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At dConstruct for the last few years I organized ‘pre-dConstruct pre-party Burgers’ (still time to signup for this years), for some it’s almost tradition now… I thought, “let’s do the same for Flash On The Beach“:

Add yourself to the Upcoming.org event so I can warn GBK in advance.

dConstruct is happening again soon & tickets go on sale on Tuesday. Historically it has been the best web conference in the UK and this year I’d imagine will be no different.

If dConstruct is on, that’ll mean dConstruct pre-party, if the dConstruct pre-party is on that’ll mean ‘pre-dConstruct pre-party Burgers’, it’s almost tradition now for some… one of GBK’s finest burger’s with great webby folks before a slow-burger-walk to the official dConstruct pre-party for fun & games.

Add yourself to the Upcoming.org event so I can warn GBK in advance.

Plugg is over, it was the first of I’m sure many Plugg events to be held. Overall the event was great; organized well, wifi worked perfectly, fantastic venue, adequate food, etc. however I couldn’t help but feel an overall lack of direction while at the event. It flowed a bit like an amateur band… stopping between every song at a gig, that however didn’t stop it being a great event.

The numbers presented about the games industry in Max Niederhofer’s session were not what I expected at all, the market for flash games massively out-weights console games. I got a question in about Silverlight’s game capabilities, Max however isn’t a Silverlight expert (.. turns out he’s a hell-of-a WoWer though!)

Both the Entrepreneur & the Investor panels were interesting conversations with a number of good questions from the audience. It was great to meet Paul Fisher, he seems to know the advertising world like the back of his hand, days of conversations to be had there I’m sure!

From what I saw of the Start-Ups Rally sessions they worked well (although, I’m convinced there’s a better solution to collect the votes from the audience) which Viewdle won, while Zilok got the best audience rating. I also skipped most of Tom Raftery’s session ‘Radically reducing your IT carbon footprint’ fearing it would be similar to previous sessions of his, however the topic is very relevant and only becoming more-so.

Jet lag was starting to get the better of me and I needed to stand up to stay awake so got some “LobbyConning” in, which is always interesting, meeting a number of interesting folks.

Jet lag was really setting in so I never made it to the official after party, but not before enjoying dinner with a bunch of great folks. A big thank you to Robin Wauters for organizing Plugg.

Aral is one of Brighton’s resident flash/flex guru’s. He’s doing a intro course to flex. For more info, check his blog post on the topic. If Flash/Flex is your thing, tomorrow there is a Flash Brighton focusing on Framework Development, or check out Sussex Digital for more Brighton events.

(Disclaimer: Aral is my partner in crime working on Pistach.io)

A few of you probably spotted the “What is” badge appear over on the right of the site, if you clicked it you’ll have learnt nothing, until that is last Monday the 4th of February. Aral announced with his blog post This is Singularity that Singularity is an online conference.

(Disclaimer: Aral and I are business partners working on Pistach.io)

I’ve known about Singularity for a few weeks now, and it’s sounding very impressive, no small fete & with some great speakers “over 100 of the world’s top web visionaries, developers, designers, thought leaders, and celebrities” [some of which haven't confirmed so I can't blog, but, wow]. If Singularity wasn’t on your radar, make sure it is!

Join the Facebook group, subscribe to the blog at Singularity08.com, it’s not one to miss! Here’s Aral being interviewed on the topic while at LIFT last week.

My good friend Ben told me about his workshop for non-geeks on Friday while at the weekly coworking. I think it is a fantastic idea, and if you know someone in the area that would benefit from an introduction to any of the following, let them know:

• How the web is changing
• Social Bookmarking
• Feeds (RSS)
• Blogging
• Collaboration
• Shared Calendars

I’ve worked with Ben in the past, and known him for nearly 10 years (… really that long already Ben?). I’ve been following him on Seesmic recently, much to my enjoyment, because he’s a thinker, and in-turn continually makes me think. I’m sure he can get your non-geeky friends thinking about what social media can do for them.

Sign up over at the Upcoming event, or check out Sussex Digital for more Brighton events.

In two Wednesdays time (13th of February) WiredSussex are putting on Brighton Digital Media Job Fair at the Jury’s Inn. They’ve got four main sessions; The Lunchtime Session, Freelancers Session, Brighton Internship Programme Event, & Informal networking drinks so plenty of networking! Brighton’s home to some really cool companies, a number which have stands at the job fair:

• Second Life
• iCrossing (formerly Spannerworks)
• Relentless Software
• WPM
• NCsoft Europe
• Cogapp
• Club Penguin (a Disney company, and new in Brighton)
• Designate
• Madgex

Sign up over at the Upcoming event, or check out Sussex Digital for more Brighton events.

This will be the third year of dConstruct in Brighton, I missed out on the first year as I was moving house (to Brighton none the less). Last year was a fantastic conference about API’s, and this years theme is user experience.

Tomorrow, at 11am, tickets officially go on sale. Here is your reminder, visit http://2007.dconstruct.org to get yours!

If your coming, find me at the pre and/or post party and introduce yourself… and if the parties are anything like last years you’re in for a treat. Veeliam snapped me throughout the evening, starting with respectable and just about respectable, then ending on a little drunk and attacking designers (so there is no confusion, I wasn’t really attacking Mr. Hicks), luckily I didn’t end up naked, wet, and exchausted after a dip in the sea.

See you there!

About two months ago Martin threw the best web related event I’ve been to, TechTalk in Menorca. The event was great, the speakers were great, being outside for an event was great, and Loic threw videos on his own vpod channel for all to see. While there Martin gave out a free ‘La Fonera’ promocode, so I took him up on his offer.

We’ve joined (as a linus) the other ten or so fon hotspots in Brighton. (for free wifi in Brighton we also have Loose Connection, and Pier to Pier)

I might be preaching to the converted here, but the experience of setting up La Fonera, and managing it makes it so attractive to recommend it to my mom/grandmom/etc. I’ve long had a theory (and many others have I’m sure) that security issues should not at any point be handled by non-geeks.

• They don’t care enough, probably due to lack of understanding
• It frustrates them, again, lack of understanding
• It annoys them, all those pop ups about ’something’
• They’re trying to get a job done, not worry about security!

fon is perfect! Yes, you have to trust fon as they handle security for you, and as Stefans Datenbruch and Michael Kebe pointed out by hacking La Fonera: there is potential for risk. They clarify “[it] wasn’t our intention to harm users or FON in any way”. I don’t think they did, hopefully they made fon stronger as it’s another security issue which hopefully end users won’t have to worry about, the experts at fon can.

P.S. you just got to watch their video: Matador El Café.

It’s all become a bit a little complex!

A month or two back, I bit the bullet and decided to join all the social networks I found with at least another friend on. Previously I’d ignored MySpace, Facebook, and the rest of them and dedicated my time to the one I still enjoy most, Twitter. I join them all as a bit of an experiment, looking to learn and analyze how people interact online more. I’m left wondering a few things:

• Why has my usage of smilies has gone through the roof
• Social networks allow you to add “friends”, however, some people have tried to add me that I don’t consider a friend (I’m not a person full of hate, but that person you knew from 10 years ago that you really didn’t care about then, and don’t want to stay in contact with…), I’m interested in how people respond to a “denied friend request”, Facebook allows you to show limited profiles, maybe that’s a nice way of saying “I don’t like you much”.
• Most of my female friends that are online work in marketing, why is that?

My main problem now is I have friends all over the place, both online and offline. Some of these have my address/phone/im, others don’t, some are on Twitter and Facebook, but not on MySpace. To combat this I’ve got a filter in gmail that moves all emails from social networks to a different label so I can try and see everything in one place (also, I can see out of my friends what gets used more).

Thing is, my email has become voicemail. I login and see that Katy has messaged me back on Facebook (go and check that then, reply), and that Tom added me on Twitter (go and add him back), nothing from MySpace but, they don’t seem to email me (check that as I’m doing the rounds) and Rosie sent a message to everyone (read that, reply). Radar told me Pete and Josh have been adding photos on Radar (have a quick look). Then I’ve got Flickr telling me about my friends photos in Google Reader, and a similar setup with del.icio.us. Then I walk out the house, and my mobile gives me updates from Jaiku, and Twitter is my browser homepage on my N73 as well.

I love being connected, but seriously, this has to change?! If anything, just because it’s a drain on productivity - every time I check my email I’m on 10 sites doing ‘admin work’ on my ‘online social life’. And, when I want to ring Sam, he’s on my Twitter but I don’t have his number. And then there’s Skype, AIM/MSN/Yahoo/Gtalk/etc, I’ve not even got onto email yet (sorry if I’ve not replied yet). And, really, I much prefer speaking to someone.

Rant over

A last minute thing!

Perfect timing, another conference in Brighton, not long after d.Construct. This time about a technology I’ve not used in a long time. I last used Flash way back at Flash 2, before ActionScript. Wow, how time has changed.

Jeremy’s Ajax: Flash Killer? should cause a stir, that’ll be a interesting one to watch..

Anyway, if your going I’d love to meet up, if you find time between the amazing line-up of speakers and all the other events happening in the evenings come say “Hi”!

The Future Of Web Apps site has just gone live. Ticket sales should start soon.

It’s 10:27am and I’ve been working for 18 hours straight. Potential clients, please don’t ring until tomorrow.

Once again, Brighton seems to be the place to be this week! All the weekly, monthly and yearly events seem to have fallen on the same week! I dropped out of BarCampLondon the weekend just gone as I run out of time with everything going on. I have a feeling it’s only going to get worse.

• Brighton Cluster: a “loose collective of small business owners & freelancers” at The Lord Nelson, Brighton
• Brighton Farm: a weekly meet up in Brighton for freelancers & small businesses at The Lord Nelson, Brighton
• Pre-d.Construct drinks at The Heist, Brighton
• d.Construct at Brighton Corn Exchange

.. and then after a relaxing weekend (no doubt working on my own projects) I’ll be up to London on the 14th for both Make IT Fly at Sun Microsystems’ London office and then in the evening Pub Standards at The Bricklayer’s Arms.

As ever make sure you come up and say “Hi”, unless however your Aral as I now expect “Yabadabadoo!”.

Update: Not sure how I missed this one, but there’s a Microformats picnic at Pavilion Gardens, Brighton. So I guess, I’ll be there as well!

Wow, what a busy week this will be:

• Tuesday: Usability Professionals Association: Accessibility & assistive technologies for the visually impaired at The Greene Room, Brighton
• Wednesday: Brighton Farm: a weekly meet up in Brighton for freelancers & small businesses at The Cresent, Brighton
• Thursday: Brighton Cluster: another “loose collective of small business owners & freelancers” at The Robin Hoob, Brighton

Brighton seems to be the place to be this week!

The boys at ClearLeft are organising d.Construct again this year. I had just moved to Brighton last year and missed out on the ticket sales due to lack of internet connection.

I believe tickets are all sold out now, but if you’ve got one why not come and say hi?