Mike Riversdale

Just a quick reminder to get your votes in as the polls close on Monday. The 20 categories are (click for nominee details) Best cultural venue Best apparel store Best UnCheap Eats Best Breakfast Best public space Best Cheap Eats Wellingtonian of the year Best Non-Drinking Venue Hottest Hospo of the Year Best Suburban Venue Best 2007 Wellington-based Event Most Needed Best Building Wellington Supervillain of the Year Best Dub Dub Dubber Best Coffee Beans Best Public Art Best Shop nominations Best Late-Night Venue nominations Best drink nominations

$1,000 was the goal ... $700 so far! And thanks to everyone who has given, just amazing. If you'd like to inch me closer then that is totally awesome Sponsor me go to http://www.movember.com/nz/donate/?action=sponsorlink&rego=77750 , enter my registration number which is 77750 and your credit card details.

This article now at Enterprise 2.0 New Zealand style: Microsoft's use of the "army of JavaScript-typing, buzzword-spouting monkeys"

[Update #1] Hmm, this seems to be more than my problem as some people (I didn't tick) have received NINE emails. Oh crap, I am gonna be known as Spammer Of The Year at this rate. And what about the mailing lists ... this could grow into a monster! Eek [Update #2] Interesting side effects of my cock-up (and it does seem to be mine and not StumbleUpon's) I have a reason to clean up my GMail contacts I have a reason to remove myself from old Yahoo/Google Groups I no longer read 3 old friends have got back in touch Quite a few have actually discovered StumbleUpon and said thanks - definitely a side effect and not my intention I now know: there are loads on Kiwi's already on holiday (lucky sods) a truck load of people in Wellington have moved jobs It's oodles of emails from me but only one in each person's InBox and so life isn't too bad really All that remains is to face the hordes at work that will have received it .. *gulp* -------------------------- I haven'

Any chance of someone tipping me over the $600? Sponsor me go to http://www.movember.com/nz/donate/?action=sponsorlink&rego=77750 , enter my registration number which is 77750 and your credit card details. Or you can sponsor me by cheque made payable to the "Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand" clearly marking the donation as being for my Registration Number: 77750. Please mail cheques to: Movember, PO Box 87 150, Meadowbank 1742, Auckland All donations over $5 are tax deductible. All donations are made directly to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand who will use the funds to create awareness, increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer, fund research and scholarship programs. More photos of Mike's Movember time ... During Movember (the month formerly known as November) I'll be growin a Mo. That's right I'm bringing the Mo back because I'm passionate about men's health and the fight against prostate can

This article now at Enterprise 2.0 New Zealand style: Beware of IT excuses when you want to do something

Just so you all know: Hey everyone Quick reminder that applications to do an 8x5 presentation at Webstock < http://webstock.org.nz/blog /2007/the-8x5-returns/ > close this Friday. This was one of the highlights of Webstock last year and it's a great opportunity to present an idea/pitch/song/yourself to what will surely be a wuunerful wuunerful audience. We'd love to have some more applications to choose from, so if you'd like to apply, let me know < mike@webstock.org.nz >. Note that if you're accepted for this, you will need to register for the main conference. Speaking of which, the extended early-bird registration for Webstock also closes this Friday. Pricing < http://webstock.org.nz/registe r/pricing.php > will go up after Friday. Have a great week! Mike for the Webstock team

[Updated 11:25am] Darn this fickle Wellington weather - it's now cloudy and a southerly is dropping the temperature as I write! I'll be there but not eating as I have NO jacket and a thin shirt - I can tell I am gonna suffer on the way home. It was February when I last mooted a lunch time picnic by the waterfront ... time for another I think. The harbour is stunning, the wind has abated and the sun is gorgeous - what better time to meet up with our packed sandwiches, bought panini and cardboard coffee cups down by the harbour. See you somewhere on the wee waterfront wall along from Len Lye Whirlygig thingy waterfront side of Frank Kitts Park - 12pm I'll be the one smiling at life. &amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;

... swallowing half a big, juicy cherry and then noticing: 1. That there is a maggot hole in the left-over half; 2. That you have probably swallowed the maggot that lived there ... Show all | explain this

[Update to the $1,000] Now up to $525 A little over 10 more people to sponsor me $20 each and that 75% done! So far I have raised $275 and a huge thank you to all those that have contributed to this total, awesome effort! However out of the team's $2,851 that's only 9.5% and I've always count myself as at least 10% of anything I contribute towards. Even so, there are 15 of us in the Frovember team ( photos ) and I think we all can do better - $5,000 is easily a mark we can get to! I am looking to break the $1,000 mark - that's only $725 to go which is nothing in the grand scheme of things, is it?! And at a mere $20 each I only need 36 of you fine people to sponsor me. So please, sponsor me . Can ya put your hand in your pocket, pull out your credit card/cheque book (cash if you can get it to me safely) and give me $20 . However, if you've already given, already nominated your mo to sponsor, already been hassled a million times then I understand and no worries.

As Facebook looks around at making money I see a subtle shift/revealing in the philosophy of Facebook and I can't say I'm too comfortable with it. Over the passed few days I've been easing myself back with what I have on their, what Facebook apps I'm using* and just what I want to let them take control of. And before I continue - if you're wondering what Facebook is then may I sugget you head straight to 5 easy ways to protect your online presence with Dr Miramar Mike Of course what they take control of is data. Data about me and my activities. I think, however, that the new Facebook Terms of Conditions highlighted two areas I am not happy with. All content on the Site and available through the Service, including designs, text, graphics, pictures, video, information, applications, software, music, sound and other files, and their selection and arrangement (the "Site Content"), are the proprietary property of the Company, its users or its licensors with a

At Fronde there are a multitude of interesting people doing all sorts of things "outside" of work that aren't necessarily related directly to the day-to-day work of being in an NZ IT Consultancy. One of those has had the good fortune to appear on the inside cover of the 2008 NZ Arts Festival programme - go on, turn the page and check it out, she looks like this: It's not for me to tell you her name because, if you're at Fronde reading this, the fun is in trying to guess ...

Not the biggie change that I talk about about a week or so but a few small things. A while ago Brenda listed a few things that were annoying/the-same-as-elsewhere about living in Wellington. One of those listed was, "cigarette butts on the street" and as I smoke (for now) I have changed to make an effort to stick the bloody finished butt into a bin. (sorry, searched and searched for the link but couldn't find it) Mo - the mo has changed because of some comments around the "standard, boring Movember" over at Public Address System. I agree with those comments, the standard of creativity with the mo has been sadly lacking. I am struggling to make it a bit more fun but ... well, we'll see what happens.

It's best just to go and have a look for yourself ... Still need tempting? No, need one more Thanks to Adam for the link and this blog ( Interesting and Funny World ) could grow into one of my favourites if they keep it up.

Wellington is such a kick-ass wee city in many ways, none more so than the creative juices that flow through a small (by West Coast USA standards) but highly motivated, passionate and extremely talented bunch of Web developers/companies/leaders ... you know who you are, thank you for making Wellington THE place to work and being able to . However, with such a vibrant community out there it's pretty darned hard to keep a track of all the foo/barcamps, cons, meetups and every other style of cool get together that we need an online (of course) calendar of events. And while Brenda Wallace and Andy Chilton think just that they have, in the spirit of the Wellington Web World, gone and done something about it. Welcome to the first release of wellington.geek.nz which, in their own words, is: This site is designed for those people in Wellington to be able to find out about those geeky events that happen here every now and again (or indeed, more often than you expect). So this site should h

Seven, it has to be said, fairly influential guys - read what they think: Robert Chien (@ Sun) Tom Evslin (ICT entrepreneur, CEO and writer) Fred Wilson (A venture capitalist in NYC) Matt Blumberg (technology and direct marketing entrepreneur) Brad Feld (a managing director at Foundry Group and Mobius Venture Capital ) Jeff Pulver (telecoms company and entrepreneur) Phil Hollows (no link, sorry Phil) Thanks to Tony for the initial link

In The Tower of Babel * Che postulates ** talks about how social media (blogs, wiki's, online forums and the like) and, more specifically, the threads within them have a natural life cycle where the information*** grows and declines in 'usefulness'. I suspect the effect he accurately describes happens not just online. For instance, many a time I have started a conversation with a bunch if people (be it at work or not) and, as the conversation, follows it own path the original usefulness to me wanes. Eventually, as it reaches it's natural conclusion, there's normally a silly joke, a controversial statement or a silence that indicates that it is no longer useful to anyone. The starting point and the ending point are not connected in anyway but that's the beauty of listening and (hopefully) learning from others. Usefulness can come from the unexpected meanderings of people's brains and not just in a linear form. Not all the time - sometimes we speak like "

Check out the exhaust ... ooer, missus

Reservations are now closed, so if you got on the list (if you emailed before today, you are), you need to be there by 7pm to ensure you make it in. And if you're not on the list, it's first-in-first-served from 7pm onwards. But we would truly truly love to see you there, so even if you don't book, or you have to get there later, come along. And if you really can't join us, don't go all emo: the party will be recorded for a special end-of-year edition of Public Address Radio, which will air on Radio Live .

This article now at Enterprise 2.0 New Zealand style: Enterprise 2.0 starter pack

This article is now at Enterprise 2.0 New Zealand style: 5 easy ways to protect your online presence with Dr Miramar Mike

Just found out how to have an RSS feed per label ("tag") in a Blogger blog , and I am happy as the crowds walking in the sun around our gorgeous Wellington harbour. I now have a feed of my Enterprise 2.0 items for those that don't want to read all the other stuff. Do people want any more (humour, videos, life online?) - leave a comment . How to Feed of Blogger label format: http:// .blogspot.com /feeds/posts/default/-/ Sample - a feed of 'enterprise 2.0' items http://miramarmike.blogspot.com /feeds/posts/default/-/enterprise%202.0 Set the maximum number of Blogger RSS items by using " ?max-results=NNN " at the end of any feed URL Sample - set's maximum number of 'enterprise 2.0' items to 10: .../enterprise%202.0 ?max-results=10 Many thanks to Amit at Digital Inspiration for the info

New Zealand makes the UK newspapers one more time ... Anybody know Richie Trezise working on the NZ/Australia to USA Southern Cross Cable over at Telecom? What I want to know is HOW did this make the papers, WHO put them onto it?

The voting is open - cast your votes now (closes 4th December) The Gala details: When: Thursday 6th December (6pm+) Where: Mighty Mighty , 104 Cuba Mall ( ZoomIn map ) Cost: $15 entry + donation to Downtown Community Ministry Why: Blam Blam Blam ( ? ) , awards, prizes, celebs, being on the radio AND MORE - see below ... To make sure you can join us, please email the.wellingtonista@gmail.com I now copy the press release for your full and fine attention: The Wellingtonista and Public Address, in association with Freeview and Ponoko proudly present THERE IS NO DEPRESSION IN WELLINGTON It's a quiz show! It's awards for the best bits of our fair city! It's BLAM BLAM BLAM! Mighty Mighty, Thursday 6 December. Doors open at 6pm. $15 and donation to Downtown Community Ministry encouraged. First up the clever people of Public Address Radio and the Down Low Concept will bring you It Doesn't Give My Opponents Much Time Either , a quiz show in which various celebrity conte

An oldie but a cracker from the indexed blog (and book?). I see this dove-tailing perfectly with my favourite piece from the Wellington Writers Walk ( photoset ) by Laris Edmond: Lauris Edmond - originally upload It’s true you can’t live here by chance, you have to do and be, not simply watch or even describe. This is the city of action, the world headquarters of the verb – Lauris Edmond, from The Active Voice ( details )

The best tip (out of 15 others) was to read the items in 'List View' - I skim through the items so much quicker now. It does mean that good item titles are key!

Voting opens Monday - I'll let you know where and how as soon as the doors open. And reserve the Awards Gala night ( Thursday, 16th December - Facebook | Google Calendar ) in your diaries as it's gonna be a spectacular party with - oops, can't tell you until the press release is out ... watch this space! The 20 award categories and nominees are listed here in a random order; click through to read a write-up about each, details about the nominee with links, map locations and oh so much more. Best cultural venue The Film Archive TheNewDowse Moore Wilson's "Outside" The Paramount Best apparel store Dandylion Good as Gold House of Hank + Wellington Hatters Madame Fancy Pants Mandatory Ziggurat Best UnCheap Eats Martin Bosley's Trade Kitchen Matterhorn Capitol Best Breakfast Sweet Mother’s Kitchen Scopa Matterhorn Roxy Cafe Epic Best public space Midland Park Cuba Mall Oriental Bay Waitangi Park The Botanic Gardens Best Cheap Eats Sweet Mother's Kitchen

I know Brenda is shocked and horrified by all the males (I assume) with mo's but I struggle on regardless :-) Sponsor me because I made it to week 2 (half way ... out of 4, for those that need help) I am now sporting (suffering from) the following: Sponsor me To sponsor my Mo please: go to http://www.movember.com/nz /donate , enter my registration number which is 77750 and your credit card details. Or you can sponsor me by cheque made payable to the "Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand" clearly marking the donation as being for my Registration Number: 77750. Please mail cheques to: Movember, PO Box 87 150, Meadowbank 1742, Auckland All donations over $5 are tax deductible. All donations are made directly to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand who will use the funds to create awareness, increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer, fund research and scholarship programs. During Movember (the month formerly known as November) I&

It's either 'new' and therefore wasn't around previously to be improved upon. Or it's 'improved' based upon an older version and therefore can't be 'new' Options: New Improved Newly improved

This article is now at Enterprise 2.0 New Zealand style: The future of IT Departments

This article is now at Enterprise 2.0 New Zealand style: Are you a friend of Harry?

Despite the image that a lot of people may have of me as being 'out there', sometimes radical and often challenging there are times in my life when I get a bad case of the jitters. This happens mostly when I meet people for the first time "off my turf". Case in point: A friend of mine offered up their house in Martinborough for the Riversdale's to go and play in as a way of "getting away from it all" and giving the us a wee holiday-ette. Top! Liz, after asking me, wanted to bring along a couple and their gorgeous girl as well - a sort of family friends away time. Liz and Helen (for that is her name) get on like a house on fire. They met at Playcentre and very quickly have become great buddies. Iain is a top fella and, as I've said, their daughter Betty is a great wee girl and both Jack and Meg love having her to play with (and vice versa, I'm sure). Martinborough wasn't the first time I'd met them, we'd had a few wine sodden evenings

I think this NewsBiscuit article is probably too close to the truth in a weird way

Straight from the Google Reader the blog roll (to the right of this posting*) lists all the blogs/website/online journals that I actually read. Thanks Google Reader and especially Steve Lacey and his 20% Google Time for being so darned useful. * If you're seeing this in an RSS reader then you'll have to visit the blog to see what I'm talking about

Do I need bigger cock? And once you've giggled at that then check out this lucky/bemused/sore/embarrassed/spent teenager (thanks Kaliyuga )

This is an EMAIL APPLICATION ... now, knowing that, watch ... Thanks information aesthetics , one of my feeds that opens my mind and is always creative

As you shurely musht know I am a proud (if infrequent) member at the finest of Wellington blogs, The Wellingtonista ("random stuff about New Zealand's capital city since 2005"). Not only is this site the place to have all your Wellington questions answered , catch-up on the latest happenings and generally find out who's doing what to who it is also the site that organises the only Annual Wellington Awards that gives YOU the power to say what rocks about this city of ours. In a nutshell, the 2nd Annual Wellingtonista Awards is: 20 categories Voting open Monday, November 19th Voting closes Tuesday, December 4th Awards Gala held on Thursday, 6th December The voting categories are going up now; so far you have details of the nominees for the following ( subscribe to The Wellingtonista to ensure you don't miss the rest - I will also let you know on this blog posting): Best drink nominations When I am not having a martini, I like to drink a___ There are many man

The 'self proclaimed' organising team have been working hard at securing a venue that would meet the high expectation of the Agile community ... and we are proud to announce that Deloitte's have come to the party as a major sponsor of the event. Deloitte's are supplying the top floor of their Wellington offices (10 Brandon Street, Wellington) giving not only top notch facilities but also one of the greatest views of Wellington Harbour going. Many thanks to Deloittes. It has meant a shift in date TO Friday 7th December - please update your diary! All the details at the Agile Barcamp wiki: http://barcamp.org/BarCampAgileWellington Increasing awareness of Agile in New Zealand More | Discussion Friday 7th December - 8:30am-5pm Level 16, Deloitte House, 10 Brandon Street, Wellington [ ZoomIn map | Google Map ] | Facebook event [Updated] Huge effort particularly by Brian and Thomas to get the venue and logo sorted - top work guys!

(click for biggery) I've got about 15 or so of these. Check out the complete set with the fancy dancy Photobucket slideshow

As Tony has just pointed out to me - this, Jonathan Schwartz's Weblog : Weblog , is true blogging. Not the fact that it's a CEO, that Tony thinks it's "better" than mine (I assume) but check out the top right - you can choose a language! I think this simple function makes his CEO information much MUCH closer to all three of my pillars of good information - available, findable and usable . Anyone know if it's machine translated or he has a team of lackeys translating it for him? (PS: this is the first posting using the built-in Flock blog editor ... oooh, exciting)

Yep, I think the Flock browser might just be the one for me (currently using Firefox). I know, calling a web browser an 'operating system' is so silly ... but for me the browser is the only bit of software I use. It runs my apps, it loads when I turn the machine on, it saves all my data ... what else should I call it? And why change? Well, Flock was always a contender but in the earlier releases it just didn't hang together as well as Firefox even though they both share the same underlying code. With the release of version 1.0 (beta) I have re-visited and been pleasantly surprised at it's evolution. It fits perfectly with my "life online" with it's direct hooks into Flickr, delicious (the dots are going, remember where you heard it first) and nearly all other parts of my life in the cloud. I won't try and explain how it has Flickr photo's built-in, uses your online bookmarks as default and keeps a track of your Facebook contacts out of the box - r

[Update] Convicted murderer back in custody It's weird knowing that there's a convicted axe murderer running around after being told on the bus home that John Frederick Ericson had escaped from the prison here in Miramar yesterday morning. I trust he's managed to escape from Miramar Peninsular (as the police believe) and is far far from here OR he's holed up in a darkened room with no chance of coming out without being nabbed. Latest from Google news ... Actually, Duncan and I had been to a team BBQ yesterday afternoon and decided to catch the #24 home. The #24 bus is labelled Miramar North and picked us up outside Freyberg Swiming Pool, goes around Oriental Parade, Evans Parade through the Miramar Cutting and takes a sharp left up Mapuia and around ... the prison. We only heard the news on the bus and, having had a few wines/beers, were in silly lads mode. After the driver informed us that we were the first bus to be allowed up we decided this was an exclusive "P

How do trolley buses get their poles to go right or left when they come to a junction? Leave a comment on Wellingtonista to tell me how ...

Not really humour but wow, aren't spammers hooked into what really makes (sonme) people tick: Read/Write Web, Spammers Use Striptease to Crack CAPTCHAs And this just in the from the Quite Interesting (QI) news desk : Shellfish old bugger A clam found near Iceland has been hailed as the longest-lived animal ever found. The ocean quahog clam, aged between 405 and 410 years, has trumped the previous oldest clam by 31 years. The clam was nicknamed "Ming", after the Chinese dynasty in power when it was born - and not the aging ex-Liberal Democrat leader. Meanwhile, a 116-year-old orange from the lunchbox of a miner killed on the day he intended to eat it, has gone on display in the Potteries Museum in Stoke. The orange, that was handed back to the miner's family after the accident, is now completely black and the pips can be heard to rattle when it is shaken.

I put off and I put off and put off going to see Peter Ustinov. Then he died. I'm gonna spending $65 to see Michael Palin. It's 3 hours (including travel time), it's a book selling juket for him. I think he's very funny, a great story teller and I'm not gonna miss out this time. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ... the event is sold out ! :-(

Today's the day gentleman .. you should be clean shaven (on the face at least) and ready for 30 days of serious top-lip-hair growth. At Fronde have the Frovember team consisting of 10 fine fellows with hirsute aspirations upon your wallet. And awesome thanks to those the discovered our Movember plans and have already donated giving the team a starting total $755 - many thanks. Through my concerted efforts Fronde has recognised that having a web site (no matter how 'kick ass' it may be) is only the first step in gaining and maintaining a true 'online presence'. It's no good having the website if no-one knows you're there, no-one visits and no-one references you. (stick with me, this is "Movember" related, I promise) As part of growing that 'online presence' I have grown and started a select number of 'social networking' sites letting those that do, have and will work at Fronde get in touch, share the Fronde lurv and even let loose a