Crafting Web Communities

created on Wed, 2008-09-03 08:03

Recently I have delved a little more into understanding more about topics related to distributed search and identity. It was an eye opener to a whole new world of acronyms. To try to resolve the issue of lack of awareness and information, I have signed up for 3 events in 2 weeks

• Drupal Camp Victoria, where I will be attending/organizing a BOF on identity, to discuss, listen and understand with other interested parties. As well, trying to do my part, by giving a talk on setting up local development environments
• Digital Identity conference in Los Angeles, where I managed to register as a "blogger".
• Drupal Camp LA since I will be down in Los Angeles, might as well.

created on Tue, 2008-09-30 09:51

In a few short weeks, I have taken in BarCamp Vancouver, Drupal Camp LA, Digital Identity World, Drupal Camp Victoria and Drupal Camp Seattle.

created on Thu, 2008-06-19 08:30

In the first blog on Database Migration this post skimmed some info on starting the journey. This blog posts is a little drier, and more detailed, listing some major steps of database import and a few code samples. Shown below is my partner in crime for the second project, Harry. The current methods used are always open to new methods of improvement.

Image courtesy of Steve Krueger

created on Wed, 2008-06-11 10:33

Yesterday evening over a bowl of absolutely delicious Itik Tim and noodles, Peter and I discussed human psychology with a friend, and what would happen to society in the case of catastrophic disaster.

I have started to stock up a grab bag of survival essentials obtained from nearby Army and Navy's camping section, including iodine tablets, and a sealed tin of 37 various items, including string, matches, compass, etc.

created on Wed, 2008-06-04 13:05

In an attempt to clear my mind, and challenge myself, I asked Dave Olson if I could volunteer some time to help him blog an item or two. I was expecting to help write up about a local event around town, instead I was challenged a little bit more to my dismay.

Dave suggested to write a weekly blog post, about some of the work that I have been involved with. Of course he had answers to my protests;

I am sure somebody out there knows a better way than I, and I definitely don't know all there is to know on this subject. His answer, that is part of the reason one blogs, to get feedback from the community.

Should I be my blunt self, or put on a good company front, pasted with unicorns and butterflies? No, this is the new era of openness, one can be honest and open.

created on Thu, 2008-04-10 09:50 Conferences, barcamps galore abound in this city, sign up quickly for the Open Web Vancouver conference, including:

2 jam packed days of technology talks

Tags:
• creative commons
• django
• facebook
• gears
• google
• merb
• microformats
• mozilla
• opensocial
• OpenSource
• openweb
• PHP
• Rails
• ria
• semantic
• ubuntu
• Web
• xml
• xul

created on Sun, 2008-01-20 22:49

After my first pirate post as a new employee to RCS, 4 months later, here are some of my high hopes for Raincity Studios, Vancouver and open source everywhere.

Being one of the organizers of the Open Web Vancouver conference, I and other fellow organizers have invested a portion of our time gratis, for hopefully the benefit of the local opensource Vancouver community and neighbours.

Suffice it to say, I am more than pleased at the thought of opensource development and processes taking off within software development but not being contained by software development companies. A famous opensource manifesto, that I recommend to peruse, if you haven't already, are the writings of Eric Raymond "The Cathedral and the Bazaar".

One of the reasons that excited me about working with Raincity Studios, is because of its commitment to opensource and the local community. Working in opensource has I have found, brought its fair share of challenges, from out-of-date documentation and software modules, to wise persons on their mountaintops, and wading upstream through rivers of information just to retrieve that little nugget of gold.

created on Tue, 2007-09-18 23:31

We bucaneers at Raincity Studios, in support o' talk like a pirate day with the addition of the mighty fine pirate input filter, be having transfermed a fair chunk o' this website jus' fer today.

For all of ye like-minded swabbies, if ye di'nae get any o' th' free rum last Saturday at Pat's pub, at the pirate art show, ya can still catch some of the art at Jem's Gallery or on secondlife.

Dern't say I di'nae warned ye, ya lily livered scurvy cur!