Open Australian Government - Ideas

Australia now has a government 2.0 taskforce.

AUD $2.45 million of funding to web 2.0-ify the Australian government.

Here's some ideas, to get you started:

CrimeTweet - A twitter like application, based on identi.ca, Google Maps API, and Zemanta.

Our local police force has someone publishing crimes on the front page of their website, which is also fed out to newspapers.

Why not provide an identi.ca client which lets you tweet about crimes?
Use a tool like Zemanta to linkify keywords, and google maps API to add an approximate geolocation (say, street level accurate). You add in structured data (RDFa?) too.

Effort? I'd peg it at 2 months to get it polished; and then it's a matter of getting police forces to use it.

Benefits: A much tighter integration with citizen police groups (neighbourhood watch), and the ability to do crime maps / analyze the data.


Idea 2: As above, but expand it out to neighbourhood watch people, give them easy tools to upload photos of minor crimes (ie, graffiti).


Idea 3: Stolen goods register, powered by Freebase.
You use a Freebase suggest control to help people tag consumer goods / get pictures of said goods, plus a bit of storage for serial numbers and descriptions.

You provide RSS feeds / emails to all local pawn shops, cash convertors, etc.

Usability niggles, Ubuntu

Ubuntu's next release will have one hundred paper cuts as a focus - fixing usability issues for users.

Here's my best pet peeves.

1. On windows, if I paste in a URL in an "open file" box, windows will fetch it for me, write it somewhere temporary, and give me that temporary path. Gnome is inconsistent - I can put a URL into a the 'Run' dialog, but gedit doesn't let me open it. However, if I start gedit from the command line, it will open it - gedit https://edge.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/
2. 'Choose another application' when opening a file from firefox gets me to try and look around for the path of an application. As a newer user to linux, I often have to fall back to the terminal, and use things like 'which gedit' to get the right path. If the run dialog can work out which application I want, why can't firefox.
3. With gedit, if I open a file which does not exist, it does not let me create said file - it just errors at me.

https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bug/18995

PEAR in June

June is here, and things are beginning to pick up again.

We've welcomed Rodrigo Sampaio Primo, probably better known for his efforts with TikiWiki and elsewhere, Peter Bittner joined us to feed back some of his Open Document improvements, we've seen the feature and bugfix releases of Services_Amazon_SQS, Net_LDAP2, Console_Commandline, XML_Serializer, PHP_UML, Payment_DTA, Net_UserAgent_Detect, Net_DNS, Services_Facebook, Testing_DocTest and Net_Nmap.

Christian Weiske has been working on getting Open Document back into shape, Greg Beaver is once again helping us move forward to elect a new PEAR group, as well as getting the next version of the PEAR installer ready for testing.

Slightly worrying, we haven't heard much from Amir since the elections in Iran, and he hasn't been on IRC.

PHP 5.3 isn't far off, and I think it's fair to suggest that we've all got a subdued sense of excitement about it. That, and the consumption of a metric tonne of meat.

TenGrandIsBuriedThere and Crop Cricles

I've always wondered if I had a part in spawning the firefox crop circle.

I posted to spreadfirefox.com back in 2004.

Amusing thought - Crop Circles
Posted by CloCkWeRX on Fri, 10/22/2004 - 16:42Firefox Marketing Ideas

:) Speaks for itself. Ties into the Nov. 9. mystery and ILoveBees ideas.

"Something is coming.
Something big.
Something alien to most of us...
Something that's from out of this world..."

First off, you need a field. Second, you need a manual. Third, you need a worried farmer.

Come 2006, they made the crop circle.

They give credit to some Mozilla folk.

Matt and John, Mozilla video interns, came up with the idea a few weeks beforehand. Fueled by the enthusiasm of Asa Dotzler at Mozilla, suddenly the crop circle was within reach. While at OSCON 2006 in Portland, the three of them ran into members of the OSLUG, and things really started to take shape.

Whoever really generated the idea, it gives me no end of pleasure that it's hitting back at the horrible Microsoft marketing campaign, bribing users to switch to IE8 while insulting the rest of us.

Net_LDAP2 - Stable!

Net_LDAP2 is an object oriented interface for searching and manipulating LDAP-entries of an LDAP server like ActiveDirecory or OpenLDAP.

It started life as a copy of Net_LDAP but introduced some API changes so beni created a new package instead of breaking the old Net_LDAP one.

But, as of now: Net_LDAP is deprecated, old and broken!

Going forward: how do I migrate?

Pretty simply replacing calls to Net_LDAP* with Net_LDAP2* will get you 90% of the way.

You can see there is little difference between the two, apart from the latter being E_STRICT friendly.


With this release, Net_LDAP will only be maintained for bugfixes and security issues. Please move to Net_LDAP2 which is actively developed and constantly gets new features.

Things I hate about Facebook

1) It doesn't work well with Opera. Until I upgraded, I couldn't even type in the login box. It's still buggy.
2) The annoying sound the inbuilt chat client makes for new messages always interrupts my music.
3) It's bloated in firefox. I really notice it on my slower computer
4) It's so much of a walled garden. Why can't I import photos from flickr, or export them?
5) Photo upload in general sucks. The java applet is fail. The fix? Yahoo already made it for you.
6) My events: I finally worked out where the export-to-google-calendar link was, and they are published without a timezone. So now, I'm busy going to places at 3am.
7) You call it an API, but it's not an API to access data and remix it.
8) Where's my xmpp compatible chat, eh?

Basically, it irritates me that the developers they have working for them don't care about these things in the slightest.

Worse, it's sucking up and doing poorly all of the functionality I had in external services. My 2nd tier friends seem to use facebook chat over MSN or Google Talk.

On the other hand, LuckyCal almost promises to be useful.

The future of TV

Image via Wikipedia

TSCC is cancelled. I'm pretty angry.

The best quote I've read about it:

If you've got a dedicated fan base from 4 movies spread over 20 years and two seasons of your show and you can't make that profitable, your business model is broken.

This got me thinking. How much does it cost to produce an episode of a show? Google suggests $1-1.5 million for an average show.

That's a lot of chump change, and it's only gone up since the 1950s. Why?

Here's what I'd love to see, and I would suggest is plausible.

1) A subscription only sub-plots wiki or similar.
It worked for halo, it works for Lost. I would argue that any well written show where mystery and plot twists are a central driving force could build a dedicated fan base through other mediums, like the internet.

I would suggest that a $5 / month participation fee for these hardcode fans would be something people would be more than willing to pay.

If you've only got low ratings of 3 million or so viewers, converting 5000 of those into paying, recurring customers for a year is plausible.

You'd need maybe 2-3 writers and could generate $300000 revenue a year alone.

Importantly, though, you must set an agenda / timeline / end date.

2) Use those hardcore fans, who are on the inside, who have secrets; to sell your DVDs and be your advocates.

A sales force of 5000 people a year telling their friends how good your show is, mixed with easy tools to purchase DVDs (or send them as gifts), etc.

That's quite a good way to make a pile of money, I'd suggest.

3) Provide easy ways to buy your episodes, in high quality formats, by credit card.


4) Provide lower quality torrents publically. Put in your links to DVD sales, forums, wikis, etc in the torrent.

5) Use other experts in your TV production force in novel ways. We're already milking the writers to help create interactive fiction for paying customers. You already have a marketing force of a mix of outsiders and internal people. Who else do you have, and what can they do to generate interest, interaction and revenue?

Why not get the design departments in on the act?

Gibson Wines

Image via Wikipedia

We just had Gibson wines come to our work and do a wine tasting.

I've gotta say I'm impressed. Its a wine sales event, through and through, but it's so very different to the stuffy wine tastings I've been to whilst visiting actual cellars.

If you can, get your hands on some of their 2005 Gibson Wilfreda Blend (Merlot, Cabernet, and Petit Verdot) or their NV Fortified Shiraz.

Both are delicious, well priced.