1. Windows Home Server from Tranquil PC

After much procrastination, I’ve decided to buy something that’s already built. And isn’t going to require lots of coal to be burnt to keep the thing going.

2. Meraki Standard Mesh

All the cool kids were doing it, honest! Attempting to wire up Liam whilst he is at school. The antenna purchased in Fry’s has helped out within the house, but doesn’t beam far enough.

3. A surprise that should be arriving tomorrow.

Minutes before leaving the house, I had downloaded and installed the Windows Live client for Windows Mobile into my Treo, and had yet to log in to the service.

Over dinner, when the conversation turned to something where I could merely “nod”, I un-pocketed by Treo 750 and signed in.

Appearing on my “Today” screen was my Windows Live login details:
Ooh, Messenger sign in. Tap here to sign in, let’s sign in and see who is online.
I nod politely
At 6:10pm on a Friday, Sydney time only my European friends tend to be online. In this instance, Paul Foster fellow enthusiast from the UK is online, so I start up a quick chat. The Contacts are exactly the same as your desktop and web list. No matter where I am, with my trusty Treo I can chat with them.
Yes, in our chat we refer to each other as “dude” as it sounds cool. Notice the little “Voice clip” option at the bottom left? By clicking on this, I was able to send a quick “G’day” to Paul.
A voice clip? Yes, just like the desktop version of Windows Live Messenger on your PC.

I demonstrated this to my parents-in-law to show them I was a worthy husband for their daughter. Thankfully, they were impressed.

Oh, and thanks to Paul Foster for his assistance.

Hmmm, 45 minutes on Vista. I think I am going to show some interesting things in Windows Vista plus do some vox-pop on Seniors. See if a few memes actually apply. Also spruik for speaking and video experiences around Australia. Large WA contigent here. Future WebJammers?

Whilst I am not sponsored by Telstra NextG, I am starting to find out how excellent it is to present with an internet connection — no matter where you find yourself.

Nan Bosler, OAM: Statistic: Seniors spend 42 hours per month on the internet.  Generation-Y, 37 hours. Use: Email, lookup product information, exchange photos. Security is important as threats from viruses. Concerned about consumer protection, and threats to grandchildren.  The Hon Kristina Keneally MP is stealing my stories and jokes!

Ultimately, it was great to speak with 120 people, all taking a day to hear and learn about technology.

Links from my talk:

Talk to your kids, in the next room with Live Messenger.

Family.Show (genealogy)

Live Spaces (make your own blog)

Windows Live Writer (easy to use tool to create blog entries, and post photos)

NEW!! Microsoft Vista Upgrade Advisor (To check your PCs to see which version of Vista will work on them)

Whilst driving from Perth airport to the Hotel on Sunday, I determined that I haven’t been in Perth since late 2005. Nearly 2 years. Perth is greener now.

My first visit to Perth was in 1993. I think I’ve been here at least 27 times through my last 4 employers.

The Duxton Hotel’s high-speed internet access is wireless only, and keeps dropping VPN connections to work. As a video-blogger, I am constantly moving around multiple-hundred of Mb files around the world, and the lack of network stability is frustrating.

This danah boyd video is killing me. Note to self: choose a different hotel. And one that doesn’t think I am a Ms.

I’ve already captured two videos: one with Gary Barber and one with Stephen Price.

Stephen is the cartoonist who created my new avatar, and Gary is the geek-father of Perth.

My discussions with Gary revolved around “why Perth?”. Is it the tyranny of distance that forces Perth people together; which is like Australia. Why then do humans seek like minded people out and see a need to get together in meatspace? There is no doubt that Perth people have this innate drive to help each other in a way that you do not see in other cities. Maybe Melbourne at little. Adelaide should learn from Perth.

By strange coincidence, I ran into Nick Randolph and Brian H Madsen (and a bunch of .Net dudes) at the centre of Perth Silicon area, Tiger Tiger. Thankfully, they didn’t ask me some obscure .Net technical question. If they had, I’d probably called Joel Pobar.

On the return walk to the hotel, Stephen lead me astray into the Hay Street Border’s Bookstore. Yes, my book collection +1. And friendly staff. The geek-girl behind the counter loved my “geek” t-shirt. rscpt.

Tomorrow is more than another Wednesday for Perth: its WebJam day. Lachlan Hardy and Lisa Herrod land to get the Perth experience. I hope that WebJam is a two-way experience for all conference people in Australia, especially in the online space.

Thanks to Mr Podcast, Leslie Nassar, there is a permanent record of the panel. More “represent” than “present”. I hope I assisted people in thinking.

http://tinyurl.com/2dfc3d

New Microsoft hire (starting in September), Scott Hanselman, is also getting into the Ruby-way.

Also, Miguel de Icaza gives a big tick to the project.

John Lam gives an update on IronRuby. The first drop is available now. LOLCODE, Ruby, Python. A difficult choice!

Want to step out with Silverlight in Brisbane? Pop me an email and I’ll connect you up.

AMD Dual Core (2007) vs. Mac Plus (1986). Interesting comments on “large software” — as I actually remember using Mac Plus’s for hard work (word processing, spreadsheets) and System6.0.8; I should write up what the Mac could not do in 1986. Meh.  The Mac was only throwing around 22K of graphics (512 x 384 pixels / 8 bits as the Mac was only B&W) ; Word didn’t even repaginate in the background. This Mac could not have TCP/IP’d as there wasn’t enough memory on the logic board (1Mb hardwired, no upgrades) or speed in the SCC (serial controller for the RS423 on the Macs).  An interesting read to see how far we’ve come.

Photo: delic8genius

Just before I depart for a holiday, I’ve pumped out three videos

1. Interviewing ReMIX attendees on WebJam
2. My Microsoft Popfly presentation
3. The Geek Stories, ReMIX

In the UK, being a trainspotter or anorak is definitely pejorative for those outside the craze.  Duncan Riley uses the marketing term Prosumer (professional consumer).

If anyone comes up to me and calls me a Geek, I am proud. Having spent the last year breaking off the shackles of “sales and marketing droid”, being a geek is refreshing. And having successfully passed on my geek genes to Liam — I am even prouder.

Self-proclaiming myself as a geek with the title Professional Geek still gets sideways glances — even at Microsoft — which has spent the last many years successfully becoming the enterprise software company. Thankfully, Microsoft’s heart still beats with a geek tune.

So what is the size of the geek virtual nation? This is a nation not divided by 19thC limits of Empire; nor separated by age, gender, language. A geek has a understanding over the last 250 years, technology has propelled humans at a rapid rate. The information age we live in may be seen as a different time to the industrial age — who can predict future historian’s categorizations?

There are two recent measurements of the size of the geek virtual nation as it exists today:

• Apple PR: Downloads of Apple’s Safari 3 beta for Windows 2000, XP and Vista: 1,000,000
  Who else apart from geeks, independent of platform religion, would download a beta of yet another browser?
• Piper Jaffray estimates 500,000 iPhones sold on the weekend.
  Most estimates put the US at 50% of the world’s IT economy. 2 x 500,000 = 1,000,000

Whilst both numbers are Apple-centric, it is still an interesting number to ponder. How many borderless, hyper-online geeks are there in the world?

Emailing Bruce last night, apart from complementing me on my sharp eyes and good memory — he also broke the news that Alive’s Web Developer, Tim Hilliard, is wearing the monitor for the running of the bulls in Pamplona in a couple of weeks.

Alive  have made a very crude map of the bull run route using Windows Live maps.

Map view

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=42.81795~-1.642793&style=r&lvl=17&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=11721060&&cid=62DC070579519371!130&encType=1

Birdseye view

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=r42pyngvwrkz&style=o&lvl=1&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=11721060&&cid=62DC070579519371!130&encType=1

Youtube video of the run in 2006

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTHHgxFOD_g

I hope this doesn’t end in tears.

Stephen let me use the following cartoon in my Popfly session:

Cut to midday Monday. I draw his name out of a hat as a winner of a WACOM Bamboo tablet. Steve was over the moon: although he wasn’t quite sure if it would help or hinder his cartooning. http://littlevoices.com/photos/scribbles/images/42/original.aspx:

Later on Monday night, as I left WebJam, Stephen was still going shooting aliens in some game at Galactic Circus. 

QuT has a Bachelor of Gaming and Entertainment. Coolness does not begin to explain this course. More than C++, it is also about the social aspects, history, design — the whole works.

Dr Ross Brown and Penny Drennan are really cool: passionate about their areas of expertise (and geeks from deep in their lives) — and pass on this to the next generation of games designers.

May25th is Towel Day. A tribute to the great Douglas Adams. Or maybe just the joy that towels bring us.

Pictures from 2005 are here, and in 2006 someone panic’d and forgot to promote the 25th of May. Or the 25th of May didn’t exist last year. Ah, no. Just moved the images to Flickr: towelday

I’ll be taking a towel to work tomorrow.

JohnG, the nicest man on the planet, willing let me into his house to film another episode of The Geek Stories. Mayling filmed a behind the scenes show… which will be interesting to see, too. Server racks and a compactus in the games room. Now that’s impressive!

So, do you have Australia’s geekiest house?

So, if I ask you a question: please treat me kindly as I am a mere Sharepoint user, no expert.

Live in Melbourne?

Do you have your own Geek Story?

Are you free in the morning of Thursday 17th May?

Want to be as famous as Leslie Nassar?

Email me with your story

The initial years of large company sponsored video-on-the web (think soapflakes sponsors in the 1950s) was followed by soap operas on YouTube (think LonelyGirl15) to reality TV of Justin.tv (think Survivor, without the dramatic editing)

Insert 3D worlds of WoW, SecondLife and the like — we are seeing Snow Crash and True Names appear before our eyes.

How long before thegeekstories.com is a live-to-web experience?

Yesterday I managed to sneak into the ABC and grab this interview with Leslie Nassar. Liam and I met Leslie at BarCampSydney, and his style intruiged me greatly. Rather than subscribing to his newsletter, I decided to make him famous on10.net.

6 Tb of audio data + 300,000 listeners to ABC Radio National is nothing to sneeze at. Especially when you are doing the bandwidth accounting!

After the success of our holiday to Japan in 2005, and after the accumulation of lots of Qantas Frequent Flyer points, its time to return to Japan. Work holiday, flights, hotels, Shinkansen, JR, Cat sitters, Passports. It’s all happening in July.

This time around, we are adding Kyoto, Hiroshima and Osaka into our Japan experience.

I hope to film at least 2 “The Geek Stories” and be a little more online this trip to get the experience “out there”. First step: Local Live Map

I loved doing this interview: two rock stars in the same room! Thanks to Joel Pobar and John Gough for their time last month.

John Gough is a world-respected expert on Compilers — a sorcerer if you will; and Joel Pobar is one of his “apprentices” who went on to work on the .NET team in Redmond.

http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=299901

If you are into computing history, compilers, multiple processors and other deep technical things: you’ll love this interview.

If you have geek that have a story that needs to be told: I’m there. Any suggestions? All I need is an email!