Friday, 14 December, 2007

Monday, 10 December, 2007

Online Innovation UK

I’ve been playing around with Ning a little this morning, and am really impressed with it, not least because now users can create subgroups within a community. Add that to blogs, forums, photo and video uploading and plenty of RSS goodness, and you’ve got a pretty comprehensive community platform.

The community I created whilst testing this stuff out is called Online Innovation UK. I had the idea that it might be nice to have a place for everyone to get together, whether public or private sector; and regardless of geographical location within the UK. All you need is to be interested in the application of web technology to make life easier for folk

oiuk

I think this could be really useful, and I hope it isn’t a case of reinventing the wheel. There are probably several groups out there that cover one aspect of this area, but nothing that drags everyone together.

Ning does allow me to send out invites to people to join, but that makes me feel nervous – too close to spam for my liking. So I thought I would try to promote it in a more circumspect way: through my blog, twitter, facebook etc. If nobody joins, then I guess I haven’t lost anything, as amazingly, Ning is free.

If you’d like to connect with other people who are engaged in making use of Web 2.0, Social Media and other web technologies, please visit OIUK and join in.

#Online Innovation UK

Sunday, 9 December, 2007

A thought…

…that’s occurred to me since being at Online Information last week.

People still seem to be under the impression that having a forum on a website, whether internal or external, means you have a community. You don’t. A community needs so much more than just that.

But it seems for a lot of people, the forum is the be-all and end-all of a conversational approach to the web. For those of us trying to be a little more ambitious, there is plenty of opportunity out there, I think.

#A thought…

Blogging in Plain English

Another super video explaining blogs – soon the Common Craft guys will have covered the whole of Web 2.0!

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI]

I wonder just how much paid work has come their way since they started doing these free tutorials? Quite a bit, I should imagine. A good example of giving a little away to reap considerably more in return.

#Blogging in Plain English

Thursday, 6 December, 2007

Monday, 3 December, 2007

Wednesday, 28 November, 2007

Tuesday, 27 November, 2007

links for 2007-11-27

#links for 2007-11-27

Monday, 26 November, 2007

ITunes aggravation

ITunesI’m not having a lot of luck, technology-wise, at the moment. After all my problems with FireFox, it’s now ITunes’ turn to start playing up. I thought it had been behaving itself for a while…

Anyway, last night I bought a songthrough the ITunes store, only my broadband connection dropped for some reason halfway through downloading. I made the mistake of quitting ITunes and turning the PC off in strop. Now, whenever I go into it, a dialogue box asks me for my Apple ID and password, presumably to allow me to finish downloading the song.

ITunes dialogue

Trouble is, the damn thing won’t let me type my password in, nor do anything else at all. It just sits there.

What am I meant to do? 🙁

#ITunes aggravation

Saturday, 24 November, 2007

Friday, 23 November, 2007

links for 2007-11-23

#links for 2007-11-23

Thursday, 22 November, 2007

Be More Productive with Web 2.0

Here’s a little presentation I have cobbled together to try and show what’s possible with a web browser these days. It certainly isn’t intended to be comprehensive, rather to give folk an idea of where they can go to start experimenting. Feel free to use it, edit it, do whatever you like with it.

[slideshare 175910 be-more-productive-with-web-2-1195739427150628-3]

#Be More Productive with Web 2.0

Firefox 3 Beta

Firefox

Have downloaded and am using the FireFox 3 beta, partly out of interest but also because of the many problems I have been  having with version 2 since I switched to Vista.

I’ve found myself having to reinstall FF on an almost daily basis, as it just won’t load otherwise. A real pain in the neck. Anyway, the new beta has already been slammed in TechCrunch, and I’m already annoyed because none of my extensions work with it – something I probably should have predicted. The big problem I currently have with it is the fact that I can’t download anything – it just doesn’t happen. I’m having to flick to IE everytime I need to download a file.

#Firefox 3 Beta

Google Maps API

Google Maps

I have had a really great idea for a little site that I think will be of use to quite a few people in the UK. Trouble is, it relies on using the Google Maps API, and I haven’t a clue how that works, despite my recent best efforts trawling through the documentation.

The basic idea is pretty simple: a homepage with a zoomable map of the UK on it , with markers on the map which when clicked display information about that location. I’d like eventually to be able to show people directions from their address to one or more of the markers too, but that can come later.

I’m guessing that, given there is plenty of information to be handled, a MySQL/PHP/Google Maps integration job might be on the cards. Again, beyond me at the moment, but I just need someone to point me in the right direction.

Can anyone help?

#Google Maps API