James Purser New Media, Politics And More

Hrrm, I've been doing more work in the backyard today, got the new compost heap sorted out and have been busy transferring the stuff out of the old compost bin into the new heap.

While I was digging out some of the richest compost I've seen I turned my thoughts to home power generation, (I tend to think deep thoughts while I'm working out there). There are many problems associated with setting up home power generation in Australia, not the least of which is the idea that it's a dream that either only the rich can afford, or that it's something that only hippies do.

For many people the impediment is the fact that they are renting, and really don't feel that they have the control over their homes that would be required to build home generation capabilities. Combine this with the fact that renting is viewed as a temporary thing, a step in between buying homes and you get the perfect recipe for  "meh". Even if they wanted to do it, it's not worth setting everything up only to have to leave it all behind when you move.

So how do you encourage renters and landlords to invest in these sorts of technologies? How do you facilitate those people who want to do the right thing and reduce their demand on the main grid?

I sent the below through to the LA mailing list, but I thought I would post it here to encourage some discussion.

"Just a quick question to ask how the reforms proposed and voted on at the last AGM were progressing?

Also how would everyone feel if I setup a paypal account or something similar and the facilities on the LA web site for people to be able to donate to LA?"

Okay, to be honest I haven't been coding that much over the last six months. Most of the work I've been doing has been either PC Repair or System Administration. So I decided that I need to get back into it.

I've blogged previously about the infrastructure requirements that I need to satisfy for the business. Well the first cab off the rank is a hosting admin tool. At the moment I'm doing everything by hand and I need to be able to automate as much as possible.

So I figured this would be as good a time as any to actually try and learn how python and django works. Having a real world project to work against works so much better for me than following theoretical examples.

It's been interesting so far, it really does require that you break out of the c/perl/php type syntactical framework, which given that apart from a brief stint with VBS (I'm still waking up nights shouting "Redim!" is where my coding has resided. I'll update this blog as I progress :)

We are like >< close to having a finished cast ready for release. Unfortunately we're held up by the fact that the cable we use to transfer the audio from the mixer to the laptop decided to clag it, so we're just trying to source a couple more (it was the cable that Karin used for her Sound System :( ).

Anyhoo, we completed the second interview on Monday night, sometime after midnight, after I realised that the recording app had crashed and we redid the whole thing - sigh. I think you'll be interested in it, I'm not going to reveal details, however it does look at the status of Free and Open Source Software in a country that we haven't touched before.

Doing more to get out and about, got Karins old bike out and pumped up the tires, looks like I'm going to join the spandex set, but I'm not so sure about the actual spandex, might stick with the real shorts for the moment anyway, don't think the world is quite ready for me in spandex.

The garden is progressing, rang Wollongong Council to check on Compost Heap size limitations, turns out there probably aren't any beyond the whole "public nuisance" thing, so I think that means that so long as I don't stink out the neighbours I should be fine.

One thing I seem to have lost sight of over the last year or so, is the simple satisfaction that you get from a job well done. I don't mean a project completed or a bug squashed, I'm talking about working with your hands.

Since I started on this gardening kick, I've built a new bed, started fixing up the old one and have finally cleared out the giant woodpile that stands next to our rundown old barbeque. I finished the wood pile about twenty minutes ago, and I have to tell you, I am aching in places I never thought I would ache, but I feel a sense of satisfaction you can't get from coding.

So I caved and I now have a twitter feed. For those of you who wish to see what randomness I don't commit to this blog here it is: http://twitter.com/purserj

Got a bit more done in the backyard today before the bad weather moved in. Managed to put together a sqaure for the second garden bed, despite playing the  "stop playing with the saw" game with three year old.

I'll take some pictures tomorrow and stick them up.

On the podcast side of things, there was some confusion about timezones this morning so we've rescheduled the interview to tomorrow :) I'm pretty sure that Karin has forgiven our interviewee for her having to take the kids for a drive at 8 this morning ;)

Business wise, got things sorted with part of the infrastructure requirements, however I need to find a good resource for django development. I'm building something from scratch, so I thought it would be a good excuse to explore the world of python outside of zope/plone.

Sigh I promised myself it wouldn't happen but it did. OSOTA got back burnered and I forgot to blog it. However we now have one interview in the can and tomorrow morning at 8am I will be conducting the second interview for the first episode. We have progress!

On another note, I've taken up a bit of gardening. I'm turning (slowly) the bit of backyard  behind our garage into a vegie garden. If nothing else it's really shown how unfit I am. Mind you, trying to rip out grass roots while your three year old clings onto your neck does tend to take it out of you.

Business wise, I'm getting closer to be being able to make an announcement  about a new range of services we're going to be offering, just got to put my nose to the grindstone and get the infrastructure in place.

Back to the podcast, I'm still using Skype to record my interviews (I know, hates freedom and all that), and I've found a nice GPL'd recorder for the current dynamic version of Skype. Can record both one to one calls and skype conferences as well, so look forward to more of what I think were some pretty successful roundtable discussions. The package is called

As we get closer to releasing the first episode the format is firming up a bit. This is what I'm looking at at the moment:

• News From Around The World
• Main Interview
• Karins Bits
• LUG Roundup
• Your Say

Your Say is where we want you to send in emails, links to audio files, something that we can play on the show.

So there you have it, if you want something included in the show, send us an email to osota AT fosscasts DOT org and we'll be happy to get it.

Sigh, I know, we promised our first episode tonight, and here we are, after a weeks delay and nothing. We will be releasing this week (hopefully tomorrow night).

There is a change happening around here. I posted this on my business blog a couple of days ago, and I thought I would share some of the changes with you dear reader.

We have renamed the business, or to be closer to the truth, we have given it a real name. No longer will we be operating just under my name, instead, we will be using the name Collaborynth. Yes it's a made up name, but I think it works to show how the main aim of our business is to help our clients through the sometimes very confusing maze of collaboration options.

We're in the process of developing our own hosted collaboration products as well as continuing the development of our more general hosting stuff.

This means that jamespurser.com.au has now returned to it's normal function as my personal blog.

The future looks exciting, let's go there!