Can't Grok, Won't Grok

I recently got a tweet from Alan Dean asking if I wanted to come along to Open Space Coding Day , I only had one answer in my mind: “hell yeah”. One of my many targets for this year is to ante up my geek game (as I put it). This has many faucets, which I hope to blog about soon, one of them being network, shut up, listen and learn . Now, I am under no illusions, I am totally ready to admit that I am not a great developer, I try hard for sure - but I know I have plenty of room for improvement. I’ve had the privilege of networking with some really smart people on services such as Twitter . Now as a student without a master , I need to make sure I expose myself to as many smart people as possible. I am now sat on the train on my way to London Waterloo. I had to get up quite early to get it, so I’m looking quite a mess :) Still, I can’t help but feel a little nervous, the guest list is containing some really smart people (that I am looking forward to meeting), but I really think...

I have seen a lot of talk on Twitter recently following the explosion of a popular tool TwitteRank (at the time of writing, the site appeared to be taken down) and the possibility that it was actually a phishing scam for passwords . What is TwitteRank? In short, it’s a tool that produces a “score” based on your Twitter popularity . Reading the FAQ on the site, it offers no insight as to how the number is derived, but it does come up with a number. There have been plenty of tweets from people broadcasting their rank (this may/will include other messages as it is a pretty generic search term). So - I Get My TwitteRank, What’s the Best That Could Happen? Interesting question.. I am thinking: You get your TwitteRank, all your friends are jealous. Sadly you walk under a bus the next day. You then stand before the big man at the pearly gates who is checking out your rap sheet, he sees your TwitteRank and quickly becomes very apologetic and promptly ushers you to the VIP ...

StackOverflow has been in private beta for a while now, and the community has exploded. I thought I would take a bit of time out to review some of my thoughts following it’s release to the public. These points are not really in any order or organisation, so forgive me if it’s a bit of a poor read, I have literally been jotting down ideas for this post as and when they popped in to my head. My apologies if it’s all too random :) Some Big Names Enter the Affray So we have had a couple of big names get in to StackOverflow including: Scott Hanselman ( profile ) John Resig ( profile ) Roy Osherove ( profile ) (thanks Mendelt!) Jon Galloway ( profile ) (thanks Jon!) Phil Haack ( profile ) (thanks Jon!) Jon Skeet  ( profile )  (thanks Anon!) (If anyone else has noticed some other big names, let me know and I will get this list updated) This is not only nice to see (because they are good guys) but the technical expertise they will bring to the community ...

Stack Overflow is finally due to come out of private beta this Monday (15/09/2008), so I thought it was about time I got my thoughts down about the new programming resource/community that is the brainchild of Jeff Atwood of CodingHorror . StackOverflow has caused quite a stir within the programming community, already being dubbed " CrackOverflow " due to its addictive nature, but has some of the hype really just made it "Stack Overblown "? Note: Any links to user profiles or questions on StackOverflow are not intended to be personal attacks against them, they simply reinforce some of the points I am trying to make here. Also, links to StackOverflow will require access to the beta if it has not yet been released. What is StackOverflow? Straight from the "About" page on the StackOverflow blog : It’s a collaborative programming community venture between Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood . In my opinion, it's a great idea, and one that is much ne...

I recently had a contact tell me they have ceased to follow me due to the large amount of tech-chatter that I participate in on Twitter . Now, I have no problem with that, they are not a tech-head and I don’t want to pollute her twitter screen with my constant geeky drivel. But, it did get me thinking, twitter has sort of become an IM service. I find myself often posting extremely uninteresting posts to people (e.g. “thanks!”) as replies. This means that the update will appear on the screens of all who are following me. Sure, I have had no complaints, but it must be quite annoying. I have to say, my screen often gets flooded with similar messages. I do think this sort of chatter is appropriate for twitter, its fast, its light, its accessible. It’s nice to have the IM-esque use to it, it’s saves me flicking back and forward between applications. Great. But I do not want to be polluting other peoples space - so, effective immediately, I will most likely start direct messaging th...

Summary Discussing my thoughts on communication in general, the Seesmic community and the benefits I feel I would get from video blogging (or "vlogging"). Links Seesmic - http://www.seesmic.com Me on Seesmic - http://www.seesmic.com/robzyc

Had an interesting discussion on Seesmic last night. Starting with my first response here (you can view the thread from there) I only posted a few responses, but I think I had covered the points I wanted to get across, and I needed to get to bed since I had work this morning. So, what was the discussion about? Well, in short, I think there was two main points brought up across the various threads: People want to be confident that when they delete a video on Seemic, the video is lost forever and not available to anyone else. People felt uneasy with the “Share on Facebook” link added to the video page. This got me thinking, from this I think there are these issues that should be addressed: Ownership of content & licensing. Public domain and public discussion vs. privacy and “I take that back”. Understanding of what is actually being done with content on other social networks. Ownership of Content & Licensing This is an...

I cam across this article on LifeHacker showing that IM Can Reduce Workplace Interruptions, Study Shows . Finally, people are starting to realise that you don’t have to be a 14 year old teenager that uses IM to talk to all their little school friends and laugh at the custom emoticons to actually use instant messaging. I am always on Live Messenger when at work (or just on the computer for that fact) and I never have too many interruptions from my work.I can honestly say it has helped my work much more than hindered, maybe not always DIRECTLY , but it has helped with my own learning and development a lot, therefore improving my work. Having the ability to quickly fire off a short sharp question to other geek's can be very helpful, I have several contacts on my list that have proved invaluable for my work projects, and they do not even work for my employer. Similar positives could also be said for Twitter , the micro-blogging service. I have also managed to give somet...

Even though online privacy has been a subject that everyone has known about for a long time, I still cant help but feel that with the explosion in social networking, a lot of the basic principles seem to have been lost somewhere. By “principles” I mean: Make yourself as hard to personally identify as possible. People on the Internet should not be able to find where you live (unless you want them to). You need to protect your friends and family as well as yourself, don’t put their information on display without permission. In short, people should only ever know what you would be happy with someone shouting from a top of the building, with everyone stood around it, and pointing at you. Not sharing information from one source with another (e.g. automatic “I’ll email your friends for you, just give me your ID and password for [service]”. Some of the Problems There have been numerous issues with private information being found on the Int...

This story came through in the Twitter newsletter: Bucking The System Last weekend CNN lead with a big story about James Buck, a graduate student in journalism from the University of California-Berkeley who was arrested last month in Mahalla, Egypt while covering an anti-government protest. Thinking quickly, James was able to send a one-word Twitter update: "Arrested." His followers in Egypt and back in the US reacted by contacting the university and the consulate on his behalf. Before long, James was updating Twitter with another one-word message, "Free." The CNN coverage can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/4b4hsg I know a lot of people still think Twitter is lame, and I guess there is a part of me that is yet to be convinced, but I think this is an awesome display of the power of short, sharp updates. I think the main part of my problem is that I don't have enough UK/EU contacts on my friends list. Most of my contacts are in the US, and du...