Hi everyone,
I'm launching a new blog!
Don't worry, I can already hear you already thinking,
"A new blog? Why? You hardly ever update this one"
... and you would be right!
However, the new blog will be focussed on my business activities plus my various Internet projects, no doubt there will be some crossover related general tech and startup posts that will be more business orientated than personal.
So friends, I invite you to go have a sneak peak at SeanSlater.com - the new 'official' website of Australian entreprenuer, yours truly. The official launch date for the new blog is July 1st 2010 - that's when I'll start publishing new stories on that domain.
For those interesting in knowing a little more about the site - and no doubt, if you've clicked the link above already you are are either intrigued, impressed or indifferent about what I think is an awesome theme to kick it off with.
The new blog is running the latest version of the very popular and powerful website blogging software Wordpress, and a great custom retro Mac OS theme designed by Stuart Brown from Modern Life. Well done Stuart, the theme is brillaint!
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
I lost my mobile phone
It has been some time since I last posted up a new photo here directly from my mobile phone, and unfortunately there is a really good reason for it - I lost it.
I must say that I had been enjoying keeping a regular stream of photos up on my blog, my mobile phone (a Sony Ericsson C905) made it really easy to quickly take a high quality photo and publish it to my blog - so easy in fact that I posted up heaps of them, from all over the place.
Alas, all good things come to an end, even if it's a short one. My photo blogging has been temporarily paused while I decide which mobile phone I should get to replace my old one with.
The short list has been narrowed down to most likely either just taking the easy option and getting a new C905 again - I really did like the phone and it can be had for around $220 outright on eBay.
The other option is to get a real smartphone in which case there are a bunch of Android phones that catch my eye (being a big Google fan and user), probably the best one so far is the HTC Desire. My brother bought one of the HTC Desire phones a month or so ago and is really liking it. In the small times I've had a play with it I'm impressed too!
Anyway, just a quick post to say that the pictures will be returning soon!
Also the reason I'm actually here posting on my blog tonight is because I'm launching a new site tomorrow - so stay tuned for that - it will be announced right here!
I must say that I had been enjoying keeping a regular stream of photos up on my blog, my mobile phone (a Sony Ericsson C905) made it really easy to quickly take a high quality photo and publish it to my blog - so easy in fact that I posted up heaps of them, from all over the place.
Alas, all good things come to an end, even if it's a short one. My photo blogging has been temporarily paused while I decide which mobile phone I should get to replace my old one with.
The short list has been narrowed down to most likely either just taking the easy option and getting a new C905 again - I really did like the phone and it can be had for around $220 outright on eBay.
The other option is to get a real smartphone in which case there are a bunch of Android phones that catch my eye (being a big Google fan and user), probably the best one so far is the HTC Desire. My brother bought one of the HTC Desire phones a month or so ago and is really liking it. In the small times I've had a play with it I'm impressed too!
Anyway, just a quick post to say that the pictures will be returning soon!
Also the reason I'm actually here posting on my blog tonight is because I'm launching a new site tomorrow - so stay tuned for that - it will be announced right here!
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Twitter; the place to turn for immediate news
It has been a long time since I've actually posted a written blog on here, but I've got a topic tonight that I really want to write about - so brace yourselves, here it is!
Unless you've been living under a rock for the last year or so you'll have heard of Twitter, you may not know exactly what it does, or perhaps you do know what it does and think that it's a complete waste of time and something that you're not interested in, or perhaps you are like me and are trying to find your place in the Twitter ecosystem.. regardless of your position, let me put this to you, when something happens somewhere in the world and you want to find out about it - Twitter is the place to turn.
There has been two events in the last few days that have really reinforced this for me.
Yesterday in Perth at the Red Bull air race during pre-event practice, one of the pilots crashed his plane into the river. He wasn't hurt, (although the plane sustained quite a bit of damage).. news of the accident broke immediately on Twitter - literally from eyewitnesses on the scene moments after the plane went into the drink. Shortly after, a handycam video showed up on YouTube. All of this breaking news was reported by everyday people.
Tonight, here in the city of Adelaide where I live, we had a small earthquake.
I was sitting at my computer desk when it happened. It only lasted about 10 seconds or so, but it was long enough for me to wonder what the hell was going on as I watched things vibrate across my desk. I jumped up and ran downstairs, and then outside to see what was causing it - at first I thought it might have been my girlfriends guitar amplifier as she was playing before it happened, my second guess was a loud car exhaust or audio system.
After I came back inside I thought I'd check Twitter to see if any other people had noticed the vibrations - sure enough they had - and not just a handful of people - but thousands of people, all tweeting their experiences and locations. With all of this information streaming in it was easy to work out that this wasn't a small earthquake that shook my neighborhood, it rocked most of the city from one end to the other.
This flurry of activity moved quickly onto Facebook where people were again sharing their experience of the earthquake with their friends. Other users were setting up groups and fan pages to gather users who had experienced the quake as well.
While all this was happening - not one of the major news websites had anything about the tremor. It took almost 25 minutes for Adelaide Now to post a report - and even then the story didn't contain much information. It has been updated with more information.
The poor old web server that hosted the Geoscience Australia website struggled to keep up with demand and was offline for a few hours as people searched for more information. The server is back online now and functioning normally (although it does feel sluggish - but not knowing the websites normal performance, I'm not sure if that is related to tonight's activity). I grabbed this images from the website that shows what we all felt.
This is just one of the reasons I'm a big fan of Twitter - it really does allow anybody to contribute and provide information to people on the global scale. This isn't the first time that Twitter has done this, the unrest in Iran was widely reported across the service. But it is times like this when social media beats the traditional news outlets for that immediate answer that people are looking for - and without a doubt, services like Twitter will continue to fill that gap so we are all 'in the loop'.
My last thought on this is this.. I wonder, and this may already be happening, if Twitter and services like it will become go-to places for news agencies as they want to find out about breaking news. In the old days, newsrooms would have police and emergency radio scanners constantly monitoring for events that were newsworthy - these days, I'd suggest they turn to services like Twitter.
You can follow me on Twitter @SeanSlater
Unless you've been living under a rock for the last year or so you'll have heard of Twitter, you may not know exactly what it does, or perhaps you do know what it does and think that it's a complete waste of time and something that you're not interested in, or perhaps you are like me and are trying to find your place in the Twitter ecosystem.. regardless of your position, let me put this to you, when something happens somewhere in the world and you want to find out about it - Twitter is the place to turn.
There has been two events in the last few days that have really reinforced this for me.
Yesterday in Perth at the Red Bull air race during pre-event practice, one of the pilots crashed his plane into the river. He wasn't hurt, (although the plane sustained quite a bit of damage).. news of the accident broke immediately on Twitter - literally from eyewitnesses on the scene moments after the plane went into the drink. Shortly after, a handycam video showed up on YouTube. All of this breaking news was reported by everyday people.
Tonight, here in the city of Adelaide where I live, we had a small earthquake.
I was sitting at my computer desk when it happened. It only lasted about 10 seconds or so, but it was long enough for me to wonder what the hell was going on as I watched things vibrate across my desk. I jumped up and ran downstairs, and then outside to see what was causing it - at first I thought it might have been my girlfriends guitar amplifier as she was playing before it happened, my second guess was a loud car exhaust or audio system.
After I came back inside I thought I'd check Twitter to see if any other people had noticed the vibrations - sure enough they had - and not just a handful of people - but thousands of people, all tweeting their experiences and locations. With all of this information streaming in it was easy to work out that this wasn't a small earthquake that shook my neighborhood, it rocked most of the city from one end to the other.
This flurry of activity moved quickly onto Facebook where people were again sharing their experience of the earthquake with their friends. Other users were setting up groups and fan pages to gather users who had experienced the quake as well.
While all this was happening - not one of the major news websites had anything about the tremor. It took almost 25 minutes for Adelaide Now to post a report - and even then the story didn't contain much information. It has been updated with more information.
The poor old web server that hosted the Geoscience Australia website struggled to keep up with demand and was offline for a few hours as people searched for more information. The server is back online now and functioning normally (although it does feel sluggish - but not knowing the websites normal performance, I'm not sure if that is related to tonight's activity). I grabbed this images from the website that shows what we all felt.
This is just one of the reasons I'm a big fan of Twitter - it really does allow anybody to contribute and provide information to people on the global scale. This isn't the first time that Twitter has done this, the unrest in Iran was widely reported across the service. But it is times like this when social media beats the traditional news outlets for that immediate answer that people are looking for - and without a doubt, services like Twitter will continue to fill that gap so we are all 'in the loop'.
My last thought on this is this.. I wonder, and this may already be happening, if Twitter and services like it will become go-to places for news agencies as they want to find out about breaking news. In the old days, newsrooms would have police and emergency radio scanners constantly monitoring for events that were newsworthy - these days, I'd suggest they turn to services like Twitter.
You can follow me on Twitter @SeanSlater
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
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