I was recently at an event run by Social Media Club Melbourne (free event), where I listened to Darren Rowse, Mr Pro Blogger talk. Now, I already thought he was ace, I follow one of his blogs, thats why I went, but he said something while talking about social media that I think can be applied to pretty much everything in life. I could misquote exactly what he said, but the crux of the message was “Give”. He said give stuff away. Not necessarily free shampoo samples or such things, but information. Blog posts that are all about “HOW TO…” do something.

You, my intelligent reader are no doubt aware of some of the most AWESOME free shit in the form of TED “Riveting Talks by remarkable people, free to the world” as they pitch themselves. They have embraced the idea of giving more than any other example I can think of. And lets face it, the internet is an Aladdin’s cave of free shit. So maybe I don’t need to tell you that Free shit is cool. Free shit will open your mind. Free shit has nothing to lose. You have nothing to lose with free shit. (Am I allowed to swear this much?) I’m talking events, activities, entertainment, workshops and exhibitions. You will go to an event you wouldn’t normally, simply because its FREE. You will open your mind to new interesting things that you had never thought of.

So I am whole heartedly encouraging you to give away as much as you can, you will reap the rewards. I am starting by giving you my list of 5 free things to do in Melbourne;

1. FREE MOVIES at Oustide In Cinema at the State Library (we saw Planet B-Boy, it was ace, I want to learn to break dance now)

2. FREE PERFORMANCES at the Arts Centre (check this one out Break dancing comp ok so its break dancing again, I may have been inspired by the film)

3. FREE ENTRY at Melbourne Open House – get into all those cool buildings you don’t normally have access to

4. FREE TV SHOW – be part of an audience at shows like Spicks and Specks, Thank God You’re Here, The X Factor, The 7PM Project.

5. FREE LOL at the Fed Square Laughter club

I thought I would share 5 great tools that I use everyday on my Mac. These are some handy things you can use to enhance your OS X experience.

1. TotalFinder

This neat little app is one that I can’t imagine working without.  TotalFinder is not a Finder replacement but an enhancement to the native OS X Finder.  First thing you will notice is the addition of Chrome style tabs.  This instantly takes all your finder windows and keeps them neatly inside a single window.  There are options for a dual pane view, you can drag and drop between tabs and you can pull a tab out to create a new window. You can try the alpha version for free here.

2. SecondBar

This one is for all the dual monitor junkies out there.  Having dual monitors is a great way to increase efficiency but one draw back is the absence of a menu bar on your second screen. Enter SecondBar. This simply mirrors the menu bar from your primary monitor and displays it on your secondary screen. Check it out here.

3. RightZoom

The little green plus button on the top left corner of all windows is something I’ve never really been able to figure out. Depending on what app your in it’s behavior is different. You would expect this button to enlarge your window to full-screen (like the expand button on Windows), but this is rarely the case.  RightZoom forces this button to work the way it should. Download here.

4. CloudApp

CloudApp is by far the easiest tool to share files I have used.  Either drag your file onto the little cloud in your menu bar or take a screen shot, then hit the paste key in your email or IM and you have a URL linked to your file.  Easy as that, and it’s also free!  They also have a web interface where you can see all the files you have added to your cloud. You can sign up and download here.

5. Drawers

This one isn’t so much a tool, but it is a great way to organise a busy dock.  Thanks to Stacks introduced in Leopard, you can create folders of shortcuts to your apps and then add a ‘drawer’ to that folder. Drag the folder of shortcuts to your dock to create a Stack.  Because the drawer icon sits on the top it  will appear to contain all your apps.  You can download the drawers of your choice here.  Also have a look here to enable a much nicer list view to go with your shiny new drawers.

When this 2010 election campaign is over,  Tony Abbott’s stumbling performance on last night’s 7.30 report may well be remembered as a costly moment for the Liberal’s campaign. Abbott was unimpressive generally, but in particular in his  response to questioning about the details of his party’s broadband plan. Abbott struggled with questions about the detail of the plan, then attempted to pass off his ineptitude by saying “I’m no tech head” .

What was stunning about this wasn’t  Abbott  ignorance of the detail of the policy, but the flippancy and complete lack of embarrassment with which he dealt with his lack of knowledge. By saying he “wasn’t Bill Gates”, he was implying, by proxy that technical issues were the concern of computer nerds, and that the details of the policy were beneath hin Which is stunning in both it’s arrogance and Abbott’s lack of understanding of how the real world works.

What Abbott doesn’t understand is about broadband speed is the question isn’t who in the electorate will be affected, but who won’t. What Australian business doesn’t now have a web presence? What person doesn’t pay bills or manage their finances online? What student doesn’t use the internet for study? In fact, who doesn’t go online as part of their day to day life?

The answer, evidently, is career politicians who have advisors to handle that sort of thing for them, and have never had to place an order, or pay a bill, or book a cab, or find a plumber online.  Rather than being the reserve of “tech heads”,  issues relating to broadband speed are part of mainstream life in Australia, and will only become more important.

To put the inappropriateness of the statement in context, imagine if Kerry O’Brien had asked Abbott a question about the wheat industry, and Abbott, unable to answer, had joked “Well, how would I know, I’m not Old McDonald?” Or if he had been asked an economic question and responded with “Who do I look like, Ben Bernanke? Ask a number cruncher, why don’t you?” Unthinkable.

Abbott can take some comfort in one thing, however. The man the ALP have entrusted to take him to task over this howler is Stephen Conroy.

I have a real soft spot for kids books. Not just any kids books though, ones with really nice illustrations. And of course a great story.  I happened upon the works of  Oliver Jeffers and  Shaun Tan a few years back and an unhealthy obsession has been developing since. (Marry me Oliver!).

Obsessions aside, the work these guys produce is really beautiful, and I find they re-ignite my desire to get the old pens, pencils and paintbrushes out. If only I had their talents. Hoping others at igloo Towers would be as enthused by their work as I am, I put together some videos of their works to show the eskimos. While I was compiling the presentation I heard Shaun Tan say in an interview:

I get asked this question a lot, “When did you start drawing?” and the comeback response I always think of is “When did you stop?”

It really got me to thinking. When did we stop? And why? Children draw freely. Their creativity is uninhibited. An aeroplane with no wings? Why not. A 6 legged cat? sure. Daddy is coloured in purple. Of course.

At what point do people put down their crayons and with them pack away their imaginations?

I wanted to see who in our team had never stopped drawing, so I asked for people’s notebooks and sketch books. The results are below.

A few cars from the dev team, various robots and spacemen from the creative team, a few folk who sketch on the tram, and a producer who probably draws more than anyone in the team. Not a bad result, but we can do better!

I think I may have to bust out the crayons at our next team meeting.

This video was part of Andreas Heikaus’ Bachelor thesis at the University of Applied science and art Hannover.

“The Super Mario Bros. game, released on the Nintendo Entertainment System, is not longer bound to the television size and get interactive with a new environment. The emphasis of my thesis is on the matchmoving work. It is the process of matching CG elements into live-action footage.” [sic]

“At some point some time ago the kingdom of the peaceful mushroom people was invaded by the Kupa, a turtle people, which is notorious for its black magic. The cozy, peace-loving Mushroom People were lapsed into stones, bricks, weeds and even transformed, and their kingdom. The only one who make the magic to reverse and return the mushroom people their figures could be Princess Toadstool, the daughter of the king mushroom people. But you is unfortunately in the hands of the mighty Kupaschildkröten-king. Mario, (perhaps) the hero of the story, hear of the plight of the mushroom people and sets off to rescue the princess from the evil hands of the Kupa and redeem the decaying fungus human kingdom. You can be Mario! Now it is up to you to free the Mushroom People from the black magic! “

YouTube yesterday announced that it plans to introduce “skippable ads” later this year. So advertisers don’t suffer from the move, they will not be charged for ads which consumers choose to skip. A similar service is already available on Hulu, Google’s biggest competitor, offers a similar service. In announcing the moved, YouTube stressed that it would be a positive for consumers as it word encourage advertisers to produce better, more compelling content.

That claim is drawing a fairly long bow, but what the move does show is that Google, YouTube’s owners, are thinking seriously about new ways to make money from the site. Despite getting roughly 40 gazillion UBs every day(I’m being facetious, but I checked and that figure’s not far off the mark – roughly 2 billion videos are streamed daily),  Google have struggled with turning YouTube into the money making machine they hoped it would become when was acquired for a lazy $1.65 billion in stock in 2006.  The move appears to be a clear sign that YouTube is moving towards a subscription model. (more…)

SqueakEasy is a custom letter set inspired by the imaginings of art deco versus the matrix – here free for your bootlegging happiness.* It also makes for a great poster font!  Feel free to abuse it at your leisure or, for your next project, and show us what you come up with. It’s the cat’s pyjamas, baby.

*.EPS only

I jumped on the 7.10 train this morning (at 7.20!) and sat down behind 5 young school kids. Each had a headphone in one ear, was texting on their phone and trying to chat with their mates. I’m not sure how their brains did anything effectively with all that fighting for attention. Perhaps they’ve got the new iOS4 complete with multitasking?

Now I could be exposing myself as a fake here…especially this being my first Gloo entry and all, but here goes. I don’t like to be constantly plugged in. When email is beeping, Skype’s blinking, Tweetdeck is yelling and Spotify is blaring away – then there’s little chance I’ll be able to really think or concentrate. In order to do this my mind needs to be able to just wander and not be in the middle of a tug of war for attention.

That’s why each morning I grab a coffee from Richie at the coffee shop opposite Richmond station and sit in the corner scribbling away in my notebook. This is where I work through problems, plan out my day, answer hard questions and come up with ideas. So when I get to my computer I know exactly what I need to do for the day.

If you’re struggling for focus and direction leave all your gadgets behind, go for walk, let your mind wander.

Your brain will thank you for it.

…want a little further reading on the subject? Checkout this NY Times article.