Okay, so I have finally settled on a choice for my markdown blogging after recently discovering that Tumblr allows you to use markdown while writing posts. This makes me happy as Tumblr provides a lot more in the way of customization and extra little features that make life a little easier for the sort of blogging that I wanted to be doing on the second blog. So without any more delay you can follow my Tumblr by visiting tumblr.wduyck.com.
So it has been a busy and life changing year that just went by. 2011 brought not only a number of new events, and friends, but also a new look on the world around me. It has been fun, and I hope that it is an indication of things to come over the next year, and beyond (no, the world is not going to end).
What have I done in 2011 then? Well here is a list of some of the key things I have done this year (in my opinion):
This was a large part of my 2011 year. I spent a lot of time and effort on it and I hope to find the time to continue working on it in 2011. Affero (the Latin word for “contribute”) is a community contribution wizard that was developed as part of my A-Level course. It aims to make getting people involved in a community easier for those trying to choose where in the community they want to help out. I spent almost my entire final year of college working on it and it took up the first two months of 2011. There have been a number of posts about it, in fact so many that it even has its own category here on this blog.
Written in PHP and JavaScript it taught me a lot about not only how to develop, and properly document a project, but also a lot about Mozilla and how people feel while trying join Mozilla.
Next up in 2011 was the launch of Firefox 4. This was a big move forward for not only the web but also for myself. It was the first time I threw myself in at the deep end and organized not only the Firefox 4 Launch Party but also the first Mozilla UK meet, I also learned never to try to do both on the same day.
So on Thursday 21st April 2011 we here in the United Kingdom were graced with a wonderful (even if I do say so myself) party in our (well England’s) capital, London. However the party started well before… in fact it started weeks before, with the creation of the Firefox 4 Launch Team, the launch of Firefox 4, and then the launch of Firefox 4 Mobile. Without these three things there would be no reason for the party at all!
Well… this was a big time for me, not so much an interesting one but an important one. This was the time that I spend, gone for quite some time from the land of the internet. This was when I was doing my final A-Level exams. These I later found out, were good enough to get into my preferred university, though I will come to that one later.
Nothing much happened… I worked a lot, saved a large amount of money, then spent it all on a new computer… oh… and I got accepted by the University Of Kent!!!
In the summer I had planned to do a large number of things that never got done and for that I apologise. I did intend to get some updates made to Affero as well as create a tool to track the exposure of hashtags on twitter (about 60% there but not complete). I also wanted to re-write MozHunt and get that out properly with some nice new web technologies that fall under the HTML5 banner. Unfortunately all I have managed to do is drop off the grid even more than when I was taking my exams.
This was my first full month at university… I did a number of things such as start my course at university, make a whole new bunch of friends, and join a few societies. I even did a presentation as a Mozilla Rep on who Mozilla are, what we do, and why we do it. I also helped out a little with the planning of the Mozilla Festival, as well as write a post on how I got involved with Mozilla.
Not only was this month a big change for me (spending my first month away from home) but it was also a big month in history. This was the month that the world lost a great man who not only changed the world of tech, but also of animation. Steve Jobs.
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Okay… now I know I have said several times things along the lines of “this was a big month”, well they all pale in compare to November. This is defiantly the highlight of my year. Organizing a party… that was amazing. Moving to university, life changing. Though neither of these compares to the time I had over the course of two weeks in November. Not only did I get to go to the Mozilla Festival in London, and during the evening of the second day home to Lewes for Bonfire, and making myself ill, and very tired, BUT I also got to go to MozCamp EU in Berlin! I have no idea how my luck got so good but these two events are the best two events I have been to all year, and I loved every single second!
Nothing much happened this month. This time I mean it too… I came home from University, and spent the holiday so far with family. Now onto the present?
So nothing much is happening now, I am sat at home, watching… well right now Torchwood, writing this post. So what is it I am planning on doing? Well in late January I am going to be running a little meetup in Canterbury. Oh and come Easter there will be a BarCamp in Canterbury too… and I will be there representing Mozilla. I also plan on working a little more on Affero, as well as on a few new ideas I have had.
What about resolutions… well I have none of those… I never manage to keep them so why bother… instead, I am going to give you my list of New Year wishes for 2012 (thanks for the idea Chris).
This year I wish…
Tags: about, Affero, community, computing, documentation, education, future, history, mozilla, musing, new year, news, past, present, resolutions, social, web, wishes
This is another in the collection of posts that I am doing in markdown… while testing out the idea of launching a second blog.
Here is a snippet:
Okay… So, Danny. I while ago (well almost 3 months ago) I wrote a blog post about how things never go as planned. More specifically I asked the question “what tips, tricks, and recommendations do you have for a Mozillian going to university?”
Well I took your advice onboard and now I have a response for you…
To read the post visit wduyck.calepin.co/response-to-danny-moules-on-going-to-university.html.
Tags: blogging, calepin, cross-post, markdown, musing, university
EDIT: Okay… so I was just having a nice nose through my blog on someone elses computer and noticed that this post was not published… Woops! So I here it is… all be it very late. My round-up of MozCamp Europe 2011
A little while ago I was privileged enough to be invited to attend possibly one of my favourite events of all time. MozCamp Europe. I last attended one of these back in 2009 in Prague and it was amazing… Well… after thinking that there was no way to top that off I just got proved wrong. MozCamp Europe 2011 was at least 10 times more informative and 100 times more awesome.
So lets do this in a sensible manner. What was it all about this time? Answer: Many Voices One Mozilla.
As with most events there was a period of time on the first day travelling… then catching up with some old friends, and meeting new ones. Same old same old… though I would never trade that in. You meet some amazing people while travelling… just take a deep breath an talk to the person next to you. If they object then stop talking… though often they wont. It just takes someone to make the first move.
Okay so day 1 = travelling… what about day 2? Well day 2 is a different story… you have to wake up to start with, though that is normal to every day, only difference being you are tired still from going to bed a little later than you should due to talking to people you haven’t met for a while and also due to the travelling.
Breakfast was great, as was the night sleep beforehand. I have to say that the Tryp Berlin is one of the nicest, most comfortable hotels I have ever stayed in, as was the food there (though I could have murdered a real full English fry-up).
Right… breakfast over the next thing to do… actually get to the venue which was a short walk away in the cold. This however does not bother me because… WOW, what a venue it was. Definitely a place to go back to at some point.
photo by mozillaeu
The large bean bags on the ground floor had to be one of the best things in the world. Even if I spent very little time in them I would have to pick them out as one of my favourite things.
Next on the agenda… talks! The day consisted of some amazing keynotes on the future of Mozilla and around the theme of many voices one Mozilla. There was also (which I loved by the way) a short period where someone from each of the communities that was attending, could spend just a few moments (I think it was 2 minutes each) to say a bit about who their community was, what they had done, what their biggest challenge had been (or is), and what they planned on doing. All of these moments were also summed up on a huge “Web Quilt” which you can still view today.
Still during the first day I move this post onto my next activity which was a media training session. This was all about providing those of us in the community a little more confidence as well as tip/tricks of the trade when dealing with media. Not only was it informative, but it also gave us some time to practice what we were being told. It was also fun, not just a doom and gloom training session on, “you do this… you do that”. Far from it in fact.
photo by mozillaeu
Along with a number of other sessions (such as a ReMo status update, Constructive Collaboration, Nurturing a million relationships, and the Firefox Flicks Projection) there were coffee breaks (though the coffee from the week before at MozFest was better (sorry MozCamp), hallway conversations, a mega lunch and, of course, more meeting new people and making new friends. Followed by a wonderfully tasty dinner in the centre of Berlin.
photo by mozillaeu
Day 3 was of course a little harder for the getting up part however, for myself this was not due to drink or partying the night before, but more due to the amount of awesome from the day before. So much happened that this blog post does not even touch the surface yet… and I doubt it will.
The day kicked off with a talk that clear quite a lot up for me, and also answered a number of questions that others around university had been asking me. Why the new development cycle? Well I feel confident enough with my answer on that one now. The next thing on the list for the day for me had to be the talk by Chris Heilmann about “How to be a kick ass public speaker“. I have recently found my self doing more and more presentations and talks and wanted to gain some insight into how Chris got so kick ass at speaking (EDIT: in fact after taking on board some of his points and after being asked to do so at university I have even done a presentation inspired by this one… blog post on that to come).
So based on the next thing I am going to tell you it is going to become obvious that I attended a lot of things that I can use as a Mozilla Rep, and why wouldn’t I? Mozilla Reps is basically a programme designed for me! Based around what I do in the Mozilla Community for the most part. Of course I know it was not designed around me, but around many people and an idea. However lets move on to what I did next, which was attend a talk about Mozilla Reps SIGs (Special Interest Groups). The part of this talk that was not actually part of the talk but worth noting, was a sing-song of “Happy Birthday” to Pierros. Downside to attending this session… I now want to join all the SIGs! I have nowhere near enough time to do so… Now I have to choose one 
Shortly after the SIGs session there was a Q & A panel which, once again, raised and answered many questions. Wouldn’t be much of a Q & A other wise would it. This followed by a speed lunch, was the last thing before the dreaded group photo. Now I say dreaded, and this is not because it isn’t nice to have a group photo, nor because I don’t like having my photo taken very often. I say this because of the cold, and logistical nightmare that it was. As ever… too many people to fit into frame, so a lot of shuffling round. This time however it was done on the road just outside the venue (a quiet road… we didn’t want to get run over). Being on the road presented another problem… cars… they kept driving through the shot. We did however make them all feel special by giving them a big cheer each time one came past 
photo by mozillaeu
So now we get to the last few sessions, and the closing remarks. Pierros got another, larger birthday sing-song, as well as cake! We all said our good byes, and then went our separate ways, still with that idea in our heads however. The idea that there are Many Voices, One Mozilla.
It was an incredible weekend, and it is not fair to ask what the best part of it was… I wouldn’t trade a single second of it for anything in the world. I would perhaps trade sleep for more if I thought I would be conscious by the end of it, however that is not certain… there was a lot of awesomeness.
For all the awesome photos in the post and many more from the event visit flickr.com/photos/mozillaeu.
A special thank-you goes out to all those that helped organise the event and to who ever it was that put my name on the list of invited participants… It has to be said again, that this is possibly the best event of its type I have been to yet!
Tags: about, awesome, Berlin, communication, education, event, fun, geek, many voices, mozcamp, mozilla, open source, overview, party, roundup, social, web
Woop woop… This post realistically comes under the category Mozilla however anything under that category get sent off to planet.mozilla.org and I don’t want this on there as it would be pointless. Bonjour Mozilla! is also aggregated there and so anyone subscribed to planet would just see this preamble to my giving a link, and quote from the post… This post is more for the benefit of those friends, family and others who follow me via either twitter or facebook and might not have heard… I am honoured to have been mentioned and think what they have written about me is just wonderful… They have me down to a “T”.
He is a strong advocate of the Open Web, who discovered Free Software while learning the art of programming. He does development and web design, and knows several programming languages.
William started contributing to Mozilla more than five years ago, at the age of 13! He takes care of the community by organizing events, helping them progress, creating fun online activities for the whole Mozilla community and relaying Mozilla’s idea anywhere and anytime. Today, he works to enable more people to get involved with Mozilla. He is a mainstay of Mozilla UK.
You can find the post over at bonjourmozilla.fr/?post/2011/10/31/William-Duyck-alias-FuzzyFox-William-Duyck-aka-FuzzyFox. **Phew** That’s a long url!
[This is a cross-post from wduyck.calepin.co while I get my bearings on how to use/if I like calepin.co.]
Okay… so I have been toying with this idea for a while since I noticed that Paul Rouget does his blog using some simple scripts (well at one point… I don’t know about now). “This…” I thought to myself, “…is a great way to do a simple blog!” No need for complex systems that can go wrong… just a little markdown or what have you, something to get it on the web… and if you want it to look nice… something to convert that into html.
I recently took to using todo.txt for my todo list. There are a number of benefits I have already noticed and the biggest is that it just works. I have the bash script and the todo list in my dropbox so that I have access anywhere! I even added a simple line to my .bashrc file to show my todo list whenever I open a terminal… which is quite often 
Okay… that is all for this first post… I am going to cross-post this to my wordpress blog for now however if things go well, and calepin works well… I might make the switch permanent (well… for the little things).
Tags: blogging, calepin, cross-post, markdown, musing
Okay… so it has been a while now since the Mozilla Festival and I regret that it has taken me so long to get to writing this post. However I am writing it now so let’s get this done.
So what was the Mozilla Festival all about? It is about taking three elements that all intersect each-other and bringing them all together into one place so that they can work on awesome tools, ideas, and collaborations to make all three better! This year it was all about the intersection of Media, Freedom, and the Web.
So much happened at the festival that there is no way that as a single person could even begin to explain how much awesome there was. The awesome did not start at the event however… it started long before, over a year before in actual fact. Way back during the planning stage of the first Mozilla Festival in Barcelona. The festival then was about Learning, Freedom, and the Web, however it was the start of something more… it set the ground work for what would eventually be a second… and hopefully in a years time a third, then fourth, then… well you get the idea. There are many, many areas that intersect with Freedom and the Web however Media is one of the biggest and most important areas.
“Too many times in this world we get told to look and not touch” (Allen Gunnar 2011) and this is what is changing in media, and this festival was about giving this change the rocket fuel it not only needs, but deserves… not for the media agencies but for those consuming the creations they produce… for to long it has been a one way system, much like newspapers, TV, radio, etc… but this is changing thanks to tools like Popcorn (now version 1.0) we can produce content that is not only informative, but interactive.
cc-by-nc-sa jonathan mcintosh
So what were my best bits of the event? Well manning the contributor garage was a lot of fun, as was doing what you will often find me doing at events such as this… running around helping ensure things go as they should. The best thing at the festival however, besides the awesome coffee made by the awesome guys from Ristretto Coffee, and being around so many energised (beside the energy gained from the coffee), enthusiastic, intelligent, amazing human beings, and well everything that you would expect from an event like this… the best thing, has to be, no questions asked, the amount of impact that this event has already had.
I wish I could tell you everything about this festival in one post however I would have you reading for the rest of your life. The atmosphere was something to behold. The way people can work together so well after knowing each-other the grand total of 5 seconds. The amount of greediness that can be displayed in a single game of ping-pong! (If you were there, and you know who I am, then you know that the ping-pong had to be mentioned )
So here are some final things that I want to say before I leave you to enjoy the rest of your day… and leave you with some more reading that I hope you will do… there was a lot that happened in those two days (though for me it was 4 and a bit… but that’s another post on its own) and there is not a single blog post out there that will tell you all about it in one… it’s just not possible so I ask that you take some time and check out the amazingly well written posts over at mozillafestival.org/category/mozfest. Check out the awesome photos from the event as well as all the videos. Finally… please if you only do one thing after reading this post let it be this… read this post (6 ways to keep the MozFest momentum rolling) and help make Media, Freedom, and the Web all that it can be!
Side note: To anyone who reads this that is thinking of organising the next Mozilla Festival… I put my name in for volunteer co-ordination… I think it will be a lot of fun, and I think there is a lot I can bring to the role 
Tags: about, awesome, coffee, community, event, festival, freedom, fun, history, inspirational, media, mozfest, mozilla, news, pingpong, video, web
So it has now been about 4 and 1/2 weeks since I came to the University Of Kent, and it has been great so far. One thing that hasn’t though has been my responsiveness to people asking me how great it has been. So… I plan to answer everyone at once (I hope). I will be using a letter (hand written as well which makes me feel a little cheeky typing this response), that I was sent by my godfather (hope you don’t mine), as a template for what to put in this post.
Here goes….
I’m well… having a great time, and keeping busy.
I’ve settled in quite well here… the room I have here is bigger than that I have at home which is nice. I have a nice, and long desk which I have filled with my new computer (15″ mbp), a printer (£10 (thanks Apple), my TV (not being used for TV, only films and a second monitor), and my Hi Fi. I brought a large amount of my stuff with me so all the homely touches are here too, as well as something that I did not have up at home due to a lack of space… two, rather large, Mozilla posters . Best of all, unlike in some places this room is completely my own right through till June 2012!
The house is 6 bedroom, two shower room, and kitchen/diner. It is nice enough for the money I am paying and all my house mates are really nice too. There is a bit of an uneven split, two girls + 4 guys, however we all get along so no big deal.
12 hours of contact time a week in short. I spend more time doing the Java (the particular programming language that the university teaches first years here) with 2 x 1 hour lectures, Monday and Friday and a 2 hour terminal (class) on a Friday. I also have 2 x 1 hour lectures for Maths and Information Systems each, accompanied by 1 hour classes for each. Finally I have a business component on “Managers and Organisations” which I have a single 1 hour lecture on as well as a 1 hour seminar.
The lectures vary in interest depending on what they are on, and whether I have done similar work at A-Level however they are starting to level out on interestingness (yes that is a word).
So far there has not been much in the way of assessment however this is set to change with a presentation soon in business, and a group project in Information Systems. That combined with reading (you want to see the size of the books I have to ready by Christmas) means that I will be busy enough, however the load is light enough to allow for some social time.
Not very well… it is hard when you have so much to do, and at the same time when I am free there is still a lot going on. There never seems to be time to stop and think about who you have and have not spoken to for a while. So that is something I am going to have to work on. I don’t think Facebook will help much either as I never really check it… need to find something better… twitter maybe… however I would have to convince some of my friends to get accounts.
Two. I am now a member of the UKC Magic Society which is great fun, however as you might expect it is behind closed doors… all I will say is expect me to know a few magic tricks next time we meet. On the other hand however I am also a member of the much less hidden Tinker Society. This is…
…for people who love to share their creativity with like-minded people, and collaborate in designs and projects that are, simply, awesome. Having people from a variety of different backgrounds gives us the chance to look at problems from various different perspectives. We welcome everyone from every discipline, whether you are a Law student or an engineer we can guarantee you will learn something new and have fun in our events!
I have done a presentation about Mozilla at one of the meetings, and last night we made bottle rockets which was a lot of fun (more on that to come once I have finished going though the video footage).
All in all things are nice here. The campus is beautiful (in some places ), the people are nice, and life is good. The only thing that could be better is my sleeping habits and eating habits… there is not much of a routine in those areas yet… its more sleep when tired and eat when hungry. Oh well. As a good friend of mine told me… “Its when you have no routine that life is interesting” – Desigan Chinniah.
Tags: about, changelog, geek, life, magicsoc, mozilla, tinkersoc, ukc, university, update
So last night was one of my weekly meetings at the Tinker Society here are the University Of Kent. The Tinker Society is:
…for people who love to share their creativity with like-minded people, and collaborate in designs and projects that are, simply, awesome. Having people from a variety of different backgrounds gives us the chance to look at problems from various different perspectives. We welcome everyone from every discipline, whether you are a Law student or an engineer we can guarantee you will learn something new and have fun in our events!
It was a good night with some very interesting presentations for satellite photography of the planet to measure climate change, to android debugging, and even biometrics. Basically it was a night where people who wanted to, did a presentation on something they either did, do, or have and interest in. So… you can guess what I did a presentation on
The presentation was based on that I did at the Firefox 4 Launch Part in London where I spoke about who Mozilla are and what we do, as well as why we do it. I took out the history of Mozilla part as I only had 15 minutes to do the presentation. Which you can find the slides for bellow as well as (provided I got it working…) my notes on what to say for each slide.
A big shout out goes to Paul Rouget for the creation of dzslides which I used as the framework, the people behind the new brand toolkit, as well as everyone involved in the creation of the videos and demonstrations used.
Tags: community, design, dzslides, geek, mozilla, open mic, presentation, remo, tinkersoc, university, web
