I am pleased to announce the 2008 OpenGuides hackfest, to be held in
Oxford, UK.
Information about the event will be updated on
http://dev.openguides.org/wiki/OxfordHackfest2008 but here are the
details:
= When? =
* Saturday 18th October 11am-8pm
* Sunday 19th October 11am-5pm
= Where? =
* Oxford University Computing Services, Banbury Road
<http://oxford.openguides.org/wiki/?Oxford_University_Computing_Services>
* Travel info: <http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/about/travel.xml>
* Note: the front door is locked at the weekend; either make a prior
arrangement with us to arrive at a specified time, or be prepared to
use a mobile phone when you arrive to be let in.
= What? =
Here are some ideas for what we could do:
* make a CSS design suitable for shipping with the default OpenGuides
distribution
* implement a global OpenGuides portal
* improve the mobile device support of OpenGuides
* improve the user interface of OpenGuides
* fix/triage a hundred and one little bugs
<http://dev.openguides.org/report/1>
* meet like-minded people, hack, socialise, maybe even do some Oxford
data collection if you want to get out in the open
* work on integration with Open Street Map
* anything else OpenGuides-related that you can think of
= Beer =
The Oxford Beer Festival <http://oxfordcamra.org.uk/festival2008.php>
is running from Thursday 16th October to Saturday 18th October.
Possibilities include a lunchtime excursion on Saturday, or a meetup
on Friday evening. Bear in mind that it is recommended to arrive
by 6pm on the Friday in order to avoid long queues.
= Connectivity =
* Wired and wireless access
* Bring a laptop if you have one!
= Food and drink =
* Tea and coffee will be available during the day
* There are plenty of sandwich shops in the vicinity for lunch
* There may well be an evening meal on the Saturday evening
= Accommodation =
There are several possibilities for hostels, B&Bs and hotels in Oxford
if you are coming from outside Oxford and looking to stay on Friday or
Saturday night. Additionally if you are on a budget and would like to
crash in someone's spare room/floor, let us know (see below for contact
info) and we'll try and hook you up with someone.
= Sign up =
Please let us if you will be attending (so we know who to expect, and
total numbers), and whether you would be interested in a visit to the
beer festival on Friday, or a meal on Saturday (including dietary
preferences/requirements), by emailing us:
mailto:oxford-hackfest-2008@openguides.org
Note that emailing us doesn't compel you to come, so even if you're
not sure, we would appreciate an email.
= Questions =
Email us: mailto:oxford-hackfest-2008@openguides.org
= Thanks =
Special thanks to OUCS management for allowing us to use the meeting
rooms for this event.
--
Dominic Hargreaves | http://www.larted.org.uk/~dom/
PGP key 5178E2A5 from the.earth.li (keyserver,web,email)
I have a suggestion concerning maps (eg map of all points in a
category). I would like to get the maps to be centred and scaled.
For example, in the following, all the points are off the displayed map.
http://london.randomness.org.uk/wiki.cgi?action=index;format=map;index_type…
The following is a quick demo to play with
http://www2.black1.org.uk/~andrew/map/exp_bounds.html
Click on a few points, hit "Reposition map" then repeat.
In practice
- you might want to make it configurable for the user
- apply a minimum zoom (eg my demo produces a very large scale map
if you give a single point)
What do people think.
Andrew
Hi folks.
While on holidays last week I had an idea for the software. If you look
at most guide books that contain listings, they tend to use icons to
briefly show the features of each listing. So a pub guide will have
icons that mean food availabile, real ale available, kid friendly, open
weekends etc etc.
I think this could be good in the OG software, particularly for search
results. Each category could _optionally_ have an icon associated with
it (in large and small versions?) that will show up in search results
matching nodes that have this category alongside the short description
and title. The large version would be used on the node page, the small
version on the search results.
Some open issues on this that I haven't thought through to conclusion
though.
You'd probably want to restrict this to specific categories, rather than
a free-for-all, and some icons would be more important. Perhaps a
server-level config setting for which category icons to use? Or a
priority ranking of category icons to use, with a maximum number of
icons for each node in a results list?
You'd want to be able to quickly scan a list to compare the results for
features, so they should show up in the same order regardless of result.
We'd want to be able to keep the icon sizes consistent in some manner,
or they'll look really funny.
Finally, this could have some serious performance issues if the icon for
each category needs to be looked up in the category node for every
result in a search.
Thoughts?
--
Rev Simon Rumble <simon(a)rumble.net>
www.rumble.net
The Tourist Engineer
Geeks need vacations too.
http://engineer.openguides.org/
"The problem with political jokes is they get elected."
- Henry Cate
I will remove the following guides from the project home page in a few
days unless anyone pipes up (I will check again before removing them):
Birmingham: message about a server crash.
Glasgow: missing DNS
Lancaster: blank page
Manchester: default site page (wonky.org.uk)
Montreal: can't contact server
Do ask on list if you're responsible for a guide which is offline for
whatever reason if you'd like help restoring it.
--
Dominic Hargreaves | http://www.larted.org.uk/~dom/
PGP key 5178E2A5 from the.earth.li (keyserver,web,email)
[copying to Oxford list as the likely venue]
Hello,
I would like to arrange another hackfest. Probably in Oxford, probably
in September or (if necessary) October. All day Saturday and/or Sunday.
I am trying to sort out some hosting at my workplace (well equipped with
conference room space and wireless, and central Oxford location) but
that's not confirmed yet.
So, who would like to come and:
- make a CSS design suitable for shipping with the default OpenGuides
distribution
- implement a global OpenGuides portal
- improve the mobile device support of OpenGuides
- improve the user interface of OpenGuides
- fix/triage a hundred and one little bugs[1]
- meet like-minded people, hack, socialise, maybe even do some Oxford
data collection if you want to get out in the open
and above *make OpenGuides even better*?
If so, either reply to me letting me know which weekends in September or
October you could make, or if you're a fan of these newfangled web
things, visit
http://www.meetomatic.com/respond.php?id=I3MEHE
Let me know if you would bring a laptop with wireless, or would like a
computer to be provided.
Cheers,
Dominic.
[1] http://dev.openguides.org/report/1
--
Dominic Hargreaves | http://www.larted.org.uk/~dom/
PGP key 5178E2A5 from the.earth.li (keyserver,web,email)
After much procrastination, I have finally acquired some MOO MiniCards for
RGL. For those who don't know what these are: they're half-height business
cards with a photo on the front and text information (in this case our name,
URL, and email address) on the back. They're about a tenner per 100 cards,
and you can use as many different photos per pack as you like - you can have
them all the same, or all different, or somewhere in between.
The reason I got them is that I keep finding myself talking about RGL in the
pub, and it's sometimes easier to give people a card than to find pen and
paper. (Well, and also because they're really cute.) But those of you
who're more heavily into promoting your guides (I seem to remember Ivor has
mentioned publicity re OGL in the past?) might wish to get some and use them
more aggressively. They're quite attractive little things, so you might be
able to persuade pubs etc to have a pile of them on the bar or wherever.
Photo of the cards here:
http://flickr.com/photos/kake_pugh/2735252633/
And the MOO site is here:
http://www.moo.com/
Kake
