won’t be nee e.

However yesterday dale l, left me a note on my blog…

There is a LINUX version of Evernote – it’s called Nevernote and you can find it here:

http://nevernote.sourceforge.net/

There’s just a few requirements to get it running… follow the instructions and visit their forum!

You can choose between 32 bit or 64.

I got it working fine and it runs well…!

After that, you can add the evernote webclipper to your browser…

So without a further a do I installed Nevernote on my 64bit Ubuntu laptop and tried it out. It took a little while to setup but I finally got it syncing all my old notes which I had in my old Evernote account. I’m currently moving all my old notes over from Tomboy Notes. Of course there is a Android client already, so I’m also doing the sync thing with that too. (oh there is also a command line version – clevernote for you hardcore.)

I’m going to miss Tomboy Notes but to be honest without the mobile syncing I’m a little unhappy. Maybe once Snowy and Tomdroid is more mature, I’ll consider going back. don’t get me wrong Nevernote looks and feels like a dog but it does work and even better, I get all the goodness of evernote. So automatic text analysis, syncing, picture and rich data support. I’m also interested in the new feature – Evernote Trunk.

The Trunk is a showcase of great apps and products that makes your Evernote experience more awesome.

To access it, click on the new “Trunk” icon in today’s update to Evernote for Windows and Evernote for Mac (Evernote Web later today, iPad next week). Clicking it opens a window full of amazing intergrations. Today, there are nearly 100 items listed across five categories: Mobile, Desktop & Web, Hardware, Gear, and Notebooks (this one is really cool, more on that later).

Obviously Nevernote does not support the Trunk directly, but I guess if you set it up online, it will just work. So for example the speech to text will just work if you make a note with audio in it?

The secret garden sunshine mix

The secret garden sunshine mix by cubicgarden

So my latest mix is online, I’m sorry to say I uploaded while at TedXSheffield (it was break time and the wifi was pretty fast). I got to take the wifi as it comes because it looks like I won’t get connectivity till the end of the month now.

As always the mix can be downloaded from soundcloud if the flash player doesn’t take your fancy or you want to listen to it on the go. I would upload a OGG version (the pacemaker defaults to ogg actually, so creating a mp3 version requires extra time and effort) but soundcloud don’t really support versions of the same stuff, I’m considering going back to blip.tv for media uploading. The playlist is below, Yes I really like Thomas Bronzwaer, he’s got a style of trance which really plays to my ear, this is also the reason for Collider twice.

This mix was recorded on my pacemaker while sitting outside in the sunshine of my new shared garden at Islington Wharf. Not my best mixing but entaining and well worth a listen. Thanks to Simon Lumb (@dirtysi) for the new Gouryella remix. I love Gouryella and this remix is pretty true to the original in lot of aspects. Enjoy…

Man on the run – dash berlin with cerf
Perfect Wave – peter martin pres anthanasia
The strings that bind us – Arnej
Be with me – Coast 2 coast feat Amanda Jami
Collider – Thomas Bronzwaer
denva – Ronski Speed
Massive Motion – M.I.K.E
Rainmaker – des mcmahon
North Pole – Nitrous Oxide
Sincere (pulsar remix) – Firewall
The pride in your eyes (martin roth mix) – Tillmann Uhrmacher
Collider – Thomas Bronzwear
Resound – Thomas Bronzwear
Constellation – Thomas Bronzwear
Gouryella (gigolo remix) – Gouryella

mydreamscape presentated at social media cafe manchester

Chi-chi Ekweozor (@realfreshtv) has written up my scramble thoughts and presentation about mydreamscape.org up on her blog.

I am amazed at how much detail she got down in the session, its a perfect account of what was said and by who. Her hand must have been going into over drive!

A couple of people ask great questions about privacy and how easy the network will be to spam.

The points raised range from deciding to keep users anonymous to encourage people to share their dreams in detail to wondering how to stop the spammer that ‘keeps dreaming about ‘Coca-cola’ or Justin Bieber(!)

Adrian Slatcher (@adrianslatcher on Twitter) from Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA), added some fine observations about dreams being non-linear.

Some people make associations in dreams based on colour, so called ‘colour dreams’. There are also ‘anxiety’ dreams. There is a very strong metaphysical element to dreams.

Adrian went on to add that this ‘crowd-sourced’ emotional categorisation of dreams: ‘anxiety = red’, ‘peace = green’ etc lends itself to making such a social network a very useful psychoanalysis tool.

She also detailed a great conversation we had afterwards with Josh (@technicalfault) about a killer mobile app for mydreamscape

In a conversation with Ian and Social Media Cafe co-organiser Josh (@technicalfault) after his talk, we discussed what I think is the killer application for such a project: a mobile phone app that combines access with the social network with a dream diary linked to the phone’s alarm clock.

As soon as you wake up, you are prompted to record your dream into a ‘What did you dream today?’ interface rather like Twitter’s early ‘What are you doing?’ question.

Different media types could be introduced later on so people would eventually make voice or video recordings of their dreams. That would rock.

I love the idea of asking the question, “what did you dream today?” or even “what did you dream last night?” Its a very catchy punchline and sums up the project nicely. The Flickr of dreams say one thing but “what did you dream today?” says something very different.

The point keeps coming up, why not make a facebook application? And finally I had a reply

People have suggested Ian should implement the idea as a Facebook app. He’s not particularly keen on this, preferring the Flickr model as “Flickr never exposes private stuff.”

Facebook’s EULA makes mydreamscape unworkable or at least cuts right into the users privicy which would make trusting the system almost impossible. Flickr have a good model as they never expose users private data and never will. Hence “the flickr of dreams” tag line.

I’ve presented at barcampmanchester3 and now at Social Media cafe manchester and each time I’ve had a positive response, but raised many more questions. Some of those question have been useful but none have been no this is a terriable idea. In actually fact I’ve picked up a few people who really want to get involved along the way. Each person has offered some advice and some more passion into the general idea. I think my next step is to do a map for the idea (a masssive A0 sheet of endless paper with information about the idea and details which I currently have in tomboynotes). I can then publish the map and make it even easier for people to develop the idea themsleves. Its also handy to have everything on one sheet, so I can put everything in context. This presentation isn’t really explaining the idea very well and does a bit of deservice to the underlying idea. I really hope to change for something better soon. But for now it explains the concept enough…

Dreamscape introduction for barcampman3

View more presentations from cubicgarden.