In my last post, I said I would be re-visiting my thoughts on the iPad within a week or so with an update. Well, not much changed, and my thoughts are still the same. I thought what would be useful though is a synopsis of what apps have made it through the last couple of months use, and in what category. We've found these enjoyable, and I hope you do too.
I've written these by category of user, and the lists are in order of most used.
Thayer - main user, mostly gaming & reading (30 y/o female)
Words With Friends HD - (£1.79)
Scrabble style game, I play pretty much every lunchtime and evening, usually have about 20 games running simultaneously. Addictive, fun, and very easy to spend as little or much time on as you like. I'm ThayerPrime on it if you ever fancy a game!
Osmos HD - (£1.79)
Brilliant, floaty, spacey, unique game for the iPad. Think Brian Eno meets cellular level Loco Roco. Just marvellous. If you have the patience for it, it's a great game, well worth the money.
New York Times, Editors Choice (free)
Great round up of world events, written in a style I personally enjoy. Decent amount of headings along the bottom bar to catch up on headline news in News, Business, Tech, Opinion, Arts, Features and Videos. They've pulled off the display really slick in my opinion, and there's always a story of interest on here for me when I have five mins to spare.
Echofon - (£2.99)
Twitter app, seems to be the best one I've found so far for iPad, although it's lacking in some features I would like to see. Does the job though, and decent user interface and functionality.
Spotify - (iPhone version - no iPad version as yet, free, or £10 a month sub, depending on your preference)
All you can eat music streaming and if you pay, offline storing mode. Decent catalogue, so long as you don't want to find any old only on vinyl dance classics etc. Useful enough if you're mostly into mainstream, and like some back ground noise.
IMDB - (free)
The most useful movie database on the web, as an iPad app. Wonderfully executed, and totally useful when you're pondering what to watch tonight. And it's free. Lovely stuff.
The Weather Channel - (free)
Simple weather app for the iPad. Somewhat featureless, but does what it needs to, as well as some funky radar style maps of cloud and rain in your area (or whatever area you choose). A lot of folks on the store feedback have reported trouble finding location. It found Dartford... So I'm a happy camper.
Wired - (£2.39 a copy, available each month)
Although a great use of the medium, and by far the nicest magazine app I've seen, it's still missing that extra mile I was expecting from early magazine adopters, especially Wired. Definitely worth a download at least once (it's only the cost of a cheap pint!) to see where the magazine use on iPad is going. Content wise though, I haven't been tempted back since my first download.
Dropbox - (free)
I love Dropbox so much. It's such a great concept. If you don't know what I'm talking about go grab one here - but in a nutshell, cloud storage that you can access easily across pcs, macs, iphones, android phones, ipads.. you name it. Love it. And it's free for 2GB or so. Super slick service, I store all my documents here now. No more backup required except for photos and videos. If you wanted to use it for pics and vids though you have the option of buying space from them for that too.
Angry Birds HD - (£2.99)
Cute game, excellent start screen music. I bought this due to the high recommendations of everyone who already had an iPad before I did. I'm not overly impressed, and quite surprised *everyone* was recommending it. It's a good game, it's quite addictive, but it's nothing new. It's nicely done, good graphics, amusing characters. But you're basically catapulting birds to make some pigs go pop. It's no brain teaser, just a fairly enjoyable way to burn some time. If I went back in time, I wouldn't spend £2.99 on this again. Could be a different story if you were between ages 6-12 though I reckon :)
Modern Conflict HD Lite (free)
I really like this. It's a war based strategy game. It's fairly involved, but easy to pick up when you go through the training levels. The only reason it's not higher on my list is I don't feel I can dip in and out of it, which for me is what the iPad is about (young daughter being around). When I've had chance to dip my toe in further I can well imagine this taking over when I've finished Osmos HD though. And for free, it's well worth a look in if you're into this sort of game.
Godfinger (free, although you can buy stuff in game)
I want to like Godfinger. I'm trying really hard. It is the sort of game I'd normally get really addicted to. And it's a cute looking game, I like the characters. But it's just a bit slow. And I can't really see what the point is, and where it's going. It's free, so if you like playing God (is there anyone who doesn't?!) it's worth a quick look, but there's something missing here, and sadly I think it's that rather important game play. Maybe I'm missing something.
Stuff that's on here that I downloaded but don't really use: LastPass browser (just not that good on iPad), Atomic Browser (I'm doing just fine with safari), Shazam (had no need for it), Pages (ouch, expensive, and no need for it, Notes works perfectly fine for my usage), PFHD Free (shows you live airplanes in the air. Fun, once. Then, boring), Starwalk (expensive, and after one or two uses boring), Pocket Pond (amusing once, then boring, but keep it on for Nemi).
Jake - tech user, mostly development (30 y/o male)
Monkey Island 2 Special Edition for iPad - £5.99
Haven't played it yet, so can't comment, but Jake is loving it and I'm next in line, so I'd say from watching him and peering over his shoulder it's worth the money if you're into gaming like we are. Nice port to the iPad, plus the ability switch between modes from oldskool to newskool design. Nice touch.
Dev tools (our iPad is jailbroken):
VNC - free
Cydia - free
dospad Beta - free
TeamViewerHD - Free
iGammon - free backgammon. Nicely done. Not much more to say!
Chess With Friends - free, yup, it's a free chess game :)
Nemi - edutainment (21 month old female)
Preschool Monkey Lunchbox - £0.59
Best 59p I ever spent. Has Nemi in rapture. Lots of mini games for kids, I would say from 1.5 through to 5 years old.
5-in-1 Kids Pack HD - £0.59
Incredible value for money. Suitable for children up to about 5 I would say, from perhaps 12 months? Nemi could do the hardest level within 2 weeks, so I'm sure it could be boring for some quickly, but for the week she played it (and will no doubt again when she's back on it!) so worth the 59p.
Others she enjoys, but don't get used much more than a few minutes at a time:
Baby Piano, MemoryCueHD, Fish School, RF RedFish, SeussABC, Toy Story (free iPad book), Food Cards, My First Words, Drawing Pad, Virtuoso (real piano sim).
There you go, hope the round up has been helpful, and I'd love to hear what you've been using and finding useful in the comments section if you can spare the time. I'm always on the look out for more interesting stuff to do with the iPad.
I've written these by category of user, and the lists are in order of most used.
Thayer - main user, mostly gaming & reading (30 y/o female)
Words With Friends HD - (£1.79)
Scrabble style game, I play pretty much every lunchtime and evening, usually have about 20 games running simultaneously. Addictive, fun, and very easy to spend as little or much time on as you like. I'm ThayerPrime on it if you ever fancy a game!
Osmos HD - (£1.79)
Brilliant, floaty, spacey, unique game for the iPad. Think Brian Eno meets cellular level Loco Roco. Just marvellous. If you have the patience for it, it's a great game, well worth the money.
New York Times, Editors Choice (free)
Great round up of world events, written in a style I personally enjoy. Decent amount of headings along the bottom bar to catch up on headline news in News, Business, Tech, Opinion, Arts, Features and Videos. They've pulled off the display really slick in my opinion, and there's always a story of interest on here for me when I have five mins to spare.
Echofon - (£2.99)
Twitter app, seems to be the best one I've found so far for iPad, although it's lacking in some features I would like to see. Does the job though, and decent user interface and functionality.
Spotify - (iPhone version - no iPad version as yet, free, or £10 a month sub, depending on your preference)
All you can eat music streaming and if you pay, offline storing mode. Decent catalogue, so long as you don't want to find any old only on vinyl dance classics etc. Useful enough if you're mostly into mainstream, and like some back ground noise.
IMDB - (free)
The most useful movie database on the web, as an iPad app. Wonderfully executed, and totally useful when you're pondering what to watch tonight. And it's free. Lovely stuff.
The Weather Channel - (free)
Simple weather app for the iPad. Somewhat featureless, but does what it needs to, as well as some funky radar style maps of cloud and rain in your area (or whatever area you choose). A lot of folks on the store feedback have reported trouble finding location. It found Dartford... So I'm a happy camper.
Wired - (£2.39 a copy, available each month)
Although a great use of the medium, and by far the nicest magazine app I've seen, it's still missing that extra mile I was expecting from early magazine adopters, especially Wired. Definitely worth a download at least once (it's only the cost of a cheap pint!) to see where the magazine use on iPad is going. Content wise though, I haven't been tempted back since my first download.
Dropbox - (free)
I love Dropbox so much. It's such a great concept. If you don't know what I'm talking about go grab one here - but in a nutshell, cloud storage that you can access easily across pcs, macs, iphones, android phones, ipads.. you name it. Love it. And it's free for 2GB or so. Super slick service, I store all my documents here now. No more backup required except for photos and videos. If you wanted to use it for pics and vids though you have the option of buying space from them for that too.
Angry Birds HD - (£2.99)
Cute game, excellent start screen music. I bought this due to the high recommendations of everyone who already had an iPad before I did. I'm not overly impressed, and quite surprised *everyone* was recommending it. It's a good game, it's quite addictive, but it's nothing new. It's nicely done, good graphics, amusing characters. But you're basically catapulting birds to make some pigs go pop. It's no brain teaser, just a fairly enjoyable way to burn some time. If I went back in time, I wouldn't spend £2.99 on this again. Could be a different story if you were between ages 6-12 though I reckon :)
Modern Conflict HD Lite (free)
I really like this. It's a war based strategy game. It's fairly involved, but easy to pick up when you go through the training levels. The only reason it's not higher on my list is I don't feel I can dip in and out of it, which for me is what the iPad is about (young daughter being around). When I've had chance to dip my toe in further I can well imagine this taking over when I've finished Osmos HD though. And for free, it's well worth a look in if you're into this sort of game.
Godfinger (free, although you can buy stuff in game)
I want to like Godfinger. I'm trying really hard. It is the sort of game I'd normally get really addicted to. And it's a cute looking game, I like the characters. But it's just a bit slow. And I can't really see what the point is, and where it's going. It's free, so if you like playing God (is there anyone who doesn't?!) it's worth a quick look, but there's something missing here, and sadly I think it's that rather important game play. Maybe I'm missing something.
Stuff that's on here that I downloaded but don't really use: LastPass browser (just not that good on iPad), Atomic Browser (I'm doing just fine with safari), Shazam (had no need for it), Pages (ouch, expensive, and no need for it, Notes works perfectly fine for my usage), PFHD Free (shows you live airplanes in the air. Fun, once. Then, boring), Starwalk (expensive, and after one or two uses boring), Pocket Pond (amusing once, then boring, but keep it on for Nemi).
Jake - tech user, mostly development (30 y/o male)
Monkey Island 2 Special Edition for iPad - £5.99
Haven't played it yet, so can't comment, but Jake is loving it and I'm next in line, so I'd say from watching him and peering over his shoulder it's worth the money if you're into gaming like we are. Nice port to the iPad, plus the ability switch between modes from oldskool to newskool design. Nice touch.
Dev tools (our iPad is jailbroken):
VNC - free
Cydia - free
dospad Beta - free
TeamViewerHD - Free
iGammon - free backgammon. Nicely done. Not much more to say!
Chess With Friends - free, yup, it's a free chess game :)
Nemi - edutainment (21 month old female)
Preschool Monkey Lunchbox - £0.59
Best 59p I ever spent. Has Nemi in rapture. Lots of mini games for kids, I would say from 1.5 through to 5 years old.
5-in-1 Kids Pack HD - £0.59
Incredible value for money. Suitable for children up to about 5 I would say, from perhaps 12 months? Nemi could do the hardest level within 2 weeks, so I'm sure it could be boring for some quickly, but for the week she played it (and will no doubt again when she's back on it!) so worth the 59p.
Others she enjoys, but don't get used much more than a few minutes at a time:
Baby Piano, MemoryCueHD, Fish School, RF RedFish, SeussABC, Toy Story (free iPad book), Food Cards, My First Words, Drawing Pad, Virtuoso (real piano sim).
There you go, hope the round up has been helpful, and I'd love to hear what you've been using and finding useful in the comments section if you can spare the time. I'm always on the look out for more interesting stuff to do with the iPad.
Any of you who know me, or have ever read my Apple rants will know, I can't stand the Apple thing. The whole cult of it makes me feel slightly queasy, and I don't care much for their products, for me, personally. They serve no useful purpose in my life, and feel a lot like Playskool toys in both physical design and UI. However, I think their marketing is *incredible* and I learn a lot from it, and I have worked for them as a consultant in the past (emerging technologies & community engagement) - so from a business point of view I find them obviously, very interesting. What they've created in branding is really fantastic.
Anyway, now I've re-iterated my *personal* stance on Apple, let's move on.
In my line of work, I advise clients on all manner of things web and technology, but the two constants in my work are technology communities and future tech. I need to know what's happening, where, who's there, who WILL be there, and what messages can be delivered through what mediums. It's about understanding audiences in general, not just thinking of your audience as what you personally like. For those of you thinking, "MARKETING!" you're sort of right. But what I tend to lean towards is more about message delivery and participation, which I think is a bit different, but does come from a marketing style approach. I can only think to call it community engagement, but that does feel a bit wanky (excuse my language). So bearing that in mind, not owning and completely understanding the iPad and it's followers wouldn't work out. So business me owns one, even though personal me would not.
On first use, the iPad is really amusing. I couldn't get away from feeling a lot like Dom Jolly with an over sized iPhone. I was tempted to pick it up and shout HELLO! NO, I CAN'T TALK RIGHT NOW - I'M IN THE APPLE STORE! That soon goes though (after about 5 mins of sniggering) and it's time to move on to But What Does It Do.
It seems to me to be one of the best innovations for young children I've come across yet. A friend of mine, Graham Brown-Martin showed me his 4 year old daughter playing educational games on his. This was the moment the penny dropped for me, and made me quite literally rush out the next day and get one. Seeing Nemi playing with it and *getting it* within the first few minutes of ever seeing one and the game she's playing, was absolutely astonishing. This v1 iPad thing may not be something I'm interested in personally, but the next generations of them (in particular on a more open OS such as Android) are, and will undoubtedly feature in my children's lives and be what they grow up knowing.
One of the points that I often come up against with my anti-Apple opinion are from those who think that open = bad. Well, in explanation as to why I think it's good (and so will be a] jailbreaking my iPad very soon and b] selling it as soon as the Android equivalent is on the market) is that the ability to completely control the technology I own is incredibly important to me. Seeing the faults in the iPad that I can now, and not being able to recify them is frustrating. For example, Android on my HTC Magic allows me to run child specific apps which can change/lock down every part of the system and it's buttons. This means when Nemi plays with Toddler Lock, or other apps, if she hits the power button or menu key, it doesn't flop out back to a menu screen where she can be rather disruptive! So with all the games on my iPad for her, I have to be within arms reach at all times in case she goes back to menu. It's a small example, but you get my point (I hope). There are plenty more, Google for them if you're interested.
The other massive downside on the iPad is the lack of Flash. No really, it's a total killer for me. So far, it's affected (watch out, Thayer stat ahead) about 30% of my browsing. Sites just not displaying, or sites like BBC CBeebies being unusable. Ridiculous. You're sat with something that is perfectly placed as an educational device, and it's primary function is web access - and yet it doesn't support one of the more frequently used technologies of the current web world. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
And my last big bug bear - lack of multitasking. Why, oh why, oh why. There are more things that are pretty crap with it too, but for sake of not turning this into a ranty novel I'll stop there.
The good stuff is that a few of the custom made apps are really slick. It really does feel like a peek into what's coming up. The NY Times app is a superb starter for ten on how newspapers are keeping up with technology, and how this is a platform they can really enjoy and utilise. So far in fact, I would say the newspaper / magazine route plus the kids one mentioned above are my primary wins on this platform.
Lastly, something I wanted to mention regards first gen iPads in this post is about the "leapfrog" market I keep hearing more and more about. It's not *just* your early adopters who are pushing sales of these types of devices, but also those who are at the other end of the spectrum - technology snails. An example being someone who has bought a personal cassette player in the 80s. It's worked fine, they don't want any new music or technology. Then one day, say 2005 it finally gives up the ghost. It's died. They never got round to buying a personal CD player, they never saw the point - their Walkman worked fine. But now, they may as well get an mp3 player. It's worth the learning curve and they can't find a decent new cassette player anywhere. This market can add up to a vast amount of extra sales (10% in the last article I read, courtesy of the New York Times) on the first year launch of a new product. Very interesting indeed, to those of you like me who are interested in the commercial side of all this as well. For those who have a pc finally unable to cope with today's processor and memory intensive web, it could be a better solution than a net book.. Worth bearing that in mind.
Right my lunch has arrived. I'll post more in a week or so with some app recommendations and with further experience of the platform.
Anyway, now I've re-iterated my *personal* stance on Apple, let's move on.
In my line of work, I advise clients on all manner of things web and technology, but the two constants in my work are technology communities and future tech. I need to know what's happening, where, who's there, who WILL be there, and what messages can be delivered through what mediums. It's about understanding audiences in general, not just thinking of your audience as what you personally like. For those of you thinking, "MARKETING!" you're sort of right. But what I tend to lean towards is more about message delivery and participation, which I think is a bit different, but does come from a marketing style approach. I can only think to call it community engagement, but that does feel a bit wanky (excuse my language). So bearing that in mind, not owning and completely understanding the iPad and it's followers wouldn't work out. So business me owns one, even though personal me would not.
On first use, the iPad is really amusing. I couldn't get away from feeling a lot like Dom Jolly with an over sized iPhone. I was tempted to pick it up and shout HELLO! NO, I CAN'T TALK RIGHT NOW - I'M IN THE APPLE STORE! That soon goes though (after about 5 mins of sniggering) and it's time to move on to But What Does It Do.
It seems to me to be one of the best innovations for young children I've come across yet. A friend of mine, Graham Brown-Martin showed me his 4 year old daughter playing educational games on his. This was the moment the penny dropped for me, and made me quite literally rush out the next day and get one. Seeing Nemi playing with it and *getting it* within the first few minutes of ever seeing one and the game she's playing, was absolutely astonishing. This v1 iPad thing may not be something I'm interested in personally, but the next generations of them (in particular on a more open OS such as Android) are, and will undoubtedly feature in my children's lives and be what they grow up knowing.
One of the points that I often come up against with my anti-Apple opinion are from those who think that open = bad. Well, in explanation as to why I think it's good (and so will be a] jailbreaking my iPad very soon and b] selling it as soon as the Android equivalent is on the market) is that the ability to completely control the technology I own is incredibly important to me. Seeing the faults in the iPad that I can now, and not being able to recify them is frustrating. For example, Android on my HTC Magic allows me to run child specific apps which can change/lock down every part of the system and it's buttons. This means when Nemi plays with Toddler Lock, or other apps, if she hits the power button or menu key, it doesn't flop out back to a menu screen where she can be rather disruptive! So with all the games on my iPad for her, I have to be within arms reach at all times in case she goes back to menu. It's a small example, but you get my point (I hope). There are plenty more, Google for them if you're interested.
The other massive downside on the iPad is the lack of Flash. No really, it's a total killer for me. So far, it's affected (watch out, Thayer stat ahead) about 30% of my browsing. Sites just not displaying, or sites like BBC CBeebies being unusable. Ridiculous. You're sat with something that is perfectly placed as an educational device, and it's primary function is web access - and yet it doesn't support one of the more frequently used technologies of the current web world. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
And my last big bug bear - lack of multitasking. Why, oh why, oh why. There are more things that are pretty crap with it too, but for sake of not turning this into a ranty novel I'll stop there.
The good stuff is that a few of the custom made apps are really slick. It really does feel like a peek into what's coming up. The NY Times app is a superb starter for ten on how newspapers are keeping up with technology, and how this is a platform they can really enjoy and utilise. So far in fact, I would say the newspaper / magazine route plus the kids one mentioned above are my primary wins on this platform.
Lastly, something I wanted to mention regards first gen iPads in this post is about the "leapfrog" market I keep hearing more and more about. It's not *just* your early adopters who are pushing sales of these types of devices, but also those who are at the other end of the spectrum - technology snails. An example being someone who has bought a personal cassette player in the 80s. It's worked fine, they don't want any new music or technology. Then one day, say 2005 it finally gives up the ghost. It's died. They never got round to buying a personal CD player, they never saw the point - their Walkman worked fine. But now, they may as well get an mp3 player. It's worth the learning curve and they can't find a decent new cassette player anywhere. This market can add up to a vast amount of extra sales (10% in the last article I read, courtesy of the New York Times) on the first year launch of a new product. Very interesting indeed, to those of you like me who are interested in the commercial side of all this as well. For those who have a pc finally unable to cope with today's processor and memory intensive web, it could be a better solution than a net book.. Worth bearing that in mind.
Right my lunch has arrived. I'll post more in a week or so with some app recommendations and with further experience of the platform.
A couple of weeks ago, my Android based HTC Magic stopped updating my apps. I tried everything to get them going again to no avail. I then realised yesterday I also couldn't download and install new apps, and, it seemed, my battery was dying a hell of a lot quicker then normal - about a 12 hr cycle instead of the usual also pathetic 24hr. This was a deal breaker.
After much forum searching, I found the fix.
Turns out that when a couple of weeks ago Google asked me on Gmail if I wanted to change my account from Googlemail to Gmail (it popped up above the top nav) it caused this problem. Thankfully, now that I set this back to Googlemail, all my apps are updating just fine, and I can download, and the battery on my phone is back to is rather abysmal but better than it was, self.
So, if you've noticed you're having app problems with your Android phone, try that fix! To reset your Gmail to it's original form, go to Settings->Accounts and Import, and you'll see it there.
After much forum searching, I found the fix.
Turns out that when a couple of weeks ago Google asked me on Gmail if I wanted to change my account from Googlemail to Gmail (it popped up above the top nav) it caused this problem. Thankfully, now that I set this back to Googlemail, all my apps are updating just fine, and I can download, and the battery on my phone is back to is rather abysmal but better than it was, self.
So, if you've noticed you're having app problems with your Android phone, try that fix! To reset your Gmail to it's original form, go to Settings->Accounts and Import, and you'll see it there.
-- copy and paste from Barcamp - if you can help please get in touch with them directly --
The worst thing that can happen to an event organiser has happened: the BarCampLondon8 venue has fallen through. Due to some massive mis-communications we can’t hold BCL8 at the Great Western Studios like we hoped to.
What is going to happen now?
We are working very hard to find a new venue. We have been talking to a lot of past hosts, exciting companies, contacting new hosts, and calling on favours. We hope to find a venue before the end of the week, possibly for a smaller size, which means we don’t have another batch of tickets to hand out. In the worst case it means we need to cancel the event, but at the moment we don’t think we need to yet.
How can I help?
Know anyone you think is worth contacting? Please do so and ask them to get in contact with Cristiano Betta (cbetta@gmail.com). We have created a very rough brief that you can use to inform hosts of what BarCamps are, so feel free to send it along. We have already contacted a lot of the past sponsors and other big companies, so no need to contact: Guardian, eBay/Gumtree/PayPal, Google, BBC, Lonely Planet, Microsoft, LBi, Nokia, and some more.
If you don’t know anyone, you can still spread the word of our predicament by Twitter, Facebook, word-of-mouth, or smoke signals. The more people know about this issue the more likely we can find a venue.
To summarise, what we need is simple:
We know that a lot of you have already booked train and plane tickets, so we don’t want to leave you guys feeling like you wasted money. We are looking at running some kind of event on 12/13 June, whatever happens. This might be a HackDay, or some other kind of smaller event. Any suggestions are welcome.
We value your support and will let you know as soon as we have more news!
Your Barcamp London 8 Planning Team
The worst thing that can happen to an event organiser has happened: the BarCampLondon8 venue has fallen through. Due to some massive mis-communications we can’t hold BCL8 at the Great Western Studios like we hoped to.
What is going to happen now?
We are working very hard to find a new venue. We have been talking to a lot of past hosts, exciting companies, contacting new hosts, and calling on favours. We hope to find a venue before the end of the week, possibly for a smaller size, which means we don’t have another batch of tickets to hand out. In the worst case it means we need to cancel the event, but at the moment we don’t think we need to yet.
How can I help?
Know anyone you think is worth contacting? Please do so and ask them to get in contact with Cristiano Betta (cbetta@gmail.com). We have created a very rough brief that you can use to inform hosts of what BarCamps are, so feel free to send it along. We have already contacted a lot of the past sponsors and other big companies, so no need to contact: Guardian, eBay/Gumtree/PayPal, Google, BBC, Lonely Planet, Microsoft, LBi, Nokia, and some more.
If you don’t know anyone, you can still spread the word of our predicament by Twitter, Facebook, word-of-mouth, or smoke signals. The more people know about this issue the more likely we can find a venue.
To summarise, what we need is simple:
- needs to be available on the weekend of 12/13 of June
- 1 “large” space that can hold enough people for the opening talk (~150)
- between 5 to 10 spaces for sessions, sizes varying between 10 to 40 people per room
- possibility for about 60 people to stay overnight for hacking, networking, and more
- some sort of internet connection
We know that a lot of you have already booked train and plane tickets, so we don’t want to leave you guys feeling like you wasted money. We are looking at running some kind of event on 12/13 June, whatever happens. This might be a HackDay, or some other kind of smaller event. Any suggestions are welcome.
We value your support and will let you know as soon as we have more news!
Your Barcamp London 8 Planning Team
Open Tech 2010
11th September, from UKUUG
Sponsored by data.gov.uk
Open Tech 2010 is an informal, low cost, one-day conference on slightly different approaches to technology, politics and justice.
What do you work on that more people should know about in any 2 (or more) of our areas?
What have you heard about recently, that you think more people should know about?
OpenTech is as much about conversations in the bar, as it is sitting in sessions; what topics would you like to be discussed with a range of people? The best way of getting the OpenTech audience to think about the challenges you have is by sharing what they are and solutions you've already found: by offering a talk.
Are there community projects that you work on that would benefit from more support and different views? Are you working on problems that you think others might help solve?
Offer a talk online at http://www.ukuug.org/opentech or email opentech@ukuug.org and we'll have a chat. If you can get us submissions (even just outline submissions) by the 1st of May, that'd be grand.
What is OpenTech 2010?
- Open Tech 2010 is an informal, low cost, one-day
conference on slightly different approaches to
technology, politics and justice
What's the day going to have?
- Technology
- Politics
- Justice
- what do you want to talk about?
What do we need?
- Proposals from people who want to give a presentation, run a panel, organise a tutorial, or run a demo of something new and interesting on something that they think matters or getting people to help.
- Publicity - please blog this announcement, write a newspaper article, forward to mailing lists, and tell your friends!
What topics do we hope to cover?
- Justice: Civil, Social, Environmental, Criminal, Legal, other.
- Community engagement
- Democracy 2.0
- Mashups, open data and uses
- Future of media and distribution
- Disaster politics and technology
- Highlights, lowlights and lessons learnt
- Long term thinking on big problems and massive opportunities
- Tutorials & Workshops - share what you know
- If you've got an interesting proposal that doesn't fit into any of
the categories above, please send it in anyway!
What have we already got talks or sessions about?
- Rewired State
- Where now for Open Video? from visionon.tv
- mySociety
- What's next after the General Election?
We're still looking for more talks on all our topics,
so if you want to offer something, we're waiting to
hear your ideas.
How do I submit a proposal?
- Online form via http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech201
- Deadline for submissions is midnight on Tuesday 1st June 2010
Can I buy or reserve a ticket to the event?
- Register at http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech201
and we'll email you nearer the time with more information
Any other questions?
Read the Submission page or email opentech@ukuug.org
More information at http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech201
-- the OpenTech 2010 organisers
(David, Emily, Sam)
http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech201
11th September, from UKUUG
Sponsored by data.gov.uk
Open Tech 2010 is an informal, low cost, one-day conference on slightly different approaches to technology, politics and justice.
What do you work on that more people should know about in any 2 (or more) of our areas?
What have you heard about recently, that you think more people should know about?
OpenTech is as much about conversations in the bar, as it is sitting in sessions; what topics would you like to be discussed with a range of people? The best way of getting the OpenTech audience to think about the challenges you have is by sharing what they are and solutions you've already found: by offering a talk.
Are there community projects that you work on that would benefit from more support and different views? Are you working on problems that you think others might help solve?
Offer a talk online at http://www.ukuug.org/opentech or email opentech@ukuug.org and we'll have a chat. If you can get us submissions (even just outline submissions) by the 1st of May, that'd be grand.
What is OpenTech 2010?
- Open Tech 2010 is an informal, low cost, one-day
conference on slightly different approaches to
technology, politics and justice
What's the day going to have?
- Technology
- Politics
- Justice
- what do you want to talk about?
What do we need?
- Proposals from people who want to give a presentation, run a panel, organise a tutorial, or run a demo of something new and interesting on something that they think matters or getting people to help.
- Publicity - please blog this announcement, write a newspaper article, forward to mailing lists, and tell your friends!
What topics do we hope to cover?
- Justice: Civil, Social, Environmental, Criminal, Legal, other.
- Community engagement
- Democracy 2.0
- Mashups, open data and uses
- Future of media and distribution
- Disaster politics and technology
- Highlights, lowlights and lessons learnt
- Long term thinking on big problems and massive opportunities
- Tutorials & Workshops - share what you know
- If you've got an interesting proposal that doesn't fit into any of
the categories above, please send it in anyway!
What have we already got talks or sessions about?
- Rewired State
- Where now for Open Video? from visionon.tv
- mySociety
- What's next after the General Election?
We're still looking for more talks on all our topics,
so if you want to offer something, we're waiting to
hear your ideas.
How do I submit a proposal?
- Online form via http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech201
- Deadline for submissions is midnight on Tuesday 1st June 2010
Can I buy or reserve a ticket to the event?
- Register at http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech201
and we'll email you nearer the time with more information
Any other questions?
Read the Submission page or email opentech@ukuug.org
More information at http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech201
-- the OpenTech 2010 organisers
(David, Emily, Sam)
http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech201
Data.gov.uk, BBC Backstage and Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA) will be running an ‘unconference’ focussing on
data visualisations. The unconference will team up 100 developers and 100 designers to create diverse and imaginative data visualisations from open data.
The aim of the event is to facilitate an unusual opportunity allowing the diversity of the two traditional job roles to bring together imaginative use of open data sources.
Richard Stirling, Head of Making Public Data Public and data.gov.uk said, "To bring together teams of developers and designers in this way, with each adding to the other's skill set is an exciting proposition. We're extremely interested to see the results, and see what great data re-use will come from the weekend."
By combining the networks, data and experience of the three public bodies, the Data Visualisation Weekend has a vast resource to draw on, making it one of the most exciting and joined up unconferences for 2010.
"MDDA is proud to support this event as it is a great opportunity for Manchester's digital communities to show their skills, network with other digital creatives and learn more about the data.gov.uk project." - Dave Carter, Head of MDDA
Interested designers and developers can find out more and apply for an invitation via the DVWM website.
Notes
Data.gov.uk is part of HM Government and uses an open licence to allow government-owned data to be freely reused by anybody.
backstage.bbc.co.uk was formed in 2004 and is the BBC's early adopter network to encourage participation and support creativity through open innovation.
Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA), part of Manchester City Council, is the lead organisation for the development of the digital strategy for the Manchester city region, and has a role in supporting the region's digital sector.
data visualisations. The unconference will team up 100 developers and 100 designers to create diverse and imaginative data visualisations from open data.
The aim of the event is to facilitate an unusual opportunity allowing the diversity of the two traditional job roles to bring together imaginative use of open data sources.
Richard Stirling, Head of Making Public Data Public and data.gov.uk said, "To bring together teams of developers and designers in this way, with each adding to the other's skill set is an exciting proposition. We're extremely interested to see the results, and see what great data re-use will come from the weekend."
By combining the networks, data and experience of the three public bodies, the Data Visualisation Weekend has a vast resource to draw on, making it one of the most exciting and joined up unconferences for 2010.
"MDDA is proud to support this event as it is a great opportunity for Manchester's digital communities to show their skills, network with other digital creatives and learn more about the data.gov.uk project." - Dave Carter, Head of MDDA
Interested designers and developers can find out more and apply for an invitation via the DVWM website.
Notes
Data.gov.uk is part of HM Government and uses an open licence to allow government-owned data to be freely reused by anybody.
backstage.bbc.co.uk was formed in 2004 and is the BBC's early adopter network to encourage participation and support creativity through open innovation.
Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA), part of Manchester City Council, is the lead organisation for the development of the digital strategy for the Manchester city region, and has a role in supporting the region's digital sector.
It's been so long since I wrote. Mostly due to being super busy helping the data.gov.uk team work on their strategy for engaging the open data community. It's a great role and the team I'm working with are so passionate, it's fun to be a part of something like this.
2009 has been an extraordinary year for me. I've watched my little girl grow from approx 55cms to 85cms in under 12 months, and double her weight. I've worked on some exciting open data roles for both the Guardian and the government. I've attended some very interesting workshops, including those by NESTA and Nokia, to help define the future of technology, and I've even been a judge and an award presenter (on stage and EVERYFINK) within the games industry.
And now, as 2009 draws to a close, I find myself in a very interesting position. My contract with the government has been extended until April 2010, and so my husband and I have chosen to switch roles for 3 months, to see what it's like. Jake has quit work and from mid January he will be Nemi's main carer, whilst I work mostly from home enabling me to still be a daily (big) part of Nemi's life. It will be a very interesting change, and one we hoped one day we might be able to achieve. He's also going to be able to be focussed on his own technical development, and pushing forward on some ideas he's been having this last few years since iPhones and Android OS came about.
We also moved house in November, and have a lot of work to do here, which starts in January (hey, why wait.. ack!) which I feel may be the dominating thought vibe until Spring next year... All in all, a fairly hectic year!
Thanks for reading, and if you've been around me during this year, thanks also for your support and friendship. I'd love to know what your year has been like, so if you'd like to bullet point, paraphrase, or go all novel in the comments, please do. Or, link to your year end post.
Here's to 2010, good health and love to you all.
2009 has been an extraordinary year for me. I've watched my little girl grow from approx 55cms to 85cms in under 12 months, and double her weight. I've worked on some exciting open data roles for both the Guardian and the government. I've attended some very interesting workshops, including those by NESTA and Nokia, to help define the future of technology, and I've even been a judge and an award presenter (on stage and EVERYFINK) within the games industry.
And now, as 2009 draws to a close, I find myself in a very interesting position. My contract with the government has been extended until April 2010, and so my husband and I have chosen to switch roles for 3 months, to see what it's like. Jake has quit work and from mid January he will be Nemi's main carer, whilst I work mostly from home enabling me to still be a daily (big) part of Nemi's life. It will be a very interesting change, and one we hoped one day we might be able to achieve. He's also going to be able to be focussed on his own technical development, and pushing forward on some ideas he's been having this last few years since iPhones and Android OS came about.
We also moved house in November, and have a lot of work to do here, which starts in January (hey, why wait.. ack!) which I feel may be the dominating thought vibe until Spring next year... All in all, a fairly hectic year!
Thanks for reading, and if you've been around me during this year, thanks also for your support and friendship. I'd love to know what your year has been like, so if you'd like to bullet point, paraphrase, or go all novel in the comments, please do. Or, link to your year end post.
Here's to 2010, good health and love to you all.
Last week I had the fortunate occurence of a friend of mine being one of the 100,000 first users of Google's new Wave. Being the lovely person he is, he duly sent out his invites to people on Thursday, and I was one of them. Hitting F5 on my inbox continuously for 5 minutes to welcome the invite home got kind of boring, so I went off and had lunch.
After lunch, still no invite.
Next day, still no invite.
Thankfully at this point others who had been recipients of the invites also mentioned theirs hadn't come through either, so at least I knew I hadn't been over looked (heh) in the invite sending process.
After some digging online, I have found very little in the way of fact, but it seems that the invites aren't actually invites - they're nominations for people to potentially come in and use the service. And no one knows how long you have to wait to hear from Google at all. The best blog post I found was Why You Haven't Got Your Google Wave Invite Yet where some Google employees comment and confirm that they should probably maybe come out sometime in the future.
I need me some clippers this is all waaaay too wooly!
Seems strange to me not to have some sort of auto mailer saying, "Hey, gratz! DING DING! You got an invite, and as soon as we've got chance you'll be in, expect to hear from us in the next 2 weeks!" or you know, perhaps something a leetle more professional. But you get my point.
As it stands, to me, it just causes confusion - was I actually invited? Has Google messed up on spam filters? Is the invite system broken?
A little clarity would go a long way. Just gets frustrating and obnoxious otherwise.
Got to say, not overly impressed this end, and I haven't even seen what Wave can do for me yet. Why start us out on such bad feeling Google? Is it really that hard to just politely let us know our nomination has been received, and an approximation of when we might expect to get a look? As it stands, I'll be wary of sending my invites out for fear of people thinking I'm bullshitting when I say they've been sent...
After lunch, still no invite.Next day, still no invite.
Thankfully at this point others who had been recipients of the invites also mentioned theirs hadn't come through either, so at least I knew I hadn't been over looked (heh) in the invite sending process.
After some digging online, I have found very little in the way of fact, but it seems that the invites aren't actually invites - they're nominations for people to potentially come in and use the service. And no one knows how long you have to wait to hear from Google at all. The best blog post I found was Why You Haven't Got Your Google Wave Invite Yet where some Google employees comment and confirm that they should probably maybe come out sometime in the future.
I need me some clippers this is all waaaay too wooly!
Seems strange to me not to have some sort of auto mailer saying, "Hey, gratz! DING DING! You got an invite, and as soon as we've got chance you'll be in, expect to hear from us in the next 2 weeks!" or you know, perhaps something a leetle more professional. But you get my point.
As it stands, to me, it just causes confusion - was I actually invited? Has Google messed up on spam filters? Is the invite system broken?
A little clarity would go a long way. Just gets frustrating and obnoxious otherwise.
Got to say, not overly impressed this end, and I haven't even seen what Wave can do for me yet. Why start us out on such bad feeling Google? Is it really that hard to just politely let us know our nomination has been received, and an approximation of when we might expect to get a look? As it stands, I'll be wary of sending my invites out for fear of people thinking I'm bullshitting when I say they've been sent...
Hello!
Today I'm writing about something that I've been wanting to do for some time. I want to give back, and my last set of commercial mentees are now all flying solo without the need for me to be cramping their style. So, I'm after a new one.
I just want to make one thing REALLY REALLY CLEAR - there is *no experience required*. If you have experience already, that is fantastic, but to me, the most important thing in sales is the ability to be adaptable, strong willed, friendly and above all - self motivated. If you have those characteristics, please read on :)
This particular apprenticeship also has a sales job that comes with it, up to 3 days a week (flexible, depending on the person) and a very nice £150 per day for your efforts. The start date will be asap, but ideally no later than the New Year. Perhaps a few days before Christmas could help ensure you get all the pressies you're after?
What I'm after is thus:
Today I'm writing about something that I've been wanting to do for some time. I want to give back, and my last set of commercial mentees are now all flying solo without the need for me to be cramping their style. So, I'm after a new one.
I just want to make one thing REALLY REALLY CLEAR - there is *no experience required*. If you have experience already, that is fantastic, but to me, the most important thing in sales is the ability to be adaptable, strong willed, friendly and above all - self motivated. If you have those characteristics, please read on :)
This particular apprenticeship also has a sales job that comes with it, up to 3 days a week (flexible, depending on the person) and a very nice £150 per day for your efforts. The start date will be asap, but ideally no later than the New Year. Perhaps a few days before Christmas could help ensure you get all the pressies you're after?
What I'm after is thus:
- Keen to learn
- Enthusiastic
- Good command of English both spoken and written (lots of phone and email work in this role)
- Someone who wants to make a difference in a small business
- Big ambition - I want you to be heading up the sales department eventually!
- Free training in London, passing on knowledge you'll need to succeed in sales (honestly, it's really simple stuff)
- A job!
- Continuous support throughout your career until it becomes clear you're way better than I'll ever be.. :)
- Some good contacts in the industry
Yesterday me and some other folks descended upon Sun Microsystem's offices for a spot of Email Yoga, as tutored by Gavin O'Carroll. It was really interesting, and involved loads of being out of chairs, and visualisation - not something I've done on a couse before, but once you get into it, very useful and positive.
The course started with some jiggling of body parts (I kid you not) before moving onto a quick counselling session of our bad habits - we ranted, Gavin listened.
The hour involved lots of moving about and thinking about our future, and habits - both good and bad.
All in all a thoroughly enjoyable course, with some really lovely people on it.
A great big thank you to Sun Microsystems for letting us use their office space to run the course. They provide fantastic services for start ups, and if you'd like to know more please contact Stewart Townsend (@stewarttownsend).
If you'd like to find out more about the Digital Health Service or the Email Yoga course please get in touch with Gavin O'Carroll - gavin@digitalhealthservice.com
The course started with some jiggling of body parts (I kid you not) before moving onto a quick counselling session of our bad habits - we ranted, Gavin listened. The hour involved lots of moving about and thinking about our future, and habits - both good and bad.
All in all a thoroughly enjoyable course, with some really lovely people on it.
A great big thank you to Sun Microsystems for letting us use their office space to run the course. They provide fantastic services for start ups, and if you'd like to know more please contact Stewart Townsend (@stewarttownsend).
If you'd like to find out more about the Digital Health Service or the Email Yoga course please get in touch with Gavin O'Carroll - gavin@digitalhealthservice.com
