Lots of cool (but scarily tiny) solar powered cars. A surprisingly huge turnout - crowd was huge! And some irony thrown in for good measure. They lit the Olympic torch for the duration, burning more fuel than was consumed by all cars for the entire duration of the 2000-mile race. And a local shopping centre showed up with their Hummer2, to, well, be cool n stuff. Bling. And use more fuel than the entire race consumed (if you don’t count the fleet of supporting vehicles…)
The Pachyderm programming team is starting an experiment in live, online feedback for Beta3.
If you’re working on authoring a presentation in Pachyderm 2.0 Beta 3, it might be a good idea to keep this AIM chat group (pachydermbeta3) open so we can send notices/warnings about changes to the beta. I’ll try to keep the chat group open when I’m available.
Note that this is not a “live technical support hotline”, nor is it a “help me create my presentation hotline” - it’s a place where we can warn you before we make drastic changes to the beta application - so you can tell us to hold off for a bit if you’re in the middle of something.
I’m plugging away at authoring the Mavericks online exhibit, using the current Beta3 snapshot of Pachyderm 2.0. The content is basically all prewritten, and structured into screens with links to assets etc… So the hard part has been done long before the content gets to me to implement.
The basic workflow we’re going with right now is:
Exbibit is broken down into sections by Glenbow
Sections are laid out on paper, to set up screen structure, linking, assets, etc… (ballpark 150 screens per section)
Supporting content is written for use in appropriate screens.
Assets and metadata are exported from ContentDM by Glenbow
Assets and metadata are imported into Pachyderm via a custom back-end app
Sections are divided between implementing authors (primarily Shawn so far, but I’m taking more sections now that Beta3 is out the door)
Screens for each section are entered into Pachyderm, and any deficiencies are identified (missing content, missing assets, missing metadata)
Screens within each section are linked up, and a test publish is conducted
Published section is reviewed, section is modified as needed
Sections are stitched together into a single überpresentation (ballpark 1000+ screens?)
I’m currently getting around 45 screens per hour in straight data-entry authoring mode. So, it should take me in the ballpark of 3 hours to do the basic implementation authoring for a new section of about 150 screens.
Popularity Contest Plugin by Alex King is like a stats plugin on steroids. Not the cheap horse steroids, but some kind of high-end East European Gymnast steroids.
It breaks down all posts/categories/dates/comments/trackbacks on your entire WP blog, and ranks them relative to each other. Handy for telling at a glance where the most “interesting” (at least to everyone but yourself - you likely know the stuff that interests yourself already) stuff at a glance.
I’ve been subscribing to Scoble’s feed since shortly before NorthernVoice2005. He’s been an interesting source of info and opinion, but he’s also afflicted with a strong case of braggadocio regarding “secrets” that he’s privy to [1, 2, 3]. That pisses me off. If you know a “secret”, even just acknowledging that there is a secret is betraying that trust. Like it or not, Robert, when you signed on with MS, that was part of the deal. And you re-up every time you cash a cheque from Redmond.
The owners ratified the agreement today (after the NHLPA already ratified it), meaning hockey’s BACK! I suggested that the Learning Commons needs a superbox at the Saddledome. Nobody else thought we could sneak that into the budget.
Loving the new rules for the NHL. Should make for a much faster game! And shootouts to break ties? Awesome.
TSN.ca - NHL - Canada’s Sports Leader
One primary objective of the new rules will be to reduce the scope of defensive “tools” a team may effectively employ, and to create a corresponding benefit to the offensive part of the game – thus allowing skill players to use their skills and increasing the number and quality of scoring chances.
I’ve been a relatively hardcore .Mac user since the day it was announced (as the free iTools service, several years ago). I stuck with it when it switched from free to a paid subscription. It had enough handy stuff that I could totally justify the approximately $160 CDN per year.
But, I find I’m not using any of the .Mac services now, except for iSync. My dad uses a .Mac email address that I renew for him every year (he started with a free account, too, and was caught when it switched to a payment model).
We finally pushed the next beta of the Pachyderm online/interactive presentation authoring app out the door today. It’s got quite a few fixes in the queue, but it’s definitely usable. The beta cycle should be interesting - roughly 200 people hammering on an app that we’re trying to finish/fix while they’re using it. That’s likely going to be a separate series of blog entries…
In the meantime, we’ve got the major wrinkles ironed out (at least to the casual observer’s point of view), and it works as advertised. It could stand some optimization (particularly in the presentation publishing code, which doesn’t do much caching at the moment), but it’s definitely working. The hardest part for us has been deciding when/where to draw the line on what “gets done” before we call it 2.0 - it’s so tempting to just keep going, especially since we all have some pretty cool ideas (and there is no lack of code that needs refactoring/cleaning up).
I spent the morning off campus (well, at another non-university-of-calgary campus) working in a place that actually made me appreciate the openness of the U of C networks.
I was installing a web application on a new server for them - something that usually requires a network connection (both to download the bits to install, and to let people use the thing after it lights up). The server was behind a scary virtual lan setup, and couldn’t see anything outside of its own hub. No internet. No WAN. Nothing. And, nobody can see the server. You have to physically go to the server room, and plug into the same hub as the server in order to see it.
I’ve had to use a MacOSX 10.3 laptop for a little while this week, to get it set up to run as a temporary CAREO server. What struck me is that while I was using the laptop, just how much I missed Dashboard and Spotlight. If you’d have asked me, I would have said I didn’t use them much, nor did I care that much about them.
But, take them away, and boy do I notice. I kept hitting command+space to find apps and files, but nothing happened. F12 didn’t do anything. Frustrating :-)
A while back, I was interviewed by FastForward Magazine (a Calgary weekly mag) about podcasting. I missed the issue when it hit the stands (something about being out of town or something…) but it’s in their online archives. They don’t include the somewhat dorky photo of myself and a very artistically sketched iPod in the online version though. Might have to find a dead-trees version and scan that in…
FFWD Weekly - June 16, 2005: Podcasting changes the future of broadcasting
From sports commentary to pub conversation, sharing information takes a new form. Once in awhile a technology comes along that is so simple, so accessible and so perfect that it has the potential to change the way certain activities in society are carried out. Podcasting, according to those who use it, is just such a breakthrough.
The Battlestar Galactica Podcast commentary for episode 1 of season 2 just showed up in my iTunes podcast subscriptions! Great to see executive producer Ronald Moore keeping up the podcasts for the next season.
Must… resist… urge to listen… before watching episode…
Can’t wait to watch the season opener!
Update: That was one kick-ass season opener! So, what happened with Tighe and Adama to get them booted out of the fleet years ago? Hmmm….
