Nick Cowie

The recycled cycle

Nick — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:01:49 +0000

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 in a neighbouring suburb. It was a steel framed road bike, I was hoping for a steel framed mountain bike, but it just lying there, looking for a new home. So in the half light of dusk and in pouring rain I grabbed that bike and what looked like the remains of another heavily abused road bike that was lying underneath it for spares.

One closer inspection, the first bike I spotted was a 25 year old taiwanese road bike, from a time when the taiwanese went for quantity not quality. While the frame was in decent condition, in addition to a destroyed set of front wheel bearings which put the bike of the road many years ago. all the no name components (wheels, brakes, cranks, stem etc.) as well as being poor quality and heavy, they where badly rusted and unusable.

The abused bike was a japanese entry level racer of similar vintage. The frame was badly corroded by rust and damaged by a previous owner aggressively fitting a kickstand. The components including Araya rims, Sunigo cranks and chain ring, Cherry cable pull breaks, SR stem and Shimano shifters and gears where is suprisingly good condition and while the steel components, the bars, rims and cranks had surface corrosion, a single treatment of rust convertor fixed that.

So I spent $60 of new tubes, tyres, chain and brake cables (well $85 if you include tyre liners). Stripped two bikes down, cleaned the components, cleaned and repacked the bearings. The rebuilt one bike out of the parts, using the heavy but serviceable taiwanese frame, the japanese components, a seat I had taken off my mountain bike a couple of years ago, a set of pedals I was going to put on my mountain bike and after a few hours later I had a new commuter which is fun to ride.

Why another bike when you have 3?

Was the question Angie asked. I already have a good road bike bike and a good mountain bike, but neither are really suited for the commute. A dual suspension mountain bike with soft rubber is best suited to hammering singletrack and clambering over obstacles not a couple of kms over bitumen, with a little dirt and some kerb hopping thrown in, neither is my road bike. Plus I don’t like the idea of abandon either at the train station, even though most days I get a bike locker.

So that leaves the hybrid. Well the hybrid is just a cheap piece of mass produced rubbish, bought a few years ago from a discount store when I did not know better. It got me back into cycling, but that is it’s only virtue, built to the cheapest possible price, poor quality control and components. It is failing terribly, both wheel are buckled, the gears are interesting challenge, it needs to go to the bulk rubbish collection.

Why recycled not new?

Why not, I wanted a bike to commute to the train station, I could get what I needed by recycling someone else’s trash. Instead of buying a cheap bike from a discount store for a few dollars more. I wanted something reliable and durable, my experience with cheap new bikes is they are anything but reliable and durable.

If I wanted something new that was reliable, durable and suited to the job in hand, I would need to spend more and make the purchase from a specialist bike store. However, after spending a few hundred dollars on a bike would I feel happy leaving it at the train station, probably not.

Why singlespeed?

Back to reliability and durability, I just want to be able to grab the bike and ride to the train station each morning with minimum maintenance. I am sure I would of got the six speed Shimano Deore rear derailer working again. However, with my road and mountain bikes the rear derailer needs regular maintenance to perform at it’s peak. Without proper maintenance, worn or poor quality parts it is annoying to apply extra force to the pedals and the bike to shift a gear or two, like what happens now with my hybrid.

Also the commute is relatively flat, both my house and the train station are at the top of hills, but neither inclines are steep. The current gearing of 40/17 is more than required. I have used 40/15 without a problem, but the chain does not run true and I not ready to step up to 52/20. But for the commute one gear is enough.

All the cool kids have fixies

Why did I not I go for the simplicity of fixed gear (pedals directly driving the rear wheel, so if you stop pedalling the rear wheel stops turning). Two reasons, the parts I had made a singlespeed and I have had interesting experiences pedalling around corners, as the motorcyclist in me leans heavily and pedals have dug into the ground. This is not something I wish to repeat, particularly as the way home involves a long downhill straight (which I have be known to break the local speed limit on my roadie), a roundabout with a 270 degree turn and a short uphill section, which I try to hit at maximum possible speed.

Advice for others

Recycling an old bike is relatively easy, it does require some specialist tools, but if you are buying your parts from your local bike shop, they will usually help you out. The labour is the easy part, picking the right bike to recycle is the challenge and requires the luck.

And I will back on the scrounge next year, looking for a decent steel frame preferably in a large size and any other quality components that fall my way.

Final word, one other thing to add to your shopping list, new brake pads, 25 year old brake pads do not stop as you as you hoped.

That proposed filter

Nick — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:31:58 +0000

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.

The library started using filtering software after a few incidents involving members of the public accessing pornography on public access computers in open areas of the library. The filtering software is provided by a major international provider and has a blocking list updated twice a week.

When I was given control of the filtering software, I had a good look at what sites where blocked and particularly the exceptions that where added by my predecessors, because the filter was also applied to the staff internet access and with very conservative settings, blocking a number of categories.

Amongst the surprises, where:

World movies pay TV channel website is classified as pornography and blocked.
A site aimed at provided very basic health information (including sexual health) to pre-teens was classified is sexual material and blocked.
The website of a well known Australian gay and lesbian book store is classified as sexual material and blocked. Even though the same books, often with more details are available through Amazon, which is not restricted in anyway.
An online Australian store specialising in horror DVDs was blocked. I believe graphic violence is the category. However, the great majority of the DVDs could be purchased on Amazon with equally graphic descriptions, which is not restricted in anyway.

So what will happen if a book is published in the US and is refused classification in Australia. A good example would be a book on voluntary euthanasia, which while topical in the US, there is no reason for Amazon not to stock it. Unfortunately such a book would be refused classification in Australia. So how would the Australian filtering regime deal with Amazon selling the book and making excerpts available on the web?

Block access to the Amazon site. This would appear to be normal course of action, if a site has any restricted content, the whole site is blocked. So how would the Australian Government deal with international criticism of their action of telling a retailer in another country what the can or can not sell in any other country, by punishing them, by blocking access to the Australian market?

By blocking access to the pages pertaining to that book on Amazon’s site. There are a number of issues:

There is a lot more work involved in blocking individual pages than sites.
Page blocking fails with dynamically generated content.
Why block pages on some sites and block complete sites on other occasions. The have and have nots of filtering, treating Amazon and other big sites differently from smaller retailers without the clout.

Ignore it, because it is too difficult. Which again raises the issues of the have and have nots of filtering, treating Amazon and other big sites differently from smaller retailers without the clout.

Our filter setting where changed last year after discussions with senior management, to just pornography and malicious sites. Since that time, the number of pages blocked has fallen dramatically and there was only one issue. A member of the public was behaving inappropriately when accessing pornography on a public access computer.

A review of the filter log found that the person tried and failed to access 17 different pornographic sites, before succeeding on the 18th attempt. Further investigation of the log files, indicate that this was not the only time multiple attempts to access pornographic sites was made. Often more than 20 failed attempts are made, before either success or giving up, which appears to be a rare success. While the filtering software is good and blocks access to the great majority of pornographic sites. Repeated attempts by a determined person will gain access to pornography.

With the reduction in the number categories has also reduced the number of sites blocked, it still appears to be a small proportion of false positives. It is very frustrating to be researching a web development issue, only to find the site which may have the answer blocked. Particularly when you access the site by other means (laptop with 3G broadband card or mobile phone) and find no reason why that site should be blocked. It happens in less than 1% of all sites I try to access, but it is frustrating for me and I always have alternative methods available. It will be more frustrating for our clients who are researching obscure topics and do not alternative access.

Based on my experience, I would say the filter will have not have the desired effect that Senator Conroy or the Government desires:

People seeking pornography or refused classification material will keep trying until they find the material they want. Filters may block the majority of this content but can not block all of it. There is a lot of that material on the internet and people we keep trying to find it until they succeed.
People seeking very specific information, will get frustrated as on occasions site they are referred to are blocked for no apparent reason.

The commercial implications for web commerce could be quite dramatic, will the Australian Government block access to Amazon and eBay for displaying and selling RC material? Will the government compensate to retailers for lost income when their sites are incorrectly blocked? How many retailers will use the filter as a weapon, by complaining about competitor sites dealing with adult content? Will specialist retailer sites be blocked, while the the more general retailer selling the same products is not?

One of Australia’s Top 100 Influential Twitterers

Nick — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:02:29 +0000

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, with a few new followers and friends.

Update 23 Oct 2008 still hanging in there. Here is my Twitter Grade courtesy of Twitter Grader, not great, but I want to converse not broadcast on Twitter.

WebJam9 is coming to Perth

Nick — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:08:40 +0000

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 3 minute presentations on what ever they are passionate about, often show off their new projects.

It is fun, fast and furious evening with a bunch of fellow geeks and there is usually a healthy bar tab to get you into the spirit. So you need to go register now for free as places are limited

Speaking at WebJam is fun and slightly addictive. I highly recommend it to anybody, even if you have never presented before. It is a great way to learn the skills to present and what is the worst that can go wrong. You lose your voice the moment you go on stage and have to give you presentation through interpretive dance. It is only 3 minutes so embarrassment will disappear quickly as soon as the next presenter gets on stage. Also as long as you are not giving a full on sales pitch, the audience is extremely forgiving.

I know I have given 3 presentations and hopefully I will be presenting at WebJam9, the topic is still undecided, I have a couple of ideas I have to work through, but I will definitely be there and presenting if I get the call.

So what tips have I got for first time WebJam speakers. Practice and practice again, you only have 3 minutes and the time limit is enforced. So make sure your presentation is less than 3 minutes long and you know it well. Also be prepared, the clock starts when you step on stage, so make sure everything is loaded and ready to roll. You can not afford to waste 20 or 30 seconds, starting software, typing in URLS etc. And most of all do not take it to seriously, have fun.

So start working on your proposal know and I will see you at the UWA tavern on November 6.

Conference Time

Nick — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 09:58:07 +0000

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 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.

Government agencies and social media strategies

Nick — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 10:01:24 +0000

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 posted tonight. The third on the less dry How to get your agency interested in a Social Media Strategy, should be arrive in a few days, I just need to find the right examples.

The examples I am seeking are not of government agencies using social media, but social media about government agencies, so if you know of any blogs, facebook groups etc about government agencies and their policies by clients, citizens or ex-employees, please let me know.

Why am I writing about Social Media Strategy and Government. I am the first to admit I am not an expert social media strategist. However, I do know a lot about social media and I have spent close to a dozen years working in the policy and communications sections of various government departments, so I have a good understanding of Government Communications Strategy. That combination is rare, so I willing to put my opinions out there.

ACMA report into ISP level filtering

Nick — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:41:44 +0000

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.

A few examples

In comparing methods of circumventing filtering by others (children) in the household, at the PC level the report mentions administrator access to the filter software. Unfortunately the report fails to mention that the ISP filtering service can be altered by the account holder using a passowrd, logging in their ISP and changing the settings.

The testing was carried out in Tasmania. Unfortunately internet traffic to and from Tasmania is very expensive. So large investments in proxy and caching servers are used, which would make the mythical tier 3 ISP used for the tests having considerabley more hardware at their disposable than a typical mainland tier 3 ISP

Though I must admit my favourite disaster is the moving of strong M material from category 3 material that should not be blocked to category 2 material that should be blocked. Did the testers decided this content which legally should be available, should be blocked because they know better than the censors or because it gave them better results.

This is not an unbiased scientific report, this is a report to serve a purpose to show that ISP level filtering has improved. Even taking it on face value, it has not improved enough to implement on a national level and I can not take the report on face value.

TransPerth customer service FAIL

Nick — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:23:29 +0000

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 to stop at Wellard and it just slide through the station, and failed to stop.

So I walked down the train to complain to the two security guards riding the train, I did not even get to explain the story went the train driver opened his door and apologised for failing to stop, because there must of been sudden shower, because brakes would not grip, it is all metal on metal. The driver got on the radio as did one of the security guards, who was trying to delay the bus which was due to leave Wellard Station in less than 10 minutes, which means I need to catch a return train straight from Rockingham back again, otherwise I would have to walk the 2.5km home in very wet weather. The driver, meanwhile told me Just go see the guys at the security at Rockingham, they will sort something out, they will probably get you a taxi.

Then the train pulled into Rockingham Station, just as the train heading back towards Perth left. So with the next train back to Wellard Station 28 minutes away, I approached the security guards in their office. There response was Sorry, the driver must of been talking to the other station, there is nothing we can do. Faced with a choice of waiting 28 minutes for the next train and probably a 2.5km walk home, a 920 bus pulled outside of the station. So I took the chance, caught that bus home. It was a 15 minute bus ride and 1km walk home in wild weather, but I got home. Unfortunately I had to pay extra for the privilege because the train took me an extra zone.

Trying to lodge a complaint on the TransPerth site is also a saga I found the complaints page only after going through the navigation twice, two searches and half a dozen pages later I found a link to that page, no contact us or feedback, just a complaints page.

Revisited 12 Myths of Mobile User-Interface Design

Nick — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:07:27 +0000

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

Myth: Users want power and aesthetics. Features are everything.

Well with the demand for the iPhone it is aesthetics that win, features are not everything the iPhone lacks video calling, video capture, stereo bluetooth and more.

Myth: What we really need is a Swiss army knife.

No, look at the iPhone it does a few things well.

Myth: 3G is here!

Well 3G has arrived in Australian capital cities, beyond that in Australia you need to rich enough to afford Telstra. In other parts of the world I do not know what it is like, other than AT&T coverage in the US is limited.

Myth: Focus groups and other traditional market analysis tools are the best way to determine user needs.

Agreed, traditional marketing analysis tools can not deal with services that are only being used by a small minority at the moment.

Myth: If it works in Silicon Valley, it will work anywhere.

Agreed at the moment, there is a big discrepancies between network services available in various locations around the world, though I would prefer it if the myth read If it works in Bangalore, India it will work anywhere. As best mobile networks are not necessarily in the USA.

Myth: The killer app will be games, –er, no, I mean, horoscopes or–

This month it is location aware social networking services. I agree that killer app for mobile devices keeps changing, I don’t believe there will ever be a single killer app for mobile devices, but a number of web services that will tip the scales.

Myth: Mobile devices will essentially be phones, organizers, or combinations, with maybe music/video added on.

Well look at the desirable devices on the market, the iPhone 3G, the Nokia N95 8Gb, the HTC Touch Diamond they are phones with organisers, music, video and GPS included. More and more mobile devices are including these features.

Myth: The industry is converging on a UI standard.

Ever used a mobile device with another OS, you will know there is no standards in mobile devices UI.

Myth: Highly usable systems are just around the corner.

I think this myth is busted, the average iPhone does 50 times more web browsing than the average web enabled mobile phone. It is a highly usable system and that is being demonstrated by it’s owners.

Myth: One underlying operating system will dominate.

The only change since 2005, is the decline PALM, the rise of Apple and the forthcoming arrival on Andriod, there will be at least 5 major players in the mobile device OS field.

Myth: Mobile devices will be free-or nearly free.

That is still a myth, because while devices are nearly free they are tied to expensive long term contracts.

Myth: Advanced data-oriented services are just around the corner.

I would like to say this is no longer a myth, advanced data-oriented services are close, I just can not give examples.

So what do you think?

Cuil ain’t no Google, right now

Nick — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 10:02:02 +0000

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, and like most bloggers the first search was a vanity search, “Nick Cowie”. The result where okay, this blog home page came up first, but there was also 6 other entries for this blog on the front page along with my jaiku, claimID, RedBubble pages along with that web sledging video on viddler. The next page had a few more blog pages, my twitter page and a couple of comments I posted on Richard Rutter’s blog. It took until the third page before the unfortunate scotsman who shares my name got a guernsey, which is the same as Google. I must admit the quality of the results where much better on Google that Cuil. Though I did find the Cuil results page interesting, though I don’t know how long I could cope with the three column magazine inspired layout.

Some of the more interesting conversation on FriendFeed focused on the images that Cuil was displaying next to the search results. I was disappointed, I had no images related or otherwise on my search or any search I did, for the next few hours.

It appears that the initial publicity had delivered an incredible volume of traffic to Cuil, so they did not return images with search results and some of my searches returned no results, even when trying to display a third page of search results. After a few hours it returned to normal and Cuili started displaying images with search results. The images of my vanity search did not related to me, even though there is enough of them out there.

So was the hype worth it, no. I love Cuil’s privacy policy, like there search interface and results page, but the ranking of the results leaves a lot to be desired by me and the images are just unrelated eye candy. Interesting start now lets see what develops and hope for a Google challenger.