Fit for purpose

As facilitator i'm increasingly being faced with the importance of understanding the underlying architecture of drupal, as i keep finding that the ideas i want to implement don't fit the tools. I'm sure at the same time, that the tool offers features that could be used very creatively (eg game design capitalises on the use of the computer's clock) if i understood the nodal structure better. Its an interesting challenge for Alan and I to communicate without a visual map and a common language.

Facebook was introduced as another PRADSA communication platform in the month of June. Conversations on aspects of security in as far as personal and public postings have been highlighted, an example of this is seen through this link sent in by Paula

There has been a flurry of postings on tools and platforms that might be of use. These have included:

I came across Democracy TV from http://www.getdemocracy.com/ a couple of years ago. It makes uses some of the best of the webs protocols, RSS, Bittorrent, and the big video hosting sites like YouTube, to allow independent and short film makers get their content out.

Install the client, subscribe to channels, and download and watch what you're interested in. ( if you use Ubuntu see http://www.getdemocracy.com/downloads/ubuntu.php )

I took the plunge this morning: http://www.ericlee.info/2007/06/ubuntu_now.html

See here:

http://www.ericlee.info/2007/06/life_after_windows_day_13.html

Looking forward to the work in Manchester but these are decisions I have to make fairly regularly and sometimes I make them as much on expediency as anything else.

This week I met with a small group "FRIENDS OF REDCAR CEMETERY". Contrary to what you might expect we had a few laughs.

What they want to do is (a) create a virtual tour of the cemetery (b) be able to show this offline and (c) create a database of all the graves. (d) they also have a print newsletter produced in MS publisher which could go online but I think they could simply blog the stories.

Over at Opengender, Paula Graham has a great article Who's afraid of free software? which touches on issues we discussed at our workshop. Paula argues people in small organisations are frightened off the use of open source because they think support is a problem - and this is a gender issue:

Just discovered http://www.fring.com/
It allows you to use the various large VOIP providers like skype , google talk, msn and its own user base at http://fring.com on Symbian mobile phones using a data connection rather than a GSM connection.
This allows you to make VOIP calls to your friends on MSN, or you can use a service like SkypeOut to make interational calls without paying an exorbitant per minute rate.

And I've written up a fairly detailed account of what happened,
here.