The last weekend Perth took part in BarCamp 2.0, and it was (imho) a raging success.

Thanks to everyone that took part and helped put it together. It was successful because everyone participated.

Now looking forward to the Edge of the Web conference that Perth will be hosting in November.

Photo taken by Simone.

I had a look at Recommendation Ventures adwords today, and noticed a campaign optimizer. It made sense to give it a run to see what advice Google could give me to improve my return on the investment.

To my surprise, Google recommends that I add the keyword “emergencyporn” to my campaign.

Anyone know why?

I’ve been buying products online for over a decade, and fortunately have had very few instances of bad service. However, a few weeks ago I decided to print a t-shirt for an episode of Scouta TV. I spent 30 minutes whipping together a fun design, and then searched for an Australian online print service.

I wanted to pick an Australian print company, because I hoped to get the t-shirt delivered within two weeks. So I found VistaPrint. I placed the order on March 14, and paid the extra fee for fast delivery.

According to the VistaPrint site, my order was shipped on March 17, and had a 9 day delivery time. To be honest, I thought 9 days was an obscene length of time for delivery within Australia, and had a closer look at the site. After digging a little, I figured that it was actually a US site, that was offering services in Australia. However, it doesn’t make that clear anywhere on the site. Had it suggested it was printing and shipping from the US, I would have looked elsewhere for another company.

Needless to say, I still haven’t received my t-shirt.

I’ve complained twice using their “Customer Care” form. Apparently they will contact me within 48 hours. I heard nothing. I’ve even asked for a refund, given their 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed clause. However, no response.

My suggestion to anyone wanting to use VistaPrint, is to look elsewhere. Their service is the worst I’ve ever experienced.

It’s that time of the year again for Perth to host our own BarCamp.

Last year we hosted Perth’s first, which turned out to be very successful: over 60 people converged on eCentral TAFE to talk, present, and brainstorm a range of topics.

This year it’d rawk to have a good few more. So if you’re interested, head over to BarCamp Perth 2.0 and add your name to the list of attendees.

For those of you who aren’t sure what a BarCamp is, then the official BarCamp site sums it up as, “an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from participants.”

Keep in mind that the people that attend, also participate in discussions. It’s not mandatory, but you’ll find you benefit a lot more if you throw yourself into it. Also, you’ll find that most of the topics revolve around technology, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Pick something you’re passionate about, and do a demo, presentation, or host a brainstorm. Anything goes!

Photo by Cannedtuna.

I’ve been trying for years to lay my hands on a few personal domains: giles.com or giles.net. However, I’m not sure I’ll manage to grab them because one is run by a legit company, and the other is a domain squatter that sits on it and sells for an obscene price.

The other day I checked on the .com version for richardgiles, and was amazed to find that it had expired: it has been held by a squatting company for years. So I immediately jumped on GoDaddy and bought a watch for the domain.

Last week I thought I’d lost it. For some reason it appeared as if someone had managed to grab the domain before me, and they even emailed me to let me know I could buy it “by covering our acquisition costs and a modest profit.” By “modest profit” they meant about $600.

So I was awesomely surprised to wake up this morning and find an email from GoDaddy, telling me I’d captured the domain.

I then added the domain to WordPress.com and now use it as the primary landing page for my blog.

We’ll be recording Scouta TV Episode 9 and streaming the recording live on Ustream.

If you’re interested in seeing what goes on behind the scenes, the chaos, outtakes, random strangeness, and being a little involved via the Ustream chat room, then you can join us at:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/scoutatv

Streaming will start at approximately 8pm Australian WST (10pm Australian EST, or 2pm UTC/GMT).

Hope to see you then!

I stopped using a news aggregator (RSS reader) a month or so ago. It was refreshing to let go of a daily routine that I’m not sure accomplished much.

However, there are several blogs that I still like to read, and I just make sure that I visit them every few days. I also use Techmeme to keep abreast of any really important news. I figure whatever I don’t hear through word-of-mouth, twitter, and Techmeme, isn’t worth knowing.

Today I took one extra step that I think plants the nail in the blogging coffin: I added my favorite blog’s feed to Twitter (that would be BoingBoing). I’ve noticed that I’ve been missing a few too many gems recently, so I googled for “boingboing twitter,” and discovered they already have their own Twitter account.

So that’s the end of the news aggregator for me.

Completed the Bridges Fun Run today. I was expecting a better time, mostly because it looks like I need to re-calibrate my Nike+ setup. The above run was 10KM, not 11.

Even though it’s inaccurate, Nike+ also tells me I’ve run more that a 1000KMs since I bought it in November 2006. Although it’s probably out, I’m still very happy with the achievement.

On to the marathon.

I’ve noticed a massive influx of people on Twitter again this last week. Grum has a feeling that it’s because of the after-SXSW-glow: a bunch of press about the event has highlighted Twitter again. So we have another wave of people “following.” But it’s got me thinking, how to I decide who to “follow” in return.

Here’s my current screening process:

• Are they spamming? If yes, don’t add.
• Who are they? Do they have a profile/blog? If no, don’t add.
• Are they in my industry? If yes, then add.
• Are they in Australia? If yes, then add.

It’s also not definitive, as I’ll almost always add people outside of Australia if they pass the other criteria. But it gives me a loose guide to follow.

How do you decide who to follow?

6 years ago today I launched my blog.

Technically this is not my first weblog, because I did start an anonymous one in 1997. But the word weblog hadn’t been coined, and my first one is now just a bunch of empty bits floating around the ether.

I started this blog — known as dotblog back in the day — to see if I could find “my voice,” to enable me to write a book, and give me more profile in the tech community. It’s succeeded on every count. Since starting, I’ve authored two books, started a few podcasts (one of which was award winning), am apparently an Australian web celebrity, interviewed and profiled in several magazine articles, and launched my own web recommendation engine company.

All of which has been an amazing adventure.

But I’ll tell you the other thing that’s uber-cool: I’ve made hundreds of great friends by blogging, and being involved in the web community. It’s actually left the bit stream behind, and now I can say that my best friends were all found via the web in some way. Sounds all very mushy an all, but it’s true.

So, here’s to another 6 years!