JJHalans ‹› afterhours

It’s 2009 already? Says who? What happened to 2008? Was it a full 12 months? I must have missed it.

End of February, it will be already 3 years since I arrived in Sydney. Time sure flies.

Here’s a Flickr set of my (own) favorite pics of last year. I’m sure I missed a couple (should really flag them when I upload them).

And I’ve made a set of iPhone Wallpapers, hope there’s one you’d like to use too.

New Year’s resolutions? Loose weight, get fitter, be healthier, be happier, blog more (interesting things), start some sort of online business (like, make money while I sleep…), learn more, save up some money, live leaner,… Ask me about it in a couple of months time, alright?

Anyway, you too have a Happy New Year!

If you missed out on Ignite Spatial last month (and my Mapanui preso, shame on you!), the New Year, Januari 22, brings Ignite Sydney, Ignite preso’s on any subject. Have anything you want to say, introduce, proclaim in 5 minutes and 20 slides? Sign up for Ignite Sydney!

Next Wednesday I’ll be presenting Mapanui at Ignite Spatial:

What if a presenter could tell you their spatial story within 5 minutes? They have 20 slides, and each slide lasts for 15 seconds. You vote for your favourite presentation. That’s Ignite Spatial.

Ignite Spatial is on Wednesday, 12th of November at the Occidental Hotel. Doors open at 5.30pm with the first talk at 6.30pm. Ignite Spatial is free, and is open to anyone with an interest in spatial sciences, technology and applications.

Ignite presentations on the evening:

1. GIS Today - Beyond mapping and data maintenance (Jason Grech - gViz)
2. GPS - Debunking the myths (Chris Loty - Ultimate Positioning)
3. GIS and GPS in tourism (Tony Hart - Strategeo)
4. Intro to the Google maps API (Mickey Kataria - Google Australia)
5. Mapping the Sky  (Richard Lane - Sydney University)
6. How I build cool stuff for Government (Diana Mounter - Local Govt Association)
7. Is GIS Really Mainstream Now? (David Hayward - Ajilon Consulting)
8. Web Mapping Services and GIS (Win MinSwe - Blacktown City Council)
9. Mapanui - a pocket map for your browser (Jean-Jacques Halans)
10. How to talk GIS to the spatially naive (Chris O’Dell - Parsons Brinckerhoff)
11. Advanced 3D modelling with Pictometry (Alex Cowdery - AAM Hatch)
12. What’s new in Microsoft’s Spatial offerings (Andrew Coates - Microsoft)

Should be interesting!

Looks like I’m on at 7:15pm!

BarCamp Sydney is back! This time for one day only in the fantastic UNSW Roundhouse. Join us for interesting people talking about interesting things in technology and entrepreneurship.

BarCamp is an unconference: an open, participatory workshop-event, whose content is provided by participants. Ad-hoc conference, unorganised, unrestricted and unpredictable, BarCamp is an intense community event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees. Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to participate.

More info about BarCamp Sydney on the wiki: http://barcamp.org/BarCampSydney
Sign up at http://barcamp.org/BarCampSydney4

Video proof (YouTube) that muppets are pure evil!

Great winter olympics snowboarding site by the BBC with flash video tutorials.

Chris Whitley, one of my favourite artists, passed away last weekend, too soon, at the age of 45.
Obituary

E-mail just turned 34 this year, read about it here at the Google blog.
Microsoft celebrates their 30th birthday with a nice Flash site.
And me,… oh well, let’s not get into that.
I’ll just say I’m in between M$ and e-mail…

Great stuff for NIN fans and Mac owners. You can find the latest NIN single ‘The Hand That Feeds’ as a GarageBand track on their site, and play around with its 17 tracks to make your own version.
Update: The new single ‘Only’ is also made available in GarageBand format, including a few Windows multitrack versions.

October 25th, our first wedding anniversary today!