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Archive for the ‘datadirt’ Category

Yesterday I arrived at Vegas for Microsoft’s Mix conference. And thanks to my lucky charm I got a room with a view at Mandalay Bay Hotel – from my window in the 33rd floor I overlook the complete strip, the famous Las Vegas Boulevard sporting all the grand casinos:

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This Saturday I’m flying to Las Vegas to attend Mix conference. Microsoft Austria invited me (all these years of iResistance are finally paying off!) to visit the world’s capital of gambling – of course I’ll report my trip on this very blog and via Twitter. After my return from the US you and me hopefully know anything there is to know about one-armed bandits, striptease clubs with high moral standards, new Microsoft web publishing techniques and the status quo of the cloud.

Plus I expect to do a couple of video interviews – I’m not sure why Microsoft called this place “The Commons”, but there is definitely a hang-out and socializing place, which I will take full advantage of since some sessions are quite code-related. Read the rest of this entry »

In January I visited the exhibition Medienwelten at Technisches Museum Wien. It’s a fascinating trip back to the very beginnings of information transmission – a must for anyone interested in the early beginnings of this media society:

The medien.welten exhibition presents the history of transmission media as well as storage media. On 2.500 square meters the evolution of the modern media-system becomes alive. In addition to hundreds of historical artefacts, images and texts, the exhibition features a virtual-information-room that goes beyond the scope of conventional museum exhibitions.

Last Sunday I returned to the museum, but this time I brough my camera. There’s plenty to explore: from early telegraph systems which used a piano-keyboard for entering messages to a historic cinema. These pictures only highlight a bit of the exhibition – so if you ever come to Vienna, pay a visit to the exhibition yourself. Read the rest of this entry »

Funny job descriptions turn up these day – have you ever heard of a “blog relations consultant”? I sure did today, and I can’t say it was an enjoyable encounter. Just know this: unloading your backlink-ridden postings upon a popular blog is not called a “content partnership”. I would call it backlink scraping, but that sounds a lot more unfriendly, doesn’t it? Read the rest of this entry »

WordPress offers a fascinatingly wide range of options: thanks to the power and the creativity of the open source community, the world’s most popular CMS has developed from a “blog-only” product into a multifaceted platform. Hundreds of plugins are waiting to cater almost every web publisher’s needs. These days, two new plugins take WordPress to the next level by integrated elaborate social network features. BuddyPress is now available at version 1.2 which plays along well with standard WP-installations; the previous version required WP multiuser edition. And then there’s Mingle, a new brilliant extension by Blair Williams, author of the (genius!) PrettyLink plugin.

Even though both plugins offer similar functionalities, they take a completely different approach at turning WordPress into a social network. While BuddyPress aims at running a stand-alone social network site, Mingle extends the community capabilities of nay existing blog. I installed it here on datadirt yesterday. Curious for a test-drive? Just click the new link Profile in the main menu! In the following posting I’ll explain why extending a blog with social network features is generally a smart idea. Read the rest of this entry »

… is rarely seen in nature these day; I was lucky enough to shoot one in Eastern Tyrol:

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When Public Enemy released their classic hit Shut ‘em down, they were criticizing authorities. Yet recently, Google has given the track’s title a completely new meaning: without any prior warning, the company shut down at least six renowned music blogs hosted on Blogger/Blogspot. Or, as Paidcontent.org puts, it, “wiped them from the internet”: Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not a big fan of Google in general: there services are not that great, but there’s no alternative. But it regularly frightens me how this machine works. Today, European director Steve Rogers told an Austrian newspaper: “When a company gets bigger, it is seen as intransparent. But we try to be as transparent as possible.” Right after that Mr. Rogers showed what he really means when he answered the next two questions about Google’s situation in China: “I’m not allowed to comment on this.” (Kleine Zeitung, February 9th 2010, page 29). Temper, temper! Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks and shout-outs to all sponsors, visitors, talkers and hosts at Videocamp Vienna 2010! Organizing the event together with Austrian television station ATV and Datenwerk was a great experience – and we’re all very satisfied with the premiere of Austria’s first online video barcamp. Knowledge was transferred, experiences were shared, a lot of visitors had to update their “met in real life” Twitter list – just the way we like it. I’m already looking forward to Videocamp Vienna 2010!

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When Google launched their latest gadget “Wave”, everybody was so keen on getting an invitation – I’ve sent out about 60 invites via my blogs, yet I haven’t been using Wave a lot. Neither in the beginning nor lately: it’s lame (even when used with Chrome, large multimedia Waves are basically unusable on netbooks), it lacks a lot of important features and – most important of all – it’s generally quite unsexy, According to Silicon Alley Insider, I’m not alone with this opinion. Read the rest of this entry »

I never was a big fan of Will Smith’s music, but I definitely did enjoy some of his movies. Yet I had no idea that Will has such interesting views on life, ethics and success – take ten minutes and listen to the whole interview; it’s worth your time, I promise:

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