Walking down the street in a leafy suburb of a town in northern England I stumble across a large bunch of keys on the street. I don't know whose keys they are as there is no handy name tag or address but there is clearly a chance that they will open the lock of one of the doors in one of the houses on this street.
I can't resist the temptation to see which door these keys will unlock and what goodies I can find inside. I'm an inquisitive person, I'm not a thief looking for riches, I'm just a nosey person looking for the thrill of adventure and a good story to tell in the bar.
I am not a strong swimmer OR remotely fit and I thought I should do something about that. The venue for J and Beyond has a great swimming pool so encourage me to stop talking and get in that pool by sponsoring me, please.
I will be raising money for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity (GOSHCC) in London by swimming 1km. That might not seem a lot to some of you but as I don't think I have swum more than 25 metres for over 20 years it's a heck of a long way for me.
It seems to be a universal truth that good, or even great, web hosts go bad.
Are you prepared for that? Do you have a disaster plan in place so that you can easily move to a new host? What happens if they stop replying to emails or tickets or worse still disappear from the net.
Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
For me open source is not just about the software it's about community and community is not just about people working together it's about sharing. And it's not just about sharing code, it should also be about sharing experiences, successes and failures.
The more open and transparent we are when we share the better for everyone. For me life isn't a competition it's an event and what better way to have a successful event than to learn and share from and with each other.
A little over 2 years ago I wrote a blog post about using a pen instead of the keyboard.
Today I am writing this blog post not with a pen, not with a keyboard, and almost without the use of a mouse.
A few weeks ago the nice people at Nuance sent me an evaluation copy of Dragon Dictate the Mac.
(This entire blog post, without manual corrections, is coming to you via Dragon Dictate.)
Today I left my home on the first leg of my trip to Cambodia. Just a quick train journey from Leeds to Manchester. I had my bags all packed and had made the decision to take my lightweight canvas desert boots instead of my heavy duty leather hiking boots, and that's where it all started to go wrong.
It was raining a little in Leeds as I left and as I walked across the City Centre with my bag on my back I felt a little damp in my left foot. Oh shucks maybe there is a hole in the sole of my shoe. Never mind I thought it's going to be hot and dry in Cambodia, I hope, so it wont be a problem.
When a friend asks you if you know someone who can do a very skilled task do you:-
- recommend the guy you met in the pub last night
- recommend your best mate
- recommend somebody you have heard of from twitter or Facebook
- recommend somebody who you have personally used to do that very skilled task.
It seems that almost everyday there is a new social media opportunity appearing online which is immediately followed by an inevitable land grab phase. But before jumping on the bandwagon of the latest and greatest thing to hit the net take a moment to think.
Are you getting the maximum benefits you could from your current social media streams? Are there some that just didn't work for you? Are you missing opportunities because you just don't get it or did you not put in the time and effort and create a consistent social media presence.
I give a lot of presentations throughout the year and last night I represented Joomla at the BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT in a panel debate on Open Source knowledge/skills gaps across HM Government.
