Category: Uncategorized

Bar Camp coming to South Africa

Bar Camp South Africa

From the wiki:

Welcome to the initial planning phases of BarCampSouthAfrica. The idea is to bring the South African tech/geek/creative community together under one roof in the informal "un-conference" environment as per the Bar Camp Ethos. Think of it as Open-Source conferencing, this is YOUR conference, you present, you discuss, you attend, you spread the word.

So we’ve hit the US, Canada, Europe, India, Ireland… and now South Africa?

Well, it’s not a done deal yet, but if Conrad Strydom has his way, it’s going to happen. Adrian? Now’s your chance big guy!

Passing the basket for Bar Camp Austin

Bar Camp Austin Poster (Take IV)
So we’re about a week away from Bar Camp Austin and we’ve got a rediculous event in store for folks descending on Austin for SXSW. My buddy William Hurley (of the penguins) has been running amok, making plans and crackin’ deals and schemin’ like a madman. And he’s all but good on getting everything set up but he’s run into a bit of a snag: self-financing a whole Bar Camp is a bit… difficult.

(Oh — and we could also use some help getting some major bandwidth piped into the venue.)

So what are we talkin’ here?

Well, as with most of the camps, we’re trying to keep things extremely low cost. And obviously free for attendees.

But whurley’s out about $1800 for printing posters and badges, t-shirts, promoting and renting shuttles and would like lurve any kind of pecuniary support folks are willing to contribute. Any amount will do; and we like to keep donations to $250 or less, unless you’re sponsoring a round of drinks, a meal or some kind of service.

So how can you help? Well, simple:

  • Donate. Even 5 bucks helps. And I’ll be listing all the donations we receive once the event is over (transparency in accounting, absolutely!).
  • Join the mailing list and offer to pitch in — I’m sure whurley’s got ideas.
  • Help us secure some sweet wifi action for the venue. We’ve got connectivity — we just want to make sure it’s up to snuff!
  • Did I mention that you can donate? 😉

Ok, I’m available to answer any questions or concerns you might have — but I’m totally psyched about all the work that’s gone into making this event happen and know that y’all’ll toss in some coin to help out!

I want my Democracy!

Democracy: the future of TV

In case you missed it, the revolution will not be televised. But it will be available on Bit Torrent. And now, more easily than ever before, you can sit back and can literally download Democracy.

What does this mean for you? Well, the simple answer is that it helps you download your favorite online videos and vlogs more easily. The deeper one is that it gets you off the crack-rock-narcotic that TV has been feeding you interoptically since you were a wee lad. It means that you can watch you friends, not Friends. It means that you can have your own station, not be stationary. It means that you have choice like you’ve never had it before (and no, 500 channels doesn’t mean choice).

How is this possible you ask? How much does it cost?

Well you already know the answer to the latter question: it’s free, as a beer and open, as in GPL’d. And yes, it’ll work on your Mac or your PC (Linux coming soon! Wanna help?).

The former can be answered in two ways. Firstly, that it’s about time we had our own vehicle for producing and syndicating our own, DRM-free content. So some folks stepped up to make it happen. Second, it might go a little something like this:

  1. Hop on over to Vimeo (or your favorite site that syndicates videos).
  2. Grab their feed.
  3. Pipe that into Democracy as a channel and
  4. Download and watch to your heart’s content!

It really is that simple. So now if you a) want to watch videos or vlogs b) want to publish and promote your videos or vlogs or c) want to take part in the untelevised revolution, you know what to do! Viva la resistance!

Ok, maybe this time’s for real

LUG RadioSo I did a bunch of stuff to remedy my blog — including upgrading (finally!!) to WordPress 2.0.1. Man, nothing like necessity to force you to get shyte done.

Oh, and while I was down, I did some “PiC blogging” over at HorsePigCow on The End of Print.

And — I ended up on the LUG Radio Podcast — countering their earlier assertion that between “Hype or Shyte”, Flock was shyte. Yes, it seems, now that they’ve actually given it a spin they quite like Flock after all.

Bar Camp Dallas audio now available

Last Session of Barcamp DallasJeremy Kleindl posted the mp3 audio from Bar Camp Dallas presentations. Check it out:

Out of Towner Meetup: Joey “Accordion Guy” De Villa

AccordianDon’t forget, this Sunday we’re having another Out of Towner meetup featuring some accordian playing dude named Joey De Villa. He’s in the ‘rati top 1000, so you probably already know who he is… I mean, his blog is worth nearly $300,000 so you should know him if you don’t already.

And besides, he’s a friend of Miss Rogue, so we owe him a good welcome at the very least.

So after the pigskin’s been laid down and the Steelers have whooped the Seahawks’ derrieres, head on over to 21st Amendment around 7ish and say hello! Word has it, Joey will even have his accordian with him…

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Bar Camp wiki moving to pbWiki

barcamp + pbwiki

Due to the increasing amount of spam we’ve been getting on the old skool kwiki wiki at barcamp.org, we’re moving it over to David Weekly‘s excellent pbWiki. Until the forwarding goes through, you can get to the new wiki at:

barcamp.pbwiki.com

TorCamp planner David Crow has a good write-up about pbWiki, so I’ll leave that bit up to him.

I’m excited to see the wiki moving to a better-featured app (especially one that was created at one of our SHDHs), so if you’ve got a moment, give us a hand and help us migrate this thing! Tanks!

Digg’s Spy v2: AJAX Run Amok?

digg.comHey, I’m a fan of Digg and all, but it’s redesigned Spy takes the whole AJAX autorefreshing thing a bitt too farr.

As Daryl says, the best feature is having seizures while watching the diggs go by.

Seriously though, I know there’s a pause button, but it’s so small and hard to see — maybe slow down the stream when you mouseover one of the posts so you can click on it… without it slipping by?

I’m all for a more interactive web, but Frogger never seemed like an ideal interface for consuming news!

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Of Bar Camps New York, Paris, Dallas, Los Angeles, DC, and Ottawa

Bar Camp NYC

The franchise is totally growing.

Amit’s finally got himself a venue (first come, first served!):

BarCamp NYC will be on the weekend of January 14th and 15th, right here in Manhattan. We have an awesome space, and some terrific new sponsors. If you’d like to come, add your name (AND EMAIL) to the attendees list on the BarCamp NYC wiki. In order to assuage safety concerns, we’ve promised the venue owner that we will register all attendees ahead of time. That means we don’t know you’re coming, we may not be able to let you in!

Also, don’t forget to add a proposed session if you know what you’re going to talk about. Remember, all attendees must give a demo, a session, or help with one.

BarCamp NYC is coming on January 14-15, 2006! at Amit Gupta’s Blog

So on top of that, there’s been a lot of activity around Bar Camp Dallas, Bar Camp Paris (thanks for staging such a killer minimeetup guys!), Bar Camp Los Angeles, Bar Camp DC, and Bar Camp Ottawa.

So while I don’t like to count my eggs before they hatch, I wonder… where will Bar Camp go next?

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