The 2008/366photos project just hit the 1/4 mark. Just over 91 days in. I've been surprised at the number of edu-folk that decided to try the photo-a-day challenge this year. It's fun, interesting, frustrating, challenging, and sometimes really difficult trying to come up with at least one photograph every day that doesn't suck (or, hopefully, is interesting and/or good).

So now, we've got 40 people in the 366photos group. Currently there are over 1800 photos in the pool. There are likely many photos that are part of the project that aren't included in the pool (for myself, several are marked as "friends and family" only, because they are photos of my son and/or his cousins).

I'm firmly in the @injenuity "The Network is People" camp. And I freaking LOVE my network.

I've been experiencing an annoying glitch on my MacBook Pro since upgrading to MacOSX 10.5 - nothing serious, but occasionally it'd bug me. What happened was, if I opened a Finder window to /Users - it would show every user's home directory except mine. I mean, I know it's there, because all of my files are there. And if I used Terminal or remote SSH login, the directory was certainly there, as were all of my files. If I used Finder's Go to Folder command (Command + Shift + G) I could enter "/Users/dnorman" and all was well.

I think I'm going to like the new media management and gallery system... Multiple file uploads, automatic image resizing (although it looks like my server doesn't have enough RAM to crunch 8MP photos?) and embeddable galleries? Nice. Wonder if it works...

[gallery]

Yeah. GD or ImageMagick or whatever is used on the server to resize completely barfed on the original 8MP photos I tried to insert - they weren't resized, so the full photos were embedded on the page. I'll have to see if there's a workaround, or just use smaller source images...

WordPress 2.5 went gold this morning, and I figured I'd go ahead and upgrade my blogs.

The very first thing I did was back. everything. up. Files, data, configuration. I used rsync to send everything to my desktop box on campus, where it will be further automatically backed up by Time Machine to an external drive. You can never have too many backups. Not that anything ever goes wrong...

Then, I upgraded the relatively simple mindfulseeing.com photoblog - no problems at all. WP 2.5 seemed happy on my server, and there weren't any issues with the upgrade process. Now to try it on my main blog...

I am by no means an expert, but have been commuting by bike for awhile now. I've learned some tricks that might come in handy for others who are starting (or thinking of starting) to commute by bike.

1. Start slow. Don't rush it when you first start out. Take your time. Pick a day or week where it won't matter too much if you're a bit late, or if you get delayed a bit. Initially, you'll need some time to figure out the route and get used to the routine. Starting slow lets you get into the groove without trying to push yourself too hard.
2. Plan your route. I poured over the Calgary bike route map to find my route. I fired up Google Earth to plot it out, and check elevations - you'll want to avoid hills as much as possible, especially as you get started. Don't plan your route as a car driver - think about parks, pathways, and other places that are accessible to bikes but not cars. Also, think about places you'll want to ride through on the way. I've added about 3km to my regular ride because it takes me through quieter residential streets, and along a beautiful valley pathway instead of along a busy and stinky street. Worth it.
3. Prepare your bike. If it's a new bike, make sure you've got the essentials - lights (headlight, tail light), reflectors, fenders, rear rack, paniers. If it's an old bike, make sure everything's in working order. I added a barebones speedometer, and find the odometer is a great motivating tool - knowing how many km I've gone in a trip, and how many in a year - really helps keep me moving forward.
4. Maintain your bike. Pick up some oil, and keep the bike lubricated. Keep the bike clean - road grime is evil, evil stuff. This is even more important in colder climates where the salty slush gets on everything and rusts the bike out. Keeping it clean and dry prevents that a bit. Keeping things lubed prevents some of the rust and wear on moving parts. Make sure bolts are tight, and that the quick-release on the wheels hasn't slipped (I've had both front and rear wheels pop off on my old bike because I forgot to check them periodically).
5. Dress for the ride. I'm currently carrying 3 jackets - usually one or two on me, the rest in my panier. I wear a cotton hoodie if it's cold, and if it's REALLY cold I wear a MEC windproof shell on top of that. If things warm up a bit, I've got a lighter hoodie I can switch to. Layers are helpful - especially once you start to warm up after a couple of km into the ride.
6. Ditch the toe baskets. My Kona bike came with these silly little baskets on the pedals. At first, I thought I liked them because it was kinda like the toe clips, without the expensive shoes. But they're really, really annoying. Imagine riding on snow or ice, with your toe out of the basket, and the basket itself dragging in the snow beneath you. One of mine actually got ripped off the pedal as I rode through some deeper snow (I pull my feet out of the baskets in case I go down in snow and ice, which meant for most of the winter the baskets were just annoying). Toe clips are a different story - they're unobtrusive, and can actually help you pedal by letting you pull up in addition to pushing down. I don't use toe clips though...
7. I don't ride with a backpack or a messenger bag. Everything goes into one of my paniers (2 15 year old MEC paniers). In the right one, I put my "big boy clothes" to change into when I get to work. My iPod gets folded into my pants there, and my camera gets stowed on top of my clothes. My left panier is for my jackets, shoes, and my lunch. Using the paniers means I don't have to worry about the backpack-sweat-puddles, but it also means I don't lug my laptop to and from work. I leave the laptop at home, and use a desktop at work. I have my iPod Touch for everywhere in between. My paniers are old enough that the water resistant coating is long gone. So I use kitchen garbage bags to line the inside, keeping everything nice and dry even in very wet weather.
8. Ride safe. This should be #1, but you get the idea. Don't be in such a rush that you are tempted to do stupid things like cut across traffic. Obey stop signs and traffic signals. Take the lane wherever possible. If you don't ride safe, you'll eventually regret it. Even if you are unscathed, you're making things worse for bikers overall by riding like a jackass. Car drivers already hate us, and they don't need more reasons to try to mow us down.
9. Plan for the weather. If it's REALLY cold (-15ËšC or colder), I wear my insulated hiking boots and 2 pairs of socks. If it's just a bit chilly (0ËšC - -15ËšC) I just wear 2 pairs of socks and a pair of light Solomon shoes (which are really nicely ventilated). If it's below 0ËšC, I wear my thick hoodie and my MEC windproof shell to keep warm (and they do keep me VERY warm). Above zero, and it's fine with just a single pair of socks and the hoodie. Above +5ËšC and I switch to the light hoodie. I also have waterproof rainpants, but don't pack them unless the forecast suggests it will rain while I ride. If it's colder than -5ËšC, I just wear my MEC pants. Warmer, and I try to switch to shorts.
10. Have fun! If it's not fun, why are you doing it? Biking can be a total blast, if you do it safely. Being able to whip down a hill at over 50km/h is a rush that is hard to beat. Being able to out-accelerate a car at a green light is just plain fun. Riding along a river, hearing the birds and sounds of nature...

    Update: thought of a few more tips:

11. Plan a cool-off period after you get to the destination. If you have a 9am meeting, plan to get there at least half an hour early so you have a chance to cool down and get cleaned up and changed first.
12. Gloves. I always wear gloves. If it's cool out, I wear a pair of thin(ish) leather work gloves. They cut the wind right out, and my hands stay warm. If it's downright COLD, I wear a pair of insulated gloves (the ones I wear skiing etc...). If it's warmer, I wear a pair of meshback fingerless riding gloves. I wear gloves partially in case I wipe out - grinding my palms into gravel isn't something I'd look forward to, so a bit of protection is a good thing.
13. This one's a bit morbid - but I always have ID on me, not just in my panier. My wallet is always in my pocket. If I wipe out, and for some reason can't communicate, it's important that my identification is readily available. Haven't needed it yet, but the last thing I want is to wind up in a hospital (or worse) unidentified. It's not a fear of getting hurt while riding - I have ID on me all the time. Hmmm... This is a pretty dark revelation...
14. Keep a spare pair of shoes at work if possible. Eventually, you're going to get soaked while riding. If you don't have clean/dry shoes to change into, you're going to make that squish-squish sound when you walk into the Big Staff Meeting...
15. Carry a cloth to wipe sweat off with. It sounds nasty, but riding can be sweaty business. Having a cloth to sop it up with means you're more comfortable.
16. Get a decent helmet. I had been using a crappy old Bell V1 black bucket, like the one that saved my life about 15 years ago. I decided to replace it, and got an inexpensive Nakamura (maybe $35 at Sport Chek) - it fits so much better, is maybe half the weight, is adjustable, and has much better ventilation. The better fit means that if I go down, it will stay in place - which is the whole point of a helmet.

I found a link to Nexus in my reader this morning thanks to a post from Information Aesthetics, and decided to check it out. It's an app for Facebook that graphs out a member's network, indicating connections and clusters. Here's my network:

Moving the mouse over any dot within the Nexus app highlights that person, and their connections. It's pretty easy to see things like the University of Calgary folks (the lines of dots in the middle), the Northern Voice folks (on the left side, mostly), family members and old high school friends (the unconnected mini-networks outside the main circle).

I'm going to be showing some videos to faculty members who have participated in our Inquiry Through Blended Learning program. I get 20-30 minutes, during a wrap-up lunch on Friday. But I'm stumped. I could easily just show a TED talk (or two, if edited for time) but... what you YOU show, considering the audience is made up of faculty members from a wide range of disciplines, but are brought together by a common interest in inquiry and blended learning?

Focal length is the factor determining how much "zoom" you get when taking a photo. Larger numbers mean longer lenses, meaning closer zoom. But, if you have a couple of lenses, it's sometimes hard (at least initially) to figure out which lens to use for which shot. With a point-and-shoot, it's easy, because there's only one lens, and it's built in. The only control you have is over the level of zoom. With a DSLR, you can swap the lenses out, which gives a great deal of flexibility, but means you need to put some thought into what range of focal lengths you want to have handy.

This evening, while riding home from work, I was involved in my first ever bike vs. car door incident. As I was approaching a red light, a driver decided it would be a great idea to open his door without looking. I had maybe 1 second to react, swerved left, and was thrown from my bike as it bounced off another car. If I hadn't been able to react quickly enough, I would have crashed square into his open door at about 20km/h. I pictured myself being thrown onto the trunk of the taxi cab in the next lane, and was trying to pick my spot on the trunk to minimize damage to me. Thankfully, I was somehow able to stop before hitting the cab (have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE disk brakes?) and wound up just being thrown to the ground as I hit the cab. Thankfully all traffic was stopped, because it was at a red light. Who opens their door at a red light?

Just a quick post to say, once again, how much I fracking LOVE Aperture. I shot some sunlight poking through the clouds, in what was an amazing and inspiring scene. But when looking at the RAW files, they looked a bit flat. Dull colours, no "pop" and not at all what I remembered. Less than one minute later, and Aperture 2 let me tweak it very easily to match almost exactly what I remember seeing. Below is the before and after versions of the photo:

I just got this spam on my blog - it got through Akismet, as so many spams do lately, but it's worth posting (at least in image form so the spammer doesn't get any juice from it):

And, yeah. I hit the "Spam" button to file this in /dev/null even if the guy was honest(ish). I'm assuming he just ripped the text out of Wikipedia or something, and used it without proper linktribution...

I've been looking for a way to export a Moodle course in a format that can be ingested in another standards-compliant LMS. The obvious choices are SCORM or IMS-CP.

But, neither are supported as export formats from Moodle. Moodle happily ingests those formats, acting to absorb content into what then becomes an inescapable pit of quicksand. It's a one-way trip. Content can check in, but it can never leave.