You know how people take screen shots of someone’s tweet and then post it? Is there a name for those?

If not, I think they should be called “bird macros” or something. Damn you Twitter!

Gabe wrote a post about his recent experiences with Office Suite software. I left a comment there, but thought I should expand on it here.

Here’s the comment I left:

I am very close to being 100% happy with NeoOffice (which is an offshoot of OpenOffice, for Mac OS X.)

I do not compare it to MS Office the way you might. For me, it is free and open source. This means I can install it on the 10+ Macs that I manage for $0 (in reality, I donated money to NeoOffice because I do find it valuable, and want it to flourish. Still, $25 for unlimited copies?) Anyway, the only features I care about is that it can open all those damn MS Office file formats. That’s it. For all I know, it completely sucks in every other respect. I don’t care. To me, it’s pretty much a viewer/converter. I do use it for simple document creation, but I could use other tools for that as well. It even handles Microsoft formats the the Mac version of Office can’t handle!

Sometimes innovation is found in just being an alternative.

Honestly, I’m coming at it from an entirely different direction that Gabe, so I’m in no way trying to discount his opinion, I’m just pointing out that different people have different needs. For the last 10 years I’ve been building web sites for clients, and sometimes those clients send me Word documents, from which I need to wrestle out the text. Believe me, try as you might to ask people to send you plain text files, or even RTF files, they just don’t get it. That’s fine. Today you can send me a Microsoft Word document, and I can open it, and get that precious text out of it. And I can install the software that does it on as many machines as I want, and not have to worry about license keys working, or buying more copies, or having to pay for upgrades, or any of that crap.

Years ago I was really excited about open source software that came out that dealt with things I did every day, text editing, web serving, graphics work, etc. But an office suite? It sounded like a movie with a cruel twist: “You get to work on open source software! By the way, it’s an office suite!” So the real innovation to me is the disruption in the status quo, being the alternative, the “here, this is free, it’s not perfect but may fit your needs just fine” compared to the polished commercial product filled with restrictions and hoop-jumping.

Big thanks goes out to the NeoOffice guys, as well as the OpenOffice folks, and all that contribute to open source software.

This song is titled “Nothing Happened” and it was done entirely in Logic, not at all in GarageBand. I still have a bit to learn when using Logic. (Most of the time I record in Logic and do everything else in GarageBand.) You should be able to hear it right on this page, using the embedded player below.

You can grab it from Ourmedia or the Internet Archive, and it’s got a Creative Commons Attribution License. (If you need something else, get in touch with me.)

This song is best describe as weird intro with a funky drumbeat and chop-chop guitar. I did not play bass on this one, just used a loop. (There were only full cakes at the bake sale.) You should be able to hear it right on this page, using the embedded player below.

You can grab it from Ourmedia or the Internet Archive, and it’s got a Creative Commons Attribution License. (If you need something else, get in touch with me.)

I am going to propose a new rule for IM communication. Ok, not so much a rule as a suggestion: Only correct typos that drastically change the meaning of the message, or that a reasonably logical person might misunderstand.

Supposedly your mind can recognize errors in text and correct for them. So let’s use that.

Here’s an example, if you are chatting with someone and they say:

them [12:44]: OMG, I am so hungry, I'm gonna go grab luncg
them [12:44]: lunch
you: [12:45]: get a burrito!

Ok, you see how he (the “them” guy) corrected himself, and typed “lunch” after they typed the word “luncg”? I think it may be unnecessary to do so. I got enough context clues from the time (12:44) and the mention of being hungry to know they meant “lunch” and not “luncg” (Unless “Luncg” is someone they work with, which could be bad.)

So that’s my idea for today. I’m sure you’ve come across countless examples of this happening. Just think how much time you would save by not fixing a simple typo unless clarification was required.

I’ve learned a lot more about Flickr in the last month or so. This is due to two things, me pushing Creative Commons and Creative Commons at BarCampMilwaukee2.

Here are my settings for Privacy & Permissions in Flickr. I’m pretty open. Others are not so much. There are various reasons people are not open on Flickr. For the professional photographer, or someone hoping to be a professional photographer, they sometimes think people will “steal” their photos. Welcome to the publishing world. People steal things all the time. I’ve chosen to deal with ths by trying to educate people about copyright issues. Anyway, I don’t have a solution for that, but what really bothers me is these great photographers who want to protect their work, and upload lo-res images. The photos are awesome, but I just can’t see them in their full glory. I hate that. Meanwhile my photos suck but you can view them large and do a dozen different things to them without even asking me.

Here we see my settings for who can download, print, and blog my photos. Everyone can. That’s it. Full access. As long as you respect the license for each photo, and the Flickr ToS, you are good.

Hiding? Why hide stuff? EXIF data is what your camera embeds in your photos: things like the date and time a photo was taken, but also technical details about your camera and it’s settings. I find this useful when I want to do research on a camera. Since I find it useful, I assume other do as well. (See an example.)

Wanna see my photos? Cool! Everyone can. I post them on my blog, and elsewhere. I like to share. Want to comment on something? You need to have a Flickr account, they don’t allow outsiders to comment (but they can on your own blog hosted elsewhere.) If you want to add notes and tags to my photos, you at least need to be someone I consider a contact on Flickr. You can open that one up to ‘Any Flickr User’ though I haven’t yet.

Ah, the license. You can choose from any of the Creative Common licenses, or the old ‘All Right Reserved’ if you don’t want to give out any rights without people chasing you down and asking you. Choosing a Creative Commons license does not mean you give up all your rights. It means you selectively allow certain uses without having to grant permission for each case. You still maintain copyright of your work. I usually choose the NonCommercial license for my stuff. I figure if someone wants to make money off of it, they should talk to me first. But if someone wants to use it for personal use, or to promote something that is not a money-making venture (BarCamp, Web414, etc.) I am cool with that. Since others use a CC license, it allows me to build things like this BarCampMilwaukee2 flyer.

Since I am also a geo-nerd, I like to see and show where my photos were taken. I put most of them on a map using Flickr’s mapping tool. That last one, about EXIF location data, that’s for cameras that support GPS. While some people might say “Egad! My camera knows where I took the photo?” I know a ton of people who have been saying “Why the hell can’t my camera automagically geotag my photos!?” But then, maybe it’s just the crowd I run with. :)

Ultimately, only you can decide how open you want to be. I’m hoping some people who never thought about it before read this post and put some thought into opening up a bit.

We stopped by the new venue for BarCampMilwaukee2 on Saturday… if you missed the news, we had to change venues, as Bucketworks will not be ready in time to host the event. Bucketworks is still involved, and are the ones who managed to get this new space for us. Anyway, we took a look at the place, and did a bit of cleanup and planning. The new space provides some challenges, but nothing we can’t overcome. First, some photos…

This is what you will be looking for when you arrive at BarCampMilwaukee2. That’s the door you go in. You may need to give your name to a security guard, so make sure we have your real name.

Inside the place, it’s pretty much wide open. We’ll do our best at breaking up the space, there are not really separate rooms, it’s just one big room. (It was a cube farm.) There are outlets as needed, but bring a power strip. There should be wifi access points, BUT! (and here’s the BIG BUT) We have no connection to the internet! Yup, that’s right… as of right now, there is no connection to the outside world, which, sort of sucks. This is the biggest problem we have to fix. And we’ve got under 30 days to do it. If you can help with this, let us know. It’s top of the list right now.

And now, more photos…

Some good news: We will have plenty of parking, there are bathrooms and vending machines right outside the big room, the floors are carpeted and nice to sit on. It’s clean, there are nice windows to look out of, and… it’ll work. We really could use an internet connection though…

One more photo, a panoramic view of the whole space. You’ll really need to view the large version for the full effect…

(P.S. If you can help us get an internet connection, please let us know.)

I’d like to get more familiar with Adobe Illustrator, which is an application I’ve used on and off for the past 15 years or so, but mainly as a utility, and not so much as an illustration tool. (Bézier curves are cool.)

I’d like to draw simple shapes to start with, so I did, and then I ended up making them into patterns, as you can see below.

swirl-001

claw-001

Pretty exciting, huh? I guess my motivation for making these may be caused by the fact that I’ve used other people patterns (with permission) in the past. Which brings up an interesting point… How do you license something like this? I guess a Creative Commons license makes sense. Attribution I suppose? So how would you attribute it to me? Well, if you use one of these, just say “Thanks!” really loudly in public, and assume that I heard you. (And if someone else hears you say it, that’s ok too…)

As of this week we have a month until BarCampMilwaukee2 happens, and things are pretty much on schedule. There is one big change of note though, it will not be held at Bucketworks.

Bucketworks moved into their new home just a few months ago, and they still aren’t settled. While it would have been a great venue for the event, we just couldn’t make it happen in time. A lot of people pitched in to help get Bucketworks ready, and I personally appreciate all of the effort, and hope people don’t feel it was wasted. The concept of Bucketworks (a physical wiki) is a great one, and Bucketworks will continue, we just can’t pull off having BarCampMilwaukee2 there.

That said, Bucketworks is still our venue sponsor and did find a new location! There are some photos and a video of the space, and we’ll have more details when they are available.

So it is happening, there is no doubt about that. We just moved it. Just like those people who move your cheese. Sort of.

So if you are interested in attending BarCampMilwaukee2 on Oct 13/14, 2007, please sign up on the site. I look forward to seeing you there. Oh, and sign up sooner rather than later, because it will help with capacity planning, and help to ensure that you get a shirt, and some food to eat. (And if you have money, we’d like it even more if you went to the donation page. :)

People do all sorts of wacky things on Flickr, like taking photos in a certain area of numbers in sequential order…

Local Flickr user Czeltic Girl started a group called Milwaukee Sequential Numbers, which attempts to do just that (within Milwaukee County.) Taking a cue from the NYC Sequential Numbers gang, we plan to replicate that here in our own fair city.

I was lucky enough to get the number 2 spot, because, you know, I’m the sort of weirdo who already had photos of numbers in my stream.

Hmmm, maybe I should start a set containing sequential numbers of my own… :)

Song again, this one titled “Electrifying Movement” is weird and trippy. You should be able to hear it right on this page, using the embedded player below.

You can grab it from Ourmedia or the Internet Archive, and it’s got a Creative Commons Attribution License. (If you need something else, get in touch with me.)

Well I managed to bike to work again. (I did it a few months back.) This time it was a 7.28 mile ride, which was slightly shorter due to taking a different route. I saw my lowest speed about 5 MPH and my top speed was 23.8 MPH. It took 42 minutes and my overall average speed was 10.2 MPH. I didn’t make any stops but I did end up walking up part of a particularly nasty hill.

The most embarrassing part was when a guy who was probably 10 years my senior passed me on his bike like I was standing still. I was probably going close to 12 MPH and he whizzed passed me. He did have a racing-type bike and the whole serious biker outfit, so I didn’t feel quite so bad. As usual, I didn’t bike home. The wife came to pick me up with the Honda and the bike rack at 9PM.

We also hit the Bugline Trail over the weekend. We took the kids, so we only went about 6 miles, but it’s a nice trail. There is a reason it’s called the “Bugline” though. We got completely bitten up by mosquitoes. We’d like to take this one again when it’s cooler out.

As long as we’re talking about biking, the Milwaukee County Zoo is holding it’s “Ride on the Wild Side” Family Bike Ride on September 16th, 2007. We might do this ride, depending on how busy it is that weekend.

What’s this? Another song? Yes! “Harboring Visions” Fast and furious, fuzzy guitar, clean bass, and speedy drums. You should be able to hear it right on this page, using the embedded player below.

You can grab it from Ourmedia or the Internet Archive, and it’s got a Creative Commons Attribution License. (If you need something else, get in touch with me.)

I composed another song. This one is different, no guitars, more synthy-trancy. It’s titled “Low Voltage” because of the battery. You should be able to hear it right on this page, using the embedded player below.

As usual, you can grab it from Ourmedia, and it’s got a Creative Commons Attribution License. (If you need something else, get in touch with me.)

I wanted to test out SlideShare, as I’ve seen a number of people I know post their presentations there…

I did a short presentation for Web414 in early 2007 called Lightbox JS (and Friends). I used S5 because I like S5, it’s XHTML/CSS, it’s standards-based, it lives on the web and gets indexed. Anyone with a browser can see it. It takes no special software to create or consume.

I managed to convert this to a format I could put into SlideShare, but it wasn’t easy. (See Lightbox JS (and Friends) on SlideShare.) This is what SlideShare has to say about formats:

We accept PowerPoint (ppt & pps), PDF, & OpenOffice (odp) files. If you are on a Mac and use Keynote, export to “PDF”.

So my complaint here is that anyone who plans put their stuff on SlideShare will most likely start with a proprietary and/or binary format. I know, I’m one of those crazy people who actually prefer HTML, but if SlideShare becomes the standard for sharing slides and presentations, it could be a bad thing.

The conversion process I went through involved doing screen captures of each page of my S5 presentation, which on the Mac created PNG files. I then converted those to PDF files, and combined them into a single PDF I could upload to SlideShare. This was a short presentation and it still took me way too long to do. What SlideShare needs is an S5 importer (or really, just an HTML importer) just give it a URL and let it import your existing presentation. That would be cool.

SlideShare is a nice service, and yes, they even support Creative Commons, which is a good thing. Hopefully they’ll continue to improve it, and eventually become supportive of us HTML-presentation freaks…