Reflections

Well my New Year’s eve is not that exciting. I am here at home with my family. Honestly I would not rather be anywhere else. Having young children does restrict what you can do on New Years. My wife has just gone to bed and as usual there is nothing on telly. Nothing has changed there in twelve months since I last looked at it. So I find myself sitting here thinking of the year that is passing and the year head.

This last year has been great. My kids continue to bring me great joy and I am more in love with my wife than I have ever been. My extended family has grown and I have an extra niece. My cousins have had kids of their own which is great. So family wise it has been a good year.

I became a podcaster this year and I continue in that and the show is growing well. The show saw a change of hosts. Knightwise continues to be a great partner in crime. The Global Geek Podcast also moved to The Podcast Network. That move has been very good for the show and it is great to be a part of that community and club. I am looking forward to what happens this year. I really do think that this year is going to be a great year for the podcast. Optimistic? Maybe, but you have to think positive and have goals to get anywhere.

My blog has grown this year and I am loving being a part of WordPress. It is a dynamic place in a continual state of development. It really is exciting to be a part of that. I can’t wait to see what they roll out this year.

My online life has seen some great connections with people that are a huge support and have become more friends than contacts. I meet Jason Van earlier in the year and recently I meet Tim King, a fellow podcaster and designer. Tim has been invaluable to bounce ideas off and just talk tech. We have also played with some designs that you might see this coming year. It was so great to meet fellow “geeks” in Australia who are thinking like you and have common interests. I thank them for their friendship and their willingness to help when I have asked. I especially thank Jason for his support with developing my marketing knowledge and interesting conversation and mutual respect.

So that’s my world, then I reflect on the greater world and how that might impact mine. I see that Saddam’s death sentence was carried out. I don’t care if he deserved it or not or if it was right or not, the loss of life for whatever reason is sad. I see the middle east continue to be a complete mess. Terrorism continues to be a concern globally. However, maybe falsely; I feel somewhat safer here in Australia. I fear that greater world and how safe my children will be. But I am not about to live in fear or anything like that either.

So that is all that comes to mind right now. There is heaps more swimming around in my head. But that is my reflection for this the end of 2006. Have a safe and Happy New Year everyone.

We will now resume our usual programing.

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Slow Boot Problem Solved, Skypecasts and Networking

The other day I was talking about the release of Skype and the subsequent slow boot times that were occurring after installation. I have fixed the slow boot times but not the RAM usage and I am getting into Skypecasts a bit more but there are issues with that as well.

I put my slow boot times down to installing and uninstalling a few applications that we were testing. So I thought that to clean up and defragment the harddrive might be a good idea. I did both these things overnight. The other thing that I did was to set Skype not to load at start-up. The result is that the system is as fast as it ever was, I have less errors in general and the boot time is quick.

I think that the defrag sorted out the general smoothness of the system and cut down on the errors. However, I am sure that the very slow boot time was due to the bloated Skype 3.0. It does after all load about 30 MB of data to RAM. So if you are experiencing the same problem try that. I am a bit slack in the defragging department and this has shown me that I really should make the effort to do it at least once a month. Problem is that I never have the time or I think that I don’t. But the overnight idea worked a treat. One thing I did do was disconnect the Ethernet cable. I just don’t like the idea of the PC sitting there all night connected. Seems unfounded but that’s me.

I have listened to a few more Skypecasts since the post and I have really enjoyed them. There are however massive problems with the servers. Before Skype 3.0 came out Skypecasts did not seem used that much. Then Skype 3.0 hits with Skypecasts built in and all hell breaks loose. But a button in front of a user and what happens? They press it of course.

So the Skypecast servers get inundated with new users and they are failing. They obviously have not scaled the servers for this type of traffic and the system is struggling to cope. That’s not to mention the idiots that are in there. I think this will improve though and they should be a blast just be patient with the reliability of the servers.

I have done more networking and meet some amazing people listening and participating in Skypecasts than I have in the last month. I even meet another Aussie podcaster. Listen to his latest cast on Open Source Applications, his podcast is called style:guide which he describes as:

“… a guided tour through the world of design from web sites and print design to video and music, and all other types of design in the world we live in today.”

He has 6 episodes in the can, good work. I reckon the first one is the hardest. It is great to have a fellow geek on the Skype list in Australia and a podcaster to boot. We have traded tips and helped each other out a bit and it has been fun.

The Internet continues to inspire me and surprise me. Nice header, can you do anything about mine Tim?

Changing the World

I have had the most amazing conversation today. It turns out that one of my fellow hosts on The Podcast Network is a Registered Nurse, Molly Carlile. Her area of expertise is Palliative Care. The podcast is called Dead Serious. Molly has heaps of bits of paper but most importantly to me she gets the whole Internet thing and the huge impact that it can and will have as a platform for media delivery and communication. Especially in relation to healthcare and professionals alike. Plus she believes that one person can change the world. That is the thing that blew me away. We have things in common, we are vastly different practitioners yet this technology drives us together. Now that is why I am so passionate about what I do, and why I think nursing and related professionals, leaders, managers and everyone else that might keep the healthcare ball rolling should stop and take notice!

I make a point of not crossing the boundaries between my professional career and what I do online. I rarely touch on what I do or have done as far as work goes in my blog or the podcast. The reasons are many and I have blogged about it before. But this time the two worlds have collided and I feel that it is okay to meld the two. Because that is what I really have a passion for, that is for the medical industry and associated fields to embrace new technology and methods of communicating and apply them.

So Molly and I had a great discussion and we shared some great ideas for some projects that might eventuate next year. I’ll add it to the pile! But this is something that may have a huge influence on nursing and the way that we do things. Not to mention the turns my life may take as a result. That is hugely exciting and frightening for me. It is starting to look more and more like I am never going to be able to win people over by trying to convince them. So what about showing them how it is done? Lead by example and demonstration; showing the effectiveness of new mediums to convey concepts, ideas and access to information.

Molly has some great insights into quantum physics, spirituality and personal existence in the universe. Although she has found it difficult to get a show out lately there are regular blog entries on the Dead Serious Homepage. I am now off to check out some the shows that are available. Keep up the great work Molly and a pleasure to have meet you. Our introduction is a perfect example of the power of this medium.

About Dead Serious:

“Molly produces and hosts a weekly program on The Podcast Network called Dead Serious which addresses issues of spirituality, life, death and how we make meaning in an increasingly isolated social world.”

– From Molly’s About page

Support Firefox 2.0

I already knew about this website but until today I did not know they had updated the buttons.

Spread Firefox is a promotional site for Firefox or more to the point it explains and provides resources for you to spread the word about Firefox and in part Thunderbird. Thunderbird is the email client from the Mozilla people.

One of the ways that they assist people is to create buttons for you to use in your blog or email signature. I was posting about Firefox 2 on the podcast blog and I looked to see if there were any Firefox 2 buttons, there was not. But today I notice that they are now available and the one you see here is just one.

The HTML code is provided for you on the page. Just copy and paste the text provided into the HTML where you want to display the logo.

There are some other very cool projects that Spread Firefox is involved with and they have a very active user base, so if interested then head on over and sign up as an affiliate.

By the way the page that the link redirects you to has yet to be updated with links to the new version, patience. As I said in my previous post, the final version has only just hit the Mozilla FTP 24 hours ago.

Cameron Needs a Floor

Just a short note to head over to Cameron Reilly’s Blog for G’day World. Cam as I said in a previous post is heading over to the US to see about some VC (venture capital) for The Podcast Network.

Cam is traveling light and on what he calls an “extreme budget”, which sounds worse than a backpackers budget. So in that light he is looking for a “floor” in San Fransisco with WiFi, from the 25th of October to the 15th of November. He does not state a preference for the type of floor. But the WiFi is a must as he will still be running The Podcast Network. So if you think you or someone you know might be able to help Cam out then see his blog for details.

Also check out the latest Bulletin Magazine for this week (Australian Publication) as it talks about the investment situation here in Australia. It sums up the questions that I have been asking. They also chat with some other Aussie entrepreneurs talking about similar circumstances, interesting read.