Techiedog-blog

Isn't it amazing how quickly habits can form? The last time I used a Mac on a daily basis, OS7 was the new thing and although I've had Macs around since then, my personal machines have all been Windows or Linux (Usually KDE ) interfaces. Like many though, Tiger temped me back and so when it came to get myself a new daily machine I went for a MacBook . Given my limited time to spend playing with new toys these days I've been relying on my friend who similarly made the switch a few weeks before me for hints and tips. One of which was the suggestion that I adopt Adium as my IM network aggregator *. Which I did 3 days ago. Now at first I was a little distressed by the fact that when I opened a new conversation it was realised via a new tab on the conversation window (if one was already open) - that was until I found out that I could grab the tab and drag it off the window to invoke a new one. This has now become second nature - so much so then when I was writing a paper ear

I've historically never quite seen eye to eye with AOL ; I was no fan of the walled garden Web model, though I can see the point in the simplicity and handholding that this allow the novice user, and lets not even get into the early stages of the Time-Warner deal. However, recently I had started to think they were at last getting it right. The embracing of Web 2.0 and their complete about face from walled garden to bastion of openness seemed to me to smack of an organisation with renewed vigour and vision. Thus, it is with some surprise that I read of the departure of CEO Jonathan Miller. It is partly the fact that I've seen Miller speak twice recently ( MIT Technology Review Emerging Technology conference and the Web 2.0 Summit ) and been impressed by his approach that had given me such a good feeling about AOL's future. I'll never understand this business!

So the usual problem of flaky WiFi and constricted elbow room has made live blogging difficult - not that I'm quite as adept at the verbose note taking blog form as some of my cohorts . All in all there is a great deal to take in and quite frankly I'm generating a mass of notes that I need to process before posting. I'll get around to this sometime next week. There is more than meets the eye going on here and I think some of the early reports emerging into the blogosphere are missing the point somewhat - this year is depth not breath. It's easy to skate along the surface here - but diving a little deeper is going to take me some time to phrase so be patient.

Some good stuff here to get us started with the conference proper. Highlights A Conversation with Eric Schmidt A Conversation with Jack Ma

Lauchpad was a quickfire product launch pitch session consisting of 13 produces each getting a 5 minute pitch. The lucky 13 were apparently whittled down from around 150 applicants and hence were all of high quality. I haven't got time to review them all, so please go and see for yourself: In the Chair - Online music tutorial/practice system Instructables - A Make-esque system for sharing how to instructions Klostu - A system for uniting the boardscape (blogosphere for message boards) Hummingbird from Sharpcast - An online/offline bridge for syncing document states across platforms Stikkit - Quick note system with context resolution TURN - Worlds first automatic targeted ad network system Sphere - Blog search system with context querying Omnidrive - Desktop/Online/Cross platform data syncing system Adify - Platform to create vertical ad networks 3b - 3D imersive environment for navigating web pages Odesk - Trust and reputation based staffing and recruitment system - on

IBM presented the usual what is Web 2.o stuff before talking in real terms about how the techniques of Web 2.o can and are being adopted within enterprises. I've been following SOA for quite a while and TBH I always kinda saw Web 2.o as an implementation of SOA and so I didn't fully understand the title of this session, but the point I think that was being made was that was in the focus of internal IT departments and their ability to switch from the notion of large long term projects to deliver systems to a preguessed requirements list to the more iterative and adaptive systems architectural approach. Apparently most IT integration projects take a minimum of 6 months but the majority of business relationships last no longer than 12 moths - adopting more Web 2.0 approaches to SOA development paradigms can save a huge amount of time. Enterprise Challenges to adoption - Security - if we can't secure it we won't use it - protecting privacy and including identi

AOL has 'enjoyed' the unenviable position for many progressive thinkers in the web space of being the epitome of the closed garden approach, but in the last year they have managed to pull off a complete change of philosophy. Today's session coincided with announcements of AOL's continued move to openness and detailed in particular the APIs and open approach around AIM and video search. Check out developer.aim.com dev.aol.com If even AOL are becoming open (and in a major way to boot) what does that say about shops that remain closed? The presentation could have done with more usage examples but this is early days and work to date is still impressive.

Its always good to hear Marc Canter speak especially when it's from the front of the room as opposed to bellowing heckles from the floor, and in moderating this panel he was in his element. A panel consisting of Jonathan Hare from resilient, Chad Dickenson from Yahoo! and Jeff Barr from Amazon discussed with great aplomb the notions of the importance of open, interoperable infrastructures to the ongoing development of the web. Open was defined as: - Freely licensed - to anyone - Freely hostable - by anyone - Open APIs - to provide extensibility and interoperability The ideas of what constitutes 'infrastructure' ranged from discussion around the 'undifferentiated muck' that Amazon is seeking to provide though its EC3 to the notions of user data components such as 'reviews' which in many cases are still locked into the systems of the provider. Yahoo! gave examples of companies based upon its APIs such as Qoop and made the point that now companies are b

I'm going to blog the things I'm seeing at O'Reilly's Web 2.0 conference, but rather than a single post I'll publish sessions or comments individually. It's a pretty intensive programme so my posts will be more observations than deep thought and analysis - that will come later when I have more brain time.

So, Web 2.0 starts tomorrow. I nipped down to register this evening to avoid the queues tomorrow morning and in order to collect and sort through my conference goody bag tonight. I don't want to be lugging everything around with me all day tomorrow. So this year in a weird shopping bag like my Mum used to have (what happened to last year's excellent laptop courier bags) I found: A computer brush - Fox Interactive Media Pen with torch - Yahoo Bottle opener - Open Lazlo Tin of mints - MyDecide $5 Starbucks card - IBM T-shirt - Grassroots.org Flex 2 30 day trail - Adobe CD (as yet uninvestigated) - HearHakia Head Rush Ajax - O'Reilly 15"neoprene laptop sleeve 22 fliers - Various Conference materials Bargain!

Maybe it's my Crusty Punk past, but much as I love Glastonbury I still hanker for the enthusiast run small free festival. There is something about the sub-mainstream event which harbors a sense of community and honest sense of purpose that just can't be maintained as the crowds get too large. And so it is with the conference ... Some of the conferences I've attended this year have been great corporate rock festivals of affairs which, have suffered in their laudable strides towards spreading the message to a wider audience from a reduced shared knowledge base such a widened attendee scope engenders. This in turn can lower the quality and value of discussion. In fact a couple of times I've had the feeling of coming away actually knowing less than I started with. Today's Widgets Live event has been a real shot in the arm. Rather like Web 2.0 paradigm, the technologies and methods enabling widgets have been around for a few years now but its taken the comparatively rec

Ooops - posting error - editing (will repost soon)

A couple of years ago I had a bit of a rant about the design of DAB radios. In the end I bought the Pure Evoke. But given my penchant for Marshall I couldn't let this go uncommented. Pure have released a Marshall styled edition of the Evoke. Nearly as nice as my JCM 2000 TSL .