Planet NZTech

Rod Drury: BlackMac

Rod Drury — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 22:24:26 +0000

My Black MacBook has arrived so I've been getting used to it. Still feels a bit strange but liking it.

Does anyone know of an equivalent to Offline Folders in XP? I want my Mac to automatically sync with a folder share on my XP server so that I know that everything is backed up.

Project X: Smaps

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 17:21:00 +0000

Trade Me have just released their new maps site smaps, powered by the new ZoomIn Mapping System.

The site is using our new maps. The new map design include better definition of streets and labelling of points of interest. We've been working really hard in making smaps the best map site in New Zealand.

Richard MacManus: Read/WriteWeb sponsor packages available

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 14:19:36 +0000

As Read/WriteWeb continues to evolve and ramp up its traffic, I've found that it's consuming more and more of my time. I love it of course, as this blog is (and always has been) my passion. I've recently had a re-design and I've been putting a lot of effort into the content - making sure it's high quality, plus hitting its target niche of covering web 2.0 market segments and Web/media innovation.

In short, my goal with Read/WriteWeb is to provide premium quality content, focusing on high level analysis and industry insights. So it's very much quality over quantity, although I still aim to pump out 1-2 decent posts per day.

In line with my site goals, and in order to justify my ongoing time investment in R/WW, I'm now making available some premium sponsor slots. They will be located in the top-right corner of all pages and are a monthly flat rate. My pitch for this is: Premium Sponsors deserve Premium Content (or is it the other way round?). Think of R/WW as like a premium beer, exported from New Zealand no less :-) NB: the photo above is derived from such a product.

A lot of popular blogs are doing sponsorships these days - TechCrunch of course, which Mike Arrington has done an amazing job of growing to its current position, Om Malik's GigaOm, Rafat Ali's PaidContent, Pete Cashmore's Mashable, Tom Foremski's Silicon Valley Watcher. These are all sites I admire greatly - and their owners are all making a go of turning their blogging passion into self-sustainable businesses. I'm hoping to at least hold my own amongst those stellar bloggers, in my own little niche of course.

Email me if you'd like to enquire about sponsoring R/WW.

Robin Capper: The end of paper flight?

RobiNZ — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 11:59:16 +0000

Although just a random result of departure time, route and flight scheduling it was appropriate that the aircraft for my flight to Seoul was a Boeing 777. I was heading there to learn about Building Information Modelling (BIM) and the impact a new design technology/approach has on industry process and practice.

Several years ago I read Karl Sabbaghs book “Twenty-First-Century Jet” in which Boeing’s Alan Mullally cited the ease of assembling a Fisher Price toy aircraft model, late on Christmas Eve, being an inspiration for the design approach of a new aircraft program;

“…one thing we could really do that would add value for our aircraft customers is to make the aircraft easy to fabricate and assemble. Because if it’s easier to fabricate and assemble it means it takes less flow time, and it takes less work, and you also have less re-work because it’s easier for people to do it correctly. And I kept thinking for a long time, how do we capture the imagination of a design and an operations community.”

Then later he comments;

“Now think about this. Before you’d use a two-dimensional piece of paper and a yellow pencil and we would try to create a three-dimensional product. It’s very difficult. It’s very difficult for the mind and its a real skill just to think in two dimensions about all these parts that are really three.”

The answer was Boeings first complete “Paperless Airplane”. The 777 was the first commercial airliner that applied virtual modelling to analyse the design, assembly and operation of a complete aircraft long before it existed:

“Boeing engineers designed and electronically pre-assembled the 777 using computers. New laboratory facilities enabled the various airplane systems to be tested together as a single integrated entity in simulated flight conditions, before the first jetliner took to the air.”
www.boeing.com

The 777 Program was a milestone for Boeing. The idea is not new, especially in manufacturing, but applying virtual modelling and concurrent design to a complete project, across all disciplines and around the globe, required a change in technology, approach and attitude from all the designers, consultants, contractors and clients involved.

It was a different time, a different industry and I doubt it’s the reason Korean Airlines used that plane for that flight but, given the focus of the next few days, it was a good choice!

Alex James: Must Watch Video - I agree with Jonesie!

alex@base4.net — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 11:47:57 +0000

While I've been out of circulation a truly excellent video appeared up on Channel 9. Thanks a lot to Jonesie for drawing it to my attention.

The video delves nicely into 2 key areas for me:

What happens when a LINQ expression is encountered.
How you can override what happens.

In terms of what happens, basically it works like this:
a) Something like this is encountered:
    var v = from c in customers
               where c.City == "London"
               select c.Name;
b) And is converted automatically into something like this:
    var v = customers.Where(c=>c.Name=="London").Select(c=>c.Name);

What is interesting is that the method calls in (2) are building up an expression. The expression is held inside 'v'. All the work happens when you start trying to evaluate v which typically happens when you enumerate over it, probably with a foreach statement.

How the expression is evaluated depends on what customers is. Anders and the LINQ team have catered for two possibilities, IEnumerable<T> or IQueryable<T>. Just about every array, list, collection etc in .NET implements IEnumerable<T>, for which LINQ will use the extension methods in the System.Query.Sequence namespace. However if it your object happens to implement IQueryable<T> then you get a lot more control over how the expression is evaluated.

This extra control provides the obvious place for OR Mappers etc to hook in and add extra value. The nice thing is the Microsoft have both forseen AND embraced the idea that people will want to customize how the expressions are evaluated. DLINQ then is just one implementation of that, but the forth coming ADO v.Next, Entities, VLINQ or whatever it ends up being called, will be its big brother.

Another interesting thing about the video is that Sam Druker seems to have switched his focus from WinFS to Entities etc. But it isn't really that surprising: If you have seen some of the pulled materials Microsoft had on the subject (HINT: Google's cache is invaluable for finding pulled materials!) Entities looks like it is basically WinFS with more datalayer flexibility, minus the FS, i.e. without the synchronization and filesystem focus?

The question is what does this mean for Base4? Well I think the future is very rosy indeed. Base4 has never claimed to be an ORM, which is just as well considering the great ORM extinction of 2007 is on the horizon!

More soon...

UPDATE: Corrected Sam's lastname... Sam if you ever read this I sorry about getting wrong!

Alex James: Base4 and LINQ meet for the first time.

alex@base4.net — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 11:46:47 +0000

Yesterday I started playing about with Linq for the first time, just to get a hang of it really. I have an old laptop on which I installed the May CTP etc.

Well the first thing I did was run a simple query in Base4

//Get some types into memory

StorageContext.SetDefault("tcp://Server:@localhost:999/Base4_default");

IItemList<TypeImpl> types = StorageContext.FindAll<TypeImpl>();

//Do a standard query

foreach(TypeImpl t in types)

Console.WriteLine(t.FullName);

Simple enough then I tried doing an in memory filter:

//Filter the in memory collection using a simple Linq statement

var filter = from t in types

where t.FullName.EndsWith("Impl")

select t;

foreach (TypeImpl t in filter)

Console.WriteLine(t.FullName);

That worked great and is incredibly simple.

Next step was to manually create a delayed compilation expression, as described by Matt.

//Create an expression tree in memory and compile it.

Expression<Func<TypeImpl,bool>> expr

= t => t.FullName.EndsWith("Impl");

Func<TypeImpl,bool> pred = expr.Compile();

//Use the predicate

var filter2 = types.Where<TypeImpl>(pred);

foreach(TypeImpl t in filter2)

Console.WriteLine(t.FullName);

Again works a charm.

Now the obvious next step is to make IItemContext support IQueryable<T>. The easiest way would probably be to add a Query<T>() which returns a base4 IQueryable<T> implementation.

//Filter directly in the database!

var filter = from t in StorageContext.Query<TypeImpl>()

where t.FullName.EndsWith("Impl")

select t;

foreach (TypeImpl t in filter)

Console.WriteLine(t.FullName);

Now I think that looks cool. I'll probably have a try at doing in when the next CTP comes out, Microsoft has been promising mid to end of August, I can't wait.

Alex James: LINQ for RDF

alex@base4.net — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 11:46:33 +0000

Harmut Maennel has two posts on creating a LINQ provider for RDF files. Part 1 and Part 2 are well worth the read.

Here is a snippet of the code his provider makes possible:

IQueryable<string> q = from x in rdf

from y in rdf

where rdf.A(germany, hasAdminDiv, x)

&& rdf.A(x, isOfType, germanState)

&& rdf.A(x, hasName, y)
select y.Val + " [" + x.Val + "]";

This is cool for AT LEAST two reasons:

He has an example of implementing IQueryable<T>
It is RDF

I will be reviewing this is detail over the next couple of days. Thanks Harmut.

Jason R Briggs: silver bullets

jrbriggs — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 11:10:28 +0000

excellent: http://www.acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=401

Robin Capper: Digital Paper takes flight

RobiNZ — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 10:06:45 +0000

Recently I blogged about digital design of Aircraft using the title “The end of paper flight?”.

The odd thing is that many flights, especially in light aircraft, are totally dependent on paper – thick books of charts and flight instructions. It seems rather primitive to have pilots carrying hundreds of bits of paper, searching for the right chart when they probably have more important tasks to do!

It appears that hassle is about to end as electronic ink, digital paper, takes to the air. eFlyBook is a small, electronic notebook for use in the cockpit which uses a passive, paper like, digital ink display and stylus, pen like, entry for searching.

Seems like the only paper in flight will be aircraft like the Barnaby Flyer...*

eFlyBook by ARINC
For the first time, digital FAA flight charts, en route charts, terminal procedures, and other flight documents can be downloaded, stored and viewed easily on eFlyBook, a small, electronic notebook for use in the cockpit. Charts, documents, and other digital content are provided by MyAirplane.com, which uses its award-winning viewer and compression technology to minimize storage requirements without degrading the quality of the documents.

via www.whatisnew.com

* The Barnaby Flyer is a proper paper aircraft, NOT a dart. With a bit of care when folding it can achieve proper controlled flight, even circle and use updrafts to gain height. It was invented by Capt. Ralph S. Barnaby, USN (Ret), and it first appeared in his book "How to Make & Fly Paper Airplanes" (Scholastic Book Services 1968).

I was about 10 when I read his book as part of a science project on flight. I made many, probably hundreds, and watched one fly for an amazing, stopwatch timed, 3 minutes after launching from a high cliff near Piha. It flew several hundred metres down almost to sea level then climbed, in an updraft, almost returning to the launch point before descending again to the sea – Biodegradable of course!

Robin Capper: Kiwi street mapping goes mainstream

RobiNZ — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 08:57:32 +0000

The trademe auction site is probably New Zealand's most visited website. They just have launched smaps which offers street level mapping for all New Zealand.

Although Google and Microsoft have recently added NZ street data smaps doesn’t use either. The data is from Terralink and the map engine is from Kiwi company Projectx Technology – the people behind Zoom In. Go Kiwi!

smaps - www.smaps.co.nz

Sid Yadav: Carry Out Bookmarking Quests with Otavo

Sid Yadav — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 08:44:09 +0000

Out of the basements in Ontario, Canada, Otavo is an interesting idea which launched earlier today. Think of it as Yahoo! Answers with a unique blend of social bookmarking. "The Intention Engine" is what they call themselves and I think that's the best phrase to describe them.

Users can post their intentions as 'quests' and others can fullful these intentions (or add to the 'quests' and make them their own) by using a bookmarklet or using the site's interface. Current examples of 'quests' include questions like "What are the best Web 2.0 blogs?," "Where do I find beautiful desktops?" and "Where can I find hapiness?". It's almost like users ask questions and others answer it not by giving straight 'try this, this, this and this' answers, but social bookmarking the sites into the questions. Have a few tens of people answer the question, and surely, the quest is fulfilled, the questioner has his answers.

I think this is a capable, interesting and effectual idea, and certainly a unique one. Surely, it has potential. But do I imagine this to be the next Yahoo! Answers for online stuff? No. While some of the uses are general and broad of this site, I imagine the presence of a very geeky audience (just like digg), and I don't think this is necessarily a plus for any service chasing after the general and broad audience.

InternetNZ Blog: The state of the network

Colin Jackson (President) — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 08:39:29 +0000

According to an article in Computerworld, Telecom’s copper network just isn’t up to snuff.

[Telecom’s] network monitoring system…shows that 87,000 customers could not get the higher speeds of the new plans introduced recently.

Some five percent or just over 16,000 of all customers actually experienced a reduction in speed before they were upgraded to the 2Mbit/s and 3.5Mbit/s download plans.

The report says that unconstrained line rates will hit service quality hard. An estimated 170,000 customers will not get the 2Mbit/s and 3.5Mbit/s download speeds.

There’s more in this vein. It appears that the network in which Telecom says it has been investing so heavily is not capable of delivering an OECD-class broadband service.

This is a real problem, not just for the government in meeting its targets, but for the rest of us. If we believe that broadband is good for the economy and society, and that we need services comparable to at least the mid-point of the OECD, we are going to have to do something about the network.

Old Telecom would just have ignored this problem. To its credit, New Telecom has at least published the problem, even though this makes its previous vague assertions about network investment look, shall we say, optimistic.

But it’s us who have the problem - not Telecom, which has no real competition in the last mile so can run the loop in any state and still get revenue for it.

So, how to fix it? One of the major benefits of separation is that it would provide other people the opportunity to invest in the network. That’s another good reason - if it needed one - for the government not to take separation off the agenda.

It’s hard to see how New Zealand can the kind of network that can deliver world-class broadband without world-class investment. That’s got to come from somewhere, and separation would allow funds to invest directly in the network, rather than in providing the minimum the retail company thinks it can get away with. Separation will also make the amount of investment transparent so we can see how much is going into the network.

Let’s just do this. It’s the only sane way of getting our network up to the standard New Zealand deserves.

Robin Capper: John Walker's blog - Fourmilog

RobiNZ — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 08:31:49 +0000

Reading Jimmy, again, I find John Walker (the Autodesk founder not the Kiwi Athlete) has a blog. I knew of his website, as read The Autodesk File there a few years ago, but the blog is well worth a visit/subscription.

I really like his book reviews as they cover a huge variety of topics from Gunfights to The Ultimate Computer.

Fourmilog: None Dare Call It Reason
John Walker's Fourmilab Change Log Via JTB World

Darryl Burling: My Secret is out - here are my thoughts

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 08:24:00 +0000

Mauricio "leaked" my secret a few days ago - I got an Eo.

So far I love it!

When I cancelled my initial Eo order I had a think about what I wanted to do with it and came up with two primarly scenarios.

Firstly, I've tak... (more in the full post)

Rachel Cunliffe: It’s OK not to be popular

Rachel — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 07:21:15 +0000

I’ve been pondering this thought recently. In the world of blogging, most bloggers I come across are desperate to find the latest tips and tricks to attract new people to their blog and rapidly increase their traffic (and revenue) and that’s completely fine.

But the blogs (and sites) which get the most traffic aren’t necessarily the ones with the newest ideas or the most insight. There’s so many gems out there in largely undiscovered blogs which plod along with very little traffic.

So why don’t they give up? Their writers simply enjoy writing and sharing their thoughts with the world. Popularity isn’t vital to them - in fact, when they become popular overnight (thanks to Digg or delicious), they’re often not ready to handle everyone criticising their thoughts and opinions or aren’t sure how to manage the flood of emails and comments from people.

The blogosphere is a little like high school. A lot of people spend all their time wanting to be popular, trying to get into the “it” crowd, spending so much energy and heartache on the goal - even going to the extreme of changing themselves to be more like the popular crowd. Others are OK with a smaller group of close friends, where they can be themselves, have fun and enjoy life.

Someone I know writes a personal blog and once wrote us an email saying not to give out the address to just anyone - they wanted to keep it to close family and friends. I smiled to myself and wondered why they started a blog. But, a year later, it’s one of the blogs I wanted to most read when I got back from holiday.

Another I know was happy with a small, slowly growing close group of commenters who they had good relationships with and then found their blog was linked up by a major player somehow and bam! The dynamic was disturbed by party crashers and things were never quite the same again. The secret was out and the blog’s sudden popularity changed the author, changed the tone of the blog permanently.

I’ve had different blogs become popular for one reason or another overnight and because I’m not the biggest fan of crowds (I’m happy speaking to one but trying to mix and mingle in a crowd of strangers at a party isn’t something which energises me) I found the experiences to be rather exhausting (even if the feedback is positive). Dealing with the rush of emails and comments is usually something I hope will die down reasonably quickly. I’m happy not to be popular, to fly just below the radar.

I honestly think that it’s OK to fly just under the radar and not to be popular straight away when you start a blog. It rarely happens. But sometimes I see people working so hard on being popular or having popular people link up to you and sing your praises that I wonder if they’d still blog for the love of blogging and not just for the love of a (paying) audience.

(*Of course, blogging where income is the primary objective brings with it certain pressures but most small businesses take a long time and hard work to get up off the ground. Good things take time.)

I personally like the ebb and flow of visitors to this blog. I don’t feel pressured to keep it up - I’d rather write when I’m inspired to write than write to a schedule (or write to say sorry for why I haven’t been blogging). Lately, I’ve been thinking about secretly starting some blogs I’d love to write about and I’d be happy writing even if no-one came along except a few of my friends every so often. If you’re thinking about starting a blog and the thought of no-one visiting for quite some time doesn’t bother you either, go for it :)

Oh - and who knows how useful and popular your posts might be in the future? Your blog might be a treasure trove to someone one day.

Decisive Flow: Will Ethics Prevail in Marketing?

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 03:54:06 +0000

I saw an ad recently on tv about how mayflies embrace life to the full, how they fill their one day on this planet with 'the things they love'

'if we embrace life like the mayfly, what a life that would be'

Beautiful. I thought, in a dreamlike state. What a nice thing to do; make an ad for the New Zealand public that reminds us all to make the most of life, to really go out there and live. Who could be behind this public service announcement? Is this the new age of marketing?

Then this flashed onto the screen:

I was out of my chair in outrage.

Here's the thing: Vodafone don't care at all if you 'make the most of now'. They have made that blatantly clear every time we ring them to check something out and leave us waiting on the phone for hours, or promise to call back and never do. Or those times they have recommended we go on a certain plan, only for us to find a month later our phone bill has doubled. If I was a vodafone mayfly, I think I'd feel a little ripped off with my one day. This ad simply does not fit what vodafone is.

Yes the deceit is mild, but it is deceit, and while that is the marketing industry of the past, I can't see how it will survive too far into the future.

Why Ethics Will Prevail

The world is a-changing, people can see more, communicate faster and better and make more informed purchase decisions. You cannot make a bad move these days without having your name rubbed in mud throughout the blogosphere. People don't like being lied to, the age of the consumer is upon us.

What Does this Mean for Small Business Marketing Strategies?

Don't try to mimic big-budget strategies.
Be yourself.
Share knowledge for free.
Make sure your business is as close as it can be to what you'd love to tell people you are.
Offer real value (yes people will flock to Vodafone because of a mayfly, but you will not be so lucky.)
Be 'seen' everywhere it's important to be seen - give talks, comment on blogs, start a podcast, get involved in networks, partner with complimentary businesses.

Basically, if you are a mayfly, say you're a mayfly. If you're not, do not pollute your customer's mindspace.

Andrew Dixon: What colour is your DBMS

Mr Dee — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 03:16:29 +0000

Comparison of different SQL implementations:

The following tables compare how different DBMS products handle various SQL (and related) features. If possible, the tables also state how the implementations should do things, according to the SQL standard.

Richard MacManus: Unlocking MySpace's Value

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 02:49:59 +0000

The media blitz from News Corp. executives on MySpace is increasing, with two excellent articles on The Hollywood Reporter and Washington Post.

In The Hollywood Reporter, Fox Interactive Media president Ross Levinsohn says that social networking is just a platform for "peer recommendation" services:

"What's next for FIM is leveraging MySpace's online community and communication into a peer recommendations framework for leads on everything and anything: the best children's playgrounds in Los Angeles to the best concert seats in Madison Square Garden to the best steakhouse in Dallas. Such peer recommendations provide a gentle seaway into targeted, fine-tuned behavioral marketing for national and local advertisers wanting to reach MySpace's 15- to 34-year-old core user."

This is apparently going to add to the bottom line, with MySpace's much-maligned inability to monetize set to change:

"The prospects for generating revenue and profits are just as limitless. Murdoch said FIM will post at least $350 million in revenue this year, up from $47 million last year, and at least $500 million in 2007. Some analysts, who expect MySpace revenue to top $1 billion by decade's end, say the site will turn profitable this year with about $13 million, and that could increase to $50 million in profits in 2007."

Advertising is what is going to drive this growth:

"About 80% of MySpace revenue will continue to be generated by advertising, with the remainder coming from subscriptions, fees and transactions."

Since acquiring MySpace nine months ago, its user base and revenue have more than tripled - according to the article. For all that, there's a lot of infrastructure work to be done before Levinsohn's big projections have a chance of coming true (which he acknowledges). And there's still the small matter of MySpace's extremely low average CPM to overcome - by most accounts currently less than 10c per 1000 page views.

For a higher level view of MySpace's future, check out Internet seer Rupert Murdoch's interview on WashingtonPost. He says that "we have to find ways, without destroying its character, of getting more advertising revenue." And therein lies perhaps MySpace's greatest challenge - monetizing their core user base, without driving those same users away to the next big social networking system.

See also my earlier post: News Corp: portals are out, mini-portals in

Photo: jasoneppink

Juha Saarinen: Cringely slips up on his pulpit

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 00:16:00 +0000

Robert X. Cringely is an excellent read most of the time. He doesn't shy away from controversy, and often picks up on stuff other geek commentators miss. His last column, They Wrap Fish, Don't They? in which he rants against news on the Internet versus printed news misses the mark though, I feel.

I can appreciate his point that not everything is on the Internet, especially when it comes to news, but that's just common sense. Probably worth driving that point home though, especially with many younger people who never buy newspapers or go to the library.

While I was able to find many reports about different kinds of outages at Network Solutions, the day-long email one Cringely mentions as example in his column doesn't appear to have registered anywhere. Perhaps this is because it wasn't important enough for people to care?

Cringely gives another example of a story nobody allegedly covered on the Internet:

But wait, there's more! Last week I wrote about Skype's super nodes and how they steal bandwidth to perform Network Address Translation ( NAT) traversal while keeping eBay's costs as low as possible. Well since then Stanford University banned Skype from the campus for exactly this reason. Stanford has so much bandwidth, so many powerful workstations, and such gullible, er, friendly people that super nodes were rampant and seriously affecting network performance. Where is the story about this? Nowhere.

The stories about Skype Supernodes are everywhere. It's disappointing to see a self-professed Internet veteran not having the basic Google skills to find all the Skype Supernodes stories.

Kevin Tolly wrote about Skype Supernodes in October last year and we ran the story in Computerworld. The story caused quite a stir amongst readers, and I wrote a follow up two weeks later. I wasn't able to then coax Skype into becoming a supernode, but have seen it happen when an ISP techie plugged his laptop into a switch at a data centre.

Cringely's piece mixed in new owners Ebay, but misses some important collateral damage caused by Skype's indiscriminate Supernode technology, namely that it can open up a huge amount of TCP connections and overwhelm routers as well as appropriate bandwidth. Either way, it's not that hard to stop Skype from going into Supernode mode, but I can fully understand some organisations like research institutions banning its use. Having your 10Gigabit/s network go supernode is probably not ideal.

There you have it though: Tolly's story ran in the US and elsewhere, and my one was picked up on by the IDG wire and was published all over the place (no, didn't get any royalties, sigh). Yes, the story was both in print and on the Internet.

As a sidenote, have a read of this Cringely snippet from his March 17, 2005 column:

And there are other dirty tricks available to broadband ISPs. Telecom New Zealand, for example, is reportedly planning to alter TCP packet interleaving to discourage VoIP. By bunching all voice packets in the first half of each second, half a second of dead air would be added to every conversation, changing latency in a way that would drive grandmothers everywhere back to their old phone companies.

This is because phone conversations happen effectively in real time and so are very sensitive to problems of latency. Where one-way video and audio can use buffering to overcome almost any interleaving issue, it is a deal-breaker for voice.

Not sure if "interleaving" is the right way to describe the whole thing (queueing the packets would seem more appropriate because the order in which they're transmitted doesn't change) but he's spot on about the effects of it. The story was picked up by the Dominion Post (bad Google Cache copy here), which spelt his name "Cringley". Hmm, yes, the superior printed news.

Zef Fugaz: Passionate People I've Worked With

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 00:12:12 +0000

My Fabulous Career

Recently I pitched for a website I was born to create.

I knew it would be an uphill battle - all our perceived flaws were laid bare, while our strengths were buried - it was like they'd made up their minds already.

What a shame. These sorts of companies need to learn to take a punt on truly passionate people like myself and those I work with.

In my career I've achieved some wonderful things but they largely go unrecognised outside my immediate contacts. I've even had the bizarre situation where I was a major contributor to a project, it won an award, but the project manager took himself and someone else along to the ceremony (I just had to get that off my chest).

In all honesty this has frustrated me. I like recognition.

I thought the answer might be to work for an award-winning company - get to work with talented people who appreciate ambition and would share in success.

But my previous attempts to get my foot in the door to work for these high-flying companies has failed dismally (it's interesting to note that the attitudes of the managers at these companies are often quite similar - so I don't blame myself - maybe they just don't 'get' me?).

I have inadvertently won a couple of awards during my career - I didn't enter the awards myself - someone else did. But over the past five years my work has been in web applications - usually restricted to a select group of people and highly confidential - not awards material.

So, slowly, I've come to the view that it doesn't matter.

What does matter is results for my clients and users.

From time-to-time I see expensive websites winning loads of publicity or winning design awards but then attracting hardly any traffic (and in some cases folding - Flying Pig, AMP Aqua - and future prediction - Ferrit).

But I can revel in the knowledge that for a fraction of the price I've doubled the website traffic and user-satisfaction of many smaller NZ businesses and organisations.

Your Fabulous Career?

Reflecting on all this made me start to appreciate more about the fabulous career I have had, and especially, the people I have worked with over the past 20 years of my time in employment.

I then realised that most of these exceptionally talented people have also largely gone unrecognised.

It's time to set the record straight...

ZAPP AWARDS
1986-2006

(or the "ZEF[A]MEDIA Awards for Passionate People I've Worked With")

John Francis

John (co-founder of TEARAWAY Magazine) has long-term visions, struggles for years and them whammo - his vision becomes reality. TEARAWAY started in John and Vicki's laundry - literally - I was squashed between a washing machine, a desk and Jacko the dog in my first few weeks at TEARAWAY Magazine.

This magazine, while still largely unacknowledged by mainstream media, is MASSIVE. Over the past 19 years or so its commutative readership would now easily be in the millions, and is still New Zealand's longest-running, largest-readership magazine for young people.

John's most recent project is a new primary school children magazine called - I think I was there when his vision for such a magazine began - way back in the late 80s. We even created a pilot zine called 'Time Out' (I've still got a copy somewhere).

John was also one of the people who got close to the Rockquest Promotions crew in the early days (1989) - the promotional partnership with boosted Rockquest into a hugely successful nationwide event, with five regional finals and a national final. We had the time of out lives!

Paul Newell

As the original video editor for Shortland Street Paul was full of unbelievable stories about the antics of cast and crew off set (and sometimes on) that well, I can't print here. He abandoned Auckland for a little television studio in Dunedin called Vidmark - one of the most eccentric companies I've ever worked for - just a notch quirkier than TEARAWAY. Paul is a technical and creative whizz and was the mechanic behind several unverified claims to fame for myself and Vidmark including:

NZ's first webcam.
NZ's first 3D-rendering farm, and soon after...
NZ's first 3D-animated television commercial (Plypac Natural Guy).
NZ's (and possibly the world's) first 'virtual drumkit' (wave your hands in the air and you're playing the drums - created using Marcel's electronic drumkit, studio lighting and some sort of light detector).

Lian Hathaway

An immensely talented graphic artist, Lian was there at the dawn of the WWW creating usable websites before Internet Explorer was even a concept. Lian, like many designers, has sat under the radar most of her career just getting on with great, practical design. She was always sharing her knowledge in the workplace and now tutors students in web design.

David Copeland

People say the glue behind the creative chaos at CWA New Media is the mysterious Jill Wilson, so I'll give her some credit for the legend that is David Copeland. For me, David is a true Creative Director - incredibly frustrating at times, but also one who fosters talent and creates an environment where creativity can truly spark and combust. My time at CWA was one of the most creative periods of my career - I was able to experiment, take risks, do cool stuff and extend into every realm of media from web to writing to animation to sound to video.

Brenda Leeuwenberg

Brenda, once coordinator of 'Webgrrls Aotearoa', kidnapped me from CWA in 1999 and set up Spunkmedia - Wellington's first Web2.0 company. No really, in hindsight we were as Web2.0 as it gets - user centered design, webapps, design-led, simple and clean websites - the Spunkmedia candle was short but the flame burned bright. Just too ahead of our time I think. Brenda is now reeking havoc at MediaCalalyst in Amsterdam.

Emma Martin

The supremely confident Emma is one of the best Information Architects I've ever worked with and has an uncanny ability to convince anyone she is the right person for the job. She completely throws herself in the deep end and quickly learns to swim better than the experts. I worked with Emma on the Fonterra Intranet which had billions of pages, thousands of sub-sites, and hundreds of departments (yes, I do exaggerate just a little) - how we got through that I don't know - but we did!

Grant Ramsay

Ah yes, the undiscovered musician from Dunedin who doesn't want to be discovered. Grant (aka Swampy, DJ Duvet) is a bloody legend and made my years in Dunedin hilarious, colourful and above all, down to earth. Like many Dunedin musos Grant is unpretentious and just hums away in his studio creating funky roots music - releases the occasional CD and plays the odd gig here and there - but does has no expectations of fame or recognition. Quirky fun guys like Grant make me feel good about humans.

Special Mentions

Steve Baker for NZ's first online music player? (pictured above).
Alison Green for initiating the Gathering Documentary.
DJ Global Influence for a decade of wicked world music in the South Island.
Pete Stones for being Pete Stones.
Dominic Stones for The 3Ds and nail polish.
Toki Wilson for raw heartfelt music.

That's the ZAPP AWARD WINNERS FOR 1986-2006 (for now).

If you're not listed here then you've either already won too many awards or more likely, it's the middle of the night and I have to goto bed!

Phillip Pearson: PeopleAggregator 0.01 / r7 released - including updater bugfix

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 23:33:49 +0000

While we haven't quite released an official, tested code download for PeopleAggregator, it's no secret that you can download and install it from the update site - update.peopleaggregator.org.

You're welcome to try it out, but do expect some installation pain. For example I just found a bug in the update system that effectively makes any release prior to #7 a 'dead end' if you use the built in auto updater. So if you are trying to update the copy of PeepAgg you installed from the tarball on the memory keys Marc was handing out at Gnomedex (or any tarball downloaded before today), don't bother :)

Currently the safest way of installing is #2 on that list - using Subversion to get the code and update.

ANYWAY, I just released v0.01/r7 (independent numbering - the version is our internal version number, which will probably sit at 0.01 until we do an 'official' release, and the release is the revision of the Subversion repository used for update distribution), which is what is running on peopleaggregator.net plus the update fix and a couple of other minor changes. This is the first update since Gnomedex.

If you have already installed from a tarball and want to update, you have a couple of choices.

#1 - manual update

To update manually, download the latest code and unpack it somewhere, then go into that directory and run:

for f in `find . -type f`; do install -D $f path-to-your-install/$f; done

(replacing path-to-your-install with the actual path to your install, e.g. /var/www/pa).

Now you have to run the update script, like this:

cd path-to-your-install

php web/update/run_scripts.php

(You'll need the command line version of PHP installed to do this).

#2 - transition to subversion

This is similar to the manual method, but instead of downloading and unpacking the code and copying it over your existing system, you check out the latest version from Subversion, move Subversion's internal folders over the top of your system, and let Subversion do the actual file replacement.

There are two ways to do this. Here's the safest way: checking out another copy of your installed version from Subversion, then updating to the latest version from there. This will preserve any changes you have made.

First - find the revision number of the tarball you used. If it is called peopleaggregator-0.01-testing-3.tar.gz, that means the revision number is 3. Then run the commands below, replacing the number 3 with your revision.

Also replace /var/www/pa with the root of your PeepAgg install.

cd /var/www/pa

svn checkout -r 3 http://update.peopleaggregator.org/svn/release/pa pa_svn_tmp

cd pa_svn_tmp

for f in `find . -name .svn -type d`; do mv $f ../$f; done

cd ..

rm -rf pa_svn_tmp

svn update

php web/update/run_scripts.php

(If you run into any problems with files not being accessible, you might need to chmod

Here's a second way, that doesn't require you to know what your revision number is. However, this will completely overwrite your installation, so if you have made any changes to the code, the above method is better.

cd /var/www/pa

svn checkout http://update.peopleaggregator.org/svn/release/pa pa_svn_tmp

cd pa_svn_tmp

for f in `find . -name .svn -type d`; do mv $f ../$f; done

cd ..

rm -rf pa_svn_tmp

svn revert -R .

php web/update/run_scripts.php

Once you're done here, you can update in future like this:

svn update /var/www/pa

Or if you want to go back to using the built-in upgrade system, delete web/files/update.treediff.xml and browse to the update page (update/system_updates.php) and try to update as usual. With any luck, it'll tell you that all the files are already up to date, and work fine from then on. (Let me know if it doesn't!)

I'll get this info onto the wiki at some point. Right now we have the upgrade guide, and a note on transitioning back from Subversion to the auto-update system.

Comment

Ian McDonald: Telecom doing the right thing

Ian — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 21:47:56 +0000

As folks know I'm quite happy to post when Telecom make a bit of a hash of things. So I think it's only fair that I think I say when they are doing good things too.

According to this NZ Herald article they are doing the following:

giving credits for customers who don't get advertised speed (23% of customers) and also giving these lists to resellers
putting DSLAMs closer to customers in main cities (which means higher speeds provided it is done correctly). And Hamilton is one of these!
letting ISPs resell full speed ADSL

Hopefully this is a sign of things to come. I'm also hopeful that the recent stock take of exchanges and cabinets was an exercise in sharing and not shutting out the competition.

Telecom - keep on embracing the new environment and you will do far better than fighting it.

Update: A ComputerWorld article here goes into more detail. It also says ADSL 2+ has been pushed back to March next year due to the work in making unconstrained ADSL available. I can understand this given how fast Telecom can (or can't) push through change given their size.

Robert O'Callahan: The Good, The Bad, And The Three-D

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 21:31:28 +0000

Last Friday I visited Linden Lab, makers of Second Life, to spend several hours talking with Callum, author of UBrowser. UBrowser is an interesting Gecko embedding that needs to direct all rendering to an offscreen area so it can be transformed by OpenGL for display. A surprising number of people have contacted me over time requesting help with this kind of problem, and I'd like to have all these people collaborating on a solution that can be properly supported in the Mozilla tree.

We need to choose between two alternative approaches:

Extend existing Gecko ports, e.g. the Windows port, to support offscreen embedding
Create a new Gecko port that does not depend on any window system --- the "membuf approach" taken by the first effort in this space, Crystalzilla

The decision is not clear-cut. For a long time I favoured the membuf approach because it's somewhat cleaner, portable, and could run on headless servers. But with more thought and after talking things through with Callum, I favour extending existing platform ports, for the following reasons:

The changes required to Mozilla code turn out to be very minor. The membuf approach requires a significant amount of new code.
A separate membuf port would be poorly maintained compared to the platform code that everyone else uses.
Some important things such as plugins and native themes would be difficult or impossible with membuf.
There are a few things that are harder to do when the native platform gets in the way, but nothing major. For example Mozillla windows must be hidden. Platforms seem to be able to do this OK.
If support in headless servers is required, they'll just have to run Xvfb or Xvnc; not an ideal solution, but probably practical.

The plan is to work towards getting the UBrowser code ported to Linux and it and its support patches landed in Mozilla's CVS tree. Then people can use it as a starting point for their own embedding projects and start collaborating on improvements. The code is already xulrunner-based which is great.

Before my visit I had been confused by reports that plugins actually work in UBrowser, since I knew of no way to redirect plugin rendering to an offscreen bitmap. It turns out that the patch detects the offscreen painting case on Windows and asks plugins to print themselves via the NPAPI Print command, and Flash honours this. Other plugins such as Quicktime don't. We can't detect when the Flash plugin wants to repaint its window so UBrowser just updates it at 15Hz. Input events don't work in any plugin although that can probably be faked. On Linux we can probably solve these issues using the X Composite and Damage extensions, but I'm not sure what we can do on Mac or how we can complete the job on Windows. Nevertheless it's a step forward. It means that once we land this patch, the canvas drawWindow API will paint Flash content on Windows, which will be a nice bonus for the tab-preview extensions.

While there I also learned a lot about Second Life. It's a very interesting virtual world focused on the creativity and commerce of its residents. I think there's enormous potential for invention and fun --- and also vice. I certainly hope that people find ways to use it for more good than evil. Either way, I'm sure that Second Life is going to be extraordinarily successful.

Charles Coxhead: Trade Me launch new map site

Charles — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 21:29:41 +0000

Cool, Trade Me have launched a new map site for New Zealand, smaps.co.nz. In their usual style they’ve kept it super simple and clean. No clutter, no animated banners, fast and easy to use. Sweet.

They’ve licensed the tech from zoomin.co.nz which is great cause zoomin is fabulous, but I suspect was finding it hard to get traction against competitors. Trade Me on the other hand can point the traffic hose at smaps.co.nz and be sure of getting some real traction right from the start.

All good, and we were lucky enough to get ad placement on the site for launch.

Leonie Wise: wednesday / red

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 20:52:14 +0000

a few of the creative blogs i’ve been reading have people posting a color-a-day photos for a week, so i thought i’d give it a go myself. my ras is tuned in and i’ve notice more red things than usual today already. there was a guy walking down manners mall this morning wearing a bright red hat, followed closely behind by a woman in red tights carrying a red backpack… magnificent.

Ben Nolan: Drumroll please!

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 18:22:00 +0000

Smaps!

We've been working on that for a while - so cool to see it out in the public. Number one mapping site in New Zealand maybe? :)

Ben Nolan: Frozen rails for typo

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 18:08:00 +0000

Just tidied up some stuff on my box (since I noticed typo was busted).

/etc is in svn
typo has frozen rails
light config is well tidied up
using capistrano to deploy

I'm also going to have a look at this.

Box config is really nice. It's cool using textmate to edit /etc files. :)

Ben Nolan: New rails app

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 18:08:00 +0000

Starting from scratch on a new app this weekend(ish). Some of the things I want to use.

Plugins
Generators
acts_as_* (so many good things to use now)
Pure rest (as far as possible)
Named routes
rjs
Page-caching
Mongrel

I've been doing the pure rest stuff for a while now anyway - it just makes more sense. Projectx has a few new projects on the books as well - which they've been using new rails features for - super cool to see.

Nat Torkington (O'Reilly): OSCON Tutorial Day 2

nat — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 18:02:57 +0000

Rod Drury: Rapidly changing broadcast models

Rod Drury — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 13:45:31 +0000

We’re changing the way we’re using broadcast content. Consider these three models.

1. Time-shifting

My mother now time-shifts. She has MySky (NZ version of Tivo) and can now choose to watch the 6:00 news at 6:20 if she so chooses.

The characteristics of time-shifting are:

It is still content provided by the broadcaster. It is a push model
Time-shifting is provided by a cache (hard disk)
Advertising is still local, though it looses value as consumers fast forward
It is now easy for consumers as it is provided as a consumer product

My mum does not know to call it time-shifting but she will communicate the benefits to all of her friends. Time-shifting is now mainstream.

There are plenty more opportunities for media time-shifting. Radio is a great example. If I drive home at 5:10 I miss the 5:00 news. It would be great if my car radio had 64MB of RAM and could turn itself on at 4:59 to record the news so I can hear it on my 20 minute drive home.

Already Sony has worked out that most mobile phones now have bluetooth so have built a generic bluetooth phone interface into their latest head units. Time-shifting car radio is a no-brainer.

2. Internet Radio

Internet Radio is another model where a media appliance can stream radio on a synchronous basis from almost any source. Its characteristics are

While strictly broadcast, the range of content is so broad it seems that there is infinite choice
It is not time-shifting but is probably of similar end user value because of the breadth of choice. You can find something that interests you right now
It works for radio [now], not video [yet] because the bandwidth requirements are relatively much lower
It is synchronous

3. Content downloading

Self content assembly (I can’t think of a better name) is happening in geek circles. Geeks can pull down broadcast content from any region almost immediately after it is aired. They can watch it on their PC, or even burn it to a DVD and watch it on their normal TV. What is starting to happen is that these DVD’s are being circulated.

While not yet mainstream, it is becoming more common, especially` as DVD’s are circulated ‘non PC’ people are seeing the benefits. The characteristics of this model are

It is cache based, not synchronous
Content is king and easily replicated once obtained
It breaks the local advertising model – while global brand advertising might be less affected, it is hard to measure

The Broadcasters need to understand that this is going on. Playing low value and old content just does not cut it anymore. A classic example is Prime’s playing of BBC Top Gear at 7:30 on Sunday night. It is playing 2 year old shows that are as stale as moldy bread. Richard let out last Sunday ‘hey it’s 2004’. A 2 year old car is just not interesting. Car fanatics are passing around copies of last weeks episode in the UK already.

So what!

What if we had a device that combind all of these things

A consumer device with a cache (hard disk)
A global directory of compelling broadcast quality content
A download manager

It's already happing in the PC world, but imagine a consumer device where you could subscribe to a bunch of shows have them trickled onto a cache almost continuously so that you could watch anything, when you wanted, in your TV 'lounge experience'.

The revolution is rapidly being mainstream. Broadcasting is about to change.

Adrian Robertson: Cable Upload Speed

Adrian — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 13:23:48 +0000

I have been keeping an eye on the upload speed of my cable here at home for about a month now because it has been very slow. I have been meaning to send Paradise an email asking for something to be done about it but just hadn't got around to doing so untill tonight. After reading this thread over on Geekzone and seeing just how bad my upload speed is in comparison to others on the same plan I thought it was time to act.

To show you just how bad my upload speed is here are a couple of examples:

Extremely slow upload speed.

Slow upload speed.

So I send an email of to paradise asking if they could do something about my upload speed. I got a very quick reply but not from a human but from some stupid auto reply system. Grrr. Here is that email:

Robin Capper: Tablets back in school

RobiNZ — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 12:35:26 +0000

My Granny used slate tablets in school. It appears Tablet is back although these (PC’s) are convertibles. The evening news reported on Project Chaos – a trial of tablet and other new IT technology in NZ public schools. It looked like they were having fun while learning lots, a good combination!

Introduction of Project Chaos - www.digiops.org.nz

Brooklyn School (Years 1-8) in Wellington is implementing Project CHaOS (Children Have Ownership of Schooling).
For older children, learning resources will extend to those available outside the classroom and be accessed by using pocket digital apparatus (PDA), tablet PCs and stand-alone computers. Other children will learn to confidently present their work using digital and presentation technologies.
Younger children will be introduced to ICT using tablet PCs that are interactive, user-friendly, fun and can be used without keyboards or mice. Project CHaOS will explore ways in which this technology can speed up the transition from pen based numeracy and literacy to digital numeracy and literacy.

The Digital Opportunities (DigiOps) projects are joint partnerships between schools, organisations involved in ICT and the Ministry of Education. Currently there are 11 projects on the go, all trying to push the edges in terms of how ICT can be used in interesting, innovative and tangible ways.

Robin Capper: Amazing Circles

RobiNZ — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 10:58:12 +0000

I’m guessing that the CAD audience that reads this blog looks at the image (right) thinking: a few circles, an array – sorted.

But it isn’t. This is a tiny portion of Richard Sarson’s The Circle Project. A series of drawings done with paper, pens and a compass by someone who has a lot more patience than I do . The results are stunning.

The Circle Project - richardsarson.com
I like to organise things, especially shapes

via drawn

Richard MacManus: Search 2.0 vs Traditional Search, Part 2

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 10:17:58 +0000

Written by Ebrahim Ezzy and edited by Richard MacManus. Ebrahim is lead developer and co-founder of Qelix Technologies, the company behind a search 2.0 contender called Qube. This is the second in a 2-part series of posts.

In our previous post we coined the term "Search 2.0", in order to compare third-generation search technologies (of, or pertaining to, the current era of social web) with traditional search engines - to see where the future of search lies.

Even if some of the startups we're profiling in this series may not survive the next Internet bust, the underlying ideas are evolutionary and have proven to be effective so far. We think the ideas showcased by these new social search apps are worth embracing, to ensure the future growth of the search industry. And, as we note at the end of this post, the big search companies (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft) think so too...

Here then are some further profiles of search 2.0 apps, followed by our analysis of where the search industry is headed.

Gravee

While the new generation of search engines all have great technology, one area of concern is that most have no viable business model to support their operations. However Gravee is one that does have an interesting business model. Indeed it is attempting to change the economics of search, by sharing advertising revenue with the content owners and compensating them for making search results possible.

While this is a potential revenue opportunity for website owners, it doesn’t provide any visible value to end-users on the search side - apart from pseudo-useful features like tagging and community-based ranking.

Unique Feature(s): Revenue sharing

Jookster

Jookster is another community-driven, social search tool and it works primarily through a browser toolbar or button. It searches through a user's bookmarks and other associated sites of interest, derived from the user's social network. Essentially, it’s a cross between social networking and search.

Ironically, there are more ads than organic results to almost any query; perhaps the database is currently very limited due to the lack of significant user base.

Unique Feature(s): Social networking blended with search

Other similar services: Otavo (Private Beta); Outfoxed; Yoono

Krugle

A search engine for developers, Krugle makes it easy to search for technical information, source code and answers to code-related technical questions. It enables searching of code samples from open source repositories, archives, mailing lists, blogs and web pages. It allows tagging, along with sharing of code and sets of search results.

Krugle delivers the precise help and knowledge that programmers need to solve their immediate problems.

Unique Feature(s): Interactive browsing in code context, Connects developers

Other similar services: Koders

LivePlasma

LivePlasma is a visual music and movie discovery engine that covers bands, artists, movies, actors and directors - in a multilingual interface. It features a Flash-based data visualization tool and utilizes mind mapping. It's really a recommendation engine, because the aim is to discover similar music and movies. This may be useful when you're searching for new music or movies to explore.

Unique Feature(s): Similarity Network Mapping or Mind Mapping, Recommendation engine

Other similar services: Truveo, Pandora, Last.fm

Qube

Qube is a desktop application that provides one-click access to search results - without having to use a browser, switch applications or even enter a keyword. It instantly searches any text already onscreen (or manually entered) and retrieves results in seconds, while also enhancing the search with features like real-time spell checker, history logging, dictionary results and more - all without any performance penalties.

Unique Feature(s): One-Click, Browserless & Progressive Search, Intelligent Text Capturing

[Disclaimer: Qube is Ebrahim Ezzy's company]

ZoomInfo

ZoomInfo scours the web (corporate websites, press releases, electronic news services, SEC filings and other public online sources) for people and their contact information. It compiles concise summaries about individuals and companies, in an organized manner. Social networking tools are available if you choose to be their customer.

With the growing Web population, there is a significant demand for a 'people search engine'. While TSEs like Google already contain large amounts of similar data, specialized people search engines process the data and present it in a comprehensive format.

Unique Features(s): Concise web summaries, Social networking aspects

So why use a Search 2.0 app over a TSE?

Traditional search engines are becoming increasingly more precise and expansive, however they cannot surpass human intelligence. It can only match words, not the meaning of the ideas discussed within them. Whereas the still-emerging technologies of S-2.0 can help make search more meaningful, subjective and task-based.

While TSE is good for finding information, S-2.0 is good at discovering new information at a rapid pace.

S-2.0 enabled data is distributed through the lateral route of a user's interests - rather than the direct route of TSEs, which require a user to carefully craft his/her query to be an accurate statement of the information desired.

Can search 2.0 replace traditional search, ever?

Like metasearch, current S-2.0 technologies do not replace traditional search engines. They rather enhance and grow new possibilities. They work in conjunction with TSEs to provide a more powerful search.

Search 2.0 is rapidly evolving and proliferating, but still can't compete against traditional search. We have yet to see an application that blends the capabilities of Search 2.0 and traditional search synergistically, giving us exactly what we want. It’s likely that something will eventually replace TSE - perhaps there are two kids busy working in a garage as we speak, creating a future GYM competitor!

How is traditional search evolving to Search 2.0?

Perhaps a better way to look at this: how is traditional search evolving to become more personalized and specialized?

Already we're seeing the big Internet companies moving towards the search 2.0 vision. Yahoo has a social search play called MyWeb 2.0 and is integrating more and more social aspects into its search. Google has quietly introduced bookmarking and tagging for search history and also has aspirations for social search. Microsoft's MSN is looking to get social too.

While the intelligence required to conduct social search still resides in people, the key to harnessing it lies in the network. TSEs have greater opportunities for traction, with their substantial user bases - a key ingredient of any social network.

So this is more evidence that the latest search revolution is just getting started. Make way for social search!

Robin Capper: Technorati search is back

RobiNZ — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 09:43:01 +0000

I was reading Jimmy’s post on and realised I’d lost their search box during my redesign. So now it’s back, in the side column under “Search”.

If is new to you click on the image to see the results of searching my CAD blog for “Jimmy”.

Technorati tracks the number of links, and the perceived relevance of blogs, as well as the real-time nature of blogging. Because Technorati automatically receives notification from weblogs as soon as they are updated, it can track the thousands of updates per hour that occur in the blogosphere, and monitor the communities (who's linking to whom) underlying these conversations.

JTB World: Technorati search
If you use a feed reader take a look at the left of the JTB World blog and you will see that I've added the option to use Technorati search.

Leonie Wise: creatives

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 09:15:30 +0000

i was telling my friend pip that creative is my word for the day. she gently reminded me that it’s actually been my word for a while.

i’m finally realising that creativity comes in all shapes and forms and i don’t have to be a painter, a writer, or a poet to be an artist. i make cards, have handmade pottery for friends birthdays and baked chocolate chip cookies. i’ve sent a mosaic table to someone whose phone message of delight still rings in my ears and makes me smile. there have been photographs and long, lovingly handwritten letters to friends overseas. yes i am creative and yes now i know it. i also know i’m going to hear some “finally’s” from my friends about this realisation!

last night i went to my first dressmaking class. i sat with five other women and we laughed and made fun of each other’s efforts whilst being encouraging and supportive of each other. i feel i will enjoy this class and that some new friends (as well as some new clothes) are in the making.

threads and fabrics. photos by me

tonight, i made my first pie. it was quite definitely a success. my mother (the queen of all pie making) was impressed with my efforts. another way i allow my artistic talent to shine.

chicken & broccoli pie. not bad for a first ever pie making effort. and it tasted delicious

Sid Yadav: Life Lists with Listography

Sid Yadav — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 08:50:10 +0000

I always encourage and support ideas trying new and creative things, and Listography is no less than one. It's a new form of social networking where users create simple lists about their life. As one of its two founders Lisa Nola describes, it "reaches every age, however, the fun and reward of using the site may involve to audience at all."

The original idea of Listography was to have a book where the reader is prompted with autobiographical list-topics complemented by original artwork, although having a web-based version came obviously clear and it grew from there. While the book is still being published and is set to release sometime next year by Chronicle Books, Listography (the site) is still a work-in-progress and its expected to be fully complete by the time the book comes out so that they complement each other.

Along with making your own lists, users can send each other 'listograms' and (in a way) 'bookmark' their favourite listographies, whether they're your friends or you simply like them. Its current user-base includes a whole heap of list-freaks (if it's safe to call them that ;) ) including lists like "Stuff that is good today," "Good things about our new house," and "Greatest movie moments."

I think what I love about Listography is that it's small, unique, simple and tackles a very broad audience: let's face it, even 5 year olds can make good 'What I Want for Christmas' lists. Whether an idea like this will work commercially or not is highly questionable, however it will attract a good small audience of a wide range of people.

Sid Yadav: Technorati Upgrades to 3.0: New Design/Features

Sid Yadav — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 07:23:28 +0000

Technorati been in the go for some pretty bad publicity in the past few months or so, although it's been getting much much better lately (mainly from its recent funding series'). Today marks their third anniversary and rightly so, they've relaunched with a new upgraded design and minor features and changes. I didn't think their old design was bad at all, although this is much better.

In the new interface you will notice much cleaner and (in my opinion) ergonomic placing of things. Amongst many other new things, there is a Discovery section (which is essentially 'browse by category'), a meme-style Top Blog Posts, and Featured Bloggers. They've also changed the style of the Technorati Top 100 with new categories and sections.

I'm very pleased with this change and certainly shows that after all they've taken almost ever since they launched, Technorati is finally going in the right direction. Next step in my opinion would be to make it more accessible to the mainstream and broaden their focus, although that might still take some time to acheive.

Planet NZTech

Rod Drury: BlackMac

Project X: Smaps

Richard MacManus: Read/WriteWeb sponsor packages available

Robin Capper: The end of paper flight?

Alex James: Must Watch Video - I agree with Jonesie!

Alex James: Base4 and LINQ meet for the first time.

Alex James: LINQ for RDF

Jason R Briggs: silver bullets

Robin Capper: Digital Paper takes flight

Robin Capper: Kiwi street mapping goes mainstream

Sid Yadav: Carry Out Bookmarking Quests with Otavo

InternetNZ Blog: The state of the network

Robin Capper: John Walker's blog - Fourmilog

Darryl Burling: My Secret is out - here are my thoughts

Rachel Cunliffe: It’s OK not to be popular

Decisive Flow: Will Ethics Prevail in Marketing?

Why Ethics Will Prevail

What Does this Mean for Small Business Marketing Strategies?

Andrew Dixon: What colour is your DBMS

Richard MacManus: Unlocking MySpace's Value

Juha Saarinen: Cringely slips up on his pulpit

Zef Fugaz: Passionate People I've Worked With

ZAPP AWARDS1986-2006

John Francis

Paul Newell

Lian Hathaway

David Copeland

Brenda Leeuwenberg

Emma Martin

Grant Ramsay

Special Mentions

Phillip Pearson: PeopleAggregator 0.01 / r7 released - including updater bugfix

Ian McDonald: Telecom doing the right thing

Robert O'Callahan: The Good, The Bad, And The Three-D

Charles Coxhead: Trade Me launch new map site

Leonie Wise: wednesday / red

Ben Nolan: Drumroll please!

Ben Nolan: Frozen rails for typo

Ben Nolan: New rails app

Nat Torkington (O'Reilly): OSCON Tutorial Day 2

Rod Drury: Rapidly changing broadcast models

Adrian Robertson: Cable Upload Speed

Robin Capper: Tablets back in school

Robin Capper: Amazing Circles

Richard MacManus: Search 2.0 vs Traditional Search, Part 2

Gravee

Jookster

Krugle

LivePlasma

Qube

ZoomInfo

So why use a Search 2.0 app over a TSE?

Can search 2.0 replace traditional search, ever?

How is traditional search evolving to Search 2.0?

Robin Capper: Technorati search is back

Leonie Wise: creatives

Sid Yadav: Life Lists with Listography

Sid Yadav: Technorati Upgrades to 3.0: New Design/Features

ZAPP AWARDS
1986-2006