If we can better promote StixCamp Newstead 2010 then we’d love to hear from you! Just let us know at

organisers at barcampmelbourne dot org

(In case you didn’t know, StixCamp is run in BarCamp style and was started by the crew who’ve helped put together BarCampMelbourne)

In particular, we’d love to know;

• Where would you expect to hear about this event?
• What mailing lists are you already on?
• What user groups are you a member of?
• Where did you hear about your first BarCamp Melbourne or StixCamp?
• If you work for an IT organisation or study at a university, what’ s the best way for us to spread the word?

We’d warmly welcome any other ideas you might have, and if you’d like to get involved, just send a blank email to;

organisers-join@barcampmelbourne.org

You can also follow us @StixCampVicAu on Twitter/Identi.ca or @BarCampMelb for more information.

Getting there

One of the things that had put me off travelling previously was economy class. My backside is artistically described as ‘Rubenesque’, and the thought of squeezing into a tiny seat and remaining in situ for 23 hours was not particularly appealling. Enter Malaysia Airlines and their cheap business class fare – fantastic! Having some extra room would also help the Dodgy Leg.  Apart from the bigger seat, there were a number of other advantages to travelling this way;

• The food: Malaysia Airlines food was superb. Yes, it was business, but I’ve been in four star restaurants that have served up dishes inferior to these. Warm, tasty satays, gourmet coffee, and on the return journey a perfectly spiced plum pudding topped with brandy custard! One of my favourites was salmon with a dill and cream sauce – absolute perfection. One observation was that Malaysia Airlines weren’t very big on dairy – there was very little milk, cheese or ice cream etc in the menu.
• The lounge: With a business class ticket comes the airline lounge. Some travellers swear by this for the food and beverages (which were lovely), but for me the lounge came with bundles of peace and quiet! No screaming infants, incessant boarding calls and general noise pollution found in airports.
• Being fast tracked everywhere: A priority pass is worth its weight in gold. Business class comes with a priority pass, so you can ease your way through passport control and get to board early. Not that I was in a hurry, but hey who wants to hang around in a queue?

The service was fantastic, and speaking Indonesian I was able to pick up  most of the announcements, which came around first time in Malay then in English. In short, business class on Malaysia Airlines is worth every penny!

First impressions

The first thing that struck me by the UK was how small everything is. In Australia we have the luxury of space – wide, open roads, large 6-cylinder cars to fill them, urban sprawl in every direction, large houses and acres of back yard. In contrast in the UK, a 6-cylinder is considered a massive car and most of the vehicles on the road are tiny Micras, Kas etc that can fit into the narrow, windy roads and compact car parking spaces. Homes are built along a similar principle – terraced and semi detached dwellings are the norm, with detached houses considered a luxury for the wealthy. Gardens are well kempt – with a few roses or small shrubs  – which are snowed over in winter. It is perhaps this environment that has given rise to the sense of community I felt in the UK – neighbours know each other, and often ‘pop round’ frequently. Everybody is connected, and news is shared readily. Here we’re perhaps more isolated from each other.

A trip up north

One of my Aunts kindly offered to take me ‘up north’ from Morpeth to Alnwick and Berwick upon Tweed. How could I resist? First stop on the way was Berwick upon Tweed – a town very close to the Scottish border. This town has a long history of war – being torn between England and Scotland, and the walls built to keep invaders out can still be seen to this day.

Berwick upon Tweed

On the way back from Berwick we passed close the the Cheviot, a range of hills which have traditionally separated England from Scotland. I’d love to go back on a day it wasn’t raining and see if I could snap some better photographs – the rain not only altered the light, but managed to fog out the lens…

Overlooking the Cheviot

Alnwick is one of the jewels in Northumberland’s crown. It is considered to be an ideal holiday destination and today still sports a number of coffee shops, boutiques and generally has a lovely atmosphere. Alnwick castle to this day is still a stately home, and is run as a tourist attraction. Unfortunatley it was raining when we visited, but I did manage to get a shot or two;

Alnwick castle

My favourite stop in Alnwick though has to be Barter Books – one of the largest second hand bookstores in Great Britain. My great finds here were a copy of ‘The Human Mind’ by Robert Winston, and a pack of ‘Keep calm and carry on‘ postcards. You could browse through this shop for hours – it’s built on an old railway station.

Any mention of Alnwick would be incomplete without a paragraph on the Alnwick Garden. A brainchild of the Duchess of Northumberland, the Garden is set on several hectares and features a large treehouse restaurant, cascading fountain, water features and even a poison garden! Again, this is an attraction I’d love to see in summer time.

Alnwick garden water feature

Alnwick garden treehouse rope bridge

Alnwick garden stream

Learning the lingo

As with any destination, it did take a little while to learn some of the lingo. Most people in Northumberland speak with a Geordie accent, however my Uncle speaks a much broader dialect, known as Pitmatic. It’s mainly the vowel sounds which are different – for instance instead of saying ‘yoga’ (spoken in an Aussie accent as ‘yoe-gga’) it sounds more like ‘yorrga’. There’s also different words for things – like throwing something out is ‘hoying oot’, and instead of ‘yes, I’m good thanks’ it’s ‘aye, ahreet champion hinney’!

Widdrington (aka ‘Widders’)

My Aunt and Uncle live in a village called Widdrington, near Morpeth. It’s quite picturesque, even if prone to flooding.

Ford near Widdrington

Farm gate near Widdrington

The Toon

Newcastle upon Tyne, affectionately known as ‘The Toon’ by locals, is the largest city in the region. Technically it’s not located in the county of Northumberland, but in Tyne and Wear. Significant investment has occurred into the city in recent years; there is a strong push to make it a hub of scientific research and arts and culture. This is evident by The Sage music complex and The Baltic contemporary art museum. I can’t comment on The Sage, but The Baltic was well worth a visit.

Newcastle upon tyne - Millennium Bridge

Newcastle upon Tyne bridge

Newcastle - Millennium Bridge overlooking the Baltic

Off to Bonnie Scotland

A trip to Great Britain wouldn’t be complete without a trip to Scotland, and I chose the highlands as my first foray into rebel territory. On the way we went through a lovely place called Moffat, which although is reknowned for knitwear didn’t have a single skein of yarn for sale!

Unfortunately the coach trip was also home to Moaning Moira, a middle aged lady with a very nervous (and annoying) disposition. In hindsight she was probably had some sort of anxiety disorder, but for the duration of the trip she clung to me and was constantly asking questions about what time it was, and stressing over the smallest of details – like a button on a dress. She’s also frequently check her watch and once burst into tears because the coach hadn’t arrived 20 minutes before it was supposed to! Well, at least she was character building!

We got to stay in a small village near Inverness called Strathpeffer. The whole setup was quite amusing, as the proprieter, Lin, was Chinese by birth. The haggis however was absolutely delicious – something I hadn’t really anticipated enjoying!

Strathpeffer Hotel

Railings at Victorian Railway Station in Strathpeffer

The next stop was Drumnadrochit and Inverness, in search of the evasive Nessie. Unfortunately she must have been on holidays for the winter! To be honest, Loch Ness was a little disappointing – it’s nothing more than a large lake and surrounding scrubland. Although the lake is quite large, the ecosystem of the area is such that it’s highly unlikely to have ever supported a mammal or large fish.

Urquart Castle, on Loch Ness

Inverness was wonderful – and of course would have been better if it hadn’t rained! One thing I did notice in Inverness was the large number of Polish immigrants – there were many signs in Polish and shops selling Polish smallgoods.

Bridge over the River Ness

The next day I got to the northernmost point in the trip – the village of Ullapool, on Scotland’s northwest coast. There was a fabulous knitting shop there, but being a Sunday (and very limited Sunday trading in Scotland) the shop was closed!

Main street of Ullapool

View from Ullapool Harbour

York

Luckily, I also had the opportunity to go to York, ostensibly to catch up with a cousin, but also to see the wonderful Christmas Market they have – absolutely amazing!

Yorkminster

Edinburgh

After the highlands, it wasn’t long before I again had the urge to head northwards. This time I stayed in Edinburgh for a few days – an amazing experience (and yes, it rained!). The Edinburgh Pass was a worthwhile investment, as it worked out a lot cheaper than paying for the tourist attractions individually. The highlight of my time in Edinburgh was a visit to Dynamic Earth – similar to Melbourne’s ScienceWorks but with a focus on geology and earth sciences. It was absolutely amazing! Coming a close second was Camera Obscura, an attraction which focused on optical illusions (and one of the few which actively encouraged visitors to bring their cameras with them!)

Light effects at Camera Obscura

Mirror effects at Camera Obscura

The Edinburgh Zoo and Edinburgh Botanic Gardens also get a noteworthy mention. To be honest though, the Melbourne (and in the case of the Botanic Gardens, Geelong) are just as good, if not better. It was quite ironic that the star attraction at the Edinburgh Zoo were koalas!

Chinese Garden at Royal Botanic Gardens of Edinburgh

Penguin at Edinburgh Zoo

The Edinburgh Castle was a big disappointment to be honest – the cover charge was not included in the cost of the Edinburgh Pass, and I found the staff to be quite pushy. They took a photograph of you when you first went into the castle, and made it look like an entry requirement. In reality it was just a ploy so they could sell you photos at the end of the tour – very dodgy indeed. The other factor which detracted from the Castle was that the Scottish War memorial was located inside – and you had to pay an entrance fee to visit the memorial. Pretty low if you ask me. Oh, and the Scottish crown jewels weren’t worth writing home about!

Canons at Edinburgh Castle

Off to the continent

My great Aunt and I took a coach tour along the Rhine in Germany, where I also have more relatives (we all tend to travel a fair bit!). Our first stop was Wiesbaden, where there was a German Christmas market (similar to the ones in York and Edinburgh – to be honest by the end of the trip I’d seen just about enough German Christmas Markets) but the chocolate goodies in this one were superb. Of course it was important that I pick up the language, so that I could distinguish between dark chocolate (zarkbitterschokolade) and not so preferred white chocolate (weissschokolade). Zarkbitterschokolade, bitte!!!!

We stayed in a place called Assmanshausen which was delightful.

Assmanshausen

We toured markets in Rudesheim, Boppard and Kobblenz, but Rudesheim was the best  – and it had the biggest chocolate shop. The return journey went through Belgium, where I thought it was my patriotic duty to sample the chocolate

As I was dismantling  the lenses, the carpark began to get full. Unlike most Trash, this piece arrived not on the wind but in a beige-gold Ford Falcon – the same colour as a fake Rolex. Ms Trash alighted from the vehicle, intent on being able to use the carpark we were obviously about to vacate. “I’ll be two  minutes,” I said, noting the large sunglasses and too-short-for-this-weather skirt, “just packing up”. I continued to clean the lenses and pack them away. Pouting, Ms Trash was not to be fobbed off. “Could you do me a favour?”, she whined in one of those used-to-getting-my-own-way-because-I’m-up-myself voices, “we’re running late for a wedding. Could you just back our your car so that we can get in?”

Principle Number #1: Your failure to plan does not make it my problem

No, we can’t. You are late for a wedding because you’ve failed to plan. Your tardiness (and hideous outfit) are testament to this. At this point Mr Trash, for whom patience is not a strong suit, began to beep his horn. His very small horn. The intent of this unashamedly alpha male behaviour of course was to intimidate us. Wrong move.

Principle Number #2: Be nice. It will get you better results than being nasty.

Mum and I are reasonable people. We’re generous and friendly. We talk to strangers, and we let people into traffic. But neither of us tolerates fools, and in particular detest arrogant swine who think their God’s gift to creation. Now, had Ms Trash been somewhat humble (heaven forbid, friendly!) and asked courteously we probably would have been pleasant and calmly reversed out of the car park. Mr Trash continued to beep. Ms Trash continued to pout. Smoke began to waft from Mum’s ears.

Principle Number #3: Don’t piss off my Mum!

Mum sat firm, keys in ignition, with no intent to turn them. “I don’t think so!” she bellowed. More smoke emanated from her ears. More beeping. More pouting. Finally, I instructed Mr and Ms Trash to find an alternate car park. And as we drove past, around two minutes later after gently and calming reversing out of the park, we noticed the Fake Rolex-mobile…. 100 metres away in a large alternate car park.

So, if you see a Ford Falcon in a fake Rolex beige gold, number plate RGR 170, please don’t do anything – including giving them your car park. They’re obviously not from Geelong

The day saw numerous presentations, including;

• Wen Lin presented on how to use alternative operating systems such as Ubuntu on your netbook, and how to use Clonezilla for backup up and restoring your system
• Ben Sturmfels presented on the basic freedoms that open source software embodies
• Simon Hobbs provided an overview of using Drupal for building websites
• Minh Nguyen presented on programming with Python
• Daniel Jitnah presented on how to make the move to open source

During the day Andy Gelme, who’s heavily into open hardware and is involved with the Community Connected Hackerspace in Melbourne gave an hour and a half workshop on Arduinos, where we all got to program an Arduino. This was much easier than I had anticipated, as it only required a bsic knowledge of electronics, and some experience in C.

I ran two workshops during the day on WordPress;

• Introduction to WordPress
• Advanced WordPress

A very big thank you to Multimedia Victoria, who generously supported the event, allowing hundreds of Open CDs containing free and open source software to be produced and distrubted.

The event generated ideas, promoted discussion and got people thinking about what’s possible with technology, why it’s possible and how to make things happen.

BarCampMelbourne was held at UrbanCamp, a facility designed primarily for school groups located in Parkville, next to the State Hockey and Netball Centre. UrbanCamp was chosen for the presentation spaces it offered, along with its close proximity to public transport, and the fact that it offered hostel-style accommodation.

Around 50-60 people participated in BarCampMelbourne – from all facets of the technology industry. There was  strong representation from the open source community, and several attendees were heavily into Arduino, many of whom attend the Community Connected Hackerspace group.

The presentations ranged from entertaining and comedic, to downright scary. My personal favourites included;

Paul Fenwick’s talk on Facebook privacy: Paul demonstrated, using the Perl Facebook API, how you could ‘dark stalk’ someone even if their privacy settings were set very strictly – by following the activity of their friends to find gaps in information. He used a number of Facebook Query Language examples to illustrate the incredible amount of information held on individuals within Facebook. Incredibly informative and incredibly scary – and if you haven’t tightened up your Facebook privacy settings – do it now!

Tara’s talk on what technology means to her: One of the most inspiring talks was from Tara – at just thirteen she was by far the youngest presenter at BarCamp. Her presentation was on what technology means to her – how it is now an embedded, expected part of everything she does – her hobbies, education and relationships. While listening to Tara, I imagined her in 15 years, running her own BarCamp (or whatever BarCamp evolves into in the future), and wondered whether she would have a generally positive or negative view of technology; whether she would simply accept the value that it adds to everyday life or wonder about the implications of humankind becoming so dependent upon it.

Donna’s talk on Zing collaboration: Donna Benjamin, executive director of Creative Contingencies, showcased the Zing collaboration software, and facilitated a discussion on how technology could be harnessed to aid journalistic reporting of natural disasters such as bushfires. This allowed us to elaborate on a number of the themes raised in Wolf Cocklin’s presentation. Everyone contributed to Zing through the use of wirelessly connected keyboards, so the collaboration occurred in real-time.

Wolf’s talk on Social Media for Disasters: Wolf Cocklin, from the ABC, shared with us his experience in using social media such as Twitter with the ABC to provide coverage of natural disasters, such as the Black Saturday bushfires. He illustrated the ethical dilemma of broadcasters such as the ABC receiving information from listeners, and being torn between re-broadcasting the info via tweets, thus helping people to make evacuation decisions, and finding a method to verify the information.

Josh Stewart’s discussion on home automation: Josh Stewart led a discussion on home automation – a topic close to my heart at the moment because I’m doing a lot of work with the Audio-Visual and Videoconferencing team at work, and part of their responsibility includes automation through things such as room control panels. Josh demonstrated some of the available equipment for home automation, such as Arduino. The key hold up to this taking off is the lack of available standards, and the lack of compliance to existing standards from manufacturers. I would love to be able to control my air conditioning remotely, or send an SMS signal to the garden to water the plants during a hot summer day. My assessment at this stage is that home automation is in its infancy; however there exists a strong set of requirements that will only grow stronger as more electronic devices are added to homes – this is definitely a growth area.

Many of the talks (those given in the main presentation hall) were recorded on video and are available (with many thanks to the champion efforts of Avi Miller) here:
http://barcampmelbourne.blip.tv/

BarCampMelbourne would not have been made possible without these kind sponsors. Their generous assistance meant that BarCampMelbourne was free for all attendees.

• Linux Australia: http://www.linux.org.au
• SitePoint: http://www.sitepoint.com.au
• Open Start: [URL is top secret! Stay tuned!]
• OSDC: http://www.osdc.com.au
• Open Query: http://www.openquery.com
• Perl Training Australia: http://perltraining.com.au
• Creative Contingencies: http://www.cc.com.au
• Strategic Data: http://www.strategicdata.com.au
• MD Web Hosting: http://www.mdwebhosting.com.au (Awesome hosting deal at http://www.mdwebhosting.com.au/web-hosting-special.html)
• James Turnbull: http://james-turnbull.net/books.htm
• LUV: http://www.luv.asn.au
• Sputnik Agency: http://sputnikagency.com

My own talks were on;

• Why ITIL Problem Management is your friend (a reworked version of the StixCamp talk)
• Introduction to CiviCRM for donor and volunteer management

We also managed to capture a number of photos of both BarCampMelbourne and the UrbanCamp venue – they’re mostly up on Flickr;

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/barcampmelbourne/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/urbancamp

So, when will the next BarCamp be? It’s likely to be a StixCamp style event, but the location has not yet been decided.

Wolf Cocklin presenting on social media in disasters

Richard Jones, Melbourne Python User Group

To show off the lace pattern, the finished article was blocked (on a foam pilates mat using dressmakers’ pins!) and left to dry. It opened up a little, but it may need to be blocked again as it’s quickly closed up again.

So, this means I’d get straight back to the Lift and Separate, right…. sadly no

Tikki’s Oriental Lily pattern is absolutely gorgeous – but not having smellyannoying stinky whingy adorable children myself, chose to knit it for a friend’s daughter – 4 year old Ruby. Ruby is much taller than most 4 year olds, and the pattern only goes up to 2 year old sizing, so the following alterations were made to the pattenr;

• The chosen yarn was a 10 ply yarn – Panda Zoomy. The pattern was sized using 8 ply and when I swatched the 10 ply knitted almost double the 10 ply. That worked out well because the newborn pattern size when doubled is exactly the measurements for a large four year old!
• The arms in the Oriental Lily pattern have increases to flare the sleeves. After chatting with Ruby’s Mum, we both decided that flared sleeves on a boisterous four year old were a bad idea, so I did tapered ones instead
• I used the contrast yarn to do a cuff on both the sleeves and the hem of the skirt, which itself was much longer than the pattern, and the cuff helped it to drop
• With the leftover yarn I whipped up a simple stockingette scarf (a very useful accessory for a four year old who is interested in fairy princesses)!

Using a ‘medical’ theme to promote their web site health check service, Netregistry dressed female staff in quasi-nurse uniforms, and had them ask CeBIT attendees about the health of their websites. According to this article by ZDNet, Netregistry CEO Larry Bloch (@larrybloch on Twitter) has stated that

“There would have been female doctors if any of our sales people were female — but they’re not”

This is appalling on three levels;

Representation of women in ICT: Instead of having female consultants and sales staff with (presumably) the technical and interpersonal skills to analyse the health of a client’s website, instead models (employed for their looks, not for their intellectual capital) are used engage the (predominantly male) attendees of CeBIT.

Representation of the nursing profession: The nursing profession has worked long and hard to build an image of nurses built on trust, integrity and professional deportment. Placing women in nurses’ uniforms to sell website ‘health checks’ detracts not only from the image of women, but also from the image of nurses and the nursing profession.

Lack of female representation in sales roles: The question everyone is forgetting to ask is why there are no female sales staff at Netregistry? Oh woops, my bad – as a female why would I want to work for an organisation that so obviously doesn’t see women as professional and intelligent, but as eye candy to sell a service. Recruit me now.

No wonder I moved away from Netregistry for my web hosting some time ago. They were appalling then and things it seems haven’t changed.

If you’re as angry as I am about this, send @larrybloch or @Netregistry a Tweet.

Disclaimer: I wasn’t at CeBIT, I didn’t see the ‘nurses’ in question. But I didn’t have to…