Today was first day back “at work” and I’ve spent much of it catching up on OSCON 2008, O’Reilly’s annual open source conference, which was this year held in Portland Oregon between July 21-25. Greg Pollack of the RailsEnvy Podcast has made a nice video introduction to the conference (OSCON in 37 minutes) in which he gets various luminaries and speakers to introduce their talks and so provide a nice lead-in to the presentations, most of which are on-line, and the keynotes which were video-recorded and made available for syndication via blip.

This video, from the YouTube series “Simon’s Cat” was featured on last week’s Culture Show on BBC 2 [in the UK]. There are two others, equally great and hopefully more to come. All cat lovers will get a shiver of recognition when watching this! http://widgets.vodpod.com/w/video_embed/Groupvideo.1409152 more about “Simon’s Cat ‘TV Dinner’“, posted with vodpod

In an new post from the Swansea Learning Lab we are pointed to some videos from Blackboard which showcase new features in the planned 2009-2010 release of Blackboard. I watched the videos, and in a comment on the videos, I noted a trend within Blackboard that reminds me of the famous 1994 memo “Windows: The Next Killer Application on the Internet” sent by J Allard to Microsoft executives. This memo was a call to embrace, extend, and innovate [the Internet] in order to make Windows the platform of choice in the newly visible “wired up” world.

[](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__bnNGgqRugY/SH98H-euYiI/AAAAAAAACm4/yQocPgrn5Cg/s1600-h/DSC_0023.jpg) Pictured L-R: Matt Smith BSc, Mark Davies BSc, Mark Ireland BSc, Russell Morris BSc. Today was graduation day for the students in the Information, Computing and Communcations Technology discipline at the School of Engineering at Swansea University. Congratulations to the new Bachelors of Science Matt, Mark, Mark and Russell. Russell was also presented with the W.G. Isaacs Prize for best project. Congratulations and good look to you all! More pictures from the day will be posted on Facebook and Flickr.

As [reported yesterday](http://crispyj2.blogspot.com/2008/06/google-io-day.html), I’ve been catching up with a number of presentations from the [Google I/O 2008 conference](http://sites.google.com/site/io/google-io-sessions). However, I just had to draw particular attention to one of the highlights which is this recording of a very entertaining presentation from Chris di Bona who is Open Source Programs Manager at Google. In an engaging, anecdotal style, Chris covers the history and philosophy of Open Source (which includes a name check for Swansea’s very own [Alan Cox](http://en.

Today, I discovered Blog Networks after reading Sarah Parez’s posting “Blog Networks like MyBlogLog for Facebook” on ReadWriteWeb. Blog Networks is a new Facebook application that allows you to embed your favourite blogs (including your own) into your Facebook profile so that your friends can read and rate your thoughts and the thoughts of others that you value. An interesting feature is that the easiest way to claim ownership of your own blog is to get your friends to verify that you own it which is both a social and viral way of getting the word out.

Last month Google hosted the first of its Google I/O conferences in San Francisco. I’d like to report that I was there, but I wasn’t (although I did watch the keynote the day after it was given). The video recordings of the speakers (hosted on YouTube) and their slides (mostly shared on Google Docs) that have been on-line for a few weeks now. With term finally over, I can become a virtual conference delegate and today was my first chance to catch up with some of the more interesting talks.

More travels with my bike … this time a swift 15 minute ride to Verdi’s at Mumbles for an espresso after dinner. Sunny day (not many of those this June) and lovely views over the Bay towards the University, Swansea and Port Talbot. [](http://picasa.google.com/blogger/)

Following on from Chris Hall’s discovery of Wordle, here’s the Wordle-art tag cloud for my del.icio.us bookmarks. Interestingly this indicates that I’m a typical geek (look at the size of the programming and development tags). Interestingly my courses EG-259 and EG-146 (both on Web Development) feature largely. I’m also apparently keen on the Web and self-improving tutorials! Of course these are only my public tags!

[](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__bnNGgqRugY/SF690u0DyfI/AAAAAAAACiY/k3QrN4aeNJA/s1600-h/IMG_0006.jpg) Took a trip up [National Cycle Route 43 ](http://www.sustrans.org.uk/default.asp?sID=1099392474390)from Swansea to Pontardawe and back. It was a very windy day and the last 3 miles along Swansea bay was into the wind and a bit of a killer. In other news, my wife Renate got a puncture and had to push her bike home from the Liberty Stadium while I went on ahead to cook the dinner. Puncture repair kit will be next on my shopping list (some would probably say it should have been first).

After today’s *lunch and learn* session on [Web2.0 at the Chalkface](http://swansea-learninglab.blogspot.com/2008/05/swanevent-lunch-learn-web-20-at.html), Paul Latreille inspired me to have another look at [Netvibes](http://www.netvibes.com/). I’ve been playing with it on and off since I got home this evening and I’ve launched another version of [my life online](http://crispyj2.blogspot.com/2008/05/stalk-me.html) as a Netvibes public page. See [www.netvibes.com/crispyj](http://www.netvibes.com/crispyj) for more. Come on over and be my friend. [](http://www.flickr.com/photos/51214457@N00/2571254960) My new public “stalk me” page on Netvibes Not sure which of T[umblr](http://cpjobling.

My wife and I took our new bikes along National Cycle Path number 4 from Brynmill to the Mumbles (Verdi’s) then back to Blackpill and up the Clyne Valley to the Railway Inn. A pint of Three Cliffs Gold then back to the Bay Cycle path and home. Comfortable ride, but it is flat! Gorgeous weather today: hope it stays that way. [](http://picasa.google.com/blogger/)