Google Wave for EJA Enterprise Futures Forum 09

A lot of people are saying that using Google Wave to discuss conferences live is the new hotness. Given that there will be a special google wave announcement at tomorrow's Enterprise Futures Forum in Melbourne, I'm willing to guess there will be waves for the conference.

In anticipation, I have created a wave for the tech discussion session I am running on local implications for cloud computing. There's not much there at the moment. I'm hoping to bulk it out a bit this afternoon and tonight in prep for tomorrow's conference.

Abbe May at the Wesley Anne

Melissa, Courtenay and I went to see Abbe May perform a blues/rock solo gig at the Weseley Anne last night. We always try and see her when she's in town, and as usual she delivered. The style was a bit different this time, as she was on her own and had to adapt some of her songs to fit the format. Abbe also performed a bunch of covers, as she explained afterwards to "keep it fun for me", and you could tell from the performance. Especially good were the two covers originally by Willie Dixon, whom Abbe cites as a major influence. 'Twas great

She's playing the Edinburgh Castle (in Melbourne) next Friday, and she's back at the Wesley Anne on the 27th.  Go see her.  Its a bargain.

EJA Futures Forum, Nov 17th

Enterprise Java Australia are holding a conference on the 17th of November in Melbourne, with keynote speeches on the Broadband initiative, Green IT, SOA, and Google Wave.  I will be facilitating one of the afternoon tech sessions on Cloud Computing.  If you're at the event, come and say hi to me.


There's a 2 for 1 registration offer open until mid day on Friday.

TramTracker has a Web Service!

I'm a fan of the TramTracker iPhone application. Its a little doohickey that fetches information from Yarra Tram's real time tram arrival service to tell you when your next tram will be coming. Having used it a lot over the last couple of months, I wondered last night how the app got its data. What service did it contact to fetch the data.

So I hooked up a logging proxy to my iPhone and traced the calls it was making. Turns out, TramTracker has a fully functioning and documented Web Service just sitting there begging to be used by people. I'm now trying to think of what other nice apps could be made. My first thought was an Android version of the TramTracker application, but that's just a clone (plus I don't own an android handset)... How about a dashboard widget? Oh, turns out there already is one! Its good to see that there is a qango out there that is doing its IT right for a change...

What other sorts of mashups could we make? One other thought I've had is making a Google Transit datasouorce from this information, but I suspect Google is already talking to Yarra Trams about that.

The king is alive, and he's riding the tram network in Melbourne

Moments after taking this shot, the passenger folded up his Elvis cut out and got off the tram. Given that the cutout had well worn fold marks at the hips and knees I can't help wondering if he takes the king with him on all tram rides for company (or deterring other people from sitting next to him)

Either way it's hilarious

Melissa's Jewellery exhibition

My wife Melissa is having her final Masters of fine art exhibition happening on the 1st of April (no its not a joke) at Monash uni in Melbourne. Click on the image for more info and a slideshow.

More bike lanes for Melbourne

I saw this on the AGE this morning. Its good to see that cycling as a form of transport is getting some more attention these days. Melbourne used to be consistently rated as one of the world's best cities to live in, based in no small part on the excellent transport options. Due to decades of under-investment we no longer can lay claim to that title. Maybe we can start going back in the right direction.