Work

Work has been absolutely flat-out for me as usual, but despite that, it’s been a very enjoyable year with lots of interesting projects. I attended less conferences and work related events this year but had great fun at the ones I did make it to.

My workmate Kim and I presented Dealing with the different attitudes to accessibility at the OZeWAI conference at La Trobe University. The presentation was a fun look at culture change involving the Attitude Adjusters game cards that we did up.

Ruth & Kim presenting at OZeWAI 2011 conference, photo by Gary Barber

Our Attitude Adjusters game cards

UX Australia is one of my favourite conferences – it’s the once-a-year catch up with all my User Experience (UX) family.

Some old and new friends, post UX Australia conference

LOVING the photobooth at UX Australia

Kim, Scott and Ruth - rockin' the Stamford UX Superhero t-shirts

Family & friends

My brother turned 21, our friends Craig (and his twin Wesley) and Caronne celebrated special birthdays this year, my mum came to visit and Alastair’s mum also came to spend xmas with us. Our friends Joel and Kelly got married and we got to share in their special day by being their photographers. I played paintball for the first time when my youngest sister celebrated her 19^th birthday.

Mum and I at Floriade, Canberra

Bec and friends at her paintball birthday party

Our Perth friends at Joel & Kelly's wedding

Events & other social things

Lots of organising over 2011 – I helped to organise either in the lead-up or on the day: BarCampCanberra, TEDxCanberra, Sydney SkepticCamp and the Make Hack Void xmas party.

Checking out cupcake entries at BarCampCanberra (photo by Gavin Tapp)

My volunteers helping me pack up the TEDxCanberra showbags using a very efficient production line! (Photo by TEDxCanberra)

Me and my trusty clipboard at TEDxCanberra (photo by Gavin Tapp)

Hubby and I were one of the lucky 50 that attended the very first CSIROtweetup, to celebrate the launch of the Mars Rover Curiosity.

Our fellow space geeks (Photo by Martin Ollman)

Watching the launch

Watching the dish move in preparation for the launch

Making stuff

2011 was the year for making things. I made my first laser-cut jewellery, which will be available under the CrankyBot label in 2012; learned to sew (badly); got dressed up in various costumes, mainly the Lady Mechanika comic con costume which was the main impetus for learning to sew.

One of my space invaders, from my CrankyBot label

Doctor Who magnetic poetry and TARDIS I made as an xmas present (located next to the TARDIS cookie jar)

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Hubby dressed as Commander Shepard from Mass Effect video game, and I’m dressed as Lady Mechanika. Comic Con in costume was a very different affair to Comic Con in layperson's clothing.

Hubby and I also made our first sausages with my KitchenAid sausage maker attachment! They were utterly delicious, particularly as the meat was flavoured with fresh herbs from our garden.

I did a lot of baking in 2011 - putting my KitchenAid to good use.

Travel

Hubby and I visited the United States in July. The main reason was to attend The Amazing Meeting (TAM) in Vegas, but we also discovered that Comic Con, the BIG (and I mean big) pop culture convention, was on around the same time. The US trip was huge – we visited our friend Bob and his wife in Dallas, Texas, then headed off to Las Vegas for to check out the sights, followed by TAM, then on to San Diego for LEGOLand, followed by Comic Con and New York. I love New York.

Discovering fossils at Eisenhower State Park, Texas

Caught up with old friends and made new friends, Las Vegas

Penn Jillette’s rock and roll party ticket, Las Vegas

Rock on at Penn Jillette’s party, Las Vegas

How awesome is Legoland!

The very brilliant Evolution shop at New York (thanks for the recommendation Minnie)

We made a muppet, Dr Chels, at FAO Schwarz

Playing the Big Piano at FAO Schwarz, New York

We visited the New York hackerspace - they have a great space with lots of character

We saw some awesome graff at 5 Pointz, New York. Hubby and I spent hours wandering around the building taking photos. We finished up with a late lunch at a local diner.

On the last day as we started the very eventful journey home to Canberra from New York (crisscrossing the country and seeing many airports!), we discovered that our flight was cancelled due to weather conditions. Fortunately Qantas upgraded us to Business Class and we made it home to Australia in the lap of luxury (I didn’t want the flight to end!).

Looking forward

2011 on the whole has been a good year. I had some health issues (getting addressed in early 2012), I’ve attempted to address my fear of vegetables (and learned a lot about myself in the process), and I learned a lot of new things. I look forward to 2012 – getting CrankyBot off the ground, working on a number of exciting UX and accessibility projects and learning to take it a bit easier. Here’s to 2012!

My love of robots have continued, with new additions to the robot family including another lawn mower robot, a robot dog from @lozz, and some very cool retro robots.

2010 definitely seem to be the year for babies in our social circle. Every time I opened facebook, it seemed like another friend was having a baby! There were also many engagements, hens nights and weddings.

Most importantly, my interest in skepticism has grown significantly over 2010. I learned about the importance of taking a critical thinking approach to all areas of my life. Attending TAMOz in November has really helped to reinforce my growing love of science and education. I’ve learned about citizen science and grassroots skepticism (take the Stop AVN cause as an example).

So what’s my new year resolutions for 2011?

• Want less
• Do good
• Keep taking a critical thinking and an evidence-based approach to life
• As 2010 has gone past in such a blur, I’m planning on taking the time to slow down so I can appreciate each moment.
• Address my vegetable phobia within the first half of 2011!

A happy new year to all of you!

Here’s a list of non-religious charitable organisations in Canberra that are happy to accept clothing, books and related items. Please feel free to suggest other Canberra based organisations.

• The National Brain Injury Foundation (NBIF) is one of our personal favourites. A shop front is located on Genge Street, in the Griffin Centre. You can support them by purchasing items from the shop front or dropping off a range of items in good condition (we’ve dropped off clothes and household bric-a-brac).
• Lifeline accepts books, magazines, DVD’s, Videos, CDs, computer software, and some Bric-a-Brac. They hold the very excellent Book Fair three times a year in Canberra. For more information about donating items, read Ways You Can Help or drop items off at 66 Heffernan St, Mitchell and all Video Ezy Stores.
• The Smith Family has various donation bins around Canberra. They accept clothing, footwear, blankets and linen only.

As always, please check with individual charities for up-to-date information. Please DO NOT DUMP items outside closed shop fronts or charity bins. It costs charities large amounts of money to clear items that get left out in the open plus it can be a fire hazard. It’s extremely frustrating to see items and even rubbish (including non-working electrical and computer items) dumped next to charity bins. If it’s broken and you don’t want it, neither does the charity!

Other resources:

• Giving unwanted goods to charity – list from the ACT government
• Yoink! – While Yoink! isn’t a charity, it’s a great way to recycle items that you don’t need. I’ve used it numerous times to get rid of unwanted (but functional) items. Plus, it’s been designed and developed here in Canberra!

PS: I wish the Red Cross, RSPCA and Koomarri had store fronts in Canberra!

This year, I’ve decided to write about someone who is relatively unknown in the broader web community but is very knowledgeable in the accessibility field. She would never blow her own horn, which means that only those of us who have had the pleasure of working with her knows how good she is. She’s a shy and quiet type, and is truly one of the nicest and most generous person I know. She has been working in the tech and user experience field for a while. She’s smart, passionate and she knows her accessibility stuff.

I want you to meet my friend and colleague, Kim Chatterjee. What I love about Kim is her willingness to share her knowledge and time to help everyone, even if it means very little sleep for her! She has a detailed understanding of accessibility and has spent quite a few years doing some cool accessibility work in Government. She’s also really great at communicating complex concepts through interesting and lovely visuals. She’s really humble about her achievements so if you do get to meet her, she won’t tell you how good she is but if you get to chat to her, you’ll soon realise the depth and breadth of her accessibility knowledge.

While others are out and about talking the talk, Kim is busy with the actual doing. She’s helped to inspire a number of people about accessibility, who have now gone on into other organisations either carrying a passion for accessibility or having an increased awareness of accessibility. Now that’s inspirational.

The highly anticipated BarCampCanberra event happened yesterday, with a large gathering of smart and passionate folks from around Canberra, Yass, Wollongong and Sydney discussing interesting topics such as Government 2.0, social innovation, collaboration, typography, hackerspaces and more.

For those unfamiliar with the BarCamp concept:

BarCampCanberra is a free-to-attend community-run conference where anyone can come and watch, participate or present on anything they are passionate about – either something interesting they’ve been working on, an idea they’d like to present or to brainstorm the solution to a problem with a bunch of like-minded smart people

We had over 150 people registered for the event, 46 pizzas consumed, 72 bottles of water drunk (plus the additional cups and water containers) and 39 sessions including a series of 5 minute lighting talks (I love the 5 minute lighting talk format).

The event was tweeted, flickred, livestreamed and Googled waved. We were even covered in the Canberra Times (page 8 of the Sunday 7th February newspaper).

Some of my favourite quotes about BarCampCanberra comes from @dekrazee1:

Brain is still abuzz from #bcc2010. BarCamp is the techy equivalent of a day spa. Energising and invigorating. #I<3BarCamp

@ozdj:

@RazChorev Yep. Sound ROI. That $50 of fuel (and ~8hrs of travel time) got me about $500 worth of education today. #bcc2010

Key themes

The key themes from BarCampCanberra #3 were social innovation (particularly around the grass roots level), government engagement and activity (engagement and activity is not the same thing) and taking action after conversation.

My presentation

I was too busy running between rooms to actually sit down and listen to the presentations in full, particularly for the first half of the day. I manage to present in the afternoon on a number of topics that’s important to me: critical thinking, skepticism and quirkology.

I also manage to catch the Make Hack Void presentation (@evildeece, @__dev_dsp, @_xmd_), @evildeece ACT solar tariff, Bob Edward’s I have no Friends on Facebook presentation and all of the lightning talks in the afternoon. @sabman’s Mapping of Haiti presentation was a particular stand out.

Thanks

Many thanks to all the wonderful presenters who took the time and effort to share their knowledge. I know that it takes a lot to get up there and talk or run a discussion group, even in this type of informal setting. It was my husband’s first time getting up and talking in front of such a crowd and I’m pleased that first time presenters are able to present in a non-threatening environment.

Thanks to our wonderful sponsors: Powerhouse Museum, Microsoft, Crystal Approach, Schmooze, SassySEO.com and TheRohans.com.

Thanks to my co-unorganisers: @NathanaelB, @RohanM, @CraigThomler, @lozz, @RaeBuerckner, @Klepas and @Caronne (who couldn’t make it, but had her partner drive all the way to the venue with much needed powerboards and extension cables!). Thanks also to the wonderful Gavin (@wingedmonkeyboy) who was busy running between all three rooms to get photos of the crowds and the presenters.

Thanks to the ANU and Bob Edwards for providing the venue and wireless.

Clever and useful stuff

• Check out the presentations – BarCamp Canberra #3 on slideshare
• Check out the photos tagged #bcc2010 – Barcamp Canberra #3 photos on flickr
• See who registered – BarCamp Canberra #3 on Eventbrite
• Read the twitter stream
• We made it into the Canberra times!
• Check out the tweeting stats for the event
• @laurentlefort’s Twitter list of BCC2010 attendees

Update: Many thanks to Geoff from @SubwayBelconnen who provided the salads and subs at BarCampCanberra!

My hubby and I will be visiting Melbourne next week as I will be getting laser eye surgery. To celebrate, we are attending Dracula’s on Saturday. We have also ended up with two spare tickets which Dracula’s will not refund.

Do you know anyone who might be interested in buying these two tickets?

The details of the dinner show are as follows:

• Date: Saturday 6th of June
• Time: 6.45pm until late
• Location: 100 Victoria Street, Carlton Victoria 3053
• Price: We paid $72/head but I’m more than happy to negotiate a really good price as I need to move these tickets – please make an offer!

The ticket price includes a 3 course meal, show and a ghost train ride.

Please contact me if you’re interested.

From the Ada Lovelace Day pledge site:

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines. Whatever she does, whether she is a sysadmin or a tech entrepreneur, a programmer or a designer, developing software or hardware, a tech journalist or a tech consultant, we want to celebrate her achievements.

I have many female friends who are doing wonderful work in the technology industry – too many to name but here’s a few Aussie females that I’ll like to sing out about.

• Donna – she is a great information architect, the Queen of Card Sorting and contributes much of her time to the web community. She’s always happy to share her knowledge and experience.
• Caronne – I love her passion for the work we do. She’s an extremely supportive person and manages to balance work, life, web community stuff and life with two teens. She does amazing stuff with advocating great user experiences in Government agencies that many people don’t hear about!
• Susan – one of the many challenging things of being a women is the ability to juggle multiple stressful components of our life. Susan is amazing – she loves the work she does and some how, manages to balance work, family, photography, blogging and web stuff!
• Viv – a special person I used to work with who is passionate about accessibility and user experience. She’s a solid rock for any team that she’s on and is always quietly working away in the background getting stuff done. It’s people like Viv who work so hard and never seem to get recognition for the hard work they do – so here’s my shout out to you Viv!
• Lisa – is amazing. She knows a lot of things about accessibility, usability and user experience. We have a very similiar approach to the work we do. She’s a very calming influence and I admire her passion for the work we do.

There are many other females out there who also doing great work (I’m looking at you Teresa, Amie, Suze, Lana!).

Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

The rules are simple:

• Use a simple camera, the simpler the better
• Upload them to flickr or whatever your preference is, but as long as they can be seen through the web
• Tag them if you can with “onmywayhomeme”
• Blog it and tell the story
• Tag your mates.

I tag (I know a few of the people have been tagged already):

• Donna
• Vicki
• Nick Cowie
• Lisa Herrod
• Andrew Boyd
• Nathanael Boehm
• Robert(Gurdonark)

So here’s my story…

It’s about ten past five on Friday. I’m leaving work early as I promised to meet a friend for coffee on the way home. I’m already running late…I dash out of the client’s building but have a few traffic lights to content with. I entertain myself my grabbing a shot of the interesting red sculpture near the intersection (it doesn’t look very red here as the sun was setting fast).

The light is still red…so I tried a different angle of the same sculpture.

I love textures and colours. This abstract wall sculpture on the Commonwealth Bank building catches my eye every time.

I like the look of Canberra Centre at dusk.

Autumn and winter is a great time of the year as you get to wear all manners of scarves, gloves and hats! I see this shop frequently and I’ve bought a lovely set of brown gloves from here once.

I’m running late! I’m walking as fast as I can towards Koko Black, freaking out a guy who I’m temporarily keeping pace with.

Phew, I made it to Koko Black – about 5 minutes late. The warm chocolate tones of the shop is inviting.

I enjoy a soy Belgian hot chocolate and cake plate.

After catching up with my friend, it’s time to leave and go get my hubby. The new ATO building is something I see on a very frequent basis.

Nearly at my hubby’s work…

Heading home over the bridge…

I get my first ever SMS spam.

We stopped past Erindale for some takeaway. I walk past this sign. Oh? What’s this now?

We’re home!!

The great thing is that my views on the way home changes fairly frequently, depending upon which I’m client I’m seeing at the time.

For the rest of the photos, check out my On My Way Homeme photo set on flickr.

For those not familiar with Wii Fit, Nintendo describes it as “the first step to a healthier lifestyle”. The Wii Fit uses a very cool Wii Balance Board that can measure your weight, centre of gravity and can also calculate your body mass index. The game has over 40 exercises ranging over the following categories: yoga, muscle workouts, aerobic exercise and balance games. Specific exercises include, jogging, step aerobics, hula hoop, ski jumping, ski slaloms, etc. What’s particularly cool is that it helps you to keep track of any exercise that you do outside of the game, which is added to the log.

My initial impressions of the Wii Fit has been generally very positive. The set-up and calibration of the game has been very easy with clear step-by-step instructions accompanied by the appropriate visuals on screen. There’s been a few areas where some improvements could be made but it’s all very minor. Once set-up is completed, you pick a trainer (male or female) who will guide you through a range of exercises. The exercise tutorials are clear with the trainer taking you through each step before you actually do the exercise. Hubby has spent more time playing Wii Fit so he has unlocked a range of games/exercise that I have not yet gotten to. From what I can see, they tend to follow a similar follow-the-leader format for many of the exercises. There’s a few cute and fun games including penguin slide where you have to catch fish whilst balanced on a piece of ice.

The only negative thing I have to say at this stage is that the graphics, while clear and useful when used as a step-by-step guide through the game, aren’t overly flash. The yoga exercises and muscle workouts are overly simple. I would have liked to have seen a more human-realistic feel to the graphics rather than the line drawings (with simple block fill) used. The rest of the game utilises the normal Wii styled graphics which is pretty much the same as from Wii Sports.

The interaction with the Wii Balance Board is on the whole, pretty good. It seems to be fairly accurate at determining what you’re doing. The jogging on the spot was quite challenging as my instinct is to run forward. That was probably the most awkard interaction out of the exercises I tried, but I think I burned the most calories with that one!

On the whole, I’m loving the Wii Fit so far. I’m very unfit and I don’t do any exercise. In light of that, the Wii Fit is perfect for me. I get guided through a range of quite fun exercises which means that I can slowly work on getting fit and hopefully lose a few of those extra kilos that I put on in the last seven months. It’s also making me more aware of my balance points which affects the posture. If you’re a hard core exercising type of person, this probably isn’t suitable for you. But on the whole, both thumbs up from me!

Lovely conundrum.

After an hour of frustration and a giggle at the appropriately titled Word 2007 crashes aren’t a bug, they’re a feature, it occurred to me that I went through this exact issue some time last year. A quick hunt through my del.icio.us bookmarks revealed the answer in the form of the Microsoft Knowledge Base’s article about crashes in Word 2007, Word 2003 and Word 2002.

The issue is with a corrupted key in the registry. The steps to fix this problem are:

1. Exit all Office programs.
2. Open the Registry Editor by selecting Start, Run, type regedit, and then select OK.
3. Locate the following registry subkey: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Data
Back up the registry key (select the Data folder, and then select File then Export. Call it whatever you want and save it to an easily accessible spot like your desktop).
4. Delete the Data subkey (select Data, then select Delete from the Edit menu).
5. Exit Registry Editor.
6. Start Word. Ta da!

Hopefully this will save you some hours of frustration!