I am no graphic designer. The graphic designer I asked on the phone was… busy.
Having done some pushing characters around, my versions differ only slightly. But they got successively better. That poster was made from a Pages template that came with the app.
Something about the poster is crap. Can’t put my finger on it. Probably something with the body text. But, as it states its business quite clearly, I’ll go so far as to say I’ll post it publicly.
Hi again. Today I had coffee after work with Ola E, who’s blogless, but wants to start “unblogging”. He said something to this effect: “I want to blog, but not with a blog, I want to write down what I’ve done, and what worked, what I misunderstood, and so on. Like a wiki, but not a wiki. Structured, in a way.”
Could a more-structured Tumblelog do it? Lavish your ideas on Ola in the comments section, please.
While sipping coffee (in a so-so coffee shop at St. Knuts Torg, Malmö) we solved a few of the world’s problems:
Local media needs to celebrate Open Source folks and Web entrepreneurs. Here is a story I would want to read in the paper: area man Karl Wettin recently became a committter of stable search project Apache Lucene and its hot-hot-hot sub-project Apache Mahout project. Both are Apache projects, one of Open Source’s big bazaars of collaboration. Kalle’s hit the big time. What if that were news in our local papers? Publish those stories, please.
Networked data storage for the Mac “prosumer”: Is there a good SAN that works with OS X? Apple’s answer: XSan 2 at $999. Turning the problem around, Ola suggested buying a Bubba server. Then just using existing simple technologies like rsync to run backups. So, use a NAS instead of a SAN.
The upcoming Hackmeetup needs some marketing. I’m going to make a printable PDF. I called a friend who’s worked at a local university, and he gave some vague pointers as to where I should post such bills. He also promised to introduce me to teachers there, who could let it be known that Hackmeetup exists. Or, perhaps the myth-making is better?
Update: I posted images.
I have been to Solmukohta.
I’m at the airport. Internet connection for a day: 8 EUR, and it was simple to find a place to sit with an electrical outlet.
I sat down for typing this, and Bjarke and the-other-nice-Danish-guy walked past, and stopped to chat. Just when they arrived, Firefox 3 Beta 5 was released, so we discussed that. Foxmarks.com syncs bookmarks between Firefoxes on the many terminals you work at.
Random pieces: Danish joker asking banquet staff: “Is there Muumi-bacon?”. The Finnish bar was excellent.
Folks I talked to: Staffan, and his 2 Swedish friends (subjects: Swedish freeform scenarios and their publishing culture). We came up with a mini-project to make some “micro-apps” related to Knutepunkt.
Things I learnt: audiences are very co-creative.
The Friday was “lost”, due to all jeeps landing late in the day in Helsinki. Which was fine, I got to meet up with my Java consultant/roleplayer friend Verneri, have talk-lunch, and pick up Frederik. We saw some of the city, took care of some travel details out to the rural conference hotel we were heading to (read: we completely botched the bus trip).
When Tobias and Thorbiörn finally came, I’d bought return tickets for all of (unnecessarily, it would turn out), and we headed to the buses. Some nervousness was added when communication with the driver was shaky, and I’d bought too short a trip. But, after a nerve-wracking change to a bus with a zero-English-speaking driver, we got to the hotel in the forest. At night! I was elated to be there, just being in the right place. We celebrated. Me and Thorbiörn had been placed in the same room, and retired last of our gang.
Saturday, the day of our planned session, Tobias wakes up hearing Thorbiörn singing “Till havs” in the shower, and Tobias, thinking we never slept, goes “Nooo!”. He’d have to run the whole session by hisself, without support from over-celebrated friends. This confusion holds, until we come into his room, clean-shaven, showered, and raring to go – way ahead of him.
The night to Sunday was long, very long. After the banquet – which featured a steampunk robot musical/mime performance, Jiituomas becoming Jeeptuomas, and great conversation – me and Tobias sat down to finish our drinks. At some point, we’re joined by two airline hostesses – this is a costume party – who start singing Norwegian folk songs, in harmonies. Tobias knew the lyrics in English (of course). This was just like when we had a singing duel in Denmark, at Fastaval, a few years ago. Singing random weird songs like En sliten grimma is just joy. A German named Patrick (!) joined us, and was able to do The rattling bog at breakneck speed. Johnny MacEldoo was also performed at nuclear-fission tempo. Hanna Koverola joined the session a little later. Her longhaired redhead partner slept on a chair behind her. Much fun was had, until the very wee hours.
On Sunday, the closing ceremony was held in a large hall, with a speaker’s podium up front, it felt very Battlestar Galactica, in a toned-down way. Main event coordinator Hakkis held a dead-pan speech, which the crowd loved. He’s just getting better at it. He thanked folks, and also, the staff at the conference hotel. Applause was ringing. Then Hakkis left the stage, so the next Knutepunkt staff could come on-stage. They did so in a way that made me think of BSG: by chanting mystically, resembling the weird religious people from that world. To the crowd, though, the chanting was a reference to the rituals somewhat traditionally held at Norwegian Knutepunkts.
OK, I can’t shut up about it: it looks just cool. It now has more stuff than I bargained for. Anyone hosting their WP themselves should be upgrading. I guess I’m aiming for a newer theme, to get all the latest freshness on the frontend, too.
As WordPress has progressed, I have dropped plugin after plugin, since the main distribution had them already. Glad for the simplification.
Perhaps all this makes me blog more often, since I like the tool better now.