I just started working with Xumii and as a part of it, we launched their blog this morning. Very exciting.
Why is it exciting?
Well, it’s certainly not my first. I’m estimating that I’ve started more than 50 blogs in my life. Blogs are easier to prepare than hot breakfasts thanks to great tools like Wordpress.
But as opposed to hot breakfasts, blogs have life. They grow, they evolve, they meander. They intersect different people’s and company’s lives and they are the time capsule. (One of my first blog posts from 2003)
So I always get a little excited with a new blog. Where is going to go? What is it going to look like in 5 years? Will it have a personality all it’s own?
Funnily enough, today I ran into a guy that helped me build a content management system back in 1998. It had parent child relationships and we eventually opened it up for multiple authors to write news publicly. It was basically a blogging platform, but we didn’t know it at the time. We (stupidly) thought it was a news story writer and when we stopped doing news, we let it go.
I love what blogs have brought to the world and I encourage everyone to blog. Just start writing and see where you meander.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Tags: Apps · Australia · General · mobile · social
I came back to my laptop last night to find my cat perched upon it.
I started closing tabs, and then decided to close Firefox instead.
847 tabs.
And it didn’t even crash! Nice one Mozilla.
P.S. Where do I send my QA invoice?
Popularity: 6% [?]
Tags: General
Hey everyone, quick update on what’s going on.
We have been looking at two sites, one in the city and one in Riley St Darlinghurst. The city one is turning out to be too expensive and too big. Big is great if we can fill it but it puts a lot of pressure of the leasor if every thing goes rotten pear shaped.
Riley St is a better size and price, but it’s probably not available until September.
We’re working on it as fast as we can, but we don’t want to rush into it.
More ideas, feedback, thoughts, anger - comment them here.
Popularity: 10% [?]
Tags: General
(or consultant
or biz dev, sales
or Pollenizer)
…you have 5 cafe loyalty cards.
Any more?
Popularity: 10% [?]
Tags: General
This pic is a sign of my fragmented week…..
My comms for the week is starting to sound like a Christmas Carol…
124 Emails
111 Tweets
102 Real chats
99 Blog posts
82 Podcasts
76 Forums
61 Confluence pages
53 Jira issues
48 Briefs
32 Mock ups
21 Skype conversations
17 (i)Phone calls
and a Skitch Sketch of a Po-lly (my kitten)
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Tags: General
Dear Karen my wonderful wife,
It is with much regret that I must say that I have another love in my life.
She’s very young and slim, although that’s not why I love her.
She’s size 16, so much of her to love and boy can she eat bytes.
She’s white, although I must say I was looking for a more darker love (you take what you can get…)
She is great with navigation. I touched her (gently) and she told me exactly where we were.
She’s great at communication - we talk, we chat, we email, we share pictures.
She does nag me a bit with reminders and a calendar, but that’s ok.
And she only costs me $150 a month and after twelve months she’s ok with me upgrading.
Of course there is enough love in my life to share between you and Ellie iPhone.
Much love,
Mick
SENT VIA ELLIE IPHONE
Popularity: 15% [?]
Tags: General
Some photos from me if you click this one.
There were 500 people at midnight.
Crazy.
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Tags: General
This is the email I just got from Optus.
I can turn up at Midnight and get my phone!
I’m there!
Click the image to see the full email.
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Tags: General
Confusion will reign!
I can see this getting so messy.
—
Later the same day…
I went into the Apple store and asked a wandering Apple Genius;
“So will I be able to buy an iPhone here on Friday?”
Answer;
“Um, I’m not 100% sure.”
—
CONFUSION REIGNS AND RAINS!
Popularity: 15% [?]
Tags: General
I just got invited to a Skitch room by Atari Boy and thought it was a good idea.
So here tis;
Sydney IT Friendfeed Room
Feel free to join and start dumping and sharing. Keep it Sydney, keep it IT, web, Internet, etc. Invite the crew.
Image Credit;
Popularity: 18% [?]
Tags: General
This screenshot that I Skitched up made me laugh.
I was going to write a post in Friend Feed on Twhirl instead of Twitter in Twhirl.
But Friendfeed or Twhirl borked.
Then I noticed who was on the page. Leo, Loic, Duncan and Scoble. I wondered what they’d be really saying to me.
But it shows how fickle and delicate the life of a web application is. Bad timing or bad luck can be the difference between “Wow, I’m adding you to my life and here’s my credit card” and “Oh dear, what crap”.
It’s another reason to stay focused and grow organically.
Popularity: 17% [?]
Tags: General
I got some good value out of last.fm today, which I’ve been passively using, but not really getting into.
Then Delicate Genius added me as a friend.
So I said, let’s roll, let’s get into it.
So I went to a friends friend roll, and then sighed with disappointment. I have to click through to each one and add them. I wasn’t going to spam and just add everyone, but there were multiple people I just wanted to add.
I like the easy friend add that Facebook and others have (we’re adding it to Goalsy now) because I control the speed. But I’m sure some networks like to make it a bit harder so they maintain a higher quality of network.
And that’s what happened. I clicked one friend, added them, then looked at their friends, added one, looked at their friends, added one, etc. So it was much more linear, not exponential.
What do you think? Let the user decide or make it multi step to add some cost so that you only add real friends.
Popularity: 15% [?]
Tags: General
I just got around to using Google Gears.
Went to Google Calendar - worked perfectly.
Went to Remember the Milk - worked perfectly.
Went to Gmail (the biggest benefiting app in my mind - nothing……..
Went to Google Gears help.
“Where can I use Google Gears? In websites that are enabled for Google Gears”
Gee, thanks.
Search for Gmail….. NADA.
Disappointed…….. almost shocked.
Funnily I also tried Evernote and it looks good but had a few bumps along the way. My expectation was that it was new and from a crew I didn’t know, so I knew there would be bumps. That’s ok. It’s not easy. I know that. So I let it slide.
But Google, they should nail it every time. Plenty of good people, plenty of cash. Yep, its unrealistic to ask that, but that’s a good thing to have built up.
In terms of top 5 web software development ‘teams’ expectations, my list goes a bit like this;
- Google
- Mozilla
- Atlassian
- Viddler
- Amazon
These are 5 organisations that I expect to get it right. I expect it will work, it will be pretty open, high on sharing, high on interoperable and balanced design (look good, but be functional).
Expectations are built up over the long term, and need constant maintenance. The tough part is that they are easier to destroy than to build. But that’s how real stuff is built - you can’t cram on the farm!
Popularity: 21% [?]
Tags: General
So I hired a professional firm to do a floor plan of the office space at 1 Barrack St, Sydney, and here tis;
What do you think? 10k well spent.
Anyway, combined with the pics (see below) you can get the idea.
We had a meetup there today with a bunch of people interested in the space.
Some of the tire-kickers;
So now we just have to negotiate hard, crunch the numbers and see if we can pull it off.
If you’re keen, please get in touch.
Very excited.
P.S. Rumour has it that Jodie is the world champion of getting stuff done in Sydney,. including kicking tradesmens arses. You rock Jodie!
Popularity: 18% [?]
Tags: Australia
Hey everyone, bad news and good news.
Bad news is that we’re moving the Shared Office / CoWorking Space meeting.
“BOOOO!!”
Good news is it’s because we think we have found a muchos muchos better place.
“HAZAAR!”
The new location is;
1 Barrack St
Corner of Clarence
Click here for a map thingy
Date and time is the same;
July 3rd (not June Mick you big pickle)
4pm
If you were coming, please get your PA to ask your diary manager to make the change.
If you know someone who was coming, please tell them.
If you weren’t coming - you should be!
Click the link, then click ’sizes’ to see a big copy of the pic or Click Here
See you there!
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Tags: General
