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Babble, Babble

I’d forgotten how easy it is to just write thoughts onto a blog. Scoble is good at it. Maybe some people don’t like how there’s a lot of babble.

Not sure how long I’ll keep this up. But for the moment, I’m seeing it as exercising my typing and writing skills. What level of skill remains to be seen. Ha ha.

Not only that .. but it’s far easier to write when you don’t have to restrict yourself. On PimpMyClarion, i am restricting myself purposefully. But that makes it a lot harder to write. Of course, the quality of writing is probably far better, because of said restriction. Or rather .. it’s direction. Purpose.

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Fife’s .. And Fifer Street

So yesterday I was perusing my "Books" directory, looking all my writing projects, and came across a kids story i’d started on. Only a few bits and pieces. The start of the first chapter.

Upon reading my notes ("Bits" word docs) .. it seemed pretty cool. Some of the ideas.

Anyway, there’s a little shop on Fifer street that the main characters (twin boy and girl) visit. The bus stop is out the front of it.

Using "Fifer Street" when describing the shop seemed important to me.

The little shop on Fifer Street, Odds and Ends.

Anyway, taking a look on the web, which means wikipedia usually, I read up on Fife’s and the Fifer. Pretty cool stuff. A Fife (pipe) was used in folk music, and in battle. You could hear a fife above the sound of guns and such. It was phased out late in the 19th century i think, early 20th in the states (of course, all my knowledge comes from wikipedia).

Cool stuff. I mean, probably boring .. but acquiring random useless information is one of my best talents.

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This Weekend’s Rugby

The last match of the Tri-Nations will be played in NZ on saturday. The Wallabies versus the All Blacks.

I’m hoping for a step up in competance from both teams. They can (obviously) both play amazing rugby when things stick. But the last two matches against South Africa have shown that the continuing quality is lacking.

The All Blacks seem to be unable to get things happening in the back line. Which seems wierd to me. I always thought they had the best backline in the world. But then Tana left. And Carter stopped playing complete games every time. You know, it occurred to me that maybe .. maybe this is all a plan. That they’re just playing below par so that it _looks_ like everyone else has a chance for the world cup.

The Wallabies on the other hand have come from almost nothing. Playing way below par against teams that were .. below par. But then, against the All Blacks, and the Springboks in SA .. they step it up about ten notches. Which is awesome. Just like to think they can maintain that level of product.

So here’s to a great game of rugby on saturday night/afternoon. Certainly, with the last couple of weeks games in hindsight, it should be a game either team can win.

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What Will Happen To Harry?

The last Harry Potter book is coming soon.

On the weekend, disguised as a hobo as I’d locked myself out and had to wander around Sydney aimlessly while awaiting my beloved’s return from the country, I watched the latest movie. Order Of The Phoenix. It was a good movie, and made me belly laugh in a few places.

However today, while reading a review, I stumbled across the wikipedia entry that gives you the differences between the book and the film.

It made me realise there’s a lot that doesn’t make it in. And some of these are points I would have thought important. But then .. I’m not J.K. Rowling. Ha. Or even a movie director.

So anyway. I’ve started reading the books again. But this time, there’s a big pit of sadness sitting in my gut. It’s going to be over. And no matter how awesome the last book is, endings are sad. I remember when we finished the Hobbit for the first time (Dad+Mum reading to us), and the same with the Narnia books. Then, as I got older, other series/books invoked a similar feeling.

It’s good, but it’s sad.

And that’s what life is all about. Relationships. Of course, you can’t have a relationship with a book .. but you can have an imaginary relationship with the characters in the book. You can hate Voldemort and fall in love with Fleur.

I guess in the end, even though books can affect us (well, me .. and maybe a few others :) ), nothing is a substitute for the crazy antics that make up our own lives. The highs and lows, the relationships, loves, hurts, hatreds.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the last book, but at the same time don’t want to read it.

‘Nuff for now. Perhaps the next post should actually be about some kind of development talk. Ha.

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Finally, Live Writer Upgrades

Okay. It’s been a while.

Thankfully, it looks like it’s been a good wait. I’m thinking after posting a while in the new Live Writer Beta (2)?? I’ll do a review. But initially, it’s good.

One very cool thing ..

Setting the publish date steps Live Writer one more .. step .. in the direction of being a functional offline blogging tool. You can write and write and write .. and by setting the publish date, I’ll not have to go into the wordpress admin panel in my browser.

Nice.

Okay, one more thing. This is _very_ cool.

Check it. Now when you insert a picture, you can select one from the web. This is simple, but powerful. I mean, think about it. Now .. you are no longer limited by the mind’s splitting the desktop and the web. This brings them together. If you see an image on the web, you can snag it. Nice. Of course, there are copyright/legal things .. but ahhhh .. the beauty.

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The Clarion World Project

Blogrolls are a good way to list a bunch of blogs/websites. WordPress has pretty much always had some form of the blogroll.

The problem here is that it’s not a good representation of what PimpMyClarion is doing. That sounds pretentious. It probably is. But hear me out.

A web _presence_ is even harder to describe than a bunch of blogs.

More than this, I want to pull together a true representation of the Clarion World.

The Clarion World Project.

This has been floating around for a while now. In my head, in my notepads, on google docs :). I’ve fleshed out most of the basic ideas.

It’s a big vision. Something more than what you find in a blogroll. Something more than a database of company names and websites.

The Clarion World Project encompasses some cool technologies.

We make heavy use of Google Earth (and Google Maps) in the project. You would download a single app, which would be based around Google Earth.

Imagine searching the Clarion World Project for "South African Products" and the Google Earth swirls around, flying past good old Oz, zooming to the right level to show in slick 3-d images (cartoony?) all the companies in South Africa who build / use Clarion products.

Obviously, you’d differentiate between the builders and the users. But both of them are part of the Project.

For a few months I’ve been pondering how to bring this about. Well no. First, and still, I ask whether it’s worth the effort. Do we really need something like this? I mean, I can hype it all i want, but i guess it does break down into a big database of names and numbers.

It’s not though. There can be far more to this. It can be the jugganaut that drives forward the community into new exciting places.

Imagine being able to have something like the Clarion World Project for newcomers.

Imagine at conferences, instead of getting people’s details on paper, you fire up a big projected version of the Clarion World Project and get people to enter stuff there and then. Straight up to the servers.

Of course, at this stage, it takes a bit of imagining. I’m good at that, seeing what isn’t there .. what _could_ be.

I’m not calling out for any help at the moment. This needs more thought. I’d like to get some official backing, and pull in as many resources as possible. There are people who’ve worked with Google apis, and people with databases of people. There are folk who I think would be eager to help.

This will not of itself build the community further. But it will be an awesome tool. It will set us apart from other development communities. Without a doubt. But more, it will be the people behind it that make the clarion community unique.

Enough. I’ll ramble on in another post. Cheers. It’s enough for now to tell you about it.

The Clarion World Project.

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