simonwheatley.co.uk

BarCamp Leeds - “my last project”

2008-08-13T18:29:21Z

If you’re attending BarCamp Leeds, I need YOU. I’d love to know what you’ve been up to recently, and what better way to find out than for you to tell me (and everyone else) as part of an open mic “my last project” session. So tell me the idea again? At Leeds BarCamp, I’ll compere a session where [...]

There’s a new blog at Upstairs!

2008-08-11T17:20:27Z

Today we’ve launched a blog for my client, Upstairs Communications. The proprietor and brains of the operation, Rosie Fyles, has an excellent turn of phrase and a lot of experience in her field of Internal Communications so I can recommend bookmarking the site, or adding the feed to your newsreader.

Ideas for my Council (update)

2008-07-31T11:14:36Z

Guy Dickinson and I have submitted our proposal for “Ideas for My Council” to Building Democracy, a new initiative from the Democratic Engagement Branch of the Ministry of Justice (what a fantastic department name). The competition is not dissimilar to Show Us a Better Way from Tom Watson & co., to which we’ve also submitted this [...]

Great presentations - or death to bullet points

2008-07-24T08:26:42Z

I’ve spent a fair amount of the day today looking into fantastic presentations, and what makes them look fantastic. Presentations are really hard aren’t they? Getting up in front of people. Putting your points and ideas up there to be criticised. We need to give ourselves the best chance of interesting and engaging people, to increase [...]

The first WordCamp UK was a cracker

2008-07-22T23:12:44Z

I spent the weekend in the company of 50 or so other WordPress users, designers, developers, the odd Aussie Automattician, and a WordPress lead developer at the first WordCamp UK. It was great to meet a such a varied and interesting group of bloggers and blog makers, many of whom I’m going to have to wait until next [...]

Following hashtags with a Fluid app for Summize, errr, I mean Twitter Search

2008-07-20T10:21:57Z

Just put together a quick Fluid app for Twitter Search. (Fluid is a Mac specific browser designed to be used with just one app, and together with it’s user scripts, think Grease Monkey, you can mimic basic application functionality. I’ve just put one together which tracks the Twitter conversations around one Hashtag using the new Twitter [...]

WordPress plugin development presentation

2008-07-19T15:39:28Z

My presentation for WordCamp UK on WordPress Plugin Development (although I will update this soon with better slide notes): PDF version.

Ideas for my council

2008-07-30T11:29:35Z

You can click on the mockup above, to see a full screen view of the mockup. This mockup is part of a submission that Guy Dickinson of Participo and I are submitting for the UK Government’s “Show Us A Better Way“ competition to create innovative and socially useful applications with Government data. Update: You can see the idea [...]

Phew. My calendar is synced to my phone again

2008-07-07T18:54:09Z

My phone used to sync with iCal several times a day, but when I upgraded to Leopard it wiped my cron tab file and all that goodness stopped. (Your crontab file is a way of scheduling tasks on your Mac using the Terminal application.) I’ve just googled around for the solution and found it again: Use [...]

Why do the trains have to stop?

2008-06-28T11:56:59Z

Fantastic idea from China for a transport system where the trains don’t stop at stations, but where people still get on and off. Most of the energy in public transport is spent in getting the train/bus/tram moving again only shortly after you’ve stopped it at a station. So how do we remove this wasteful but [...]