Conan Moccasin

Pretty dull on the whole. Kept expecting them to really get going, but it just never happened. Best we could say about the lead singer was "sounds like a chipmunk" and they murdered a Teenagers cover. Oops.

Metric

Certainly can see the much more rocky direction they're beginning to take, and essentially it was a decent show. Disappointed that two albums were more or less entirely overlooked (I may occasionally want the moon on a stick, but I don't think it's unreasonable to show a bit of love to your early fans by playing more than Dead Disco.)

Metric at The Electric Ballroom, 19th May 2009

I recently opted to replace my first generation Asus EEE 701. It's very convenient and mostly functional, but I decided I wasn't finding it the best thing in the world for really Getting Stuff Done™ outside of sending a few emails.

I chose to get one of the new Samsung NC20s. I highly recommend it - it's really on the netbook/laptop border, but the larger screen size and resolution is worth that little bit extra weight (and at just under £400, it's a bargain too).

When I was selecting my new ultra-portable, the kind of things I had in mind were battery life, weight and form-factor (for carting it around to events), the specification (can I code and run photoshop?) and reviews of it's performance. The one thing I wasn't particularly interested in was whether it went with my handbag or shoes.

So why exactly have Dell opted to create their new "Della" site, which appears to be about specifically that one aspect?

The site is clearly aimed at women since it features lots of glossy photos of groups of ladies chatting over coffee and standing in fields staring thoughtfully off into the distance (or on the beach - because sand and cooling fans go so well), but it appears to assume that they're not interested in the specifications or technical features of the laptop - merely how pretty they look and how they'll help you lose weight or some other inane Heat magazine-esque topic. I'd call this patronising at best.

Perhaps they could be making a bigger deal of their "nipple" cursor controller and getting a few more blokes buying their mini range, just to be fair?

Oh, and my NC20 is an always classic little black number.

Update: Sounds like Dell have had a turn-around on the marketing campaign, pulling the name "Della" just days after it's launch (although a sneaky look at the website's mark-up still shows the della references throughout).

Jay Jay Pistolet

An unassuming man in a jumper far too warm for the tiny venue and hot lights, but a mesmerising acoustic set with 50s tones and twee lyrics.

Slow Club

Energetic, heart-felt and as good-humoured as ever. I genuinely can't watch them for long enough. Chair percusion and the occasional screw-ups add to their charm.

Slow Club at The Enterprise, 20th April 2009

I was lucky enough to get to attend Rewired State's "National Hack the Government Day" last weekend. It was a really good day and probably the best Hackday I've been to.

Things that really made it work:

1. It was focused. Having a very specific set of goals makes it easier for people to come up with ideas, especially when it's only over the space of a day.
2. It was in an office. Swanky new Guardian ones at that. As much as I like beanbags, they just don't fit for getting much work done. Having desk space just really felt productive and comfortable and felt more conducive to code.
3. The group was small and selected. It might sound kind of pretentious to be selective about the attendees, but it worked. I've been to so many events where anyone could sign up, and the tickets have been taken by people who simply don't show up because there wasn't much incentive to (or they just weren't that committed in the first place) or the people that did show weren't necessarily relevant. RWS managed to get a busy group of people who were good developers and interested in the topic. Turn-out was excellent (350 applied, there were 100 places, and 80 attended).
4. The atmosphere was friendly, productive and helpful. Everyone seemed really positive and interested in what everyone else was doing, and offered help and advice when asked. It was a good mix of skill-sets too.
5. There was beer and pizza.

I think what would work really well at something like that is mixing it up with some of the BarCamp methods. A great thing about BarCamp is seeing the 2 day schedule go up on the wall, and it being filled in with hand-written (often decorated) cards of ideas and names - as soon as you stick up your own card, you feel a bit committed to actually making sure you get your talk done. Perhaps what Hackdays need is to get all the ideas written up on cards, stick them up somewhere, then let people move them into "Doing", "Would like to do" and "Rubbish/Off-topic" groupings etc. Then it'd be easy to see what's up for grabs, or if there's some people who want to do something but need a bigger team to get it done, and just generally get a buzz around what's going on in the room.

Cool things did come out of RWS though, and you can check most of them out on the project page. Work seems to be continuing on many of the projects, and quite a few were offered further funding at the end of the event too. Kudos to James and Richard (and everyone else) for such a successful event.

Just a quicky - wanted to help link-love this to help out the bug squashing cause. Jake has found a rather fun IE8 bug: IE8 layout - Javascript / innerHTML bug.