If you’ve wondered what has happened to me, and why I’m not online much, the above picture should give it away.

Our third child, Quinn Nathaniel Burke was born on Monday (30th June), making this blog post three days late (I did manage to update Twitter and Facebook though!). The photo above shows Quinn on his first day in this world, eyes shut and getting used to the sounds.

Mum, brother and sister are also doing well, and as you can imagine, we’re a very proud bunch!

Image: Quinn Nathaniel Burke, a few hours old.

My mate, Myles Eftos, recently blogged about this great little app, Wordle, which creates a ‘tag cloud’ based on text that you can upload.

He suggested a meme using your blog content to create a tag cloud, however rather than my own content, I used the text of Kevin Rudd’s brave Apology to the Australian Indigenous Peoples speech, delivered on 13 February 2008, to create the above.

See the larger version over at Flickr.

What tag cloud can you create using famous or important texts?

Image: Apology Tag Cloud.

This really should be filed under a new category ‘Oh golly, I can’t believe I didn’t blog about that!‘ but anyhow…

It was announced at BarCamp2.0, a month ago, that the WA Chapter of the Australian Web Industry Association is putting on a conference on our side of the country. Edge of the Web (EOTW for those in the know) will feature technical and business streams, and more details will soon be announced on the Edge of the Web website.

The speaker line-up is looking impressive so far, and the venue is fantastic! Circle November 6 and 7 in your calendar now and I’ll leave the rest to the official announcements, coming soon… :)

Image: Edge of the web announcement.

Browsing through the public timeline, and my own Twitter feeds, I can’t help but feel the above completely fabricated results graph is surprisingly accurate. Don’t be offended, it’s all in good humour.

Image: Fictional research graph on tweet topics.

You may all be interested to learn that Buddha has joined Twitter. OK, maybe not the real Buddha, but twice a day you can receive some of his teachings and inspirational quotes on your Twitter feed.

As a testbed for some ideas I have for using Twitter in business applications, we’ve created a ‘twitter bot’ which posts sayings of the Buddha or Buddhist verse and quotes twice a day onto twitter. If you have a twitter account already, you can follow thebuddha, and if you are in the USA, you can send a text which states ‘follow thebuddha’ to 40404, or to stop following (why would you?) send a txt to the same number with ‘off thebuddha’.

Let me know what you think (suggestions for quotes under 140 characters, and bug reports welcome!) below.

Enjoy!

Image: Screen grab of first tweet from thebuddha.

So, you may have heard the phrase unconference, or seen details about BarCamps around the world before, or even better, attended the first BarCampPerth on June 30th last year.

Well folks, it’s back on! BarCampPerth 2.0 is scheduled to happen next month, with already over 50 attendees (including some eastern states folk) registered to attend. The details can be found over at the BarCampPerth wiki, but here’s the main details;

BarCampPerth 2.0
Saturday May 10 2008 from 9-5.
Address: Central TAFE, 140 Royal St, East Perth WA 6004

Last year was great, with a real community buzz. We’re hoping for an even bigger turnout, and great quality presentations once again, so make sure you come along (please register first!) - it’s even FREE to attend (and to present! :)).

Image: Wriitng on schedule whiteboard, BarCampPerth 1, 2007.

I’m working on a project at the moment which involves me speaking to a number of people who I would loosely term as a ‘freelancer’. In speaking with these folks, I am finding that the definition isn’t so black and white, and varies from person to person. Some people call themselves Freelance Web Designer, Freelance Web Developer, Solo Worker, Consultant, Proprietor, Entrepreneur…the list goes on.

After much research, my definition of a Freelancer is ’someone who sells their services to employers or clients without a long-term contract’.

Now, this covers everyone from solo workers who deal directly with end clients, or possibly work as a contractor to a number of larger businesses, which then on-sell your services to their own client base. The main distinction here is that you don’t have staff working for you; however you may be involved in ‘virtual teams’ using other freelancers for particular projects.

Perhaps there’s a negative connotation to the term Freelancer that I’m not privy to? It’s an odd one, and I’d be keen for your thoughts here - are you a web freelancer? Are you proud of the position title, and what does the term freelancer mean to you?

Image: small business owner, entrepreneur, solo worker, consultant, proprietor or freelancer?

In one of those crazy meme trends that spread the blogosphere, two friends, Nick Cowie and Ben Winter-Giles, both ‘tagged’ me for the ‘8 things you didn’t know about me’ meme.

The rules of this meme are;

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. List EIGHT random facts about yourself.
3. Tag EIGHT people at the end of your post and list their names.
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged.

So here are eight things you may or may not know about me;

1. I normally never do these memes.
2. This year I’m celebrating 25 years of being a (lacto-ovo) vegetarian.
3. I am going to be a father again! Our third child is due in early July.
4. As a result of the above, I also bought a new house a few weeks ago. We’re due to move houses at the end of next month.
5. I consider myself a follower of Buddhism. I’m known to attend temple at Dhammaloka, and am a member of BSWA.
6. My middle name is Andrew, named after my fathers first name. My son’s middle name is Miles, to continue the theme.
7. I spent many of my school years learning Jazz Ballet, and did a number of classes per week.
8. I have held jobs as a Nightclub DJ, Service Station worker, Radio Announcer, Pizza delivery driver and Retail Manager.

So, the eight people who I am ‘dobbing in’ to continue this meme are;

1. My beautiful wife, Meredith
2. Vy-Shane Sin-Fat, who last blogged in 2005!
3. Bad joke curator, Adam Braimbridge
4. Singstar competitor, Rosemary Lynch
5. He who knows all about coffee, Jordan Brock
6. Drinking buddy, Myles Eftos
7. Simon Wright, you blog slacker!
8. The ever energetic Lachlan Hardy

Image: Miles Burke, photo by Meredith Burke.

It’s with excitement that I hand over the reigns of wrongwrite.com to the team at 18a Productions in the United Kingdom, dedicated to carrying on the fight against spelling and grammatical catastrophes.

Recently, I posted here about my lack of time to dedicate to the blog I started last February, so it was great that I found someone to take over the blog (it was a gift to them) and keep it alive.

Lisa and Tom are passionate about the advancement of our language, and I wish them all the best of luck in managing the blog. I’ll be sure to send in the occasional contribution!

Image: Miss Print signage, taken at a local Chemist.

I know I’ve been remiss in posting much here recently, with the occassional tumbleweed rolling past this blog, and I will catch up on something to say soon, however I do want to make a quick mention of an important event in the Western Australian web industry calendar.

Next week, we’re very lucky to have both Lisa Herrod (Scenario Seven) and Rachel Cook (Vibe Capital) making time to visit us and present on usability, accessibility, web start-ups and more.

I’m biased, of course, because the event is organised by the Australian Web Industry Association, which I am Chairperson of, but I am even doubly biased, because one of the events esteemed sponsors is Bam Creative.

Have a gander at the Ideas4 website, and then buy your tickets online. Quick! The event is on next week, and once it’s been, you only have yourself to blame for missing it!

I hope to see you there!

Image: Ideas4 website screengrab.