Colin Charles Agenda

This is largely about social media, with a focus on Twitter.

Premieres using Twitter
Its great to see Kevin Rudd start twittering – follow him at KevinRuddPM.

He’s following in the footsteps of BarackObama. Who may just have won an election by harnessing the amazing powers social networks.

Did Obama use Ning? It would be interesting to see what Marc Andreesen has to say about the entire campaign, what was used, what was done, etc.

Twitter in Malaysian media
Oon Yeoh writes about twittering, like SMSing,is here to stay, in a column he writes for an old media newspaper.

I find it funny that he refers to the Malaysian public as “comfortable” with Facebook “status updates”, considering Friendster is still a lot more popular in Malaysia. Twitter itself is probably not big in Malaysia, because no one likes spending a premium sending a SMS overseas. I especially like:

One early adopter, who is currently studying abroad, uses Twitter as an efficient and effective way to keep her boyfriend updated about what her day is like.

Good, now she can keep her stalkers up to date as well :) Oon seems to add a questionable paragraph:

It’s not so good as an archive of news though. And that’s mainly because its search engine is quite lousy. Perhaps Google should gobble it up and improve its search capabilities.

Google did gobble up a “Twitter-like service” – its called Jaiku. Twitter themselves, gobbled up Summize, and you now have search.twitter.com (how else do you think we update the status page on foss.my?).

Its just amusing how many other errors there are in the article, but this is the drivel that is the print media, yes?

Update: Read How Techies can Improve Democracy and Governance, an interview with Silona Bonewald. (I conducted a short one, a few months back, too).

Update 2: Read about Obama’s plan to use YouTube for weekly “fireside chats”. I continue to be impressed.

In a fit of irony, its worth nothing that StarOffice has been dropped from the Google Pack while the Java Runtime Environment will now include the Microsoft Live Search Powered Toolbar on Windows.

I always tell people who use Windows to download the Google Pack. Maybe they would include OpenOffice.org 3.0? I’ve been a user of Google Docs recently, and there’s still something about OOo that makes it just that notch better. The other news though? Its days like this that I’m glad I don’t run on the Microsoft Windows platform.

Dear Lazyweb,

I was browsing FACES recently, and noticed that they had an e-magazine. Nothing fancy, you have to zoom in and out to read it, making it kind of annoying on a laptop screen (the real experience will come on the 24″ or 30″ screens maybe).

What annoyed me was that the software was Windows only. It seemed to only work in Internet Explorer. These jokers make the software (Digital Magazine I believe, it is). Windows only is a silly market to be targeting – more and more Macs and Linux desktops are becoming a reality.

So, what are the other open source solutions for catalogues, brochures, magazines?

Flash is slow. The Ikea catalogue is a Flash app. Windows only (with ActiveX?) is a fail. Is there some JavaScript+CSS goo that can make it all work, in-browser? Something that also makes it usable on screens that are still standard (1024×768 resolutions?).

Daniel (aka Mr. Messina of Malaysia) is organising a bunch of events, and since they’re on weekends, I’m going to gladly participate, without seeking approval from the overlords.

First up is Startup Camp KL, on 22-23 November 2008, in MidValley. On Sunday, I’m going to lead a session titled “Using Free Software to bootstrap your startup”. Check out the agenda. It should be fun, especially in today’s market to ensure there are no software licensing costs, especially if you’re a startup.

Then there’s BarCampJB, 6-7 December 2008, in Johor Bahru. I haven’t been there in…. ages :) I’ll be talking about “MySQL Best Practices for Developers”, where we’ll go through good schema practice, understanding different engines (and their uses), and probably a lot more. If there’s enough interest, a similar discussion on free software in business, will be there (AMP stacks, ftw!).

It’s over! I can’t speak for the others, but I know I’m still recovering. In summary: the event was awesome.

The Organising Committee

First, a word of thanks, to the people that didn’t get enough of it – the amazing organising committee, who scurried around for both the days (and much before that too – besides, we only had 43 days), to make sure things were a-happening. In no particular order:

• Aizat – You rock. From handling the registrations (since we don’t have a good payment gateway in Malaysia, he had to see photos, scanned receipts, and a lot more crap), to handling the registration desk, to writing “updates?” to the mailing list, to creating the initial website, to updating the website as and when I tell him to, to handling the volunteers and probably so much more – you rock. Thank you. You are now officially the foss.my registration and website dude.
• Ditesh – From the initial website, right down to monitoring the halls, to giving suggestions to whom might be great local speakers, to dropping in and giving a most fabulous keynote, you rock.
• Angch – Hall monitor, to bank account bootstrapper, and all around great help, you rock. Thanks for also getting your company to be a sponsor!
• Yoon Kit – From the press, right down to the speaker gifts, if it wasn’t for you, there would be no opening keynote. You rock!
• Kaeru – From the initial idea, to handling the PR, for sponsoring the event, and for giving a last minute talk about ORCA, while the speaker was down with a bad fever, you rock. And folk, he did this all while changing jobs!
• Izhar – You did the posters. You did the amazing “I Love…” badges. You handled the food preparation. You also participated in a “side session”. You sorted out hotels. And you had exams on Monday (the day after foss.my). You rock for being an all round gopher! Your mother also rocks :)
• Yondie – You’re Mr. Subway. Thank you for sorting out the food, and thank you for harnessing the power of volunteers to make sure things ran smoothly. You are now officially the foss.my food dude (probably alongside Izhar :P).
• Wariola – You’re Mr. T-Shirts. Without you, there will be no foss.my t-shirts, so you rock!
• Gurdip – Not enough can be said about you. Thank you for giving us the great location, that was APIIT, to sorting out the logistics, the driver, the booking of hotels, to getting the nice (and easy on the eyes) volunteers, to making sure the network worked, to ensuring we had power sockets, you rock!
• Suanie – Without you, we would have no speaker/organiser/volunteer party. Without you, there would be no press. You rock, and we’re sorry you couldn’t be at the event (hope the weekend in Singapore was productive, though).
• Firdaus – For registering foss.my events, with the RoS, and for also going to get that bank account, you rock.

The Volunteers
Thank you for taking time off from your busy weekend, to come spend time with a bunch of free and open source lovers. There has to also be a special mention to Sean, who single-handedly sorted out the logo for us, early in the game.

The rest
Speakers, you rock. Without you, there would be no event in under 45 days (on Sunday, led the 45th day).

Sponsors, you rock. Without you, this event would have to cost a lot more money, and nobody would have liked that.

If I missed anyone, E&OE.

In conclusion
I believe foss.my has been deemed as a technical conference. Fluffy talks weren’t taken kindly to, even during the lighting talk sessions.

I believe foss.my will continue to exist in 2009.

I believe foss.my will be longer than two days, to ensure that there is enough time to move in between rooms, hack while you’re there, and so on.

So, to foss.my 2009, bigger and better, and a lot more well planned, than foss.my 2008 :) Don’t forget to give us feedback.

I don’t know if what the EpiCentre folk told me is true (about sustained sales of RM5 million/month for 3 months), but Apple has created the Apple Store (Malaysia).

I consider this a positive first step. For me now, I will not have to order engraved iPod’s through the Singapore Apple Store – I’ll do it right here in Malaysia (after all shipping in 1-2 days, is OK). In fact, I can’t imagine why I would order too much from physical Apple stores like EpiCentre or Machines anymore – unless I wanted to take advantage of their 12 months 0% interest-free credit card plans (Maybank, HSBC, American Express, Citibank, and probably a few more participate in this).

I said it before, and I’ll say it again – its a positive first step. Why? There’s a good chance, that they’re setting this up for the magical iPhone to come into the market. And in no time, we might see an iTunes Music Store. We might have crippled access, with no music/TV/movies, but its always a progression.

Not needing any Apple products yet (latest purchase: pink iPod Nano; latest gift arrival: new iPod Touch – thanks Sun), I am however still tempted to buy something from their online store. Why?

1. There’s a limited edition t-shirt up for grabs before November 24
2. Supporting their online initiative, to show that there’s a market for this sort of thing, and they should bring in more (like the iTunes Music Store, et al)

It seems there’s only one remaining iPod Classic, with a nice big disk (120GB). The last Classic I had, had a 30GB disk (and couldn’t store my complete music collection). Maybe this is what I need? Its sub-RM1,000, so an easy purchase to make ;)

They even have an education store, which is supposed to normally provide discounts, but from my cursory inspection, seems to suggest otherwise.

What are you waiting for? Go buy your Apple gear already.