What I learnt is enough from probably a dozen blog posts, so hopefully I will be writing lot in the next few weeks.

The aim is to show how you can use CSS2 and CSS3 to improve the experience of visitors using modern browsers, while not blocking access to those people still using older browsers like IE6. I want to convince the audience, that you can build sites that do not have to look the same in all browsers.

I will be looking at what CSS2 and CSS3 you can safely implement now. The main provision it must not break IE6. It does not have to work in IE6, just have a safe fallback position.

The presentation is not aimed at people who read Surfin Safari, CSS3.info or similar sites and then go off an experiment with what they have been shown. That is what I do

I know I will be covering those I covered indepth before like opacity/transparency and <a href=http://nickcowie.com/2008/font-face/”>@font-face. Are there any other CSS2 or CSS3 properties you would like to see me cover? Otherwise I might go all shock and awe with transitions ;-)

State Premier's

• John Brumby
• Mike Rann
• Colin Barnett

Blogs

• Transport Security Blog what a Government blog should be
• State Library of Western Australia blog

Facebook

• School Leavers WA unfortunately their facebook page is not available now.

Twitter

• Western Australia
• TransPerth
• Forrest Products Commission

Others

• LA Fire Department
• 7th District Court of Appeal Practitioner’d Handbook wiki
• Intellipedia on Wikipedia

First up is OZIA, on the 20 & 21 September. I am really looking forward to this one, I have enjoyed the past two OZIAs and they have been real learning experiences for me.

Then it is of to Web Direction South on 25 & 26 September, though before that I could attend Web 2.0 Executive Bootcamp, unless somebody needs it more than me. If you are a manager or leader in government or business and are looking at adopting Web 2.0 tools and practices in your business and happen to be in Sydney on 23 September, head over to Incentive redux — free pass to Web 2.0 Executive Bootcamp and tell Stephen why. The only competition for the free ticket at the moment is me and if you beat me out, there will be no hard feelings, I am no executive.

On the evening of 24 September there is Port 80 Sydney and 25 September there is Aussie TUB which clashed with WebJam, bugger. The last couple of Web Directions, have been more of a social events with a dash of inspiration and couple of presentations that made my think and I don’t expect this year will be different.

3 weeks later I am back in Sydney for the MySource Matrix User Conference on October 16 & 17. This time I am presenting, it will be a quick run down of the forthcoming State Library of WA website, the details on it’s information architecture including the process and decisions involved as well as the features of MySource Matrix used to achieve the result. As with most conferences, the really interesting conversations are between the sessions and at the end of the day. What should be more interesting than last year, is more people will be doing show and tell on their MySource Matrix websites.

Then is back to Perth for Edge of the Web on November 6. A fully fledged web conference in my home town. I am not sure exactly what to expect. I have seen most of the presenter in action before and they are all good, the schedule requires some tough decisions and it will be a good conference. I hope it has that buzz that happened at Web Essentials 05 or OZIA 2007 that will make it a special conference.

If you happen to be at any of these conferences or social events, then come up and say Hi, I am not that difficult to spot, I do look like my profile photo/avatar and being a shameless self promoter you should be able to spot my crumpler or that tshirt I don’t bite, honest.

So why I so excited about a conference, 4000 kilometres away, when there only official announcement is the dates. Simply because the last one was so good. The speakers where great, they got me thinking (a good sign) and I learnt a lot. The single stream with breaks between sessions, meant you were always discussing the session just gone with other conference goers. The twitter chatter in the sessions was interesting, the socialising fun and it was just a great conference.

So if you have an interest in IA or UXD and want to attend a great conference, I suggest you book your tickets to Sydney for 20 & 21 September (and you can stay for WDS08 the following week) and head to The Savoy Hotel Double Bay website to get your accommodation around the corner from the venue.

Well my prayers have been answered. BarCamp Perth 2.0 is on May 10 at Central TAFE, 140 Royal St, East Perth. Over 50 people have already registered and a few presentation topics nominated.

I nominated to do a presentation on presentation planning. This came about after a twitter conversation when I mentioned work was sending me on an one day training course. This surprised a few people, because they believe my presentation skills were good, well they got better. While most of the training course covered areas I knew well and even disagreed with. My eyes were opened in the planning section of the course. This is what I hope to pass on to people attending my presentation and hopefully give people confidence to do presentations for BarCamp Perth 3.0. Seriously folks, giving a presentation is not difficult, especially if you plan well.

Also if anybody wants me to give a second presentation at BarCamp Perth 2.0 on a different, let me know, I still have some planning time.

So what will you get for your $25 or $35?

Lisa Herrod is passionate and knowledgeable about user experience and accessibility. I have had the pleasure to see Lisa speak before and I am not going to miss this one. If you do not believe me, you can download here talk and slides from her Web Directions 07 appearance. I recommend listening to presentation it will change the way you view accessibility.

I know very little about Rachel Cook, even in a small city like Perth, I do not know everybody. Still her bio on Ideas4 is interesting and I do need to learn a lot more on the marketing side of the web, so I don’t want to miss it.

With rumours of a mystery guest, finger food and the chance to meet and chat with most of Perth’s web community, it is a night not to be missed.

You will see some advertising for Web Directions North around this blog, the reason is that one lucky person who promotes WDN08 on their site will win a free ticket to WDN08, accommodation and airfares. Seeing I hope to go to SXSW this time, winning this is the only way I get to Vancouver next year.

OK I have done the commercial disclosure bit, so why am I interested in going, well in addition to the fun socializing bit, in the speaker lineup we have Jeffrey Zeldman and Tara Hunt. I just want to see Zeldman speak. Tara delivered a really interesting keynote presentation at GOVIS in NZ entitled Government 2.0 architecting for collaboration,
slides video, blog post with links to video embedded in presentation. Yes I am a fan of that presentation and even though I have seen the video a couple of times, I want to see it live and also see how it has evolved over a year.

In addition Tara and Chris Messina are delivering a full day workshop The Enterprise & Government in the 2.0 era: what’s next?, this is a workshop I really want to attend (Maxine are you listening, any chance of Tara and Chris for WDS08?). Like most Web Direction workshops I have attended in the past, I expect that if I attend, I will know most of morning session as they generally ease people less familiar with the subject matter into the groove. It is the gems in the afternoon sessions and the chance to discuss the material with other attendees that is of great value to me. And in Australia, when will you get the chance to discuss Government 2.0 with others trying or thinking about implementing it.

So if you have an hour to spare (and I thought I would struggle to fill 30 minutes) , you can watch me talk about how people are using social networking and the mobile web. If you have not got an hour to spare, go grab the slideshow from slideshare.net, see the stats on the first three pages, check out the personas and then head to the references and go download the Consumers and Convergence report created by KPMG.

The most surprising thing, was that while the first PodCamp in Australia was supposed to of been organized by Adam Purcell and Jared Madden. I met them early in the day, but they disappeared into the crowd and did not even present. The organizing of PodCamp Perth 2007 seemed to be handled by Bronwen (of PerthNorg fame) and Simone (of EnjoyPerth fame), with the help of a large number of Perth people.

Cameron Reilly did the unkeynote bit, with a mix of personal history of the Podcast Network, technology, how old media does not get new media and geeks for greater good. It was a good story, and Cameron is a great story teller, even if I still needs practice with his new MacBook Pro. Cameron asked the how podcasts could move out of the radio broadcast mold and then promptly answered the question, community. Using blogs, twitter and second life a small number of podcast consumers are getting involved.

Due to my caffeine addiction and my self destructing coffee machine (a long story, which might be worthy of a seperate blog post). I missed the next session to get a fix.

Duncan Reilly was talking branding in the digital age, it got me thinking about why I blog as NickCowie.com. Yes it invades my personal space, but only as much as I let it and in return I get a raised personal profile. The main disadvantage is it would be difficult to sell, my profile, unlike blogging under a pseudonym.

A quick lunch, a few snippets of conversation and it was back to the sessions.

I refuse to blog on political matters (I have a post titled Internet filtering and NetAlert sitting in my drafts folder, which is unlikely to ever get published.), but I went to the session, by Stilgherrian on the federal election and web 2.0, because I have an interest in the topic. Political parties with the exception on a certain senator from queensland, do not get web 2.0, neither does none of the major media outlets. It is not the YouTube election, it is the election of big political parties putting up videos on YouTube to get free television coverage.

One thing that surprised me, was the number of people shocked that activists from either party might use web based social networking to influence voters. I would be suprised if that did not happen in the last 4 years or more in the US and it should be happening now in Australia.

It was good to see both Josef Goebbels (by Stilgherrian) and Che Guevara (by Cameron) getting mentioned in presentations at PodCamp. Goebbels because his 19 principles of propaganda are still the principles of every political campaign run in this country for the past 50 years. Guevara because he is icon of revolutionaries, the number of people he had killed did get a mention.

Then I did my session on Social Networking and the mobile web. Unfortunately it ran a little overtime and I missed, the beginning of the final session of the day. Which was from Microsoft’s professional geek Nick Hodge. Nick provided a interesting insight in to blogging inside a corporate culture. (I avoid that by not mentioning work here). It appears to work with a code of ethics, peer pressure and self censorship with Nick and most of his fellow bloggers from Microsoft.

Then it was all over, everybody helped out in quick tidy up and it was of to the pub, to consume the proceeds of the tshirt sales and have a good conversation or three.

The crowd was a little different from the BarCamp crowd, missing were most of the Port80 web geeks. The librarians, educators and bloggers I met at BarCamp where back along with a mix of people from less technical backgrounds than I expected, however, they were as passionate as any hardcore web geek gathering.

It was an interesting day, the surprising thing that after five sessions including one I did, I was not tired, in fact it was a very relaxing way to spend the day. I am not a heavy consumer of podcasts and I believe I have a great voice for silent movies, so I am unlikely to start podcasting soon. So I avoided the hands on sessions and choose the sessions that interested me, I learnt and it got me thinking, which is what I wanted.