Alison Young

Plurk-friend Rori sent me this recipe via email after I commented about having come down with yet another pesky throat infection. This makes my second this year, I usually average about 2.5/pa. After some quick searching I found a version on a website too but the original came in an email. Find it here under the Staying Healthy this winter sub-heading.

It sounded rather dangerous and I excitedly gathered all in the ingredients today after work. Skipped the onion as they don’t like me a terrible lot and despite my initial reservations did include 2 chillis. I’m something of a wimp when it comes to facing down with anything chilli.

As the whole idea of making soup came from my Plurk community I decided to post pictures to BrightKite of the process and crosspost the same pictures back to Plurk. It was a bit of fun for me and I got to combine two things which I find a lot of fun, being a geek and cooking. The results were spectacular, all the garlic was either softened to the ‘melt in your mouth’ point or had been absorbed into the broth, chilli was flavoursome but only very minor burn inducing. Anticipating it burning a lot more I made toast which wasn’t needed at all.

For all you people who are too busy to get sick, I can highly recommend spending 1.5hrs making this up. It’s delicious, potent, and will make 4-6 meals depending on portion size. I’m not sure who Becky-Lee Reed is but I’m thankful for her recipe and Rori for sending it to me.

Maybe Schnubbs can give it a try next time one of his housemates is unwell or starting to feel that way.

Update (June 2009): as I mentioned pictures I should probably add some or at least links. So here are the BrightKite links to my photos I took and posted as I prepared. I haz a flava; It’s got chicken legs; Stocking up and Soup-erficial success story.

I’ve been asked by the lovely Catherine whether I’d like to take part in the upcoming Geek Girl Blogs Podcast on Recruitment and Women in IT. As I’m presently looking for industry-relevant work after spending around 18 months in the workforce but not doing jobs directly derived from my degree, Catherine thought I would be a good addition to the group. I’m being joined by 2 others so it should make for a great discussion though I’m as yet a little uncertain where the discussion will go. I will post links when the recording is up.

Recording will be taking place on Tuesday evening after weeks of trying to co-ordinate the hectic schedules of the 4 people presenting. I’m pleased to be doing something again that raises awareness of women involved in IT.

We need to get more girls involved with technology and I’ve enjoyed being involved in things like Girls and IT days and the WIT Regional Tour which I went on in early 2006 just before I started Honours.

This event occurred quite some time ago and due to delays with getting internet connected and the sporadic ways I’ve been accessing the net while in the churn process I haven’t been able to post this until now. Thus it won’t be an overly comprehensive entry as there are other entries about the highlights of PubCamp and various presentations already published by Kate, Stephen and Michael.

I attended both the Sydney and Melbourne PubCamp events which were organised by Jed White of itechne. Sydney was a very polarising experience, the room was even physically divided between Old and New Media. There was lively debate, and plenty of unspoken communication going on in the room as the two seemingly different worlds and views faced off against each other.

My Sydney presentation was quite structured, I presented a modified version of the widely recognised Twitter talk from BarCamp Sydney and Canberra. Instead this time I added more about social networking in general to spark discussion about not only the tools, applications and sites that integrate with Twitter but other social networks too and the different ways we all use them. Slides for the Sydney talk can be found on my slideshare.

Melbourne was an entirely different story, the debate between Old and New Media was significantly muted compared to Sydney. However there were very valid points raised and discussed which was good to see. People in Melbourne were quieter but no less passionate.

For my unconference presentation in Melbourne I took a different approach. The laptop wouldn’t work with the projector so I decided to do away with the slides and just talking about Twitter. We talked a bit about Twitter but also about other social networks, how we all use them and the place they have in our lives. I had an audience of approximately 30 and the room buzzed with discussion. It was pretty great as I’ve never had anything like that happen before and I really liked it. This time it wasn’t about me talking and them discussing later, the discussion was now and I can thank a few key people who started speaking up and then that inspired the others. There were a few new people who’d never heard of Twitter or considered using social networks before. I hope they took something away from the talk. It was my absolute pleasure to be involved in something like PubCamp.

There is a big post about social networks which I will write and publish in the very near future. I’ve been using them for long enough now that I feel I can articulate the motivation and effects that using them has had on my life to date and potentially what the future may hold.

Huge thank-you must again go to itechne and Jed who very generously sponsored my travel and accomodation in Melbourne. It would not have been possible without their support and I had a such a good time meeting all the Melbourne Twitter people who came out and ran amok with us who travelled down for PubCamp. I look forward to going back there soon and catching up again.

Mozilla is launching Firefox 3 and they’re doing so in style, by attempting to set a record for the most number of downloads during a 24hour period. This is a great idea to spread awareness and love of a browser that has gained quite a significant amount of awareness over time. The thing us Australians should pay attention to is the date, while stated everywhere on the website as June 17. The official launch time of 10am on June 17, Pacific Daylight Time is actually 3am on the 18th of June here in New South Wales. You can check the official start time for wherever you are here.

To get involved you can pledge your bandwidth by clicking the banner below.

I’ve been using the Firefox 3 beta release candidate since I upgraded to Hardy Heron and it’s grown on me. I’ll like it even more when they start supporting more of the extensions I used to use with FF2. On the other hand, it’s been good to clean out the extension collection to determine what I really use and what I can live without.

Mid week I received an offer from Jed White of itechne to speak at PubCamp in Sydney and Melbourne. Despite my initial hesitation, I accepted the opportunity to join such speakers as Stephen Collins and Bronwen Clune. I will be presenting a version of the Twitter talk I delivered at Sydney and Canberra BarCamps.

Nobody was more surprised than I when Jed originally contacted me; however I am pleased to have the opportunity to talk about something I’ve become increasingly passionate about, namely social media. The talk won’t be exactly the same but it will contain similar content. I’m still reeling a little by it all, having never dreamt that I’d become known as a speaker but somewhat pleased with the small ways I’m building a reputation.

If you’re going to be in Sydney or Melbourne and have an interest in the future of media and the web then come along. Attendance is free so register at the event pages for Sydney and Melbourne and we look forward to seeing you there. In the meantime if you’re on Twitter follow @pubcamp for all the latest information and speaker teasers.

Follow-up blog post covering both the Sydney and Melbourne events will be posted after I return from Melbourne. My trip to Melbourne would not have been possible without the generous sponsership of itechne. Thank-you! I’m very excited by it as I haven’t visited Melbourne for many years and also because I’ll hopefully get to meet more of the Melbourne Twitterati.