social-hardware – Page 27 – Cubicgarden.com…

Geekdinner with Tara Hunt and Chris Messina of Citizen Agency – Wed 21st Feb

Geekdinners are back for 2007, this time with Tara Hunt and Chris Messina of Citizen Agency.

More details can be found on Geekdinner.co.uk and signup using eventwax.

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

Having a nightmare day and its only 9:20am

It started at 6:20am when I woke up in a panic. I had not actually received the confirmation number for my train tickets to Birmingham today. Why was I going to Birmingham? Well back tracking a bit, I had heard about the citizen journalism conference a while ago but couldn't really justify paying for it and taking the time off. However, on Tuesday 23rd I got a email in my spam box from Paul Bradshaw. The start went exactly like this…

I am writing to invite you to the 'Citizen Journalism' conference this Friday, 26th January 2007. This one day event in Birmingham's Custard Factory will provide an important opportunity for those who work in the news industry, academics and citizen journalists to create a network of those working within the field, and discuss the issues involved. As one of the country's foremost bloggers we would be honoured if you would like to attend this event as a non-paying guest.

Ok so I'm thinking they must have the wrong guy. Cubicgarden.com doesn't even make the top 10000 in Technorati (but to be fair I've had problems with Technorati for a while now). Although I did make it into the Top 500 feedster bloggers in late 2005. But honestly I don't see how the thoughts and ideas of dyslexic, designer/developer can be of that much interest. Saying all
that, I got to say its quite good to think of myself as a Z level celeb in the blogosphere. Anyway you look at it, I'm still glowing after reading that email and thought I'd better make a effort go along.

And this is where things started to go wrong. On Wednesday I booked the tickets for the train on the BBC's internal train service (supplied by the trainline for business) and I waited a bit for the confirmation email but was so busy I forgot about it and ended up going home without checking again. But I noticed there were a couple of unread items on my phone which is automatically synced with Outlook. So I just assumed those emails could have been the conformation number. Boy was I wrong. It turned out to be
two emails about the future of webapps which is now sold out (whole different story).

On Thursday I was out of the office and busy during the night at the Rights will make you rich and Boagworld meetup, so didn't get a chance to do anything due to having to get up really early the next day. Anyway, so today I logged on to my email remotely from home and checked my email for anything from the trainline. Of course there was nothing. So I attempted to book another ticket from London Euston to Birmingham and back again. The system was having none of it. I tried for like 20mins, even tried booking
single tickets but it just wasn't going to be. Tried phoning our BBC Trainiline helpdesk and the trainline directly but all I got was call back at 8am. Well I would if I didn't have to catch a train at 8:10am. So in the end I logged out and had to signup with the plain consumer facing Trainline website myself and fork it all out on my own credit card. Luckly it worked but I couldn't book tickets for the morning because you can't buy tickets 2hrs before the train leaves. So by the time all this happened and I
quickly jumped in the shower, it was 7:30am and I still had to unlock the scooter and go to euston.

I was already up against it and the traffic along commercial road was stupid and not going anywhere soon. But I did manage to get to Kings Cross at 8:10am which meant I missed the train but could get the next one ok. By the time I found where I could park my scooter (right out side the station actually) it was 8:30 and after getting my ticket (38 pounds for a single to Birmingham) I thought I'd quickly grab some food from Marks and Spencers because I hadn't eaten well yesterday and didn't have any breakfast.
Well you can guess what happened when I got to the platform. Yep wave goodbye to the train. They had cancelled the train at 8:43 and told everyone going that way to get on the earlier 8:40. I think its at that point I thought things couldn't get much worst and I thought well I got to at least write a blog entry about this day I'm having.

Well in the last sting of the tail, my ticket I bought was a super saver which is not valid for travel before 9:45am. The next train (which I'm currently sitting on) was at 9:10am but I didn't know about the super saver till 9:05am. So I ended up having to pay extra money to make up the fair difference (a extra 25 pounds). And to finally to top off everything my power socket is dodgy so it sometimes cuts out plus there is zero wireless! Not even a costly one. I haven't hooked up phones for dial up access yet
with my new laptop and I can't remember the long modem query string for Orange let alone O2.

Anyway, I'm sure the conference will be good and I got molly's birthday bender tonight so i'm sure this morning won't set the tone for the rest of the day.

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

Did you get a email from Octane about BarCampLondon2?

I just do not understand. When did Press Release mean emailing everyone who wrote about BarCampLondon in the last year?

Ben and Tom make their feelings known and rightly so I have to say.

I have little to do with the emails which went out today. Honestly if this was even mentioned to me I would said no this is certainly a very bad idea. I did agreed with BT putting out a press release. But I was under the illusion this meant emailing newspapers, magazines, etc not bloggers. Lets cut the crap, does a event which sold 100 tickets in 1.5 hours and is now holding back tickets to the public currently need even more PR? No I don't think so. You only have to whisper BarCampLondon and
people are kicking off emails asking when and where to sign-up. This is no bad thing because BarCampLondon was such a great event last time and I'm sure it will be even better this time around.

What killed me about the emails from Bethan at Octane PR was.

Bethan used a Press release which I had corrected previously when BT sent it to me, Nat and Jason recently.
The link to BarCampLondon2 was wrong in the emails
The email addresses must have been found by searching Google or Technorati
The start of the email twists the truth to sound like it comes from a trusted source
The emails were sent to people who merely mentioned BarCampLondon not BarCampLondon2 (hence Ben got one although he lives in SF)
Bethan must not have done much research into the event because even I got a email and I'm a bloody organizer (geez)
The signature for Bethan Thomas, account manager at Octane PR is over 10 lines tall! Do they have no shame?

I do not want this to distract from the great work BT has done in opening up its building for BarCampLondon2. We really have a great space and BT were happy to offer us even more. They even had a backup venue in case we felt the BT Centre in St Pauls wasn't suitable (no idea how they could have felt that). I'm sure it will blow over in the next few days, plus everyone is talking about the BBC CBBC World at the moment to notice most of the blogs
charting the email (although I expect the number to grow by tomorrow).

My personal apologies goes out to Ben, Tom, Drew, David, Adrian, Nat, Richard, Leisa and anyone else who it went to.

I do promise to talk to BT and I'm sure they will appreciate the honest response they are getting from bloggers. Last but not least a quote from the Cluetrain.

To speak with a human voice, companies must share the concerns of their communities. But first, they must belong to a community.

For those wondering about the email, look no futher here it is.

Hi Ian,

I notice that you’ve registered your interest in going along to BarCamp London this year. Just wanted to make sure you have the updated details on the event and have the registration details if you do want to go along.

Thanks,
Bethan

News Alert

January 23, 2007

BT BACKS INNOVATION BY SPONSORING BARCAMP LONDON

As part of its commitment to driving innovation in technology at every level, BT has announced it’s the lead sponsor of BarCamp London 2007.

The event, which will be held at BT Centre, London, on February 17 and 18, 2007, is the second to be held in London and is part of a worldwide programme of conferences that includes Los Angeles, Montreal and Seoul.

BarCamp London brings together the UK’s technology community to share ideas and learn about technology in an open environment. These include attendees from design, usability, marketing/PR, digital agency work and venture capital backgrounds, as well as developers and programmers.

The BarCamp rules are very clear and create an environment where there are no spectators, only participants: everyone who attends is expected to present, give a demo, lead a session or support the event in some way. This helps to get everyone involved, but also creates more of a community atmosphere. First time attendees have to make a presentation or lead a discussion.

Gavin Patterson, group managing director consumer at BT Retail said: “As a company, we’re driving innovation in the technology sector, both for businesses and consumers. BarCamp is at the heart of this and brings together some of the most talented people in the industry, creating an environment where they can share, discuss and develop the latest technology and services, which is why we’re sponsoring the latest event in London.”

If you’re interested in finding out more about BarCamp London 2007, please go to http://barcamp.org/BarCampLondon or register at http://cubicgarden.eventwax.com/barcamplondon/register

—
Bethan Thomas
Account Manager
OCTANE
A division of LEWIS – Global Public Relations
Millbank Tower, Millbank
London, SW1P 4RS

Tel: +44 (0)20 7802 2662
Mobile: +44 (0)7714 768952
Web: www.octanepr.com

PRWEEK – Top ten all-sector agency, 2005
PRWEEK – Number one in UK technology PR league, 2003, 2004, 2005

Best Companies – Michelin-rated one star accreditation, 2006
The Sunday Times – Top 100 best small companies to work for, 2005
The Holmes Report – Top Ten international consultancies, 2005 & European SABRE awards finalists, 2006
Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) Excellence finalists, 2006

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

Finally installed Outlook 2007 first thoughts

So I installed it and had to remove remote calendars and the syncML plugin I was using for Outlook 2003. One of those were causing Outlook 2007 to use up over 40% of my resources without doing anything. At first I thought it might have been Outlook its self but nope it pretty much idles in on my new Dell now the plugins are removed.

My main reason for the upgrade is the iCal support. And I don't mean just the ability to download iCal files, nope I mean publishing my calendars to a webdav or even caldav server and finally being able to share with Sarah my calendar. This works both ways of course, once Sarah also installs Outlook 2007 (think shes waiting for me to install it for her). This also means we can finally stop sending each other meeting requests which sounds really dorky but actually is efficient enough for generally telling the
person what your up to on a certain date. The only other solutions was use a exchange server (not cheap), not use Outlook and switch to Sunbird or another iCal client (we both use pocketpc devices so that would be a real pain) or simply dump online calendaring. The last one is simply not a option because I use my a lot otherwise I'd forget all this stuff and Sarah is very good at arranging her calendar and time, so it would be a nasty lost.

I did check out Calimanjaro but couldn't find the sync to pocketpc option so dropped it quickly.

My only problem with Outlook 2007 besides the new style (which I can live with for now) is that it won't sync with my Cocoon built WebDav server. So I really need something else which is easily deployed in a Java servlet engine like Resin and Tomcat. I can try again with Apache Webdav, but I have worries about how secure that really is and I'd prefer to keep Apache as simply a static file server and low balancer for Resin. Any thoughts? And please don't mention Apache Slide. I just can't get that thing to
work, talk about complex configuration.

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

Friday 19th Jan, One night with Ferry Corsten. You up for it?

January 14, 2007 10

—

6am

— Ferry Corsten 4 hour set— at The Gallery at Turnmills, Clerkenwell, London

Four hour set from Mr Corsten, supported by Abel Ramos and Gavyn Mytchell

One of the top Dj's in the industry hits London next Friday. In my attempt to get back into clubbing before I get really too old physically to do it all, I'm going.

My only regret is that I'll have no one to share the night with. Most of my friends are into weird music (only learned who the police were a while ago) and won't be interested in going out till 6am. Unless I might be wrong? If your reading this and thinking yeah sounds like a good night then leave a comment or drop me a email. As mentioned on the podcast we just did, I only drink lots of Redbull so I'm legally allowed to drive my scooter home afterwards, which means theres a chance I could drop you home if your
on the way to Woolwich. I also found a nice discount on the ticket price.

Because so many people of the Ferry Corsten forum are going to see Ferry in Turnmills we wanted to do something special! So we can offer a special entrance for just £10. To get your ticked you have to go to THIS special link.
Please put : FINGERS in the Promo code box. Go through the rest of the options and then on the next page it will offer you the £10 ticket.

The last time I went seriously clubbing was in 2005 over in Berlin. My friend Carl was going to come out too, but his girlfriend was ill. So I decided to go alone. Now to be fair I had a flipping wicked night but there were some odd things to get use to in Berlin like getting money back for your glasses at the bar (actually makes a lot of sense). I must have shed like a ton of sweat that night because there were so many good tunes played by the likes of Paul Van Dyk and Tiesto.

The way I currently stay in touch with what's going on in the Trance and Progressive scene is via the member only Bit Torrent site Trance Traffic. Armin Van Buuren's A state of trance show is simply awesome and is a must if your into your trance and progressive music. Without it I wouldn't be currently listening to the classic Intuition
(Martin Roth Classic Style Mix)

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

Google Eats Technorati For Breakfast?

Some good news for Google found via Techmeme

Google launched its blog search engine more than a year ago, but only last week did it finally pass category leader Technorati, according to Hitwise. The surge in traffic to Google's beta blog search started in October when Google News began to link to it prominently, but what pushed it over the top is a prominent link on Google's
main homepage.

And have to say, good for Google. I love technorati and have tried to get on with it but when it comes to my own blog its got serious problems. Do a search for Ian Forrester on Google and Technorati. On Technorati you only see one post I wrote which is actually for my other blog
(flow *). While on Google you get a pretty much upto date list of entries from my blogs and even a link to my blog in related blogs. I'm sorry but Google blogsearch is much more effective at indexing my blog. I've said it to Dave Sifry when he was over here in London last time. I think technorati does not like Blojsom the blogging server, and seems to throw a wobbly on my http redirector page (which is now gone – thanks to the server upgrade). Technorati
seems to love MT, blogger and WordPress blogs. But seems to rank ones like blojsom, roller, etc much lower. Some would ask if I've claimed my blog? Well yes I claimed them ages ago and its made little difference. As far as Technorati is concerned I have a blog Cubicgarden redirector and I haven't updated it for almost 400 days! Dave Sifry, Tantek, etc I love technorati (I
even have the sticker on my laptop and computer) love what your doing with Microformats, etc but this is unacceptable and I'm now done with Technorati searching and mining. If it can't even get my blog right, I'm sure there are many more its missing. For example Blojsom.com (633 days since david wrote anything?)

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]

When the long tail makes the most sense

Rachel wrote this good post about Twitter.

Twitter is still small enough to be fun – although that may change. Suw today asked if there was an optimum Twitter friend pool size. There probably is, which will vary by person and how much data you can browse. We’ll get the power users, with plenty of friends and far more followers. Others will keep it private and contained. It’s the Long Tail curve all over again.

This certainly says to me, its not good to just add contacts to twitter like most people do on social networks. The more you have the less relevance it has and more noise you will get. And in a service like twitter, this could render it pointless (like watching the public feed). Yes I know you can change who your following but this is a pain like sending a user a direct message (notice how many people use the syntax @username). So generally the degrees of separation are kept small. I mean who wants to pay for
5 updates every minute on their phone? Or even see them in their IM client.

I've noticed this is also very key in another social service. Upcoming.org has this great little feature which shows you all the events your friends/contacts are also watching or attending. This is a interesting feature but like Twitter, you don't want to add too many friends otherwise it becomes like the public feed and has very little relevance.

meta-technorati-tags=friends, seperation, degreesofseperation, upcoming, twitter meta-send-pingbacks=true meta-auto-trackback=true

Comments [Comments]
Trackbacks [0]