secondary artifacts

Learning HTML5

2011-10-28T08:55:00.001-04:00

Renewed interest update! I'm beginning to poke around and properly learn HTML5 again, with some hands-on prototyping and the goal of building a mobile app. Here is my collection of links, please chime in with comments and suggestions...

Reading: HTML5 for Web Designers, Chapter 1
Links: My HTML5 Delicious bookmarks (rather dated at this point)
Examples: HTML5 Gallery sites
Shiny: Website Example: Arcade Fire's The Wilderness Downtown
Funny: Single use site Is HTML5 Ready Yet?
Shiny: Check out The Expressive Web feature exploration (Thx 2 Maxx)
Javascript: jQuery Mobile (how popular is this one?)
IBMish: New mobile dev community and dev feature pack
Apps: PhoneGap for building iOS / Android apps for app stores with HTML5
Cool: Untappd, an app to track your Beer check-ins, built with HTML5, CSS and PhoneGap

Remembering Steve, or How You Like Them Apples?

2011-10-10T23:54:00.001-04:00

Some thoughts about Steve Jobs and his legacy, built with a few shiny Apples.

I've never owned a PC.
That is not to say I don't have experience with many computers (Window 3.51, Windows95, Windows NT or Windows 2000). It was enough to throw my last PC through the window. But I'm getting ahead of myself....
I have been obsessed with gadgets and mobile devices since I was a kid, however I am also a skeptic with high expectations for how things should work. I took things apart and put them back together, just to see how they work. I am a user.
My first computer was a Commodore64. It had a 5" Floppy Disk drive and I attached it to a 13" Color TV through an UHF/ RCA connector. It was awesome. I wonder if Apple was inspired by it, b/c it was this cool keyboard with a computer built inside, kinda like today's iMacs.
My first computer programming experience was in High School, developing card games on an Apple II in Pascal. This was the first glimmer I had of my future working with technology and my creative side.
I used Unix throughout college. I've used Windows and Linux while working as a software engineer but they were not my personal preference. I longed to get back to the fun of the Apple.
My first computer bought with my own money was the Apple iMac G4 in 2001, you know, the iLamp.
My first blog was on Geocities. Let's not talk about that right now. :)
My first real blog was published using the "iBlog" software on my iMac G4 around 2002 / 2003 (i think), and it was hosted on .Mac. I liked the ease of use and publishing model but I quickly outgrew the cost model by sharing digital photos of my children.
My first digital camera, the Canon Powershot S10, had 2MB resolution and allowed me to start a digital scrapbook from the time my 1st child was born in 2000. iLife became the way to share our growing family with others around the state.
My 2nd Mac was a PowerMac Dual G5 tower (you know, the awesome one with the IBM chip) with OS X Panther or Tiger or one of those cats.
I have owned 4 iPods, beginning with the 2003 3rd Gen "Classic" as it is called now. It had a slick touch wheel and 10GB of memory. I couldn't imagine my music collection would ever outgrow that size. I was wrong. All 4 iPods still just work.
The iPod changed the music world for me, and countless others. Music became a part of my life again. Pricing individual songs at 99 cents was brilliant. It changed the consumer's view of what music collecting and sharing can be in the digital era, after Napster and other services. We all started thinking about music in terms of megabytes and lists instead of discs and albums. The digital music revolution enabled me to share holiday music with family and friends starting in 2002. I also become "that guy that brings the good mega mix to the party." I don't know how that happened. Everyone with an iPod becomes a DJ with the right music.
My first smart phone was the iPhone 3G. I resisted buying into the whole smart phone craze and was skeptic of the touch screen. I grew up using Palm PDAs.
My current daily gear is the iPhone 4. When I say I'm a mobile blogger, it's largely because of my mobile workflow enabled by the smart phone. iPhone don't give you style, but it does unleash it in the right hands.
My current work computer is a Macbook Pro. Someone sat on it 1.5 years ago, bending the aluminum body like a book. I bent the back into form with my. It still works like a champ. True story.
I bought an iPad 2, resisting the urge to jump in when the device first appeared. I thought it was just a large iTouch without much serious application. Then I tried the tablet. Steve was a good salesman but he was right. It is magic. I am constantly looking for new ways to make it the first device I use. You have to use it to get how transformative this technology really is for people of all ages.
My kids have grown up with an appreciation for good user interfaces and they don't even know a world that is any different. They use the iPod Touch like it's second nature. They possess "computer skills" that people of my generation spend a life time building. Their expectations about how technology works together is shaping the world around us.
My parents have not been convinced to try a "more expensive PC" aka those Mac things, however they do have 4 cheap HP computers sitting around their house. They are slow, always have trouble connecting to wi-fi and generally are internet challenged. Yes, I am talking about the computers. LOL! My mom has always said, you get what you pay for.
I helped my brother build a PC gaming tower during his high school years. It had neon light in the chassis and rad style. It also crashed during videos and games and was always sick with 1 virus or another. 2 months ago he bought an iMac and iPad 2 with the generous education discount that Apple gives for college students. I am so proud and so jealous.
I have been saved sooo much time in my life by using a computer that "just works." A computer that is built to work with video connections and sleeps and wakes up and just well, works.
I have always enjoyed creating things with my Mac. Often people ask me how I do something or how to fix their computer. How do I "make things just work so well?" Honestly, I can't take much credit. Usually it takes so much time to diagnose or even just explain the problem with the PC. The shorter answer is simply "I use a Mac. Maybe you should too?" Macs are made for users.
I don't consider myself a Mac fanboy. I rarely buy the 1st or even 2nd products from Apple. As I said, I'm a user. I just like technology that works. The technology platform that Steve Jobs has built with the smart folks at Apple just works. Think about the hardware + software + content combination that makes up the Apple experience now. Think about the impact.
I'm a Mac. Thank you Steve. Our lives are forever changed for the better.

The Story from Monktoberfest

2011-10-07T22:58:00.000-04:00

See all of the great people, content, beer and conversations from Monktoberfest in Portland Maine this week.

Neat stuff from Social Fresh Charlotte 3

2011-09-07T15:03:00.001-04:00

I am taking real notes on pen and paper during Social Fresh Charlotte this week. I will take these and discuss what I thought the best and most important points from the conference in another blog post. For now, I've started a storify story post with some highlights, photos, videos, tweets, blog posts, and links.

Top Ten VMA Over the Moon Men moments

2011-08-31T21:11:00.000-04:00

I watched the VMAs this week. It got me thinking and I enjoyed the show this year more than any other in recent memory. Here are my top 10 observations.

Twitter Tracker is ready for prime time. The VJs made good use of the Tweet screen during the pre-show to highlight ranked Buzz, Photos, and Artists who were participating. Social buzz, content and Influencer participating together in a simple sexy display. Social web is banging on the 4th wall of the show, this year front and center like none before it. Mobile (Read: Apps) and SMS round out the new "Social TV" experience.
"Jo" and his rockers represent for people of all types and preferences. This is affecting everyone in different ways.
Foo Fighters win Best Rock video, and I was caught by a few things about the acceptance speech from David Grohl. He mentions Joel Schumacher by name, since their video was inspired by his film Falling Down. Nice touch. Then Dave spreads the good word and gives a shout out to the former "rock" administration, "Never lose faith in real rock and roll music you may have to look around a little harder for it but never loss faith in rock and roll. This one goes out to Judy McGrath." Judy was the big boss that built MTV Networks, that is until May of this year. Rumors swirl as to the why.
No hosts: Nominated artists introducing other nominees who perform.... neat twist to show a different side of the artist community. I found it refreshing. And while I like Kevin Hart - his pre-taped behind the scenes comedy video bits fell flat. They didn't mesh with the real-time vibe of the show.
Chris Brown dance number on wires with cool remix of his stuff and things like Nirvana?Okay it was actually pretty cool. The Throne duo performance? Not so much.
Neat kid ensemble dance remix, then a cursing "Jo" finally bringing Britney on stage for Video Vanguard award? Hmm, not cool.
Beyonce Knowles is the new Tina Turner - a classic performer. Congrats on the baby news. What a way to make an announcement.
Injured Jesse J as the house band? This didn't work out all that well.
Tony Bennett and Amy Winehouse at Abbey Road recording is real music. And Jazz getting front and center stage at a pop culture show. A wow moment. Another big OMG moment was Bruno Mars and his big band tribute performance. It gave me shivers and it got the audience up and dancing in the aisles. Jazz man, nothing like it.
Katy's cube hat! Katy's Geisha outfit and umbrella. KATY Katy katy... was everywhere but she still seems sweet and humble. Refreshing.
Okay 1 more, just because: The Geek moment of the night: Jennifer Lawrence introducing first ever Hunger Games movie preview from the NC film set.

NCMA Tweetup story

2011-08-19T16:08:00.001-04:00

I organized the first Triangle Tweetup at the North Carolina Museum of Art with the marketing team of the musuem, @Caw_ and @JenniferWarner. The #NCMATweetup was held before the summer movie night for the Social Network outside of the West Building. Lots of fun and a great time with about 150 people in Raleigh. Here is the digital story....

#DurhamTweetup story

2011-08-18T20:49:00.000-04:00

A "Durham Tweetup" was held on February 9th at Motorco in Durham. The topic was Media, but the crowd was treated to 5 Food Trucks! I did my part to promote with my Triangle Tweetup hat and the event was organized by @dipikakohli of @designkompany with help from @durhamfoodie.

Movies films flicks

2011-07-04T14:05:00.003-04:00

Here are the films I've seen in the theater in twenty eleven so far... I need to get writing some new movie reviews!

Sucker Punch
Battle: Los Angeles
Thor
Fast Five
Hangover Part II
Rango
Kung Fu Panda 2
X-Men: First Class
Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

2011-06-30T11:24:00.000-04:00

Due to the 2011 Summer Wildfire near the NC Coast, our family vacation was interrupted a bit by smoke. So my father and I packed up the kids on Wednesday and drove up to Jacksonville to see the new Transformers movie on opening day.

Act 1 is good... The alternate history setup is plausible and interesting.
The 2 hour 3 hour movie - commercials, ads and trailers are such a terrible experience and mood wreck
Act 3 District 911 wasteland set piece? ... Yes it is too soon to destroy an entire city just to prove the threat to the humans ... by reducing the population ironically to dust and tearing down buildings. Yes the city is Chicago and not New York City but we're not stupid.
McDreamy is a Bad lawyer joke in his phoned in Familiar one note character. Really, this is the big bad?
Soundwave is a Mercedes? Shockwave is a cloud of tentacles?
Buzzard chameleon token operative is the new Monkey jukebox token operative?
Alpha is good in his goofy role as the side-kick "do it all" jack of all trades.
First act had interesting new characters then third act brought back old familiar boring ones and NPCs.
I mean it had some funny parts, there were some things I liked about it.
Obligatory Optimus speech time has lost it's gravitas - your allies may betray you but... What?

#ChevySXSW 2011 Road Trip Challenge has started!

2011-03-07T18:06:00.011-05:00

Here is my one-stop shop to track the 10 twenty eleven road trip teams as they drive from their respective home towns to Austin for SXSW this week.

What follows are links to the teams and their profiles, blogs, etc. The challenges and locations are secret this year, so the teams and the world will find out about them in real-time. Remember each Chevy is rigged with mobile wi-fi internet access to help them publish content and communicate from the road plus OnStar is on the ready to assist along the way. Good luck #ChevySXSW drivers!

Team NYC (NY NY duh) - about, team twitter @nycsxsw, ask, car tweets @nycchevy
Team SxChiGirls (Chicago IL) - about, team twitter #SxChiGirls, car tweets @chevychi
Team High Five (Detroit) - about, team twitter @highfivesxsw / #highfivesxsw, facebook, car tweets @detroitchevy
Team Chevy's Angels (Tampa FL) - about, team twitter #ChevysAngels, car tweets @floridachevy, facebook
#EhTeam (Vancouver, BC) - about, team twitter #EhTeam, car tweets @ehchevy, press
Team SXSW Angels (LA) - about, blog, team twitter @sxswangels, car tweets @calichevy
Team CBus (Columbus OH) - about, team twitter #teamcbus, car tweets @cbuschevy
Team Motown (Detroit) - about, team twitter @motownsxsw / #motownsxsw, facebook, car tweets @chevymotown
Team Autofollow (Toronto) - about, team twitter @chevyyyz / #TeamAutofollow? ~~(i can't find much about this team which is ironic)~~, car tweets @torontochevy
Team Buffetts Bros (Omaha NE) - about, team twitter @buffettsbros, car tweets @catchabuffett

Updated: March 9 to include tumblr sites for Chevy’s Angels, Autofollow, @chevyyyz and all vehicle twitter accounts.

Follow all of the team members via my Twitter List @therab/chevysxsw2011/ as they see the USA in a Chevrolet! Here are the list members, pls offer corrections / updates. Leave comments, send well-wishes, let the smack talk fly. Follow hashtag #ChevySXSW via twazzup or twitter search. Also follow the challenge judges with @sxswangels/judges/members. Here is the official introduction to the team captains on sxsw.com. You can follow team progress on this handy map app courtesy of OnStar. Each Chevy vehicle is also tweeting out messages via GPS triggered events with OnStar.

You can support the teams through an education charity this year via Adopt-a-classroom. The team's have more info on their blogs.

Remember, don't text / blog and drive. Use your teammates and sign the No Phone Zone pledge. Sounds funny but it's no joke. Be safe and see you on the finish-line.

See all that Chevrolet is up to at SXSW on sxsw.com/chevrolet and follow their blog chevysxsw.posterous.com.

Disclaimer: I am a #ChevySXSW 2011 road trip challenge judge. I drove for Team NC with Jason Keath, Nicole D'Alonzo and Wayne Sutton in the first road trip last year. See all my SXSW exploits from last year. The photo above was somewhere along our trip through Louisiana where we found a really custom Chevy truck on the roadside. Pictured left to right is me, Niki and Jason.

Twenty Interesting People of Twenty Ten

2011-01-25T02:35:00.041-05:00

A list of people I am grateful I had the opportunity to meet / talk / hang with in 2010.... good / cool / smart / fun people.

Jill Hanner - she of Youtube video show fame - Met at Social Fresh Charlotte, acted as her social nerd ambassador to NC while crashing the speaker's dinner. I am impressed with the method behind her madness.
Scott Stratten - he of Un-marketing fame - Met for dinner at the Pit BBQ in Raleigh during his book tour, hung out at Pecha Kucha IdeaSpark. He is humble, grounded and smart. Nice qualities that qualify him to be the life guard watching over the deep end of the Social marketing know-it-all pool.
Philip DeFranco - AKA PhillyD AKA SXEPhil - he of incredible manic YouTube video show fame - Met while playing pool at Mashable party at Buzzard Billiards during SXSW. Super nice and approachable. Jason Keath and I talked to him about ECU and video editing techniques. Watch his show.
Zadi Diaz - The epic host of Epic Fu, a killer geek culture video show - Met at Pepsi Podcast Playground at SXSW. Very sweet, very real, very chill. A highlight of South by for me. Epic Whoo.
Victoria Morehead - AKA Veemoe - Met through friends of friends at the Star Wars Live in Concert. I Like her FB stream of pop culture consciousness. I heard from some guy named Greg that she's a heck of a design whiz also. She also still rocks the blogger blog like me.
Gregory Ng AKA The Frozen Foodmaster - Bonded deeply while eating frozen lasagna during Freezerburns Live! video show in Austin hotel during SXSW. and at countless other awesome NC events like the epic MovemberThon at Phonebooth.com.
iJustine - she of daily life vlog fame - Met on sidewalk shooting High5 video segments with Team Detroit at SXSW, after the Mashable party got too crowded. She really seems like a sweet genuine young lady.
Ben Huh - The I Can Has Cheezburger King and builder of LOLz - Met at Web2.0 Expo and we discussed ideas that make people happy with Brady Forrest after Ignite SF. He signed my I Can Has A Hotdog book and I promptly lost it the day after. Fail blog about me in there somewhere, am I right?
Adam Christensen - connoisseur of fine food truck tacos and shepherd of smarter planet voices - Met IRL finally at SXSW for IBMer lunch to, of course, test drive some tacos.
Tiffany Winman - she of until recently Mad-hatter hat avatar fame and pulse of IBM Pulse - Met IRL over tacos with Adam and Rawn Shah to discuss how social is done right and pondered why IBM wasn't more of a part of the epic conf that is "South by." Ironically, she gave me a cool hat.
Henry Balanon and Brandon Chesnutt - they of Team Detroit epic Chevy SXSW road trip fame - Met them at SXSW and I really like their style, surmising that they will in fact go far. They go strong. Party time, excellent. High Five!
Apl.de.ap and Will.I.Am - purveyors of fine dropped beats and prognosticators of good feelings related to tonight - Met late night Raleigh at BEP show after-party over mad DJ beats and a hot-dog cart.
Doc Searls - he of Cluetrain fame - Met at Dub dub dub twenty ten in Raleigh. Oh, and that other WWW guy Sir Tim Berners-Lee (see: HTTP). He gave me a cool W3C sticker and dropped the knowledge about semantic data and the open web.
Dennis Crowley - he of Foursquare fame - Met through mutual friends at South by gatherings and late night games in Austin hotel lobby. Whip smart cookie. His private party was also interesting.
Tessa Horehled - she of ultimate coolness - Came, saw, kicked past the posers and lines at SXSW - VIP style. Heck I gotta shout out to the whole SXSW team experience: Linnea Corn, Rich Tucker, Summer Joy, Emily Haughey, Chris Moody, Dave Murray, Audrey Walker, Adam Holden-Bache, Heather Macdonald, Allie Sullivan, Chris Barger, Tammy Camp, Phil Colley, Nicole Carriere, Schneider Mike, John Taylor, Ginny Skalski, Daniel Hamilton, Jeff Cohen, Kipp Bodnar, Jim Tobin, Dom Sagolla, Jay Cuthrell, Brandon Smith, Sledge the Photographer and the rest of the Austin beer and burrito appreciation society. I know I left people out.
Ron Mattocks – he of Dad Blogger (for moms?) fame – Met at Type-A Mom's Conference in Asheville NC. I spoke about privacy while blogging in the social media age with the also excellent Jim Turner. Ron's blog Clark Kent's Lunchbox just blows me away. Consistently. And I thank Ron, Jim, Clay, Kelby and all the fine folks at #TypeACon for opening my eyes to the nuanced world of mom / dad blogging. I have sorta kinda been doing it for years, and now it has a name.
Of course the most ultimate Road Trip Team EVAR: Jason Keath, Nicole D'Alonzo and THE Wayne Sutton. After a combined 6 days in a Chevy we probably know each other a little bit too much. But we survived and thus I bestow upon you each a hardy That's what she said, Untz untz untz, and then slow it on down with a slow jam moment courtesy of Miss Alicia Keys.

Whew, twenty ten was busy. What will happen this year?

I'll Be Marketing... In My New Role at IBM

2011-01-17T07:48:00.006-05:00

I believe luck is where opportunity and preparation meet, as the saying goes. I now have the good luck to join a team at IBM in, for me at least, a new part of the business: Marketing. For anyone who knows me, I am equal parts – geeky technologist, people person, analytical organizer, extroverted introvert and creative thinker. My drive to build community in all that I do and apply new innovations have naturally led me to roles providing an outlet for this energy. I have enjoyed expanding my software development career as a team leader, a community manager and most recently as a technical evangelist. Now I have the good opportunity to expand my scope and mission providing meaningful engagement with customers all across the WebSphere brand through social media. It will no longer be something I do just because I believe it is the best way to lead our business and help customers, it will be my first priority in the day to day job.

I'm joining IBM marketing in a role as Social Media Strategist for IBM WebSphere Software.

My original laminated IBM magnetic barcode badge from 1997. Scotch tape holds it together now.

I do not find acronyms all that inspiring, however IBM is a bit different. I have been with IBM since 1996, first as a college co-op and then hired on full-time, after receiving a Computer Science degree, to work on development of newfangled Java GUIs in the newly acquired Tivoli software division. IBM and I have been through a lot together. I have enjoyed working with people from different places and teams in the company. I think we have such a strong network of dedicated, talented and creative people working in IBM. I am proud to represent the brand through my own best efforts as an individual.

My friends and colleagues have not been all that surprised by my move from the development ranks to marketing. They have been cheering this move and many say it's about time. I have had more encouragement than I ever expected. They say the way in which others see you, at your best, is a reflection of your true nature and demonstrates your realized potential. I don't know about all that, but I am glad to take all of my fantastic experience working with people through online networks and live events to make a difference for IBM Software and our customers. Here are my 5 reasons to join marketing!

A Smarter Planet starts with you and me. I want to change the world. I want to make a difference in people's lives. I want to reach out to help people be successful. One person at a time – and through real-time communication in the new media way. I am a perpetual early adopter. I am curious to find new ways of solving problems and strive to discover how things work. What can we accomplish together?
Taking social business to the next level. We have a great ecosystem of technology engineers and business leaders with an incredible opportunity to reach people by digital and interactive means. Amplified serendipity is possible when we open up our business on social networks in preparation for disruptive change and new business models. I strive to building digital eminence for myself and my colleagues. We have the most brilliant minds in the technology industry. I believe social media provides a powerful medium to help people connect with context and meaning. I have great experience with proven success in local North Carolina community activities with using social media in meaningful ways to organize events and connect people. Now, I will put this to great use for the IBM Impact conference for WebSphere.
IBM Software has a story to tell. IBM Software is a capability platform, not just a set of products. Through our deep research work, acquisitions and technology delivery, IBM is poised to continue doing great things far beyond our centennial this year. I want to help share this story.
Innovation that matters. You've heard this before but it remains a driving factor in everything we do at IBM. We are here to enable our customers to succeed, period. It's not all about what tools, but also how, when and who uses good tools to facilitate the best results. Digital and web marketing have been very successful mediums for IBM to communicate value and I now see social and real-time as the natural progression of that powerful formula. I will now be able to help more people be successful with solving big problems, and the small ones too.
It's about the people. My colleagues routinely amaze me and I want to feed off of their energy to challenge myself and grow. Something 2.0 or "Social that" is what we constantly try to label all of these ways and means but it's really about the people that drive the car. We have great drivers, and crew, and I am glad to be on the race team starting the big race at the pole position.

There are a great many people I wish to thank for their support both behind the scenes and on the job, for their keen insights and advice on my career journey thus far. There have been so many excellent people who have been nice to me, beyond the call of duty, helping with my development over my entire professional career and especially during this past year. I'm a big fan of making lists, as you well know, but my gratitude list is far too expansive to record today. I want to thank each and every one of you individually and until then, please accept my heartfelt thanks here. To my friends, family, colleagues – the unbelievable network of people inside and outside the company I've had the fortune of learning from and interacting with on work, life and the stuff in-between – and especially to my wife and kids, thank you. She is the anchor and they are the starboard and port lights that twinkle and shine on this journey.

Without much more to say for now, I'll see you all online and with good luck in person soon. I am marketing now and know that our success relies on good communication. You can find me here, there and everywhere online.

And the Golden Globe Goes To...

2011-01-16T23:23:00.005-05:00

Tonight was the 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards in Hollywood. I give my thanks to the following winners and nominees for their excellent work from 2010.

Christian Bale – Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Movie for The Fighter
Katey Sagal – Best Performance by an Actress in a TV series Drama for Sons of Anarchy
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – Best Original Score for The Social Network
Steve Buscemi – Best Performance by an Actor in a TV series Drama for Boardwalk Empire
Natalie Portman – Best Performance by an Actress in a Movie for Black Swan

Yes, it is true, Inception should have won as best film drama of the year. I also had high high hopes The Walking Dead would have won for best tv drama series. That said, Broadwalk Empire is excellent. I would have voted for Despicable Me as best animated film. Finally, I can't understand how Modern Family is not the best TV series comedy of the year.

Time Movies On

2011-01-14T23:14:00.017-05:00

As I watched the 16th Annual Critic's Choice Movie Awards on VH1 tonight I am reminded of 3 things.

The Jackass guys are all right. Their Inception spoof at the open was a spot on touch of brilliant funny. (See Jackass 3D to laugh harder.)
I watched too many films in 2010, and probably too much TV about films... but I can't wait to now watch the Golden Globes on Sunday night!
I need hurry up and watch several 2010 films that are apparently brilliant which didn't make my 2010 Best Of list. However, I still really kinda want to see The Green Hornet this weekend after seeing Michel Gondry's awesome trippy version of Jimmy Kimmel last night with Seth Rogen.
And here's a fourth item b/c 3 weren't enough: Quentin Tarantino is the man. He is truly an inspiration as an artist.

My list of films from 2010 I want / need to watch are .... help me if I missed anything worthwhile or if I should drop others that still aren't worth it.

True Grit – I really hopes this wins Oscar for best film. I watching the original on AMC last weekend.
The Social Network – okay, this is out on Blu-ray, I guess I should break down and friend it. Not sure if I'll Like it however. And I'd like to see why the soon-to-be Peter Parker is all the rage.
Black Swan – dark horse for best film of 2010, so I surmise.
Let Me In – the real "good" vampire epic of 2010.
The Fighter – So much good gritty energy here. Christian Bale won the CCMA for best supporting actor. Kudos and nice hair cut and beard Batman.
The Town – here's hoping Ben gets a best director nod.
Tangled – one of the few kid fare animated 3D features I didn't see w/ my kids last year, and it actually looks pretty neat with the anime inspired design.
Conviction – 2 words: Sam Rockwell.
Enter The Void – Quentin says it's good stuff so...
Waiting for Superman
Inside Job
Easy A – won best comedy of 2010 at Critic's Choice Movie Awards – over Date Night, so that's saying something. Best and most awkward speech of the CCMAs, Director explained the success of the comedy by saying, "It's about pretending to have sex in high school, which is something we are all very familiar with, and I think a lot of the critics are too... and the online critics.... aaaannd the Social Network table. [rim shot from the band] Wow, Maroon 5 woke up. Thank You. Although Emma ... she was home schooled, she didn't go to high school, so I hope you didn't pretend to have sex at home. Except your brother is kinda hot. Super hot." Silence from the audience and a Wow from star Emma Stone.
The Tillman Story
Exit Through The Gift Shop – Banksy says relax.
Restrepo
Blue Valentine – epic love, marriage, relationships and other things that go right / wrong.
Red – because action and comedy go together like an old fashioned, well, sometimes.
Rabbit Hole
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (foreign)
I Am Love (foreign)
The Other Guys
Youth in Revolt
Repo Men
Unstoppable
Green Zone
The Runaways
Machete

And I think it's worth saying, Inception won Critic's Choice Movie awards for:

Best Action Movie
Best Cinematography
Best Art Direction
Best Editing
Best Visual Effects
Best Sound

Twenty Five Twenty Ten Videos

2011-01-04T12:14:00.006-05:00

Well, my 25 days of video series is not entirely complete, but I posted about 2/3 of the videos I intended. I was unexpectedly wisked away to Asheville for a New Year's vacation, and it was a much needed break from the computer. Life is what happens when you are busy making plans right? I'll post a few more 2010 videos this month to catch up and post a list for easy browsing. See you all in 2011.

25 days of video – Day 22 – Dog of Awesome

2010-12-28T17:04:00.003-05:00

Lucy is a dog. Our pet Yorkie is feisty, fierce, fantastic and fun. She turned 28 (in dog years) on December 23rd. She is awesome. That is all.

Check in for my next video tomorrow!

The 25 days of video is a series of short videos from my unpublished collection of footage from 2010. I will reveal a new video each day in December 2010 – a random time capsule unearthed to share the year's happenings.

25 days of video – day 21 – Snowpocalypse Edition

2010-12-26T16:40:00.001-05:00

It snowed this week. We had the first White Christmas around the Triangle of North Carolina since 1947-ish according to RDU weather records and the Piedmont Triad of NC last saw snow in 1962. Here is the view from our house in Wake Forest on Christmas Day 2010.

The "2010 Snowpocalypse" as the blogs and media started calling the east coast snow blizzard was decidedly more treacherous in the northern parts of the country. My cousin Caroline and her family were supposed to drive from NC home to DC and fly to Florida to see more family on Monday/Tuesday of this week. I hope they travel safe!

Check in for my next video tomorrow!

25 days of video – Day 20 - Jump Jump

2010-12-25T18:54:00.002-05:00

My 2 neighbors and I went in together and bought a new trampoline for our children to play on. It took 4 and a half men to put it together on Christmas morning, about 7 to move it into place. We got it completed a couple of hours before the snowpocalypse hit. And then, Joy to the World, jump jump! 2011 here we go!

Check in for my next video tomorrow!

25 days of video – Day 19 - Merry Merritts

2010-12-24T22:52:00.017-05:00

Merry Christmas from Papa Ken and the Merritt family cousins in festive Germanton North Carolina! Greetings from Ken, Caroline, Ben, Kate, Kim and Jennifer.

This was our first Christmas without our dear Grandma Edith Merritt. She departed here to join the fine folks in heaven on Christmas Eve 2009. We missed several other family members this year who could not be with us at Aunt Yvonne's and Uncle Jerry's house in Germanton a few clicks from the old Merritt family home near Rural Hall. We have met as a family together ever since I can remember on Christmas eve. It is one of our most treasured traditions and things will be different from this year forward, without Edith and with our family tree spreading and growing ever outward. We were very glad to meet our newest family member Elliott Pierce Love who was born on December 6th to my sister Jennifer and her hubs Buddy Love the day before at my parent's house. We are thankful little Elliott is growing stronger each day – he obviously has the Boyles' stubbornness and the Loves' strength. We also were able to spend some great quality play time bonding (video) with Lucy Armijo, who is the happiest little Christmas elf this year. Uncle Jerry, a genuine gadget lover second only to me, showed off an awesome new LED HDTV as big as the wall itself. Color me jealous. Alex, Henry and Ed enjoy the high def Football highlights. Watching Star Wars Episode 2 was eerie – it was like watching a combination of Dr. Who and live-action theater in HD. We had great food including 3 kinds of ham (spiral, country and BBQ) and 4 types of salad, 3 bottles of different red wines. My uncle Ed jokingly observed that this was the first Christmas eve in memory that did not feature a clam dip appetizer – while I have no memory of this tradition from my childhood, I was keenly aware that there seemed to be a serious lack of another family staple – sweet or unsweet iced tea! The hot Russian tea more than made up for it. I do now recall Edith trying the dip at Ed and Karen's house as I think back a few years about Christmas Eve gatherings. My aunt Karen and Uncle Bo exchanged tales at the dinner table of their childhood growing up in Rural Hall. They talked about the indestructible family car "Betsy" the Chrysler, driving with no brakes and dating in a household under the roof of my grandfather Roger, a Baptist minister. Aunt Yvonne, the eldest sister has few memories of those days and my mother misses Edith more than she will say. My youngest cousin Kate, the artist and photog, visited from rain-drenched LA for the holiday this year and plans an epic road trip to return home this week with friends. Caroline, the crafter living in DC, created a six part art project for the Advent season at her church. The fifth part of the project for a look at "Grace" was created in tribute to our dear departed Grandmother Edith. A set of cookie tins feature photos from our holiday gatherings at the old family home on Highway 8, sheet music from classic hymns and seasonal favorites along with bottled scents from various cookie recipes. Cooking and music has been a big part of our family. Our family gatherings are centering around good food and fellowship. Aunt Yvonne has been an organist for her church for the last half of the last century. My brother Benjamin is a gifted Tenor who sang a solo of O come Emmanuel at his church this month. I featured it on my annual Eclectic Christmas Mix. Caroline's art project "Grandma's Cookie Tins" can be viewed as a slideshow on flickr as well as all 6 parts for Advent 2010 – In a perfect world. You can read more about her motivation, inspiration and creative process on her website. Making Christmas cookies was a big part of our family time getting ready for the season this year. We made a variety of cookies at home last week and also at mom's on Wednesday night. The traditions continue...

Christmas Eve 2010, Lucy bids us farewell

We were so glad to see you Elliott, Lucy, Alex, Kate, Caroline, Jennifer, Ben, Matt, Henry, Bo, Yvonne, Karen, Ed, Jerry, Mom and Dad. We missed you Avery, Jackson, Grace, Connor, Cama, Lilly, Heather, Eris, Erik, Jason, Ashley, Pat, Robert, Cindy, Scott, Paula and Dick. We remember you Edith, Roger and Andrew. My wife, our children and I also had the chance to visit her family for Christmas eve night after a short drive 45 minutes north to Eden. We enjoyed the great treat to sit a short spell with my wife's infirm grandmother Lillie Roberts, who shares the same birth year as Edith. Christmas is a special time for our grandmothers. It was a time they devoted to their children and grandchildren and marvel at the work of our maker. Now we marvel at their full lives, their legacy and love. Merry Christmas to all, near or far, and here's to a great 2010 with family old and new.

Christmas Eve 1979, Grandchildren and Edith

I have posted photos and memories of our family time and good food on Whrrl and Flickr for you all to share and remember our time together.

Christmas Eve 2010, 3 Daughters and Son of Edith

Check in for my next video tomorrow!

25 days of video – Day 18 – Uncle Rab

2010-12-23T18:53:00.007-05:00

I'm an uncle! My nephew Elliott Love was born on December 6th 2010 to happy first time parents Jennifer (you can call her JAB!) and Buddy Love. We gathered at my parent's house for a family lunch and gift exchange on Christmas Eve eve where we met little Elliott for the first time. My boys now have a cousin and could not be more intrigued / thrilled / happy. Babies are still cool apparently.

Check in for my next video tomorrow!

25 days of video – Day 17 – Sugar Cookie Sprinkles

2010-12-22T23:30:00.002-05:00

We made sugar cookies in my Mom's kitchen tonight. The kids were hired as Sprinkle Distribution Engineers. I was a Quality Assurance Engineer. Mom as always is Product Manager and Head Chef. The cookies passed my inspection. I deemed it necessary to do a double inspection. You know, just to be sure.

Check in for my next video tomorrow!

Eclectic Christmas Mix 2010

2010-12-21T22:17:00.006-05:00

Thanks to all the suggestions this year on my new EclecticXmas tumblr blog. I think the twenty ten mix is something special. I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Holly Jolly Christmas Burl Ives – suggested by Darren Noel
Jingle Bells Rosemary Clooney – suggested by my eldest son
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Ella Fitzgerald – suggested by my youngest son
The Christmas Song The Temptations – suggested by Claire Spina-Russell
One Little Christmas Tree Stevie Wonder – suggested by Kate Merritt
Merry Christmas, I Love You James Brown – suggested by Robin Fay
I Want To Come Home For Christmas Marvin Gaye
What Are You Doing New Year's Eve Nancy Wilson
Mr. Heatmiser Big Bad Voodoo Daddy – suggested by my youngest son
I'll Be Home for Christmas Martina McBride
Tiny Tree Christmas Guster
Santa Claus Is Back In Town Dwight Yoakam
Christmas Eve Keegan DeWitt
Holiday Road [Live] Lindsey Buckingham – suggested by Caroline Armijo
Toy Jackpot Blackalicious – inspired by fun Target ads
Electronic Santa Blazer Force – suggested by my wife and sister
I Hope That It Snows Madi Diaz & Keegan DeWitt
Cinnamon & Chocolate Butterfly Boucher – suggested by Robin Fay
It Really Is (A Wonderful Life) Mindy Smith
The Christmas Waltz Kristin Chenoweth
The Holly And The Ivy Annie Lennox
When My Heart Finds Christmas Harry Connick Jr. – suggested by my wife
Angelic Proclamation Barlowgirl
Oh Come Emmanuel Aliqua – suggested by Robin Fay
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel Ben Boyles and Donna O'Malley – suggested by my sister, performed by my brother, listen

Top Movies of 2010

2010-12-20T01:08:00.021-05:00

... that I saw! In other words, movies worth watching again... and in some cases, again and again. I've linked to my 10 bullet reviews.

Inception – so good, I saw it twice, and the blu-ray is on my wish list! Epic.
Kick-Ass – Saw it twice in theater. Great fun.
TRON: Legacy 3D (midnight premiere tweetup video)
Despicable Me (3D)
Shutter Island
Salt
Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D – saw it twice!
The Crazies
Jackass 3D – I haven't laughed this hard during a movie in a long time, my ribs hurt after.
Dinner for Schmucks

Best of the rest... a load of action / thriller / "guy" movies that were entertaining. Apparently, I saw a record number of movies in the theater this year.

The Book of Eli
The Karate Kid
The A-Team
Iron Man 2
The Losers
Predators
The Expendables
Daybreakers

Movies for good funny date nights...

Date Night
The Tourist
Dinner for Schmucks
Valentine's Day – Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Garner, Anne Hathaway, Jamie Foxx and other beautiful people have some sad times around that February quasi-holiday with raised expectations.

Movies to not be bothered with...

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 – really all I could think of was how so many other fantasy films did these themes, plots and characters better in the past.
Clash of the Titans 3D – seriously, the old school stop motion animation is better than this 3D hack fest!
Legion – go watch the Crazies instead of this.
Tooth Fairy – The Rock has his Kindergarden Cop moment. Still, he is charming.
Alice in Wonderland 3D – Tim Burton let me down.
A Nightmare on Elm Street – If only Freddy Krueger were in Inception... save yourself and go watch the original.
Sex and the City 2 – Let it be understood, I did not see this but my wife was peer-pressured into going to this unfashionable cringe-inducing dreck fest and wants 2.3 hours of her life back.

Movies I may yet see in 2010... during the holiday vacation break. Will any of these get the chance to make my list? Time will tell.

Black Swan
Love and Other Drugs
Blue Valentine
The Fighter
How Do You Know

Top Kid Movies of 2010

2010-12-20T00:57:00.014-05:00

As reviewed by my two sons, age 8 and 10. Here are the movies they liked:

The Karate Kid – 3D
TRON Legacy – 3D
Despicable Me – 3D
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 – 3D
Diary of a Wimpy Kid (I think this was in 3D also but I can't remember)
Tooth Fairy – 3D
Megamind – 3D
Fantastic Mr. Fox

The movies they didn't like so much:

Shrek Forever After – 3D
Legends of the Guardians – 3D
Iron Man 2
Alice in Wonderland – 3D
Marmaduke – 3D
Toy Story 3 – 3D
Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightening Thief – 3D

And some other movies they didn't bother to see...

Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader – 3D
Tangled – 3D (although I want to see this one)
The Last Airbender – 3D

Um, is anyone noticing a trend here with the kid's movies? 3D is the only format in town now. And I'm still taking them to see TRON Legacy 3D this week or next. Stay tuned.

Jan. 3: Took the oldest son to see TRON. He liked it a lot.

25 days of video – Day 13 – The Emo Song

2010-12-18T19:18:00.005-05:00

This is what my boys were singing while I tried to get them to sit still for our 2010 Christmas card photo. They disagree on one verse of The Emo Song. That makes me sad, or something. Meh Christmas everyone, or whatever. Peace.

Check in for my next video tomorrow!

Tron Legacy 3D

2010-12-17T13:32:00.010-05:00

TRON is back! I went to the midnight premiere with a group of users and programs. It was definitely another Vampire Mode occasion, hence the menacing glowing eyes. Here is my personal 10 bullet review.

When the Journey song plays in the Flynn's Arcade jukebox – and Sweet dreams are made of these – you know it's time to go inside the machine.
Light bikes are still rad. I want one under my Christmas tree.
In like Flynn - Jeff Bridges / Kevin is the Zen man, man - the Dude abides off the grid - "it's bio-digital jazz, man" – "knockin' on the sky, listenin' to the sound...."
The Grid is a lost private isLANd full of monsters and perfection.
Zeus is zany fun, Gem is d-a-n-g-e-r-o-u-s.
Tron has a black heart after 20 years on the Grid. Why did Alan stop programming Tron? Why didn't Kevin and Alan work together on the digital frontier?
"Sometimes the only way to win is not to play" – Kevin Flynn to Sam, eh Wargames much?
CLU has a mainframe state of mind. What if CLU got a clue and discovered access to the Internets? Game over. EOL.
Quorra like all new life is beautiful to behold. Quorra is the one, last hope for ... something something new techno meaning of life. A User born on the Grid tranferred to the real world? What is the meaning of life? Metaphors about life and living free and open vs control inside the computer circuits. Users and Programs and alternative digital frontiers – oh my. Turns the notion of the other side of the screen inside out.
Great fun for all ages, concepts in a very strikingly pretty 3D world. Go see it, again.
BONUS: Harder, better, faster, stronger – Daft Punk is the deal! Charge it, point it, zoom it, press it, snap it, work it, quick - erase it, Plug it, play it, burn it, rip it – technologic it.

25 days of video – Day 12 - TRON Legacy

2010-12-17T13:08:00.007-05:00

My 12th video of December is also the instant movie review from the TRON Legacy Tweetup in Durham NC last night. I mashed up the review of TRON last Saturday night and did the same with the sequel on video. I thought TRON Legacy 3D was a great film.

Group 1 sentence reviews:

Expectations met... no. – Michael
Ehhhh... – Lawrence
Not going to win any Oscars but the visuals are impressive. – Tim
Visuals were good but the dialog was not. – John
Visually entertaining! – Wayne
....I liked the Plot! – Ryan
All I have to say is Daft Punk = 2 thumbs up! – Damond
1 word: Beautiful! – Danielle

Check in for my next video tomorrow!

What is the most epic Man versus Machine contest since 1997 for $1000 Alex?

2010-12-15T11:45:00.016-05:00

Would you like to play a game?

2 Men + 1 Computer Enter.

1 Man OR 1 Computer Leaves.

The Marquee Billing: Jeopardy champ Ken Jennings vs Jeopardy champ Brad Rutter vs Supercomputer IBM Watson!

Answers will be asked, Questions will be given, Hearts will be broken! Cue "the final countdown" music. Oh yeah, sing it... It's the final countdown!!

The Ultimate Trivia Showdown of Ultimate TV Destiny is set to begin on February 14, 2011. It's all part of a fantastic experiment to see if a computing machine can out comprehend, out wit and out think real live, and might I add very smart, people in a live competition over the course of 3 days. That means Watson will use new natural language processing techniques from IBM Research, Business Analytics capabilites from Cognos and some cutting edge IBM hardware to step toe to toe with it's human counter-parts.

Here are the top 10 ways you can interact with IBM Watson and discover more about the technical bits and bytes of how a machine can learn to interact with us.

Talk to IBMers about Watson with the #ibmwatson hashtag on twitter
Play Watson in a Trivia Challenge game on the interactive magazine of NewYorkTimes.com
Watch the stories about how a computer "learns" to compete with people: ibmwatson.com
Friend a supercomputer named Watson on Facebook facebook.com/ibmwatson
Follow and interact with @ibmwatson on twitter
Watch videos about IBM Watson on youtube.com/user/ibm
Interact with the social streams in one spot www.ibm.com/social/watson
Keep up with blogs such as the Performance Perspectives Blog and Turbo Todd to name only two
Learn more about previous Man vs Machine challenges – epic chess matches between Chess master Garry Kasparov and IBM Deep Blue from the 1990s via the IBM Research archive and Wikipedia
Watch the shows live on TV 60 days from now. Check your local listing and program your TiVo or DVR

Tron Legacy 3D... loading... please wait...

2010-12-15T04:22:00.003-05:00

Isn't Blade Runner 2012 really the cyberpunk era defining film sequel from the eighties we're all looking for? Ridley Scott are you listening?

TRON movie memory: recompile(1982, 2010); sentiment.collect(10); blog.upload(output);

2010-12-14T21:20:00.033-05:00

A bunch of people have been scrambling to find out-of-circulation copies of the 1982 Disney futuristic epic Tron on DVD. Well okay, maybe just me and my nerdy internet / geek movie friends. Blockbuster, Netflix, Amazon on Demand, RedBox – no dice. I read online about a guy re-reviewing the movie based on a Netflix DVD rental in March of this year, but now Netflix has the availability listed as unknown. Disney did a good job locking down all copies of the old DVD "in the vault." The 20th Anniversary Edition Special Edition 2-disc DVD released in 2002 is fetching from $55 to $110 on eBay. Heck, I've been looking for a copy for over a month and as luck would have it found the prized double disc at my local video rental store this past weekend. See – the little indie video shop down the street that still rents VHS is good for finding the vintage goods! A group of afore mentioned internet tweeps and I are attending the Tron Legacy 3D premiere at Midnight Thursday night in Durham NC, so Tron 1.0 screenings were in order natch. There was a screening of the film at my house and the home of Tim Arthur Saturday night. I decided half way into the movie I really had to collect comments from everyone watching the movie after 20-30 years. I thought it would be fascinating to see how the film holds up to our fond childhood memories and the massive hype of the new shiny digital film. Many think this movie was really ahead of it's time both for the visual effects and the intellectual themes regarding intellectual property rights, software design and user vs program conflict. Who knew we'd be struggling with the same core issues with technology 30 years later? Here is my 10 bullet crowd-sourced TRON movie review in nerdy Courier font.

It didn't really have a beginning. – Ryan
Laughingly overacted but the visuals hold up surprisingly well today. – Tim Arthur
David Warner as 'Sark' totally rocked. – John Rees
Hey it's EDS. LOL – Darren Noel
The blonde lady kissed both guys, so unlady like. – Michael B. Render
I'm not watching your movie about robots. AND Your movie has bored me from downstairs. – My wife
TRON was visually ahead of its time. – Damond Nollan
Spoiler Alert: Thought they were going to show how he got back into the game at the end. – Wayne Sutton
So, it just sort of ends. – Darren
Hence the sequel 30 years later. The time is right and the tech has caught up right? - Ryan
I just don't get it. – My 8 year son (He asked about 45 questions during the movie... we'll have to see if Tron Legacy clears all of that up.)

End of Line. – MCP

25 days of video – Day 9 – Charged Up

2010-12-14T15:12:00.001-05:00

Dan Nguy, GM Electric Engines Engineer, explains a bit about charging the Chevy Volt EV in Richmond Virginia. Wayne Sutton and I drove the Raleigh to Richmond leg of the Volt Unplugged tour on November 2nd 2010, the day after the Chevy Social (blog coverage).

Check in for my next video tomorrow!

25 days of video – Day 8 – Celebrate What's Great!

2010-12-13T23:52:00.000-05:00

... At the N.C. State Fair in October 2010 on opening preview day.

See my photos from the 2010 NC State Fair. See our scavenger hunt photos. See my photos from the Deep FriedRead the NC State Fair Deep Fried blog.

Check in for my next video tomorrow!

25 days of video – Day 7 – Sk8 Day

2010-12-12T23:57:00.001-05:00

Learning to ollie... all day skate at Delicious skateboard park in October 2010.

Check in for my next video tomorrow!

25 days of Video – Day 6 – Bears!!

2010-12-11T22:17:00.006-05:00

The family and I took a trip on Labor Day weekend up to a small mountain cottage getaway in Roaring Gap, North Carolina. We explored Stone Mountain State Park, home of the Black Bear. Imagination runs wild. Hilarity ensues.

This trip was chock full of dark and starry nights, lo-tech (no internet or cable tv), s'mores by fire, stark quiet, bottles of cheap wine, wooden puzzle and card games, long walks and quality time with the family. See photos from our family adventure in Western NC!

Check in for my next video tomorrow!

25 days of video – Day 5 – Animal Improv

2010-12-10T23:59:00.000-05:00

Zach Ward, of DSI Comedy, leads two audience members in a hilarious 'get to know your animal side' improv session. This was a bit of the Brontosaurus burger sized fun had at the summer session Triangle Tweetup held in June 2010 at Bronto Software in Durham's Tobacco Warehouse District.

Check in for my next video tomorrow!

25 days of video – Day 4 - The Fire Triangle

2010-12-09T18:28:00.000-05:00

Here is a video of the incredibly awesome fire dancers from The Fire Triangle at the TIMA Summit Party.

This Internet Summit conference after party was held at Designbox in downtown Raleigh in November 2010. The tunes were laid down by mix master DJ 40 oz. TIMA is the Triangle Interactive Marketing Association. See my blog coverage of the conference.

Check in for my next video tomorrow!

25 days of video - Day 3 - OnStar Android app for Chevy Volt

2010-12-08T17:28:00.000-05:00

While at SXSWi I met a very nice woman at the super cool Chevy Volt recharge lounge in the Austin Convention center. She showed me the new Android app from OnStar to remote control different features of the upcoming EV from GM. Very cool stuff.

See my posts about the Chevy Volt from 2010.

See my posts about SXSW from 2010.

See Wayne's posts about SXSW from 2010.

Check in for my next video tomorrow!

25 days of video – Day 2 – Eden Cruise In

2010-12-07T23:11:00.005-05:00

The Eden Cruise-In is a classic car cruise event that starts in May and runs every month through October 2010. Eden is a city in Rockingham county North Carolina, just south of the Virginia border and Danville VA. Eden is also my wife's hometown. Her brothers live there and each tune Ford Mustang race cars in their spare time. There were hundreds of proud car owners at the cruise-in showing off their classic cars, muscle cars, hot rods and race cars – even the General Lee and Hazzard County Sheriff cruised down the main Washington Street drag. Many cruise-in car cruises happen all over the state during the long summer days in NC.

See all of my photos of cars from the first cruise-in of the year. You can find out about more events on the Explore Eden facebook page.

QR Code

2010-12-06T15:13:00.000-05:00

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Big Blue Tweetup

2010-12-06T15:09:00.000-05:00

Big Blue Tweetup
At 6pm - 9pm
Where / When?

Where?
The Federal
914 West Main Street, Durham, NC 27701
Durham, NC

When?
Dec 8, 2010
6pm - 9pm

We're having a tweetup while @eric_andersen is visiting North Carolina. If you are an IBMer local to RTP, Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill NC or just a IBM fan, come out, check-in and socialize Wednesday evening after work. Drop in anytime between 6 and 9pm.

Eric is the curator of the official IBMer Twitter list. We are both location-based social networking enthusiasts. He's a posterous fan, I'm a tumblr die-hard. Sparks will fly!

Check out Carpe Durham for the nom nom worthy food photos from The Federal: http://carpedurham.com/2010/06...
Here is a Foursquare mob for the event: http://4sqmobs.com/bigbluemob

Hope to see you there!
~ Ryan @theRab Boyles
More Info: http://4sqmobs.com/bigbluemob

Organized by @therab
Twtvite created more than 4 months ago

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

25 days of video – Day 1 - Chevy Volt walk around at SXSW

2010-12-06T12:06:00.010-05:00

Trent explained a bit of background about the new plug-in EV from GM – the 2011 Chevy Volt. Wayne Sutton and I talked to the propulsion engineer prior to our test drive on March 15th 2010 on a closed track in Austin Texas during SXSW.

See my posts about the Chevy Volt from 2010.

See my posts about SXSW from 2010.

See Wayne's posts about SXSW from 2010.

Check in for my next video tomorrow!

Privacy and Security online at Internet Summit

2010-11-24T12:51:00.008-05:00

Here are 2 of 3 presentations from the Privacy and Security session at Internet Summit 2010 in Raleigh NC on November 17 2010.

Online Privacy with Social Networks and Location Based Services by Ryan Boyles and Wayne Sutton

Online privacy with Social Networks and Location Based Services

View more presentations from Ryan Boyles.

Ten Steps to Avoid a Major Privacy or Security Headache by Elizabeth Johnson

Ten Steps to Help Avoid a Major Privacy or Security Headache

Tom Craig also spoke about Privacy Best Practices in a data-driven online advertising world. There are notes from this session on the MediaTwo dot oh blog.

Note: a few other Internet Summit presentations are also part of the Slideshare isum10 event.

Comments welcome!

See my isum10 session coverage in this handy list.

Internet Summit 2010 blogging and social mentions

2010-11-24T12:44:00.012-05:00

A list of my live-blog session coverage of Internet Summit in Raleigh NC on November 17 and 18 2010:

Intensives: Social Media Power Planning with Ignite SM, Howard Merrill, Argyle and Microsoft
The Future of the Internet keynote with IBM, Google and Lulu
Privacy and Security sessions with TriOut, IBM (my talk), MediaMath and Poyner Spruill LLP
CIO and CTO viewpoints panel with SAS, State of NC and ReverbNation
Big Data with IBM and Google
Future of Cloud Computing panel with Salesforce.com, rPath, RedHat and Consonus
Online Reputation Management sessions with Proofic, Trackr and Yelp!

Also see social mentions related to the Internet Summit:

Slideshare presentations event for isum10.
Delicious bookmarks tagged isum10.
Tumblr items about isum10.
Flickr photos tagged isum10.
Twitter archive of hashtag #isum10.
Twazzup view of #isum10.

Flickr isum10 slideshow

Unconferences + Conferences = WIN

2010-11-23T17:16:00.006-05:00

I'm compiling some info on unconferences and barcamps as tracks at big conferences. I asked previously which barcamps were best. This is a different slant, to explore how unconferences at conferences facilitate better / undiscovered content, discussions and learning. Some questions I hope to answer or prove out:

Is this the new normal? (signs point to yes)
Are they really BoF chosen by the audience in real-time?
Which conferences do it best – your input please
What constitutes a successful unconference session?
(head count, head count as % of conference attendance, quality of content / conversion shared)
What format works best?
(ad hoc, round tables, hybrid, D. all of the above)
Do unconference tracks attract developers in a complimentary way to scheduled / sponsored speakers?

Here is an incomplete list to get started... comments please.

Web2.0 Expo – O'Reilly – 2008, 2009, 2010 / schedule / wiki
Enterprise2.0 – TechWeb, O'Reilly – 2009, 2010
Apachecon – ASF – 2010 barcamp
Eclipsecon – Eclipse Foundation – 2010 a blog perspective / wiki
Various conferences – CloudCamp
share yours...

Social Media Power Planning at Internet Summit 2010

2010-11-22T00:26:00.013-05:00

Internet Summit Intensives: Building a Social Media Power Plan

Raleigh Convention Center, room 302

November 17, 9am

Speakers:

Jim Tobin, Ignite Social Media – also MC of this series

Eric Boggs, Argyle Social

Jeffrey Cohn, Howard, Merrill & Partners, jeffreylcohen.com + socialmediab2b.com

Myles Kleeger, BuddyMedia

Marty Collins, Microsoft, seattle girl

Some Social Media Power Plan mentionables from Jim

75% of people will base their buying decisions solely on "customer experience" in the next 5 years. Experience means looking beyond just "browsing" photos or videos. This is about the experience – social interaction will be the primary focus.
First thing to ask is not "What do you want to gain?" or "What do I want to say?" – Ask "what does my business offer that people want to talk about and discuss?" – is it data, it it an event, is it a thing?
Jim Tobin likes the POST method from Forrester – From 2007, POST is People, Objectives, Strategy and Technology. Note: Technology is never first.
Pro tip: Have a plan before you start "being social" – then be social in a genuine way.
Ignite Social Media uses a 6 step methodology to build a social plan.
All steps are important but Jim focused on important steps 2 and 4 – determine where your customers are and develop an engagement plan.
Step 2: Community Analysis is key. An example framework for this examination is the Forrester Technographic profile. Where do your customers fit on the social ladder? Are there multiple layers or groups?
Step 1: Discovery is especially important from an agency perspective, and it will reveal insights about the business as part of the process.
Step 5 is also important – measure!
Measurement tools are out there – such as Radian6, Crimson Hexagon, Trackr, Argyle
Decide what your most important KPI are in relation to your audience, goals and business model.
Audience asked what KPI are... I won't get into Key Performance Indicators here.
Jim gave an example of determining social ROI with KPI for a campaign where customers navigate a certain path on a retail website with product discovery and exploration and statistical likelihood to purchase.
Listening plans mostly focus on frequency, keywords (still) and escalation paths.
Jim treats social channels with the 'puppy principle' – if you choose to adopt a social profile, you must commit to walk it, feed it, clean it, and socialize it – or it will die! (tweet)
An example campaign development plan has 4 aspects: Audience specific, Event specific, Product specific, and Facebook specific. This is not representative of all campaigns.
There is no 1 size fits all in social media. The customer should guide you.
Research social networks and tools via Compete, Quantcast and Wikipedia. Rab: or search and lurk on the network itself.

Jeffrey Cohen covered social media tools including but not limited to...

Blogs – they are the center of your online corporate identity in social media.
Wordpress – it's the big blog platform of choice.
Decide whether your needs are covered by Wordpress.com (hosted) or Wordpress.org (roll your own).
Meta, mobile and email based bloggin: Tumblr & Posterous
tumblr example: Newsweek (also see Mashable and me)
Posterous example: Chevrolet
Audience asked why you would choose a Tumblr blog over a "normal" blog. I could talk about this at length, but my example given was look at IBM Smart Planet and Smarter Cities tumblr sites. It's interactive with network effects, questions, contributions, reblogging etc. All of this is a core behavior of the tumblr platform.
Social networks drive conversations back to your blog
Social workbench tools for twitter and Facebook: Installed – Tweetdeck, Web – CoTweet and Hootsuite.

Eric Boggs covered 3 key decisions and 3 rookie mistake for adoption social tools. Also check out the homework. His presentation is on slideshare. Audience asked about "inside the firewall" or B2B social collaboration. Is Facebook a good platform for business users? My example was IBM Lotus Connections, used by hundreds of thousands of IBMers everyday and by IBM customers for social business.

Myles talked about branding Facebook and building custom experiences. He mentioned the term "Fan gate" for this practice – which was new jargon for me.

Note: I missed the last panel session featuring Eric and Marty.

Note 2: Eric Delima also had a great live-blog recap of this talk series.

The Future of the Internet is...

2010-11-21T13:04:00.004-05:00

Moments from the opening keynote at the 3rd annual Internet Summit

Raleigh Convention Center, November 17 2010

I didn't take notes in this keynote but I did take some cool panoramic photos. I will start with a photo from my real-time quiz: Can you name the keynoters from their shoes and/or socks? We have boots, running shoes, cowboy boots and red socks + loafers.

Okay, they are – left to right – Dana Todd, Joe Gregorio, Rod Smith and Bob Young. The Future of the Internet keynote featured a whip-smart purple hair sportin' moderator from NewsForce and thought leaders from IBM, Google and Lulu.com.

Add these panoramic shots together and you get something like a 540° view of the Internet Summit. Cool huh.

Here are some links to other blogs and choice tweets about Dana, Joe, Rod and Bob.

Key mentionables

Bob Young said, guiding a company is like conducting an art class. it's not about having the most technology or experience, it's about learning how to collaborate to harness and unleash the creativity of the team.
Rod Smith said, the future growth of the tech world isn't about just the technology but the infrastructure. He needs bigger pipes going into his house to live / work / play online at the same time. He mentioned video conferencing and movie live-streaming as examples.
Net Neutrality is a very important concern (echoes from WWW2010 in Raleigh much?). Bob Young said for the individual or startup to compete with the IBMs and Googles of the world, Net Neutrality is a key issue for internet policy.
Joe Gregorio said, mobile smart phone adoption still has a way to go but it's getting there, with 30% market penetration on the horizon in 2011.
Joe Gregorio said blogs are dead, they are growing – the format is just changing and syndication through other platforms is an evolution of the medium. Hear hear.
Rod Smith said, people don't browse the web on their phone that much yet – and the smart phone app market is where people go to find specialized web services.
Dana Todd told an audience member to start marketing your SMB on Google Places for local customer loyalty and ask for referrals and reviews. Engage with the easy free stuff people already use.

Online Reputation Management at Internet Summit

2010-11-18T16:39:00.009-05:00

Live blog of Online Reputation Management (ORM) 3 part session

Internet Summit 2010

Raleigh Convention Center, room 302

November 18, 3:30pm

Part 1

Dallas Lawrence, Proofic

@dallaslawrence

Dallas' talk was rock solid and I really enjoyed it but didn't take enough notes. He will post slides online later, I'll link. This was the story that stuck with me:

Senator Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) breaks news on twitter as she is walking out of the Oval Office, while 5 other senators are racing back to the sticks to get on CNN for a TV spot. CNN now just follows Claire on twitter and reports her tweets as soon as they happen. CNN used to report "from Claire McCaskill via twitter." Now they just say "from Claire McCaskill" and drop the twitter part. Twitter is just another channel now. Learn how to use it well.

With challenging bad reporting or social media accounts:

There is a big difference between factually incorrect and painful.

Part 2

ORM in 7 minutes per day

Andy Beal, Marketing Pilgrim and Trackur.com

@andybeal

2-minute ORM: Reputations you should be monitoring http://gri.ms/KUVW

7-minute ORM: Google

what are your potential customers going to see?

7-minute ORM: SEO

we've been focusing on keywords we want to be associated with

but

worry about your brand name

we need to talk about ourselves in the 3rd person

mention yourself a bunch of times

Advertising 101 applies to SEO as well

think about this with all of your web content

7-minute ORM: Press Center

bonus tip: ... mmm ... Delicious.com

bookmark all things that mention your company in a positive light

plug the Delicious feed into Google Feedburner

Feedburner will generate some HTML bits to embed in your Press Center, PR and blogs

7-minute ORM: Social Guidelines

a lot of people call these SM policies

if these turn into stereo instructions

give your employees the bare minimum and trust your employees to do the right thing

7-minute ORM: know your audience

find your centers of influence – where do your customers hang out?

don't try to be everywhere, invest your time in the right place(s)

1-minute ORM: Monitoring

Use Trackur. It's easy to setup. This is kinda a plug but not really b/c it's free. Use the other 6 minutes to drink some coffee or something.

7-minute ORM: Clean up

Be sincere. Most people just want a genuine apology. The longer you wait, the more sincere and generous you have to be.
Be transparent. Explain the situation and key 2nd part: what you're going to do to prevent it from happening again.
Be consistent.

Part 3 is...

Kevin Newsome from Yelp!

Great tips about how small businesses should be using reputation management on Yelp! to engage their customers and brand advocates aka fans.

Get your head around BigData at the Internet Summit

2010-11-18T14:46:00.022-05:00

Big Data session at Internet Summit 2010
November 18 2:30pm

Rod Smith, VP Emerging Technology and IBM Fellow

Data production is increasing at astonishing rate
Twitter - 7 terabytes of data each day
10 terabytes of data each day
CERN Hadron Super Collider produces 40 terabytes per second but looking for only a few GB of data insights
Web-based analytics puts power into consumer hands.

IBM Emerging tech team goes to customers to find new solutions for big challenges.
People usually start by saying "Google knows more about my data than I do, so I need an internal Google." Building a search engine is not the place to start. Look at your data.

Big data – new class of application on the horizon
gather data
extract items of interest
explore insights

BigSheets
An insight engine for enabling ad-hoc business insights for business purposes.
Structure data a little bit – but not too much.

When Google announced project called MapReduce, a new Apache project called Hadoop was started.
REST interfaces for plugging in Analytics pieces
Visualization components
REST API for customer choice of analytic engines
Customer Examples
Number 1 request: Twitter
This means Buyer Sentiment Analysis
What can I learn from social networks? (video)

Gathered: 350K Tweets
Extracted: How many are interested in iPhones? 50K show sentiment.
Analyzed: How many are interested in buying? 2300 people.
Think of this as a new Social CRM methodology
Time to analyze: 2 days

2nd Example: NC State
How to identify companies that would be interested in using NCSU OTT technology?
Reduced long manual process to 2 weeks

Marketplace Application Example: Seton Hall University
Use IBM Coremetrics to analyze relationship of mobile data use increase to iPad release by – visualized by heat maps.

Download Rod's PDF presentation from jStart.

Part 2 is...
Joe Gregorio, Google developer advocate (also REST and APP / Atom Pub Protocol guy)

So you have a lot of data, now what?

Top Five rules for Big Data
1. Save everything
2. Use simplest model first
3. get better by adding more data
4. Do the math
5. Be lazy

(Joe Gregorio's rapid speaking clip plus Lessig style slides make it difficult to live-blog his #bigdata talk. But it's good stuff.)

n-grams are important
there are 1B 5 word sequences out there
point: there are big data sets out there
there are 4 petabytes of data on Flickr (~1MB / photo * 4B photos)

Save everything: biggest data sets are an asset
simplest data model is ignorant about language and culture
it works because the data set is sufficiently large

Use the simplest model first
If you remember one thing...
Figure. Learning Curves for Confusion Set Disambiguation

Some tech
Storing: GFS, HadoopFS
Processing: MapReduce, Hadoop
Pregel (Graphical), Dremel (SQL like)

Do the math: know how long something is going to take before you kick it off
Hard drives when they get really full start to behave like Tape Drives
See http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1563874

Be Lazy: Don't build infrastructure if you don't have to
Don't do analysis you don't have to: Google Trends for example
new: able to download CSV data from Google Trends

Note: both speakers say they'll post their slides online, I'll link or embed them here when I find 'em. In the meantime, h
ere are some references to explore:
Update: download Rod's presentation in PDF format
Watch the YouTube video of the Twitter sentiment analysis example
Follow the jStart team blog
DeveloperWorks Article: How to solve cloud-related Big Data problems with MapReduce
BigSheets project from IBM jStart team
Try the IBM distribution of Apache Hadoop
Check out open source project Apache Hadoop which implements MapReduce among other things
A MapReduce paper from Google Research
Follow All Things Hadoop on twitter

Future of Cloud Computing panel at Internet Summit

2010-11-18T11:15:00.018-05:00

Future of Cloud Computing panel at Internet Summit 2010

Ballroom C

Raleigh Convention Center

November 18, 11:10am

Steven Bulmer, CTO Consonus – Consonus is a solution provider for virtualization, data recovery, disaster management, cloud offerings.

"I'm not to be confused with Microsoft's Steve Ballmer. If you came here expected to hear about Cloud from Microsoft, I'm sorry to disappoint you." ~ Steve Bulmer gets LOL from crowd.

Welcome to the panelists. Audience applause.

Marc Ferrentino, CTA, Salesforce.com

Lee Congdon, CIO RedHat

Erik Troan, Co-founder CTO rPath

We have to start with a brief cloud definition – What is cloud computing?

The government now has a standard definition http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/SNS/cloud-computing

The Cloud model provides availability and is composed of five characteristics, 3 service models and 3 deployment models.

Definitions, slide 2 (spent a good 5-7 minutes discussing the def)

Cloud Characteristics

On demand self-service
Ubiquitous network access
Resource pooling
Elasticity
Measured service

Cloud Service models

SaaS – Software as a Service
PaaS – Platform as a Service
IaaS – Infrastructure as a Service

Cloud Deployment models

Private cloud
Public cloud
Hybrid cloud

What are your thoughts about where Cloud maturity is right now?

Marc Ferrentino: Cloud computing has been a hijacked term. There is a lot of FUD out there now about Cloud computing. That was a fantastic definition, and that's the definition we use at Salesforce.com. We are seeing segmentation of architecture. Cloud enables business and IT to come together.

Lee Congdon: Everyone is stamping "Cloud" on their marketing materials, but in many cases this is a real revolution with good solutions. However, Cloud is still early in the hype cycle of technology. The trough of disillusionment will be very shallow and we'll see solutions in the marketplace adopted ever more quickly and the consumerization of these tools. I don't expect the rate of adoption to be as long of with other technologies.

Erik Troan: Elastic and self service is the key things people are asking for and a big part of Cloud opportunities looking forward. SaaS is so well accepted today that it's not even in the same category as the Cloud discussions we're having today. It's best practice today to adopt SaaS in projects. I don't know anyone today who doesn't get their email from SaaS providers.

Are we in a place with PaaS where we can be confident to build applications and also be able to move those apps to other platforms?

Erik T: It's great that AppEngine is there, but when you build for that platform you better realize that your apps are going to stay there. It's ironic that the Azure platform is actually more flexible than Google AppEngine because it's .Net!

Lee C: It's important to look down the road – ignore at your peril – and realize who the players are and decide where to commit. Look at open source options for example.

Marc F: I think vendor lock-in is a bit of a boogie man, and it's not completely a valid concern. When you look at AppEngine, it's fantastic that it is elastic and you don't have to worry about that. WIth the abstract, you can develop things where the elasticity is baked into the platform. You have to give up a little bit of control to get those services back. You have to trust that these cloud providers are going to provide services that are better than your own IT shop can do.

Lee C: Great point. Everyone is under attack. Don't assume that you can invest in internal IT resources to protect you better from security threats in the Cloud.

Marc F: Exactly, there are economies of scale, and the security aspect is the most important service provided by cloud, not the least.

Marc F: I don't like the argument or discussion about public vs private. I don't care how it's delivered, I just want the best solution for the job. 2-3 years ago, everyone wanted to know just "What is Cloud?" That is not the conversation anymore. All we talk about now is Innovation, Governance and Agile development methodology. This is what CIOs want to talk about now.

Let's talk about Cloud and mobility since there is a lot of discussion about mobile at the conference.

Lee C: It is absolutely synergistic. Everyone is shifting their usage patterns from laptops to smart phones and mobile devices. Also with Location Based Services, there is real value in knowing where your associates are. Looking at these mobile applications, it's about giving employees are opportunities to connect and increase productivity.

Marc F: The 3 big trends are Cloud, Mobile, Social. Is it a coincidence that these technologies have become fad-ish at the same time or is it b/c of the way they work together? Data as a Service is an important trend for 2011, probably needs to be added to that service model list. Data decay is important for CRM and cloud based data will address this.

Closing remarks...

Marc F: There is this term that is very real out there: Shadow IT. If you don't give IT workers the tools and capability to do their job well and innovate, then they will find ways to go around you and do Shadow IT anyway.

Lee C: If you are waiting for your CIO or CTO to come to you and ask what the Cloud strategy is, then you are not prepared to serve your business well. You need to have a Cloud strategy and think about what business partners will you trust to build your solution.

Erik T: Think about the business benefits. How do you bring Elasticity and self-service to your business to build out the apps you need? You don't want you company to go around you and use Amazon unless that is

And now, some audience questions...

What do you think about Microsoft's new focus on Cloud?

Crowd automatically murmured "to the cloud!" LOL

Marc F: It's really immature right now, but it's good to see them get their act together and look at cloud.

Lee C: One of the issues with Cloud is the Innovator's Dilemma. When you look at the approach of Sun (now Oracle) building out Clouds based on a hardware business that is now commodity driven, then when do you cannibalize your existing business model?

Note: MediaTwo live-blogged this session as well, check out their take-aways.

Disclaimer: I work for IBM in WebSphere Application Infrastructure as a technical evangelist. IBM offers solutions for Cloud computing with hardware, software and services. Learn more at ibm.com/cloud and find technical resources for developers at ibm.com/developerworks/cloud/

Live-blog of CIO / CTO Viewpoints panel from Internet Summit

2010-11-18T10:12:00.013-05:00

CIO / CTO Viewpoints at Internet Summit 2010

Raleigh Convention Center, Ballroom C

Thursday November 18, 9:40am

Jeff Spalding is serving as the moderator

Background: Peak10 - IaaS provider, many markets up and down the east coast, providing virtualization, security, cloud services.

Introduce yourself and tell us "What are your top 2 or 3 initiatives for 2010?"

Robert Hubbard, CTO reverb nation

fan management, e-commerce

1. mobile apps to prom - android

2. domain specific ad platform, social targeting for artists

Suzanne Gordon, VP CIO SAS

largest software company in world depending on reports you read

34 years of consecutive growth (been there 30 of those years)

voted best place to work in 2010, she is proud of this

Innovation investment: R&D at SAS is 23% of revenue

1. internal apps, collaborative technology

2. storage analytics

3. cloud - private cloud, platform as a service

Gerald Fralick, CIO State of North Carolina

NC ranked #1 in nation for bringing business into the state

Formerly CIO of DOJ in DC

Consolidated 26 Grant systems into one

1st Czar of Grants, Grants Executive Board

1. Continue with consolidation

2. Reduce expense

3. Establish Centers of excellence for best practices

4. update web portal - hasn't changed in 10 years

What is impact of the current "down" economy on IT operations?

SAS CIO: We not hiring many IT people in this down economy.

NC CIO: work with vendor community on renegotiated contracts with compromises that are mutually beneficial with shared services for agencies and departments. We're looking at Cloud computing now. Didn't have any Cloud policy 1 year ago. Looking at Hybrid cloud.

Reverb CTO: At a small company, the availability of skilled developers is greater in a down economy.

SAS CIO: In a down economy, it gives you a good view into

Let's talk about your initiatives. Since it's one of the biggest topics at this conference: What is the impact of social media in your business?

Reverb CTO: We get 50% of our Artist recruitment from Facebook. Social is everything for our music artists.

SAS CIO: Since we're a B2B company, we have to figure out how to use these social media sites. We're working on plans for an internal social network to share "what they are doing at work." It's hard to not reinvent the wheel as this gets bigger.

NC CIO: The Governor has encouraged NC agencies to communicate via Facebook, blogs and twitter. Twitter is one of the largest communication channel for NC state agencies to reach the public. Facebook is going to be a neighbor soon, with the new data center down near Rutherford NC.

SAS CIO: Let me ask the audience a question: How many people are on Facebook? 99% of audience raises their hand. How many people are on Twitter? About the same raised their hand, like 90%. LinkedIn? Everyone in the room.

I don't care that much about that one [Twitter]. You have to see what is relevant to your company use. With facebook you can ask things and get feedback. With twitter, it seems like you put stuff out there and I'm not sure if you get anything back.

NC CIO: There are social policies in place. You have to see whether it's appropriate to mix business and personal.

SAS CIO: SASCommunity.org site to let the audience determine what sort of content to put on there. There are twitter-like things on there. It's great to use crowdsourcing in this way.

Opening up floor to questions from audience...

What is the impact of outsourcing in your business?

SAS CIO: We don't do outsourcing. We create new branches of the company in other countries, like India.

NC CIO: We do outsource work and will continue to do this with future work. We don't do this because it's cheap, we do it when it's cost-effective. We are about jobs jobs jobs in NC. We will also focus on

Web Content Manager for NC state agency - how do you get buy-in from other agencies to use social media who are "just afraid of it"?

NC CIO: The use of social media is new to many in these government roles. We have a lot of work to do to educate people and focus on this going forward.

Reverb CTO: We have a culture of trust. We think it's more important to get things right than to be right.

How are you showing value to the business from your IT departments?

NC CIO: We have established metrics to highlight projects with cost savings.

Suzanne, could you talk about cloud use at SAS and why you are using private clouds, and a bit about the technology?

SAS software became too big to demo on laptops. We then moved to blades that you could check out with SAS images on them. Then we moved to virtualization, on a private cloud. We use NetApp with a special partnership to manage the images. We are now hosting customer images of SAS software and data. We're looking to work with hosting partners to enable this more.

Peak10 EVP: Two main drivers for Cloud adoption we see are: capital avoidance and operational cost. Speed to market and quality of service are biggest advantages that Cloud customers say they realize.

My question: Since your asked the audience this question, I'd ask the same to each of you. How many of you are on social networks – Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn – and how do you use these to communicate with your employees and customers to establish and use what we call "Social Capital" on the web?

Reverb Nation CTO: I'm on all 3. We have a twitter account for the brand, but it's more for marketing. @reverbnation

SAS CIO: I'm on all 3 also.

SAS established accounts for many executives at the recent SAS Global Forum. I'm @suzanneCIO (and @SuzanneSGordon) on twitter. Please follow me, maybe if I had more followers maybe I'd use twitter more. (laughs from crowd) I'm a long time user of Facebook, but use it from more of a personal stand point, to keep up with my kids in high school. I'm a very social person. I find that even if my kids don't follow me, their friends do. My kids call me the social stalker. I also have 2 blogs. One to tell people what we're working on, and one is personal to share books I'm reading.

NC CIO: Find me on scio.nc.gov. All my profiles are listed there. We are also looking at using IM in the NC gov more. However, under executive order 18, we're supposed to archive digital records and emails for 10 years. We are looking into whether IM is going to be applicable to that law.

The Chevy Volt: A Geek Perspective

2010-11-09T10:01:00.037-05:00

On November 2nd 2010, my good friend Wayne Sutton and I met at the Crabtree Courtyard by Marriott before daylight. We were there to meet Dan Nguy (GM Electric Engine Engineer - say that 3 times fast!) and the rest of the GM team to test drive their new Volt electric vehicle at 6AM. Our trip would take us from Raleigh North Carolina to Richmond Virginia. We were both a bit tired. The Volt Unplugged tour team looked a bit haggard as well. They had been working hard all day Monday, talking about the Volt and offering test drives to curious Raleigh and Durham residents and workers, with tour stops downtown at the City Municipal Complex, Progress Energy and IBM's campus at Research Triangle Park (my video). The day was topped off by a "Chevy Social" hosted by the two of us at Designbox and Cherry Bomb Grill in Raleigh for more test drives and conversation with the Triangle social geeks and four Chevy Volt cars.

Time to hit the road. Fueled by adrenaline and caffeine, we were set to jump behind the wheel. One small hiccup, the charging cable to our Volt had somehow become dislodged overnight and the car had only been charing about a half hour. Cue the dramatic Back to the Future music! What were we going to do? How were we going to make it to Richmond to pass the keys, er flob, to the next set of eager EV drivers traveling to the big tour stop in DC? How were we going save the day and share our awesome geek experience with you and the rest of teh internetz?!1? Oh noes. Insert dramatic chipmonk video. Voice over: Tune in next time for the dramatic conclusion to find out if our heroes drive places in "Electric Avenue 2: The Electric Vehicle Boogaloo." I am being a bit dramatic with the faux suspense TV serial style.

This car got me thinking. Thinking about not just the future but the past. The past when we're were envisioning the future. Stay with me here, as I travel back in time a bit. I take you back to a simpler time. The 1980s: the time of my childhood as a nerd growing up in the piedmont of North Carolina. Nerd was not a cool term in the 80s. Trust me, I was not the popular kid of the group. I was a geek but it was not a badge of awesome as it's is portrayed in pop culture and online today. I could not envision a world where The Big Bang Theory is one of the most popular shows on TV. I was into all things sci-fi, I was a basement dwelling video game hermit, and I loved technology and gadgets. My grandmother would invite me over to "fix stuff" which meant construct, install or debug "modern" gizmos like TV remotes, VCRs and digital clocks. I could perform all this without the aide of obtuse instruction manuals! Brilliant. I was an engineer in the making in my family's eyes.

I was also obsessed with TV. I started watching serial action dramas at an early age. Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Dukes of Hazzard, Knight Rider, Airwolf, The A-Team, The Fall Guy, Magnum P.I., Miami Vice. I was also a big movie guy. Star Wars, Bullitt, The French Connection, The Cannonball Run, Christine, The Road Warrior, Smokey and the Bandit, Batman, Back to the Future, heck ET. I was also into aircraft and can identify most military jets' make and model visually. This makes me realize there is something more to my fascination with the Chevy Volt than I initially understood. Many people have asked me "What do I get out of test driving the Volt?" - "Why are you doing this for GM?" Why did I spend my personal time to test drive the car that I can just read about in NY Times or watch the videos? Well, I get to drive the car. That's the reward. I am a techno geek. That's it. I like to take stuff apart and put it back together again. Nothing is better than figuring out the bits and bytes of gadgets yourself.

I realize now that I may not be a "motor head" but I am a real car geek. It's about the promise of those TV shows and movies. It's about the glimpse of what could be with movies that transport us to a different time or place. Remember the old Popular Mechanics magazines with the artist renderings of rocket-powered cars on the cover? Yeah, I wanted one of those. We should totally have those by like the year 2000, right?

There is a common element in so many these shows and films. Cool vehicles. Many feature GM cars doing amazing things. Fantastical fictional accounts of daring action, chock full of technobabble and celluloid stunts. Let's take a quick tour through the great vehicles from some of the most entertaining "chase" dramas.

First in 1977, Star Wars had the Landspeeder. It could float on air and zip along at break neck speeds and turn effortlessly. It was magic and cool. Geeks try to build Landspeeders. The Volt is very much like Luke's Landspeeder because when you are in the electric vehicle the feeling you have at low speed is "How is this moving?" There is no noise, jerking or hint of mechanical pull. It's like you are floating, and it is sublime. That's the magic of electric motors. The handling of the Volt is great and it cruises down the highway with impressive vigor.

Knight Rider was my favorite show in the early 80s. Michael Knight drove the first truly smart car. KITT featuring a talking AI computer, cool lasers and the always important Turbo Boost. How many times did the turbo boost save Michael and the victim of the week? That's right, every week. KITT was an awesome black Pontiac Trans-Am. The interior of the KITT car was decked out with every imaginable doo-hickey and gadget that an intrepid adventurer could need to solve crimes, analyze building structures, scan clues and fight the good fight. I wanted this car when I turned 16. The closest I came to seeing this technology in real life happened when my uncle bought the first new automobile in our extended family. He brought the new Pontiac 6000 over to my grandmother Edith's house for my cousins, siblings and I to marvel at the glowing red dashboard with the oh so cool LED speedometer and digital gauges. He told us kids it was cooler than "Darth Vader's Bathroom" due to some sort of joking resemblance of the Sith Lord's spherical office on that Super Star Destroyer in my favorite film, The Empire Strikes Back. We were very impressed at the time and imagined we were chasing rebel scrum through asteroid clusters. My cousins and I were skilled at mimicking laser blast sounds. The Volt interior is a more fully realized future than KITT and makes the Pontiac 6000 look like a cheap digital calculator watch. The dashboard has two large LCD screens with crystal clear display of intuitive controls over the energy systems. Voice guided navigation and it's user interface is improved with features to guide you to places along your trip. You instantly recognize the user interface with cascading menus similar to today's consumer tech personal devices like smart phones and tablets. You can manage your entire entertainment experience from the touch screen or master dial to control your smart phone or MP3 player, and the car will also import and cache music from your device. This is a marked improvement over the clunky interface of navigation / entertainment interfaces in cars like the Chevrolet Corvette. The tactile feel of the dashboard is both modern and futuristic because it is largely knob and push button free. Buttons are touch sensitive and integrated. There is a large master control dial and a "back" button. Very intuitive to the iPod generation. On*Star navigation routes are beamed directly into the car's screen. The drive shifter resembles something from a shuttle craft. A floating green orb on the driver display shows you real-time feedback from your acceleration and braking to help balance driving for optimal energy efficiency. The Volt also has a Sport mode to give some real push to the driving experience. Wayne and I first test drove a prototype Volt at SXSW in March and we tested the acceleration on a closed track. Let me say this, my head was pressed against the seat and Wayne's eyes got big. I imagined I was Michael Knight as I pressed the Volt "Turbo Boost" button for sport mode on that spring day in Austin!

The A-Team drove around in the classic Black GMC Van with red stripes and spoiler. The van driven by B.A. Baracus' was bad to the bone. It was a pivotal character in the show, and it couldn't be destroyed or stopped. Seriously, what van except this one can pull off a spoiler? I think this magic van spoiler must have helped the A-Team escape perilous situations when jumping through buildings and over barricades. Also did you notice, the van never ran out of gas. Did it have an electric engine from GM under the chassis? Probably. How else did it haul around the team of 4 rogue heroes plus rescued folks and heavy gear? This is another thing that impressed me. The Volt is roomy. My neighbor Jeff, a real car nut (I say this with respect) test drove the Volt at our Chevy Social on the evening of November 1st in Raleigh. He also coincidentally was lucky enough to test drive the GM EV1 back in the day. His comment about the car was that there was rarely a car these days that had a back seat with both enough leg room and head room for him as a tall man at 6' 4''. The Volt backseat is spacious enough for him to sit normally without the slope of the back window knocking the back of his head. The trunk is also decent for a sedan of the size. I snapped this photo of another Volt car chock full of gear on our tour drive to Richmond.

The list of futuristic GM super cars in TV and films goes on and on. Lee Majors AKA The Fall Guy drove a GMC pickup to perform his stunts (I had the lunchbox and thermos in elementary school). I'd venture a guess that the Duke boys were inspired by his aerial feats. The classic The French Connection car chase featured a 1971 Pontiac LeMans. The Bandit drove that super awesome '77 Pontiac Trans-Am Firebird. GM cars leave a mark. The classic Batmobile in the 1989 Tim Burton film was a Chevy Impala chassis, which in replicas sports a Corvette engine, not a 15 second burn jet turbine engine as in the film. Remember, "Chicks dig the car."

This brings us to the dramatic conclusion! Did we make it? Heck yeah!! Wayne, Dan and I had a awesome time and a very pleasant drive from Raleigh to Richmond early that Tuesday morning. The battery charge carried us out of town and then the gas engine kicked in for the highway road trip. And that is actually by design. This is a key part of the Volt technology, the electric engines are assisted by the gas engine to actually improve overall efficiency at highway speeds. There is never a fear about running out of charge with the new "range extending" capability. There was no crisis like in Back to the Future where we, the heroes of this incredible journey, scramble around for hours looking for extra power for our car of the future. The new Chevy Volt transports you with style with super geek tech and practical innovations. This car passes my geek dad test, the mom test and the kid test, making it a winner for families. So, you may ask what car my two sons want when they become drivers in a few years? The Volt is a cool car according to them, and they are also super excited about this classic Chevy Impala that actually looks like a rocket ship. My youngest son, age 8, wonders when Chevy will offer the Volt in bright metallic blue like the Corvette and if there will be "big screens" to play stuff in the backseat. Like father, like sons.

I want to extend a special thanks to Jennie Ecclestone, Chris Barger, Dan Nguy, Kevin Kelly, Phil Colley, Ashmi Haria, Trent Warnke and all the folks at GM and the Chevy Volt team! The opportunities I've had to drive the Volt this year were in a word: cool.

But wait, there is more! Consider the following your DVD extras. Here are car notes from our Volt Unplugged Tour drive and additional factoids contributed by my IBM UX colleague Patrick Nyeste, a true "car guy" and racing enthusiast.

First the headline quote/tweet worthy notes. The Volt subsystems contain more lines of code than F-35 fighter jet, the first space shuttle or the Boeing Dreamliner! Each volt has it's own IP address! Updates to the car's programming subsystems can be updated while the car is charging. IBM technology went into designing, testing and producing the car embedded systems.

Kevin Kelly, GM product manager, said there is a new solar array for charging Volt cars at the Detroit plant, in response to a question about green manufacturing. The Chevy Volt is assembled on a normal production line between the Buick Lucerne and Cadillac DTS. He shared that GM has created the only battery packing plant by any car line manufacturer in Brownstown, Michigan specifically for the Volt. The electrical plug use for the car is standardized across ASAM for the auto industry and is named the J-1772.

Progress Energy is one of the first GM partners to figure out grid management. This is a big deal and the roll-out is underway in the Southeast. There is a priority to charging station deployment: first are Home based chargers for Car owners, second will be stations "at work" around business campuses for employees who drive EVs, and then for hotels, retail and parking structures. Coulomb Tech is building charging stations for municipal and parking decks. The City of Raleigh is looking to the future as well. This November, Raleigh is installing the first two charging stations downtown at the City government complex and convention center.

Electric Engine Engineer Dan Nguy on the Volt project discussed how the internal systems are constantly recalculating adjustments to optimize battery charge and health. He says the driver can also help with charge efficiency by remembering "the three T's." There are three factors that influence range and battery life of the electric vehicle: Temperature, Terrain and Technique. Temperature is a factor primarily managed by the car's internal technology and the built-in cooling systems intending to keep the battery at a constant temperature for peak efficiency. It's important to remember as the driver that a lead foot on the brake petal is as bad as stomping on the accelerator. Brake pads not used in traditional way in this electric vehicle. Braking in a normal manner while driving recaptures electric charge for the battery. A good driver will be rewarded by extending the charge and perhaps never needing to worry about brake pad replacement.

Even more notes:

There are about 160 people on the Volt engineering team, including all the departments responsible for each component and system, and over 1000 people at GM have "touched it" - playing a part bringing it to market over the last few years.
Electric motor has 270+ ft/lbs of torque.
Chevy Volt car weighs 3700+ lbs.
This battery contains the same energy but is over 70% lighter than the first GM EV - the EV1.
The battery has a SOC (state of charge) range from 30 to 80%.
Batteries make a t-shape through the transmission tunnel and the top of the T is right underneath the passenger seats instead of all in the trunk.
This battery design helps with car stability and drivability.
Battery is lithium and can be charged with either 120V or 240V power outlets.
There are 3 charging modes, including one based on recharging during the lowest peak time of your electricity provider for maximum cost benefit.
The engine has various states of constant speeds based on electric motor load requirements
There are no gears!
There are 3 driving modes: Normal, Low and Sport
A small gasoline engine is used for hwy usage to increase fuel economy by 10%+, it is a Chevy Cruze motor 1.4L w/o the turbo.
1400, 1800, 2800, 3600, 4800 rpm, and the car never gets to the rev-limiter.
There is just a planary connection from the engine to the wheels (for about 10% power for better hwy efficiency).
The electric motor has a 7:1 ratio for rpm (electric motor rpm : wheel rpm).
So the electric motor would be spinning too fast at hwy speeds and reduce efficiency.
For example, if the car is going up a hill in colorado, the motor would sit at 4800 rpm to juice the electric motor.
Otherwise it goes to quite a lower rpm mode usually.
The Volt has a distinct secondary horn to warn pedestrians at low speeds because of the quiet approach of an electric car. The driver pulls the stem to the left of the steering wheel to tweet to the outside world. I found it strangely satisfying to toot the "audible warning system" on the Volt.
You can lease a Volt for $350/month for 36 months w/ $2500 down. If you purchase a car, there are energy rebate incentives offered by Fed and local governments.
Almost all features come standard, with few options to pick.
Did you know the jet was a F-18 in that Volt video?
Suggestion: Needs integrated rear entertainment options for children and passengers.

See all of my photos from the Volt Unplugged tour drive as well as our test drive at SXSW in Austin Texas on Flickr. Wayne also has numerous photos.

Disclaimer: GM sponsored the Chevy Social for the Volt Unplugged Tour and Chevy SXSW Road Trip.

Amazon Web Services is now offering a Free Usage Tier

2010-11-01T17:38:00.000-04:00

Not totally news but a news item worth looking at; AWS is now offering a Free Usage Tier, see http://aws.amazon.com/free/

My personal reaction is: The Freemium model has been a very successful one with many other Web hosted and Web service offerings. I'm surprised Amazon didn't offer this from the start. It shows they are attempting to broaden their reach to new (perhaps more conservative?) customers now entering the Cloud IaaS space who are considering which projects are right to move into the cloud. It's interesting to see this offering is not a sandbox approach and it's time boxed at 1 year which means customers will be able to implement real projects that can be easily moved into bigger production instances.

Dustin Amrhein says:

I think it is a good move on their part. The only thing I do not like about it is that the offer only applies to new AWS customers. As an existing AWS user, I cannot take advantage of the one year free time for a micro instance.

Some other blogger reactions:

Matthew Weinberger, The Var Guy, says, Sometimes it’s the simplest things that have the most far-reaching implications.
Chris Kanaracus, of InfoWorld Cloud Computing blog, says, Amazon's offer reflects a time-tested strategy by tech vendors wherein customers are given free access for a limited time, in hopes they will become dependent...
Alex Williams, of Read Write Cloud, asks, What market is AWS trying to reach? The web site owner looking for a cloud service? What do you think?

Strange, I didn't see any comment about this on the AWS blog. This surprises me, because I'm a huge fan of that blog and the evangelists that work on the AWS team. I like what they are doing there.

Decoding QR Codes tech at Barcamp RDU

2010-10-26T17:20:00.022-04:00

I was unsure what to present as a tech talk topic at Barcamp RDU. I think a lot about using technology to raise awareness of technology which can put you into a bit of a quandary when it comes to where to focus your time. All technical evangelists must find the right mix of breadth and depth to be effective communicators and reach their target audience: technologists and in my case, software developers. I've been exploring and experimenting with new trends in social networking at conferences and tech events recently.

One of the hot trends I see popping up is use of QR Codes. QR Codes are by no means new, but there seems to be a renewed attention given to them in the U.S. and around my hometown recently. I decided to pitch this topic because it is in some ways as buzz-worthy as Location-based services / apps and shares a similar level of skepticism from the uninitiated. I have had a few projects where QR codes have been used recently, both professional and personal, so I've got a fair bit of experience to share. At the Barcamp Saturday, there was another developer who pitched a QR code talk, so we combined our sessions into one, and garnered enough interest to take over the Main hall at RedHat with somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 votes. There was spirited discussion around the practical use and some perceived risks, plus a healthy amount of positive feedback from the audience in the twitter backchannel indicating that many people were going home with some good geeky brain food.

Here are the intro slides Shawn used to kick off the talk, but we didn't get past slide 9 or 10 before we dove into discussion lead by the audience with examples and experience.

What follows is a sampling of the discussion topics with references:

What are QR Codes? They 2D bar codes!
QR Codes connect people to stuff (i.e. URLs, data, people, actions).
Market viability in US and Smart phone usage statistics. The latest numbers by age demographics.
How to measure QR Codes usage. Easiest way? The URL shorteners you are already using.
Using QR Codes with URL Shorteners: Automation and analytics with Goo.gl and Bit.ly.
How much data can you fit in a 2D barcode AKA the QR Code? A fair bit. ~3K worth. That's almost 7100 characters of text!
QR Codes are "big in Japan" - pervasive success cases outside the U.S.
New adopter worry: Security risks of QR Code object payloads or malicious URL.
Trust of QR Codes use by consumers where the brand is not well known.
Flip side: QR codes are a fun way to discover new information - Excitement factor!
We browsed Google Images for QR Codes as a group. We found some interesting ones! Here, LMGTFY.
Concerns raised: Some people don't trust short URLs from unknown sources in general.... but your client app is the filter for bad barcodes.
Reliability and flexibility of QR Codes, embedding data vs just URLs. Text is best. Everything understands text or a URL.
Good libraries to generate QR Codes: ZXing project on Google code.
How to create a QR Code quick, on the web with Kaywa and other web sites.
Linking QR Codes back from the computer. Shawn Hartsock's app: QR Linkulator.
How to scan QR Codes: smart phone apps for iPhone and Android. Here a shot of the apps I like.
What is a Microsoft Tag and should we care? (I saw them used at Web2.0 Expo SF in May, haven't seen one since then...)
Use cases for QR Codes at Events, e.g. Barcamp RDU real-time schedule!
QR Codes that do stuff, like calling a phone.
Case study: IBM uses QR Codes to connect with developers at JAX London 2010 Java conference.
Examples in Print: SparkCON festival posters in Raleigh.
Examples in Print: RSVP for events, Chevy Social poster in Raleigh.
Examples in Print: R Line mobile map app for Raleigh eco-bus commuters
.
Stickybits: Barcode stickers for connecting people easily and with purpose.
Using QR Code to share vCard information, QR Codes on your business card? yes.

Observation: QR Codes pervasive at SXSW in March 2010. Posters, stickers, signs, apps and badges!
Seen in the wild: QR Codes in my Citgo gas station this weekend.
What, huh?: Golf balls, Will Ferrell and colorful non-standard barcodes in magazine advertising.
Seen in the wild: QR code on Lawn treatment packaging in Wal-mart? um yeah.
How long before QR codes integration in apps like Eventbrite? Tangent: Have you used AR and barcode scan features in smart phone apps for Amazon, Bestbuy, Yelp, etc.? Compare prices of brick 'n mortar stores with online shops and find product information in real-time!
Location Case Study 1: QR Codes at the NC State Fair 2010 used for Scavenger Hunt and tweetup. For a play by play, here are my photos documenting the actual hunt. My kids and I ran around the fairgrounds for a couple of hours and had a blast. My wife? not so much. :)
QR Codes on Conference Badges: Triangle Tweetup April 2009 and SXSW March 2010.
Location Case Study 2: Chevy SXSW road trip, MS Tag clues used in location discovery challenges along the way. See more on the Team NC road trip blog.
Location, location, location: Google Places and QR Codes put businesses on the map.
Coming soon... Check-in with ease: Location based services + QR Codes = WIN. Using QR Codes at locations to auto "check-in" in TriOut v2.x?
Trend watch: Tweets about QR code geek wear: T-shirts! (we are not original. see 2008.)

And so, as more and more people ask me about and experiment with QR Codes or any other "new to you" technology that extend the engagement opportunity of social media and/ or social networking, remember this... It's not about the technology. It's what you do with it to provide value. As Jeremiah Owyang famously said, "Don't fondle the hammer." It's about the connections.

I also took the chance to interview my co-host Shawn Hartsock to find out why developers should participate in Barcamps, what his favorite sessions were and where to find him online, plus more about his project QR Linkulator.

Also, read my Barcamp RDU Afterword blog post where I cover the rest of the day's geek fun.

Bacamp RDU 2010 afterword

2010-10-25T14:28:00.023-04:00

I attended Barcamp RDU Saturday October 23rd at RedHat's Headquarters on North Carolina State University's Centennial Campus. The Barcamp has been hosted there for the last five years. It was delayed a bit this go 'round from the usual August date, due mainly to a transition of organizers. Jason Austin led the effort this year and by my account, I'd call the developer focused event a success! I missed the pre-event social the night before, and Jason said it was not all that well attended at around 15-20, but "more beer for them!" in his words. I wanted to jolt down some thoughts here about the sessions I attended and other observations about the event which was organized by a new set of dedicated volunteers this year. New to barcamps? Read this and watch these videos.

Jason Austin kicks things off at 9am

This year I participated as a speaker, pitching a talk idea on QR Codes. It turns out that there was another developer who had pitched a talk on QR Codes based on a side project he was developing on Google AppEngine. No worries, unconference organization to the rescue. We split his topic into two and then teamed up to drop the knowledge on QR Codes. I'll get to this in a dedicated post and I'll comment now about a couple of the other talks. I attended a talk on "Designing RESTful APIs" led by Elliot Peele, a developer from rPath. It seemed like there were developers from various backgrounds in this talk and the entire talk consisted of questions, answers and discussion with the audience. I think this was a good approach. Here quickly I'll share some of the bullet points raised by the developers.

Background: there are xml frameworks used by rPath: xmlrpc, restlib (dev'd by rPath), and some django libs.
concerning RESTful apis, rPath wrote their own XML serializer to get AS3 for their Flex client UI.
my question: you seem to be building a system for internal use only, not an open web API, right?
Main question of this session from Elliot: how do you do pagination over really large collection sets?
audience: get said really huge dataset and hope your server can handle it - joke
audience: you can use django api for getting slices
audience: postgres 9.1 will return json representation
audience: we use memcache on the backend for caching in the app server instead
Elliot: most caching proxies won't cache query URLs - according to google caching rules
audience: atom has a link tag in the xml for next, current, last - points to collection.
why not just use Atom publishing protocol for collections? Elliot: Atom is heavy for some people.
audience: have you ever tried JEE JAX-RS, to use ORM?
audience: most AJAXy clients likely support XML, YAML, JSON - maybe not Atom
audience: have you looked at twitter or facebook graph? fb queries based on current item for say 50 more.
Elliot: i don't have YADL or WSDL i just discover an API
spirited discussion over whether it's okay and how to go about changing the REST API thereby breaking clients.
main take away: there is no right way to build RESTful APIs other than the one that works at the time. not sure this is the best approach but it is reality.

Some XML for REST APIs via rPath

I also attended about 20 minutes worth of Andria Jensen's iPhone App Development 101 talk. I believe the slides will be posted on slideshare and this was very much an in-depth practical tutorial style session with a live walk-through (look: code!) of building out an iPhone application. There was a lot of chatter on twitter about the lack of diversity, read: women, in attendance at the barcamp. I had a few thoughts on this as it has become a real top of mind issue and subject of back channel discussion at many other large conferences as well. I had this conversation with Jennifer Wig while waiting for the hordes of developers to form lines for lunch. In my mind, Barcamps in particular suffer from the issue of awareness in general. The unconference concept is still relatively new to many developers and it's a challenge to communicate the benefit to new comers. There is a bit of anxiety experienced by developers unaccustomed to pitching and speaking in large settings. I argue this is all the more reason to "Do eeeet!" Back to my original point, I found Andria's talk to be a well prepared technical primer for developers. A sufficient nudge to get all of you out there with "the one real killer iPhone app idea" off the couch and on the road to fun and/or profit. I found it to be in the style of the excellent jQuery development talk from Barcamp 2009 by Rebecca Murphey, which led me to proclaim that "the best session of the barcamp" for 2 years running has been led by a woman! This is a good thing. Now, where was Rebecca this year? Traveling. Things happen when tech events are scheduled on a Saturday. What's been your experience with the "diversity gap" at other Barcamps and tech events in general?

Andria is ready to dazzle the packed house crowd with iPhone app dev tips

The most encouraging thing I experienced this year happened when Cristóbal Palmer asked the crowd, "Who is new to Barcamp today?" It appeared to me that around 50-60% of the audience raised their hands (wish I'd snapped that pic!). However, does this point out that there were many from prior years who did not return? We can debate it many different ways, but it's true what Shawn points out in my video spot with him. You come to Barcamp because you want to be here. These are the most passionate and curious people in the developer community of any given city. I put it to you another way, you get what you give. It was pointed another way by Cristóbal, "Everyone is an organizer at Barcamp. Everyone participates."

Cristóbal Palmer explains how Barcamps work

It's interesting to note that each talk I attended was hosted in the Main room, meaning The Big Room, including my talk. I don't know why that is, but I thought I'd point it out. Apparently over 40 people wanted to learn about QR Codes and I think that is awesome! This voter popularity may have made it one of the most attended sessions at Barcamp RDU but I really think the iPhone application dev 101 talk by Andria was most well attended. I could not stay for all of the afternoon sessions as I had to dash off at 2pm to watch each of my sons blow out their last CASL soccer matches of the fall season, scoring 4 goals between the two of them! Gooooaaaalllllzzzzz!! I had hoped to attend the talks about NoSQL, Git, How to Rock your User Group by Jason Austin (see TriPUG), Using Dropbox as a source code repo, Using Apache Aries / OSGi for dependency injection by IBMers Lin Sun and Joe Bohn, Open source Web Framework feedback by Lincoln Baxter of JBoss, Linked Data by Dave Johnson (slides), Usability, Accessibility and SEO from David Minton of DesignHammer, and Location based services by Wayne Sutton. That's the problem with unconferences. The trouble isn't finding something of interest, it's choosing which sessions to miss. The geek humor and nerd sensibility was definitely shining through on some of the pitch titles. I especially liked "Pivot or quit it!" on Lean Startup strategy. I'm anxious to see others blog about these sessions. The entire schedule grid for Barcamp RDU 2010 can be read on Google docs or seen from the actual wall in my photo gallery on Flickr. I took it upon myself to snap loads of photos around the Barcamp on Saturday and it seemed there were not all that many photogs in the bunch. This was in addition to my attempt to live-tweet the morning sessions and interact with folks I knew and new acquaintances as well, on twitter. The hashtag was #BarcampRDU and there is a full tweet archive on twapper keeper. From my perspective it seems there was not a ton of twitterers at the Barcamp. There is still a bit of a challenge with developers being really overtly social at events, while connecting online simultaneously. I also noticed that the number of people who "checked into" Redhat on location-based social networks like Foursquare and TriOut was relatively low. I believe I recall only about 6 people "w/ me" at RedHat HQ. We had a techie swarm IRL, but no swarm badges awarded here, folks. Or maybe I'm an over-sharer?

Joe Bohn marks his votes for Barcamp talks on the schedule grid

I also shot some quick impromptu video interviews with 4 people at the Barcamp. I'll embed the nerdy faux news video with Wayne Sutton (he of socialwayne.com fame and bona fide LBS nerd) and Jay Cuthrell (Cuthrell Consulting was a big sponsor). The audio in my spot with Jason Austin, 2010 Barcamp RDU organizer, was too low to be intelligible but I'm working to re-cut it. Stay tuned. My 4th video interview is with my QR Code talk co-host Shawn Hartsock.

Final thoughts: Blue t-shirts? We're on the NCSU campus, at RedHat for howlin' out loud. We need some RED! Go Pack. Also, the food was good. Bagels and coffee in the AM from local fave Bruegger's and tantalizing spice fare from Qdoba at lunch. Plus, I won a prize on twitter. What?! Yes! The quintessential issue at all popular tech events - poor wi-fi - did not present much of an issue. Good job, RedHat. Geeks like their bandwidth. It was nice to see the session where companies presented current opportunities with the audience; open positions = good. I'd like to give a shout-out to all the folks I was glad to see and talk with at Barcamp RDU 2010, in no particular order: Jason Austin, Justis Peters, Tanner Lovelace, Bran Ganesan, Ian Shields, Shawn Hartsock, Jennifer Wig, Audra Marotta, Leo Suarez, Varsha Chawla, Thomas Vincent, Wayne Sutton, Jay Cuthrell, David Minton, Leandra Ganko, Lenore Ramm, Ted Kirby, Lin Sun, Joe Bohn, Jay Clark, Dave Johnson (excellent Barcamp RDU 2009 organizer), Pat Mueller and probably a half dozen others I'm forgetting at this hour.

Update: Blog coverage by others

Barcamp - A Great Way to Quench Your Thirst by Varsha Chawla

Barcamp Wrapup by Thomas Vincent AKA @geistbear

Disclaimer: I work for IBM, and IBM DeveloperWorks was a sponsor of BarCamp RDU 2010. My team's group community is hosted on DW.

No Blogworld Expo Twenty ten for you - C'est la vie

2010-10-11T17:21:00.006-04:00

Well friends, I didn't win the Dads Talking contest. I'm not going to Vegas this week to break bread with the digital elite. It's fine. Really. I appreciate your support. It's very odd for me to ask people to retweet stuff. More thoughts on that later. At the end of the day, my kids are going to have a blast this Thursday at the NC State Fair and I'm co-hosting the Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup. Really - what price can you put on that? Well, $5 and maybe your heart health but... I digress.

Many people on "the local scene" have commented that I've not been doing as much over the summer. They haven't seen me around as much. I like to say, I haven't seen you around. Ha, I kid. Let's just say I've been reevaluating priorities to some degree. I had, er have, a problem saying No to people. I'm plenty busy back here in the remote NC blogger bunker. Plotting, scheming, painting. There are some fairly exciting things on the horizon. Things I won't talk about in detail. Let's just say, behind the scenes creative juices are flowing into little buckets of awesome sauce. Mmmm can you smell it?! Some of the inspiration baked in is definitely drawn from the cultural learnings drawn from excellent folks I've spent time with over the course of this year, on the Chevy road trip, SXSW, Web2.0 Expo, WWW2010 and Type-A Mom. I'm looking forward to the holidays and family time. It's almost time for the ubiquitous end of year list blog posts. I love lists.

Now, where is the pause button on teh Interwebs while all of you are in Vegas this week? ;)

I should so totally be attending Blog World Expo 2010!!

2010-10-01T02:42:00.027-04:00

Well, I've been thinking about this for a while. I should really be attending Blog World Expo. So in 10 minutes, here are 10 reasons why I believe I should attend BWE, in no particular order.

All my social media speaker friends are asking me why the heck I'm not going to be there. I don't have a great answer. Read on...
I feel like IBM should be a part of the "Biggest Social Media Conference in the World!" I mean we have a swarm of corporate / technical bloggers (of which I am one) and thousands of internal bloggers (can you say Enterprise2.0) and we have stories to tell. Trust me.
I hear South West Air is a really nice airline to fly, but I've not had the pleasure. Let's fix that.
I've been blogging since 2003/2004, oh I can't remember, but I'm just acclimating myself to the idea of the potential "Dad Blogger" - and oh boy, do I have so much to learn (and share). Meeting Jim Turner, Clay Nichols and Ron Mattocks last week really gave me some good (and different) perspectives.
Social Media is something I live and breath, professionally and personally. I do this so called "declarative living" thing, mobile blogging each day about my life. But I still haven't found what I'm looking for...
Are location based services valuable for IBM and other large B2B corporations? I think so and I intend to find out, for us and you. I bet Social Media B2B would like to discuss.
I had the extraordinary experience of attending SXSWi for the first time, by way of Chevy with friends @jakrose @waynesutton @nikisnotes on a fantastic fun road trip to Austin Texas. Now, I need to experience all that is Blog World and New Media Expo, am I right? Planes, trains and automobiles, or on a horse... backwards.
I really need a vacation. Truth: "We" need a vacation. Summer-style cramping medical "procedures" have broken the piggy bank and our real-life social plans. It's a long painful story.
What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas - except at #BWE10. I mean with all of the tweets, check-ins and geo-tags colliding on the big 'ol social graph, who knows what new connections will form. Almost as exciting as gambling, am I right? I'll tell you this, the last time I was in Vegas, I almost had a confrontation with Dennis Rodman at the Hard Rock Casino beach pool. True story. Surely things have changed since the 90's.
It's about the journey not the destination right? BWE10 is a chance to explore both sides of this in an awesome way.

I really do appreciate the folks at DadsTalking, @SouthWestAir and BlogWorld Expo for the opportunity they are giving someone to attend such a neat conference. I've heard a lot of good things about it. Here's hoping.

Measuring Social at September Triangle SMC

2010-10-01T02:35:00.003-04:00

The slides from Triangle Social Media Club tonight.

Argyle "Social Funnel" original slides on Slideshare:

Social Funnel Proposal

View more presentations from Argyle Social.

Recap coming in AM. Thanks SMC Triangle group!

Update: Here's a great recap on MediaTwo's blog by Stacey Alexander.

The Pick-up Artist at Type-A Mom

2010-09-30T17:41:00.001-04:00

Tag teamed by Ron Mattocks (Clark Kent's Lunchbox) and Megan Jordan (Velveteen Mind)

Have a purpose.

Understand the influencer audience. Wives nudge husbands.

Set me up on a bromance with your husband. Most of the current audience for Dad blogs is actually Moms. Help us to help you to help him. Send your husband to us and we'll send him back a better man. ~ Clay Nichols (Dad Labs)

"The Collectors" don't get it. These are Dad bloggers that write to and friend Mom bloggers for traffic. This is not how to get notice. This is how to get blocked. ~ Megan Jordan

We're rethinking the notion of masculinity. We want the country's idea of fatherhood and masculinity to catch up with yours. ~ Clay Nichols

Getting paid is 1 goal but...

Blogging for peanuts (Giftcards) should not be the end all.

Agencies don't get it, social media is media. Would you not pay radio to place an ad?

Understand the value of your blog. Dad bloggers don't know this yet.

Video is magic. Video is more legitimate than blogging now. ~ Alli Worthington

Create a strategy that is not related to "the pitch"

250 hits/day is not great for PR, but is okay for a blog. ~ Megan Jordan

Build social currency.

Here's a great idea: Bring Value. Wait I already said that right? ~ Ron Mattocks

What Ron learned from Megan:

The Product is not a book. The Product is my words. Good words, good content. Don't pitch a product, tell a story.

Question: Is a Mom/Dad blogger that doesn't talk about her/his kids a Parent blogger?

Finding voice and humor at Type-A Mom

2010-09-29T17:29:00.002-04:00

1:15 Saturday at Type-A Mom conference

Clay Nichols (Dad Labs) moderated a panel with Jenny Ingram (Jenny on the Spot) and Megan Jordan (Velveteen Mind)

Key take aways and conversations:

Profanity – to cuss or not to curse – that is the question. This is a big deal. There are a lot of bloggers who use profanity. It's a challenge with some companies. Authenticity is very important in bloggers, or any communicator.

Sarcasm does not always translate in plain text. Humor is in the eye of the beholder/blogger. ~ Clay Nichols

The post you don't want to write is the post you really need to write & the voice you want to use is the one you should use. I have one thing to tell you but hear 1000 voices in my head. Stifled voices aren't interesting to read. ~ Megan Jordan

Sex brownies. How do you balance spouses and in-jokes with online conversations? ~ Jenny Ingram

Foodie Tribe at Type-A Mom

2010-09-29T12:06:00.000-04:00

The Foodie Tribe at Type-A Mom conference was led by Ilina Ewen of Dirt and Noise blog. Here are my quick notes from the meeting.

Some of the interesting folks in the tribe included Basil Vodka, Tooth Whale, Wilson Art.

Involvement with kids is important – at school, and at home.

There is a difference between picky kids and children with eating issues, speaking as a parent who has struggled with this with my first son.

Corn Syrup vs Corn Sugar vs. Sugar – no comment. We all know what natural is.

Smells are key to establishing good taste and cooking is a great way to do this.

Irritating trends: One upping FoodTV with cooking experimentation.

Good approach: No recipes – Kitchen Sink Cooking

Repeat after me: There is no such thing as a kid's menu.

Try The Market (restaurant) in Raleigh for great NC grown food.

Ilina's son had sushi for his birthday lunch.

Food Phreaks – Is the French fry diet real?

My Type A Mom session list

2010-09-28T18:37:00.000-04:00

These are the sessions I attended at the Type A Mom conference this past weekend. I will post my thoughts from the event later in the week.

Dad Vlogging, with Clay Nichols and Greg Ng, moderated by Jim Turner
Privacy and Security in a New Media world, with myself Ryan Boyles and Jim Turner
Foodie Tribe, with Ilina Ewen
Blogging with humor, personality and voice, with Jenny Ingram and Megan Jordan, moderated by Clay Nichols
What Dad Bloggers can learn from the Moms, with Megan Jordan and Ron Mattocks
Placebloggers, with Sarah Pinnix
Biltmore's Guide to Wine and Food Pairing, with Kristine Kocan

I met some interesting and incredible people at the event and over good food in Asheville.

Privacy and Security in a New Media World w/ @Genuine

2010-09-25T11:12:00.014-04:00

Slides from the ‘Privacy and Security in a New Media World’ session for Dad’s Track at #TypeAMom conference. Session leaders are Jim Turner (@genuine) and myself me (aka @theRab) . I wanted to post the session slides along with additional topics from the discussion. Please share your blog recaps, questions and comments here or on twitter and let’s keep this conversation going. There is so much to talk about.

Note: Here are the original discussion questions. Also now on Slideshare.

Here are some of the topics we touched on in the session. What are you interested in?

How we all starting blogging with identity obscuring persona names
Security: PTA and publicly posting child names, places, check-out times etc - what are they thinking?
To post or not to post: How to share family photos with family or otherwise
People taking photos with your children in them - and posting these online - Facebook etc
How do you manage your online persona between work and family?
Friending only family on Facebook, yet posting on a blog publicly
Where to share photos: Flickr with "family" and "friends" privacy settings, Facebook with privacy setting headaches
Parental permission with schools posting identity comprising information
Devil's advocate: Does posting about your family give you more credibility as an authentic blogger?
Over-sharing: "I embarrass my kids online!" ~ Jim
Jim live-blogged 2 of his children's births. He got big spikes in traffic with each contraction!
Checking in at conferences for connecting
Example: Stalking via Location based social networks at business events
Using Foursquare / Location based services as a "Check-out" activity, not "check-in"
Using pseudonyms in place of spouse and children's names when blogging and sharing. For example: Baby "M" - @4MrsG - "Superboy" - Mrs @theRab
Chronicle your life for your future children ~ Kevin Rose foursquare data rationale
Check out Blue Coat internet safety software called K-9, it's free! Software barks when child visits black-listed websites
Check out Gavin De Becker's work on evaluating online threats

Note: I posted a live-blog from the daddy vlogging session with Greg Ng AKA@freezerburns and @daddyclay from DadLabs.com.

Dad Vlogging at TypeAmom conference

2010-09-25T09:44:00.003-04:00

Type-A Mom conference

Dad's track

Daddy Vlogging

Sept 25, 2010 – 8:45am

Renaissance Asheville, Alexander room 2nd floor

panel is

Clay (@daddyclay) dadlabs.com

Greg Ng (@freezerburns) freezerburns.com

Jim Turner - moderator (@genuine)

why do you vlog?

my inspiration is Gary Vaynerchuk of Winetv - Greg

I did set out from the start to do this as a business.

we're in the business to produce video content and help dad's improve themselves - Clay

we do the stuff to show that it's okay and so that you don't have to - to entertain and educate.

where do you even start?

tubemogul is the best friend of any video blogger - Clay

if you have $500 to spend, use $400 on a good microphone and $100 on a camera (Flip is how i started) - Greg

measure - don't use a tool unless it gives you good insight into your audience other than views - Greg

i know when people are watching and from where.

what tools are great?

blip.tv - automatic publishing to wordpress - Greg

depends on your audience.

my audience is stoner college kids and grocery shopping moms.

give exclusive things to your different channels which are different audiences.

you can use free tools like iMovie to start out - Clay

[baby wailing in the background] (note: it's great to have a conference where you can bring kids!)

how much time goes into vlogging a show?

35 hours per week - Greg

1 hour filming

10 hours editing

rest is responding to people and gaining viewers

On syndication - Clay

vlogging is a SEO nightmare

your content is hidden to google

you can do transcripts and you should pay attention to providing good meta-data but it's not as good as blogging

On live-streaming - Greg

live-shows are great - they snowball

i have a crazy cool audience in europe, watching at 4am - the response are incredible

UStream is recommended - priority based on views - your show gets bumped up

good to test out new content on live-shows

see http://live.freezerburns.com

note: join Greg for the next Freezerburns Live show at the N.C. State Fair during the Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup! The show is live and live-streamed!

Dad's Life - Online

2010-09-17T17:57:00.009-04:00

Type-A Mom conference

I've been working on a session for the upcoming Type-A Mom Conference and the awesome new Dad's Track. The blogger conference is to be held in beautiful Asheville North Carolina next weekend. I'm very excited to be a speaker and even more pumped now that I'm paired up with Dad blogger extraordinaire Jim Turner (you know the most @genuine guy you'll ever meet!). We're going to be tackling the hot topic of the year: Privacy + Security + Dad Bloggers, in the New Media world. It's going to be awesome.

I hope you see the inherit value of this topic for yourself as a blogger or online person. I've been living online since 2001 and blogging since around 2004ish. I'm a proud dad to two great sons. I thought it is best to share a quick outline of the talk. I am open to receiving feedback and also questions for the session in advance. I want to connect with other "Fathers who blog" (and moms too). What are your stories and tips? If I don't hear from you before hand, I hope to see you in Asheville on Sept 23rd. As always, find me on twitter as @theRab.

A quick 28 word take:
In a world where personal branding is the new normal, privacy is not just another buzz word for dads who blog. Fathers balance safety and success in real-time.

Some questions to be explored:

How are our perspectives of privacy changing?
How is the shift in online personas affecting blogs?
Who is the invisible audience, really? Are they still invisible?
What is the inherit value of publicness?
Can you be "social" online without Facebook?
What part do Privacy laws play in parenting online?
How do bloggers find the right balance between public and "private" sharing?
Why does living online mean opening Pandora's box?
Is there a generational divide online?
If personal "content" is a New Media commodity, what does that make "users" who create it?
What are the expectations of the new Internet Society?
How do parents apply online safety criteria?
What does it mean to grow up online in 2010?
What is the new new media approach to teen safety and "friends?"
What happens when families are not longer?
Where can I use location based services, with safety in mind?
Danah Boyd said "Privacy is not dead" but does it seem kinda undead?
Who made 2010 the year of the "Daddy Blogger" anyway? :)

Your take-aways:

Audience engagement and daily life are the odd couple of New Media. Trust, control and creativity are not mutually exclusive. Reasonable expectations of privacy and security are important and real.

So, I'm wondering... Are you a dad who blogs? Have you seen or participated with Dad's Talking, Dadosphere, DigitalDads or DadLabs? Do you connect with other dad's online?

Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D

2010-09-11T10:42:00.022-04:00

I awoke to the sounds of screaming and full-auto gun fire. It was coming up from the sublevel near the main complex entrance below our officers barracks. Wait, am I in the Umbrella underground facility? Could it be the small army of project Alice clones we've heard about... are they staging a super ninja incursion here... continuing their campaign of righteousness, seeking revenge for wrongs done to all of humanity by the supposed evil corporation with which I find myself inexorably intertwined? Will I make it through another day of this horrible zombie infested nightmare?

Oh, it's just my sons getting into it again. It is the morning after the release of the new Nerf Stampede tactical dart blaster and my sons are chasing each other around the foyer right below our master bedroom at 6:15 in the morning. Shrill ear-piercing, terror-inducing full-auto bursts of electric dart foam firing 18 round clips in all directions. It means I have to go corral these pint size commandos back to their quarters to jump start their elementary school day preparation for "picture day" and shake off the brain fuzz from getting just 4 hours of sleep.

Graphical treatment via ngx

You see, I was one of the few nutty zombies that went to the 12:01AM midnight premiere of the fourth Capcom video game inspired "Survival Horror" apocalypse themed feature length movie. Resident Evil: Afterlife is a bombastic movie extravaganza of undead horror, chock full of gun-blazin' action, featuring a lady on the run with a shady past, uncertain future and inexplicable telekinetic super-powers courtesy of the ultra evil mega-corporation she seeks revenge on. To join Alice on her unending journey of death and um un-death, her unlikely entourage punch their passports for a guaranteed one-way trip to a bad end, without hesitation, consequences be darned! Awesome, right? Yeah it is a messy, convoluted, hyper-stylized roller-coaster ride - just like the video games and dang fun to experience, especially in eye-popping 3D. So, in my usual 10 point review style, here are the top moments of awesome in Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D. Disclaimer: this is not a spoiler free review.

Featuring Fan Service galore: starting with the first line of film, "Biohazard terminated." uttered by an utterly doomed sniper sentry guarding the impenetrable underground Umbrella facility in Japan. Biohazard is the original title from the Japanese Capcom video game.
Chris Redfield is a brother reunited - joining his slightly amnesic sister Claire to form a butt-kickin' evil fightin' duo.
Wesker as the original shady S.T.A.R.S. squad commander, turned Umbrella Big-Bad, gone mad with T-virus juice. Expect a big showdown, video-game boss battle showdown style.
Obligatory lobby shoot-out scene! Featuring bullet evading slow-mo martial arts acrobatics and exploding walls. That security army never had a chance!
Zombie upgrades! Horrific face grabbing mouth tentacles! Quadruple ICK!
Lost rag-tag group of zombie survivors, featuring the pre-requisite set of character archetypes, each doomed by their own short-comings and the peril of group think. The famous good-hearted athlete, the altruistic wanna-be actress, the selfish movie producer, the naive executive assistant nobody, the loyal middle-aged everyman, the lost troubled soldier. They are all fodder for tragic ends, providing the another one bites the dust signature aesthetic doom and gloom for this film genre.
Resident Evil gave in: No longer loyal to the Romero camp of "Zombiology" the zombies have learned to run, dive, swim and burrow in this movie. I guess their hunger pangs for human brains has intensified in the four years since the outbreak, and it's a challenge worth evolving for, undead or not, to find a decent meal? They still can't climb however, so I guess that's something. And where are all the Lickers?
"It's a trap!" and "don't go in there" moments through out with scenes under water, in cramped tunnels, behind doors in pitch black places.
Slow-motion rain, slow-motion gun-fire, slow-motion crashes, slow-motion fights; all borrowed from dozens of other genre, action and horror films that you will instantly recognize, now upgraded into shiny, shimmering jaw-dropping 3D.
Ambiguous plot turns and no real ending - no safety is sure. No one is ever really dead - zombie, monster or human - unless their head is removed. This is most randomly proven by the huge unstoppable hooded juggernaut swinging the over-sized battle axe, transported into this film from the 5th video game in the series. Alas, our intrepid survivors live on to fight in another film.

So, you may think that this is a review of a bad movie. I think the film is a big sloppy wet kiss homage to the video games and most importantly the gamers, who are going to love the cheese, the bad dialogue, the clichés, the scary action combo; all signature Resident Evil game elements. Regular movie goers are going to scratch their heads in disbelief at the twists and turns in the "story" but may enjoy the thrill ride nonetheless if they can unplug their brains. I enjoyed the film enough to watch it today with my friend Wayne Sutton. Here are a few of his comments:

Yeah, Milla is awesome.
More action!
Deliver more on implied sexuality, you know!
Don't slow down the story for no reason...
But stop overuse of slow-motion during every action scene.

Here's the funny part of that last qualm. I think if you sped up the all of the slo-mo bits to regular speed, this 1.5 hour movie would run about 45 minutes. LOLZ! So this begs the question: does a $13.50 ticket (with that new $3.50 3D surcharge!!!) make any new film worth the cost? I'll save that debate for another blog post.

The 8 foot tall 3D lobby prop promo at North Hills

Science of Presenting with Dan Zarrella

2010-08-19T15:08:00.007-04:00

I attended a webinar about the "Science of presentations" today. This is especially topical since I gave an education talk on the subject to fellow IBMers in WebSphere on Tuesday this week. I thought there were several points from the webinar that are a good compliment to that talk. Here are some presentation preparation and presenting pro tips from Dan Zarrella @danzarrella (social media scientist) and others, via the #SciPres Hubspot webinar today. Each bullet period is a link to the tweet to facilitate retweeting, favoriting etc.

Eliminate noise on your slides.
No fonts below 30 points.
No bullet points.
Only one thought per slide.
Use us-vs-them to turn your audience into evangelists.
Ingratiate yourself to your audience.
Say something your audience has never heard before.
Set useful expectations for your audience.
Influential attendees are socially-motivated .
Know your audience.
Men are much more likely than women to Tweet or blog about your presentation if they disagree with it.
Give the audience time to Tweet and blog.
Teach your audience how to do something.
Make sure your sound bites make sense out of context.
Craft Tweetable sound bites for every slide.
Give your audience information to Tweet about that will make them look cool.
Remind your audience that by attending your presentation they’re part of a community.
Make your audience like you.
Include breaking news and never-header-before things in your presentation.
Be laser-focused on the topic your audience came to learn about.
Reminder your audience to be kind and share your content.
As a presenter or organizer, encourage ReTweeting.

The presentation about presentations Dan gave is on slideshare: Science of presentations

(View more presentations from HubSpot Internet Marketing)

For more, read a Hubspot eBook on the subject: Science of presentations

(View more documents from HubSpot Internet Marketing)

The Rules of Pit Date Night

2010-08-17T23:40:00.014-04:00

Here are some rules for the Raleigh date night.

The first rule of Pit Date Night is, you do not talk about #pitdatenight.
The second rule of Pit Date Night is, okay you DO SOMETIMES talk about it... to get together your local friends, their spouses / significant others to enjoy some really good barbeque, southern food, conversation and drinks.
If someone says twitter yada yada yada, goes on and on about social this or iphone that, checks in to more than 1 lbs, the date night is over. Let's agree to leave the shop talk for those wildly geeky tweetups and what not.
Two people to a date. No singles.
One drink at a time. There are many to choose from. I recommend Lone Rider Shotgun Betty.
No shirts, no shoes, no service. Come on, The Pit is a classy southern place yaw. We have roses and champagne with our que and convo!
Date nights will go on as long as they have to.... This is date night. Your smart phone and your better half deserve a night off / out (respectively in that order).
If this is your first date night, you really should try the house specialty - delicious Eastern NC style chopped BBQ, and a local NC draught beer. Start with hushpuppies and mini biscuits, add a side of sweet potato fries or fried okra and you'll be in date night heaven. Trust.

Sincerely, the Pit Date Night founders Phil Buckley, John Lane, Brian McDonald and Ryan Boyles.

Thanks to our most excellent hosts Ed, Eric, Lee and the whole Pit crew. And thanks to the first time Date nighters: Latoya and Wayne Sutton, Tricia and John Lane, Garrett French, Ellen Lynch, P. Brewer and my lovely wife Kim. Apologies for the first time date night misses. Life is what happens when we're busy making plans, right? Really hoping to dine with Brian, Maura, Phil and Kristen at the next date night. Stay tuned to the hashtag #pitdatenight for the next Pit Date Night, coming soon to a The Pit BBQ near you.

Disclaimer: Pit Date Night rules roughly adapted from The Rules of Fight Club.

Fun with Camping

2010-08-12T11:43:00.005-04:00

Gathering up a list of camps. No not the kid sleep-away or sports kind. The kind for developers and technology people. BarCamps, DevCamps, Hackdays, etc. I want to figure out where I as a technology evangelist am missing out - where to best engage fellow developers and explore where advocacy blooms. Please chime in on the comments or on twitter with your suggestions, tips and experiences. Also refute, debate or extoll events shown in this list.

Dad Life

2010-08-03T10:04:00.000-04:00

It's how we're livin'

How To Be Alone

2010-08-03T09:40:00.000-04:00

Get Lost With Yourself. It's okay.

Celebrate the Fourth of July around the Triangle

2010-07-01T06:30:00.003-04:00

And by Triangle I mean Raleigh, Durham and elsewhere within ~50 mile radius of Wake Forest, North Carolina. So I was browsing the latest "Yelp in the Triangle" newsletter about Cakes of all things and stumbled into a discussion forum about local Fourth celebrations. I usually wait until the day of to decide what to do around town on this particular holiday. The standard "base of celebration operations" for Team Boyles has traditionally been located somewhere down on the NC Coast in years past and growing up. Our family beach vacation tradition has shifted in a more off season direction. Therefore, I decided to compile a list, such as it is, to prepare for some good 'ol 4th festivities this go 'round. Procrastination will not sabotage my inalienable rights to enjoy blackened hot-dogs, cold bevies and the obligatory dazzling / loud fireworks display this time. Oh no! Twenty-ten represent! Therefore, in no particular order...

Fourth of July Celebration Time, Come ON!

Raleigh Old Fashioned Fourth of July
Raleigh Fairgrounds for fireworks
Durham Festival for the Eno (3 days worth!)
Cary Koka Booth Amphitheatre Fireworks with North Carolina Symphony Summerfest
Rolesville Fireworks
Durham Baseball game: Durham Bulls vs. Gwinnett Braves
Fuquay Varina church is having a low-country boil called Red White and Blue Shrimparoo
Apex Old Fashioned 4th
Chapel Hill Fireworks at Kenan Stadium
Louisiana Crawfish Boil in my Wake Forest neighborhood + SC-style fireworks (likely)

But wait there is stuff happening on July 3rd too? Yes.

Town of Wake Forest Fourth Celebration - my neck of the woods yaw
Durham Children's Independence Day Parade (PDF)

Earth day is everyday

2010-04-22T10:42:00.011-04:00

"One day does not a habit make."

With these words from Ilina Ewen on Earthday 2010, I started writing my own "Everyday Earthday" Twenty-ten list. Here are a few ways you can practice the good habits of honoring Mother Earth in ways small, big, global and local. Make Earth day everyday in your house. It's not a holiday, it's your/our life.

Inspire others. Give an idea or story to the Smarter City project. Better yet, champion a project from the Smarter City list in your neck of the woods.
Support Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. Diet is important for our children. Have you visited your child's cafeteria lunch room? What do you pack for lunch?
Recycle daily. It's not hard for small 'recycling' habits in your home and workplace to add up to a big 'reuse' impact in the community.
Use ~~CFL~~ LED Lighting. Check out Cree's LED Revolution for the fun & facts about efficient lighting for all walks of life, inside and out. Why is everyone is pushing low fuzzy compact florescent lights? LEDs are better for many reasons.
Shop local. Local merchants are good for the economy and your local environment. The next time you think that big box store is more convenient, check out the little guy. You'll be glad you did in the long run. There are lots of sites (and people) to help you connect with fantastic local store owners.
Drink local beer, not bottled water, when possible. All that plastic is a bad idea yaw. At least recycle plastic when you are able. Local beer in recyclable glass bottles includes Lone Rider Beer, Big Boss Brewing and others.
Micro-conserve water. Trim 1 minute off your shower tomorrow, save 2-5 gallons of water. It adds up quick.
Plan ahead. We are a nation of cars and truck drivers. They define our culture, economy and everyday life. Electric vehicles are coming and they can't get here soon enough for this tech nerd. Check the new Chevy Volt. By popular demand, it looks like Detroit is leading the pack toward a green-er highway. I test drove the Volt concept at SXSW 2010 (photos | video) and let me tell you: it's no Popular Mechanics fantasy. The future is here.
Check yo'self before u wreck yo'self. Save serious $$ by getting an Energy Audit of your house. You can do it yourself with some of these tips from Jess Commins. Make it a fun family activity and impress your neighbors by making your domicile more energy efficient. Remember, energy efficiency is sexy, people!
Stop wasting time on the internet and go outside and enjoy some good all natural serotonin and fresh air. Plant something that reproduces oxygen. You'll be glad you did. "The family that plants together, stays together." (My wife made me add this one. ha ) Okay now I'll stop.

Earth day shout-outs to the people that inspired the ideas and projects in my list.

Jack Mason at IBM.
Jason Keath of Social Fresh.
just my daily routine.
Ginny Skalski at Cree.
my common practice.
Sumit Vohra at Lone Rider Beer.
The good folks at Twestival and Charity: Water.
Phil Colley and Chris Barger at GM. (BTW, Happy Birthday today Phil! )
Jess Commins of Renewabelle.
My lovely wife Kim, resident green thumb / sun goddess / lawn beautification engineer.
Special shout to Ilina Ewen for her 'Everyday is Earthday' meme.