Blogging – inner.geek the self-discovery adventure of brett taylor Thu, 01 Oct 2015 22:21:56 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.4 https://i0.wp.com/inner.geek.nz/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/cropped-fierce.jpg?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 Blogging – inner.geek 32 32 11564923 Finally Repaired this Thing /archives/2015/09/25/finally-repaired-this-thing/ Fri, 25 Sep 2015 01:41:43 +0000 /?p=876 Boy, was this blog broken! Mojibake, outdated plugins. Outdated content, wow.

All fixed!

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A Rainy Day’s Entertainment /archives/2011/01/27/a-rainy-days-entertainment/ Wed, 26 Jan 2011 20:32:27 +0000 /?p=768 How do you stay entertained when you are snowed in?

Well if it was snowing, I sure wouldn’t be inside; Snow in Wellington? EPIC. I’d be out there enjoying it!

If it snowed so hard I couldn’t leave the house? Alright.

1. Video Games
I’d be all up playing any combination of Minecraft, DoomRL, Weird Worlds, Team Fortress 2, or Spelunky, or whatever! If my girl was with me, I’d probably Wii Bowl for a while.

2. Catch up on my bible reading
I’ll be honest, I’m currently more than a few days behind on Arise’s One Year Bible plan (M’Cheyne’s Classic). I probably should be reading up now as is.

Bible reading is pretty interesting when you have it in context, so I like to use a commentary like the ESV Study Bible. The Bible’s books, especially the New Testament was originally written by their authors with specific audiences in mind, which usually aren’t explictly me. For example, Paul’s letters were to fledgling churches around the Mediterranean: I think context helps a lot for understanding what’s actually going on and why the figures in the Bible wrote what they did. The ESV Study Bible has lots of great insight in its commentary.

3. Internet
I’d be online consuming past issues of every video on The Escapist, especially the Loading Ready Run stuff, catching up on my RSS feeds (though I do have that almost down to a science).

4. Read or listen to a book or podcast
I love to read, or listen to, science fiction. It gives me a chance to see inside other (fictitious) people’s lives and how they would react to crazy circumstances. Science fiction isn’t so much about the explaination about how futuristic technology might work, but rather how we as human beings might react to it, and how we as a race might change because of it.

What would you do on a snow-day?

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What’s 2011 got in store for me? /archives/2011/01/25/whats-2011-got-in-store-for-me/ Tue, 25 Jan 2011 06:01:35 +0000 /?p=765 I’m taking what might look like some big risks this year. I’m giving up my well-paid full-time work for an internship at my church in Wellington and a part-time job at a Wellington PHP and ActionScript house.

Part of the internship at Arise will be doing a Local Church Certificate qualification. It’s not much, or probably even all that difficult at NZQA Level 4, but means I’m a student again. Probably a financially-challenged student. The rest of the time I’ll be helping out where my skills and time lead me. Most likely helping with the website and creative side of things, and with anything else that I can help out with.

Slicing my work-time in half when I’m (almost) 30 isn’t something I intend to take lightly. I probably wouldn’t have applied for the internship if my buddy Dan didn’t offer me part-time work at Instinct working on ActionScript and PHP projects.

I’m pretty excited though. I’m gonna be put through this tough time to come out at the other end a different person. Beyond what I’ve said above, I’ve got very little more idea of what will go on. But I say to all of it:

Come at me, Bro!

😉

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To text or not to text? /archives/2011/01/06/to-text-or-not-to-text/ /archives/2011/01/06/to-text-or-not-to-text/#comments Wed, 05 Jan 2011 19:42:59 +0000 /?p=759 Do you prefer to talk, text message, or a different communication method?

I’m assuming this is omitting face-to-face, which is always best, but as the next substitute:

Instant Messaging, for sure
I’m not great on the phone. If you call me and I don’t have your number, and I say “hello” and you say “it’s me”, I might not be able to place your voice, and that’ll throw me off for the whole phone call. Ask my girlfriend the first time she called me!

I guess text messages fit into this the same way, but they cost cold, hard, cash money. I have been chatting since dial-up BBS days, and we had live see-everything-you’re-typing-as-you-type-it chat back then. We used to press enter twice to say you were done and it was the other person’s turn.

I also learned bad habits with ICQ: I might send you a few short text messages in quick succession rather than save it into one message. This means my message might have cost me double or triple just because with IM if you were typing big long messages,

> you might type sentence fragments
> so the other person knew you were still there
> and hadn’t been disconnected
> by your younger brother
> picking up the phone in the other room

because back then, IM programs didn’t tell you the other user was actually typing something. You might do something like this even:

> LOL
> yeah I saw that last year
> it’s oldie but a goodie

And that’d be more sensible as one SMS.

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Around the world, around the wurld /archives/2011/01/05/around-the-world-around-the-wurld/ Wed, 05 Jan 2011 04:06:34 +0000 /?p=754 List three countries you’d like to visit, and why you want to go.

Japan
As a geek, it’s no surprise that I’d be interested in the Japanese culture. I’m not a huge anime or manga fanboy, though I have dabbled. I’d definitely want to visit the Studio Ghibli Museum.
I’d really want to board with a Japanese family for a few weeks, though I’d have to learn much more Japanese.

Easter Island
This is that place with the big “moai” or tiki heads. They say the people who lived on Easter Island killed all the trees to move and erect those heads. And that you can mountain bike around the island in less than a day.

Canada
Yeah, not that exciting but there’s some pretty awesome people who live in Canada. LoadingReadyRun. Brian Lee O’Malley. Shatner.

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I’m gonna blog once a week in 2010 /archives/2010/12/31/747/ /archives/2010/12/31/747/#comments Fri, 31 Dec 2010 05:55:35 +0000 /archives/2010/12/31/747/ Wow, it’s been a while…

I’ve decided I want to blog more.

Rather than just thinking about doing it, I’m starting right now. I will be posting on this blog once a week for all of 2011. I know it won’t be easy, but it might be fun, inspiring, awesome and wonderful. Therefore I’m promising to make use of The DailyPost, and the community of other bloggers with similiar goals, to help me along the way, including asking for help when I need it and encouraging others when I can. If you already read my blog, I hope you’ll encourage me with comments and likes, and good will along the way.

Signed, Brett Taylor

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New inner.geek.nz design! /archives/2010/01/19/new-inner-geek-nz-design/ /archives/2010/01/19/new-inner-geek-nz-design/#comments Tue, 19 Jan 2010 09:56:27 +0000 /?p=615 Yup, I got a new design! I did this all in 1 day.

Sure, I did spend some time ‘upskilling’ at work doing the design and html template, but I got the whole WordPress skin done in about 4 hours.

I based it off of the Classic theme (y’know, the ugly default theme) and tweaked the living daylights out of it, adding extra template files.

I’m quite happy with how it came out. What say you?

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My Tweets for 2009-08-10 /archives/2009/08/11/my-tweets-for-2009-08-10/ Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:00:00 +0000 /archives/2009/08/11/my-tweets-for-2009-08-10/
  • while it doesn't use @epicbeer, this is one giant leap for brew-kind: http://www.sixtysymbols.com/videos/003.htm 13:51:20
  • gonna have to start saving for my donation to @desertbus in four months… can't have @loadingreadyrun drive for less than last year's 5d+ 20:12:47
  • Cthulhu emoticon ->
    (;,;)

    #cthulhuemoticon (RT @annaleen) (via @xenijardin) 09:23:05

  • Great article showing Child's Play (@cpcharity) at work on Kotaku today. http://bit.ly/fmV1f (via @DesertBus) 09:55:16
  • @br3nda tomorrow, if that's cool. I'm gonna get some stuff done to round off the wknd at #wordcampnz like write a JS to get all the tweets in reply to br3nda 10:49:16
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    My Tweets for 2009-08-09 /archives/2009/08/10/my-tweets-for-2009-08-09/ Sun, 09 Aug 2009 19:00:00 +0000 /archives/2009/08/10/my-tweets-for-2009-08-09/
  • The pancake layer @photomatt was talking about (!) http://twitpic.com/d7uhq 12:00:33
  • "iTunes 9 will *finally* include the ability to visually organize and arrange your iPhone/touch apps." http://bit.ly/xd0IK (via @dalmaer) 14:06:01
  • my life as a real-time internet blogger is educational and draining -> http://translationparty.com/tp/#751453 22:27:14
  • decided not to goto catalyst today, think strained my tweet tendon. also Monday + me could make things tough for @br3nda & team, do not want 08:34:00
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    My Tweets for 2009-08-08 /archives/2009/08/09/my-tweets-for-2009-08-08/ Sat, 08 Aug 2009 19:00:00 +0000 /archives/2009/08/09/my-tweets-for-2009-08-08/
  • Examples of BuddyPress installations: GigaOM Pro http://pro.gigaom.com/ and TastyKitchen http://bit.ly/OAOeW (bt) #wordcampnz 10:22:55
  • Applause for Anthony Cole @anthonycole. Q&A now (bt) #wordcampnz 10:23:41
  • Q: BuddyPress builds on WPMU and WP and MU are merging, will this affect BP? A: Don't worry too much, it should be fine (bt) #wordcampnz 10:24:24
  • Q: Why use BuddyPress? A: for small network/community, bunch of friends. WPMU is wordpress.com + small # of code chgs (bt) #wordcampnz 10:26:10
  • Q: Can I make buddypress completely private? A: not complicated, use plugins or functions to do it (bt) #wordcampnz 10:26:36
  • Q: is it secure? A: Yes, GigaOM is using it [so you know it's good] (bt) #wordcampnz 10:27:46
  • Next up is Chris Lipscombe from Ground Zero talking about "Business Fundamentals: Getting it right in order to make it big" (bt) #wordcampnz 10:29:06
  • To do deals, get yourselves a business to do your deals. Get your head around GST. You need a biz to get investors (bt) #wordcampnz 10:30:13
  • Most important thing of your business is to start making money and to get cash flowing through your business (bt) #wordcampnz 10:30:53
  • getting money coming in is not the same thing as making a profit, just know where the money is coming from (bt) #wordcampnz 10:31:58
  • Two kinds of plan: #1 strategic plan: long term, where you want to be, what you're selling and where to. doesn't involve $$.(bt) #wordcampnz 10:34:23
  • strategic plan is how you want to look, business plan is how you are going to make money. (bt) #wordcampnz 10:34:30
  • capital is something you chew up and spit out, that is normal (bt) #wordcampnz 10:34:50
  • buddys are good business partners, but often it may be your employees who share the ideals of the business (bt) #wordcampnz 10:35:26
  • sometimes it could be channels and communities, it could be key customers (bt) #wordcampnz 10:35:45
  • plan for growth: what is the thing that will kick start your business? what do you need to do to grow customers, capital? (bt) #wordcampnz 10:36:31
  • prepare yourself to deals: difference between ownership, management, governance. when small biz, easy to blur this. (bt) #wordcampnz 10:37:18
  • oops, was dual tweeting, sorry followers, have fixed this. 10:38:14
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    New Zealand TWTR SMS Roundup /archives/2009/05/13/new-zealand-twtr-sms-roundup/ Wed, 13 May 2009 03:07:35 +0000 /?p=529 This is a work-in-progress timeline of all the news surrounding Vodafone New Zealand and Telecom New Zealand announcing their support for Twitter SMS through the shortcode TWTR (8987).

    • @vodafonenz: Now official – Twitter coming soon to a TXT near you: [url] at 9:16 AM May 12th
    • Vodafone NZ’s press release says they will use the shortcode TWTR (8987) and says “The service will launch in the coming weeks.”
    • Twitter have yet to post on their blog that they now support New Zealand. I speculate that they will not do so until the service is actually live to customers.
    • @telecomnz: We have partnered with Twitter to bring you Twitter to your Mobile via TXT msg from May 29! at ~3:00 PM May 12th
    • @telecomnz: Telecom Mobile Customers from May 29 can msg 8987 (TWTR) to update their twitter account or receive tweets via TXT at ~3:00 PM May 12th
    • Yet, Telecom’s media department doesn’t back it up: no press release has been made at Telecom’s Media Releases page as of yet.
    • National Business Review fails at journalism and provides more proof that old media just doesn’t get it: copy/pastes from Vodafone’s press release, forgets that Twitter SMS is available in the USA, UK and India and may have just missed Twitter’s news of adding Canada, adds word ‘exclusive’: Vodafone scores exclusive Twitter deal
    • @nzben: @TelecomNZ Is that a piggy-back on Vodafone’s connection, or a separate agreement? at ~2:00 PM May 12th
    • @telecomnz: @nzben a seperate agreement with Twitter. at ~2:00 PM May 12th
    • Google News: “vodafone new zealand” twitter shows that other old-media sources FAIL and think the deal is exclusive, including NetGuide.
    • Twitter announces official support to New Zealand SMS, with update support for all, but Twitter to handset delivery for Vodafone NZ customers, with other networks, and Australia support to follow!

    Any news, just leave a comment including any and all links to public sources and I’ll do my best to keep this up to date.

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    My Tweets for 2009-03-10 /archives/2009/03/11/my-tweets-for-2009-03-10/ Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:00:00 +0000 /archives/2009/03/11/my-tweets-for-2009-03-10/
  • Time for lucid cheese-induced dreams 😀 night all 🙂 03:33:40
  • @timhaines @electrik Watchmen after 5 days: I give it 8 superhuman glowing blue penises out of 10 superhuman glowing blue penises in reply to timhaines 15:35:18
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    My Tweets for 2009-03-09 /archives/2009/03/10/my-tweets-for-2009-03-09/ Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:00:00 +0000 /archives/2009/03/10/my-tweets-for-2009-03-09/
  • @benscratch webdesignfromscratch.com doesn’t really talk much about typography and choosing good layout for text, tables, lists or quotes 🙁 in reply to benscratch 23:54:24
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    Lifehack: RSS Reader Fu: Heavy Traffic folder /archives/2008/06/18/lifehack-rss-reader-fu-heavy-traffic-folder/ /archives/2008/06/18/lifehack-rss-reader-fu-heavy-traffic-folder/#comments Wed, 18 Jun 2008 08:00:53 +0000 /archives/2008/06/18/lifehack-rss-reader-fu-heavy-traffic-folder/ I’m a heavy RSS user; one of those 4% of web users who read their content via a news reader. I’m a Google Reader user myself, but in the past I’ve tried many feed readers: I even registered both FeedDemon (for Windows) and NetNewsWire (for Mac OS X); both have since been bought by NewsGator and are now free -_-;… But ever since Google Reader got that major upgrade, that’s where it’s been at for me.

    Anyway, a common problem with RSS reader users is they suffer from too-much-unread-post-itis. If I don’t read my feeds, in two days I’ll have 1000+ unread items.

    Here’s my tip: if your reader lets you put one subscription into many folders, make a ‘heavy traffic’ folder, and put all those feeds that publish far too many posts, and that you only read when you have copious amounts of time. I have Slashdot,  Techmeme, Joystiq, Wired News, and 901am in my folder, with many more to be copied there.  Now when you’re feeling the overflow, you just mark that entire folder as read, and your unread count will drop substantially, and you won’t feel so bad anymore!

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    The Age of Expertise /archives/2007/09/06/the-age-of-expertise/ /archives/2007/09/06/the-age-of-expertise/#comments Thu, 06 Sep 2007 00:36:15 +0000 /archives/2007/09/06/the-age-of-expertise/ After reading Andy Oram’s post on O’Reilly Radar What comes after the information age, I was struck by the fact that because I’m a tutor, I might be in the right industry!

    Andy makes a case that because we have ubiquitous free documentation, in the form of text-files, wikis, videos, how-to websites, screencasts and readily available specialist books (from O’Reilly no doubt), information is no longer the problem any more. Expertise is the new scarcity. Mentors and tutors and guides and people who know how to do things is the problem now.

    I have a lot of industry contact in my tertiary level tutor role at Natcoll, and I keep an eye out on the jobs available in the web development industry in Wellington that my students can go into. That’s all well and good, but we’ve had organisations like mine are having a hard time finding highly skilled staff to relieve classes and even take on full time roles, and I understand it is the same at our different campuses around New Zealand — there are just not enough people who want to get into upskilling people up. There’s no shortage of people wanting to learn the ins and outs of design and development though, with no sign of slowing.

    Teach NZ is always advertising on TV and on the Wellington buses for graduates who might want to take up Secondary School teaching (high school age for you non-kiwis). Now teaching in a secondary school is not for the faint-hearted, guaranteed. But what about universities? You’d probably need to have a Masters before you could get a good job teaching at a university.

    There are other ways we learn other than attending institutes too: one-on-one mentoring, attending short courses, night classes, special interest groups (SIGs) including software user groups. And then there’s the communities on line too!

    So why is teaching not a popular choice?

    Why aren’t many people taking up the challenge of teaching? Do the people who think they want to be a teacher end up going to teacher’s college and having the life force sucked out of them? One friend of mine has a science degree and went to a teacher’s training college here in Wellington to become a teacher, went into a high school to teach physics and science and then after doing that for a year or so, switched careers! The challenges of high school teaching aside, he said he didn’t like it. Why? I don’t know, but I’ve got some ideas.

    Teaching is a selfless job. You’re there as a servant. You serve the students concepts and information, challenging their pre-conceptions and assumptions, with the goal of them ‘getting it’; seeing the cogs in their heads suddenly mesh, and switch into gear and take off!

    At least, that’s why I do it. And I’m not even formally trained as a teacher. All I have is a few years industry experience and a passion for being the best I can be at what I do. And I teach so that I can change the world I live in.

    The internet is sometimes called the largest and most successful collaboration between individuals and organisations in the history of the human race. The internet was created so people could communicate over long distances. So they could share ideas and discuss the implications of what they were working on or what they themselves had discovered.

    Specifically, I teach web development so that it can make the internet a better place. If that previous paragraph doesn’t sound like something to spend time understanding and improving, then let me know why you think so.

    I could get a career as a web developer out in the industry tomorrow; there are plenty of jobs for the people who can do things out there.

    But there aren’t enough people shaping those ‘do’ers.

    There aren’t enough ‘teach’ers.

    There aren’t enough specialised teachers. Well at least in the web industry there’s not. Not enough people teaching the hard stuff that requires masses of prerequisite knowledge. Even though the Web is just under 15 years old, the amount you need to know to make a successful website, or even a successful online community is tantamount to experience.

    If you want to create a website these days, you have to know HTML, CSS, Javascript, a server side language such as PHP, Ruby, Perl or *shudder* ASP or similar. You need to understand the design and implementation of databases and how to use SQL. You need to have an eye for design, usability. You need to have a mind for communication and writing. You need to understand the human-computer interface and it’s strengths and weaknesses and how to wield these things.

    Being a web guy is hard work. Still, web developers, even ones who are good at what they do, don’t get the industry recognition they deserve: a web developer or web designer (but not a ‘web decorator‘) will get paid less than a traditional ‘software developer’ who is making applications for Windows or services for the back office. But a web developer or web designer might have to a lot more than a traditional ‘programmer’.

    And that prerequisite knowledge stack is only getting larger by the day! The most published thing online (other than cat pictures and pornography) is in my opinion information about the internet itself. There are tons of sites out there detailing the technologies I allude to above.

    There’s lots of information online about what we web developers do. Freely available, just waiting for you to read it, if you so desired. But I believe there’s not enough people who are making it their life’s mission to mentoring and teaching and guiding individuals through this jungle of things out there waiting to be discovered.

    You can go to Te Papa by yourself and see the Britten motorcycle. But that doesn’t mean you can go to Te Papa by yourself and learn about the fascinating story behind it.

    But if you have a guide, they might be able to point you in the right direction.

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    A Better, More Productive, Short URL /archives/2007/03/19/a-better-more-productive-short-url/ /archives/2007/03/19/a-better-more-productive-short-url/#comments Mon, 19 Mar 2007 11:22:35 +0000 /archives/2007/03/19/a-better-more-productive-short-url/ After talking with Chris Pirillo over Twitter, hearing him say how most short URL services don’t do good pretty semantic URLs, and thinking I could build a better solution, I did.

    urlTea

    A Web 2.0 look at the Short URL services.  Light, simple interactivity. Intuitive design. And even an API! I’ll probably GPL it soon too…
    Your thoughts?

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    An NZ Government Department is blogging and I had something to do with it! /archives/2007/03/14/an-nz-government-department-is-blogging-and-i-had-something-to-do-with-it/ /archives/2007/03/14/an-nz-government-department-is-blogging-and-i-had-something-to-do-with-it/#comments Wed, 14 Mar 2007 02:39:36 +0000 /archives/2007/03/14/an-nz-government-department-is-blogging-and-i-had-something-to-do-with-it/ NZAID was one of the many agencies that had a presence at the talk I did at CID‘s “Thinking Outside The Box” media workshop. I talked about blogging, podcasting, videocasting and wikis among other things.

    I can’t help feeling a little responsible for NZAID starting up their new NZAID Field Blog! Amazing! Good on you all over there at NZAID for getting on the bandwagon! And on Blogspot to boot!

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but is this the first official New Zealand government department blog?

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    Twitterlex v1.1 /archives/2007/01/28/twitterlex-v11/ Sun, 28 Jan 2007 09:52:25 +0000 /archives/2007/01/28/twitterlex-v11/ Just finished working up Twitterlex v1.1.  I’ve added a few things to the widget, the big things being Growl notification and maximum character warnings.  Again, it’s still free, so go update!

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    Twitterlex v1.0 beta /archives/2007/01/21/twitterlex-v10-beta/ Sun, 21 Jan 2007 11:28:47 +0000 /archives/2007/01/21/twitterlex-v10-beta/ After my friend Chris introduced me to Twitter, and I discovered that many big names in the web industry are using it regularly, I’ve embraced the Twitter lifestyle. If you’ve not used Twitter yet, it’s a service that you can use to do ‘nano-blogging’ — updates shorter than ~140 characters — from nearly anywhere for free. You can update from the web, from your IM client, or from your phone via SMS text message. But the best part is when you find your friends or people you admire using the system, and receiving their update back through one of those methods mentioned. I’ve got several interesting people on my Twitter friends list — it’s always interesting receiving a text message from them!

    Twitterlex 1.0beta Screenshot Front

    You can now update from your Mac OS X Dashboard, with my first ever Dashboard Widget Twitterlex. It displays the latest status messages from your friends, and provides a quick access way for you to update your own status easily!

    Download Twitterlex dashboard widget

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    HTML Tags for the memories /archives/2007/01/16/html-tags-for-the-memories/ Tue, 16 Jan 2007 10:43:46 +0000 /archives/2007/01/16/html-tags-for-the-memories/ While Glutbook was waiting for it’s death knell to be pronounced upon it, I was using my windows desktop machine to re-launch my cousin Michelle’s popular website, Bunny Abandonware. We had worked on the site together before returning from vacation, redesigning the look and building it on a new back end (specifically, Word Press). Migration of the content was always going to be the hard part, but we put a Saturday and most of a Sunday aside to blitz the design, get the content in and migrated, and most of the hard work was done. A little more migration done by Michelle that week and it was ready for me to launch it.

    So we did. And let me tell you, I’m really happy with how it turned out. It’s nothing revolutionary or taxing, but it was heaps of fun to redesign and make the templates as we went, with Michelle right there working with me.

    This comment from The Abandonware Blog about Bunny Abandonware 4.0 really made me feel good:

    Finally some nice scene news! Bunny from Bunny Abandonware has been mentioning is for quiet some time now but finally managed to get the new version of her website online and I must say (again) that it kicks ass! The unique colors used by only one abandonware site, the wonderfull [sic] navigation, the nice kinda web 2.0 style with all the gradients and big buttons ‘n stuff… damned pretty.

    LOL, I did some Web 2.0 :rolleyes: 😉 But I’m taking it all as a compliment. I believe that what Michelle does with her abandonware hobby is crucial for the survival, not just of the games, but of the memories. Abandonware, while legally dubious, is less a case of stealing and more the case of paying tribute. I keep telling Michelle she’s not just another retro gamer; she’s an archivist — the curator of her own museum. A museum where the exhibits remind her visitors of the way video games used to be, and where not only games, but ourselves as people have come since then, for better or for worse.

    I think the best Christmas present I gave myself was when for Christmas I gave my brother a huge pack of water balloons . I had moved out of home to Wellington and I had come to realise that I missed him. We had fun in that back yard that one day, running around with the sole purpose of cooling off and having a blast. But I did it with the motive of having that memory to look back on — a careless, happier day in my history. It worked, and it’s one of the most cherished memories I have. It didn’t cost a lot.

    Memories are worth gold, but the most valuable memories are the ones that cost the least.

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    Tag, I’m it. /archives/2007/01/10/tag-im-it/ /archives/2007/01/10/tag-im-it/#comments Wed, 10 Jan 2007 11:04:25 +0000 /archives/2007/01/10/tag-im-it/ Gee, thanks Tim. You know, with all the big names who’ve been part of this meme, I never reckoned that I’d get tagged. I suck at tag. In fact, that’s the first of five things you never knew about me:

    1. I sucked at tag. Primary school was pretty hellish for me — I was unfit, I had no friends, and I could never catch anyone. It’s a part of my life that I like to forget. Because I had no-one who liked me or understood me (my parents admit to not really understanding me and my interests when I was young) I turned to reading books and learning. If I had to pick someone who I think understood me when I was young, I’d probably have to say my grandmother on my mother’s side, Lois, who unfortunately passed away while I was at Intermediate, or just starting, I can’t remember. She would buy books for me all the time, and it was her who I credit for getting me into computers and specifically programming. An Osbourne book on Basic for various computers like the Commodore 64 and the TRS-80, and the really simple game listings within it. I would spend hours staring at that code, trying to figure out what the game would do. I wouldn’t get any kind of computer until after she passed away, and then it was a 286 and no-one told me where GW-Basic was.

      Gosh, there’s a bit there. Does that count as only one?

    2. I love computer games, but in reality, I’m not a hardcore gamer. I like the games that I can pick up, play for 15 minutes, and then put to one side. To this end, I rarely finish a game. A mild case of ADD? It’s certainly not AD&D 😉 I can count on one hand the games I’ve clocked without cheats:
      • Half-Life (PC)
      • Half-Life 2 (PC)
      • Half-Life 2: Episode 1 (PC) (but that barely counts)
      • Phoenix Wright (Nintendo DS) (but it’s mostly trial-and-error. Heh, trial, law game)
      • Doukutsu Monogatari (aka Cave Story) (PC)

      Yet recently I’ve bought so many DS and GBA games for my Nintendo DS Lite, and haven’t clocked any others

    3. I’m not allergic to anything, but I have had cancer. I have a giant scar on my back from where they removed a melanoma (skin cancer). Luckily it came back from the labs that it hadn’t spread, but I can’t give blood anymore. If they’d let me, I’d go every six months. So if you’re reading this, and you are able to give blood, you should go do it — it helps so many people out there, and only inconveniences you for a few hours; heck, most workplaces will let you go give blood on work time!
    4. When I want to chill out, the forest is my chill out space. I love to just go somewhere and listen, relax. Rivers are also very awesome. I was baby sitting a couple of my mum’s friend’s kids for the weekend one time in the middle of summer, and they had some really large inner tubes, so we took them out on the river out the back of their house, and had a ball and we all got so tired, we walked back, packed stuff away, and we all fell asleep in the lounge where we were sitting, totally unexpectedly. It was probably the quietest they ever were!
    5. I like chiptunes. Music made on old retro hardware that sounds like it could have come out of an old GameBoy or C64. I especially like the stuff that comes out of 8bitpeoples
    6. Bonus Fact: I don’t like peas. But that said, they are tolerable when mixed with other vegetables. But by themselves, blargh.

    Bob Brown (Confessions of a Guru), Hamish MacEwan (self titled), Hillary (Kiwirose in Canada), Dan Milward (Mind of Mufasa) (fix your feeds, they’re broken), and Unbounded (self-titled), even though Unbounded is the kind of guy who would abhor this kinda meme; TAG – You’re it!

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    “The Aucklander” Magazine Practices Unethical Online Behaviour /archives/2006/08/04/the-aucklander-magazine-practices-unethical-online-behaviour/ /archives/2006/08/04/the-aucklander-magazine-practices-unethical-online-behaviour/#comments Fri, 04 Aug 2006 09:22:47 +0000 /archives/2006/08/04/the-aucklander-magazine-practices-unethical-online-behaviour/ Dear “The Aucklander”: Welcome to the internet. It’s a complicated place, but I have something to say about your presence I have encountered here thus far.

    Your “Features Consultant”, Mr Deepak Desousa, recently left some advertising for your magazine’s services on a post about my Father’s Day exploits three years ago.

    Here are some reasons why I think you, the magazine known as “The Aucklander” done the wrong thing here:

    1. I live in Wellington, not Auckland.. I happen to not like Auckland’s ‘culture’ a hang of a lot, for reasons I care not to discuss in this forum. Why would I give a rat’s ass about a local magazine in a city I am loathe to visit under most circumstances? Thanks for further cementing my belief that Auckland is made majorally out of people who only care only about themselves.
    2. Your comment is off topic and advertising you haven’t paid for. My blog has a comments facility to enable those who read it to contribute constructive feedback or add their own two cents to the point of view I put forward. It’s not for maverick marketeers to hijack to post their own advertising on, so you can sell advertising yourselves. This is known as Comment Spam, and is the bane of many bloggers’ existance. Thanks for perpeptuating the vicious cycle.
    3. If the business deal was for ME, then you should have contacted ME. Leaving a comment was the wrong way to contact me. I have a very visible contact page. If you wanted to pay me for some lucrative advertising deal, then you should have emailed me or even telephoned me personally.
    4. No you can’t sip my Google Juice. Just because my father’s day post happens to be the #7 result for fathers day site:nz on Google right now without me even trying, doesn’t mean you can rip the cup from my hands. Google ignores any URLs in my comments — they have rel="nofollow" on them. However, my Google Juice is so strong that this post talking about The Aucklander will probably feature quite highly when people Google for you.

    I hope that clears things up.

    If I lived in Auckland, I’d probably be available to come to your offices and talk to you personally about this. But I don’t. If you want to talk to me, please feel free to contact me personally, now you know the correct medium to do that within, during business hours.

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    New Hosts: Dreamhost! /archives/2006/06/10/new-hosts-dreamhost/ /archives/2006/06/10/new-hosts-dreamhost/#comments Fri, 09 Jun 2006 12:52:32 +0000 /archives/2006/06/10/new-hosts-dreamhost/ First of all, let me thank KiwiNessie for all the hosting she’s provided to the Webfroot peoples for over three years now — she was always there to help when something went wrong.

    Unfortunately, we got suspended by her host for being too heavy on the server’s CPU. Nothing much I can do about that, so following SmileyChris’s recommendation, we’ve moved to DreamHost! And I am most impressed with their array of features, like Subversion, WebDav, the ability to turn on PHP 4 or PHP 5 per domain, and soforth. The admin panel is very usable too. And you can’t beat the price either – USD$9.24 for the first year (with the promo code 777), with USD$7.95 a month there after!

    If I have been hosting your site, I HAVE A BACKUP OF YOUR FILES AND DATABASES. Contact me and I’ll reinstate your site. I’m taking this opportunity to keep the new server clean, and thus purge all the minor hosting I was doing for some people who haven’t kept in touch.

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    ROFL Telecom == Telecon /archives/2006/05/28/rofl-telecom-telecon/ /archives/2006/05/28/rofl-telecom-telecon/#comments Sat, 27 May 2006 14:26:50 +0000 /archives/2006/05/28/rofl-telecom-telecon/ I made this image a long time ago, but it’s very relevent now:

    Telec0wn3d!

    This one has certainly done the rounds — I don’t believe there’s a net-savvy New Zealander who hasn’t seen it already, but in case you missed it:

    LOL ROFL LOL @ TELECOM.

    To all those who invested in Telecom shares and got burned recently, Nelson from The Simpsons said it best: HAW-HAW!

    Corporate Telecommunication Still Sucks.

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    Google Notebook Firefox Extension Easter Egg /archives/2006/05/18/google-notebook-firefox-extension-easter-egg/ /archives/2006/05/18/google-notebook-firefox-extension-easter-egg/#comments Wed, 17 May 2006 22:42:40 +0000 /archives/2006/05/18/google-notebook-firefox-extension-easter-egg/ I just got myself a Google Notebook and I think I like it! Taking snippets of text from webpages and archiving it online privately or publicly is pretty cool.

    I especially like the simple Firefox Extension. It adds a little ‘open notebook’ to the browser’s status bar, which when clicked pops up a little in-page pop-up where you can type text or capture selected text from the current page. Very nice!

    I did find one pretty neat feature that the Google Notebook help pages doesn’t mention. Right click the button in the status bar, and you’ll find an Enable ‘Note This’ button option. Enabling this doesn’t seem to do much straight away, and in fact, it took me a while to figure it out. But when it’s enabled, try selecting some text, and a little [+] button will appear at the end of your selection — click it to add your selection to your currently selected notebook! Neato 😀

    So uses for Google Notebook? I could find it useful for keeping a list of things I want to post about, a shopping list, inspirational quotes, or maybe even for some GTD loving. What will you be doing with your Google Notebook?

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    LOL Geeking out at the rugby /archives/2006/05/05/lol-geeking-out-at-the-rugby/ Fri, 05 May 2006 07:10:06 +0000 /archives/2006/05/05/lol-geeking-out-at-the-rugby/
    Cafénet is teh awesome!

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    Mmm… MacZot /archives/2006/04/03/mmm-maczot/ /archives/2006/04/03/mmm-maczot/#comments Mon, 03 Apr 2006 07:43:29 +0000 /archives/2006/04/03/mmm-maczot/ I’ve been watching MacZOT with interest since it started last month, watching for awesome Mac OS X software to be on special, which it usually is.

    MacZOT is updated every week day with a new piece of discounted shareware, available for instant purchase, while stocks last. Every so often they mix it up and offer a Myztery ZOT, which is an unknown package of many pieces of software for an amazingly discounted price.

    I’m posting this story to maybe scam me a free copy of AppZapper with what MacZOT is calling a “BlogZOT” — every post linking to MacZot will put the price down by five cents. If we get 259 posts about MacZot, 1000 people will get it for FREE…. wooooooot! Be in quick, there’s only like 2h45 minutes to go before the software will be available 😀

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    Get Naked! /archives/2006/04/03/get-naked/ /archives/2006/04/03/get-naked/#comments Mon, 03 Apr 2006 01:26:41 +0000 /archives/2006/04/03/get-naked/ In the interests of educating about web standards, I’m joining in with the First Annual CSS Naked Day, which is April 5th. It should be good. If you can’t wait till Naked Day, you can view any page on this site by tacking ?gonaked=1 on the end of any inner.geek.nz url, or view this page naked.

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    Fear the CSS Brace! /archives/2005/10/01/fear-the-css-brace/ /archives/2005/10/01/fear-the-css-brace/#comments Fri, 30 Sep 2005 15:19:14 +0000 /archives/2005/10/01/fear-the-css-brace/ Today at WE05 was awesome: More visionary presentations, more hilarious photos!

    After more legendary presentations from Molly, Eric and Derek, I attended the Ajax session by Tim Lucas. I found myself wanting a bit more, but it was still VERY good.

    Lunch came around, so I caught a cab to Found Agency. I got to meet Zak, the guy I talked to on the phone just over a week ago. He showed me around his office in Bondi Junction, and gave me a very in-depth insight into the world of SEO and Pay-Per-Click marketing. Basically, there is OMG HUGE money to be made — seeing some of the Google Adsense windows brought it to life. He also described something called A-B Testing: serving up two identical ads going to slightly different convert pages, observing the difference that the slight difference made, and deciding to keep that change. Zak said that click through conversion can be increased phenomenally just by iterating through this every 1000 clickthroughs.

    I also learnt that there are three types of “SEO” people: Super Affiliates (those who partner with a company who wants to sell something and enter into a huge referral rate in the hundreds of dollars per customer), Pay-Per-Click marketeers (those who manage their adwords and search terms they appear on) and Hybrid marketeers (those who do both).

    I also learnt that Google doesn’t really like what some Super Affiliates are doing sometimes, and that the Super Affiliates are listening to what Google has to say, including the rel="nofollow" microformat. It becomes obvious to me that the ones comment-spamming blogs don’t really know what they are doing; shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to Google.

    I spent so long talking to Zak that I was late for the 2:15pm sessions. I really wanted to see Cameron Adams’ Javascript and the DOM session too. Oh well, there’s always the podcasts.

    Thank goodness I made it back in time to catch Tantek’s Microformats session — fascinating stuff. I guess I already knew about XFN and rel=”nofollow” but I didn’t know that these were called microformats. Yay for learning! 😉

    Then Jeffrey Veen got up and did yet another PHENOMENAL session giving us all the boost we needed to go back to our jobs and do this stuff we’ve been learning about. I’m totally pumped. I’m gonna go out back and kick that tree.

    For some reason, because I was that-guy-who-did-the-blog-donation-box-to-get-to-WE05, I was given a collectable WE05 belt pouch for a digital camera or iPod or the like. Sweet! Thanks people!

    The WE05 afterparty was at The Pumphouse in Darling Harbour. Putting my Flickrazzi hat on, I caught some hilarious moments of the presenters on NVRAM and have put them up on Flickr for all to enjoy, namely Doug Bowman dancing, Eric, John Allsopp and Mark Harris doing the WWW, Derek Featherstone getting drawn into a pint, Tantek searching for Wifi at a dance club, and Eric giving Doug in his patented “CSS Brace”

    Tantek tells me that I can probably go find many of the places where scenes from The Matrix were filmed here in Sydney; something I was hoping to do, but didn’t realise actually how easy it will be — 10 minutes of Google Searching apparently… hmm…

    I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here in Sydney. Will I be back for WE06? Heck yes!

    Oh, and don’t forget to keep the middle of May 2006 free in your calendars — a web conference in New Zealand is being planned, and you will highly desire coming along… but more on that later… 😉

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    Woo We Woo WE05! /archives/2005/09/30/220/ /archives/2005/09/30/220/#comments Thu, 29 Sep 2005 21:36:26 +0000 /archives/2005/09/30/220/ 7:02am AEST (Sydney)
    So seeing that the wifi at the conference is so utterly crap, and since my laptop weighs like a crapton, I figured since I got up so early this morning, and I don’t have to be at the conference till about 8:30, I’d come by a cybercafe and make post!

    I haven’t gone far from Central Station in Sydney, but the fast food in Australia is of par standard. It’s nothing special, but it’s certainly edible. The food at the conference is great.

    I uploaded the best photos I had from the conference onto Flickr last night via Telstra wifi from the comfort of my 6-share. My favorite has got to be Tantek and Eric Meyer staring each other down 🙂

    There was an emergency evacuation yesterday. Apparently it’s the first almost-live podcast recording of a building evacuation! One of the guys from the conference was telling me he got a hilarious pic of Eric Meyer crouching outside the venue with his laptop out on his knees trying to get on Wifi! [photo]— can’t wait to see that on Flickr! Check out all the we05 photos on Flickr

    All the talks yesterday were awesome. I especially liked Jeffrey Veen’s presentation on usability, Kelly Goto’s presentation on workflow in the agency, and Douglas Bowman’s visionary presentation reminding us that it’s only been 10 years and our art will most definetely look completly different in 10 years.

    I’m really looking forward to the AJAX session, as well as Cameron Adams’ Javascript & DOM session. Tantek’s microformats session should be very interesting too.

    I’m off to meet Found Agency today too. Probably around lunch time. We’ll see.

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