Thoughts and ideas of a dyslexic designer/developer
So at long last Tech Crunch UK opens its doors to the public. This may serve as a great place to finally aggregate all of whats going on in the UK in one place. For example here is the events page. Its very London focused at the moment but I'm sure that will slowly change. Theres tons of stuff happening in Brighton, Ireland and it would seem Glasgow. Anyway, one to subscribe to and keep an eye on.
So before the modern equivalent of the rumour mills start rolling (maybe blogs or more like myspace and bebo). I'd like to let you all know that I've been offered the position of Senior producer of backstage.bbc.co.uk and of course I have accepted it. This does mean crossing London everyday (SE18 – Woolwich Aresenal to W12 – White City and back everyday) but this also means my main job is to open up the BBC a little more everyday. What more can you ask for? I already have plans in my head for increasing the profile of backstage and of course providing more public feeds and apis. There's also lots of areas where backstage could go which hasn't been visited yet. So don't worry folks I'm on the case with fresh thoughts and enthusiasm like you've never seen before. But to start off, we need to work out the details such as a start date, etc. Hey and theres the first british barcamp and geekdinner's to be arranged. Talking of which… if anyone knows a place where we could hold a geekdinner in Brighton on the 9th September please do let me know.
At long last, I can blog that Kevin Anderson our very forward thinking Worldservice journalist is leaving for a brand new position that he helped create.
This is probably the worst kept secret, which is why I'm a journalist and not a member of the intelligence services, but I can finally announce that I'm under new ownership. After almost eight years with the BBC, I'm joining the Guardian as their Head of Blogging and Interaction.
Head of Blogging and Interaction for the Guardian, is certainly a step on from the BBC World have your say programme. Its going to be a shame, Kevin worked so hard to get the BBC blogging and became a very good voice for genuine and authentic conversation with our audience. Anyway, I really wish him so much luck with his new position. I'm expecting big things from Kevin, and I might actually start reading the Guardian more in the future.
The next geekdinner will be on Friday 1st September 2006 with the most colourful character in London, Ben Metcalfe. Ben will be leaving London for greener and geeker land in San Francisco. If you don't know the smart, young and ever-so cheeky Metcalfe, here's a few pictures to remind you (oh and a funny movie).
Not only will we be seeing Ben off that night…. This will also be the perfect chance to meet up with other BarCampers and prepare for the long BarCamp weekend. Please note: The geekdinner is not exclusively for BarCampers, anyone is welcome including those who missed out this time around.
When: Sept 1st 6:30pm till about 11pm (Remember BarCampLondon is the next day, so no late night)
Where: The Bottlescrue, 53 – 60 Holburn Viaduct, London, EC1A 2FD
Nearest Underground: City Thameslink (Holborn Viaduct) or Chancery Lane Station
Special Guest: Ben Metcalfe
Cost: 5 pounds for food
Its what many of you have been waiting for… The first british BarCamp is happening in September, BarCampLondon 2006 is go.
What is BarCampLondon? Think of it as a way to get the tech/geek community together in London at the end of the summer. What will happen during the event? Only one thing is certain: It's up to you to decide. The most important thing you should take away from the event? Relationships with other geeks! (You can find out more about the BarCamp movement and the rules and principles of being an attendee on the RulesOfBarCamp page. Please make sure you understand what a BarCamp is before you sign up!)
When's it happening?
Saturday morning, September 2nd to Sunday early evening, September 3rd 2006. Exact hours to be confirmed. There will also be an accompanying GeekDinner on Friday 1st September, although you will have to find your own accommodation between Friday evening and Saturday morning.Where will it happen?
Yahoo! Europe's London office. We would like to thank Yahoo! for making this happen by offering us a venue.Yahoo! UK Ltd
125 Shaftesbury Avenue
London
WC2H 8ADMaps
Yahoo! Map – Google Map – Multimap – StreetmapGetting there?
The best way to get to the event is via public transport.Leicester Square and Tottenham Court Road underground stations are nearby. Covent Garden is also close by, however it gets very busy and often exit-only at weekends (thus best avoided!). Bus numbers 24, 29 and 176 stop close by (map).
You can also use the TfL Journey Planner to obtain specific travel advice from your location (use destination postcode WC2H 8AD).
Please Note: There are no car parking spaces available at the venue. If you are coming by car we would suggest either parking outside of London and traveling in by Tube or using one of the pricey NCP-type car parks nearby (P icons on map)
Who's organising this all?
- Ben Metcalfe – Citizen Agency, blog, barcamp@NOSPAMbenmetcalfe.com
- Ian Forrester – BBC WorldService, blog, barcamp@NOSPAMcubicgarden.com
- Murray Rowan – Yahoo! UK
- Paul Hammond – Yahoo! UK
How do I sign up?
We have a separate page for attendees: BarCampLondonAttendees. Please sign up there!Sponsors and Sponsorship opptunties
BarCamps are free events, organised by volunteers. With this in mind, there are some associated costs with running such an event – and it is customary for local BarCamp organisers to find sponsorship for these costs.BarCamps offer sponsors a unique and cost-effective way of increasing their exposure to the London geek scene. Most sponsorship packages are £350.
BarCamp attendees are usually either industry professionals or IT students.
If you think you might be able to sponsor this event, please visit the BarCampLondonSponsorship page.
We would like to thank the following companies who have already kindly agreed to sponsor BarCampLondon:
Yahoo! UK, who are providing us with a venue and connectivity
I forgot I haven't publicly said anything about Ben Metcalfe highlighting the direct urls of the weather feeds. My take on the whole thing is simple – Security through obscurity.
A system relying on security through obscurity may have theoretical or actual security vulnerabilities, but its owners or designers believe that the flaws are not known, and that attackers are unlikely to find them.
Security through or by obscurity, is generally a bad idea. By the BBC developer putting the urls inside a plain text javascript file, he or she was relying on Security through obscurity. Ben simply disclosed this information to the world. You could say well he should have let the BBC know, but like software vulnerabilities company's will sit on this information for years because its not important enough. Nope theres no douht in my mind that Ben did the right thing, and maybe taking down the blog post was a good idea for the BBC. We should be thankful and hell this might have spurred some movement on the backstage front? I do wonder if the javascript file in question still has the urls inside of it?
Almost directly from Geekdinner.co.uk and following on from my earlier post
This month we're going to do something a little different…
I call it a London Geek Picnic
The geek picnic is simply an excuse to sit around with other geeks, enjoying the sunshine and contributing towards an excellent day of fun. This is also a chance to bring your better half, friend, crush to something geeky but not overally geeky (save it for September).
Who's the Guest?
There will be no guest this time around, so we're providing a soapbox and megaphone for anyone to talk about something geeky. I'm hoping we can get everyone up at one point, even if its for 30secs.
Other entertainment will include Frisbee and anything else people decide to bringWhat will you need to bring?
Something to sit on like an old rug, some drinks of your own choosing and something from the list of picnic food and gear. And don't worry besides bringing plastic cups or crisps there will be no other cost. (the list and wiki are being generated)
What about the British Weather?
If it looks like rain a couple of days before, we will cancel the picnic and we'll try again for another better day. If it rains on the day, we can camp out at a local coffee shop till we get sunshine again. I would love to find an alternative venue, if you have one in mind let us know.
How do I sign up?
Unlike previous geekdinner's I need people who sign up to also bring a certain item. So you can now sign up on the wiki by marking your name next to an item or two.
Details
When: Aug 26th 3pm till about 10pm (expect to move on by 10pm)
Where: Hyde Park, London.
Nearest Underground: Lancaster Gate station
Special Guest: You!
Cost: Nothing, just bring something from the listMore details and the link to the wiki (use password ty1t1yyyp1p1)
will be published this weekend. Feel free to post a comment to show your interest. please note i moderate comments, they will be authorised asap…
So to clear things up before things get confusing. I have been planning a geekpicnic for the last month and totally independant of my thoughts the great guys at multipack came up with a simlar idea called geek in the park. But to be honest, its nothing new, I've been thinking about a geekcamp for a good part of a year and there has been geekbbq's for a while now. By the way, the next one is next week Saturday (Saturday 5th August). So what I'm saying is that Geek Picnic (named to be confirmed) and Geek in the Park are not the same and are aware of each other.
So whats up with the date? Well I searched for stuff which is happening in August. The first major free festival is the Notting Hill Carnival is on Aug 27-28th. There's stuff happening on the weekend of the 19th August including the V Festivial, Secret garden party and others. While on the August 26th there is only South West Four and Creamfields which are both pay only event for ravers (I guess I'm over the hill now). Now there is a BBC Prom but I don't think I need to worry about it too much because there's one almost everyday during August. I also had a flick through Craigslist event calendar and Jigsawuk but there pretty quite for August right now.. So generally the 5th and 12th are maybe too soon and I'm not sure about the 19th. But the 26th August looks great except the weather looks to be not so hot.
More to come… More about the Venue and what will happen on the day…
So whats the deal with the speaker? Well there wasn't going to be one… I was actually planning to pull up a couple of the people who will be there and ask them nicely to speak about their passion. Generally the day would be a chance to just chill out with likeminded people and enjoy the sun and food. Depending on the choice of park we could have a BBQ which I would prefer, as it would be a focus point and at least a common talking point. We could have some music from a battery run device and therefore a microphone and amp setup if needed.
Where will the venue be? Like everything I've been thinking about this a lot too. Ideal it would be Hyde Park, which everyone can get to or even Regents Park. But both don't allow you to BBQ. So looking around I could suggest a whole range of other small parks around Holburn, Euston, etc. But they also don't allow BBQ's either. Battersea looks good but I'm unsure about BBQing. You will also notice I'm starting to work my way out of central London which always causes arguements, but I know for a fact Clapham Common and Wimbledon Park both allow BBQ's.
Talking to Sarah (my wife), she seems to think there's no point in doing the BBQ part. Keep it simple and just have a cooperative picnic in somewhere central London seems to be the message. And maybe shes right specially after the geekBBQ which is happening on the same month. So it looks like somewhere in Hyde Park will be fine.
So in summary, It will be a geek picnic in Hyde Park and should happen around 26th August. I'll write it up fully tomorrow and stick it on the geekdinner website.
This is a post while listing to the Inside the net podcast titled Calendar Swamp. Leo and Amber interview Scott Mace about the current state of Calendaring and more importantly will we ever get close to interoperability.
So generally Scott offerss some useful tips but doesn't quite have the ideal solution quite yet. Now I'm not saying I do either but I thought I'd outline my current setup which is messy but kinda works.
So generally I use Plaxo to sync between all my outlook running machines. It does a good job if you disable some of the things which could be seen as spyware. I also run Thuderbird for my email and have the Thunderbird Plaxo extension simply so my Thunderbird address book is pretty up to date. But I don't sync Thunderbird that much, unlike my outlooks which I sync pretty much everyday for all my contacts, calendar, tasks and notes. I'm still using the free version of Plaxo but I'm going to try the paid for version to see how I like it. The Mobile phone syncs with the desktop PC via Activesync. If Activesync would sync with more than two computers, I would sync it with my laptop which I have done in the past. You will also notice I'm now using Outlook 2007 beta on my laptop, mainly to test the iCalendar, which at the moment I'm not impressed with at all. I did for a while have the Mozilla Sunbird application running and connected to Google Calendar but I didn't use it enought really. The last thing about my arrangment is WebIS mobile sync which is a Windows Mobile Application which syncs directly with Plaxo. Its not free and only syncs contacts at the moment but there waiting for Plaxo to open up the calendar, tasks, etc api's then the price will jump from 12 dollars to 20 dollars. So I'm going to try it out for 30days and maybe disable contacts activesync's contact ability.
So its not a bad setup and things do work but I want to say I've not found a way to fit in Eventful and Upcoming yet. I'm also interested to see how Google calendar does against 30boxes and the new Plaxo web calendar.
Something I've been meaning to blog for ages. Finally Odeon the big UK cinema chain has sorted out its terriable website. See its been under a lot of pressure because it was built in like 97 when no one took seriously the issue of accessibility. It had this weird dhtml menu system which only worked on IE and not even Firefox. Someone did make them an accessible version but then Odeon sent in the lawyers and got him to shut it down. Later that year, they opened up an accessable section which didn't work once you wanted to order a ticket. So as they relaunched they have made it so you can actually book without some crazy javascript. However there is one complaint that I do have. The default option is Flash for booking tickets, this really needs changing to something like ajax.