Entries tagged with thegeekstories - Channel 10

30 minutes of Good Barry

nhodge — Mon, 26 May 2008 04:10:00 GMT

Managing a micro-business online, or offline, usually involves paperwork. Lots of it. From customer enquiries to invoicing, the tracking of your biggest concern: the customer, is a tough task.

Shouldn’t computers and the internet make business easier?

You could just create a blog. Then add an email follow up system. Then another customer birthday card system. Very soon you are moving your data across too many diverse systems.

GoodBarry, a winner of the Transaction 2.0 "Best Aussie Business Startup" at last week’s CeBIT conference in Sydney, is the perfect answer.

Recently highlighted for their innovative marketing, in this video interview we see an in depth demonstration of GoodBarry.

Geek Gadgets of Yesteryear

nhodge — Wed, 21 May 2008 03:41:00 GMT

Did Geeks exist in the 19th Century? They sure did. Did they have Geek gadgets. Oh, yes they did!

Telephones, typewriters, calculators: all blossomed through the 19th Century.

The screen capture is of a unique device called a Curta Calculator. Invented by Curt Herzstark, a survivor of Buchenwald, it looks like a pepper-grinder but is in fact a small calculator.

In this episode of The Geek Stories, see Matthew Connell, Curator of Mathematics and Computing at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum, give a quick snoop through their secret storage area.

A 19th Century Geek

nhodge — Mon, 19 May 2008 11:18:00 GMT

Did Geeks, as we know them today: polymaths, introverted, shy with the opposite sex exist in earlier times? They sure did.

Matthew Connell from The Powerhouse Museum introduced me to a William Stanley Jevons. A true geek of the 19th Century.

Who is Jevons?

He lived at the same time as Babbage, and invented the Logic Piano amongst many other geeky things. An early amateur photographer, he photographed an early Australia with an unique eye.

In this episode of The Geek Stories, hear and see a story of a true 19th Century Geek.

Email to the Future

nhodge — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:47:00 GMT

Social networks are not new. Humans throughout our existence communicate, connect and correspond with like minded humans.

Written documents are the evidence trail that historians and museum curators, such as Matthew Connell from Sydney’s Powerhouse Musuem, use to decipher the lives of famous people.

To aid future historians, it is important that this digital generation store our correspondence. The Powerhouse Museum and Ninemsn Australia joined forces in a project called Email Australia.

In this episode of The Geek Stories, I trek into the archives of the Powerhouse Museum and see documents exchanged between Lady Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage and a Brunel.

Their correspondence illustrates why we must email the future. The social networks of now must not be fleeting, otherwise our history is lost.

Talk to me, chat to me. I'm Lonely.

nhodge — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 03:58:09 GMT

You can add this to your blog too: Add Windows Live Messenger to your Blog

It is a simple matter of going to the above live.com (obviously, log in with your Live ID) and using the simple online form to configure your Messenger web widget.

The really, really cool thing is that you can have either a chat window, or your presence live on your blog.

For more indepth how-tos, visit Aussie Angus Logan's blog.

My Windows Home Server: The Unboxing

nhodge — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 02:27:00 GMT

In a house with 3 Windows laptops, 2 Mac laptops, 1 Windows Desktop and a lone Debian file server; time absorbed in home administration was getting out of hand.

The lone Debian file server runs on an old PC desktop. Last year in a weak moment in between jobs I decided to reconnect with my Unix side and re-commission the old Dell clunker into a file server. Load up internal hard drives and install. A week later, in the process of installing a new, yet massive 300Gb data drive I broke the file server and spent two days self-administering Unix just hoping the family's data was not in bit heaven.

Self-administration at home is OK when you have time and like fixing things. If time poor, don't do it.

And backups. In our house, I am the only person who backs up on anything like a regular basis.

Windows Home Server to the rescue!

Someone kindly sent me an email link to this little beastie, lovingly made in the cold land of of warm beer and Beatrix Potter: TranquilPC low power Windows Home Server appliances. The email arrived at a time where I had access to a credit card, and extracted me from the funk of indecision, otherwise known as procrastination, of 'build vs. buy' my Windows Home Server. Buy.

One HTML form later: and a 1Gb RAM + 1Tb Hard Disk is flying the reverse kangaroo route to Australia.

A rather heavy FedEx white box arrived at my desk at work. Hilirie Chan from our mail room delivers it, asks for my autograph.
The wall plate sits over the top of the TranquilPC itself. All the cardboard goes into recycling.
From left to right: 12v power out splitter cable (plug in to rear of TranquilPC into 4 external USB hard drives), Windows Home Server software, TranquilPC how-to in a neat early 1980s typeface and screws for the wall-mount. Windows Home Server is pre-installed, so there is no waiting to turn this little beast on.
Size comparison with my Treo 750. The TranquilPC is weighty; or more descriptively: dense. Thankfully very small and quiet.
LAN and power in connections are easy: the 4 extra USB ports will be used for plugging in external drives. The power out port, just next to the Power in make it easy to chain the external drives without buying a whole new powerstrip.
You said this was going to be 'quiet as a mouse'. There are no mice in here!

Within 5 minutes, the Windows Home Server is on and working on our network.

Next post: Backups and Firewalls

If you cannot wait for the next episode, read Paul Thurrott's comprehensive review: http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/whs.asp

Note: I've been an Unix/Solaris/Linux sys-admin since 1988. I now use MacOS X to get my vi/cron fix.

Gary Barber: Celtic druid of AWIA

nhodge — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 06:36:00 GMT

Gary Barber, the Man with no blog, is the celtic druid of the Australian Web Industry Association, previously known as Port 80.

Perth, being so remote from the rest of the known world, has a unique culture of involvement and inclusiveness; much to the chagrin of other Australian cities.

In this conversation with Gary in a previous excursion to Perth, we discuss this phenomenon and other web things.

Cameron Reilly on Napoleone di Buonaparte

nhodge — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 02:31:00 GMT

Cameron Reilly, replete with his own wikipedia entry, is Australia's premiere podcaster and Founder/CEO of The Podcast Network.

What you may not realise is that Cameron is a Napoleon Geek. So much so, that his podcast has tens of thousands of listeners and Cam has been named a Fellow of the International Nepoleonic Society.

After westling the intellectual tornado on the previous evening, I decided to go easy on Cameron and ask him about his Nepoleonic Podcast he co-hosts with J. David Markham. Now, what would Nepoleone di Buonaparte Do?

The Real Geek Story

nhodge — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 05:25:00 GMT

At Podcamp in Perth, there was this wild looking man. In his face you could see a million stories.

My initial chat started along the lines of knowing a little about a lot. You know those people: they once were the kings of Trivial Pursuit. Wikipedia now trumps all comers, and makes trivia trivial.

Ross Buncle surprised me. He had a real Geek Story. Way pre-dating and out-depthing my malarkey.

Have a listen.

The Geek Stories: Six at Podcamp Perth

nhodge — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 04:17:00 GMT

Virtualized, tatooed, 1970s and 1980s geeks abounded at Podcamp Perth.

Held on a Saturday, the famous Perth Port80 Posse hosted various luminaries, bloggers, famous podcasters and lowly corporate types in an free unconference of information (and beer) interchange.

Geek Stories? You betcha. Have a look. See if you recognise the famous ones.

The Geek Stories: What is Your Geek Story V

nhodge — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 21:02:00 GMT

Web Directions South is a yearly conference held in Sydney. The core of Australia's web-construction community emerge from their twitter, blogs, HTML, CSS, Notepad+, Dreamweaver and Photoshop to talk shop.

I attended the first day of Web Directions, and captured a collection of Geek Stories from the lunch time crowd.

Wedding Schemas, World of Warcraft and Play-doh all feature.

Most famous, however, is Sir Lachlan of YouTube.

The Geek Stories: Richard Giles, Scouta

nhodge — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 02:02:00 GMT

The internet seems to breed videos. Soapbox, Youtube, blip.tv.

How do you find clips that are of interest to you?

Whilst in Perth, I interviewed Richard Giles of Scouta. Scouta is a video recommendation engine. In a world where time is short and number of videos are large: this is an excellent tool to ensure you don't miss, well, stuff.

The Geek Stories: What is Your Geek Story IV

nhodge — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 21:20:00 GMT

Almost live from TechEd 2007: geeks invade the Gold Coast.

In the midst of the powershells, silverlights, popflys, windows servers, .net reflectors and LOLCode - I managed to capture people's geek stories.

The Geek Stories: littlevoices with Stephen Price

nhodge — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 08:47:00 GMT

Stephen Price comes across as an unassuming character. At least that was my impression speaking to him at ReMIX earlier this year.

A few days after return to Perth, he emailed me a caricature of my presentation of PopFly.

Stephen is a cartoonist and a developer.

Watch Stephen draw with his WACOM tablet, and hear his Geek Story.

A conversation with danah boyd

nhodge — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 22:38:00 GMT

Listening and speaking to danah boyd makes you think. Really think. danah is the premiere researcher and publisher in the world following the networked public of the online social world. Primarily focused on the online generation (Generation Y, Generation C are just clumsy labels) where without aMSN Messenger/Myspace account, you don't exist: danah has written on these topics in depth.

The Simpsons, LOLCats, usenet, cats in online culture, alternate grammar and narrative. Nike shoes: danah and Nick discuss the virtual world. Australia, US, and some other topics.

Her essays and reports contain the leading thoughts and inspire the social sites, reflect memes and architect systems that we as the digital community take as the norm. A conversation with danah boyd. Thinking. KTHXBAI

The Geek Stories: What is Your Geek Story III, ReMIX Australia

nhodge — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 22:57:00 GMT

ReMIX Melbourne, a local version of the Las Vegas MIX, was held last week.

I was there, capturing people's Geek Stories, and presenting Microsoft Popfly.

More red lego, Flash on Geocities and orchestral disk drives make an appearance in this, the third episode, of The Geek Stories.

Presenting Popfly at Australia ReMIX 2007

nhodge — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 00:37:00 GMT

At the recent Australian ReMIX in Melbourne, Australia, I was asked to present on Microsoft Popfly. This is my video of the presentation.

Some notes:

Snobol is a very, very old language. Respect.
The book on Quantum Computing I'd had just read was "Programming the Universe", written by Seth Lloyd. Mind blowing.
Sorry about the badly mashed quotation about art, and if you are from the UK: just remember I am from Australia.

More notes and comments on ReMIX in Australia on my blog

The Geek Stories: Studying Gaming at College

nhodge — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 05:28:00 GMT

Gaming is a large business world-wide, employing many thousands of talented engineers, designers and producers. Where do these people learn their trade? In College!

Queensland University of Technology (QuT) has nearly completed the first semester of their Bachelor of Games and Information Entertainment.

On a recent trip to Brisbane, I interviewed Dr Ross Brown (aka Dr Groove) and Penny Drennan.

Studying gaming is more than the coding: it encompasses the process of creating storylines, working in teams, programming and design. Penny and Ross talk through what students are learning, and the job prospects (good!) at the end of the course. With a combination of software engineering, business and creative industries - working in gaming is cross disciplinary. And will use all your brain.

In the interview, we also take a quick visit to their offices, sneak a peek at Elvis and find out how to fill your office with Xboxes.

... and of course, I also find out both of their geek stories.

The Geek Stories: What is Your Geek Story II

nhodge — Thu, 24 May 2007 01:39:00 GMT

In a continuing effort to discover Australia's Geek Stories, I attended a Microsoft Sharepoint conference at the invitation of Angus Logan. Many geeks, many geek stories.

Sharepoint is software that is loaded onto a server that provides document management, information sharing, wikis, blogs and other things that are beyond my understanding.

As an experiment, I used Microsoft Silverlight and Expression Media Encoder, and published the result on my personal blog. The hidden gem of Silverlight the Silverlight streaming service.

The Geek Stories: Game.dev to supergeek.com.au

nhodge — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 22:51:00 GMT

Driving down the Pacific Highway in Sydney on the weekend, I saw a sign saying "supergeek.com.au"

After emailing them, I was able to meet Phill Deer and Mike Armstrong of supergeek.com.au at breakfast in Balmoral. Not only is Mike a supergeek, he is a seriously talented geek: with a history of developing games in the UK.

So, have a listen to this interview - and if you are in Australia and think you have "the geek it", contact these guys!

And for the bird-geeks out there, Balmoral has a lively and loud population of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos (Cacatua galerita).

Make your own TV Show

nhodge — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 08:01:00 GMT

50 years ago, creating your own TV show required an expensive license from a government agency, loads of expensive equipment and a frequency to transmit. I ran across UStream today.

In the first days of the internet, tools like CuSeeme permitted video casting and transmission: however bandwidth was not cheap, and the audience was small.

Today, the bandwidth required to run a video service is relatively large. I calculate that I've generated 4.5 petabytes of traffic with the 5 hours the "The Geek Stories" - alone.

With UStream, you can be your own TV station. Now the alpha-geeks are there, and even my videos seem over-produced. Is UStream the next Twitter.com? Soon to be overloaded with the alpha-geek herd? Hope so.

(Photo cc licensed from Flickr.com)

Technorati Profile

The Geek Stories: Leslie Nassar, Podcasting at the ABC

nhodge — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 17:45:00 GMT

Australia's National Broadcaster, the ABC - has lead the field in 20th century innovations: radio and TV. With the advent of wide internet use, the ABC is no slouch in transmitting content via the internet.

ABC Radio National is the "thinking person's radio" of Australia: with a wealth of indepth content. Radio National transmits 6 Terabytes of Podcasts to 300,000 listeners per week.

Revealing this statistic, and managing the gargantuan task of podcasting is Leslie Nassar: the Producer of Podcasts for Radio National (and you thought Professional Geek was a cool title). And apart from being a coding geek, Leslie is an expert on audio, mobile content and The Chaser.

In this episode of "The Geek Stories", Leslie and I have a chat about the podcasting workflow at the ABC; the future and how podcasting still has some challenges prior to total world audio domination.

TRIVIA: Leslie's Geek Story revolves around a game called Lumines. My fellow Nic at on10.net, Brisvegas, makes his own brew. And it was the cuisine highlight of my trip to Brisbane in March.

Andrew is a regular comment contributor in my blog, even before I joined Microsoft. So, in return, I decided to visit Studio Solutions and find his geek story.

Exclusively a PC-based design studio, Andrew and his team use a variety of tools to get their work done. Thanks for your time, dude!

The Geek Stories: Richard Metcalfe of Harman Consumer, UK

nhodge — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 04:08:00 GMT

Richard Metcalfe, Brand Director for Harman Consumer in the UK recently visited Sydney. He is certainly enthusiastic about sound, and the JBL/Harman Kardon range of audio devices sound cool.

With a guest appearance by the famous Australian Technology journalist and technical TV star, Alex Zaharov-Reutt, we get the look at and hear cool gadgets.

So many gadgets, Richard is known as Inspector Gadget. Go, go!

The Geek Stories: GameParents.com

nhodge — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 23:06:00 GMT

I am a parent and a part-time gamer. I prefer simulation on my Xbox360 (driving) games and a little FPS on PC.

Even when paid to do this, I don't get enough time to experience all games.

Andrew Parsons, recently highlighted in GeekHouse!, also runs GAMEparents.com - a service for people like me to review, discuss and review the latest games. Andrew is way (did I say waaaay) more skilled than many people (having 5 Xboxes in his house!) - and is the perfect host for gameparents.

Have a watch, and visit Andrew's excellent site.