A while back I hinted at some exciting stuff I had going on, and that I planned to blog about it soon. Well, “me”, “blogging” and “soon” are obviously not terms that should be seen together, but that’s life.

At the beginning of March, I took up a new role as Director of Technology with the Inspire Foundation.

Inspire is a fantastic non-profit that runs a number of programs to help young people change their world. I’ve mentioned them in the past, I worked on ActNow with Leisa back in my Massive days.

Inspire decided that they needed to bring more of their web development in house rather than having to rely on third parties so much, and asked me to be in charge of technology.

It’s a bit of a dream job for me, but it did take me a little while to commit to it. I wasn’t sure about giving up my working at home full time and being able to be with the kids all day. However my job was involving me in all sorts of nasty company and project politics and in the end I decided that the amount of grumpyness I was bringing into the house was negating the benefits of me being there. As soon as I made the decision and started work, I immediately knew I’d made the right decision.

We have lots of fun stuff going on, and now I have this out of the way I might talk about them a little more on the blog. For starters, we’re making some tweaks to ActNow, a rebuild of Reachout is in the works and a couple of other things.

I’ll stop rambling now.

I’ve been interested in PowerShell for ages but haven’t put any serious time into it. About a year ago I installed it and started playing around, liked it but didn’t do anything really useful. I bought Bruce Payette’s Windows PowerShell in Action, which is excellent and I highly recommend it around then, and ran through the examples. I got what was possible with PowerShell, but I learn best by doing – and I really didn’t have anything I needed to build so the information didn’t really sink in.

This week I decided to revisit it and see what I could do. My interest was rekindled by listening to the .NET Rocks show with Kirk Munro which was a good explanation of the technology and an introduction to the free PowerGUI tool.

So I had another crack at writing PowerShell, I started with FizzBuzz (too easy), then moved on to replacing a .vbs script I’ve been using for a while.

I like a clean Windows desktop, I keep it clear of any program icons but I do use it to store any recent downloads or for keeping documents I’ve recently been sent. Unfortunately it means my desktop fills up pretty quick so I built a script that archives everything on my desktop to a Cleanup directory tree. So a word document will end up in C:\cleanup\doc and a Zip will go to C:\cleanup\zip etc. It works for me, I know where to look based on the type of document. Periodically I go through these folders and delete what  I don’t need, and move things I do need to a proper home.

I had a vbs script for doing this that worked fine, I have it run as a scheduled task when I log on. In VBScript this is about 25 lines of code ( I like to keep my code readable, if I can use 5 lines instead of 3 I will, so you could do it in fewer lines).

In PowerShell it’s much simpler.

$indir = Get-Item C:\Users\Damian\Desktop
$outdir = Get-Item C:\Cleanup\

foreach ($f in dir $indir) 
{
	if ( $f.Extension.length -gt 0 ) 
	{ 
		$strpath = "C:\cleanup\" + $f.Extension.Substring(1)
		if ( -not $(Test-Path -literalpath ($strpath)) )
		{
			New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path $strpath | Out-Null
		}
		$cpdir = Get-Item $strpath
		Get-Item ($f.Directory.ToString() + "\" + $f.ToString()) | move -Destination $cpdir
	}
}

I’m sure there is a better way to get some of the directories rather than joining strings, but this works nicely.

I plan on digging up a lot of the little utility scripts I’ve written over the years and converting them to PowerShell, I think it’s a very nice technology but the only way to really get it is just dig in and do it.

It’s now known by most of Sydney’s music community that Jackie lost his fight with cancer on the third of February 2008. The timing of this shocked us all, Jackie was still gigging a week before then.

I remember walking to the Rose in Erskineville every Tuesday night, fighting the crowds to listen to Jackie’s band and trying to get a good position to watch him conducting the band with his picolo bass. He always attracted great players and got them playing the tightest grooves, he kept them on their toes by throwing new grooves, stops, fills and solos at them at a moments notice. To the untrained eye it would look very rehearsed, but there was always small signals going on, a nod of the head, a look, a point with the neck of the bass. It was always magic. A lot of Sydney musos got their name out there by sitting in with Jack at the Rose.

For a while before it closed, my band B’Dussy had a residency at the Harbourside Brasserie. Jackie used to do the first set and then take off to a late gig. We never liked any bands sharing the bill with us, but at the Harby we used to sit back and not want him to finish.

When the Newtown RSL club opened back up and lured Jackie away from the Rose on Tuesday nights he got a bigger room to fill and a larger stage. He also started to bring in some crazier arrangemens, I remember one night sitting there listening to an amazing song, only to realise it was Jackie’s take on the Beatles’ Strawberry Fields. Jackie would take all sorts of blues songs, obscure funk and even the occasional Zappa tune and make them his own.

With his passing we’ve lost an incredible talent, his playing, his singing and his arrangements were always amazing and always unique. I’m going to miss the gigs (not that I’d seen many lately, small children tend to slow down that part of your social life), his ability to change a song in ways you’d never imagine, the post gig raves about the state of the world we’d occasionally have at the Townie in Newtown and just being able to say gday while grabbing a coffee or walking down the street in Erko. I regret that I never took up the offer to sit in with the band, I always figured it would happen eventually and now it never will.

Jackie Orszaczky, you were a true original, you will be missed.

You may notice yet another theme change on this blog, this time it’s accompanied by some new blog software as well.

I’ve been finding SubText a little cumbersome, and the development seems to have come to a complete halt, meanwhile Telligent have put out some betas of their new CMS, Graffiti. I downloaded beta 2 for a test drive and was really impressed. Skinning and customisation are so much easier than with SubText, within a short time of playing around I had my blog content imported and looking the way I wanted it (well, I’m using a tweaked but included theme, this may change.. but from a site structure standpoint it’s perfect). So I figured why the hell not just put it up there. My only real challenge was all my old URLs in Google. Thankfully (and I’m going to get a bit nerdy for a moment) they had the forethought to put a bunch of startup code directly in Global.asax so I was able to build my own redirection routine in there, then it was just a matter of pulling out all my old URLs from the BlogML and matching them with new ones.

If you are reading this in an RSS reader, it means I succeded there too!

I actually do want to blog more this year, I have some cool stuff going on I will be able to talk about soon.

Cross-posted on Sydney Cyclist.

It was a very Melbourne-like day, going from sunny to overcast to light rain and back to sunny every 20 minutes. A perfect day to test out my new Shimano Galaxy glasses with Photochromatic lenses.

I’d wanted some new glasses for a while, my BBB Winners have been great but the rubber covering on the arms had started to disintegrate and while I really liked the lens choice I wanted to try something adaptive to save changing lenses during early morning or late afternoon / evening rides.

The first thing I noticed about these glasses is just how light and comfortable they are, when you put them on for the first time inside the lenses are fairly clear and you barely know you are wearing them. Thanks to the rimless design, your visibility is maximised and the top and bottom of the lens, and the shape of the lens means it sits against your face nicely. As I said before, you can hardly tell you have them on.

After putting them on for the first time in the shop, I stepped outside into the bright sunlight to test out the main feature I have to say I was a little underwhelmed. The adaptive lenses are a lot more subtle than I expected, I’ve never owned any adaptive lenses before and I was expecting something not far off Zaphod’s Peril Sensitive Sunglasses, well maybe not quite that black, but something in the realm of the dark lenses on my old glasses. These stay fairly clear and light, but you do find that when you go into the light you’re squinting for a moment, then your eyes relax as the lenses adapt. Unless it’s the placebo effect…. but I do think they are working, if you look closely there is a difference.

So back to the very Melbourne-esque day we were having in Sydney, I rode out of the house and in the direction of Centennial park, it was overcast above my place but it wasn’t long until I rounded a corner and into some Sun. A moment of squinting, then back to comfort. A few minutes later I’m back in clouds, then the rain came. I could still see fine. The rain had cleared by the time I got to the park and started doing some laps, Centennial goes from open sky to tree covered shade in a few places and I never felt like I had the wrong glasses on. A good sign.

Since then I’ve done a couple of rides in very bright sun and they’ve performed well, not as good as specifically dark lenses, but certainly acceptable.

In summary, they are lightweight, very comfortable to wear and adapt to the conditions well. The lens colour change is a lot more subtle that I would have expected, but they do the job. They appear to be well made, have full UV protection and for the price (around the $100 AUD mark) they are great value. They also come with a great travel case and a microfibre bag / cleaning cloth.

I know this is a stupid amount of words to spend on some sunglasses, but I couldn’t find any info online for these (a problem I’ve found before) so I thought I’d help out the next few Google searchers.

A few weeks back I posted a YouTube video from a show I played at The Basement. I had a few people say to me “Hey, why don’t you tell me when you are playing ?”.

So here it is, if you’d like to come see me play, the next Basement show will be a good one.

November 10th, with the Elana Stone band and Miss Donne.

If you’d like to book a table for dinner, call the Basement on 02 9251 2797. Otherwise, you can book at Moshtix.

See you there!

It has often been said that Sydney is made up of tribes. This definitely holds true in the cycling world as well. Commuters don’t want to talk to roadies, roadies don’t want to talk to roadies from other clubs, etc etc.

As a result, it can be very hard to find people to ride with, or talk to about bikes. There are a number of forums on the net, some of them even have Australia specific areas however Sydney is never represented there as much as it should be, in part because the camaraderie of Melbourne cyclists mean that they discuss a lot, and Sydneysiders discuss little.

I’ve long wanted to build a site to help this situation a little, the usual excuses stopped me from doing it (you know, working, spending time with my young family, and actually riding my bike etc). Then recently Phil was experimenting with Ning and eventually I went and had a proper look at it too. Ning is the perfect toolset for building what I had in mind, so I really had no reason not to do it.

I present to you, in full Web 2.0 Beta glory : www.sydneycyclist.com

It’s still only a few days old, and things are still being tweaked. But if you are a cyclist in Sydney, please come and join us and say hi!

On the tech side, Ning is an incredibly cool platform – once I’ve spent some more time with it I might do a post from the technology angle.

“Lady 7”. I assume an actual Lady (in the ‘er Ladyship sense). I’ll say it here because you wouldn’t wind down your drivers side window at the lights so we could have an adult conversation.

On a section of road very prone to people stepping out from behind parked cars and people opening doors without looking, riding in the lane is not “how accidents happen” as you advised me by shouting out your passenger window as you illegally passed me. It’s actually how accidents are avoided, even if you felt it held you up 10 seconds for your lunch appointment (it didn’t. We met at the lights remember ?).

Secondly, on pass number two you asked me if my bike was registered. No it isn’t. There isn’t a way for me to do that, nor is it really practical. I’m sorry you don’t like that, maybe you could use your name and influence to find out why. Not that it really matters, your car rego isn’t paying for the road either.

Thirdly. You should be nicer to your fellow human beings. I was standing next to your car a few Kilometers down the road taking this photo before you’d had a chance to order your Chardonnay at Danny’s. Now, I’m not a vengeful person, nor one who breaks the law. But the next guy might decide to put a brick through your window. Your rego is up this month, I know that’s a hot issue for you so it would be annoying to have any hassles with a pink slip too.

In May 2007 I did a gig at the Basement with Leanne Paris. We had it recorded and filmed and the results are about to be released. Here are a couple more teasers.

A big issue in the bicycle world is supporting your local bike shop versus buying online from eBay sellers or cheap outlets like ProBikeKit.

I won’t rehash the arguments here, I’m sure you can imagine what they are.

Anyway, I need a new helmet. I think at some point I’ve dropped mine and put a bit of a crack in the foam. I happen to like Specialized helmets, they fit my odd shaped head and feel comfortable. Unfortunately they are a little hard to find in Sydney. So rather than calling every bike shop I could find, I did a google for the model I wanted and ended up here at the Bicycle Riders shop website. From what I can tell, Bicycle Riders are a small Brisbane bike shop that have set up an online presence.

They had the helmet I was looking for, but they also have the next model, on special for only $10 more. So I ordered one.

After a slightly longer wait than I would have expected, the helmet arrived today. With no box, just in a postpack. With the helmet straps blackened with dirt. With the “InStrap” adjustment system ground down from a scrape with some hard, brick-like object. With a big gouge out of the foam at the back. I’m guessing it’s been their shop demo model for a while, essentially it’s not a new helmet, and I don’t trust that there isn’t more damage to it.

So I rang them, and very politely explained the problems I had. After being told to wait for thirty seconds, the guy got back on the phone and said “send it back and we’ll refund you”. I was a little stunned by that response, said OK and hung up.

Now I suppose it could have gone worse, he could have told me to shove it. That would have been fun though, I was quite ready for a fight. But he could have said “Sorry mate, it was the only one we had. Is there something else you’d like to swap it for ?”, and we could have gone from there. But he wasn’t interested in keeping me happy in the slightest. I can only imagine they are getting rid of all their grotty demo helmets and figure that anyone who will accept it… great, anyone who doesn’t like it can have their money back.

I know that various people in the bicycle industry see the internet as a major threat to their business, and nobody here wants to compete in a global marketplace, I know that shop staff have their time wasted by people using their retail locations as a way to try on clothes, but DAMN. Do these guys even want to TRY to keep customers (I also realise that I did actually buy this via the internet, but this shop is primarily a bricks and mortar retailer, and doesn’t really count amongst the PBKs and eBay sellers).

Anyway.. I know it’s a rant. I’m cranky. 

UPDATE : Looks like this has a happy ending. I posted the helmet back and the store manager / owner rang me. I had been sent a demo helmet which never should have been sold. He apologised for me being messed about and all is good. Unfortunately they didn’t have any more of that model helmet left, but I have another one on the way with a decent discount. So I’m happy now, but it’s not cool to go deleting blog posts when you think better of it.