Archive for the 'Friends' Category

Singularity web conference speaker spotlight: Tim O’Reilly

Published on May 12, 2008 in Community, Conferences and Friends. 4 Comments

Tim o Reilly speakering at the Singularity Web Conference

I'm honored and humbled every time I look through the list of stellar speakers we have confirmed to present at the Singularity web conference. As such, I want to take a moment every week to highlight a new speaker, starting this week with Tim O'Reilly.

I had the honor of meeting Tim several years ago during a talk he was giving in London on the Open Source Paradigm Shift. In his talk, Tim predicted the mainstream commoditization of the web. Four years later, we stand as witnesses to the birth of the Commodity Web with Google's release of Google App Engine. (Simon Wardley, recently chronicled this very subject with great eloquence at his keynote speech at XTech.)

Several years later, I was in an elevator at the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas, heading to watch the keynote. There was one other person in the lift with me and I turned to ask him if he knew where the keynote was (the Venetian is huge). He told me that he was heading over there too and that I could follow him. Looking closer, I recognized Tim (he had a beard that hadn't been there in London) and re-introduced myself. Only later did I realize that Tim's conversation with Bill Gates was to be the highlight of the keynote. I guess it made sense that he knew where the keynote was after all.

Tim O'Reilly truly doesn't need any introduction. He is, of course, the founder and CEO of O'Reilly -- the most highly-regarded computer book publisher in the world. He is a true visionary who has both predicted and helped craft the state of the art on the world wide web -- not least by coining the term Web 2.0 to describe the social web of open data and applications that the World Wide Web has evolved into. (Few memes have had such lasting mindshare on the web today as Web 2.0 has.)

Find out more about Tim and our entire line-up of stellar speakers on the web site for the Singularity web conference and read Tim's thoughts on his blog.

The Singularity web conference is everywhere October 24-26, 2008. Tickets are scheduled to go on sale this month at $99 to coincide with the launch of the new web site on Google App Engine.

ASCII Art Doodle

Published on April 28, 2008 in Friends and General. 10 Comments

Oh my, I just realized that while I was on the phone to my friend Gilles, I ASCII art doodled in TextMate! 

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
/                      /
\ .................... \
/ .      ______      . /
\ .        ||        . \
/ .        []        . /
\ .       [[]]       . \
/ .[:|--[[    ]]--|:]. /
\ .       [[]]       . \
/ .        []        . /
\ .        ||        . \
/ .      ------      . /
\ .................... \
/                      /
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

I normally doodle on paper when on the phone but, AFAIK, this is the first time I did it while using my laptop. Should I be worried? Or have I just reached a new level of geekiness? :)

Leave X Alone!

Published on February 3, 2008 in Community, Friends and Mashups. 8 Comments

Leave x Alone

My friend Keith Peters has a new little app called Leave X Alone that lets you create your own Leave Britney Alone screen snaps ala Chris Crocker.

C'est trés cool... Check it out here!

Meet Relly

Published on December 12, 2007 in Friends. 0 Comments

Poppy Copy: excellent copywriting for web

During my talk at the Sussex Geek Dinner recently, I mentioned how lucky I am to be surrounded by friends who are smarter and more talented than I am. I'd like to introduce you to one of them. Her name's Cheryl Annett-Baker but we all call her Relly.

Apart from being one of the most talented crafters I know, Relly is also an excellent copywriter and she just started her freelance copywriting business called Poppy Copy.

If you're looking for an excellent copywriter, Relly's the wordsmith for you! :)

Moov2 wins “Raising the game award” at Dorset Business Awards

Published on December 10, 2006 in Awards and Friends. 1 Comment

Moov2 wins at the Dorset Business Awards

My good friends Dan (far right in the photo above) and Andrea (who was busy whipping my ass on Call of Duty 3 at the time and thus isn't in the picture), or rather their company, Moov2, won the "Raising the game award" at the Dorset Business Awards last week. Congrats, guys! I'm sure it was worth having to beeline back and forth between Brighton and Bournemouth during Flash on the Beach.

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