Data & Stuff

Spotted: February 24th – March 5th:

• LastHistory » Visualizing Last.fm Listening Histories and Personal Streams – LastHistory allows you to analyze music listening histories from Last.fm through an interactive visualization and to explore your own past by combining the music you listened to with your own photos and calendar entries.
• BBC – BBC Internet Blog: A new global visual language for the BBC’s digital services – An interesting look into the way the BBC deal with their Digital branding and site development, to keep everything looking similiar.
• Foodspotting / SXSX 2010 FREE Food Noms! – Tastespotting are publishing a list of places to find free food suring SXSW – checkout their twitter @sxswfreenoms
• Guardian graphics visualising BBC spending – With all the furore over potential BBC spending cuts, just how much does the 6 Music, and Asian Network radio station really cost – and how much is that of the BBC budget. Just take a look at this simple, but insightful visualisation
• The State of the Internet – JESS3 – The State of the Internet, a video by JESS3 – showing the facts about the online world of the internet
• Information is beautiful: The BBC-O-Gram – An infographic showing the BBC, in all it's disparate ways – and where the money goes. Another good display by the team at The Guardian
• Information is beautiful: 30 examples of creative infography – This is a beautiful set showing how creative an infographic can be, pretty inspiring.
• http://infochimps.org/ – Looking for a dataset, take a look at one of the widest collections of the worlds datasets.
• Oracle 10G – SQL for Modeling – Now it starts getting a bit more complex, I'll write a dummies guide approach. But basically, you are able to 'model' the output of your data, based on a predefined set of rules.
• Oracle 10G – SQL for Analysis and Reporting – Oracle® Database Data Warehousing Guide – SQL For Analysis and Reporting.
  So we are all aware of the plain, Select, From, Where etc. But how about the advanced analytics. Worth a read through, to extend those SQL Skills

In a weeks time, my bags will be packed and I’ll be ready for Texas [Hopefully].

From talking to SXSW veterans I can tell that this is going to be an interesting experience. There is a lot going on, from the panels, conversations, networking opportunities, parties and of course food.

That said, I’m slightly concerned about having the time to get some food, anyone who knows me will know that I’m a bit of a ‘foodie’. At the other end of the spectrum, is how do I take the best notes.

Every panel and keynote at SXSWi will end up as a podcast, so that covers having a verbatim copy of what was said [but these can be put up months after the events]. Instead does one go with slate, paper, or laptop.

I’m thinking laptop will be the winner, from an ‘immediacy’ point of view, and being able to quickly add and edit as I go (and no need to re-transcribe across).

The only real unknown, is how loud the speaker systems are – as with my hearing, it’s likely I won’t be able to hear much – unless I’m in a ‘prime’ position [read: near a speaker stack]. If they aren’t loud, then I’ll definitely be needing to rethink my approach to the event!

I’ll report back after the event, as to what I’ve learnt from a tip perspective, as well as any notes I manage to take!

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