Posted by Jerry on August 12th, 2008 — Posted in Journal, New media, Technology
I finally plucked up the courage to go into an Apple shop – I picked a day when I had left my credit card at home – to check out the new iPhone. I’m still looking for the ideal mobile blogging platform, and thought perhaps sensible convergence had been developed by the wonderful designers at Apple.
I thought about how I would use such a device. I want internet connection, phone, basic PDA applications – including a reasonable word processor, a camera and a neat little application to resize and and do some basics – light and dark and contrast, perhaps hue and saturation – nothing much really. Interestingly, Problogger shares many of my views.
The phone bit was there, as was the camera, some applications, and really delightful interface design – I love the overshoot bounce on the scrollbar – really cute and I love it.
Now for the awkward questions. I came prepared with my bluetooth keyboard. Um… it does have bluetooth doesn’t it? The salesman shifted uncomfortably. “Sort of”, he said. It seems the iPhone has bluetooth insofar as it can send the phone call to a bluetooth earpiece. But that’s it. No peripheral connectivity. Sorry Apple, you are losing me. I then venture the next no brainer for something with PDA functionality. Storage media – any chance of an SD card so I can take photos with my digital camera or transfer them from the phone to my macbook etc? Ummm… no.
So Apple has made a wonderful telephone, but what they have made is not going to let me lose the PDA and macbook combination on the road. I have traveled with just the PDA and keyboard and have blogged successfully – including camera and image preparation – without the laptop, using the bluetooth connection to the keyboard and wifi to the internet. Maybe next model eh?
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on August 11th, 2008 — Posted in History, Journal, Steam, Technology
In 1784, William Murdoch – a Scot working in Cornwall servicing Boulton and Watt beam engines – began making models of what may well have become the first self propelled steam vehicle after Joseph Cugnot’s experimental steam military tractor.
Employed by Boulton and Watt – who were possessive of their patents – Murdoch was said to have invented a coal-gas lamp so he could build models at night. Intriguingly, Watt wrote to Boulton in 1784 to say he had taken out a patent on self-propelled vehicles, which suggests he might have had his suspicions about what his employee was up to.
Although the replica built by the ‘Murdoch Boys’ is somewhat conjectural, it is clearly based on extant models, and plausibly uses a version of the Watt beam engine on wheels. The machine – known as ‘The Murdoch Flyer’ is said to be capable of 12 mph (about 20kph) at which speed it is apparently a rather exciting ride. It would have been quite a feat of engineering in its day.
Interestingly, it is a three-wheeler, making it similar in some respects to Cugnot’s wagon and the later Gardner-Serpollet which both survive in Paris at the Musee des Arts et Metiers.
The machine is powered by a single cylinder sitting inside a boiler which drives a beam up and down. A vertical shaft transits power to a crankshaft in front of the boiler behind the driver’s seat. Gears then power the rear wheels.
It may look decidedly Victorian steam punk – but the original was built in the reign of George III. It was the same year that the Italian Vincenzo Lunardi made the first hydrogen balloon ascent in England.
Thanks to Bob Blackman’s blog. You can read more about steam cars at the Steam Car Club of Great Britain.
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Posted by Jerry on July 21st, 2008 — Posted in Journal, New media, Technology
Despite being plagued by the tyranny of timezones (Australia) and some technical hitches with the vid feeds and audio, I really enjoyed what I was able to experience of this great conference from within SecondLife. However, for much of the content – especially the breakout sessions, which were not streamed into SecondLife – I am largely reliant on the summaries put up by those who were there in person.
Happykatie put up a good summary of the breakout session on:
DIY content syndication and promotion.
The panelists were:
* Moderator Krista Neher;
* Gwen Bell;
* Anne-Marie Nichols; and
* Esther Brady (aka faintstarlite)
For her it was about the way the interwebs make it easy to create, post and promote content across video, audio and blog posts.
Social bookmarking is a key to this. Social bookmarking is a bit like the Devil’s tea party where you have a sumptuous banquet and the cutlery is two metres long, so you have to feed each other across the table. Social bookmarking promotes your work by you promoting that of others, whether they are bloggers, twitters, or social aggregation sites like facebook, myspace or bebo. One way is to use StumbleUpon to show your approval of other’s content – and maybe they’ll do the same for you. It’s a ‘pay it forward’ philosophy that seems to work for web 2.0.
Others do video content. And although there are many vid sites out there, YouTube seems to be a constant. If you put vids out there, they should also be in YouTube.
Twitter is made for people to jump in – it suits those who want to just join the global conversation like they’ve just walked into a room and after a little bit, just start throwing out their own part of the conversation. It is not a space made for didactic types who want to show off their knowledge. Collaboration is a good way to get going – working with other bloggers. And leave thoughtful comments on blogs that share your conversation, and use that to participate in and build your community.
Happykatie recommends using “…Friendfeed to search for your company and product name to track what people are saying about you. It gives you an opportunity to engage another blogger and grow your community…” And there’s a heap more on Happykate’s site!
Thanks for a great writeup Happykatie 🙂
Kribaby also gave a great writeup – summarising five tips from BlogHer08 DIY content Syndication – a session she moderated.
Here tips were:
- Depth over breadth
- Leverage other blogs
- Find niche sites
- Analyse your current traffic; and
- Not all traffic is created equal
You’ll have to click over to her site for the expansion on these excellent tips.
Thanks for sharing these Kribaby/Krista
The panelists were
Writing Workshop
Web Teacher blogged about the writing workshop, and loved the discussion about tools for writers, including:
- Wordtracker – for finding the right word
- co.mments.com – for tracking comments you leave around the web; and
- Lijit – for searching and tracking all the things you post in blogs, social between working sites and bookmarking sites, in a searchable format.
The Friday night keynote was a sampler of blog posts from a wide range of bloghers – and the odd bloghim 😉
Web Teacher summarised the session on building traffic to your blog, led by Elise Bauer, who spoke about thinking about Content, Community and Technology. Content referred, not just to the words, but whether you use photography, video, words or all the above. For photography, Bauer recommends a good DSLR camera and good editing tools like photoshop or lightroom. On community it’s about linking out and sharing comments. And for technology she proposes making your site easy to use, easy to find and platform independent.
The photography session led by Me Rah Koh gave ten excellent steps in using photography – go to Web Teacher’s blog post for the list – it’s great!
And Web Teacher herself moderated the session on Boomers and Beyond.
It’s a pity we didn’t see these in BlogHer08 in SecondLife.
Again thank you Web Teacher for providing your writeup.
Monetizing Your Blog
Christine.net provided a great summary of the session on monetizing blogs. In essence click ads are only one way to go, and not necessarily the best way. Like any business the key is to be strategic, know your audience, and think broadly – including selling directly, whether tee-shirts or some product, either tangible (things/stuff) or intangible (plans, software, tutorials).
There are a number of click models for advertising, and you will need to consider which might work best for you:
CPM – cost per thousand impressions
CPC – cost per click; or
CPA – cost per action, such as completing a form or purchase
Others work with affiliate programs, like Amazon.
Again, a great summary Christine – many thanks.
Tomorrow I’ll post on the one session that I was able to see and hear clearly from SecondLife – and that made the 3.00AM schedule worthwhile – the final keynote session.
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on July 16th, 2008 — Posted in Journal, Steam, Technology
The British Steam Car Challenge aims to break a world steam car record set by a Stanley steamer that has stood for 100 years. But if you thought this is some romantic harking back to an Edwardian world using Victorian technology, think again. This is today’s technology right now. Your plug-in electric car uses it, the internet runs on it and your house is lit by it. The steam turbine lies at the heart of modern electric power stations, whether nuclear or conventionally fueled. And that is a clue.
External combustion engines can use a wider range of fuels than any other technology. So a steam car can run on fossil fuel oils, or biodiesel, or alcohol or old vegetable oil. And the burners run clean. The British steam car challenge car will burn its fuel completely, producing almost no harmful emissions – unlike the internal combustion engine. Its two-stage turbine producing almost 270kw is designed to take this three tonne car to speeds in excess of 270kph powered by LPG.
Eight years in the making, this car is in every way a testament to the dedication of this small team of British enthusiasts. And despite being a purpose-built sprint car, the lessons learnt from demonstrating the practicalities of the steam generators and associated control systems could well be applied in a future steam hybrid car or a worthy successor to the Doble, Stanley and White cars of the past. External combustion could well be one of the green high performance solutions to our current love affair with fossil fuels.
The car will be driven at the Bonneville salt flats during Speed Week this year in August – by Don Wales (grandson of Sir Malcolm Campbell) and Charles Burnett III.
If you stop by their website before 30 July you can donate £1.00 and be part of history in the making, adding your name to the car and contributing to an extraordinary team.
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on July 13th, 2008 — Posted in Journal, New media, Technology, Writing
It’s official. Steampunk is a global phenomenon. This mouse mod which turns the humble computer rodent into a Victorian-style aesthetic masterpiece was made in Russia, where there is apparently a strong modding community.
Steampunk itself is derived from a sub-genre of cyberpunk science fiction that emerged with the likes of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling in the mid 1980s. Steam-punk is a spin-off that postulates an alternative future in which contemporary functionality is produced in a kind of Victorian/Edwardian era. It was given huge impetus by the publication of Gibson and Sterling’s “The Difference Engine” which envisages a world in which Charles Babbage’s programmable mechanical computer develops into a steam driven Victorian version of today’s world.
In keeping with that aesthetic, enthusiasts have shoehorned modern computer equipment into elaborate brass and leather devices which have today’s functionality with the aesthetics of yesteryear – when machines were handcrafted with pride.
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