Of course it's shiney... it's Chrome!

Well for just under the past month I have only opened up Internet Explorer on my computer about 1/2 a dozen times... and no.. it's not cause I have banned myself from using the Internet... I have made the migration to Google Chrome.

Google Chrome is Googles new offering to the web browser market, and was released not so long ago as a beta release that you can download from their website.

I must say that for an initial beta release, Chrome is already an incredibly stable, and feature rich piece of software, and when it becomes more mature I think will give the Firefox browser a run for its money... and cause everyone already knows and loves Google... may tempt some of the long time devoted Internet Explorer users over.

So it's a web browser... How much could Google actually do to improve a web browser?

Well lets see... here are some of Chromes features I like:

One of my superiors is well known for here motto "less is more" and Google has taken that approach with Chrome. Both IE and Firefox offer you a barrage of buttons to click up in your top toolbar... by default, Chrome offers only 5:

• Back
  
• Forward
  
• Reload
  
• Page Settings
  
• Settings
  

And that is it... no file, edit, tools, menu's ect.

Chrome devotes as much space to the actually website you are visiting as it can, so less up the top, and no status bar down the bottom.

One of the best features, and the thing that makes me really love Chrome, is where the newer versions of IE and firefox have the address bar, then a search box where you can search the Internet directly, Chrome merges these into one bar.

In a single text bar, you can type a url to vist a site directly, or enter a search term to search your favourite search engine with (it does not have to be Google), search your Internet searching history, bookmarks ect.

Tabs... yes they are cool, Firefox has used tabs for yonks, and IE finally came on board with tabs in IE7, so we all know how good it can be to have multiple websites open in a single window. The biggest advantage Chrome has is that each browser tab is independent, so if you visit a website that crashes the tab, only that one tab dies, and your whole browser does not crash as it would with Firefox or IE. The flip-side of this however, is because each tab is running independently, if you have many tabs open, Chrome can become quite resource hungry and eat up a fair bit of RAM.

What happens when you open a new tab? Each time you open a new tab, Chrome has a little page it displays in the tab that gives you little screenshots of all your most visited pages, and a list of all your latest bookmarks... making it very easy to return to some of your favourite sites.

Another cool feature with tabs.... you can rearrange the order they appear in, by simply clicking and dragging the tab to the order you want it in... simple, but makes life easy if you have 10+ tabs open and are constantly jumping between a few of them.

So overall... Do I like it? Yep... Love it, and won't be going back to IE or Firefox at the minute.

As it is still a beta release, there a few little bugs, I have found some CSS renders a little odd sometimes, but overall is pretty good. At the minutes, if you open an RSS feed directly in the browser it just displays as a heap of unformatted text, but hey, you can do all the important stuff.

Reflections from above

Well, today marked the end of my month and a bit as acting branch manager, Sydenham Library. Looking back on over the past month, it has given me a new appreciation of what my boss actually does.

I guess from the point of a worker, it is very easy to sit back whenever something goes wrong, or something just does not seem fair, and wonder to yourself "What exactly does my boss do, it doesn't seem like she does anything". Why, yes, to an extent they do none of the labors that make the place function, they are like the mortar in a house. When we think of a wall, we think of the bricks, and they make up the wall... but there is one thing we really don't think about that is holding all those bricks together... the mortar.

When I was first asked to be acting manager, I thought to myself, this is going to be a breeze, the place will pretty much run itself, and I will have so much extra time to get little tasks I have been putting off for ages finished. I can now say, out of all those little tasks, I probably only got around to doing one. I can always tell when I am challenged at work and enjoying it, cause the days and hours just fly by. This experience was like that, it feels like only a couple of days ago I was waving off Inna thinking of what pranks I can set up in her office for when she returns.

This experience has also given me the opportunity to see how things flow from the other side attending co-ordinators meetings and the like. I can see why sometimes despite our constant nagging at the branch, it can be difficult for Inna to commit to trying different things, or improving some workflows.

It appears to me that libraries have so much potential to deliver valuable services to the community and help people better themselves and become technologically more advanced, and lets use the catch cry, become life long learners. I think there is really only one thing currently holding libraries back from achieving this with fantastic results... Librarians. The sooner all these old dinosaurs retire and die, the better. I know it sounds a bit Nazi like, but fire the librarians and burn the books. Whilst trying to give the world the impression that they are now hip, know what a blog is, and can be cool. They are a bunch of scared little old ladies who are too obsessed with trying to keep the piece with everyone, and try to create a model of services and workflows the suite everyone... when basically different areas have different needs, and different needs are often addressed in varying services and procedure to match those needs.

If you are a librarian reading this, yes congratulations you are actually using a fang-dangled computer and reading one of those modern bloggy-who-ze-what's-it's... but maybe you should retire now - Why we are at it, lets change the name library to 'community learning centre', 'technology and information hub'.

To close... the biggest thing I have learnt from my manager stint... write everything down in a diary. It's bloody hard trying to keep track of everything that's happening, and where all your staff are. I shall now go back to being mortal.

New/Improved Web Toys

Well, I haven't posted anything serious lately... except for the seriously easy mug cake... so thought it was time for something with a bit more substance.

Playing about on the net as of late, and a few new/improved services have propped up that could be some fun to have a play around with.

Firstly for whats new....


Google Maps Streetview
http://maps.google.com.au/

You can kill hours satisfying your inner stalker with Google Streetview. Google Maps and Google Earth gave us all the ability to look down onto places via satellite imagery, which was all pretty cool (oh look there is my house, taking up a total of 1 cm of screen space)... now Google has introduced to Google Maps Australia streetview.

Streetview allows you to select a location on almost any Australian street, and get a 360 degree vantage point, as if you were standing there on the street. Its truly amazing. Like the satellite images, it is not live images, and it appears most of the Melbourne stuff was done around Christmas time, as I have my Christmas wreath on my front door.

I knew streetview was being launched this year, but I was truly surprised at the coverage. I was expecting the inner suburbs of the major capitals to be done, but to my surprise you can visit many country towns and have a peek around. With such broad coverage the biggest surprise for me has been that they have not covered Geelong???

You can imagine all the people moaning and groaning out there about privacy, but really, they need to build a bridge and get over it. The images are already at launch over 6 months old, peoples faces, and car number plates are automatically blurred out so you can't be identified. The images are from the view of the street, so if someone really wanted to see what your house looked like they could just drive/walk past and get a more detailed view, as the streetview images loose quality when you zoom in.

What has been improved:

Delicious
http://delicious.com/

Delicious has just recently launched a new platform and interface. Most of the base functionality of delicious appears not to have changed, and most of what has changed seems to be purely cosmetic.

Some of the other changes to the platform include:

• new name... the url is no longer del.icio.us by is now delicious.com this is apparently to make it easier for people to remember the correct URL.


• When you manually post a URL now by typing in the URL to save, delicious now goes and automatically fills in the name/description by checking the URL and returning its page title... this I think is very good functionality, and is one thing I could not understand why it was not in the old del.icio.us


• In the improvements they have dropped support for HTML feeds of your bookmarks. Most people won't even know this is gone because they never realised it existed, but for people like me who built apps from it (for work) we have now had to change to using the REST APIs to return the same data.

Facebook
http://www.new.facebook.com/

Facebook has also undergone some cosmetic changes. At first I was not a fan, but now I can not comprehend what I would not have liked about it.

The new interface loads a lot faster, as not as many elements appear on your screen at once.

I love the new look of profiles, as if you look at someones profile who has installed 101 apps, you don't have to wait for each app to load as you did in the old Facebook, as they are now kept on a separate tab.

The new platform also encourages a lot more social interaction with the ability for people to comment on pretty much anything that appears on your profile, such as your 'status'.

LibraryThing
http://www.librarything.com/

LibraryThing has released a new service which makes all the cover art available on LibraryThing accessible by external app's. In library land, this could be a big competitor to services such as Syndetics which charge for such a service.

The downside... They will only allow you to download 1000 book covers a day, so if you try and integrate the cover art into your library opac, and your opac returns result sets containing 20 items, you will hit your thousand pretty quick.

At Brimbank Christian is working hard on a new catalogue interface to better integrate the catalogue with our web site. To help integrate enhanced features such as cover art into this I have written a little API that sits on our web server, that cache's the cover art from LibraryThing when we initially get it, so we can provide most of our cover art from our own server (its only the first time an items cover is ever displayed it will come down from LibraryThing).

Well that is all I can think of, so if you get bored, have a play on the web and checkout these new/improved services.

Chocolate Mug Cake

One of the girls at work gave me a recipe for a 5 minute chocolate mug cake... basically a mud cake you cook in 5 minutes using a coffee mug and microwave... and to my surprise... it worked really well...

The recipe is availble here: http://www.dizzy-dee.com/recipe/chocolate-cake-in-5-minutes

So if you are sitting down for a coffee... have the munchies this is sooo quick and easy.

The Fall

I so want to see this movie called 'The Fall'... have been waiting for months for an Australian release date, as I'm guessing it would only have a limited release... but so far nothing!

If anyone hears anything about an Aussie release for this please let me know... its looks like an epic tale. Here is the trailer:

End of Fin Year - and End of Old Life

Ok, tomorrow marks the start of the new financial year, and I am sort of looking at it as also being the start of the lead up to a new start for me.

Well the first 1/2 of this year has been a bit of a roller coaster for me, had lots of ups and downs, but I think the second 1/2 will see the ride smooth out a little... then 2009 will be 2000 and mine!

So updates on whats happening in my world:
The me/Sean situation... is coming close to being resolved and now we seemed to have agreed on exactly what will work and are going through the processes to have it legalized.

We are going to see our place, and I am looking to rent a place close by to where I am now. I am happy with the area, its close enough to work so I figure why go elsewhere if I am happy where I am. With renting, I will be paying less than I am in mortgage payments, and in the long term it gives me more flexibility to move to follow job opportunities. So if anyone is looking for a nice little place in Caroline Springs, keep your eyes peeled!

Another reason for the move is I came to the conclusion, that it will force me to have a new start. Despite not knowing exactly where I will be living soon... I am strangely excited and looking forward to it.

Health kick front - I have gotten a little lazy at late, as it has been too bloody cold and/or wet... but still determined to make a good go of it when the Gym opens in the coming months.

On the work front, my project work down at Sunshine has been extended until the 1st of November, when it will be re-evaluated. While we did reach and complete the project goal of building a new website for the library service well on time and budget, we are now going to focus on improving what we have done and adding lots of extra cool features that were on our wish list, but were not the highest priorities in the original project.

This means I am still only working at Sydenham Library on Mondays and Thursdays, then at Library Administration in Sunshine for the remainder of the week. This is except for a month from August, when I will be acting branch manager while my boss goes on a holiday abroad. I am sure I will need to watch and study Frances O'Brien very hard to see how to do the job properly. During that time I will be based at Sydenham full time again.

On the love life front... well - hello I have been talking about work - so nothing really to announce at the moment.

Reprogramming

Well I have been neglecting the old blog as of late, so I thought I better do a post to keep it alive!

This week at Sydenham Library we have been undertaking a process to reprogramme the RFID tags in our entire collection for use with our new 3M RFID solution.

For those who are not from the Library world - RFID is Radio Frequency Identification - and is a modern day solution to replace barcodes with microchips which can transmit a book or DVDs unique barcode number through a radio frequency. In an RFID solution, each 'item' is tagged with an RFID tag, a sticker basically around 4 cm X 4cm. This tag acts like a disk, and can hold information you program into it, which in most libraries case is the unique barcode number used to identify the item to the libraries catalogue system.

Why would we want to do this in Libraries? Well there are a number of benefits to using RFID as opposed to barcodes. These include:

• With RFID you do not need to line the tag up to an exact position above its readers, as you do a barcode. This means there is less moving items about reducing manual handling injuries such as RSI. This also means that the efficiency of tasks such as borrowing and returning is faster.
• Unlike barcodes where you can only read one barcode at a time on a scanner, an RFID reader pad can read multiple RFID tags at once as it does not require line of site - once again reducing the time it takes to borrow and return items.
• Because of its ease of use, RFID helps make self-service solutions easier for library customers to use. Self-service means less loans are handled by librarians, freeing them up to perform other duties and giving them more time to organise and deliver other value added services to their customers.

Sydenham Library already had an RFID solution in place, but with the introduction of the 3M solution to the Sunshine Library which is also part of the same library service, the 3M system has been extended to Sydenham now to maintain consistency across the library service. Why then if we already had RFID do we need to reprogram all our tags you may ask?

With RFID even though the theory and equipment behind most solutions is roughly the same, the difference can lay in where abouts on an RFID tag the item barcode is stored. If you think of an RFID tag as like a big square of pigeon holes, with each hole being able to hold a single piece of information. For example our tag might look like:

1 2 3

4 5 6

7 8 9

now lets say our barcode numbers are 3 numbers long. Solution A might store the barcode number in slot 1,2 & 3... where solution B might store the barcode in slots 7,8, and 9. So with our reprogramming process we are moving all the information stored on our tags to a position where the new 3M system is looking for it!

We started reprogramming at the start of the week, and as of last night pretty much only had our children's and AV collection left to reprogram, so the reprogramming task is rather fast and should hopefully be finished by either late this week, or early next week!

Well I know this was a boring post, but I just felt I had to post something!

Do I act like a 12 year old?

Went and had a 'health appraisal' done at work today, which in a way I was dreading what the results would be... but all came back good:

Blood Pressure: 124/80 - which is in the normal range
Cholesterol: 4.14 - in the normal range... never had cholesterol checked before
Blood Glucose: 4.6 (perfect)
BMI: 16 - Underweight... always am and can't change it!
Body Fat: 5% - once again classed as underweight
Bone Mass: 2.6 kg
Visceral fat: 1 - healthy
Lean muscle mass: 47.9 kg
Metabolic Rate: 1471 Kcal
Metabolic age: 12 years
Water containment: 66.4% - good for water restrictions!

So for those who are waiting for a good funeral hoping I was going to kick the bucket... better find something else to do cause it's going to be a while before I expire!

New Brimbank Libraries Website

Well after almost 6 months in development, we are entering the home stretch with creating and launching the new Brimbank Libraries website. While we continue to improve and spit-polish features behind the scenes, a 'copy' of the new site is available for people to take for a test drive. This can be accessed from our Development Blog at http://development.brimbanklibraries.com where you can also read the latest on some of the new features we will be introducing into the new site, as well as comment on what you like, don't like, and what is completely fu#*ed up with the new site.

The new site is made in Joomla! which is an open source content management system. It was a real big learning curve at first to understand the architecture of Joomla, and how it does things differently to the current proprietary product that we use.

The advantages with Joomla include:
Its open source.. so it's free, and is constantly being updated and improved by a community of developers.
There are hundreds of 'extensions' you can plug into the website to add additional functionality to meet the needs of your audience
If there isn't an extension that does what you want, there is nothing to stop you from making your own extension from scratch, or hacking an existing extension to bits and tweaking it to your needs.
It has a very friendly 'front end' editing system to allow staff to easily update the content of web pages without needing to know any html.
Did I mention it's free!

Some of the new flashy features of the new site include:

• A book blog that is fully integrated into the website... unlike most libraries which have an external book blog that sits completely separate to their site.
• Use of web 2.0 tools such as del.icio.us for bookmark/weblink sharing, instant messaging, Google Calendars, ect.
• Google maps... cool to look at and play with!
• Less clutter! over the years the old website was filled with garbage left right and centre, the new website means we have been able to strip everything back, and refile the bits that are worth keeping, in what is hopefully a more logical order
• Integration of RSS Feeds so you can get the latest library news in your RSS aggregator like Google Reader or Bloglines.

The new site is due to be launched mid June, so if you have a chance, log in and take the demo for a test drive and let us know what you think... and more importantly any bugs you may come across!

http://development.brimbanklibraries.vic.gov.au

Lars and the Real Girl

Went to movies today and saw Lars and the Real Girl. The film is about a single man (named Lars) who has trouble connecting with people, and in a delusional state orders a sex doll, and introduces the doll into his life believing she is a real person, much to the concern of his brother and sister-inlaw.

Over time the small community in which Lars live all meet 'Bianca', and in support of Lars and his ill state of mind, all go along with the delusion that she is a real person... much so in that Bianca is elected by the people onto the local school board, is given a job (as a model) at a local fashion store, and volunteers reading stories to sick children at the local hospital (with the assistance of a tape recorder and talking book).

Over the course of the film we learn of Lars deep emotional scars that prevent him from forming attachments to actual people. As Lars progresses and opens up to human touch and emotion, Bianca slowly dies, eventually allowing Lars to move onto new love.

This movie was funny, yet in some parts was sad, thinking that there may actually be people living under such delusions in real life.

Defiantly worth seeing - and is playing at the Nova in Carlton.

Destination Library

In my spare time I am currently working on a project, doing some web graphic/css design stuff for a Victorian Library working group, trying to encourage more people to consider joining the library industry.

One of the initiatives which this working group is launching is a wiki with information on the types of jobs available within the information management industry, profiles of people working in the field, and links to information on education providers to help you join the industry, since you will become so overwhelmingly impressed with libraries from reading all this stuff!

The wiki is being called "Destination Library", and the main theme the working group seems to be going for, which I am trying to carry through with in my designs is a 'new age, not old lady's in "cardigans, peals and sensible shoes" - Though the later I'm not too sure of, as if you go to any library conference or training, I estimate over 90% of attendees are wearing flat black shoes.

The image/title at the top of this post if one of my initial ideas, with a theme based around it taking shape. Once I have more developed I will post some samples and get your feedback on what works, and what sucks.

In the meantime... If you are now so interested in joining the information management industry you can access the Destination Library wiki, as it stands in its naked, undressed state at http://destinationlibrary.pbwiki.com

Health Kick

Over the past month I have gone on a bit of a health kick, and have taken up walking each day... My original route was across the Caroline Springs Blvd, then down to the lake, do two laps of the lake, then walk home again... this came in at around 6 -7 kms per walk, and was just pleasant not to leave me feeling too sore or exhausted.

Last week I decided to take the plunge and add running to the mix... I damn near nearly had a heart attack! I have continued to include the run in my regime, so I walk to the lake, run one lap of the lake (which is only 1.2 km) then walk home (no more second lap of the lake - just yet). In total my walk/run is now only 4.5km instead of 6.xkm. Even though its shorter now though, I find with the run included my heart rate seems to be going up substantially, and I feel more physically exhausted after... that's got to be a good thing right?

To continue my health kick, they are building a gym opposite my work, so I have already put in my expression of interest for membership there when it opens... so if I get into that I might actually start putting some meat on my bones!

In work news, the new Brimbank Libraries website is really starting to reach a mature stage... we will be asking for community and staff feedback on it very soon so we can start tweaking and putting the final touches on it. All feedback and announcements will be done through our project blog at http://development.brimbanklibraries.com/

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Came across this poster on the net... Not sure if it is a legit official poster... but looks like a good 'teaser poster'. If this is an official poster, hopefully it won't be too long until we get a teaser trailer.

Beware... it's coming soon....

April Fools Day

Just to clear one thing up for those of you that received an SMS from me yesterday just to let you know I was having a bad day, and had quit my job.... It was the 1st of April - and if you believed me "April Fools!".

On that note, thought I would also mention that Google have outdone themselves this year. Each year Google seem to have some really out there April Fools, and this year they went all out.

For their blogger site (blogger.com) they have announced a new blogging service that will order your blog posts not by date, but by what is most interesting. The new service also promised to highlight anything you say that it considers interesting, plus if you don't know what to blog about, there will be a "I'm feeling lucky" button, that will actually write an interesting blog post for you.

Google Calendar announced a new wake up call reminder service that will sms you a wake up call, and if you do not respond to that will use more drastic measure to awaken you.

On the general Google search site, they announced 2 things. First was gDay, which is a new revolutionary search and analysis algorithm that will display web pages and sites 'as they will look tomorrow'. This includes news sites and blogs, so you can see blog posts and news articles before they are even written.

The second major Google April fools, was the announcement that Google and Virgin have partnered to create Virgle... a new initiative that will shortly be setting up the first colony on Mars, which was looking for people to register for their place on the red planet.

With all these great services announced this year, I can't wait to see what Google will do next year!

What are we looking for?

Ok, I'm in a strange D&M kind of mood today... so this post will probably be a little deeper than usual (or more airy fairy). I am sitting here, alone... feeling slightly depressed wondering why do we, as people put ourselves through this? What are we searching for in this world?

Why is it, we devote so much of our energy, thought and emotion into finding a 'perfect person' to share our lives with? We pass hundreds of people in our daily lives when we go to the shops, work, out to a function... hundreds just pass us by and we don't give them a second look... but we all search for just 1 to come home to, or go out for dinner with. Why?

Is it the reason of our being - after all we could say the purpose of being is to reproduce to pass on our genes to the next generation, for this pattern to continue again and again. Why do us humans however look for one person to do that with... other animals seem quite happy to hump what ever comes next to them, then move on... without ever looking back.

With animals it is simply reproduction... (most) seem to have no emotional connection to whoever it is they are doing. Would a lion mate with a lioness, then care if she was later hit by a car, struck by lightning, or given some nasty std by a sleazy meerkat?

What are we looking for? Is it:

• Sex on tap
• Someone to help cook or clean for us
• Someone to look after us physically and financially - so we can lazily go on with our lives without a care.

If it is these simple things why is it the things I miss most are having someone just there, who you can whinge to if you have had a crappy day, or someone to cuddle up to in bed if it gets cold, or just knowing someone is there and that they are in some way your responsibility to provide for, to care for, like a pet for you to love and look after. Does our emotional investment in them somehow make us feel that once we go, we will have in a tiny way left our mark on the world at that at least one person out there will remember us and think of us until they eventually drop off the perch.

In a mind frame of looking at the above reason as an investment - wouldn't we be better trying to make this impact on the lives of everyone we meet... that way we would be remembered by more... so why is it we choose just one. Just one person to let all our feelings be exposed to, to share such a level of intimacy that they can see you and all your vulnerability as a person. Do we realise that by doing this we are making ourselves so venerable to being hurt so much? Are we that stupid... why is it we choose to trust a person so deeply? Should we?

I think it is human stupidity, or maybe even some desperate desire of hope in thinking that maybe our generation has evolved the perfect being, who is perfect, and trustworthy in every way that they will never hurt us.... but how do we know unless we drop all our defences and give them a chance?

Why is it, we can physically cut ourselves, it hurts for a while, but once we distract ourselves with another task we are fine... but we 'break our hearts' which causes no physical harm to us, and no matter what we do, it keeps eating at us inside. Then, being smart as we are supposed to be, you think we would learn from the pain not to try again... but we do.... we seek to take the gamble again.... will it pay off this time?

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
- Henry Louis Mencken

Priscilla - Queen of the Desert

Last night I went to see the Priscilla Queen of the Desert musical. Mum and Dad got me tickets for by birthday. It was bloody brilliant. Basically they have taken the movies and worked even more on it, added extra bits and made a few little tweaks.

The music was fantastic and the costumes were just dazzling. I think the soundtrack for the musical is on iTunes so I may have to buy that one. The music just left your feet tapping all the way through the show.

The setup of the stage was really good.... you would not believe that they could fit pretty much a full sized bus on stage, and actually have it move about, while having enough room to do scenes which do not feature the bus.

If your looking for a good night out, filled with laughs and good music, why not go see Mitzi, Felicia, Bernadette, Miss Understanding, and Farah Force-it in Priscilla - Queen of the Desert.

I'm turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so

I went to a work farewell for two of my work mates, Anushya and Zoya on Friday night, who have left Sydenham Library for full time work elsewhere. For something different we went to a Japanese restaurant in Moonee Ponds. Now, those of you who know me well are probably giggling away at the thought of me going to a Japanese restaurant!

Guess what? I actually really liked it!

After the initial scare of the appetiser (pictured) which resembled something you would see after a cat was sick (it was actually pickled beef, capsicum and zucchini) all was well.... And for those of you who are thinking 'So I guess you did not eat the appetiser' - WRONG! Quite a few people refused to try it, but I was feeling brave and experimental, so away I went!

For me, whenever someone said Japanese food, my mind always just assumed it would have been very similar to Chinese, had lots of fish (or even worse a little bit of humpback) and drenched in all different kinds of flavours. Japanese food I found seems to follow a very similar philosophy to Japanese interior design, where everything is minimalist and actually very simple. There was also a lot of 'non-fish' items on the menu. For example I had miso chicken, which was grilled chicken marinated in a very simple non-dominating marinate served with some plain sort of vegies.

So if you are ever looking to give Japanese a try I highly recommend the Koo Japanese Restaurant in Moonee Ponds.

See Where I Work!

As part of the job share I am doing with Christian for the development of the new library website, one of the cooler things I have been playing around with is creating interactive online panoramas.
This involves taking a whole heap of photos from the same spot and 'stitching' them all together to create one huge 360 view, then loading that picture into a web page with a java applet called PT Viewer.

Once this is loaded you get a full interactive panorama which allows you to turn around, zoom in, zoom out.... basically allowing customers to have a interactive tour of our library.

Checkout my example here.

10,000 BC

Last night I went and saw 10,000 BC. I had heard that it was a crap film... I thought very differently.

The film (obviously set in 10,000 BC) follows a young mammoth hunter, who turns into a warrior after his village is raided by another tribe and many tribe members stolen and turned into slaves. The hunter then tracks the bandits and his people through snowy mountains, lush jungle, and vast desert, all the way to Giza (Egypt) where his tribes people join many other slaves in the task of building the great pyramids.

The cinematography is visually stunning and epic on scale. The diversity of cultures you meet in the film also makes you appreciate how man-kind has evolved differently in different parts of the world.

If your going to the movies and have nothing to see, I say you should give 10,000 BC a try!

Touching YouTube Video

Ok, I usually am not into the soppy, emotional, inspiration or religious emails that go around, but a work mate sent me this video from YouTube of Facebook, and maybe my icy exterior is starting to melt... but I found it touching...

One journey comes to an end - another begins

Well, I am saddened to say that Sean and I have decided to go our separate ways. While we will continue to live together, romantically and in all other ways we will now travel our own roads.

While I am sad that we have lost what Sean and I had, I also have a great sense of excitement with the possibilities that lay ahead. I know it will not be easy, but I think in the end both of us may benefit from calling it quit's now.

My biggest challenge will be re-creating a social life for myself, which I am slowly trying to do. I am trying to give Sean his space so he has the best chance possible to build a solid foundation with his new boyfriend, but we will continue to remain close friends.

A Rollercoaster of a week

Well the past week has been a real emotional rollercoaster... not something I am really used to. For those who didn't hear on the grapevine, Sean and I are having some problems and last weekend a number of issues came to head... which ended in a lot of upset and confussion. It also ended in Sean moving out for a couple of days... and in another world first... me actually going and seeing a psychologist (though I will still not confirm any rumours that I am psycho).

I will not go into details on the specifics of the rift between Sean and I, but will say that during the whole time we were never angry or nasty to each other, and never raised our voices.

Well, Sean is home again, and we have decided to work on what we have. Things have stabalised again, though things are shakey behind the scenes.

I really learn't this week what things mean to me. How much I love and appreciate the people I sorround myself with. I never truley appreciated how good my friends are. That they can put up with me sending them and SMS and turining up 5 minutes later and busrting into a babbling mess on them, or my friends who call me in the evening when they know I would be feeling alone, just to talk and listen, or even the friends who offer to come over with a bottle of wine and get blottoed with me!

The week started lousy, with a lot of upset, tears and emotional rollercoaster, but the good news is things improved. On Thursday I went to the VALA conference, and won an iPod! I never win anything good! A few oppertunities also presented themselves that I need to think about and confisider for my future... but more on them when my head clears a bit.

Tomorrow Sean and I are going on a 'date', we are going out for lunch then to the movies to see Sweeny Tod. Tomorrow night we are having a few guests over for dinner, so Sean is currently preparing it, and desert (chocolate moose cheese cake!) as I type this.

On my final night - life gets really good next week... Normal TV is back!!!! God bless Desperate Housewives, Lost, Dirty Sexy Money (I hope), and one of my old favourites returning, Good News Week!

Where is the line?

It has been another busy few weeks for me... I love the summer, but it always seems to mean you are out and about!

The past couple of weekends, Delfin was running free drive-in cinema around the corner, so over 2 weekends we went and saw Hairspray (I'm not really a musicals person - but I loved it and have the songs stuck in my head), and Stardust (I was really looking forward to this movie, I enjoyed it but was a little disappointed).

Last weekend we went to Highpoint one day with one of Seans old friends he hasn't seen in years.

On Saturday (Australia day) there was a night festival on by the lake in Caroline Springs, with a market, and fireworks, so we went down to that with one of my old school friends.

This is where my dilemma's start! This old friend, it turns out is gay - I have always had suspicions, but always took the point that is was none of my business - he was my friend, and I don't really care which way he swings. After the fireworks, we went back to our place for drinks, and all had quite a few. We were talking about old times and where people we went to school with are now... then the conversation took a turn downwards.

The biggest difference between Sean and I is how conservative we are. I am very conservative, like to keep my private life private, and don't really class it as something acceptable for conversation. Sean on the other hand is the complete opposite. He is happy to give out details on how, where, how often, position, duration, ect... and he did!

My old school buddy is very similar to Sean, and is happy to listen to, and tell all details, so we got quite a few details about his love life.

Now I am going through the confusing stage of - how much info is too much info? I have always had the reputation of being a little up-tight and conservative, and now I am scared that I might loose that reputation. Should I be scared of loosing it? Does it matter what friends know - they know doubt have ideas, but should those ideas ever be confirmed?

I fear that the line between friendship and intimate relationship could be lost if I 'loosen up', and for some reason unknown to me - I have issues with intimacy. I like to have those clearly defined lines - where you can tell friends these details, but not these details. I don't want to loose my up tight reputation to gain a reputation of a 'floozy'.

I have always had trouble being emotionally intimate with people, and letting all my defencive barriers down. There is probably only 2 or so people I think I ever have let these barriers down for... otherwise I feel exposed and emotionally vulnerable.

Sean says I should not worry - and with stuff like that just turn my emotions off otherwise I risk destroying the friendship by feeling weird. Its funny cause he is the one usually telling me I am not emotional enough.

I don't know what to do, and how far and intimate I should let this friendship become, before I dig my heels in and put up my defences. If anyone sees the line I feel may have been crossed, please return it to me by way of post.

Why I Don't Like Babies

Exhibit 1: My niece Jessica A.D. (After death by chocolate)

Here comes 2008!

Well 2007 has been a very very busy and eventful year. It has had a lot of milestones and changes for me... and all I can say is thank god its over - despite being generally happy with how the it all turned out.

Well, enough with all the reflective bull$hit. First point... why has it been so long since my last entry? Well, I must admit, I have an addiction... to Facebook.

Just before Christmas I decided to see what all the fuss was about and get myself on facebook. What is the great thing about Facebook you may be asking? Bugger all... it is one of the most useless, stupidest websites I have ever joined. Like I really needed to know that if I was a star wars character I would be Luke Skywalker, and that I have 80 something percent in common with the movie interests of someone I went to high school with and haven't seen or communicated with in over 5 years!

However, I can see the advantage of such a site for things like school or company reunions. I have joined the Facebook groups for both my Primary and Secondary schools... and found some people I had completely forgotten about. Though I keep reminding myself - Facebook is killing my Blog! My blog is sitting there going stale, while I try and create some stupid Vampire army on Facebook by virtually 'biting' all my friends.

If you are sitting there thinking 'This boy needs a life'... I agree. I think I have sunk to a deeper sadder depth than ever before.

Anyway... my Facebook confession is now out of the way.

Christmas was busy, and I am very happy its now all finished.

For Christmas day we had lunch at Mum and Dads, then went to Seans cousins for dinner down in Hoppers Crossing. Seen all the relatives that we won't see again til either next Christmas, a significant birthday, a birth, or a death. It was the standard be nice and pretend that you all share a lot more in common than a couple of DNA strands... however I have since been told off for not being totally nice about everyone... so next time I will just keep my mouth shut and make mental notes on how bonkers everyone is. I am sure you all can relate!

Well thats it for now... I will try and post again soon.