Tag: web-2.0 Posts

The Whitehouse Has A Flickr Account

 Journal

I accidentally stumbled across the official Whitehouse Flickr account tonight, and was pretty enthralled by some of the photos in the account. First thing that’s cool is that the Whitehouse even has a Flickr account. Second thing to take note of is that the photos are licensed with a creative commons attribution license, so basically you’re free to use them in both commercial and non-commercial settings as long as you do proper attribution. I’ve always liked looking at candid photos from other presidencies. For whatever reason, I took a fascination with those from Kennedy’s administration, probably because there were a lot of family moments with him, and moments between him and his brother. Here are a few shots from the Whitehouse stream that I think are particularly awesome: And my personal favourite, a shot of Obama looking at a portrait of Kennedy: All photos from The Official Whitehouse Photostream.

Molson's Brew 2.0 Event

 Journal

I woke up to an email inviting me to a big Molson event down at the Burrard Street Brewery next week. It’s an event geared towards some of Vancouver’s web 2.0 saavy people and bloggers that involves sampling various beers as well as a special blogger brew that they have cooking up just for us. It actually sounds like a ton of fun. Given that I can demolish a few beers without much effort, I think I’ll definitely swing by and check it out. A few other of the night’s attractions will be: Kerry Scarsbrook & Gord Rickards, creator of Rickard’s Red, will be in attendance. Molson Brewery founder John Molson’s great-great-great-great-grandson, Geoff Molson, will be there and will be telling some tales about how his family started 222 years ago The menu will be crafted specifically for beer-pairing by Blair Rasmussen, Executive Chef at the Pan Pacific. Sounds like […]

Where The Internet Stops And My Blog Begins

 Journal

So here’s some food for thought for the blogosphere. Lately I’ve been pondering a few of the legal aspects of the Internet, namely what it is we are all allowed to do, and what it is some companies think we shouldn’t be allowed to. Let me give you a use-case to demonstrate what I’m talking about. Photo by Ben Sheldon on Flickr Let’s say I set up a blog, and I’m checking out Flickr and I see a photo I like. Let’s say for a second that the CC license is set in such a way that I can use the photo on my blog. So, I right click on the image, say “copy image address”, and slap it into a blog entry. Now, according to Flickr’s terms of service, I’m not technically allowed to link to any one of their images without providing a hyperlink back to the website. […]

South By Southwest — Help!

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So, here’s the deal. I really want to attend some of South by Southwest this year. The only problem is that all the hotels in Austin, Texas are pretty much sold out. I worked the phones for a bit tonight trying to find a place to crash, but haven’t had any luck. So, a friend of mine told me to put something on my blog to see if any fish would bite. So, is there anyone that has a floor or a couch they could possibly donate for a few days during South by Southwest this year in Austin, Texas. I’d happily trade some photography skills or web skills in return. Drop me a line if you can hook it up. Thanks!

Folksonomy Updates

 Journal

One of the changes I made on the site the other day was the inclusion of wordpress related entries plugin when viewing single posts. Unfortunately wordpress has completely overhauled their folksonomy system in the 2.3 version, and not all my posts are tagged properly. In fact, I’d say only about 20% of them really are. I’m going to try and do about 10 of my old posts a day or something like that to try and get them up to snuff, but it’s a fairly boring process, only made possible by this bottle of pinot beside me. In other fairly exciting news, Boris Mann, everyone’s favourite Vancouver Janitor, has just pulled ahead in the competition (since he’s apparently part of it). Way to go Boris. We still have a few weeks before this whole thing is over, and so far we’ve had two big upsets. I still have a few […]

So Long Myspace

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Friday afternoon I logged into my myspace account after a long absence and, after debating about it for about 3 seconds, deleted my account entirely. It’s not like it caused me any headache or anything, but I just don’t use it really at all anymore and don’t have time to maintain that and my facebook account. So, after searching around for a while, I managed to find the “Delete Account” button and forever put it into the trash. Anyone else actually still use myspace, or has everyone migrated to Facebook now? Also, a few people have been tracking my new blog entries with twitter – if you have twitter, you can add me by somehow visiting here -> http://twitter.com/duanestorey

Launch Party With A Twist

 Journal

Tomorrow night Tonight there is a Vancouver technology mixer down at the trendy night club Republic on Granville Street. I haven’t been out to one of these in a long time, mainly because I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather for the last few months, but I think I’m going to check it out tomorrow. Launch Party recently launched a new website, and if you look very, very closely, you may recognize the header image on it 🙂 So, hopefully I’ll still feel like heading out tomorrow. I will be good to catch up with some old tech friends and see what’s new. Plus, it gives me an excuse to go buy a new shirt or something tomorrow at lunch.

Facebook S'Macebook

 Journal

Is it just me, or is facebook getting a little old these days? Except for the event planning thing, which I think is fairly useful, there’s not really a lot about it that I really think is that great anymore. And to be honest, I’m getting a little tired of saying ignore to things like the funwall, or turkey tossing and what have you. I know people are just having a little fun with it, but I’m just not that interested in alot of those things everyone is inviting each other with. It’s not really a big deal, as I don’t get enough of them to where it takes a lot of time out of my day, I just don’t really get the appeal is all I guess. It would be nice if facebook kept track of which apps you’ve said no to, and would automatically pull you out of […]

BarCamp Vancouver

 Journal

Tonight I’ll be heading down to the Alibi room in gastown for the opening ceremonies of BarCamp Vancouver. For those of you who aren’t aware what BarCamp is, it’s essentially an “unconference” where the participants meet and generate their own discussions about things that interest them. The closest event to this that I’ve been a part of was the unconference at Northern Voice back in February, which had a really great turn out. Here’s the official description from the BarCamp website: BarCamp is an ad-hoc un-conference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees. All attendees are encouraged to give a demo, a session, a presentation, or help with one. All attendees are expected to be participants. All presentations are scheduled the day they happen. Prepare in advance, but come early to […]