Talking Tech

I had to try 3 times, but I got my dang blog back after upgrading to WP 2.8. I have to say that as complex as Drupal can be, I’ve never had much problem upgrading within a version. But I always seem to have some glitch with Wordpress. And Drupal gets easier and easier, faster and faster.

As if I needed someone to tell me that at 57 I am, to most of the world, an old guy. One of the tools I use to monitor Twitter, let me know that someone tweeted the following: “ashromano : @rmorse8843 omg ur gonna die go look at bob morse he is this old guy!!!!! its great.i miss you already LMAOO”

Let me interpret: ashromano is the Twitter name for one Ashley Romano. She has no profile on Twitter, but I suspect from her photo that she’s about 18. She wanted to send a Tweet to her friend who also happens to be named Bob Morse. Unfortunately, she guessed wrong about his Twiiter name. Then she looked up @bobmorse and yes, found out, OMG! He’s an old guy!!!!!. I suspect all the extra exclamation points means like, really old. I sent @ashromano a Tweet back saying I was grateful for the declaration and hoped I could now get a discount at Denny’s. But I doubt she will read the message. I don’t think she understands much about Twitter.

BTW, I was confused by LMAOO. As far as I can tell it’s a typo for LMAO. Which I knew without looking up, stands for Laughing My Ass Off.

Oh. And BTW 2, it looks like I’ll be teaching a class in all this new fangled communication stuff to a bunch of other old folks this Fall as part of OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) through Humbldt State. And BTW 3 you can follow the REAL Bob Morse on Twitter.

Technorati Tags: generations, old age, olli, twitter

Update (6/9/09): Access Humboldt recorded the event and the video is online.

Today the RTC sponsored a luncheon that was intended to elucidate the confusing information surrounding the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), how it might affect our region and specifically the prospects of improved broadband deployment. The room at the Red Lion was full of movers and shakers in economic development and Internet access interests.

Before the main attraction, though, we were treated to Nick Roney who won the annual  Don Wolski Memorial Scholarhip award. Nick read, and spontaneously augmented, his winning essay about online games and how they might extend in to useful purposes using their developed technologies and the players’ skills. His essay will appear as part of RTC’s ongoing Tech Beat articles in the Times-Standard. We also honored Chris Crawford for his hard work for RTC and especially the volunteer hours he continues to contribute to keeping the Tech Beat articles running with fresh content.

The main program featured Michael Kraft, Sean McLoughlin and Connie Stewart who each tried to provide a perspective on ARRA and how it will affect our region.

Michael, Executive Director of the North Coast Small  Business Development Center, provided a general look at how small businesses could take advantage of the funds. As the money will largely be delivered to government and non-profit agencies, small businesses will mostly benefit from a kind of trickle down affect wherein they may experience increased business from projects that will require contractors to actually do the work, and, of course, from the result of any large projects generating increased economic activity. However, a loan program that will be administered by the Small  Business Administration (SBA) will offer low cost loans of up to $35,000 to businesses that would otherwise be healthy if not for the recession itself. It’s unclear to me how a business might qualify for this niche loan, but if you feel you might, I would contact the SBA as the program will be available as early as June 15th.

The heart of the program dealt with broadband projects that are being developed to take advantage of ARRA and other stimulus funds. There’s been some controversy over who, what and how proposals are being developed to access the funds. However, it’s increasingly clear that there is no formal group attempting to muscle out others to gain an advantage with the Federal Government. There are, however, individuals who have a vision of widespread deployment of multiple fiber routes creating a robust, redundant and open system for the region.

Among the issues appear to be: 1) How to streamline policies and permitting across multiple regions and agencies in order to make proects feasible within budgets and timelines directed by the stimulus funds; 2) While ARRA funds offer to cover a large percentage of the cost of building mulitple fiber, the region will have to come up with ongoing management and maintnenance costs (how this will happen is unclear and will probably result in many individual solutions depending on the specific project; 3) Policy issues of open access and open competition for last mile deployment of services must be addressed; 4) Ongoing ownership of networks, which is related to the latter is completely unknown, but most systems will probably result in some public/private partnerships; 5) These and many other issues still have yet to be worked out,  yet they need to be in some degree, in a short amount of time, in order to even apply for the funds.

One effort is attempting to pull together several counties in order to create a regional application that would have a good chance of being awarded is using a model that created a regional plan for managing water resources. This model would create a Memo of Understanding between the four counties of Humboldt, Trinity, Del Norte and Mendocino that would become the formal agency (is agency the correct word?) to submit an application for funds to build these multiple fiber lines.

I am aware that other groups (private organizations, local tribes) are also putting forth their own plans. Some may agree to partner with this regional proposal, others will probably go forward with their independent proposals.

If all of this sounds confusing, it is. In fact, while people are trying to figure out the best possible solutions, the rules for applying have not even been solidified by the Federal Government. To add to the confusion, the State of California has its own evolving agenda and will try to influence both local proposals and how the Federal Government decides what proposals should be accepted. All this while California’s budget remains in crisis mode.

These notes are my interpretation of what’s going on and are not necessarily intended to be definitive, nor comprehensive. Even though I am a board member of RTC, I am not writing on their behalf. There is much more I have left out of this report. Feel free to add your own take in the comments.

Technorati Tags: alternate fiber, ARRA, broadband, fiber, Redwood Technology Consortium, stimulus funds

Hello, my name is Bob, and I’m a Twitterholic.

Yes. It’s affecting my work life, my social life, my sex life. OK, maybe not that…yet. But I am taking steps to control it. Really. I am. I have lots of 3rd party Twitter apps that give me much more control than you get with your basic account. I know, I know, I should just quit altogether.  But I am fascinated by this thing. At least until the next thing comes along.

One of the things that confounds me though: Out of the 6 million? users on Twitter, how many of them are worth having as followers? I don’t use tricks to get followers, but as of this posting I have 615 followers.  But so what? That’s not a huge amount. I am consistently followed by people who have thousands of followers. For example, here’s a recent follower’s statistics: “7621 Following | 7932 Followers | Ratio: 1 | 8834 Updates – On Twitter Since April 17, 2009 (46 days ago)”. Huh? How could this person post nearly 9,000 tweets in 46 days? And why does he have so many followers in such a short period of time? I’ve been on Twitter for over a year. Maybe it’s because I don’t promise lots of riches for almost no effort. So, who cares if this person follows me? I’d much prefer, 100 followers who actually read my tweets and have something to share besides get rich quick schemes.

What’s a follower like that worth? Not much.

I would love a way to screen these folks out. Anyone know of such an app?

Technorati Tags: apps, spam, trichs, twitter

I love Google, don’t get me wrong. I use their services for all kinds of things and what they do in general is astounding. Have you seen Google Wave (video), yet? But WTF? I have some Google alerts and I wasn’t getting any on a specific term that I know had daily news. So I checked the Spam folder and sure enough, there they were. Google’s spam filter thought the email the Google alert system was sending out was SPAM!

As a web host that provides email services I am fully aware of how difficult it is to be one step ahead of the spammers, filtering out the bad, letting through the good. But I am always hearing how good Gmail is. But even they have problems.

Technorati Tags: google, spam

Ars Technica points to a new bill introduced by Rep. Anna Eschoo. Here’s the essence of the bill/article:

The bill would require new federal road projects to include plastic conduits buried along the side of the roadway, and enough of them to “accommodate multiple broadband providers.” Conduits must meet industry best practices for size and depth, and road builders must include hand holes and manholes along the route to gain access to the conduit. Each conduit will also include a pull tape for fishing new fiber through the line.

It’s about time someone introduced this concept. But it should be pushed down to the state, county, and city levels as well. And not just with new construction. Every time a trench is opened on an existing road to repair a sewer line or a water line or whatever, lay the conduit! Deploy the fiber.  The cost at that point is minimal. The future payoff is enormous. If you don’t think fiber to the premises (FTTP) is where we’re headed, then you haven’t got your rabbit ear antenae twisted in the right direction. It’s coming. Even in here on the north coast. Lord, let me live so long.

Technorati Tags: broadband, fiber, FTTP, planning

The Sacrament Bee has done a nice job presenting an interactive map showing the results of yesterday’s vote by county. It was a resounding defeat of all the tax measures and a ringing endorsement for limiting pay increasess for elected officials during budget deficit years. Are we headed for bankruptcy? Possibly. Drastic cuts to programs? Absolutely. It’s going to be a long hot summer in Sacramento.

Technorati Tags: california, propositions, tax rates, vote

Last weekend I summoned up the energy to haul my boat up to Crescent City for a surf zone class led by Mike Zeppegno and John Day. Wearing a collection of owned and borrowed equipment to keep the bay at bay, I plunged into the waves and tried to keep my kayak from turning upside down. I was periodically successful. Fortunately, none of these photos show me ignominiously thrashing in the drink. I got really cold in spite of all the rubber and GORE-TEX® swaddling me.

I actually had a similar class in bigger surf about 5 years ago. Mike and I reminisced as he was in the class as well. Thought I did better then. Still, I hadn’t been in much surf since. But it was fun this time, too! Honest! And I will do it again.

Technorati Tags: kayak, kayaking, surf, surf zone

So the interwebs are all a-flutter with the Swine Flu possible pandemic. You haven’t heard? Then you are not connected!!! Are you not using Twitter? Don’t you have your Google Alerts set to swine flu as it happens?

Seriously, the news cycle is now measured in nanoseconds and is unverified but replicated endlessly. Perhaps, this thing disease has legs. But it’s really hard to tell. Mashable, at least, has published a brief article that provides some level headed sources for information.

Of course, Google  itself has its own map for tracking the episodes of swine flu.

Have fun!

Technorati Tags: apocalypse, panic, swine flu, twitter

I went to the Bayside Grange breakfast this morning. If you haven’t been this is a fun community event with good eats! But today they had an exhibit of electric vehicles from the Humboldt Electric Vehicle Association. There was quite a line-up of vehicles from what looked like a completey fabricated hot rod (built for speed, not efficiencny) to conversions (a couple of VW bugs and other cars) to a recumbant pedal machine with an electric motor. Pushing the edges of DIY technology, some of these things looked like rolling explosions. But I’m sure they are all safe. I saw no tow trucks that could have hauled them there. A great way to spend a sunny morning and experience the essence of Humboldt County.

Technorati Tags: bayside grange, eggs, electric vehicles, pancakes, suasage

Sure. For what search term?

I don’t do a lot of  pure SEO/SEM work. Why? Because I ask too many questions that clients can’t or won’t answer: For what term(s) do you want to be highly ranked? Isn’t the real goal to make more sales or get qualified leads? What kind of traffic are you currently getting? What are your expectations? How much of that traffic comes from organic search results? Where else do you get traffic from? What is the value of your web site and its traffic to your business? Are you willing to change the design and structure of your site to make it more spider friendly? Do you have time (or money to spend) for adding quality content? Do you know what search terms people are using to find you now?

I don’t really expect most small business owners to have the answers to all these questions. But doing a good job at this takes some time and effort, especially if the business is in a competitive market. It’s not black magic. Most of SEO is common sense. But it’s also a long term, ongoing process with no quick fix.

I subscribe to a number of web development mailing lists, RSS feeds, Twitter streams, and, of course, talk to web development clients all the time. What I have learned, if that’s the term, is that pricing web development projects is way more art than science. There are apples and kumquats. There are formulas and there are “realms”.There are jobs and there are sales pitches.

The bottom line, and that’s what we’re all concerned with, whether client or vendor, is extremely elusive. There are no standards. There are precious few comparables (that’s a real estate term, and even though that market has been around for many decades, the art of comparing one property to another is still very subjective). And those that exist are either secretive in terms of cost, or ridiculous in the eye of the client (either ridiculously high, or once in a while, ridiculously low).

But many organizations hire web developers based on price. And others hire web developers  based on the sales pitch, regardless  of price. In both cases, the client is often at a loss because one company will offer to do whatever they want at a great price. Another company will offer to do whatever they want at a very high price. But what is a low price and what is a high price? How do clients judge? How do you know that the developer is worth the price?

It’s A Crap Shoot

If you are a client looking for a web developer and you don’t have a referral from at least 2 trusted people, then you need to find a  consultant, fast. Otherwise, it’s a crap shoot. You are at the whims of your budget, or your emotional reaction to a sales pitch. Neither are realistic paths to a successful site.  I think there is a market for Internet strategists that help plan a web development project for an organization, but does not do the actual work. Since they are not invested in the project and have the client’s best interest at heart they could be more objective in evaluating proposals.

As it is, we seldom even respond to RFPs. They often take a great deal of work, are unrealistic in how the scope and budget are balanced, and often poorly defined. When we have competed for jobs we usually don’t get them. In following up, I learn that most often it’s because our price is too high. But to me, the price I often quote is scarily close to the edge of profitability. On the other hand, I have been learing what a few other developers have charged for failed projects (ones where the client has come to us because what was promised was far less than what was delivered) and I’m shocked to learn what the client was charged.

It’s a funny business.

Technorati Tags: price, service, value, web development

Finally got out in my boat, today. A beutiful, sunny, calm day on Trinidad Bay. I was hoping for whales, but even though I paddled out to Pilot Rock and beyond, I didn’t see any. Others I talked to did. That’s OK. It was a great morning. Refreshing.

These photos were taken with my crummy IPhone camera. But I was still getting email out there in the swells. No. I didn’t read any.

It’s been a long road, but the new Eureka Chamber of Commerce web site finally launched this past week. This is a Drupal site with a nice design by our friends at Carson Park Design. We converted their Photoshop file to a Drupal template. We installed and configured numerous modules, ported content and imported (several times) their membership directory.  We trained staff on managing the site and they are off and running.

Most importantly, we moved them from a proprietary system that wasn’t really working to an open source platform that will server their needs for years to come. We were able to use the latest version of Drupal and did very little customization which means they could easily work with any other Drupal developer in the future, and upgrades will be relatively easy.

That’s 2 local chambers we’ve done with Drupal and we’ve got a long stack of sites in development. Things are good!

Drupalers, Drups?

I’ve been back from D.C. a couple weeks and I am still trying to distill everything I experienced at Drupalcon. With three days of intense sessions, Birds of a Feather gatherings, discussions and keynote speeches I have yet to find a way synthesize everything. In fact, I was so excited by some of the things I learned, I am frustrated by not bing able to implement them. OK, it’s only been 2 weeks, so I should be patient.

Most of the sites we’re working on only use a small fraction of the power that Drupal has to offer. I’ve realized I need to do a better job helping clients expand their vision of what their sites could be. And do so without appearing to try and sell them features. Tricky balance. But I also really want to find more clients that already  have that larger vision and want to leverage the Drupal platform to build a communications center, not just a web site delivering content. In the meantime I’m planning a couple of my own sites that will offer some of these features. It was one of my new year resolutions after all.

Three other general impressions I came away with that I hope to write more about later:

• The Drupal community is truly something special
• Drupal development continues to lead the way in opening its framework
• Drupal 7 will have an ever increasing focus on usability and lovely themes

If you’re interested, all the main sessions and the keynotes were videotaped and can be accessed here. I’m watching sessions I couldn’t attend in person, and rewatching others.

Technorati Tags: drupal, drupalcon, web development