Spy Journal 3.0 Filtering the web for you

Following the debacle with Qantas cancelling my plane, I eventually got to Sydney an hour later than planned. I got straight into a taxi and off to the university where I was straight into the room in the bowels of the pharmacy faculty where the DrupalCamp event was being hosted. As it happened I only missed the initial chats and greetings etc as they were running a bit behind.

The first session I attended then was Justin Randell talking about the upcoming Drupal 7 new features. Most impressive for me to see is the new WYSIWYG capability features. Drupal are not going to pick a specific editor, rather let you choose, but the support and handling of WYSIWYG on different text fields looks great. Perhaps more importantly is the delay to release. From my perspective this is a good thing. We need to see Drupal 6 settled down better and more module conversion completed before having to worry about a new version.

I am supposed to be on a plane right now, but it was cancelled. SO I am waiting to see if I can get on the next one in half an hour. It was full so I am booked on the one after that, but the staff are trying to get me on the full one.

Why? I am going to DrupalCamp Australia in Sydney.

When I finally get there I am hoping to get stuck into Theming with CSS Frameworks, Panels 2 and then I might present something if there's no one else wanting to on managing module and site upgrades for multiple websites. Amanda and I have now got this process down pat and are able to quickly manage upgrades for the 20+ Drupal sites we look after.

The sun is now over the horizon and in my eyes as I look out at my plane going nowhere. Oh Qantas why today?

I will report back later in the day with more pics and stories from the event.

Oh and the pic to the right of the cool Drupal logo comes courtesy of Greenash and I am wearing my new Acquia t-shirt.

Time to clear the tabs in Google Chrome.

SBS2008 news is buzzing with the wrap up of the conferences stateside. Here is some important stuff.

• Susan the SBS Diva screenshots a Hyperv install of SBS2008 and follows up with some Nic settings for HyperV
• Robbie from MSFT Australia has some good technical content on SBS2008 and EBS2008.
• Australians can get their hands on training for SBS2008 and EBS2008 at discounted prices.

Robin Good’s Sharewood guide has a list of the Top 25 screen sharing tools.

Sonia Coleman has 208 free Microsoft PowerPoint templates.

I am now using Tweetdeck to manage my twitter conversations – its great!

TwitterAgency is a Virtual Advertising Agency on how to use / not use Twitter.

Brisbane mountain bike riders, check out Bushranger. They also run adventure tours in New Zealand. And if you are into horse riding the Mountain Lake Adventures crew look as if they provide a pretty decent trail riding experience just west of Brisbane.

I’ve been wanting to write an article for some time now about how the social (web 2.0) web works, and why there are so many different sites out there. specifically I wanted to explain the use of sites like FriendFeed, Profilactic and Ping.fm

I have built a small diagram that hopefully illustrates a small portion of this. It is not comprehensive, though it is accurate in the detail it does show.

The missing stuff includes a dotted line back from any of the sites in the 2nd or 3rd columns back to the first column.

Let me explain the circle of internet life and how Ping.fm, Profilactic and Friend Feed play a part.