Hofmockel.org

NOTE: Sent to VANOC {mediarelations@vancouver2010.com, pressoperations@vancouver2010.com} Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2008.
Cross-posted at: urbanvancouver.com, 2010.dailyvancouver.com, nowpublic.com, etc.

Hello VANOC Media Relations and Press Operations,

I am writing today on behalf of Raincity Studios, a Vancouver-based social media company who owns and publishes a suite of media properties. We had hoped to talk about social media (blogs, podcasts, twitter, wikis etc.) at the World Press Briefing this week, however we did not receive any response from the applications we submitted to participate in the event. So, as per Mr. Furlong's suggestion at the Vancouver Board of trade meeting last week, we are liaising with VANOC.

In brief, we'd like to have a conversation about how to allow fans and amateur media makers to document their Olympic experience while keeping out of the way of the IOC IP lawyers. As a company and as individuals, we've produced extensive, non-accredited coverage of Beijing 2008, Torino 2006, SLC 2002, and Nagano 1998. With the next games literally in our neighborhood, we'll be hosting an independent, international media centre at our Gastown loft office. As part of this, we'll organize events like photo walks and aggregate fan-made content for the enjoyment of a worldwide audience. We'd like to work with you to do this for mutual benefit.

As you likely know, Vancouver is a hub of innovative journalism with companies like ourselves, Now Public, and others plus renowned conferences like Northern Voice. Raincity Studios/Bryght is also an "official weblog service provider." My colleagues Robert Scales and Kris Krug were published in the academic paper "Pathway: Critiques and Discourse In Olympic Research," participated in the 9th International Symposium on Olympic Studies in Beijing and will be presenting about the experiences at the noted SXSW Interactive conference in 2009.

Among my colleagues and myself, we've posted thousands of photos, dozens of audio and video podcasts along with hundreds of blog posts, updates etc. from several Olympics. Additionally, we've cooperated with mainstream media and published Olympic-related coverage in the LA Times, BBC online, plus outlets in Poland, Brazil, Shanghai, and so on.

In Torino, Scales and Krug (and others) tested cutting edge equipment for Comvu and produced a cross-ocean symposium "Athletes and Social media" between Turin and Vancouver. In Beijing, they tested camera for Qik and contributed to many mainstream media outlets. Our own media properties include DailyVancouver.com, UrbanVancouver.com, Hockeynw.com, plus dozens of other presences, and we are allied with dozens of other media properties in BC and around the world.

Mr. Scales is China desk editor for Now Public and has presented to numerous international business groups about Olympics and business. Mr. Krug is ranked #4 on Vancouver Sun's "Internet Most Visible in Vancouver" list, both Krug and Scales were included on Tech Vibes "Vancouver Digital Media People to Watch 2008" list and appear on various other "best of" lists.

As for myself, I've produced extensive photo essays of event venues and published interviews with Canadian athletes like Duff Gibson, Ross Rebagliati and Crispin Lipscomb and written magazine articles about Olympians. I also appear on CBC Radio One discussing sports culture and new media as the producer/host of the Canucks Outsider podcast.

Bear in mind, aside form the occasional stipend, we do this work for no pay.

We are aware of your obligations to media rights holders and are seeking to provide an entirely different sort of coverage than the accredited media provide. We are not looking to cover events per se but are instead interested in covering the cultural stories, athletes' families' stories, and stories from fans who saved and traveled from around the world for this experience. In other words, we plan to encourage and aggregate fan coverage of the individual's "on the street" experience of the Games. We are locals who have watched (and helped pay for) the development of the Games since before the Plebiscite - as a result, we are tuned in to the issues and excitement surrounding the Games.

To begin our liaison relationship, we would like to attend the media briefing portion of the Worldwide Press Briefing on Thursday. We would also schedule a follow-up conversation with the appropriate point of contact to discuss how we as a weblog vendor company, and as individuals, can be involved in providing amateur coverage of Vancouver/Whistler 2010.

With Best Regards,

daveo (and Robert Scales and Kris Krug)
--
Dave Olson
Community Evangelist
Raincitystudios.com

PS These links will provide a flavor of our point of view:

* Raincity Studios Olympics posts: http://raincitystudios.com/search/node/olympics
* Olympic overage at Daily Vancouver: http://2010.dailyvancouver.com
* Beijing kick off post: http://raincitystudios.com/blogs-and-pods/daveo/beijing-2008-social-medi...
* Krug's Flickr Olympics photos: http://flickr.com/photos/kk/tags/olympics
* Scales' Flickr Olympics photos: http://flickr.com/photos/raincitystudios/tags/olympics
* Olson's Flickr Olympics photos: http://flickr.com/photos/uncleweed/tags/olympics
* You Tube videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/robertscales
* Olympic Outsider podcast feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/olympicoutsider
* Scales' Olympic coverage on Now Public: http://my.nowpublic.com/user/6247/assignments
* SLC 2002 photo/video essay: http://olsonboys.org/galleries/olympic-gallery.html
* Torino/Vancouver Symposium: http://2010.dailyvancouver.com/torino/symposium

Raincity Studios/Bryght Hosting is looking for an experienced System Administrator to join our team.

You will help with the day-to-day operations of our hosting environment, a 30+ server CentOS based Xen cluster. Your average work week will involve working on client issues, server auditing, server updates, server upkeep. You will be expected to be on call for the infrastructure.

Experience with CentOS/RHEL, Apache, MySQL, Subversion, BIND, Postfix, PHP configuration, RPM building and the Xen Hypervisor required. Experience with Nagios monitoring, Puppet/CFengine management, Drupal and Amazon web services preferred.

Excellent opportunity to expand your skills and work with experienced developers and a company focused on Open Source and customer service. Ability to quickly pick up new technologies and adapt to a fast paced work environment required.

Job Details:

Work with Bryght's support staff to solve client issues, such as SSL configuration, memory balancing on a small virtual machine, web configuration and optimization.

Work with Raincity developers to provide development environments for their work and management of the Raincity/Bryght office network.

Manage dozens of physical server, 100s of virtual server environment, ensuring performance, security and uptime. This will largely require enforcing management best practices for a virtual hosting environment.

Work with product development team to roll out new hosting options, such as Amazon EC2 based offerings.

Continue building out management services, such as locally cached CentOS repositories, monitoring, SNMP graphing, centralized backup, SSH key based authentication and Xen management.

Contact robert(at)RaincityStudios(dot)com with CV and expectations.

As the national broadcaster, the CBC has a special place in hearts of Canadians. Growing up in the USA, there is really no equivalent - PBS is well intentioned but just doesn't have the public mind-share the 'Ceeb garners with important documentaries and top-shelf sports coverage. Now that i think of it, the ability to satirize politics and still gets funding tell me that something like the CBC could never exist back home!!

I think the CBC (with help from Tod Maffin no doubt) have done a very good job of delivering new media content via podcasts and other channels while some aspects need some improvement (more openness please).They've learned a lot in the past year or so about developing digital content.

CBC is taking steps to get the internal teams more social media literate with an event on Friday, Nov. 21st moderated by Megan Cole. I'll be joining CBC journalists and employees on Friday for a conversation about using social media tools from Twitter to Flickr. Specifically, I'll be discussing how journalists and marketers can use Facebook and other emerging technologies and tools to enhance media coverage by building community as well as connecting fans with artists.

Follow along with blog and twitter coverage and see the reactions and comments to the presentations - I am look forwarding to learning a bit more about the process of producing "traditional" media and plan to listen more than speaking.

For more info, here's how the CBC describe the Lederhouse Social Networking Workshop:

Social networking has recently supplanted e-mail as the most popular use of the Internet.

Many of BC's best facebookers, flickrers and twitterers are CBC employees. Some of us don't know a SMS from an SOS.

That's why some CBC'ers will be gathering at the end of November for a day long seminar on social networking. We'll find out how some of us use it to make our jobs easier, and how others can learn to tap into its power.

We'll meet journalists who twitter, and producers who digg -- and create a project or two to try at your desk.

It's a day set aside for social networking -- about social networks.

See ya there or see ya online.

 

This action alert is re-purposed from: The CRTC Should Stop Internet Gatekeepers

In the coming days the federal communications regulator will issue a landmark ruling that has huge implications for Canadians’ access to the Internet. The CRTC decision will determine whether Bell and other big telecoms can continue to “throttle” Internet service. Please take a few seconds to tell the CRTC to stop Internet throttling. Your voice could be the deciding factor!

The commissioners have already twice delayed releasing their ruling, suggesting that they are struggling to make a decision. We need to make it very clear to the CRTC which side the Canadian public is on. Find out how to help at: http://saveournet.ca/content/take-action.

Tell the CRTC to stop Internet throttling now!

Until recently, Canada's Internet was an open network – a level playing field for free speech and innovation. All that is now threatened by a handful of corporations that want to control a “gatekeeper network” in which they decide what content and services get the fastest access to our homes.

These companies have been caught:

* throttling or slowing Internet traffic to businesses and consumers;

* blocking access to websites that criticized them;

* crippling consumer devices and applications.

The upcoming CRTC decision will have major and long-lasting implications for our Internet. Our online level playing field of innovation and free speech hangs in the balance.

Please Take Action and invite your fellow Canadians to do the same!

Action Tasks

• Start here: http://saveournet.ca/content/take-action
   
• Add a Save the Net badge or banner
   
• Join the Save Our Net Facebook Group
  
  
• Follow Saveournet on Twitter
  
  
• Download the Fact vs. Fiction Report
  
  
• Download the SaveOurNet.ca Flyer
  

See also:

• Does Social Media Have an Immune System? (Steve Anderson on Save our Net)
• Coalition rallies public to support Open Internet (Save our Net press release)
• Net Neutrality - What does it mean for you? (daveo on Raincity Studios)
• Vancouver Geeks Speak, Out About Media Democracy (Tris Hussey on View the Isle)

 

Another Raincity Studios project released to the public - this one is a location based feed aggregator called Placeblogger.com.

Designed to gather a deep view of their any micro-location, readers can follow all your local content in one place or track the news in places you've lived or want to visit. Travelers can reconnoiter destinations and arrange coverage to coincide with their itinerary. I.e. blogging from Seattle on Monday, reading blogs, in NYC on Wednesday, and reading and writing Prague blogs on Friday.

The geo-located aggregate feed also bakes-in geo-tagged Flickr photos, Wikipedia content, Google maps. Participants' fave blogs, posts, locations, etc. are gathered at your personal profile page. Bloggers can add their content on-the-go by attaching their location to posts creating a travel timeline of content + location.

Raincity Studios worked with Knight Foundation 2007 News Challenge grant winner Lisa Williams to create this project which is a new way to quickly get to know about a specific location in a deep manner whether the place is somewhere you live, or you are just passing through. Her objective was to create a tool where

The project used most all facets of the inter-disciplinary team including strategic planning to custom code development, database migration, full UI grapic design and themeing, and finally deployment. Placeblogger is one of the first tenants in the Bryght Canadian data centre and hosted in a Bryght Drupal-optimized VPS .

You can check out the Placeblogger portfolio narrative to learn more and consider stopping by to sign up for a Placeblogger account and tell the world where you are blogging from.

The Placeblogger site puts social content in a geographic and chronological context allowing easy aggregation of blogs about anyplace. By geo-locating blogs and other content, readers can easily explore any place ... somewhere you are now - or somewhere you were, or a place you might be soon.

Knight Foundation 2007 News Challenge grant winner Lisa Williams came to Raincity Studios to help build the vision she described as, "To make it easier for people to find hyper-local news and information about their city or neighborhood through promotion of “universal geotagging” in blogs."

Bloggers add their feed url, along with information about where in the world they are blogging from (or about). Using geo-location, blogs are grouped by area, and gathered with geo-tragged Flickr photos, Wikipedia information and Google maps, for easy subscription. So, readers interested in a specific locale can quickly see all blogs from a region on a personal Placeblogger aggregator page.

Locals can stay up on hyper-regional news and views, ex-pats might follow their hometowns, while travelers can discover advance information on destinations. While on the go, readers and bloggers can easily temporarily attach/detach to a city to coordinate with a travel itinerary. I.e. blogging from Seattle on Monday, reading blogs, in NYC on Wednesday, and reading and writing Prague blogs on Friday.

Participants can also add friends, follow buddies' content, add fave places, denote fave placeblogs posts, or and other feed items, for easy customization based on where you are.

Raincity Studios worked with Ms. Williams on the whole undertaking, from strategic planning through design, custom code development, data migration, themeing and deployment.

Along with the Drupal development came a ground-up re-design with emphasis on usability and user experience to ensure a streamlined engagement for the general public, not just experienced geeks.

The optimum user experience required organizing the places and placeblogs with as little redundancy as possible. Additionally, custom code development was required for reverse referencing of the hierarchies, and integration with Geonames (open source geo-coding software with API) which sends back geo-coordinates when the user types in their address.

The site is deployed on a Bryght Drupal-optimized VPS complete with a support agreement, and hosted at Bryght's Canadian data centre.

We're pleased to build this location-focused, feed reader which allowing readers, writers and producers to gain and share deep local knowledge about micro-locales, ... because wherever you go, there you are.

We know Drupal is great and, of course, we're not the only ones. On Halloween, Packt Publishing announced Drupal as the overall winner of their annual open source CMS award - repeating the win from 2007.

The award is judged by both a panel of industry professionals as well as votes on the website.

Here's the blurb which mentions Joomla as #2 and DoNetNuke as #3:

Packt’s annual Open Source Content Management System (CMS) Award reached its climax today with the announcement that Drupal has won the Overall category, collecting a first prize of $5,000. Three months after it was launched and a staggering 20,000 votes later, Drupal finished ahead of Joomla! and DotNetNuke to retain the Award it won in 2007.

Packt includes the obligatory brief history of Drupal which you probably know, so instead ... here's a quote from Drupal Godfather Dries giving props to the community:

 "These awards are a testament to the valuable contributions from dedicated Drupal community members around the globe" said Buytaert in response to the news. "Working together, the Drupal community is building the future of the dynamic web so that anyone can quickly build great social publishing websites" he concluded.   

Check the full results of the 2008 Open Source CMS Award and/or follow along with my edited judges' notes:

• Judges were impressed with second place Joomla’s ease of installation and ability to get a website up-and-running in a short space of time.
• DotNetNuke in third place received positive feedback from judges who were impressed with its ease of development and security implementation features.
• Most Promising Open Source CMS: SilverStripe
• Best non PHP Open Source CMS: Plone
• Best Open Source PHP: Drupal

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/software/Drupal_Best_Open_Source_CMS_WINNER';

The judges note that: the result of this year’s Award confirms this quality and also suggests that there isn’t necessarily one CMS that is the best, more that there is the best one to fit an individual user’s needs and requirements.

To offer my editorial opinion, no matter which CMS suits your need, I am enthused by the excellent choices created by vibrant developer communities, and kudos to Packt for lending a hand by offering up cash bounty to these organizations along with the accolades.

Raincity Studios is proud to be an annual participant at Gnomedex - the indescribable geek-fest/inter-disciplinary/think-tank hosted by the effervescent Ponzi and Chris Pirillo where the attendees are part of the show.

At the 2008 edition of Gnomedex, Raincity Studios' Kris Krug kicked off the on-stage performances with a multi-purpose primer of photo tips - extolling objective info and subjective tips to the audience to help them elevate their photos to a higher level - starting a stern recommendation to adjust your white balance.

The videos of all the (awesome) presentations are appearing on Chris Pirillo's web empire including: Kris Krug - Photography Tips. Keep an eye on the remarkable content rolling down this channel and drop a comment if you learned something handy in Kris' Taking Making Better Photographs presentation.

Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes
You may also enjoy:

Alex Williams' interview with Kris Krug at Gnomedex 2006 sandwiched between interviews with Tara Hunt and Micheal Arrington.

Kris also recently attended Pop!Tech in Camden, Maine - See the Pop!Casts of the world-changers and luminaries - translated into many world languages.

More Gnomedexer commentary on KK's presentation:

Gnomedex 8.0 Day 1 - Photo Tips in 15 Minutes with Kris Krug

Photography Tips (EasyEdit) – Kris Krug Gnomedex

Kris Krug’s photography tips: Learn from these. Really, watch now.

The value of attending Gnomedex: Priceless

Fun Weekend at #Gnomedex

Dancing at Gnomedex : Day 1

What You Missed at Gnomedex

Kris Krug On Making Better Photographs

Did i miss you review? Add a link to the comments ...

Install profiles and monitored support make Drupal good for everyone - not just experts

Some technical minded Drupal users are fine and happy installing Drupal themselves. They know how to choose the modules and themes needed to make their project happen. Indeed, these savvy users have little need for support, monitoring, patching and consulting.

However, as Drupal's user base gets bigger, and larger clients like enterprises and universities sign-on to the open source revolution, the need for a technical support "safety-net" (in the form of someone keeping a technical eye to make sure everything is up to date and humming along) becomes more apparent.

At Raincity Studios, we know this need well. This demand is why we market the Bryght hosting product which includes a pre-selected and supported set of modules configured ready-to-go, out-of-the-chute.

We also know variety is a good thing. 'Tis better to allow customers to choose the service which best fits their needs than tell them "one size fits all."

With this in mind, Raincity Studios recently announced a platinum partnership with Acquia. Founded by new Ph. D and Drupal ringleader Dreis Buytaert and business-veteran Jay Batson (and a crew of Drupalatti), Acquia provide a commercially-supported distribution of Drupal as well as a subscription-based support network.

This model means that companies and organizations can confidentially use Acquia Drupal install to run their dynamic web presence and enjoy support and network services like uptime monitoring, update notifications, patches and Mollom spam blocking.

Much like the Bryght Basic install, Acquia Drupal is licensed via GPL and includes Drupal core and a suite of popular modules.  With this new offering, Raincity Studios customers will be able to choose between hosting packages for Bryght Light, Bryght VPS and Bryght Acquia.

The customers choosing the Acquia package can then sign-up for Acquia network's support network and enjoy the advanced monitoring and proactive support services that come with it.

The network doesn't end there as customers and partners are encouraged to cross-pollinate and exchange business opportunities to find the best fit for customers' needs.

And of course, the ace Raincity Studios design team will also create sites for customers built on the Acquia profile and hosted on the Hostmaster/Ægir-powerd Bryght platform.

In the meantime, we'll get out the wrenches and bolt the Acquia options into the Bryght order form and server environment until it's as tasty as Robert Douglass' layered coffee (note: don't think it's a macchiato ... is it a cordatto?) which he uses to describe a day working for Acquia.

With Acquia and Raincity Studios aligned philosophically, the future of install profiles and supported hosting looks very positive for clients with diverse needs and lofty ambitions.

Photos: 

Drupalcon Boston Acquia party by Cody Hanson

Tasty espresso by Robert Douglass

This past Saturday was  Media Democracy Day in Vancouver and around Canada.

While I was otherwise indisposed, the Vancouver event at the Public Library looked like a huge success (because of or in spite of the beautiful autumn weather), our man Scales was among the participants on stage on a panel to discuss "The Battle for New Media and Open Communication" along with Micheal Tippet of Now Public and others.

He used his experiences covering Olympic Games in Turin and Beijing as reference points to discussthe changing landscape of news gathering.

Our pal Tris Hussey was among the active audience live twittering the event to provide some excellent stream of collective consciousness reportage in: Journalism in a time of Big Media Domination & The Battle for New Media and Open Communication.

Tris captures snippets of the conversations ranging from landscape change and market woes to non-rights-holders covering the Olympics. Here's a taste:

"You won’t recognize the media landscape in three years" Michael Tippet edit • delete

Scales still "super editor" and "unofficial" China desk editor on NowPublic edit • delete

Streets of Torino, they couldn’t talk about the Olympics, IOC shut them down. Hmm. Guess you have to pay to cover, eh? Became cultural show edit • delete 

Along with thick photoset from Media Democracy Day Vancouver, Tris also contributed to the collective online media literacy by adding a another tasty flavour to the layer cake of the net neutrality discussion in: Vancouver Geeks Speak Out: Net Neutrality Part 2.

What net neutrality would ensure is that we don’t have “rich people’s internet” where because you pay a premium fee your email is delivered instantly and your traffic is uncontrolled versus a “poor person’s Internet” where a company will decide when traffic passes through its network and how.

Beyond Robson published Steve Anderson's manifesto: A Focal Point for Media Democracy in Vancouver

Miss604 gave our MDD08 preview post a thumbs-up Media Democracy Day in Vancouver 2008

Nick Naylor discusses being the enemy in Media Democracy Day (PS nice post about Elizabeth May Whistlestop Tour too - read my comments about train travel in the Vancouver Courier)

The Georgia Straight weighed-in with a short piece about Linda Solomon (an American "Canadian-in-training" who runs the Vancouver Observer)'s unpleasant  exchange with CanWest in: Journalist alleges she was told that she'll never write for CanWest.

The menace of Net Neutrality pops into the mainstream news from time to time but, unless you are an hyper-informed citizen or public policy wonk, 'tis a bit hard to grok the issues which manage to get some pundits very worked up.

Part of the comprehension conundrum is caused by the inter-disciplinary nature of the issue which mixes free/controlled market economics, Internet routing protocols, monopolies and (lack of) competition and the tension of public vs. corporate (Telco) investment in the "last mile" technology which delivers your internet.

The confusing nature, and the difficulty of framing the argument to maintain status quo (sort of anyhow), results in many stakeholders tacitly ignoring the issue and hoping the Telcos/cable companies will simply "do what's best" for the consumer.

A few months back at Vidfest 2008 in Vancouver, I attended a panel about Net Neutrality presented by Jason Roks, Steven Andersen and Kris Krug surfing along to the discourse with relevant sites to add depth to the conversation. From the questions from the audience, it is a clear that most people do not understand the issue and, as a result, the big firms (Telus, Bell, Rogers) have the public by the IPs so to speak. Afterwards, over beers, we discussed the need for a Common Craft video to explain the issue ;-).

At first glance, one could think that the Telcos/cable companies have a right to "protect" - meaning shape, mold, direct the bits traveling via "their" network - however they choose. Also, one can assume that the policies of traffic shaping only affect a small, rogue-ish segment of Internet users. I find both of these assumptions to be misleading and beneficial to the conglomerates who seek to control the public's Internet access patterns.

As a supporter of extending the benefits of free market economics and democracy to all segments of the population, and harbouring a disdain for the scant choices for the "last mile" access, I've assembled a primer of talking points, web links, campaign logos, and miscellanea as a starting point to get educated about this topic.

First off, ... to explain the crux of the concern from my vantage point:

Consumers have little or no choice when choosing access providers carrying IP traffic to the home - usually only the incumbent rights-holding phone and cable company. (Some of) these de facto monopolies are, or aim to, unilaterally decide which traffic is prioritized on their network for delivery to you.

The Telcos decisions could be based on technical issues (i.e. hyperbolic concerns over peer to peer sharing), or other insidious reasons including censoring of controversial content, and directing traffic towards paid advertisers and payola-paying business partners rather than immediate delivery of the customer's desired content.

Consumers need marketplace choice, some degree of Telco company policy transparency, and the ability to access the essential public resource of the Internet without hinderance.

Chime in with a comment if there is a great resource to add to the mix, or with your way of explaining this complicated issue in plain-ish English.

Campaigns

Citizens Save the Net - Diverse coalition calls for communication conversation
SaveOurNet.ca

"We need to protect innovation, competition, free speech, and Canadian culture, by protecting the principle of Net Neutrality and the Internet’s level playing field." 

Join the members and share your support - SaveOurNet.ca members agree to a set of principles banding them together in protecting Canada's Internet.

• Sign on as an Individual Member
• Sign on as an Organization Member

Bonus: Net Neutrality Rally photoset

The Basics on Net Neutrality

Wikipedia entry Net Neutrality

Campaign for Democratic Media talks about Net Neutrality

What is Net Neutrality? primer

Video about ... yep Net Neutrality

Industry Perspectives

No really, what is Net Neutrality

Google's perspective on Net Neutrality

and a letter about the issue

Media and Pundits

CBC's technology and consumer articles

Background on Deregulation in the USA and effect on consumers from an independent ISP's perspective , circa 2000. Leveling the Playing Field #5 by Dave Olson (me) - Free the Internet! — Open Access (.pdf)

Canada ignoring the threats? The Tyee's ... Canada Sleeps Through War to 'Save the Internet

--

Photo credit: Steven Andersen at Vidfest by uncleweed on Flickr

Raincity Studios' Ambassador Kris Krug discusses the W2 Community Media Arts centre, part of the socially-minded Woodwards project in downtown eastside Vancouver. Built on the spot of a former department store, the new building includes a mix of social housing, market housing, an university campus, and the community media arts space.

Resources

• W2 Community Media Arts
  
• Gallery Gachet
• City of Vancouver Woodward's info
• Fearless City
• Wikipedia about Woodwards Building
• Woodwards Implosion video by Nadia Aly 
• Change Creative, Jeremy Crowle
• W Building 360 photoset by DaveO
• Woodwards tag by Roland on Flickr

 

• "W sign" Photo by Kris Krug
• Others Woodwards Building photos by Dave Olson

Note: See the old Woodwards spire in the background

 

In conjunction with the BC Library Association's Information Policy Conference, Canadian Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, Micheal Geist is speaking tonight (Thursday, Oct. 23rd) at Vancouver Public Library at 7PM.

Mr. Geist is also an EFF Pioneer award recipient, serves on the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s Expert Advisory Board and maintains privacyinfo.ca, a leading privacy law resource.

The topic: "Why Copyright? The Fight for Canada's Digital Future".The event is free but requires registration unless you are registered for the full conference.

The (super groovy IMO) Vancouver Library is at: 350 W. Georgia St., (Stadium Skytrain) and the speech is in the Alice MacKay Room, Lower Level.

Here's a synopsis of Mr. Geist's remarks:

In June 2008, the Canadian government introduced Bill C-61, new copyright legislation that closely followed the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The public response to the bill was both immediate and angry - tens of thousands of Canadians wrote to the Minister and their local Members of Parliament, leading to town hall meetings, negative press coverage, and the growing realization that copyright was fast becoming a mainstream political and policy issue.

The "Canadian copy-fight", which includes many new advocacy groups and the Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook group that has over 90,000 members, has attracted considerable attention from the mainstream media, with many wondering how copyright had emerged as a contentious policy issue. This talk will assess both the legislative proposals and the Canadian copyfight experience in an effort to answer the oft-asked question "why copyright?”

Photo Credit: Will Pate photo of the Library so you know where you are bound

Raincity Studios' CEO Robert Scales discusses his recent trips to DrupalCon Hungary, Drupal Camp Montreal, Blog World Expo and partnerships with Acquia, plans for Ægir mass Drupal deployment system and other big ideas for clients and content publishers.

interviewed and produced by Dave Olson for Raincity Studios.
Photo by Kris Krug, (hat by DaveO).

Spreading the word

The 2008 Media Democracy Day event in Vancouver is Oct. 25th 2008 and features a batch of excellent panels and noteworthy speakers headlined by Rex Wyler, co-founder of Greenpeace.

With many critical issues affecting net users and publishers, the Media Democracy event will address copyright in flux, open access to the Internet, and the tension between mainstream and independent and grassroots media.

Raincity Studios' CEO Robert Scales is joining Leslie Shade – Associate Professor Concordia University, Jeff Davis - Vancouver Open Network Initiative Cooperative, Mike Tippet – Co-founder of NowPublic to discuss "The Battle for New Media and Open Communication" at 3:15 ~ 4:30.

Here's the blurb: We stand at a crossroads in the history of communications technology, a moment when traditional media are in disarray, and a new form of communications and organizing -- more grassroots and decentralized -- is on the rise.

The Internet is upsetting conventional wisdom about "mass media" and changing media power in ways never before imagined. But change also raises new threats. Will an open Internet succumb to the same companies that control traditional media?

The new challenge for us is to organize around and develop new sets of policies, projects, and tools that will finally give us an advantage in the decades-long struggle against the gatekeepers. Panelists will discuss the fight for an open Internet, prospects for online/social media, and future challenges.

I suspect Scales will offer anecdotes and insight from the Olympic symposium and on the ground experience covering Games in Turin and Beijing.

Plus tips and tricks learned while photographing the Dalai Lama's visit to Vancouver and rock bands and tech luminaries at SXSW in Austin, TX.

Here are the event details:

Speaking For Ourselves: Media Democracy Day 2008

October 25th, 2008, 12:00pm – 6:00pm
Vancouver Public Library, 350 West Georgia Street
FREE

With media concentrating into fewer and fewer hands, and Internet Service Providers quickly emerging as online gatekeepers, a public forum on media issues like Media Democracy Day takes on a new sense of urgency.

MDD 2008 includes a series of exciting panels, workshops and speakers, including:
*Rex Weyler - World Renowned Author and Co-founder of Green Peace
*Deborah Campbell - Award Winning Independent Journalist
*David Beers - Publisher – The Tyee
*Michael Tippett - Co-founder of Nowpublic.com
*Marika Swan - Redwire Native Youth Media
*Charlie Smith - Editor of the Georgia Straight
*Robert Hackett - professor at SFU and author of "Remaking Media"
*Andrea Hayley - president of the Epoch Times Vancouver
*Robert Scales – CEO of Raincity Studios
*Dawn Paley – The Dominion Newspaper
*Gurpreet Singh - Broadcaster on Radio India, freelance columnist for Surrey Now, freelance reporter for South Asian Post
*Matt Thompson - Campaign Strategist for FreePress, Co-Founder of SaveOurNet.ca
*Kate Milberry - Media and Technology Commentator
and many more!

Panels and Workshops include:
*Big Media Clamp Down: Taking stock and fighting back
*Free Your Computer, Free Yourself - Practical steps to get you on the
road to liberation with free and open source software
*Journalism in a time of Big Media Domination
*The Battle for New Media and Open Communication
*Community Organizing and Media
* Open Source Journalism

Full programme pasted below and more information at:
http://mediademocracyday.org/vancouver

Join the MDD Facebook Event:
http://www.facebook.com/inbox/#/event.php?eid=85334255510&ref=nf

Find info and tools to promote MDD here:
http://mediademocracyday.org/press08

Acquia Teams with Raincity Studios as a Platinum Development Partner

Drupal development and hosting leader set to deliver solutions with Acquia Drupal and Acquia Network

Two leading Drupal companies have teamed up to make the popular open source content management system a more accessible and practical choice for businesses.

In an agreement finalized at DrupalCon 2008, Acquia has announced Raincity Studios as a Platinum Partner on the newly launched Acquia Partner Program.

Dries Buytaert, project lead of Drupal and co-founder of Acquia, expresses his enthusiasm about the partnership saying:

"Raincity Studios is just the kind of company we seek for partnerships to help us transform the web - they have a history of innovation, participation and contribution to the Drupal community.  I look forward to future success together." Adding to the Menu

The Acquia partnership adds to Raincity Studios' full-service menu of web development and design services primarily using the Drupal CMS. Raincity Studios also offers hosted Drupal products under the Bryght brand featuring pre-configured Drupal deployments and performance-tuned hosting. The Acquia Drupal install will be another valuable choice for customers who require on-going maintenance and support via Acquia's support agreements.

Raincity Studios CEO Robert Scales agrees with the opportunities coming out of the relationship, saying:

"Acquia Drupal and the Acquia Network are key parts of making the Drupal CMS an ideal choice for enterprises. With Acquia's support packages, customers can concentrate on publishing great content for their audiences rather than technical upkeep. We look forward to actively working with the top-notch Acquia team in same spirit of cooperation and collaboration evidenced in the Drupal community."Products and Services

Focused on the mission of making Drupal better, Acquia's custom-assembled version of Drupal includes the core components along with a variety of popular modules.

Aquia's custom Drupal install profile (previously code-named Carbon) may be downloaded for free under a GPL (Gnu General Public License) license and then be commercially supported with an Acquia Network subscription. The support subscription includes support and network services such as up-time monitoring, update notifications, and Mollom junk comment blocking.

The Acquia Network also provides a structure so that the Acquians can work closely with partners like Raincity Studios to vet projects and refer clients to shops which best meet their needs.

Raincity Studios client list include major media outlets, record companies, and major software organizations with current projects focused on SMS and geo-location mash-ups as well as rich web community building for all manner of businesses and organizations.

About Acquia

Acquia is an open source software company providing value-added products and services for the popular Drupal social publishing system. Acquia believes open source development and social publishing technology have the power to connect people and unleash their collective creative potential. Company founders are Dries Buytaert, original Drupal creator and project lead, and Jay Batson, previously founding CEO of open source VOIP software company, Pingtel.

More info: http://acquia.com

About Raincity Studios

Raincity Studios is a full service web agency, strategically creating and hosting online communities for businesses, organizations and publishers. Raincity is a team of specialists whose competencies include: Drupal deployments, graphic design, strategic consultation, information architecture, and custom development.

Enthusiastic advocates of open source software, Raincity Studios actively participates in the Drupal development community and speak at events about open source software, international entrepreneurship, and technology growth trends. Founded in 2003 by Robert Scales, Raincity Studios has offices in Vancouver, Canada and Shanghai, China.

More info: http://raincitystudios.com/about/media-kit

Photo Credit

Thanks to Chrys for DrupalCon Hungary photos.

A feast of Drupalish delights was enjoyed in Berkeley, California at the weekend. I was lucky enough to attend - for me it had the added bonuses of getting to see the beautiful Berkeley campus for the first time, enjoying warm Californian weather when it's already quite cold in Vancouver, and spending some balmy evenings hanging out in San Francisco, a city I've been crazy about since a 3 month stint working here when I was 20.

Anyway, back to Drupalcamp itself. Day One began with breakfast courtesy of the wonderful Chapter Three peeps, which included delicious vegan donuts and great coffee. Then the event kicked off with Tao Starbow welcoming us all and handing over to Earl Miles for his keynote talk on what he has learned about user experience issues over the past few years (and with his work on Panels, and especially on Views, he has learned a LOT). I then attended a session by Adam Kalsey of WorkHabit on building APIs for your modules. One of the main points he kept drumming home to us was that if we developers don't document our modules, we ...basically... suck. It was an excellent session and since there had been so much talk about the importance of documentation for Drupal, I asked Adam afterwards if he wouldn't mind adding the main content of his presentation to the Programming Best Practices page I initiated in the handbook with senpai and aj045 a couple of months back - he said he'd be delighted to :-)

Lunchtime saw a bunch of us heading across the campus to get to Telegraph Avenue for a delicious Indian meal and some lively Drupal discussions and then I attended four sessions in a row but they were such high quality that I wouldn't have missed a single one of them. There was Tao Starbow's talk about AJAX and JSON, a subject that is of course dear to my own heart. Then Matt Cheney of Chapter Three presented a talk on Panels 2 that was full of eye-openers for me - it's a module I've been making heavy use of in a current project, not having had much experience with it prior to that, so I was intrigued by some of the tips and tricks this seasoned Panels user had to share. After that, Adam Kalsey presented on Drupal performance tuning, covering issues from module bloat to database indexes to code efficiency to the use of CDNs to opcode caching and server tuning. And more besides! Awesome stuff. And as if that wasn't enough awesomeness for one day it finished off with a talk by Earl Miles about the Views 2 UI, and being - like most Drupalers - a very big fan of Views, this was a rare treat.

By that stage it was time for evening refreshments and most of us headed to nearby Jupiter for some free beers on Sun (thanks, Sun!) and had a fine time indeed.

Sunday got off to a later start (thankfully ;-) and had fewer sessions but again those that I attended all held many points of interest for me. Neil Drumm gave a session on data imports using Jobqueue and Import Manager modules, which I am definitely going to look into in the very near future. The one and only chx presented on the Form API and amused us with anecdotes of how he has tried to get the html standard for forms changed by the w3c so that they're not so ridiculously hard to work with on the server-side. And Scott Mattoon of Sun presented on Drupal efficiency and some of the tools they provide developers with to monitor this - something else I will definitely be looking into very soon, thanks to the DVDs they provided of OpenSolaris and NetBeans.

As with most Drupal events I've attended thus far, the best part of it was getting to meet so many other drupalers - putting faces to d.o handles, as it were. In particular, it was wonderful to finally meet Dmitri Gaskin in person after we had missed out on co-presenting in Szeged together when his school commitments prevented him from attending. And also I finally got to meet Marco Carbone of Advomatic, whose Slot Machine module for advanced content scheduling I had done some work on earlier this year.

BADcamp 08 was a most excellent event - a huge thank you to all the organisers and presenters for making it such a valuable experience!

It's a baby beta named Ægir - say "eager"

Today, Drupal rockstar and the  Raincity Studios super-developer and South African Emissary, Adrian announced the release of Ægir 0.1 Beta1. Named for the Norse God of the Seas, this evolution of Hostmaster is a critical part of Bryght's hosting environment.

The hardwork of Raincity Studios and Koumbit software engineers, and other contributors, is helping take mass Drupal hosting to the next level and you can join the fun - start at the Ægir hosting system group.

Added this release:

• Drupal install profiles - can be localized to provision sites in various languages
• Improvements to the comprehensive inline documentation
• Installation wizard to modify and/or simplify the user interface

User-interface refinements, non-critical ancillary features, and a Drupal 6 version are on the immediate roadmap.

Ægir is made for mass hosting

Brielfy, here's what Ægir is and how it works:

Ægir is a new set of contributed modules for Drupal that aims to solve the problem of managing a large number of Drupal sites. It does this by providing you with a simple Drupal based hosting front end for your entire network of sites. To deploy a new site you simply have to create a new Site node. To backup or upgrade sites, you simply manage your site nodes as you would any other node.

To non-techies, this release allows organizations needing batches of similar sites  to be up-and-running, quickly and easily, for a minimal investment. The sites can be centrally-managed for patches, security updates, and new modules or themes.

The open source nature allows companies and organizations to use, extend, and then contribute back, to make the software even more "real-world" capable.

Personally, I can see this being a powerful tool for school districts, muncipalities, sports leagues, record labels, and inter/national organizations. One site to rule them all!

Required geekery

Here's what you need to play with Ægir at home:

• A Unix-based operating system - no Ægir for Windows
• Full access to your server or machine
• A web accessible Drupal directory with a hostname

Then, proceed to the overview wiki entry to assemble the components or, if you are savvy, download the complete Ægir package.
Contribute

Chime in at the Drupal hosting project to share your experiences, report bugs, fix patches, write documentation, etc. 

Bonus

It's an "Aesc": To type the character "Æ" on a Mac, use option+shift+apostrophe - cool eh.

More about Ægir: Adrian Speaks About Ægir at Drupal Con Szeged and Szeged presentation slides (.pdf)

Image: "Ægir, Rán and their nine daughters prepare a huge vat of ale" from a 19th century Swedish translation of the Poetic Edda - via Wikipedia.

Designed for Campaigns

No matter which side of the USA/Canada border you live on, it's impossible to ignore the political campaigns in full swing. Regardless of your leanings, no doubt the campaigns with polished social media strategies are enjoying advantages. Indeed, this is the first election cycle which 'Web 2.0" tactics are mandatory rather than merely optional or an after-thought.

Because Google (and the other search engines) efficiently index mostly all the pages within a site, visitors can obviously enter a site via hundreds of different on ramps. While this means the visitor may easily find the information they seek, the organization's time-sensitive objectives might not receive enough attention.

To rise above the noise, the savvy campaigner needs to transmit their message in a method in which people will receive and react to it with a clear and easy call to action.

New Drupal tool

A new module developed by Raincity Studios' Makara Wang will help the many politico sites using Drupal to harness their Google-juice and funnel their visitors to a desired actionable task.

The module is called "Roadblock" - a term which usually denotes a unwanted traffic snarl, but in this case, the roadblock is designed to focus the visitor's participation and funnel them towards a specific action.

Real-life application

The first use of the module is at political organization COPE's "Take Back the Power" site. Regardless of the site entry point, the visitor is presented with a pre-determined landing page. In this case, a page about their current campaign to prevent the sell-off of public hydro-electric resources to private interests.

Lori Winstanley, COPE's Director of Strategic Campaigns explains the reason for using Roadblock to energize their campaign,

“With a limited amount of time to influence policymakers’ decisions on this important topic, we needed to focus the attention of all the site’s visitors and encourage them to contact the Premier’s office. Of course, then they can explore other content on the site but the Roadblock module helps us get the most important message out to all visitors without a big hassle.”

More

Learn more about the Roadblock module

Meet Production Developer Makara Wang, the module's developer

See all of Raincity Studios' Drupal contribtutions