Just Me

My Sweetie decided that she wanted to go to BarCamp as she has made many attempts to design her own website and I think the current look and feel she is working on, is fantastic, if somewhat light on content ;). Keep in mind she is not a web designer by trade, before passing judgement.

So, we are using this as an excuse to have a weekend away together in the “other Capital” I will have to remember that I’m there in a social capacity and not a business one, everybody needs a break from time to time, you know As I was looking through the list of attendee’s and speakers I noticed a few familiar names, so it will be a chance to get to know them.

My Sweetie got me interested in blogging and probobly leads the most web-centric lifestyle of any person I know. Her job is managing a web-based Doc-control system, the team of people she works with are based in numerous different timezones. She “talks” daily to her friends and mum over MSN (who my sweetie introduced to personel PC’s and the web. Her mum is now an active member in some online communities, runs her own Wiki and not so long ago installed her own broadband. She gives us both tips regularly now) also gives her mum remote assistence for troubleshooting those annoying issue’s we all have her current web project is getting our photo collection geo-tagged and online, so that we can both use it for our own blog’s and so that we can share these images with our families and friends. Almost all our shopping with the exception of food and impulse items is purchased online, every holiday we have taken together has been booked online. All our maps, newspapers and lots of our entertainment are virtual, both on and offline.
I’m blaming her for a lot in the last paragraph but in truth these are the things that we do together. I’m looking forward to this, it’s not often we get to “geek out” in public, so this should be fun and interesting for us both.

Again, Gizmodo commentators, you really were on the ball this week, okay granted there always seems to be a lot of Mac fans commenting, but it’s rare that you see users rushing to the defence of any corporate like this.

I saw this today and I had to blog it. Doug Engelbart is one of the great visionaries of our era. His idea’s and discoveries set the tone for decades of computer research. It is no understatement to say that without his inventions the world we live in today would be very different, for gods sake the man invented the mouse! that alone is worth a place in history but on top of that lets see hyperlinks were his invention & Arpanet (the precursor to the internet) never would have happened without his contributions.

I had heard of Doug in passing many times over my life but it wasn’t until I read Howard Rheingold’s “Tools for thought” that his contribution became clear. If you read even the first paragraph of the “tools” link above it becomes clear what he has already accomplished in his lifetime.

Today, Hyperscope was launched and in this modern age of beta releases to avoid support obligations its refreshing to see a version 1.0 This is an attempt to rebuild parts of Engelbarts NLS/Augment system on the Web, many of the new web 2.0 tools and languages have been used to accomplish this.

This NLS system is what Engelbart was demonstrating at what many people call “The mother of all demo’s” which thanks to modern technology you can watch most of here all be it in low quality. Keep in mind that this was 1968! He’s got a keyboard the worlds first mouse and a shortcut keypad and even the odd “demo demon” :). This was a huge moment in the history of man as significant as the moon landings imho. (If you hadn’t worked it out he’s one of my hero’s)

Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing where Hyperscope can take us and considering the human race has done with his discoveries already I can’t wait to see what happens next.

The title of this post was to be “So, Music?” but it started with a lie about what i was thinking about in traffic this morning and then wandered on a tangent so I’ve changed the title and I’ll come back to the other another time…

So while I was sitting in traffic this morning, I was thinking how bloody dumb is it to sit in a car for an hour and a half to travel about 6 and a half miles?

I mean, here I am doing my utmost to get a bit fitter and more importantly to loose some (a lot, if I’m being honest) weight and I’m sitting on my fat ass in a car that’s travelling at an average speed that’s slower than me walking!

Then tonight I get home from work late, on a friday evening, change and rush out to the gym to go do a 90 minute workout??? (That I didn’t have the energy to finish) when did the world get so messed up?

Now I know what your thinking, well why don’t you just ditch the car and walk then or cycle? well I work in sales, I’m a customer facing member of the company who has to present a professional image and lets just say smelling like I just walked/cycled to the office would not be acceptable.

So instead of walking/cycling to the office and arriving fresh and awake to begin my days work, I arrive to the office having had to get up before the sun and slowly build stress for an hour and a half before my day begins, I get to arrive to work, like most who work in Dublin, stressed and in a bad mood, this is our burden to carry until next May/June when the primary school kids stop driving to class for there summer holidays.

The sad Irony is there is no real need for me to be in the office 9 to 5.30 every day. What?

Think about it I work for the largest Internet hosting company in Ireland. All the tools of my job are available to me from anywhere, with one exception and that I could actually get around with a little help from one of our support staff.

To explain, the tools of my job consist of the desk phone (easily forwarded to my company mobile)the company web site (it better be available on my broadband connection) my CRM application which is also web based, and my outlook e-mail (thats the bit that I need help with) oh and of course the company IM.

So why can’t I either work from home unless I’m actually due to be meeting a client or at the very least start my day from home so I don’t have to sit in the rush hour traffic? well I’m kinda hoping it’s cause I ain’t asked (see ya monday Boss ;))

Now here’s a thought, I can’t be unique in this, have a look at your own job if you work in an office, chances are you use a PC of some sort to access files and your e-mail and maybe some special software that relates specifically to your job or company and a phone and maybe an IM app of some sort.

Newsflash we live in the 21st century, if it’s on a computer it can be accessed from anywhere over a secure web connection. I’m not going to get into how cause that would be to much like work but it can be done.

Now think about how many people you know in the same situation in Dublin. Why aren’t more companies doing this?

Is it lack of Broadband? well possibly outside of Dublin but most people commuting to work here have access to Broadband.

Is it the cost of the computer systems, possibly, but they can be offset by the increase in productivity.

Is it because the boss is a power mad megalomaniac? more than likely not

So why are we sitting in traffic day in day out when we could be working from home, there by reducing the number of cars on the streets and improving everybodies quality of life, while lowering greenhouse gas emmissions?

I’m starting to think it’s cause we the workers haven’t asked, and I don’t mean asked once I mean asked regularly, if I were to change job in the future I think this will have to be part of the package. I’d recomend anyone who’s tired of rush hour and the stress it brings to talk to your boss about this, maybe they’ll listen maybe they won’t but I think if we don’t ask and keep asking we’ll never have the option.