I'm stopping using this LJ as I've now moved to a new blogging system (which I'm also helping to write in the best practices of FLOSS) which will be found at http://alisonw.com/

Indeed it is likely to get updated *massively* more often.

You can add it to your LJ as a feed via http://syndicated.livejournal.com/alisonw_com/profile

... for a quick update. Recent events have included a really wonderful Night of the Senses last Friday, raising money for a great charity. I'd especially like to thank all those I 'found' along the way - and would love to meet again! please!

I've just watched a great speech by Vince Cable from Conference in Bournemouth. I still feel he was a missed opportunity for a great leader.

Have spent this afternoon revising my main website, bring a lot of the code up to date as it has been a-g-e-s since it was last updated. A little new stuff there already and more to come.

For those who missed the story about the EVE-Online meeting in Iceland that I attended a couple of weeks ago, here is the New York Times' take on it. written by Seth Schiesel, their reporter who came up to Iceland with us for the five days. As always, you can find other news about my EVE-online activities on my 'in-character' journal for Inanna Zuni.

Having noted the other day that the UK version of the Icelandair website didn't actually specify the weight and size limits on cabin baggage I've been doing some searching, and eventually found the details. My bag and contents would be fine *except* that this whole 'anti-terrorism' liquids thing has got really ridiculous.

I quote:
Each passenger is permitted to carry ONE item of cabin baggage through the airport security search point ... handbags may be carried within the single item of cabin baggage.

No liquids of any type are permitted through the airport security search point ...The definition of liquids includes gels, pastes, lotions, liquid/solid mixtures and the contents of pressurised containers, e.g. toothpaste, hair gel, drinks, soups, syrups, perfume, deodorant, shaving foam, aerosols, etc.

Other prohibited items:
* toiletries

You may purchase liquids, gels and pastes (i.e. toothpaste) and solid cosmetics (i.e lipstick) from shops and restaurants after airport security and take these onto the aircraft as long as they all fit into your ONE carry on hand baggage item.

Sheesh. No getting around that I will have to trust the baggage handlers at Heathrow then with my possessions, even though I could carry (well, pull along on wheels) everything instead and not have to wit around for the plane to be unloaded.

and easy money for BAA and the airport shops ...

----

Update: I'm now doing more searching and (and I really shouldn't be so surprised by this) I'm finding contradictory statements depending upon which page I look at and the route I took to that page. ;-0

So I've just finished my two sessions ... the "democracy in an online world" one had three guys cmoe along and generated some useful ideas which I will test over the next week. The "Motivation" one overflowed, with people having to sit on the floor, with a dozen people squashing in to room better suited for eight. I'm reasonably pleased how they went though clearly different to making the similar presentation on a panel or to a large conference.

Currently in a session about the MOO API.

ps. Sorry about the typo in the header of the previous post. I corrected it but it didn't get pickedup by the RSS feed consumers!

"`First, I would like to examine the voter turnout for the recently finished LJ advisory board elections. 35460 accounts cast votes in the Russian and English polls combined. At this current time, according to stats.bml, there are 1789025 active accounts, 956685 accounts that have been updated in the last 30 days, and 545102 accounts updated in the last 7 days. So out of all active accounts, only 1.98% voted; 3.71% or 6.51% voted out of the accounts updated in the last 30 or 7 days, respectively. I think the 7 days number is most interesting, because those are the users who used LiveJournal during the period when the polls were open. To look at this another way, 93.5% of the accounts that bothered to update didn't bother to vote."

Got very little (if any) sleep last night, so was reasonably on time getting into Capital today for barcamp in Leicester Square. Weirdly, just after I arrived, a member of the staff there walked over and said hi (later he mentioned that my name came up in conversation yesterday!)

Anyway, the Wifi has only just started working (over-engineered original solution, it appears) and I'm now sitting ion my second session of the afternoon. I've decided to offer two sessions which, for ease of giving, I've put consecutively on the timetable and in the same room.

More as it comes!

Yes, well. Sortof.

This weekend I'm heading to my old office (a co-incidence) for BarCampLondon4 (CamelCase ftw!) and had been worring about whether I could 'keep up' with the young 'uns who rattle around such unconferences. Talking isn't an issue (I do a lot of that as it is - I just signed up to geekspeakr too) though no idea yet what I'll talk about. Hopefully I'll get inspired while I'm there!

But, anyway ... it started me wondering about my footprint on the web and a quick check showed much of it is out of date. *Seriously* ood. So I've just wiped my main *(.com) website and put a holding'ish page there and will add the rest in the next week or two, then make a start revising the other sites.

In just under three weeks I'll be heading off to Iceland to meet with the developers at CCP, creators of the EVE-Online MMORPG. Earlier this month I was elected to the 'Council of Stellar Management' they have set up as a player-elected group to closely liase with the devs in creating new content - and sorting out the issues of the current stuff! Given there were 66 candidates from all over the world, I was rather chuffed indeed to be one of the nine elected, especially as unlike most of the other successful candidates I don't have a guaranteed body of supporters in being part of a large alliance or such.

So, there it is. A quick update here, a code tweak there, and here I go again ... ;-P

No, not the one by Shakespeare (even though learning to drive is clearly a labour of love) but one of the many losses of data on its citizens by the government of the United Kingdom.

I'm less worried by the (yet another) loss of data, but the fact that this time the loss occurred in the *USA*. What was it doing that side of the pond in the first place? The US has a lower quality of data protection law and, more to the point, did all those learner drivers give explicit permission for their information (name & address) to be sent out of this country? I hardly think so ...

I understand from commentary in the blogosphere that the England team played some sort of game of Football last night, and lost, removing them from entry to the "Euro 2008" competition.

Now I take precious little interest in Association Football (or American or Aussie rules football either, for that matter) but is it not the case that few of the leading clubs in the UK actually have many native-born players of calibre? I can see Arsenal's ground from my window, yet I believe nearly all of the cast of players are from foreign climes.

How can one expect a national group to perform well when they get little chance to play in the top echelons of their sport in the first place? Was this loss not just a sympton of the downgrading of the home-grown player?

So we hear that HMRC have lost the detailed records of twenty-five thousand million individuals. So far so bad.

But isn't the first real question Why was this information being sent on two CDs in the first place? At most that means data of some 1.4GB; hardly enough to break sweat on a secure internet connection, and the government has such a network in place. Why wasn't this safer - and much faster - method of data transfer utilised?

The second real question is if these CDs were sent by *internal post* what were they then doing in the normal public postal service?. Companies that I've worked for have sometimes had 'internal post' and it was transported around by company employees. That is, after all, what 'internal' means.

And finally, ID cards. Once upon a time it was stated that there would be a whole new database created especially for the purpose. More recently it was announced that instead of having 'clean and secure' data that instead the Government would re-purpose the existing data they hold. Now that detailed information has fallen out of their control on over one-third of the UK population how can we ever trust the information likely to be stored on an ID database? and the safety / security / privacy of that data?

And the answer to that is, of course, that we cannot.

I regularly have the question "How can we trust wikipedia when anyone can edit it? Shouldn't we bam it from our school / college / office / newsroom?" asked of me.

And my answer, every time, is a question: why do you trust *any* source of information? If you read a book, a newspaper article, a story on a website, hear something said to you by a friend or on a radio report, what makes it 'valid' to you, how do you choose to judge whether what you are reading or hearing is true, likely to be true, probably false, or even a definite lie.

We all make judgements about 'knowledge' every day. Sometimes we'll decide that "It is a nationally-known broadsheet newspaper" means we should implicitly just what is written there (though maybe not on April 1st; I still recall the island of Sans Seriffe!) or we'll recognise the particular author as someone who we've trusted in the past to get it right and we'll presume that they've got it right this time. Your friend may have 'been there and saw it themself' but you don't need me to remind you that from a different viewpoint the situation may have eben completely at odds with what your friend believed.

In every case - and that includes the content of Wikipedia - it is a matter of judgement and deciding for ourselves whether the sources quoted are resonable. Wikipedia, like every other encyclopedia or reference work, is a secondary source; it takes information from a multitude of authors to present to you a summary, an overview of a topic for the interested person. It isn't the primary source of that data, indeed polict prevents original research being added to Wikipedia articles.

But the reverse is also true; Wikipedia is the ultimate in the 'Peer review' that we all seek in official journals; scientific, medical, social, geographical. The 'peers' of Wikipedia may be you and me, but will almost certainly include researchers, lecturers, students, and many others closely interested or connected with the subject.

And isn't that really more important? Each of us have our individual interests that have grown with us, whether it be transport or technology, socrates or sociology, we should take comfort in being 'amateurs'. People who have an interest in the subject for its own sake, something that we research because we want to know more. Then we add some of these newly-learnt facts to Wikipedia so that others may benefit.

And benefit is what it is all about.

So yes, 'anyone' may edit Wikipedia. But that 'anyone' is more likely to be someone who knows and cares for the quality of that information rather than someone seeking to mislead you. With over two million articles in the English language, and over eight million over more than 250 languages, there are remarkably few serious errors or examples of long-lasting vandalism.

Wikipedia; you learn, you edit, you extend the gift of knowledge.

Here we go then ...

1. Get the .COM - if you can't because someone has it and you can't afford to buy it from them then be certain that they won't be a likely competitor down the line. Durex condoms aren't a competitor to Durex Bricks so customers won't get confused.

2. So if you've found a .COM you like you now *must* get the .NET, and ideally the .ORG too - for if you don't some phishfarm might. Domains are cheap, your reputation isn't.

3. Then think about where you are operating. You're "Web 2.0" right? So that means one domain is fine world-wide! Nope. You need to act globally, think locally (as the saying goes) so you'd better check you can get the .CO.UK, .DE, .FR, .ES. CZ, .CA and whatever other countries you want to expand to in the future. Again, they are cheap to buy now but what do you do if someone else buys the domain before you get there? You lose out, that's what.

4. So you've now got "One name to guide them and One name to be found by them and One name to rule them all". Maybe. Maybe not. How do you spell your wonderful new domain name? Is it, for instance, spelt the same in British English and American English? (that doubled your number of domains, didn't it!) How about localising it in languages? Might that be sensible too? Worth a euro, shekel or dinar or two?

5. Then there are your detractors. Safety first again and buy "domainsucks" in a few TLDs, just to protect yourself from your own success.

Now you're cooking ... ;-P

I've been busy doing that real "Web 2.0" thing of following links and reading a lot of stuff. Funny how once upon a time people were saying that the internet would be the death of reading - in fact I probably read more now than I ever did (and I read a lot to start with!)

Anyway, I just came across this link - http://www.genderchangers.org/links.html - which links to a load of women in technology and geekness sites.

Good info there, courtesy of Women 2.0 in the Bay area ;-P

So the start of next month brings what might be the biggest networking party to hit London in a long time, organised by Chinwag at my old college, indeed it looks like I'll be able to see my old room in the distance!
Chinwag's Big Summer '07 Networking party - 5th July 2007 @ Imperial College, London

Seems quite a few people i know are going to be there and, thanks to the sponsors, I'd better support public transport and not drive there ;-P

Come by and say hello to me if you are going - I always enjoy meeting new people!

and while I am at the link thing ...
Support the Open Rights Group

If you support open standards then please go and vote to ask ISO to vote "NO" in the ballot of ISO DIS 29500 (Open OfficeXML or OOXML format). Given that there is already a standard ISO26300 - Open Document Format (ODF) - a dual 'standard' would add to costs, leading to uncertainty and confusion to industry and government, plus the proposed standard doesn't fully work anyway! Add to that it will conflict with existing standards such as ISO 8601 (Representation of dates and times), ISO 639 (Codes for the Representation of Names and Languages) and ISO/IEC 10118-3 (cryptographic hash) then adding OOXML (which doesn't fully validate as XMl!) would be a seriously bad idea. Go and vote now!

So earlier this week I spoke at the "Web 2.0" event at the Dana Centre / Science Museum, and although it was imho far to rushed with each group so that one couldn't really get 'into' the subject much, it has sparked a number of thoughts and is making me review what I could or couldn't do.

Add to that, this morning's email brought a request via one of these network things (LinkedIn in this case) from someone who was at that event, which starts "{name} has indicated you are a Friend". Now I've no idea which of the hundred-plus people this actually was, and they certainly aren't what I'd normally term "a friend". This particular service offers far more options in the 'naming' of a connection:

How do you know {name}?
O Colleague
O Classmate
O Business Partner (We’ve done business together)
O Friend
O Other
O I don’t know {name}

so clearly "other" would have been fine. But instead I have to consider whether I accept what is currently offered and what "friend" means in this online space we now inhabit. As it happens they are already in my 'network' as a contact of a contact but ...

The question is, what 'value' does one place on a connection made and displayed on a "social networking" website?

In the case of livejournal my answer is very clear; I "friend" someone whom I have either met in person or enjoy reading *and* whom I trust sufficiently to not abuse their ability to read my postings. Some people that would meet both these criteria don't actually get 'friended' for other reasons, and similarly a few do for other complex personal reasons. But it has become a "controlled" process so far in the five years since I started an LJ and I now use that site to pretty much organise my social life and keep in touch with far-flung friends.

But the other sites? Clearly some of them - the MySpaces of this online world - aim for quantity over quality; maxing out your number of 'friends' seems to be the raison d'être of these services. Should I therefore accept every request to 'link' that comes my way? Indeed, is there a "right" and a "wrong" way to approach membership of a networking site?

Then there is the question about names. In a post a few days ago I was outlining this issue. Whilst I have no major issues with anyone knowing my sexuality, my 'outside interests', where I live, how I live, who I know, what books I read, or what events I'm planning to go to, is it right or, indeed, sensible that I make that information explicitly public? Companies already check possible employees on FriendsReunited and other services but do I want a new employer to know everything about me before they interview me, or should I filter it first in some way?

One of the comments I made at the event on Wednesday night was that the government could save billions of pounds on developing its ID card system by just linking into the social networking sites. People declare everything about themselves seemingly without a care or second thought; they tells things to the world via the computer screen that they wouldn't tell their grandparent, parent or child face to face. When was the last time anyone here told their 'real life' next door neighbour what they had for dinner? or how they were feeling? or who they copped off with last night? but the online world appears to some to be, somehow, a 'safer' one even though everything we do here is recorded and retrievable. What is "real life" anyway?

So those sites ... where do I stand on them? Do I use my 'real name' - and what does that mean anyway when so many people refer to me as "alison urbangeekgirl" anyway? Are online handles the new surnames? or do I use one of my many pseudonyms. Do I restrict the connections made online in some way or not? Do I have different reactions to the different networks? Is there, indeed, one network to rule them all?

Here goes then. If you are someone who 'adds' people feel free to add me on any of these services and I'll probably do the vice-versa thing (though no guarantees!) so long as you let me know why you are 'adding' me.

Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/user/27680/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=610909609
Tribe: http://people.tribe.net/alisonw
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/people/alisonwheeler/
SecondLife: Alison Wheels

I don't promise to keep them all updated, some almost definitely not, but you never know ;-P

Tomorrow night I shall be talking with a sell-out crowd at an event in central London about the Web. Hopefully it should be great fun, however I wondered about the others on the panel and went in search of more information about each of them.

So I'm tracking down more information and fall into that bane of social networking sites - you can't remember what name/s you created on which sites, and forget about remembering the damn passwords!

Upcoming, though, I know I've created ages ago, but now that it is taken over by Yahoo? (sorry "Yahoo!") well, the usual attempts failed and eventually I had to turn on an old machine to look in the password cache of Firefox there to find the username and password. Success!

Thing was, after signing in on that machine and confirming the details I suddenly found that the *other* machine I was already on (ie the one I was using when I couldn't recall the user name) was suddenly logged in too!

Dangerous assumptions there!

So in addition to playing with a new CMS system for a new domain (instead of my usual habit of the last twelve years of 'rolling my own') I've also been looking at development IDEs.

So far I've installed eclipse and komodo edit to see what they each offer. In the past I haven't used an IDE, preferring instead to use a straight-forward text editor (UltraEdit having been my editor of choice for ever so many years!) for my html and php development, but with the increasing use of AJAX and other "Web 2.0" technologies it might just be the time to reconsider that approach.

Talking of the "Web 2.0" (which, imho, well deserves the scare quotes!) I'll be part of a panel discussing the subject later this week at the Dana Centre in London - part of the Science Museum - and given that much of that "2.0" is hype it will be interesting to discuss the issues with the other panellists!

There is an internet-only disease which I find I get an attack of each year around this time. "Domains Disease" is when a few of your domains approach their registration expiry date and in sorting out their renewals you start thinking of possible 'new' domain names.

So you start attacking WHOIS with a vengeance, and find some new names you think you like. But you realise you don't use half the ones you already own (even though you have just renewed them for another year 'because') but still you start searching for that 'great' name.

And instead of just renewing the few you started with you add more than a few more.

My name is UrbanGeekGirl and I am a compulsive domain buyer. Help!

When cable tv was first installed in my home - something around 15 years ago - there were only eight channels provided, one of which was Sky One. My contract then was with "Cable Camden" and since then the bills have been paid to "Cable London", "Telewest", "ntl:Telewest" and now "Virgin Media", though I don't recall ever signing a new agreement with any of those.

So far as I am concerned Sky One is, has, and always will be part of the service I expect and was the prime reason I took cable tv in the first place. The fact that the Murdoch empore wants to almost double the cost to the remaining cable carrier is clearly unreasonable. Virgin Media's spokespeople have said they are happy to pay some increase, even to go to binding independent arbitration, but BSkyB are refusing to budge.

This is basically about commercial muscle. There are now just the two non-terrestrial service suppliers, and they are each looking at their long-term business plans and whether they can increase their margins and reduce their churn.

I have cable here in part because I can't install a dish due to Council regulations, and in part because it is, frankly, a better signal. I won't seek to change to a dish should the cmopanies fail to reach an agreement in the next forty minutes.

I might, though, note that most of the channels I do actually watch when I look at 'live' television are available on the 'Freeview' platform, and that the few programmes I'm interested in which aren't can be easily downloaded as "Torrents".

The only losers here will be Virgin and BSkyB. Viewers realised they have other choices ...