Saturday, June 30, 2007

BarCamp Perth! 

I enjoyed BarCamp today, even though I'm not a tech/education type. I'm more the curious quasi-creative. Didn't have any hassles finding Central TAFE in East Perth and the smell of coffee assured me I'd come to the right place.

I especially liked Gary's presentation on the Wordpress loop but I think that's partly because his slides looked so good - readable, even, with the important bits highlighted. Met a few new people, learnt about Buzka (a social info-sharing site out of Perth), Microsoft's SilverLight and Expression Engine, a CMS that I'm now keen to try.

Bronwen handed out PerthNorg t-shirts and, along with Richard from Scouta lead a discussion on how to increase Perth's profile in the Web world.

Kathryn showed us Murdoch Uni's land in Second Life - no rabbits and no Bush Court but a total spin - and inadvertently caused me to panic about the accessibility of education in the future if for no good reason we need to fly around in a virtual world to get it. Kathryn did give equity as a reason not to require students to visit Second Life.

Constance and Kate talked about ways to introduce people to Web 2.0, with others who work in education (TAFE, ECU and Kathryn from Murdoch) contributing there experience and ideas.

Local Web designers talked about starting a Web business. I caught the second session on this and although I'm not going to start a Web business, it's interesting to hear how other people do their work and what they need to consider and accept to do it well.

Every session I attended, including the one on podcasting lead by Trevor from ECU, could be relevant to work in some way, so thanks to Myles and Co from the AWIA for organising it, and to Simone for ordering lunch, and to Microsoft for the free beer (which I could have done with the day I first used Word 2007 but I'm fine now, thanks) at the Royal afterwards.

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Thursday, June 28, 2007

Like A Lizard Drinking 

So not that busy really but I have copied and pasted a few lizards in the last couple of days - a bit of a motif in a project I'm working on. A random motif but hey. Actually, maybe it's more of a Dee motif because the surprised noise I make at swish (those swish balls can surprise you) causes one player to ask if I've seen a lizard. I'm more likley to step on a lizard and that'd be some other surprised noise I'm sure.

Looking forward to BarCamp on Saturday (look it up!) and glad that we have PerthNorg after posting my first short article. Great to be able to tell your own story.

Bit stressed out, even after a trip down to Jalbarragup via Balingup and Nannup that took in a visit to Busselton and a visit with my youngest sister and niece (and Rod!). Actually, maybe a whirlwind trip south wasn't wasn't what I needed to de-stress. Lost my keys tonight (it's like exam time without the exams) and Gill came round (see?) with Caelan, my spare keys and a torch. We re-traced my steps over a k back to the shops, where we found them at the chemist. Lucky we brought the torch.

So that's me. Hope you're well!

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Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Action! 

Megan wrote today and I wrote back. My ironing is ironed, my bathroom ceiling is bleached and I've handwashed a top for the day after tomorrow because I have blogger meetup tomorrow night. I've even blogged! Such a lot happening in Drug Action Week but so far I'm busier at home.

Hey, why does Blogger call it Word Verification when odgewx isn't a word?

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Monday, June 18, 2007

Cleaning Up 

I have an inspection this week so I'm slowly cleaning up my space. My floors smell of eucalyptus oil and my keyboard feels happy to know my fingertips a little better now that I've wiped it over. I love cleaning up because it gives me a chance to re-acquaint myself with all my stuff and choose again what it is that I need, and where I can keep it.

As you can probably guess from how little I've blogged lately, I'm busy doing stuff other than cleaning too. I met my niece on the Foundation Day long weekend (she is lovely, very content and happy - she laughs a lot even at three months old) and my parents are visiting from Tassie. Now there's a reason to clean up.

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