Here is another link to inspire Exeter Television. It is in itself a short documentary that works ok online. The content is about citizen journalism, found through OhmyNews. The location is East Coast USA but presumably the same sort of bandwidth will apply in Exeter at some point.

This one was from the marquee selling magazines and CDs and instruments. Filed under 'English' folk were a selection of what might be called 'classic rock'. More research needed on history of folk as understood by most people visiting Sidmouth, some of whom were just on holiday and came across the music by accident.

Some photos not included in the OhmyNews story. The editors tend to reject those that are not too relevant or strong quality.



This is the rope for holding back the crowds from the Anchor Gardens. Evidence that the event is now well established. The rose was a gift for the security staff from a grateful member of the audience. The queue is never too long as people do leave for other venues.

I have now sent in a revised story for OhmyNews

Not edited yet. Some text has gone missing but should return.

There is a short mp3 copied from a video of Crediton World Music Choir. One really good development from writing about the tech aspects of Sidmouth was the loan of a camera from Exeter Television. This is still being edited but will áppear over the next few months.

I have dropped some opinion into a box. Briefly I have stopped worrying about wifi and immediacy as part of a festival or real time event. Online shifts in time and space so it augments an occasion. Something like that. Not sure how the OhmyNews editors will treat this. I am sending in stories as if it was a blog, there were three last year. And the ideas are not well formed. Still, something else will follow. I hope more people will start sending in stories.

Not off topic yet. Exeter wifi could follow up during Vibraphonic or in the autumn. The Melonious Funk session is included in the Sidmouth video. Not really folk but already a tradition to close the Dukes sequence.

I have now found Sidmouth Internet Access and Repairs, hiding at the back of an arcade. Sidmouth shopping Centre, 91 High Street to be precise. There is also a food hall with vegitarian takeaways.

So this is ok for checking Gmail and adding to a blog. Having said that, there is not much to add. I still have some photos in mind and plan to try for a seat for the Thelonious Funk at the Dukes. It may be a bit more jazzy than Chameleon last year. The version of Misty on the Myspace site is quite slow and extended. Don't remember Chameleon quite like that.

No signs of wifi as such.

Still working on the Sidmouth article for OhmyNews. Talking to Jo Gedrych of exeter Television has resulted in the load of a a video camera. So this is engaged journalism. The video won't be much of a feature of the story as it will take a while to edit. For one thing it has to be reporting, not a series of performances.

Citizen photographer Gary Trembling has now returned to London. There will be links later to some photos. I don't have time to load them up at the moment. Just one above, see Melonious Funk below. Maybe more at the weekend. There is something compelling about Sidmouth Folk Week as a concentration of time and space. It will come to an end gradually but the wind today had a hint of autumn. I think maybe why we write about the uses of IT in support of the event is that we just wqant to be associated with something that works anyway. There is definitely a sense this year that the new model is established. Still, looking at ways to extend it in a parallel digitised world could contribute something.

Meanwhile, Paul Gillard has loaded some short clips from a Country event held for the Devon Air Ambulance Trust back in July. Holsworthy is way north of Sidmouth so there is a gap in space and time. Also Country seems not to be included much in the Folk scope. The Fallen Apples did a couple of Johnny Cash numbers at the Volunteer but mostly stuck to blues. Anyway you can see from the clips that the people near Holsworthy seemed to enjoy it.

The Guardian is still looking at ways to expand online. The Web Editor's Week before last mentions attempts to grab the attention of the festival audience in Edinburgh.

"More people than ever will use the site from Edinburgh itself, not least because the Fringe box office's e-ticket terminals on top of Waverley station will be connected to Guardian Unlimited. Some will follow events avidly from afar. Others - especially our increasing number of overseas users - will have only the faintest of notions what we're all getting so worked up about. Still others are allergic to Edinburgh and won't want to read a word.

This year, we're launching a dedicated version of our Culture Vulture weblog (the imaginatively christened Festival Vulture). It'll host a stream of eyewitness journalism - pictures and sound, as well as text. We're hoping the blog will be a bit like Edinburgh itself, a place where performers, critics and audiences can rub shoulders.

That's not as straightforward as it sounds. Normally, when editing the blog, our main priority is community - the sense that we're connecting with an engaged, vocal audience. If we do well as editors, we draw out from our communities as much as we put in. But when those same communities are dispersed, or fighting their way up the Royal Mile, rather than sitting at a computer, it becomes much harder to pull them in and make them talk."

Now actually, this may not be a sensible idea. Maybe if they are "fighting their way up the Royal Mile" they should be left alone. Program information before the event might have saved them a trip if they are going in the wrong direction. Photos later may be interesting if they don't have enough of their own.

I realise I am criticising a point of view I have tried to promote previously. Why has the Anchor not got a few screens of what is going on at Dukes or on the Esplanade so you can decide whether to move on? Well, obviously there are limits to co-operation and anyway would people reaaly welcome the confusion? My current theory is that online is out of time and space so real life may not be connected in all circumstances.

Melonious Funk are playing at the Dukes tomorrow, Friday. Seems to be a variation on Chameleon who played last year. After a week of folk, a blast of funk and jazz will suit a lot of people, my guess. If only Exeter had some of the Sidmouth atmosphere during Vibraphonic.

Melonious Funk at Myspace, four tracks

I am working on an article for OhmyNews about Sidmouth Folk Week. They want more background on the vent than there is in my first submission.

So the story will be rewritten after the event, maybe next weekend. I am interested in how web tech etc. can be used as part of a festival. Any comments or links welcome, especially about Exeter and/or Sidmouth.

Later today there should be a guide to other blogs that I work on or at least a diagram as part of my learn9 website. This is about learning so one current idea is to make the blogs at least appear more coherent. I have tended to just start another one and then not continue.

I think this is the best blog to use as a base.

For the next couple of days at least. There will be some clarification on what is in which blog.

This weekend coming up could have been the Lost Vagueness main event of the summer and close to Exeter. One benefit would have been that Psand could well have attended and shown the effective use of satellite broadband etc. Obviously they don't tour all summer long just to help techno awareness but the occasion could have been a focus.

I tried to rehearse last weekend, just to get ready. Still in drift mode however. Not sure what it is about the middle of summer. If that is what this is. Lots of daylight anyway. It may be a time for reflection, maybe sudden action when assumptions shift.

Tomorrow is Billy Wilder's birthday. Time to get ready or update the site.

http://www.inxpress.co.uk/vagueness.html

This is the reference site. At least for the next few days. In the USA if you can find TCM on cable then you will get the original and best Lost Weekend.

Photo loads ok

 

This seems to be working ok so far. Just downloaded a new version of Picassa. It seems to offer me a choice of which blog to put a photo into.

This photo is from the Globe. Not off topic for wifi as in theory any sound or image could be anywhere at any time. Actually the wise people you meet at the Globe are convinced that live television is usually a mistake. Why not spend a few days in a studio with an edit suite and get rid of the nonsense? Then again, why don't I just stay home anyway? 

David Tebbutt reports in Information World Review about the 'Innovate Europe' event last month. Load up video from your mobile, attach a projector etc. Not yet ready for distribution, but interesting as a sign of what is possible. Another reason to widen the scope of this blog to mobility in general.

Meanwhile there is already some interest in my attempt at a Swicki on 'ubiquity'. I came across 'swickis' trying to find out more about web 2.0. When you start one you can select a cloud of words and prioritise your own site as well as choosing other ones. So this 'wifi-Exeter' site may turn up as an example of ubiquity. I have included 'Korea' as I found out about 'ubiquity' through OhmyNews and 'Psand' as they are mostly mobile over the summer at least.

Ramblings on the occasion of the Rocket festival, please skip to something interesting.

The conditions are right for a new level sometime soon during the third summer of vagueness.

For instance, Life Bytes exists on Sidwell Street opposite the Odeon. 8 megs on a fixed line with seats and resident support staff. How very sensible.

http://www.life-bytes.co.uk

Wifi for free in the Exeter central library, maybe in the Rougement gardens through the window.

The Rocket festival starts today Friday. Check Radio Vague for details and a stream. If there is a technical hitch just try something from last year or the year before. Maybe not from Spain, from somewhere.

http://www.radiovague.com/

Coming soon, Lost Vagueness near Exeter. The "wifi Exeter" site has been updated showing Powderham Castle on the map. I am still not sure how the map works. I just get lucky now and again. Please update.

http://www.frappr.com/wifiexeter

http://www.acrobat-services.co.uk/wi-fi-ex/oldindex.html

Meanwhile it remains clear that streaming media is only one option. Paul Gillard has visited Life Bytes with a work in progress on DVD. This year the digital fringe for Animated Exeter was postponed as there was no Life Bytes. Something will resume when Paul is ready with something to show. There is still a lot online.

http://www.podmovies.com/movies.html

Recently a webcam featured in a gallery work at the Phoenix. Webcams are not cutting edge on the web but this was an early example of a web enabled gallery in Exeter. I sent in my own short clip of the river Teign and it showed up a couple of days later. I also took loads of photos, with permission.

http://www.inxpress.co.uk/muse.html

http://www.blindditch.org/

It turns out Blind Ditch also do a Vanland project about web access and mobility. Something may come together to result in greater visibility for these concepts.

What a disaster last summer was. The disappointment of the Thames Festival still lingers in the mind. It was advertised that a sax solo would occur, streamed over the web. Then nothing happened, all because of an admin mixup involving the Tate Modern. Maybe the Exe valley is a rehearsal space and something better will be prepared for the Thames Festival this year.

http://www.acrobat-services.co.uk/wi-fi-ex/index-tate.html

It is now possible to add contributors to the wifi Exeter blog. Or just send something if you like. 'wifi Exeter' may not be just about Exeter although Powderham for example is not far away.

Alas, it seems the photo bit is not working today either. This blog will now continue as text though there will be pictures at the companion website.

The news is that the famous BT phonebox has gone from South Street though it may be back. The reference library now offers wi-fi, free till August. You may pick it up from the gardens at the back. Find the castle and ask the way round to the Phoenix or otherwise find the Phoenix and soforth. The Phoenix also has wifi in the Media Centre but you may need to become a member. The strength of signals has not been recently tested but any reports are welcome. There are seats outside the Media Centre so it would be sensible to boost the system a bit. Positive feedback to the management may be helpful. Or just complain if that is easier.

Rougemont Gardens, may be near wifi from library 

The BT link in South Street is still there 

However the picture seems not to be. I will have to do some further investigation to find out how this is supposed to work.

Not sure how this works. Tried to load four photos through Picassa. Only one seems to have gone. May be able to add text here. Shows South Street without the phone box.



ff 

Well yes that seems to have worked ok

Google maps offers a link you can put in a blog.

Some other links

CECOP , a European organisation for worker co-ops, also connected with many other sorts of activity

O'Reilley Open Source Europe event OSCON

Somehow these things fit together.

I started looking at Google maps following a talk at the Phoenix in Exeter on Saturday about going for a walk. The mis-guide to Exeter has been followed by a mis-guide to anywhere. It seems to be an argument for staying at home but paying attention.

Google Maps - brussels belgium

not sure how this works, could be a link to a map of Brussels, that is the Botanique.

Some years ago I went to a CECOP meeting in Brussels. Memory of a Brussels map is now quite dim but I am pretty sure this looks like the Botanique. there is an Open Source meeting coming up later this year in a hotel not far away. Looks amazingly expensive. Maybe the lucky few who attend could meet up in the Botanique during a break and pass on some hints. Maybe in a world of blogging such moves are no longer needed. Maybe the event will be cheap and easy to attend anyway.

Also not sure if I would understand much of it. someone should explain what it all means in terms of cost and capability for the user if that's an ok term.

recent screenshot 

At Excel for the Book Fair.

It is very bookish. No internet cafe at all but BT are in the central area between the two exhibits. Openzone is free for ten minutes so this may be short.

Guardian Review yesterday included a blast against Google from Bloomsbury publishing. Civilisation is about to end if too much literature is free. Authors will cease to write, apparently. Google is here witha reassuring talk each day and a large stand easy to find. They explain they will put a link through to a publisher site and/or local bookshop.

The 'e-content pavilion' is right at the bak, hard to find, and very few people are looking at it. Content mostly science and reference, aimed at library subs. Almost no e-book promotion other than Google. What do publishers expect to happen?