I entered in the Ideas (Student) category, not with any expectation to hear from them again. Of course, my expectations were inaccurate, and I ended up coming second place in that category, and winning $1500 for my school!

As a part of being a winner, I was invited to attend a fancy evening at the NSW Parliament House, last Wednesday. The evening consisted of talking to others in the government, as well as industry partners for the event.

It was interesting to talk to some others involved with the competition, and various other government projects, and to get their opinion on things.

Although the evening seemed a tad too political, it was enjoyable, and interesting to see the other entries. Many of these were transport orientated (including mine), which is not surprising considering that the RTA data is already readily available on the internet (although only as HTML, not in XML).

Now, the thing to watch for is if any of these projects will be taken on board by the government, and developed further. They claim a $50 000 pool is available for development, so I hope something good comes out of it.

Now, here’s a video of the competition which was played on the night. I’m not in this one, but there should be another coming out at a later date which will include a clip from me.

And they also have a Flickr photo gallery of the evening. Here’s a picture of me!

All of this work has found me increasingly tired with things. It’s not that I am not enjoying the work I am doing, but the combination and amount of it is just tiresome.

To combat this tiredness of day-to-day work, I have committed some of my time to work on what I have dubbed “Free Will” projects. This concept encompasses work I choose to do, and I have control of the overall direction of project.

This isn’t a new concept. It is a concept which I borrowed from Google, who allow employees to devote 20% of their time to do whatever they choose, in what is dubbed “Innovation Time Off”. It dosen’t have to be productive, but ironically, some of the best products offered by Google have been developed in this 20% time. Gmail, Google News, and AdSense were developed in this time.

I personally haven’t chosen to devote a fixed period of time to myself for my “Free Will Projects”. Also, the end result of this time dosen’t have to be saleable or submittable for marking. In fact, the end result isn’t as important. No, it is the journey taken and the things learned which is important.

While musing over this concept during the past week, I realised that the majority of my skills related to technology were developed while working on small projects for myself.

For example, I learnt the fundamentals of PHP & MySQL while working on a project several years ago called Playground Hunt. The original concept of Playground Hunt was to develop a wiki of all the nation’s playgrounds. I developed the code all by myself (with the help of online tutorials), launched it to the web, and then shut it down six months later.

This as a business venture was a complete failure. I was thirteen at the time. Thankfully, I didn’t really loose anything (except for $20 on domain registration). In fact, I gained so much! Every project since then has used the skills I gained while developing that little website.

One of the key features of “Free Will Projects” is calling the shots yourself. There’s no point embarking on a project if someone else is making all of the decisions – this defeats the whole purpose! You might as well be spending this time doing something else.

Also, for these projects to be useful they must be somewhat enjoyable. If it’s just going to make you stressed and tired, well, that’s not worth it. Go and do something else. This isn’t to say it has to be enjoyable 100% of the time – it’s perfectly natural for certain aspects of your project to get frustrating.

Finally, the project dosen’t have to be yourself. It could be for a not-for-profit which you are involved with, it could help a friend, it could be open-sourced in the future, or it could even be sold. This dosen’t necessarily matter.

I’m undertaking a project at the moment which is for a certain Christian radio station, but I have overall control of, and is helping me learn certain things as I go. I’m not getting paid for it, the project is a bit different, making it fun, I’m calling the shots (under the general direction of management, of course) and I am also getting valuable experience as I go! It’s a win-win situation.

The key point of this concept is to learn and grow as a person, while participating in something a bit enjoyable.

School Certificate

I’ll get rid of the boring one first. Since I am still in year 10 at school, I’ve got the school certificate coming up soon. These are a series of exams on the core subjects I have been taking at school over the last two years, including Maths, English, Science, History, and Geography. It’ll be held on the 9th and 10th of November. It’s kinds important, so I won’t be very active in other projects until these finish.

Radio Traffic Software in Access

Yes, I plan to write some software in Access! It’s something I haven’t done for ages (or ever?). Basically, I hope to make something which 2CCR can use instead of Excel. I haven’t really told anyone about it, and I don’t expect them to use it. I’m doing this for the fun of learning something new.

It’ll be real basic, basically allowing the addition of sponsorship messages, and manual scheduling of spots for each hour. It’ll also export a text file which can be imported into StationPlaylist Creator, as well as a printout of all of the spots so presenters can load them themselves.

Squid Proxy – Nicer looking error pages

At the moment, the Squid proxies I have setup display error messages wrapped in some HTML which used to replicate our station’s website. Of course, since I have changed the site so much since the proxy was setup, it’s kinda broken-looking. I want some standalone error pages (not linked to any website), which I can drop in any proxy I use and not have to worry about dependencies.

Fix the Headphone sockets in a studio

Studios experience wear and tear – this is a fact of life. One of the things I’ve been slack about recently has been replacing the headphone sockets in our main studio. I’ve got the bits ready, and the new amp has even been installed! I just need now to install the sockets on the table. This will require slightly larger holes in the desk than are already available, because naturally the new pots are larger than the old ones!

Install a new PABX

The board at 2CCR has approved the purchase of a new PABX. It’s a Talkswitch 488VS, with ten TS9133i handsets. In a desperate effort to save money, I’m doing all of the install myself. As it’s a software configurable system, it shouldn’t be too hard. Besides, I’ve already read quite a bit of the manual and it seems pretty reasonable.

You’ll certainly get a few blog posts out of this. I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve!

Work Experience, V2.0

That’s right, I’m going back for more work experience!! After a chat with my school’s careens adviser and constantly being in contact with Stephen Wilkinson, I’m organising a week of tech-oriented work experience from November 16 to 21st. I love that place… I can identify with the mission and I absolutely want to be a part of it, in whatever way I can! I’m sure I’ll also be spending a bit of my December holidays at that place.

Back to the 80s

That’s right, our school’s musical is coming up soon. And it’s set in the eighties! Back to the 80s is apparently a “totally awesome musical”, and the first rehearsal I was a part of was yesterday (but the cast have been rehearsing endlessly since August). It’ll be staged in our brand new hall this November. I’m on the tech crew, so I’m in for a fun week of getting everything happening in this brand new hall.

Blog more…

Over the last few weeks my blogging level has decreased, due to school commitments, etc. However, there’s been heaps of ideas buzzing around in my head which I now need to get written down. Hopefully it’ll start coming out soon.

All serious techies (hopefully!) know the under-over technique for rolling cables. However, if you aren’t up to speed on this, YouTube has a great video to explain it:

Now that you’re aware of this, get to work practicing it! Try it on extension leads, mic cables, Cat6 patch leads, guitar leads, IEC power cables, or even the garden hose! (yes, whenever I roll the garden hose, I do use this technique – hey, it works!)

There’s no excuse for you to roll any leads improperly. Don’t let me catch you doing it wrong again.

For those who have not yet been enlightened to the invention of gaff, here’s a definition:

High-quality cloth-backed adhesive tape. Stronger, stickier, more reliable, and generally about 1000x more versatile than duct tape. Also as much as $25/roll. Fixes just about anything…

That’s right. It’s high quality, and way better than duct tape!

Duct tape is what you use if you want to stick down your cables for a little while, but never get the stuff back off the cables. Gaff is what you use if you want your cables secured, but then restored to their original state when you rip off the tape. Never use duct tape on cables!

Never confuse Gaff with Duct Tape while in my presence, or in the presence of another Gaff-lover. It is like giving yourself a death wish.

Gaff is expensive, but well worth the investment. If I were to make a list of things to never leave home without, gaff would be on the top of the list, right up there with a GPO tester, pocket knife, and side cutters. In fact, there have been times when all of these things have even found their way to school with me! It’s useful stuff – even in the most unlikely circumstances; hey, I’ve even fixed a ping pong table at school with some gaff.

Family, take note: if you are ever stuck as to what to give me for a birthday present, a good roll of Gaff will do. (Not the cheap stuff, a good quality roll)

Jamie from the 37signals team did a great thing on Monday, and posted a blog entry with some free icons you could download. The intentions were explained pretty clearly: “They’re free for you to use and (hopefully) improve upon.”

“Not so fast!! You can’t just give something away without a formal license and some strings attached.” That was the cry from the comments.

The response from JF on the 37signals team was this:

What a perfect example of people making something more complicated than it needs to be.

…

This doesn’t have to involve the legal system at all. That’s the problem. Why do we assume that if someone wants to give something away for free, lawyers have to be part of it?

Break the chain. Lawyers don’t have to be involved in everything. This blog post can serve as the “license” or “proof” of his intention. And if you just asked Jamie to explain further, I’m sure he would. We don’t need complicated licenses or third parties. Simple statements, obvious intention, that’s plenty.

Obviously, it’s really hard to give stuff away for free. Jeff Atwood discovered this quite some time ago, and posted about it on Coding Horror.

Experienced developers won’t touch unlicensed code because they have no legal right to use it. That’s ironic, considering the whole reason I posted the code in the first place was so other developers could benefit from that code. I could have easily avoided this unfortunate situation if I had done the right thing and included a software license with my code.

[From: Pick a License, Any License, Jeff Atwood, April 3 2007]

He then provides a rather humorous comparison chart between the various licenses and even shows that the GLP is not the right license for capitalists.

Are we too caught up in the legal implications of using other people’s stuff without a proper license, even if they clearly state we can use it for free? It would seem so.

For now, it seems the simplest solution is to slap a Creative Commons Zero on stuff we want to release freely. It’s public domain, in an apparently acceptably formal and legalese manner.

Websites need people who can write well. Businesses need people who can write well. Radio stations need people who can write well. Without good written communication, you will loose customers (call them listeners, customers, whatever). Without customers, you can’t do anything.

It’s refreshing to see that FBi Radio are advertising for “Content Makers”. As always, the FBi website makes the job seem so cool and funky:

Have you ever used the internets? Do you have a computer, or know someone who does? Have you heard about Facebook.. or the new social networking phenomenon.. twitter?

If you answered YES to any of the above… then listen up!

FBI’s expanding our content team and we’re looking for writers, reviewers, bloggers, video makers, photographers & audio producers to create online & on-air content

This is great. FBi has a great brand, much of which is created through the writing style of their website and other written content. It’s kinda ironic that the phrase ” FBI’s expanding our content team” isn’t exactly grammatically correct, but that’s beside the point.

The written word is not confined to the internet or marketing material. It can come out through our airwaves – all those sponsorships, community service announcements and promos stated as written words too! You don’t want your communications to sound clunky – that’s why you need someone good to do it.

I’m sure most stations don’t have people who deal specifically with the written word. However, we all need people who fulfill this need. Let the Station Manager or Secretary get back to doing their work and stop making them do all the writing. Find someone new to do it.

What struck me as interesting was the feature on their website: call waiting times.

You can see me on that list as number three in the Sales queue. Every time I refreshed that page, I could see the updated status of the queue.

And eventually to number one on the list:

I have never seen this done before. Talk about open and transparent! I love it! Now I want every call centre to publish this data.

However, it can be improved. I want to see it display some more useful information, such as how long I can expect to wait if I called now – that would be cool.

Thanks Exetel for this great feature on your site. It has brightened up my day

Yesterday, Friday 31st July was the annual SysAdmin day. It’s the occasion where you can throw a big party for your resident sysadmin, to show him/her how much you care.

No one threw a celebratory bash for me (it’s not too late *wink* *wink*), so I instead spend a while browsing their list of Advice to employees on the proper use of the System Administrator’s valuable time. It’s great stuff. Here’s a few sample ideas:

(In following examples, we will substitute the name “Ted” as the System Administrator)

• Play with all the wires you can find. If you can’t find enough, open something up to expose them. After you have finished, and nothing works anymore, put it all back together and call Ted. Deny that you touched anything and that it was working perfectly only five minutes ago. Ted just loves a good mystery. For added effect you can keep looking over his shoulder and ask what each wire is for.
• When Ted’s at the water cooler or outside taking a breath of fresh air, find him and ask him a computer question. The only reason he takes breaks at all is to ferret out all those employees who don’t have email or a telephone.
• When the printer won’t print, re-send the job 20 times in rapid succession. That should do the trick.
• When Ted calls you 30 minutes later and tells you that the printer printed 24 pages of your 500-page document before it ran out of paper, and there are now nine other jobs in the queue behind yours, ask him why he didn’t bother to add more paper.

Awesome stuff! Have a great weekend :)