Category Archives: Work

Web Essentials ’05 or BUST!

When my friend CJ got back from Web Essentials 04 she just RAVED about it. So now CJ has convinced me to save up and attend Web Essentials ’05 in Sydney! 29-30 of September… It should be really good; the workshops look like tons of fun, international speakers like Dave Shea, Tantek, and my aquaintence Doug Bowman, and it’s only across the ditch! (for non-NZers, the ditch being the Tasman Sea between New Zealand and Australia)

It’s gonna cost me some serious coinage… admission is AU$700, and hopefully work will pay for some of that, but I still gotta get airfares, departure tax, accomodation, spending money. All up I’m probably gonna have to get about NZD$1500 from somewhere, which probably means saving it.

I’ve never attempted to save this much money before, so it should be a good lesson for me. It’s also my first time overseas — I don’t even have a passport! I kinda want a laptop to take too… cybercafes suck.

Who knows, maybe I’ll get some sponsorship. Maybe some of my fellow attendee out there want to help me out? So I’ve put a Paypal button on the main page. But if you want to donate another way, let me know!

I intend to stay at the Sydney Railway Square YHA Wake Up!, which is only 5 minutes away from the WE05 venue. It’s cheaper if you bunk in a same-sex-room with 4 or 8 other buddies, but I don’t have any same-sex buddies who will be attending yet… If you’re going to WE05 on the cheap, contact me and we’ll hook up 🙂 Of course, if someone wants to billet me, that’d be even better 🙂

Update: As with any good donation drive, you need to give something in return. So if you donate more than NZD$5 (read: more than USD$4.00) then I’ll post you a CD-R with loads of legal Creative Commons MP3s on it, just to say thanks! I might even throw some mashups on there too 🙂 Be sure to include your mailing address so I can send you your CD 😀

Update: Thanks to my good pal Andrew Morrison and my good friend CJ, combined they’ve donated NZD$150 😀

Update: Cheers GuruBob for another NZD$25! Someone get that man a pie!

Update: HUGE THANKS to my new employer, 3months.com for pledging NZD$800!

Update: A big TY to Jenny Crumiller for the donation of USD$40! (~NZD$58.36)

Update: A big w00ta to Scott Buffington who donated USD$20 (~NZD$29.20)! Big Ups!

Update: Two updates today: USD$20 (~NZD$29.20) from Smikwily and USD$5 (~NZD$7.25) from David Pickett: Cheers you guys!

Update: Michael DiStefano donated a sweet USD$4 (~NZD$5.80) — Cheers Michael!

Internet Outside Web Design Web Essentials 05 Work 8 comments

Encrypto The Amazing

The ICT department at work (ie, Daniel and I) are using GnuPG to encrypt our emails that contain passwords to one-another. By a fluke of events, there was then a key-signing last week which we both attended. That was an interesting but important experience. My key is worth less to those who don’t know me personally because they don’t know if it is actually mine or one created by someone pretending to be me, hence why you get other people to sign it. You may trust one of those people who trust my key. So building your key’s web of trust is important.

Want to sign my key? Contact me and we’ll sort something out 🙂

Friends Software Work Comments are closed

I hate paper. Long Live my diary!

A few weeks ago I went to a church camp that I should have blogged about but didn’t. The young adults (which includes me) had a seminar that was advertised as “Get your life into order”. When it started it was announced this was a time management seminar. It was cool and extremely useful. Something that was mentioned was ‘GET A DIARY’, even if you have to get a palm pilot like so-and-so did.

So then I screw up my dates and double book coming to youth group to help out the person who took the seminar, with a meeting to organise a service in two weeks. Oops. Time to get a diary. Now I have always reviled doing paper. I already have my “external brain” — a spiral bound paper notebook which I note thoughts I have in. It’s unlined, and isn’t good for storing appointments or dates in, so I don’t.

I have so many meetings and appointments and stuff it’s easy to double book or forget meetings. So I bucked my own trend and bought a tiny pocket diary. It fits in my jacket pocket along with my external brain — perfect. I had to shop around for it though, but I found it at Capital Office Supplies down Masons Lane near Johns Kitchen, at the Railway Station end of Lambton Quay.

So here I go, using ‘analog technology’. It goes against what I stand for, but it is cost effective, and will get my life back into order. So be warned, if you want to ask me to lunch or coffee or whatever, I’ll have to check my diary to fit you in. 😉

Life Work Comments are closed

Amazon.com and the (inevitable) book review

Working for a salary has its benefits. One of them, namely, is professional development. I recently bought Designing with Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman along with Eric Meyer on CSS by said Eric Meyer, all with money set aside by my company for professional development. YMMV.

I bought these books with the company credit card on Amazon on June 10th. Amazon gave me an estimate of delivery, due by June 27th at the latest. Yesterday I still hadn’t recieved the books. So I emailed Amazon and they agreed to re-send the books at no extra charge. (On a side note, this process was surprisingly human, but dripped with corporate stalety.). So what happens today? Said books arrive. I swiftly cancel the replacement books and all is well. I don’t blame Amazon, but I do blame the slow carrier I chose to use from Amazon’s choices.

So, I’ve read up to the third chapter of Zeldman’s most excellently written guide. It presents a brilliant case to business types for adopting the model he proposes: structural (X)HTML, CSS design and DOM and ECMAscript compatible behaviour. If you’re a web developer or designer, get with the program and read this book! Upskill for the web’s sake! Favorite quote from the book so far? A heading which says “How Do I Code Thee? Let Me Count The Ways.”

Reading Web Design Work Comments are closed

TradeMe and Trade Union Success

I’m on the verge of making $48 (or more) on my 6.4gb Maxtor HDD. I’m bidding on an item or two elsewhere, but I won’t tell you what those are till i’ve won or lost them 🙂

Also, today I went to union delegate training at my union at Dev-Zone, the Service and Food Workers Union. Yes, I do think this is a weird union for a web developer to be a part of, but the company is a service organisation, and I guess I do help out with IT support, and they have done a really good job of negotiating our contract, so I’m all go with them.
The training was to teach me how to be a better union delegate. I really had no idea of what it meant to be a union delegate, but I learnt that it means helping your fellow union brothers and sisters (my own words) with their work place issues, such as unfair treatment, dismissal issues, pay disputes and the like.

Hardware Work Comments are closed