Author: Ianforrester

Senior firestarter at BBC R&D, emergent technology expert and serial social geek event organiser. Can be found at cubicgarden@mas.to, cubicgarden@twit.social and cubicgarden@blacktwitter.io

BarCampManchester2 is less that 2 days away

And believe it or not there are a few tickets left over still….

We are all working flat out to get everything not only ready for BarCampManchester2 but to make it special for everyone involved. Not only do we have 2 days and 1 night of unconference enjoyment but there's also going to be some evening entertainment which will blow your socks off. This year having the host being Contact, we're also going to have a lot of new people and new ideas injected into the event, if you think you know BarCamp think again. I hope to see you there…bright and sharp on Saturday morning 9am.

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R&DTV episode 3 launches with a TEDxManchester feel

Episode 3 of R&DTV has finally been released. Well the the short version of Episode 3 of R&DTV has been for now. The official R&DTV site has also been updated with the new version, but no long version yet.

The assets for the video are online too as full edited talks from the TEDxManchester event. See the list below…

You can also subscribe to the whole lot via RSS or Itunes if you would like to keep a copy of all the videos for yourself. Remember all these videos are under a creative commons licence (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0) , so your welcome to share them with the world and create your own remixes of the videos. The short version we edited together is under a slightly different licence which does not allow you to remix due to some musicial copyright from Chicane – Strong in Love /images/emoticons/laugh.gifisco Citizens Mix) and Kevin Shields – Ikebana.

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Us Now

Found via Tim, a film project about the power of mass collaboration, government and the internet.

This one is a good one, all the examples are un-expected and tell the power of mass collaboration very well. Got to say it was also refreshing that it was British based oppose to the usual American perceptive. Its also told with most of its content being available online using a creative commons licence like BBC R&DTV or even Digital Revolution. There's also a load of people involved in and around this video which had me pointing at the screen and saying I wondering what happened to them. Well worth downloading and checking out, or you could even buy the DVD if you really enjoy it a lot.

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Google Wave slowing down your browser?

Maybe you need Waver 1.0. Waver is a Adobe Air app which simply takes Google wave in the Webkit browser and stips off all the browser chrome and runs in its own process. I say all this like its necessarily a bad thing. Its not bad, its actually quite snappy compared to running Google Wave in a browser with many other tabs. The only issues is its not really a new client for Google Wave, its more hybrid rip off of the iphone running wave in webkit. Luckily the whole thing is free and runs on Windows, Mac and Linux without too much bother.

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The Crispy Friday mix

Brand new mix, this time a little more deeper into the genre of tech trance or progressive trance if you prefer. Its certainly not one of my best mixes, I actually did it during lunch while I was waiting for something to be done. Its a mix which doesn't quite take off, instead keeps its self contained till close to the end when it does spread a wing or two. Enjoy!

  1. Crispy Bacon – Laurent Garnier
  2. Friday (trentemoller remix) – Fred Everything & 20 for 7
  3. Roundabout – Sam Sharp
  4. Us – Simon Patterson
  5. Panic Attack – Simon Patterson
  6. Dawn Raid (Sander van Doorm remix) – Jon Rundell
  7. Revolving Doors (club mix) – Ronski Speed
  8. Thump – Simon Patterson
  9. Certitude – Thomas Bronzwaer
  10. Exposure – Gareth Emery
  11. Strip Search – Simon Patterson
  12. Smack – Simon Patterson
  13. Joy Enerigizer – Joy Kitikonti
  14. Ultra Curve – Cosmic Gate

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Why XBMC is the best thing on TV

When people come to my flat there usually amazed by my mediacentre setup. They never knew XBMC could look so beautiful. Problem is I can describe the experience but its never the same as when you see it in action. So here's a video speeded up of XBMC in my living room.

So people keep asking what's the specs of the machine I'm running XBMC on? Well its pretty simple, so I'll do a detailed spec sheet.

Software wise I'm running Ubuntu Linux 8.04 on the 2.6.24-24-generic kernel. XBMC runs as the default option when Ubuntu logs in under the under-privileged user xbox. So the Gnome or KDE backend is not loaded. I would upgrade to 9.04 but there's issues with Pulseaudio which I know have been solved but I don't really mess with my XBMC box too muc

Hardware wise, I'm using a slightly under powered Compaq EVO D510 which is a Intel Pentium 4 with 512meg of Memory and 13gig of hard drive space. I tried to switch to using just a Flash drive but found it was actually much slower that using the hard drive (maybe obvious now). I use Samba Shares (SMB) for everything, so the box does nothing but play back media. Other boxes take care of the downloading and storing of media. I'm holding close to 4.25 Terrabytes across my network. Inside the XBMC box, I'm using a standard PC with a old 5x speed creative (no-region) PC DVD drive and GeForce 6200 128meg AGP card. The DVD drive plays everything pretty much and believe it or not is almost 10 years old, the AGP card is simply because the machine doesn't support PCI-Express and XBMC requires a card which supports OpenGL 2.0. The GeForce card can handle most things but doesn't really like 1080p.but 720p and 1080i isn't a problem. The whole thing is hooked up to my Samsung 40inch TV using a DVI to HDMI connection and the sound to my Onkyo 7.1 Surround sound reciever from a Trust 5.1 soundcard using a single optical cable. I have gotten Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby Digital EX and DTS ES 6.1 out of XBMC, without too much problem. Finally I use a Bluetooth dongle with a wii-remote to control the whole thing. It looks impressive but requires little fiddling if none at all.

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Storytlr, goodbye so soon?

I'm upset to hear storytlr is closing down, but not from lack of interest. I use storytlr to do my lifestreaming on www.ianforrester.org and was thinking about deploying it elsewhere.

we have decided to stop operating Storytlr in 10 weeks, on December 31st 2009. The reason is simple: our lives have moved on, kids were born, house were bought, new projects appeared and we don't have time anymore to operate this service properly.

We have spent the last months looking for alternatives, potential partners, and even thought about creating a startup around this project. Yet, in the end, nothing did really make sense for us and we have decided to pull the plug. It was a tough decision to make, it is a sad day, and we feel sorry for our passionate users who have put so much effort into their page and who have helped us improve the service through their many comments.

This is why we have also decided to open source the platform. Not today. It will involve first a major refactoring, since at the moment it looks more like a giant spaghetti than an easy to install package. We don't know when it will ready, but we will do our best to do it as soon as possible. Please get in touch if you want to help with this effort.

Open source it great. But my next thoughts are towards my data. Data Portability is always a worry when a service goes away or down. But they have done a excellent job of allowing data download into CSV files plus there will be a Zip file of any binary blobs like mp3's and pictures.

Nows a good time to find an alternative I guess…at least till the open source version is easily deployable. Sweetcron is looking more and more attractive.

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The stoke of a fire mix

Been a while since I've published a mix on soundcloud. This is one I did while on holiday in of all place Stoke on Trent. The old style hotel had a fireplace and nice big chairs to get sucked into. So after most of the old people had retired to there rooms, I put down the ereader and slammed on the pacemaker. This mix is very warming and showcases some of the best trance over the last year. Enjoy!

  1. Flamboyant – Petshop Boys
  2. Invisible Touch (ferry Corsten touch) – Bobina
  3. Sinister – Airbase
  4. Shadow World – Thomas Bronzwaer
  5. Rewire – Robert Nickson & Daniel Kandi
  6. Key of life (Marlo remix) – Ohmna featuring Nurlaila
  7. Into something – richard durand
  8. Constellation (john O callaghan remix – Thomas Bronzwaer
  9. Summer Melodies (Frequence remix) – Frequence
  10. Embrace (ferry fix) – Embrace
  11. Surreal – John O Callaghan featuring Jaren
  12. Language (Santiago Nino Dub tech mix) – Hammer and Bennett
  13. Look ahead – Thomas Bronzwaer
  14. Radio Cursh (extended mix) – Ferry Corsten
  15. Certitude – Thomas Bronzwaer
  16. Ultra Curve – Cosmic gate
  17. Seven Cities (V-one's living city remix) – Solar Stone
  18. Flamboyant – Petshop Boys

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