Jonas Beckman

Well, it’s been a while.

I found new friends through EuroPython this summer. Currently, my main gig is for KMM (Knowledge Management in Museums), a Nordic/European cultural heritage project. Lots of interesting infrastructure work and almost all Python: Django, xmpppy… and I have just added rdflib to the mix. Haven’t had this much fun for a long time. Last week was hectic though, as we prepared the public sites for a re-launch. I will write more soon!

Some of the others are going to Amsterdam to meet the European Digital Library people. But me, I’m going to Chicago. I’ll bring my Mac and see what happens - see you there!

Yes, I finally made it to EuroPython this year. Flew in from Stockholm to Vilnius late last night. Very, very friendly place so far. More later… I’m waiting for the first speaker now.

The year is almost over. Perhaps I’ll write a summary a little later.

But right now, I’m just back in from a long run in the cold rain: across bridges, along railroad tracks, into the woods and down to the water again. Slow steady running for an hour and a half. Sometimes that’s the best feeling. Only in the middle, going up the highest hills, did I give in to tempation and really maxed my pulse. Then kept going, but slowly again.

Impra - network of female musicians in Scandinavia in genres as Jazz/Improvised/Electronica/Alternative - had a party tonight. Lots and lots of great music. I have a special jazz friend… she knows everyone and tells me about these things. Life is good!

Dangerousmeta is aging like a great wine.

Real moblogging

Quiet afternoon close to central Stockholm. Very warm for this time of the year… as long as the sun is up it still feels like summer. A long walk in the sun is the cure for many ills.

I can email from my phone to Flickr and it automatically ends up here. Is that real moblogging? No. I can’t give you my phone and tell you to moblog something - you’ll never find all the necessary clicks yourself. Until it becomes that easy spontaneity is lost.

And spontaneity is important even for people who work with lots of photos. For instance, Nokia researcher Jan Chipchase does ethnographic work and advocates a mixture of serious preparation and very simple methods. Via Mymarkup.net

Python is an old love of mine. These days, it’s hotter than ever: Python 2.5 is out, Microsoft released IronPython 1.0 for DotNet and the wild visions of PyPy are starting to look real.

Right now I’m trying to translate PyPy from sources on Windows. In other words, I’m just fooling around. Python 2.4 or 2.5? Can I get by with Visual Studio 2005 or do I really have to reinstall some old VS 2003 compiler? Maybe MinGW again? We’ll see…

Python developers are fascinating. I’ve been lurking around some of these mailing lists and weblogs for years, but there is always more to learn.

Hmm… Martin Spernau is thinking about the creation myth of relationsships.

I recently left a short and very stormy relationship and think Martin is on to something here. In retrospect, both the best and the worst parts were pretty obvious from the way it started.

But I won’t go into details here. *Laughs* I have done quite a lot of semi-public writing on members-only community sites over the past two years… and it’s time to spend more time outside of that particular ghetto.

Well, it’s not that the dancing bear dances well but that it dances it all.

Screenshot from my Qtek 8310 smartphone

I don’t think this counts as moblogging, really. Yes, I did use my phone. But with Opera Mobile I just surf to my weblog, log in and write the way I always do.

Opera has been an amazing browser for years. But squinting at a small screen and using T9 to type is not the ultimate mobile writing experience - even though it’s amazing that it can be done.

For anyone who wants to move a Manila site to Wordpress, MvManila is the easiest way.

I certainly have the technical skills to do all the exporting/importing of messages, pictures, links, shortcuts, categories etc myself. But I didn’t have the time to get it right and I didn’t want to. Instead I paid a reasonable fee to a friendly person who really knows this stuff by heart. Highly recommended!