I have been blogged a few times this year but it was really great to wake up to this blog post in the Guardian.

I met Jemima Kiss last night at a Seesmic meet up in Austin, Texas. I thought she was a really nice person..

Nicer now..


Leave a comment if you have the inclination and you never know.. i may get interviewed again.

Tags: podcast, new media, Ournaminside.com, documentally, photography, Jemima Kiss, guardian, bloggng

I have been playing with a video streaming mobile phone application called QIK (pronounced quick). This enables me to stream live video from my Nokia N95 straight to the web and simultaneously hold conversations with people viewing on Qik's site.

As you chat and explain what you are up to, little text comments scroll up onto your phone screen and a real time conversation is possible with anyone in the world who is viewing your video on Qik. As an added bonus as soon as you film you can notify anyone following you on twitter that you are live and as soon as you stop filming the video is also sent to Seesmic.

Not content with all that exposure I have also embedded the clip here below...

Tags: qik, twitter, iraq, seesmic, Jordan, journalism, amman, photography, phone, podcast, refugee, podcasting

It feels like it has been days since I last posted. It is days, weeks. Days and weeks spent on Seesmic.

This is what I wanted to talk about today.. Not the fact that I need to work on my time management, not that I have been short of bloggable inspiration, but the fact I am hooked on a new video blogging application I have been meaning to write about since my first 'seesmic post'.

Initially I saw Seesmic as a video-polaroid. A place to sound off in a timeline with a random thought, question or instance of craziness. Then as more and more pre-alpha testers were admitted, conversations started. Then it became more of a Video-Twitter.

Look it up on Wikipedia a few days ago and you would have seen nothing.. today it says "Seesmic is a video micro blogging web application in pre-alpha stage being developed by French Entrepreneur Loic Le Meur" And it was Loic that gave me my invite.

Phil Campbell mentioned it in a twitter post so I DM'ed Loic and moments later I was in. I think that being on twitter already may have helped as Loic did not know me from Adam. He has spent more time hanging out with Bush than he has talking to me..

So now as videos were being batted back and forth at close to real time speeds. Comments made and themes formed, I realized this wasn't just a chatroom I was looking at. These were multi dimensional people not too dissimilar to me and I was getting to know them in a face to face kind of way. In a far more personal manor than on any other social network. The international timezones crossed have tested my ability to survive on only a few hours sleep as i have been facinated with the threads and conversations spanning the globe.

It is still early days for 'seesmic' At the moment it is in Pre-Alpha release and the number of people signed up and online have formed a tight nit community posting snippets of their opinions from their home computers, from there work spaces and sometimes even out on the road streaming through 3g networks or public wifi.

I feel like I have been a part of seesmic for a lifetime and I feel like seesmic has taken a chunk of my life and placed it online for the world to see.

Whilst podcasting I had previously made a point of not giving too much away about my life or my opinion.. Seesmic has really brought out the Jeckell to my Hyde the yin to my Yang and I find it very therapeutic. Cathartic I guess.

I could go on and on but I won't, Seesmic is a different application to all who use it and to really find out about it's intricacies you need to be signed up and a part of the myriad conversations helically intertwined across the globe between anyone with an internet connection, a webcam on a computer.. and of course.. the golden ticket.

I feel I have so much to say.. but it's easier to show you.. to 'seesmic' it..

Check out the embedded post below and... "Seesmic ya later.."


Incidentally the Seesmic Crew have been kind enough to give me a couple of invites to pass on to anyone that has read this far and is willing to leave me a blog comment below telling me why they want to join Seesmic. Let me know..

If you want to see what I see.. Here you go..

Tags: seesmic, video blogging, internet, social networking, twitter, loic le meur

I still make an effort to read the paper but I couldn't help but notice this morning that whilst flicking through the Guardian magazines from yesterday, I seemed to need my macbook to supplement the supplements.

I love the touchy-feely experience of leaning over the paper with a coffee, skimming the bits that don't raise a brow and absorbing the others that do. Still, It was obvious I needed that extra dimension.

I know that if I don't check that link or search that person or view that trailer or check the price of that product.. I will forget and not get a grasp of the whole picture.

Feed reading is a new thing for me as up until a few months ago I hadn't found a feed-reader I liked. I try to avoid the homogenized world of google and was glad to stumble apon Vienna.

So today I was reading Stephen Fry's blog (which I subscribe to online anyway) and was fascinated by the 'Trevor Baylis Eco Media Player' he was talking about. It is the sort of device you will wish you have come the apocalypse and we are all living 'Mad Max' lives. A kind of windup hippy ipod with a torch, radio, phone charger, audio recorder and so on.. I got the gist of this amazing gadget but needed to see a photo to complete the picture. After 30 seconds I had not only viewed a selection of photos, but had also read some reviews and found an ethical superstore selling it for a much lower price.

With this mornings realisations I fear for the continuing purchases of my Saturday/Sunday paper. Perhaps I should have more faith in the RSS feed..

Tags: rss, feed, guardian, news, newspaper, print, gadgets, macbook, vienna

Everyday I see some new application, web based or downloadable that I didn't see the day before. I now am fully aware that for me to keep up with all these new cerebral arrivals I would need an army of clones and as many mac book pros.

Today in @sizemore's twitter post (tweet to those in the know) I saw a mini video he had made with a web app entitled Animoto.

Literally 2 minutes later I has sucked 15 music photos out of my flikr account and mixed them with some supplied music to produce this..

It wasn't even a a drag and drop affair, just a few clicks.. Where was all the messy editing.. where was the faffing about with cuts, timelines, titles and syncing?

The future is scary... Scary but very convenient.

p.s. The hairy guy with the camera at the start is not me.. It's 'Badly Drawn Boy' I am sat with Noel Gallagher on the last slide.

Tags: music, video, festivals, web 2.0, animoto, editing, Badly Drawn Boy, Noel Gallagher

Well what can I say.. I was recently contacted by Iso Ban of the Blog 'Iso Ban's Journal'.

He is a listener to my Documentally podcast and dropped me a comment on my blog saying nice things and wanting to know how he could support the podcast..

Rather than say "Cold hard cash please.." I saw that he was pretty handy in the design department and hinted I was looking for a new logo.

Two days later I was inundated with design concepts that I really liked. Now I am spoilt for choice and as I decide which logos I want to utilize, I will be pondering how generous certain artists and new media folk are.

First Deek Deekster comes to the rescue with some quality hosting and now Iso Ban zips some logos to me from the other side of the world. I am inspired and very grateful.

I really should get some more podcasts out..



p.s. I have already had some very swanky vinyl stickers made.. Keep your eyes open on a hand drier or telephone box near you.. Or drop me a postal address and I will send one. (While stocks last).

Tags: Iso Ban, Deek Deekster, logo design, support, podcast

I am a Twitterholic, that is I use the application 'Twitter' every day. I have met some great people and find it my favorite social networking site. If you have never heard of it, then Wikipedia explains it as such:

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send "updates" (text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service, instant messaging, email, or an application such as Twitterrific. Twitter was founded in March 2006 by San Francisco start-up company Obvious Corp.Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and instantly delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. The sender can restrict delivery to those in his or her circle of friends (delivery to everyone is the default). Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, instant messaging, SMS, RSS, email or through an application.

In addition to that outline I found these two decent articles.. Article one and Article two.

Due to Twitter's success, a large number of sites imitating its concept have sprung up around the world. There have also been a number of other sites cropping up utilizing a mashup of twitter profile details and pictures. TwitterPoster.com is one of these sites.
It is basically a montage of twitter posters avatars sized relative to the numbers of followers each member has and how many posts they make.

As soon as I saw it I thought, Hey up.. If people actually give a damn about appearing on this site we will soon see an influx of posters posting crap for the sake of it and people trawling for followers in a myspace type 'please love me..add me as a friend', kind of way.
Luckily this hasn't happened.. Well not in my circle of Twitter friends.

TechCrunch said TwitterPoster is pretty but not much else and although I would like to see a little more statistical information mixed in with a little more imagination, I still was inspired enough to create my own spoof...

This is how I see TwitterPoster...

As TwitterPoser.. (i.e. Look how big my avatar is.)

Tags: twitter, twitter poster, twitter poser, wikipedia, social networking

This is not a rant cleverly disguised as a blog post. Oh.. ok.. I cannot lie.. it is.

I just wanted to have a go at the guy driving the Kronenbourg 1664 emblazoned articulated lorry down the back lanes of Herefordshire yesterday, stopping every five minutes to ask some local recluse where somewhere was that was certainly nowhere near anywhere these poor locals had ever heard of.

He took up both lanes, made me really late and as all I saw was a ten foot beer logo for an hour, I had plenty of time to move from Zen like calmness, to mild anxiety, to a strangely psychotic kind of internal rage that had me vowing to single handedly bring around their financial ruin by never ever buying their god forsaken beer again.

I stand by what I said.

I would never have an advert on the back of a lorry.. or a bus, for this very reason. All it is now, is a constant reminder to me of the company responsible for keeping me from an appointment with loads of people, some who have traveled across europe to complete the group and had no problem at all getting to this little town in time. They probably even managed to have a Kronenbourg at the airport and still make the flight.

Also, if I was a professional driver I would invest in a decent sat nav. There must be an option on a pro sat nav system to select a route where the roads are actually wider that the vehicle you are driving. If not, then I hereby stake my claim on the idea.

On a smaller rant-like-note. I had to stand open mouthed at a guy and his wife in Waitrose today. They stood between two wide open clear glass freezer doors and just stared at what was on the shelfs. For ages.

THE DOORS ARE CLEAR SO YOU CAN SEE THROUGH THEM. DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT AND THEN TAKE IT OUT!

Sheesh.

And to finish on a more positive note, I had just shopped at Waitrose (pushed all the '1664' to the back of the shelfs and hid them behind decent beer) and had parked right at the far side of the car park. When getting to my car a trolly attendant ran over just as i had loaded the last bag and said.. "I'll take that sir."

I know it was only a couple of hundred yards to the nearest trolly drop off but he obviously does the long distance trolly retrieval thing all day and it's these little things that really make one supermarket stand out above the rest. I can't afford to shop at Waitrose all the time but when i can, i do. They are great.

Tags: beer, shopping, service, waitrose, rant

Apparently I have just invented something that could change the purity of tap water worldwide.

That is according to the guy from the British Water Board sat opposite me at a conference in the Aston University Birmingham.. (I am not attending just utilizing the hotel room discount and eating their hospitality)..

I overheard him talking on the phone about their difficulties in stopping fish swimming up fresh water pipes and getting mashed up in the pumps. Mmmm fishy tap water.

So being the nosey bugger I am I asked him why he was not using a thin line of air bubbles like they use in fish farms. He told me that although fresh water fish have really bad memories and are initially scared of a burst of bubbles, they get conditioned to them and the sensation and as a result just swim through.

This is a problem that the world has faced for a while as mesh just clogs the inlets and all other techniques (like using sound) have only worked against certain fish.

I said why not pulse the bubbles at a second longer than a fishes memory limit and then went on to act out how i thought a fish would react to this system..

I won't subject you to the pantomime here..

The guy looked intently at me... "You know.." he said very excitedly.. "You might just have something there. Then he rushed off dialing his phone in a hurried manner.

Have i changed the world as we know it?

Who knows?

Let me know if your water starts tasting differently.

Tags: fish, water, inventions, tap water