nectarine and white chocolate muffins

While down south Glynn and I fed ravenous crew members with some recipes from home and a new spin on my favourite muffin recipe. We were lucky enough to get sponsorship from Webb's Orchard in Cromwell. During our stay they let us onto the orchard to pick as many nectarines as we could carry from older trees ladened with fruit too ripe by the time they would be boxed for sale. Consequently, they were perfect for eating and the crew had to contend with a constant supply of nectarines in the fruit bowl, nectarine cobbler for dessert, and the seemingly popular nectarine and white chocolate muffins.

Glynn started a discussion on the pavlova western group on facebook asking crew members for feedback on the catering - sure hope they go easy on us. I'm just glad no one got sick and every had enough at meal times. It was such a pleasure feeding the hardworking, grateful bunch who expressed their thanks with hugs and an appetite for seconds. Missing them all already.

In the meantime for the benefit of the crew and anyone else with an abundant supply of nectarines - here's the recipe for the muffins:

1 egg
½ C milk
1 C yogurt – I use plain natural unsweetened yogurt
½ C melted butter
1 tsp vanilla

3 tsp baking powder
1/3 C white sugar
2/3 C brown sugar
2 C flour
2 C white chocolate crushed
2 ripe nectarines

(I just used small white chocolate buttons or you can bash up an entire bar of king sized white chocolate into good bite sized pieces. Its important to get as much chocolate into the muffins as possible.)

Put the first five ingredients into a bowl and mix together, then add remaining ingredients and blend until just mixed. Fill muffin tin and bake on a high rack in the oven at 200 degrees celcius for 12-15 mins until the muffins spring back to the touch.

please hold caller

I don't know whether it was the dry weather, the dust or just plain bad luck but after three weeks of highlights down south shooting a pavlova western my laptop and phone decided to give up both at the same time. $1000 to fix the laptop which is so not worth doing, and Telecom are mystified about the state of my phone which refuses to turn on but flashes its little red charge light woefully.

So finally, after much avoidance I'm going to join the mac family. Glynn is hopeful we can transfer my Adobe CS3 Flash license over to the mac, and we will be able run windows in parallel. Grateful for webmail and all my online applications which kept me from losing touch.

I'm also using the opportunity to switch to vodafone to get a better phone and call plan and a SIM card. Just charging my new phone at the moment so apologies to anyone who has tried to get hold of me since last week - your calls and messages will be somewhere in the ether. The good news is I can keep my old cell phone number. Hurrah!

making a western - yee-hah!

What a great team Mike and Inge have assembled for this movie. Everyone is passionate about film-making and each their craft, be it sound, makeup, photography or our awesome Assistant Director Rebecca Rowe. Glynn and I on the other hand have lost our own appetite for food and catering. Our ability to judge amounts has become more sporadic as the numbers joining the crew fluctuate, tonight running out of potatoes being a good example. We get hugs from the crew though so we must be doing something right.

Just spent the week in Tekapo which had some awesome locations for cowboys and was such a lovely wee town, reminding me of Wanaka when I was a little kid. Kind of untouched and still serviced by a small Four Square supermarket. Everyone knows everyone and most of the locals double-up roles in the town - like Stuie Inch who pulled up in a scooter one day to tell me he was the postman for the town and had a package delivery for us up at the Post Office, and then the next day appeared across the fence to return a saddle in his role as manager of the sale yards next door to our holiday home.

We've settled in our Cromwell digs and are here to stay for the next 15 days. We now have an internet connection at the house which is just making a huge difference to the amount of work Glynn and I can get done in between catering... and to the amount of posts that can be put up on the mifilms blog. Important as we now have a loyal band of followers pestering us for updates.

There have been so many highlights and its only been a week - the team dynamic, the weather, the fact that Dad has come up and been such a great help, particularly for Glynn and I. The community spirit of Jenny and Peter Rayne who let us literally camp at their at their B & B in Tekapo during the day and work online using their wifi - and made the crew muffins!! The farmers who have been so generous with access to their land and to the stunt cowboys who came 4 days running with their horses and saddles. And tonight seeing a first rough cut of the film - amazing to see the hard work and attention to detail coming to life. Everyone is stoked.

webstock wrap up

What an amazing few days at webstock. An incredible lineup of speakers. My notebook was full at the end with advice, ideas and loads of recommended reading.

Favourite sessions for me:

Tom Coates spoke about how web platforms create best value by being repositories of data, on which other things can be built. Platforms that facilitate connectivity between other third party applications - "must play nicely with others".

Simon Willeson gave a tutorial on OpenID. A practical explanation and a walk through the authorisation process making the benefits of OpenID really clear and understandable. A webplatform can use OpenID in different ways - but I was particularly interested in its use to authenticate third party business applications attached to platforms.

Jason Santa Maria talked about how design can not help but communicate messages to users, whether good or bad. He emphasised that having a strong story is key to a good design structure and providing "high value information" to users an important principle. "Design so web development is driven by the message not technology".

There were several other talks that I also *loved* including the very frank fireside chat Rowan Simpson had with Sam Morgan. It must be weird when people you don't know just start referring to you by your first name, like you're part of the family. I really enjoyed hearing about the types of investments he's made post the sale of TradeMe and the reasons why.

Glad the sessions will be posted on the webstock site so I can see the ones I missed.

Thanks to the webstock team for giving me the opportunity to attend via the scholarship programme - I had a blast and learnt heaps of practical tips I can apply to my own project.

mike culver speaking in wellington next week

Gutted I will miss a talk by mike culver next week at Creative HQ while away down south feeding cowboys. Catalyst IT and Unlimited Potential host on Tuesday from 6pm till 8pm. The spiel sounds great -

"Amazon spent over a decade developing a world-class technology and content platform that powers Amazon web sites for millions of customers every day. Most people think "Amazon.com" when they hear the word; however developers and entrepreneurs are excited to learn that there is a separate technology arm of the company, known as Amazon Web Services or AWS. Using AWS, software developers can build applications leveraging the same robust, scalable, and reliable technology that powers retail business. AWS has now launched ten services with open API's for developers to build applications, with the result that almost 330,000 developers have registered on Amazon's developer site to create applications based on these services.

Mike Culver joined the Developer Relations Group of Amazon Web Services in 2006. Mike brings with him fifteen years of technology leadership experience, including at companies such as Microsoft. In addition Mr. Culver has a strong background running an IT organization, with over a decade of experience in the U.S. Electrical Wholesale Distribution (fittings) industry. And as a Web Services Evangelist at Amazon, he helps developers take advantage of disruptive technologies that are going to change the way we think about computer applications, and the way that businesses compete."

Interested to see his take on the next generation of web platforms and how they are re-orientating the interaction between consumers and third parties. Impressed with what I've heard about Amazon's storage services and would love to hear more about other the many other API's Amazon has released. Word has it that a videocast might be made so that chumps like me that can't make it, can still hear what he has to say. Sweet.

pavlova western

Last time my brother asked me to help him shoot a movie I was given $100 and asked to cater for the weekend on location at his flat. On the way to the shoot Mike called and asked me to bring my hair dryer and make up. On arrival I was instantly promoted to the position of hair and makeup artist and second assistant director. That was a long time ago and thankfully this time they have a slightly larger crew. Last year Glynn and I made a promise to my brother Mike and his fiancée Inge that we would cater their movie. Consequently we are off to Central Otago at the end of the week to film a western. You can follow the exploits of independent film-making at its best on the pavlova western blog that has just been set up - see www.mifilms.co.nz.

Glynn and I will also be working while down there, in between peeling potatoes and making muffins. While we both have an ability to work from anywhere - we will be putting that concept to the ultimate test by heading into rural New Zealand. Today Glynn and the production manager will be checking out whether Telecom New Zealand can deliver the goods and ultimately the bandwidth for Glynn to be able to communicate with his team in San Francisco, and so I can skype and liaise with Wellington. Fun and games.

foofun

Kiwifoo provides a huge opportunity to meet people doing amazing things in technology and other fields - and to share ideas and innovation, and thoughts about the future. All sorts of ideas can come about when you get smart people in a room from different disciplines, firing off each other and kiwifoo feels just like a giant thinktank. Those returning had a keen appreciation of how discussions at foo last year had an ongoing impact on the ICT sector. My observation was that it meant many sessions this year were well focussed on an outcome that meant further action post foo.

Like others have said the conversations sometimes shared in the corridors and over Russell Brown's coffee machine are the gold nuggets of foo. Some highlights for me were a session with thefreenet and others about establishing a free mesh wifi network in Wellington's CBD - mauricio provides a good summary of what's going on with the project. During a break I had a great discussion with Nic Steenhout from Mambo about how a start up like me can go about ensuring usability and accessibility in the development of web platforms. Who knew all these amazing people are working away right here in New Zealand. Lots of fun playing werewolf till all hours and awesome food - Glynn and I took note as we're off soon to cater my brother's movie down south so we listened out for positive comments and there were lots of them.

Nat and Jenine organise a great event, and make everyone feel welcome. Thanks heaps for inviting me and for having Glynn and I around for cockle hunting and kayaking on Monday - great foo related fun.

kiwifoo 08

Back this afternoon from another awesome kiwifoo experience in Warkworth, north of Auckland. Some discussions there about the use of the internet to provide better accessibility to legislation and policy issues before Parliament. As well as working on my web start up I am a part-time consultant training others about the Machinery of Government and Parliament, so I am supportive of initiatives that help demystify the evolution of policy and the law.

Much work has already been done by those responsible for the administration of Parliament and the legislative process to ensure that legislation is available in an up-to-date digital format for the public to view over the internet at www.legislation.govt.nz. However, the legislation is more meaningful set in context - what stage is it at? has it been amended? what did the select committee think about the bill?

Parliament through its website www.parliament.nz is now aggregating information in a more meaningful way for members of the public, media, lobby groups and even the MPs themselves. For example, you can search on the Parliamentary site for the Copyright Bill . If you click on that link you see a quick summary of the bill's progress to date, and if look to the right under the downloads panel you can access a copy of the latest version of the bill. It's called "Bill 102-2", which essentially means it was the 102nd bill of this Parliament and that it's the second (-2) version of the bill as amended by the select committee. From this page you can also access the First Reading debate and see what the MPs said in the House when the Bill was first introduced. You can view the select committee's report on its consideration recommending changes to the bill and setting out the reasons why. In a relatively recent development a select committee summary links to a page where you can access all the submissions received and advice provided by officials to the select committee. One MP has already circulated proposed amendments for debate at Committee of the Whole House stage (the last opportunity for amendments before the bill is passed into law) - see SOP 154. SOP stands for Supplementary Order Paper - effectively an advertisement of proposed amendments to bills in draft form. All parties can circulate amendments by way of SOP, including the Government. If accepted by a majority in Parliament they will be incorporated into the bill.

Most people rely on others to interpret the processes and policy developments for them, rather than seek information from the original source. However, if you want it straight from the horse's mouth so to speak - try exploring the Parliamentary website and check out all the party websites. Ministerial press releases and speeches are aggregated at www.beehive.govt.nz and you can even stream question time live to your desktop.

Some ability to decipher the legal language, the processes and political spin will still be required to help demystify what's going on in relation to certain policy issues, but the Parliamentary website is certainly a great leap forward in making the laws and Parliament more accessible to us all.

ezy peezy wine club

This year for Christmas I signed Glynn up for the Ezy Peezy Wine Club for 12months. Essentially you make monthly credit card payments to Regional Wines here in Wellington and they send you a case of wine (mixed or red or white) every three months. It's all going to be a nice surprise on the doorstep every so often and I'm looking forward to seeing what they send each time. Regional Wines seemed to have the best offering of several wine clubs you can find on the web. I've also heard there are good online bargains to be had at blackmarket.co.nz, so we'll try them out sometime too.

Regional Wines at the Basin Reserve have a great selection of beers and wines and Glynn and I often head down there to try and find our latest favourite. I've added a map showing its location. I had to join zoomin to do it - a great mapping service for locating local addresses and businesses. It wasn't hard to join up and despite a short hiccup requiring me to reset my password for some reason the user experience was all good. I frequently use zoomin to find local businesses and addresses so its nice to join up and I'll add some more places.

webstock 2008

Absolutely stoked to be heading to webstock beginning the week of 11th February here in Wellington. One of the highlights for me will be hearing Kathy Sierra speak in person. I had been an avid reader of her blog until a series of bizarre online threats stopped her from posting, and I have also seen impressive footage of her delivering presentations before. She really has a handle on how to create a user experience that will have people returning for more and I love her diagrams and pictures, many of which she has now included on her last blog post.

Will be interesting to hear from a kiwi presenter now living overseas. Craig Nevill-Manning originally from Canterbury now works for Google in New York and created their product search service aka froogle. He's going to talk about how the large scale collection of data makes information more useful. Interesting, especially given all the controversy over the ownership of personal information on the web. There will also be a fireside chat with local hero Sam Morgan. Hope to hear about the difficulties he faced getting TradeMe up and running in Wellington, the attitude of local business to his success and future developments for the site.

I just cannot wait and want to thank organisers and sponsors for arranging a scholarship programme so that young early stage businesses like myself can come along and benefit from being exposed to the high calibre of speakers, and networking opportunities. I also get a t-shirt - woohoo!

what gives a cafe its true mojo?

Visited the mojo cafe located on the ground floor of the new Meridian Building on the waterfront this afternoon. I asked whether there was any access to wifi on site and the girl behind the counter didn't know what I was talking about but said she didn't think so. While we might pop down again one day with the laptops and see what available networks there are - it was a bit disappointing to hear its not likely. What a great place to sit and do some work and drink great coffee. In a few months time you'll be able to go there and have lunch at wagamamas too! While it's a great location and they do serve great coffee, having access to the internet would give the cafe true mojo in my opinion.

I'm always surprised to walk into some cafes and not have access - I think those places are really missing out on an opportunity to use wifi as a marketing tool. Early this month it was announced that San Francisco is back on track with its plan to provide free wireless for the entire city. While we are a sister city to San Francisco - it would be a big ask to follow in her footsteps on that scale right now. However, my immediate wish would be a *free* wireless network in Wellington amongst all the amazing cafes in the CBD. In the spirit of being an ICT hub, and some would argue "coffee culture capital of the world" - surely it would be in the interests of WCC and local businesses to get behind and sponsor that sort of project?

homebrewing with gman

during the week I spent of couple of hours helping gman bottle another of his brews. Czech Pilsner this time with a very successful drinkable Indian Pale Ale already under his belt, a watery and kind of tasteless lager and a gooey meaty stout. He wont appreciate my uneducated descriptions of his attempts so far but the IPA held such promise, its definitely worth encouraging and consequently participating in the brewing process. I now know that Nelson grown hops are the only way to go and sterilisation of the equipment is one of the most important things. While I haven't graduated to capping the bottles yet - foster says its important to be able to assess the right amount of pressure to apply - whatever ;) - I have been allowed to add the sugar and fill them. It's a load of fun - just need to figure out a name and make some labels!

Unlimited Potential's Bloggers Event

Every year in January Unlimited Potential host a competition among bloggers to see who can come up with the best predictions for 2008. The winner as voted by the audience on the night will be crowned UP Visionary of the Year for 2008, and receive an official certificate, a beautiful tiara, and full bragging rights.

The bloggers this year are:

* David Farrar, Kiwiblog
* Mauricio Freitas, Geekzone
* Hamish MacEwan, local visionary
* Philip Fierlinger, turntable technologist
* Tom Beard, Wellurbanite

Each blogger will make 3 to 5 predictions in the following categories:

* Gadgets & Games
* The Internet
* Business & Telecommunications
* Technology
* Wellington & NZ.

When: This Wednesday 30 January, 2008, 5:30pm for a 6:00pm start.
Where: Wellington Chamber of Commerce, Level 28, The Majestic Centre, 100 Willis Street, Wellington.

RSVP and reserve your spot at this prestigious and FREE annual event and come along and enjoy the pizza and beer!

counting down to kiwifoo

Glynn and I have booked our tickets and looking forward to our trip up to Walkworth for Kiwifoo aka BaaCamp on 1 February. Last year I had no idea what an "unconference" or "barcamp" was all about. Essentially, invitees get to set the agenda when they arrive by filling empty timeslots across the venue with topics they would like to share and discuss. You attend topics you are interested in and everyone gets the chance to participate.

Last year was the first Kiwifoo ever held in the southern hemisphere and the buzz was amazing. A bunch of people all with an interest in the global development of technology, particularly web-based technology, discussing how New Zealand was part of that phenomenon. My favourite session last year was one with David Cunliffe where leaders in the technology industry got to talk frankly about the *real* issues for New Zealand and the ICT industry. I also enjoyed meeting Rachel Cunliffe (no relation) from Throng fame, and other women doing amazing things in the technology field. It allowed me to better define what it was I was trying to achieve myself, and was surrounded by a bunch of people who just "got it", which was really encouraging and inspiring. I can't wait to spend time with fellow foo-goers again in a couple of weeks time.

no luck with the fishing

After obtaining a freshwater license while on holiday down south, we fished the Clutha, the Dunstan, the Taieri and Conroy's Dam in Alexandra - but unfortunately we caught no fish. We bought a spinning rod though to add to our never-ending collection of fishing equipment. Unfortunately the boat at Ball Creek had blown a valve and so Glynn's dreams of a bluecod a minute with Robyn out at the local reef were also blown. A highlight was surfcasting with a balloon off the rocks just down from the crib. We waited for an off-shore breeze and then tied a balloon to a running rig at the top of our trace and hoped it would blow out the line to a good spot. It seemed to attract the attention of two large seals, however, but didn't prove as attractive to the fish. Despite the balloon blowing our line a good distance off-shore we had no nibbles and the constant problem of kissing our gear good-bye because of seaweed and kelp on reeling in. Anyway, we never gave up and are hopeful a trip up to Castlepoint reef this weekend might break the drought.

summertime

On the way to Kaka Point from Alexandra during our holidays we stopped in at the Lonely Graves at Millers Flat made famous by Billy Connelly on his tour of New Zealand. To get to the graves you cross the Clutha River at Millers Flat and follow the road on the other side of the river all the way to Beaumont. The graves are on the roadside well-marked about 20 mins on the gravel road. William Rigney a local developer in the 1890's found a man dead on the side of the road and with noone claiming the body held a service and buried him by the river and on the tombstone engraved the words "Here lies somebody's darling". When Rigney died he was buried next to him with the words "Here lies the man who buried somebody's darling".

A quick trip down to Slope Point, the southern tip of the south island, a short 20mins walk from the car park down a slopey hill to a sign and seaviews.

Fishing Conroy's Dam in Alexandra with Mike and Inge and the Taieri River on the way to central. Bacon butties riverside for lunch to console ourselves that we weren't eating fish.

Sitting in the sun in Naseby having a beer and visiting the historic Vulcan Hotel at St Bathans.

Playing curling at the International indoor curling rink at Naseby. Great fun but could have done with more time to claw back the small lead Glynn had by the end of our one hour session. Weird being in the cold and ice when its 30 degrees outside.


Ball Creek and its famous landmark and the kids playing at the beach


Glynn's lager at the Ball Creek homebrew competition - winning third place - which is apparently a pretty good result for an outsider to the local community.

export year 2007

Last year I was selected for the Wellington regional Exporter programme which was organised as part of Export Year 2007.

As part of the Export programme, I attended several free events including the 10 week BizFuel Growth Series - organised by the chamber and the awesome Ruth McDavitt, coordinated by Business Porirua and sponsored by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise. Various training and case study seminars were held around the city, where I got to meet some inspiration kiwis in the business of exporting. It was really encouraging to meet and share with other companies already enjoying the fruits of their export success. I was surprised though to be the only web-based SAAS company attending with the majority of businesses product-based or selling manufactured goods over the web.

An interesting theme emerged during the course - that Australia is a more difficult market for kiwis to break into than UK, Europe or the States, mostly because of the Aussie attitude towards kiwi-made. Hasn't stopped many New Zealand companies though from making it big overseas in some of the more distant markets, and in Aussie too. With the phenomenon of the internet as a ubiquitous marketing equaliser, and many kiwi producers now creating and using their web presence to sell and ship product, I imagine Aussie attitudes will continue to evolve and it will only get easier to sell products across the ditch.

Thanks to those who selected me for the Export programme, the sponsors and to Business Porirua for organising a great lineup of speakers and tutors for the BizFuel Growth Series.

unlimited potential

During the end of last year, while undergoing a busy period settling back into Wellington, I met a great bunch of people in the Wellyworld of ICT.

Unlimited Potential is a group of young enthusiastic people adding value to the exciting ICT hub here in Wellington. Volunteers organise monthly networking and technology-based events for those involved in the ICT industry and at the cutting edge of IT development. After volunteering Glynn to speak about Project Indiana for their Geeks, Games and Gadgets function, I became interested in being involved in a official way with Unlimited Potential. With the shift to Wellington becoming a permanent move I resigned from the Executive Committee of the Canterbury Software Cluster in Christchurch and joined Unlimited Potential as a member. Then late in the year at the AGM I became an UP Executive Committee member. We all share responsibilities amongst the Executive Team and organise events once a month - where you can also enjoy pizza and beer. UP enjoys sponsorship from a variety of local companies which means joining and all the events are free! I've taken on the role of looking after membership and look forward to working with a team of people to create successful events and contribute to Wellington's ongoing reputation as the ICT capital.

minus 16

A friend of my Phil has been down in Antartica for the last few months wintering over and helping to restore items in Shackleton's Hut. Her blog makes an interesting read, and the last few posts have photos of the first rays of sun that are now creeping over the horizon. While the cold weather we've been experiencing lately is resulting in a bit of cabin fever, at least its not minus 16 outside.

cellphone salesman singing opera

this guy in simon cowell's latest uk talent search totally nails his audition. it's always great to see regular people doing extraordinary things. tried to embed the video using blogger's new video upload service, but google must be experiencing overload because I couldn't get through to register for the trial.