BRUSCA

Panoramic Photo Booklet(s)

Posted by Brusca under Uncategorized

Tanzania 20 Page Photo Booklet is now available online at www.lovethepano.com. When you buy one or more panoramic prints from any Tanzania region you receive one of these 20 page Tanzania Photo Booklets. These style booklets will be available soon for other locations. The booklet is 20 pages of my absolute favourite photos from Tanzania.

Location, location… location

Posted by Brusca under Location Software, Social Networking, Software

OK the location war is on in earnest and Gowalla and Foursquare seem to be at the top of the heap in terms of popularity and fighting the battle to be at the top. This though is only the beginning of location centric applications, and I’m not going to speculate on who is the best (cough Gowalla!) here.

http://www.foursquare.com

http://www.gowalla.com

My belief is that location centric applications are going to be the next big wave (trust me it’s a small wave right now). The idea of checking into a location through a mobile phone opens up so many doors, too many to describe in one post.

The first awesome opportunity that comes to mind is when a business can tap into the Gowalla and or Foursquare data or API (or both) and push through deals and or specials to the application interfaces, so that when a user checks into the pub, restaurant or whatever the location is, they simply receive a push notification or an SMS of a special deal for checking in their, like a free beer, or half price meal that the user can then claim for checking in. Or perhaps another alternative is within the interface of the chosen location software, the user can browse through nearby specials within a given radius, from 100m to 1km.

I love the countless opportunities this opens itself up for. Oh the above idea is mine, get your own :0) HA HA!

SXSW Interactive Checkin Visualization from SimpleGeo Inc. on Vimeo.

This is the data SimpleGeo collected from the eight geolocated data providers (FourSquare, Gowalla, Twitter, Flickr, Bump, Brightkite, BlockChalk, and Fwix) during the South by SouthWest Interactive Festival. The live datastream was available on http://austin.vicarious.ly, but we thought people might enjoy a conference retrospective in data. If you’d like to have access to this data and more, and/or outsource your entire geolocation infrastructure to the experts in massive geodatasets, check out http://simplegeo.com; we’re in Beta right now, with a full launch at the end of March!

Created with Processing (http://processing.org/ ).

Maps from the OpenStreetMap project (http://www.openstreetmap.org ).

Music: “Pocket Tanks,” Eliran Ben-Ishai (DNA-Groove).

Rupert Murdoch… Google is your friend

Posted by Brusca under Uncategorized

Rupert Murdoch wants to make people pay for their content and remove that paid content from Google search results. It’s scary watching this video, you soon realise that Rupert (all powerful) really doesn’t have a true grasp on the internet. Making people pay for your content completely and removing your search results from Google. News Corp need Google more than Google needs News Corp. The bright side is this opens a big door for smaller competitors to get a bigger market share in this area, so with that in mind I say, Rupert go for it.

Read the full article here
http://mumbrella.com.au/murdoch-well-probably-remove-our-sites-from-googles-index-11366

Tripit Online Travel Itinerary

Posted by Brusca under Apple, Software, Tanzania

Tripit is a very impressive website for adding your travel itineraries to and share trips with friends and family. You can manage your itineraries on Tripit or simply send in a booking confirmation number and it is all done automatically. A great compliment to this website is the iPhone App (FREE) to download your trip details and have in your pocket without the worry of loads of paperwork. Add images, notes, maps etc to your Tripit itinerary. Brilliant!

My Full Tanzania Itinerary is here

Nikon Nikkor 50mm 1.4G AF-S Test Shots

Posted by Brusca under Uncategorized

Nikon Nikkor 50mm 1.4G AF-S Test Shots, originally uploaded by brusca.

I finally bit the bullet and bought the Nikkor 50mm 1.4G AF-S lens I have been looking at for some time. Added a polarizing filter to it as well.

I took a few test shots to show off the bokeh and depth of field this lens provides at different ‘f’ stops. This is a sweet lens and I am going to have some fun learning to use it. More photos to come.

Brusca

Interspire Website Publisher 5 First Look

Posted by Brusca under Design, Software

Interspire build some very decent open source PHP products for providing online solutions, from Shopping Carts to Email Markters. I have been using Interspire products since 2005 with Australia Zoo, utilising the Email Marketer (formerly Sendstudio).

Since moving to contracting in December of 2008 I have become an Interspire Partner to help serve some of the smaller clients I have. I recently received notification of an update to Website Publisher. Being a partner gives me the opportunity to install an NFR (not for resale) copy to play with. Now I did say I have been using Interspire since 2005, but Website Publisher I have never actually tried as it was never an option for Australia Zoo being such a large and diverse site it was all developed in house. So lets take a look at Interspire Website Publisher and I will touch base on just a couple of the cool features.

What is Website Publisher?

Website Publisher is primarily a CMS (content management system), an online tool for managing the content you deliver to your website or online presence. There are plenty of CMS systems around these days, a couple of other PHP open source FREE examples are WordPress and Drupal, both very good in their own right. Website Publisher is similar but looks to take things a bit further, and removes the need for having technical know how in managing your content.

Installation

Installation was simple to follow. Upload the files to a directory of your choice, set up a database before the installation procedure and you’re ready to go. Interspire offer an installation service if required. Once installed the software is simple and easy to use.

Interface

Like all Interspire interfaces, they are pretty consistent, keeping the menu well organised with drop downs, it is not hard to find what you need. Although there is a contextual menu to the top right, which could be better organised and even sending some of the links to the main menu might be better served.

Interspire Website Publisher Interface

Website Design – Templates

Similar to WordPress and Drupal, Interspire comes with the option to download and install templates. Although there is less technical ability needed to manage the template implementation in Website Publisher, you simply click on the download button and the template is ready to select once the download is complete.

Interspire Website Publisher Templates

On top of the easy to install templates is the template editor. A very nice interface of drag and drop options to alter any page within a given template. There is also permission features to lock off areas for certain user groups.

a 3 column editable template

Glow Gray Template

Interspire Website Publlisher Modules

Modules

As displayed in the image to the right Website Publisher 5 comes with some nice default modules. I particularly like the hassle free implementation of YouTube and Twitter. Simple configure your modules and place them where you want them in the template editor. Unlike WordPress there is no option to download extra modules, but I am sure they will come.

Content

Website Publisher has some great CMS features and a selection of content types to add directly into your site. Content such as a Blog, a generic web page, an article and a news item. They all vary in features and serve specific purposes for what you are trying to communicate. I quite like the range of choices.

Add a Blog

This is only just touching base on Website Publisher 5 as there are a tonne more features to look at and experience. From my first look I will certainly be considering this as an option as a service to provide for small to medium size businesses needing their own CMS. For further details on Interspire Website Publisher, check out the website.

The Nikon D90 Road Test

Posted by Brusca under Uncategorized

I have recently started a new hobby with the purchase of a Nikon D90.

I have to say I have set myself a steep learning curve for my first DSLR. This camera is amazig and everywhere I take it, it never fails to perform. I have not done  a lot with the Dmovie so far but that is to come.

At present I only have the 18-55 and 55-200 lenses and look forward to moving into macro photography soon with a lens upgrade. I hope you enjoy some of the sample shots I have uploaded below.

Cabarita Goodness

Posted by Brusca under Uncategorized

Crab burying itself into the sand

Macro on the beach at Cabarita

Rock Macro at Cabarita

I took these on my little Nikon s700 using the macro settings. These shots were taken at Cabarita Beach in Northern NSW. For a full list of shots, check out my Flickr photostream.