Blog

Posted on

Stilgherrian Live Alpha: lessons from episode 2

I wish I had a screenshot to show you, but, as I mentioned before, episode 2 of Stilgherrian Live Alpha wasn’t recorded. It only lives on in the memories of the 20-odd people who watched it live — and then probably not for long.

What did we learn this time?

The key lesson is that it just isn’t possible to do everything on my old PowerBook G4. There ain’t enough processing power. And there isn’t quite the cashflow to organise my new Macbook Pro for a couple of weeks. That leaves me with an important decision: How do I shape this alpha series in the meantime?

Continue reading “Stilgherrian Live Alpha: lessons from episode 2”

Posted on

How will I cope with the looming Geek Week?

Next week is packed! How can I get the best value out of CeBIT Sydney and the associated Transaction 2.0 conference, as well as Microsoft’s ReMIX 08? What should I record or broadcast? What should I write about?

CeBIT Sydney logo

CeBIT was always on my agenda. Despite being disappointing last year and despite annoying me with a flood of email, it’s still the biggest IT trade show in Australia. It’s worth going just to see who’s confidently spending money on promotion, if nothing else.

I’ll be touring the trade show floor on Wednesday 21 May. If you want to meet up, let me know. Maybe I should even do a Stilgherrian Live Alpha from the bloggers media room? Whaddyathink?

If you still haven’t organised your free pass, you can register online using my promotion code: stilcs08.

On Thursday 22 May I’ll be at Transaction 2.0, with an interesting set of speakers. Again, it’s a matter of choosing the priorities. Who should I talk to? Should I pick a fight with Jason Calacanis?

ReMIX 08 logo

But I kick off the Geek Week on Tuesday 20 May with ReMIX 08, where Microsoft says I’ll “experience all that is new in Silverlight 2, Expression 2, IE8, Live and a host of other great web technologies… You will also see how local Australian innovators are creating the next generation of engaging websites and unprecedented user experiences for the web.”

Provided they build it with Microsoft’s tools, of course. 😉

That’s unfair. Microsoft is changing. It’ll be interesting to hear what they’re up to.

Now my only challenge is working out how all this fits into one week, while still leaving room to do some billable hours for clients.

Posted on

Who’d be Twitter today?

Twitter bird cartoon by Hugh MacLeod

Who’d be Twitter today? Down again this morning, apparently for the same reason as yesterday. Once is an accident, twice…

As I told them on their own blog, they need to give timely and accurate information so my message to you, Dear Readers, is that Twitter’s problems will soon be over and you can rely on their service — not that they’re a service ripe for cloning by someone with better engineering.

Posted on

Episode 2 wasn’t recorded

Last night’s episode of Stilgherrian Live Alpha wasn’t recorded. I think my overloaded computer took too long to confirm that I’d pressed the “record” button and I pressed it a second time — turning off the recording. Oops. A shame: there was a solid improvement, but still lessons which could be learned from a review. Still, I’ll review the chat logs and other feedback and post something later.

Posted on

EFA: money “wasted” on Internet filtering

Photograph of computer monitor overlaid with CENSORED

Internet lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) has expressed “disappointment” at the government’s decision to fund the “clean feed” Internet plan in this week’s budget. They’ve also launched a campaign website at nocleanfeed.com.

“At a time when the Government is cutting services to fight inflation, it’s bewildering that they would decide to spend tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on a filter before feasibility trials are even complete,” said EFA spokesman Colin Jacobs…

“Australians are very uncomfortable with the idea of having the Government decide what’s appropriate for them and their families,” said Jacobs. “In fact, in a survey of 18,000 Internet users, only 13% agreed with the policy. That’s why we feel it is a shame, when the Government has identified real needs for better education and policing, that their approach to Internet policy is so skewed towards the filter initiative. There are greater risks to Australian children online, and real steps can be taken to mitigate these risks. That’s where the funding should be going.”

Unfortunately EFA made a fundamental mistake which could allow critics to dismiss their arguments. They talk about the Cyber-safety Plan costing $24.3m this financial year and rising to $51.4m next. However only part of this is for Internet filtering. There’s also things which critics could say EFA would support: AFP investigations and plenty of education programs.