After a pretty much technology free day at work I wanted to actually do something hands on before the day was over. After a flurry of reading and deleting of of blog posts it looked like the buzz word of the day was (still) Google Maps. So off I went. With the aid of the excellent Number::Phone and the not too bad Geo::Google, which can’t seem to handle Scottish towns, I put together a small script which displays the town a phone number is from using Google Maps. Read on →

I spent a while today trying to get my head around Ethernet bonding, under Windows 2000 Server, on an IBM machine. Firstly a tangent, IBM has a great site with a lot of good content. And a bloody rubbish search engine and no overview on how anything fits together. I know organising that much data must take a lot of clue but hey, this is IBM! One of the few places that still actually does research. Read on →

I normally think of a topic, gather a list of potential speakers, send out some emails and then keep my fingers crossed. This time I’m attempting to put together an evening of talks on the topic of web frameworks in dynamic languages. I’m hoping to get someone to speak on Django, Rails and either Maypole or Catalyst (I don’t know much about either) and a then put them in a room with a crowd of Perl, Python and Ruby developers and see if we can start some conversations. Read on →

I’ve finally gotten around to bringing my book reviews (mostly for London PM) in to my main site. You can now see my reviews on the book reviews page.

In the past I posted about the possibility of Jeff Waugh coming to GLLUG and I can now happily confirm he will be joining us on October 14th for the evening. This is a day after the next Ubuntu release so we might get the first talk on the shiny new features before we go for food and drink at the near by Greenman pub. This GLLUG will be a lot shorter than the usual and will be more socially focused as it’s on a Friday evening. Read on →

After a rubbish first start (just two entries in four months) I decided to scrap my 2005/2006 Pragmatic Investment Plan and start again. Between insanity both professionally, I changed jobs, and in my personal life nothing seemed to be moving. And sometimes you just need to wipe the slate clean and start again. I kicked back off with the Linux Expo and FUDCon, both of which were excellent and will be covered in another post and by buying some more books. Read on →

Author: Geoff Burch ISBN: 1841124702 Publisher: Capstone Publishing Ltd The authors of an unhealthy amount of business books seem to live in a world of external sunshine and abundance. Every sales call results in a gentle hug and every request for money a blank cheque. This book isn’t like that. Although it bills itself as a “guerilla guide to setting up on your own”, it’s more an overview of the practical , often overlooked, aspects of becoming self-employed. Read on →

Author: Kerry L. Johnson ISBN: 1857880471 Publisher: Nicholas Brealey Publishing When it comes to sales people there are two main types, those that believe in win/win selling and the ones who don’t get my money; and hopefully have bad things happen to them. “Selling with NLP” (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) aims to provide salespeople with the skills required to increase rapport with their clients and help them understand the customers needs rather than just the wants. Read on →

I finally got around to watching the entertaining and very well rehearsed OSCON 2005 Identity 2.0 Keynote by Dick Hardt. The presentation itself is very catchy; a large number of very short slides that stop you getting bored (very Lessig). I hate to think how long he spent getting them together. My favourite was the MS Passport slide, which, slide-by-slide, summarises the whole story of Passport in a single element. Read on →