sorry about the delay on this but i'm working through a major backlog of video, blogging and bits for clients that i've only just gotten around too, it's been extremely different to get everything done but i'm back on it now, i've found my flow and the coffee is tasting good today!

before i went away i managed to record an interview with josh russell (@joshr) about a project that he is working on that brings twitter a kind of 'breakout' chat layered on top of the twitter homepage in the bottom corner.  a simply login/auth with twitter is all that is required and anyone that is using the twitter.com homepage and who has authed will be shown as a chat box bottom corner.

this is quite useful if you have no other chat clients running and want to maybe carry on a conversation away from twitter after receiving a few tweets (twitter is not a chat client right?) i find myself sometimes thinking that being able to 'step aside' for a bit more of a chat without having to rely on those twitter clients to provide me with IM details a really useful asset.

i'll be interested to see where this goes.

• Bonfire Comes Back From The Grave, So Get IM-ing On Twitter (eu.techcrunch.com)
• Twitter not real time enough? Try adding Bonfire chat (gigaom.com)
• Bonfire.im Brings IM Chat To Twitter, Know If Your Friends Are Online (techcrunch.com)
• Real-time chat comes to Twitter (browsermedia.co.uk)
• Chat Service Meebo Launches New Version Of Site Designed Around Competitive Sharing (!) (techcrunch.com)

ugh.  posterous had eaten this post.

so, thursday this week i took an early morning train ride (4hrs) down to exeter to meetup with a new development team that i'll be working with called lab media.  we already have started putting some code together for a widget style plugin for posterous that we aim to actually roll out for other blogging platforms.

thursday evening was all about my second time at @oddfellows pub for the 'smartphone' pub quiz, a contest involving using smartphones and tablets to find the answers to the digital style pub quiz.  the game was invented as a reaction to a guardian article regarding people using pocket devices to cheat in the conventional version of the game.

this involves scanning codes and using a variety of applications on the mobile phone to find the answer actually using the internet as a resource and helper.  each team has to pick a name and each team has to tweet the answer - the person running the contest then runs a search and scan on the team name for the correct question number hashtag and the answer.  the first to post the correct answer then wins.  easy.

i shot a little video that i'll be able to edit when i get in the studio in the next few days and i'll update this post with it and retweet when it's done.   i took a bunch of photos as well and i really loved using the canon 550d (thanks @chrisrowe) and the 50mm that i borrowed from @davidbaird for the last week or so.

had fun, looking forward to bringing this to nottingham! :)

i saw this video from scott stratten on TED about three months ago.  it filled me up, i'm hyper sensitive at the best of times.  i've been living by this code for about a year now since i moved to nottingham.  i miss my daughter like crazy and only ever get to see her once a week - but things are moving and changing.  life is getting better, i can see a better tomorrow.  tomorrow will always come and it's up to us to make sure we put the variables in place to make that day awesome.

i'm still in that 'keep going' stage however that scott mentions - i'm aware of it, i know it's not healthy i know you have to be in the moment but be respectful of others sharing that moment with you.  

i think it's shaped the digital relationships that i have with people because of the way i reflect a lot on life.  a life transaction of any kind be it love, money, time should always be something that you take on board, learn from and adapt too - go with and reflect on.  not just keep going and allow the world to wash over you.  you should be engaged in the world around you instead of just marching through and consuming.

it's taken me a long time and i'm STILL learning how to do this without it being about me and what i want, or this dream of what could be.  you have to make with what you have and you have to make it now, do it and it's done.  then you spend time with your children - for me, that's ella.

it always will be, just ella.  just ella, i never want anymore children - it's her, she - the little girl and her soul and lovely nature - the reflection of myself and her mum and he warmth for life that powers mine.  when someone saves your life it's not simply a word of thanks - it's a continued reflective process.  

without my ella, i know.  for a fact - i would not be the person i am today - i will never forget, i will always invest my time, patience and knowledge in the hope that she enjoys her life with a fully rounded experience of what it is to be human, and for the time that i'm on this planet that she knows how much her daddy loves her.

scott stratten is not only really fucking awesome at navigating life, he totally understand what it is to love, learn and to give back.  you like him because he's the guy you would hang with because he's right.  you can be right too.

you just need to stop thinking about you and starting thinking about everyone else.

i've been playing with my contact email button on my website over the last few days and wanted to make it as hyperconnected into everything as possible so that when people do email contact me from my sites that at the same time i can add them to newsletters and set off a sequence of events that allow me to get on with what i enjoy the most.  making stuff.

it's all about the opt in
i made quite the boo boo in december last year when i imported my contact list from gmail and started to spam my contacts without the double optin for the ark. that was a not a smart move. luckily when anyone sends me an email now from my contact form it will ask people if they are interested in a double opt in for my mailing list - no more guilty email blasts. most people tell me they cannot keep up with what i'm doing so i'm trying to simplify that via a newsletter.

because notifo is just awesome
there are many options for getting notifications for your iphone/ipod and i'm sure that apple will want to get in and disrupt that arena with ios 5.0 and it's notification centre. right now thou i'm really enjoying notifo and the abilty to get notifications about actions that happen on my website. mainly the fact that once i get an entry in teh wufoo database from receiving an email from you i also get a realtime notification.

having a realtime update can really help when working out what things are working when your blogging either mobile or on the desktop. i'm also using the notifogrowl to get growl updates on the desktop just in case my ipod is in my bag. i try not to live in email you see else i'm checking it all the time!

hooking in wufoo, mailchimp, twitter & zferral
one of the advantages of using a cloud hosting contact form solution like wufoo is that you get all the benefits of the addon features it brings. i'm able to hook up my notifo as i mentioned above but also populate a newsletter hosted over on mailchimp, tweet that i had a new email contact and add people to a referral program in zferral if they are interested (all of this is email optin)

In the long run it saves me asking people to sign up at a variety of places. they can email me and we are done - saying that i've added newsletter as a seperate option, even with qr codes. get me!

making your email contact form super connected is part of my new social media courses that i'm running at the living rooms on high pavement in nottingham for august and september (and beyond) if your interested in them check out the pdf documents for it.

last night was fantastic!

quicklink | livingroomnotts twitter [web]

really, i'm not just saying that to gain favour with the lovely ruth that organized it but i geniuely had a really excellent business networking last night.  for a start being lulled into a relaxed state by the piano sounds as you enter it was obvious straight away that customer service, reading the room and preperation was all in attendance.  it does fill me with joy to see professionals be prepared with badges, paper and pens.  gold star for that.

the select of businesses while small for a mixer, a few dropped out it was enough for the space and the fact that outside was beautiful again putting of a few at the last minute from attending - i do find that bad karma thou and i wish people would let places know around lunchtime so that others maybe rallied into position to add to the mix.

the general manager, i'm sorry i forget your name right now (my next blog post will give you reason why) was attentive and served up some fantastic wines that really hit the mark and the slate delivery of little marvellous parcels of munching delight soon removed the hungry itch to aquire food while quaffing on my glass of white, i soon switched up to red - well i had to see if they had a bad one or not right? - both scrummy as it happens.

i did not realise that a number of the people were also twitter users and it seemed like the resounding vote was that twitter had really helped them make some firm connections.  i saw a lot of savvy people working the room, finding out people and making those connections in a one hundred and forty character style.  i was impressed.

so yes, enough gushing.  i like the place, the staff are a delight and the food fantastic.  wine also very good and generally it is a place i'm hoping to be hosting my events at soon for hands on social media.

well done livingroom.

ps. oh, and one little thing - not really related to the event per say but i did have a brief chat with a lady who i will not name that asked 'why are you helping me' and this made me realise that we do have a problem with people helping their fellow man/woman - appears that it is a rare thing these days to want to build relationships in this way.  we need to fix this.  it's my mission! :)