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March 31, 2007
Broken windows?
While I applaud the efforts of Tim O'Reilly and others to calm the stormy waters of the past week, after Kathy Sierra's very public account of what she was going through, I can't help but think that constructing "codes of conduct" isn't really going to help. The people who would work on such a code and abide by it are probably not the people going to use the Web to attack people in the first place.
And those who choose to attack are not going to be stopped by a mere code of conduct. Just as crime has not been stopped by laws, crank-callers still abuse the phone regardless of the ability to follow caller-ids or people are hounded by paparazzi regardless of a body such as the Press Complaints Commission.
If anything, last weekend showed that weblogs are nothing special. They are now just as much a part of life as any other media we choose to use. And we can always choose not to.
As with any other media, we will unfortunately need to wake up to the fact that weblogs will be abused just as much as any other form.
And I'm afraid that while Robert Scoble's taking a week off from blogging "in support of Kathy" is a signal - it may well be a signal that the abusers scored.
Posted by Matthew at 08:01 PM | Comments (0)
March 30, 2007
Meadow Dairies link love
When my parents moved back to the UK from Germany in the middle of the 90's, they chose Holt in Norfolk and immediately found friends in the beautiful market town. One of those friends, Jason, has just launched his online shop. Meadow Dairies is a local Delicatessen and Patisserie. In an email this evening, my mum writes:
He is a very enthusiastic 'deli' man if you know what I mean and deserves to do well. His cheeses are great and he has a wonderful range of interesting preserves.
So, if you're in the area, pop in and say you saw Meadow Dairies mentioned here.
Posted by Matthew at 10:09 PM | Comments (0)
Douglas Adams wrote me a letter..
..nearly exactly 20 years ago.
After reading Dirk Gently, back in 1987 I wrote Douglas Adams a letter complaining (I think) about not fully understanding the book. He wrote back and this is the letter. I thought it had disappeared with all the moving about over the past 20 years, but luckily my mum found it a couple of days ago and sent it over.
Here is the text.
Dear Matthew Langham,
Thank you very much for your letter. I'm glad you enjoyed Dirk Gently, even if you didn't fully follow it. A number of people have said they got a bit lost at the end. I'll try and make the next one a little clearer.
I'm glad to hear that the German translations are good. That's probably why German is one of the few foreign languages that my books actually sell well in. I'm often being told that most of the translations are rotten.
Best wishes,
Douglas Adams
Dirk Gently was the only Douglas Adams book I actually read first in German.
Posted by Matthew at 06:39 PM | Comments (0)
March 29, 2007
A rose by any other name
..would smell as sweet. Great sketch from Catherine Tate and David Tennant performed for BBC One's Comic Relief. "Have you parked the Tardis on a meter?"
Posted by Matthew at 09:13 PM | Comments (0)
March 28, 2007
VC Seed Funding Programs
Ever since our experiences trying to find seed-funding a couple of years ago I've been following the VC scene more closely and have now noticed a couple of VCs putting out seed funding programs through convertible loans.
- Charles River - QuickStart Seed Funding Program. Charles River loan up to $250.000. I wrote a brief email to CR and they seem to be focussing on incorporation in the US and also for the core team to be there too.
- Holtzbrinck Ventures - Fast Forward. Holzbrinck, situated in Munich, Germany, provide up to €150.000 through a loan. Not sure if they fund non-German ideas.
Does anyone have experience or comments on this sort of funding? From the perspective of what we experienced and thinking about routes to take, this does look interesting.
Posted by Matthew at 10:37 PM | Comments (0)
Twitter goes mainstream in Germany
Within 24 hours, both Spiegel Online and Focus Online publish articles on Twitter.
Posted by Matthew at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)
March 27, 2007
Web Monday Paderborn
The first Web Monday Paderborn was held yesterday evening at the University of Paderborn. Around 50 people attended, with students making up the largest part. I thought the mix of topics was good although we definitely need some sort of moderation next time to make sure the talks and discussions don't get too long-winded. Unfortunately the event ran longer than planned which meant that quite a few people left before the last talk, which was a pity. Still a very interesting evening and hopefully it won't be too long before we get the next one organized.
Photos are up on Flickr.
Update: Tim Adler has a German review here.
Posted by Matthew at 10:36 AM | Comments (1)
March 18, 2007
Endings
The last Ze Frank show aired yesterday. It will be missed.
Posted by Matthew at 11:00 AM | Comments (1)
March 16, 2007
CeBIT on Monday
Anyone at CeBIT on Monday and interesting in meeting up? I should be there between 9:00 and 15:00. Ping me.
Posted by Matthew at 08:09 PM | Comments (0)
March 15, 2007
Highrise - looking good
We've adopted Basecamp as our project management system over at Indiginox Worldwide and so far we're really happy with it. Something we don't yet have is some form of shared contact manager or lightweight CRM. 37signals have been previewing their upcoming Highrise application over on their blog and so far, I think this is just what we need. Looking forward to actually taking it for a spin as soon as they release.
Posted by Matthew at 08:27 PM | Comments (0)
FrOSCon 2007 - call for papers
The Department of Computer Science from the University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg is organizing this year's edition of FrOSCon. The conference centers around Free and Open Source and the call for papers is now open. Talks can be in German or English.
I couldn't make it last year but I have the dates down for this one.
Posted by Matthew at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)
Web Monday Paderborn taking shape
The first Web Monday in Paderborn is shaping up nicely. We will all be gathering at the university for an evening of short presentations and socializing. If you're in the area and interested in coming then sign up on the wiki.
Posted by Matthew at 07:17 AM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2007
Leaving Cocoon, sadly
Today I formally left the Apache Cocoon project. Way too late really, as I've not been able to keep up with the project for some time now. Running my own company seems to have shifted my priorities somewhat.
Open Source is still a large part of what we do, but Cocoon just isn't currently on my radar-screen. That's really a pity - not because of the software - but because of the great people there. Through being part of the Cocoon project for many years I was able to meet and get to know people from all over the world - many of which I'm still in contact with regularly. Friends.
For me, that is my personal takeaway from Open Source - being part of a diverse set of personalities, cultures and egos. And yet all working towards a common goal. Priceless.
Posted by Matthew at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)
Congratulations Carsten!
At last Carsten lets the cat out of the bag and announces his new Day job. I'll be closely following what he does there and wish him all the best!
Posted by Matthew at 05:18 PM | Comments (0)
March 11, 2007
The easiest way to Enterprise 2.0
Euan Semple's post about the easiest way to do Enterprise 2.0 makes me reread this.
Posted by Matthew at 08:31 PM | Comments (1)
GoDaddy takes a tumble
I happened to be online this afternoon (European time) and basically saw my various domains pop offline as GoDaddy went down. My email setup grabs email from the various domains via POP and one after the other domains stopped responding. I'm writing this knowing I won't be able to blog until the problems are resolved.
At first I thought it was just my domains and I had caused the problems myself. After rebooting the server and still not being able to reach them, I started checking news sites and luckily found one other person on Google news having the same problem. As I write this that is still the only post in Google news on the problem. Technorati already has many more posts on the subject.
Looks like GoDaddy is back - so here's the post.
Posted by Matthew at 08:18 PM | Comments (1)
March 02, 2007
BBC goes YouTube
More media news: The BBC has signed a content deal with YouTube. From looking at the news release, it would seem that the move is primarily aimed at driving viewers from the short excerpts on YouTube back to the "real thing" on the BBC.
Posted by Matthew at 02:57 PM | Comments (1)
March 01, 2007
Joost invitations
I have 2 Joost invitations up for grabs. First two people to send me money an email get them.
All gone, sorry.
Posted by Matthew at 11:07 AM | Comments (1)
Germany's low birth-rate
Amazing facts (via Tom) - Germany is ranked 220th in the world when it comes to birth-rates (only 8.3 per 1.000 population). I keep reading about this. As with news like the warming climate, I guess no-one really understands what these figures actually mean in the long-run. Until it's too late.
Posted by Matthew at 07:39 AM | Comments (0)