Tag Archive for 'Wordpress'

Checkout the new coda.coza: Presenting v6

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2008/4/30
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

Respek for Damien, he’s produced something fresh and easy on the eyes ;-)
_ Presenting v6 - blog - coda.coza

My previous design lasted for almost half of that time. Despite its shortcomings (lack of a feature-rich CMS) and obvious design flaws, and given the amount of recognition that it received, I became hesitant to change it much. Until the waves of spam attacks began.

Since my blog was running on a bespoke system, it became increasingly difficult and time-consuming to manage, which partly explains why I haven’t been posting as regularly.

So after a tricky data migration and clean-up (the volume of crap I’ve written in the past 6 years is embarrassing), a tiresome metadata capturing process (adding titles and tags to 770 posts), and a couple of design revisions later, this blog has undergone a complete overhaul and is now powered by WordPress 2.5.1 with a super collection of plugins.

SxSW Day 4 - Final day thoughts and wrap up

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2008/3/31
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

So it’s a few weeks after SxSW now and I’ve been meaning to write this post for ages but haven’t had the time or energy to do so for a while now… so here it is ;-)

The last day for me was primarily about catching up with work, then preparing for the core conversation I did at 5pm, but inbetween that I did manage to take in “Considerations for Scalable Web Ventures” which for me was probably one of the most interesting and relevant panels of the conference.

I found the panel knowledgeable and happy to give away hard earned secrets and useful wisdom, which was cool. My humble recommendation is that if you have the opportunity to go see any of them speak, then do - you’ll walk away richer for it ;-)

I’ve promised that I’m going to send the content of the core conversation I did to the people that attended, so in the spirit of sharing I’m gonna upload it here as soon as it’s in a form that I’m happy with. More on that soon though.

As for the conference itself, I’m super happy I went. This time around the jet lag hasn’t been as bad, and having had the experience of the last time (cabs, locations, where to go, food to eat, when to sleep when to work when to panel) I enjoyed this time around more. I think that because it’s a huge melting pot of really cool people in the industry, where everyone’s interested in learning from each other, discussing stuff in the halls, and socialising (where all the cool conversations happen of course). London’s probably not the best place for a web startup for a number of reasons, so it’s a real inspirational change to be in the same place as loads of other people that are all in one way or another in a similiar situation to yourself… so it was good. Another humble recommendation - if you get the opportunity to go in the future, go! ;-)

Welcome to the Kindo Beta release!

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2007/9/7
in GTD and Productivity
. 3 Comments

This has been a long time coming, and it feels good to finally get there, albeit with a mountain still to climb!!!
Personal reflective blog post to follow soon…

A little while ago we released an Alpha to a small group of people, to gather valuable user feedback. Thanks to those great people, we’ve had our heads down improving Kindo, and as a result we’re releasing the Beta, and at the same time opening it up to a wider audience for more feedback.

We’ve made the following progress:

  1. Kindo is much faster now
  2. The Kindo tree is now much more stable and knowledgable
  3. You can invite family members to your tree
  4. Many more user interface improvements and enhancements
    • *Note: we’re continually adding more, so please tell us about things you think should work better or be more obvious.
  5. The internet is global now, so we’re releasing in 7 languages:
    • English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Afrikaans, Polish; with Russian, Turkish, Hindi, Hebrew and Arabic on the way.

Our mantra has become “Speed, Simple, Pleasure“, so in a nutshell that means we’re always trying to make Kindo faster for you, simpler, more intuitive and perhaps most importantly a pleasure to use.

Our new URL is http://beta.kindo.com/.

What can we do to make Kindo better?
If you dont like it – tell us why.
If you do like it – what are you missing?
Join the conversation on our blog, we’d love to hear your opinion.

Don’t worry – the same login details apply, and your data is all still there.

Have fun!

What’s happenning to Tech for Africa?

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2007/7/26
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

I’m the first to admit that I’ve had my head in the sand the last few months, and have received many emails asking what’s happening with Tech for Africa... So I thought that posting something public would be the best way to communicate what’s happening for everyone to see ;-)

Must say that the last few months have been a blur…
Since January of this year, Technovated has gone from 4 people, to 10, to a venture funded project with 14 people in all, over three office moves and many many late nights and long weekends.

There’s a blog post coming up about it all soon, but the long and the short of it is as follows:

  1. I’m responsible for getting our venture funded application out the door soon, so I’m stacked as it is
  2. I’ve battled to find dates this year that get the right mix of African and international speakers together at the same time
  3. I’ve battled to find the right kind of sponsorship early, which would mean the difference between something good and something mediocre - mostly related to point 2 (since sponsors like to be linked to speakers and topics)
  4. I’m convinced that it would be a loss maker if we didn’t get the right speakers - there’s a very fine line between raising enough sponsorship to make the cost for attendees affordable as well as afford to bring out good speakers; all before you have fixed numbers that are all paid up… and without a pot of cash to dip into, it’s harder to take risks

So, in truth I’m not 100% happy about it ‘cos I’ve been talking about it for a while and I’m the kind of person to do rather than talk wherever possible, but I’ve taken some good advice from people who are helping out, and the consensus is that we should be aiming for around March / April next year rather, to give us more time to get points 1 through 4 above right. I certainly don’t want to spend time, effort and potentially my goodwill only to get great speakers out to SA and the event is a dismal failure and costs me more money than I have or can afford!

Anyways, this isn’t a sob story if you were thinking you were gonna be reading one.

A lot of people have either told me to give the idea up, or told me that I’m crazy, but I believe that they’re wrong. I’m pretty sure now that the original format and idea that I had bubbling in my head is going to have to be re-thought to take into account the difference environment, the cost of long trans-Atlantic flights, and the relative expense that something like this is when compared to someones monthly salary.

That said, I think the direction to take is to adapt and give more time to finding the right dates so that the right speakers can congregate for the event. Once that is done getting sponsorship will be easier and therefore the chances of success higher.

So, bottom line is that I’m still personally 100% committed to getting this off the ground and happening in Africa, even if it has to be delayed some - I would rather delay by 6 to 8 months and make it a good one where everyone benefits, than rush to make it work in October and end up with something that is mediocre…

So, I ask you to bear with me, and to stay tuned. It will happen.

;-)

Proposed dates for Technlogy for Africa ‘07

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2007/5/3
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Check it out …

Dates that are in discussion at the moment are 24th to 26th October in JHB…

Anyone got any serious problems / reservations / issues / red flags with those dates?

The Curious Incident of the Missing Market - Technology for Africa ‘07?

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2007/4/5
in Uncategorized
. 2 Comments

Dave Duarte and Mike Stopforth have put together a regular marketing podcast for South Africans, which is shaping up to be a promising part of the ecosystem.

Recently there was an attempt to get a “web 2.0 conference” done in SA in May, which didn’t happen for whatever reason. Apparently there isn’t enough interest, which I can picture, but like Mike and Dave, I have my doubts about how the market was approached… Which is a shame…. but that leads me to my next point ;-)

They contacted me earlier in the week to do a Skype podcast, which I naturally said of course to, and after having swanky dinner with Tim tonight, over Flirtnik, I’ve come home and decided to listen to the podcast while getting some work out of the way.

Anyways, it’s always weird listening to your own voice, but I think I get the message accross about what we’re trying to do with the conference, much better than if I could write it here…

So, go check out the blog post, and listen to it.
Tell your mates about the conference, sign up yourself at the conference site so we can mail you more info, and get involved!

Also - while you’re at it - sign up for the Amplitude podcast, and you should also probably keep an eye on Dave and Mike’s blogs… ;-)

Also, while I’m thinking about it, if you’re interested in what we’re up to in London, then this is also worth watching, although in the next few weeks I might have to eat my shorts… but more on that when the time is right.

Web 2.0 London Geek BBQ - summer kicks off; BBQ Etiquette humour

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2007/3/15
in Uncategorized
. 2 Comments

It’s been about a week now since the the good weather has hit London, so I think it’s time to start thinking about the next Web 2.0 / Geek BBQ. This year has seen an explosion of the innovator community in London, or at least, folks are starting to come out of the woodwork, so it would be really cool to meet some new people, while enjoying the sunshine at the same time.

To get you into the mood, here’s a little gem from Tim (if you’re a girl, please take this as humour, from whence it comes ;-)

Right, so if you’re keen for some sunshine, stimulating conversations, and of course good meat, then please leave a comment here to show interest, and send this link to the people you think may be interested… (my mailing list has become to big to wield effectively in Outlook, so I don’t want to miss people out)

In the meantime I’ll start looking at dates and locations.

;-)

An update on Technology for Africa ‘07

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2007/1/30
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

I thought it’d be a good time to send an update on developments regards the conference so here goes:

Firstly, we’ve passed the “is there enough interest test?“. We’ve received more than 150 initial signups since posting the questionnaire and are still getting signups every day. Our goal now is to start fleshing out the details of the conference so that we can start increasing the numbers and creating more buzz.

Secondly, we’ve got some great speakers already committed to what we’re trying to do, and they are in no particular order:
Andy Budd (http://andybudd.com/), Andy Clarke (http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/), Demian Turner (http://seagull.phpkitchen.com/), Malcolm Hall (http://www.openboxsoftware.com/), Ryan Shelton (http://www.mutado.com).

All of the above profiles save Ryan’s are listed already, so here it is:
~~~

Ryan Shelton

Originally from Zimbabwe, Ryan Shelton moved to London in the late 1990’s to pursue his passion for design. Having worked within the design industry for over a decade, he has ridden the waves of the .com era and seen it morph into the more grown up industry that it is today. During the .com crash Ryan co-founded BD4D, a design collective that sought to encourage and unite the global design community at a time when most of the world had lost faith in the internet. BD4D holds live events around the world where designers and techies, primarily in the interactive and online media fields, get together to share ideas and to push the boundaries of the medium.

Ryan is a partner at Mutado, a design studio based in London and Milan, where he gets to work with some of the most talented people he knows.
~~~

We’ve already had some great suggestions for speakers, so if you have suggestions too, then please feel free to send them on.

Thirdly, we’re about to start confirming dates with keynote speakers, so should have some more information for you as soon as possible.

Additionally, we’re working on expanding the website further so that we take it beyond the initial questionnaire - more on that soon too. In the meantime, you can check out some of the feedback trends from the questionnairre at: http://technologyforafrica.org//feedback.php

***************************************
Our only request of you is that you help us to spread the word as much as possible in the coming weeks and months, so that we really can make this a reality. Please tell as many people as you can, blog it, add the site to http://del.icio.us, http://digg.com (and others like Reddit and Newsvine), and tag it for http://technorati.com/. We’ll also be sending news of buttons and such that you can put on your site shortly.

***************************************

Stay tuned, we’re looking forward to seeing you later in 2007!

Wordpress Security Update - PHP Security Blog

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2007/1/18
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

_ Wordpress Security Update - PHP Security Blog
Might be worth checking out…

Technology for Africa ‘07 credit card test passed, speakers announced

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/12/6
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

The last week or so has seen us sit with bated breath, waiting to see the reaction to the web and emerging technology conference we’re going to put together for Africans (with an African context of course). Well, we’re happy to say that the credit card test has passed, and the response has been really positive - At the moment we’re getting a sign up rate of 25% of visitors that view the site, which is not too bad I think. You can view what people are asking for at the conference, at our feedback results page.

So, that’s great but who are the speakers?
In alphabetical order, here you go for now (more on the way):

Andy Budd

Andy Budd wearing a suit but no shirt collar, sits with his hands clasped in front of him.Andy Budd is an internationally renowned user experience designer and web standards expert. Andy is a regular speaker at major design conferences and recently spoke at @media 2006 in London, and Webmaster Jam in Dallas, Texas. Andy is also the driving force behind our annual d.Construct web development conference.

Andy wrote the best selling book, CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions. In this book, Andy shares his years of experience in creating attractive, standards compliant websites.

Andy’s design experience and knowledge has been called upon many times as a judge in web design awards, most notably the Bubu Awards, the ReUSEIT Contest and the Web Standards Awards, which he founded in 2004. Andy currently sits on the advisory board for .Net magazine, the UK’s leading web development periodical.

A more personal side of Andy can be found at Blogography, a popular weblog where he writes about web design and web standards issues, as well as his passions for travel, photography and diving.

Andy is the creative director at Clearleft and runs their web standards training program.

Andy Clarke

Andy Clarke

Andy Clarke has been working on the web for almost ten years. He is a visual web designer based in the UK and started his design consultancy Stuff and Nonsense in 1998. As lead designer and creative director, his clients include local and national businesses, charities and government bodies and he has designed for The British Heart Foundation, Disney Store UK, Save The Children and WWF UK.

Andy is a member of the Web
Standards Project where he redesigned the organization’s web site in 2006. He is also an Invited Expert to the W3C’s CSS Working Group. Andy regularly speaks at workshops and conference events worldwide and is the author of Transcending CSS.

Demian Turner

Demian Turner has been involved in web development for the past 9 years. His primary focus is on developing multi-tier web applications. He also has experience building standards compliant XHTML GUIs, acting in a customer-facing role and managing projects.

Demian specialises in PHP/MySQL/Apache development on Linux and also has experience in system administration, requirements gathering, UML and Object Oriented Analysis and Design. He is the maintainer for the Seagull framework project, and contributes to SimpleTest, Max Media Manager and the PEAR open source projects.

Malcolm Hall

President and CEO of Open Box Software, a 50+ team of .Net developers out of Cape Town.

Born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, Malcolm was a founder member of a successful start-up (The World On Line) focused on Microsoft Great Plains—a mid-market ERP package—in the 1990’s.

Upon moving to the UK in 1998, Malcolm has, as a member of the Deloitte & Touché (UK) and then e2i (UK) management teams, managed consultancy teams in the London, Central and Northern regions of the United Kingdom. Malcolm has extensive hands-on technical experience and has also programme managed IT projects across the UK, Germany, France, Spain, The Netherlands and the US.

Since founding Open Box, Malcolm has divided his time between US, UK and South Africa overseeing operations and project delivery. He is also responsible for developing further relationships with prospective and current clients, as well as partners and suppliers.

We’ll be announcing more speakers as we confirm, and if you’re interested you can view what people are asking for at the conference, at our feedback results page.

Check out Mike Stopforth

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/11/28
in Uncategorized
. 2 Comments

_ Mike Stopforth » About

I am a consultant, writer and speaker. I help companies translate real value from Web 2.0 trends and technologies for better business. I’m privileged to have the opportunity to write a weekly op-ed column for the Citizen newspaper and am a technology commentator for popular business and marketing websites including Moneyweb and Biz-Community. I lecture at the Vega School of Branding in Johannesburg and feature as a guest lecturer on executive programs at the Graduate School of Business in Cape Town.

Check it out… ;-)

Tech 4 Africa - Gaining momentum

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/11/28
in Uncategorized
. 9 Comments

Technology for Africa '07

And so it begins…. We’ve started getting some really good feedback for the Tech 4 Africa conference (last check we were up to about 30 replies after a day or so of being up and emailing to an initial beta group for testing) which has totally surpassed our expectations. When the automated notification emails started coming in, you shoulda heard the shouts of joy! ;-)

Almost surprisingly, the feedback has been along the lines we were expecting:
people would be willing to go to JHB,
wanna know about stuff around web2.0 primarily,
want to hear international speakers, and
think the conference would benefit the African web community.

On top of that, we’re getting some good coverage on the blogosphere so far:
Update as of 27/11/2006:
David Duarte
Cowboysengines (business site: http://www.virtualworks.co.za/index.asp)
Hash @ Whiteafrican.com
Update as of 28/11/2006:
Coda.co.za
Scott.za.net
Muti.co.za
http://digitalafrica.blogspot.com/

Anyone else we don’t know about yet? (If you’re going to blog about it, then please use the following Technorati tags: tech4africa07,T4A7 or T4A)

Which is all good. ;-)

Some people have asked why we’re not just launching with dates and relying on “if you build it they will come” to make it a success - in short, 2 reasons:
1. We are speaking to some really, really high profile international speakers, who naturally want to allocate time to a conference on the other side of the world if they feel there are going to be enough people to make it worthwhile. We’ve invested the time up front to collect some real data, that goes beyond a thumbsuck, to show we’re serious.
2. We believe that business rules should apply - we need to at least break even, and we need to justify further time put into the project, so it makes sense that without real data we can’t make any assumptions beyond that we reckon 10 - 20% of people we email should respond to the initial email asking for feedback.

So, if you’re reading this and haven’t filled in the feedback form on the site then please do, just to prove us wrong ;-) The more data and feedback we have, the more likely we are to actually hold the event and make it something truly special!

I’ve also been asked what I’d personally like to see at the conference, so for posterity, here goes:
1. Web app dev in Africa - what it takes, how to do it, what markets are ripe
2. How the web can help Africa lift itself up - technologies that come into play, mindsets that need to change, strategies that work
3. What Africans need to do to compete internationally - once we’ve gotten over the bandwidth issue, what needs to happen for Africans to create more Thawte’s and PayPals.
4. What web 2.0 really means for business - technologies, trends, people -> how can it be leveraged?
All underscored by a good vibe, good music, good networking, and some good ‘ol fashioned fun of course ;-)

If you want to stay tuned to what’s happening, then watch this blog, and/or our business’ blog category wev’e setup for the conference (yes, I know the theme is still default K2 - something about the cobblers shoes I think…;-( - so it will change soon enough, as well as being an addition to our shiny new site which is being designed as we speak).

Also, we’ve been asked what to do if folks are interested in helping out:
1. Email us to say so whether you think you can help with something small or big - the more help we get the better - and we’d really appreciate it. Up front, we don’t have cash to pay people now, but as and when that happens then we’re all about getting the right help, so that may be an option. Right now, telling 10 of your mates would be the best help in the world!.. and…
2. Blog it - please blog it and help to moibilise the troops ;-)
3. If you have a speaker you would really like to hear, then please do email us to say so - being able to tell speakers they’ve been asked for by people is good motivation for them!

Cool - more soon - time to go to bed ;-)

WordPress Error: You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page « Mark on WordPress

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/11/15
in Uncategorized
. Closed

_ WordPress Error: You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page « Mark on WordPress
Doing WP upgrades? Check it out…

Web 2.0 London BBQ - Sat 5th August - the Webers have arrived…

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/8/4
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Just a friendly reminder, the next (Web 2.0 / Geek) BBQ is tomorrow, the 5th August, starting around 1pm.

The Webers have arrived, we’ve got enough cutlery to sink a small battleship, and I’m told to expect venison and some other tasty treats that one wouldn’t normally get from the Co-Op…

All you need to do is bring some snacks, drinks, and a fiver - that will get you all the food you can eat, and hopefully a nice healthy dose of Vitamin D.

OK, so here’s the summary:
Web 2.0 / Geek BBQ, done by real BraaiMasters Sat 5th August 20 Farquhar Road, SW19 8DA Doors open at 1pm, make sure you’re there before feeding time! -> Upcoming.org post.

If you’re a rugby fan, we’ll be watching the SA / Aussie rugby beforehand…

Hope to see you there ;-)