Nick Cowie

The recycled cycle

If you have wandered across my flickr stream lately you might of noticed a couple of photos of my latest bicycle. So here is the story behind it. I regularly commute the 2.5km to and from the train station each day. Until recently on self destructing cheap chinese hybrid, that is in desperate need of replacement. So when the latest bulk rubbish collection occurred in our suburb, I decided to see if I could find a suitable replacement. Unfortunately I spent the weekend clearing our shed of 10 years worth of junk to have a good look locally.

A few days later, on the way home in the bus (it was raining heavily), I spotted a suitable candidate …

That proposed filter

Greg Dwyer is collecting material on the proposed internet filtering in Australia. So I am sharing my thoughts and particularly my experience with the filtering software I now look after at the State Library of WA, with you as well as Greg.

One of Australia’s Top 100 Influential Twitterers

Well for the time being. Monday morning saw a flood of email announcing new followers. I quickly traced it back to Australia’s Top 100 Influential Twitterers. I was surprised to see myself as number 62. Since that time my ranking slowly dropping, as more Australia twitterati are discovered. Currently I am number 85, and probably by the end of the week I will no longer be one of Australia’s Top 100 Influential Twitterers, but that is no loss. I will keep using twitter the way I have been.

WebJam9 is coming to Perth

In conjunction with Edge of the Web, WebJam9 is coming to Perth on the evening of November 6. You do not need to attend the conference to go to WebJam. If you have never been to a WebJam, you need to experience it at least once. Close to 20 geeks, giving short, and I mean short [...]

Conference Time

It is that time of the year again, I am off to four conferences, three in Sydney and a number of social occasions in the next 11 weeks.

First up is …

Government agencies and social media strategies

I have started writing a series of posts on Government agencies and social media strategies over on my other blog. The first Why government agencies need a social media strategy was written last week. The second is a rather dry look at the workings of Social Media Strategy and Social Media Policy in Government was [...]

ACMA report into ISP level filtering

The ACMA last week released a report into the ISP level filtering. I have been spending to much time on FriendFeed communicating with Americans and missed the release of this report. Note to self, open your feed reader more often.

I have managed to keep quiet on internet censorship, mainly because others like Stilgherrian have been doing a good job of providing unbiaised information on the issues. Then I tried to read what was attempting to masquarade as a through scientific report, is was too much.

TransPerth customer service FAIL

I might be fan of the TransPerth web presence. However, their customer service failed for me big time tonight. Working late, I caught the 1935 train home from Perth, so I could connect with the 541 bus from Wellard station to drop me off outisde my house. The trip went well until the train attempted [...]

Revisited 12 Myths of Mobile User-Interface Design

While looking for information on mobiles, I came across 12 Myths of Mobile User-Interface Design by Aaron Marcus from February 2005. So I decided to review the myths given the arrival of the iPhone 3G in Australia and other recent changes.

The Myths

Cuil ain’t no Google, right now

There was some noise on FriendFeed yesterday afternoon, about the new search engine on the block, Cuil (pronounced cool). There was enough noise, that Read Write Web wondered How Did Cuil Get So Much Publicity the answer in pedigree ex-Googlers with IBM’s Web Fountain and Altavista background.

So like many others, I went and checked it out …