So during the development of this site I was able to draw on a vast base of code which could add new things to my site, which simply couldn’t have existed if the system I was using was locked down and the innards kept secret. There are bits of code and the like known as plugins for the framework my site is built on and they give you extra features.
I used a plugin called “custom anti spam” written by a guy called Peter (link to the plugin site here). It worked great on my development machine but as soon as I uploaded to my live site, the plugin broke, my host didn’t support the features that the plugin needed. I had the code so I tinkered with it and added a work around using a function which was only basic and was less fancy than the newer function, but it fixed the problem. I then thought about blind people trying to use this feature so while I was there I also added an idea to make it so that blind people could hear an audio description of what was being displayed on screen. You can see the results by dropping into a comments page.
I dropped onto Peter’s site and other people were having the same problem as me, so in the spirit of things I gave my changes back. Yesterday I sent Peter the code and today he has released a new version with my changes and linked to my site. This is what we mean by free software and by that we don’t mean as is money we mean as in freedom. I can fix a problem I see and give it back, Peter gets a new release and all those people trying to solve the problem now can just go get the new version, also if I kept my changes to myself, when Peter gets a new version out I’d have to redo that work because only I would have known about the change. Smart people do open source!
I have to say the guys at Lugradio.org put on one heck of a show this weekend in Wolverhampton. Easily beating last years debut event, Lugradio live 2006 was held over two days instead of one and was housed in the really decent and spacious, yet hot, Students Union at Wolves Uni. Lugradio was created by a bunch of Wolves Linux User Group members who had the personality and rapport to carry what is a very likeable podcasty type thing. See this page for more details
Slick is one word I heard bounded around about the presentation, organisation and running of the event which is held for the open source community and attracted visitors from as far as Singapore. Professionally printed banners and programmes really showed how much work had gone into the event. The speakers were excellent and talked on many topics, Mark Shutleworth drew a big crowd to his talk on the big challenges facing open source as it progresses, Bill Thompson’s talk on how open source might be too focused on a head on battle with non open source, so much that it might be ignoring the needs of the developing world, was an excellent talk.
MythTV
Digital Rights Management was a theme during the first day and that was taken forward in the second day with the wonderfull work being done with MythTV as demostrated on stage in the hour of power on day two. It’s the idea of having freedom in what is a very restrictive area. I spoke with Justin who was running the MythTV stand and gained a facinating insight into where users might be able to take the PC as a dedicated entertainment centre. The project has massive potential to be bringing in things like flickr photo streams and the really cool stuff we do on PCs to the TV whereas Microsoft’s MCE might eventually get there, but be very restrictive and expensive on the way there. The DRM stuff on HDTV sounds really scary by the way.
Day One Photos
Lowfat : Document management
That sounds kinda boring, when in fact what the lowfat project is, blows you away. We had a demonstration by the programmer of the project who unleashed a certain wow factor and even admited that he maybe had watched too many films like Minority Report. You know the one where Tom Cruise has this touch screen and is moving things and making them fly and if you’ve used Picassa it had that same slick feel. Using graphic effects to display documents on screen and interact with them like that along with the Novell heavy xGL stuff the linux desktop could soon be more fun than MacOSX (not that I actually use a Mac)!!
Day Two Photos
In Summary
There’s too much to talk about. The general feeling of the weekend was relaxed and friendly, typically summing up what Wolves LUG is like, being the exception rather than the rule to the view that all geeks just sit around and do really boring things. The event was extreamly well planned, the venue was great and it was a very impressive gig. Matt asked for some feedback via blogs so ok just a couple of points. The PA systems in the lightning rooms didn’t seem to allow people to plug in their laptops and some of the volume levels on the main stage were a bit wonky. My xD picture card nuked half of my photos from day two, my bad. Going on this weekend I can’t see how they can top it, but I’m sure they’ll find a way.
Yesterday I noticed on very short notice that an indie band known as Captian were playing at the Barfly. So on a spur of the moment thing I booked a ticket and went along, on what was the hotest day of the year so far. I saw Captain support Delays back in March and was impressed by the melodic tunes, their second single and rather anthemic “broke” has been on my summer playlist for a while.
I hadn’t been to the barfly before and while being nothing to write home about it was more than spacious for this gig. I don’t like it when the support bands are very different from the main act, it tends to make the evening feel broken, but that’s what happened. The first act although having roots in Brum, wasn’t really my kind of thing, they had borrowed a member of the Guillemots and a few members of the crowd liked them. The second support from my perspective were better.
Captain took to the stage just shy of 10pm and were really cool, the set was energetic and they played a few of the recent releases as well as telling us that their debut album is out early to mid August. Full of melody and having catchy tunes, the album should be something to look forward to. The band drew in a decent sized crowd, considering how nice an evening it must have been to be outside.
Huge sigh of relief, it’s all good. I just had a letter from the hospital to say that my recent chest xray was normal. This seemed to be out of routine and on the day itself I was quite worried because of the events of the day, the last one was in December 2004 and I had to ask for that several times before it happened. This latest xray seemed to come out from some kind of concern and not from me, so when I saw the letter this morning I didn’t feel great about it.
As you do, your mind starts racing ahead, because when things happen you don’t get time to digest what is happening, for good or for bad your mind starts playing out various possibilities in preparation. The reason for the scan is that I had a small Melanoma on my arm and if it were to be on the move the chest wall and the lungs are one of the likely destinations. I also had the one on my leg, my last abdominal CT scan was ok, not had one since December 2004, and the last chest xray showed only a small feature on my spleen, which on the face of it can’t have grown, but will clarify this in September.
They say it’s only skin cancer, but it’s not, it should be seen as something far more serious, melanoma isn’t a very nice one, well no cancer is very nice but this one is really evil, at times I wonder given my prognosis and looking around at the literature, why I’m here. It’s the not knowing which is the hardest part, so the results are always something of a lifeline, something to cling onto, which is why today I’m going out today and enjoying the day, because things are good.
It’s gonna be the hotest July on record, with the Midlands likely to see records falling today. As you can imagine I’ve spent a lot of my life hating the summer, hiding from it, getting ratty because of the heat and ultimatly being threatend by it, slowly I’m learning to like it and enjoy the summer like all those people who don’t feel ill effects of the sun, it takes time. In many respects knowing I have skin cancer means I don’t have to worry about getting it, which in turns makes summer more enjoyable, because that question of will I get it, has been answered, the other questions are less clear cut, but I’ll get there.
You can stream the show from this page using the player below, or add my podcast feed to your podcatching software, such as iTunes, or Juice. If you are more of the traditional sort download the mp3. Comments can be left in the following form.
Sorry I’ve been away from the mic for about 2 months, but look shiny new website with loads of cool stuff! I thought I needed to make much more of my site and I didn’t want a home page with a long list of blog entries. Ok there’s an MP3 blog here now including music reviews, my album chart, random quotes. There’s flickr photos, the site is geotagged and a lot of people who I have met and who have sites or blogs, well you guys have been blogrolled … er sounds painful! Maybe I could create a password-ed “friends page” or something where your entries get syndicated to me, that would be cool.
@media 2006
There is a quick overview of how the atmedia two days went, and then a bit of a ramble about how there is a divide between developers who have fully embraced web standards and those who haven’t and how the academic area is way behind the times. I’ve setup a special microsite for my writings about atmedia:
Julia is so nice, check out her video blog, and she gave me a free CD and permission to podcast a track. Saw Julia at the Marrs Bar in Worcester and she easily had the loudest applause of the night, up first on the band showcase was Sam Issac, reminding us of the frontman from Nizlopi.
Ok so I’m getting into this whole geotagging thing, sitting here thinking about Google maps and Web Picassa and seeing the future of browsing online photo albums in the same way a few of us can already find websites based on physical location. I’m thinking that it’s the one big advantage Google would have over Yahoo’s flickr, which at the moment is miles ahead of web Picassa. Picassa is Googles photo managing suite, which recently had a limted test version of an online tool, linked in with the Picassa desktop software.
Why geotagging photos and Google? Well because if you are Google and you get your users to upload photos with a tag to say where they were taken, suddenly you could map those photos, so as a user you could browse by location. Going on holiday, want to check out the hotel? Perhaps you’ll be seeing a friend in a new city and want to check out some snaps before you set out? You put out a java application for mobile phones and suddenly users can browse the area they are in and see photos of places which they are thinking about going to see.
It would be a bold move for Google to open up their API and allow it to be used by flickr, but then again someone out there could write a mash up quickly enough to do this. One to watch for sure.
Well ok this is my first listening post, my MP3 blog, should I explain? There has been a new “micro format” emerge onto the web known as “mp3 blogging”. An mp3 blog is a list of links to legal mp3’s which unsigned bands have uploaded to gain exposure to an audience.
I’ll be running these listening posts, which will give you the chance to hear a lot more music from my site than is possible through the occassional podcast I produce. You can listen to each artist and track mentioned in these posts by using the flash music player below or you can run the feed of this listening post into your podcacthing software to have these tracks automatically delivered to you.
It’s not often you get treated to a showcase of very talented bands and artists for £3, but that’s what just happened. Last night I took the opportunity to see Julia Harris play live at a showcase of music at Worcesters, Marrs Bar, organised by the recording studio, ffg.
There was a real mix of music on offer, a guy called Sam Isaac was up first, who really does remind me and others of the front man of Nizlopi. Second up was Girl Friday who played piano and guitar driven indie almost verging on the brink of pop. They were followed by Julia, who captivated the audience from start to finish with not only a stunning acapella version of one of her tracks but also a storming gutsy and powerful performance which threatened to raise the roof. Julia’s influences clearly showing through so much so, in her first track I thought, well here’s Ani Difranco in the room right now, stunning. Headliners Helzuki headlined the night as winners of the showcase competiton, with very a dramatic and varied set.
Julia Direct to the fans
For some months now I’ve been following Julia’s progress checking in and podcasting a couple of her melodic acoustic tracks and it was really cool to meet and chat with her. From what I saw on stage there’s every reason to suggest that she’ll carry on winning over audiences and gaining new fans. Her tracks are now availible on iTunes and HMV Digital and there is a video blog on myspace where folks can check in and stay upto date. It’s nice that as a listener you can pull out of the mainstream and really interact with musicians and support them regardless of location and I believe the bands who are friendly towards the Internet are in for big things.
A well organised and executed night of music and the bands had travelled far and really put a lot of effort in, it seemed like a lot of the audience were in some way connected to the venue or were in a band and so on, but maybe that’s how it starts, so below are the links to the various sites involved. You’ll hear Julia on my podcast soon enough.
I podcasted Brandon in my last show. Following along the urban folk / new acoustic genre Brandon’s songs are simply joyful to listen to.
The lyrics of “Thirty One Hundred Miles” reflect aspects of city life, the song itself tells a story in itself. Even commuters who travel by car can feel a kinship with Brandon as he sets the scene of another tired trek on the same route. This video mainly talkes place on what seems to be a New York Subway train, as the track progresses we see various mad video montages, random events takes place inside and outside the train as we go on a journey with Brandon.
I really recommend listening to his music, and here is the hotlinked video from his site for you to enjoy, it takes a while to download, took me about a minute on 4meg broadband, but is well worth the wait.
With PDF Adobe gave powerful tools to people without a clue about how to allow information to be easy to reach! A PDF is not a content management system, mind you some people pay thousands of pounds just to be able to attach a file thinking that’s what a CMS is.
I just got one message to anyone who runs a government website, any information website. Look if you have a map or a basic image to put on your website, just don’t put it in a PDF, what’s the point, it’s like wrapping a mini roll in tin foil just to make it look shiny. It’s an image so upload so it as a JPEG, there’s a way to embed an image onto a page so I don’t have to download a file, the image tag! While we are here why not take the text of the PDF, usually bullet points and put it in an unordered list which would also appear on the webpage, there really is no need to be having an attchment that you make us download, really stop it now, it’s annoying!
Yeah PDF for downloadable leaflets and things which are meant to be printed, by all means please do, but not for one image, and certainly not as the absolute only way of looking at a map of car parks in a town centre. It really is not the right thing to do, really!
