MiramarMike: Blog

(cross posted from my NZCommons article ) Reference: ‘Creamy Broccoli Soup‘ by Bill Mckee. Copyright: CC-BY-SA In our house, we have a shelf of cookbooks. Some have barely been opened, others are the classic “coffee table” types, but then there’s the ones we use at every opportunity. I’m sure you’re just the same. I rely heavily on my British background and am never far from Mrs B ( Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management ) when I need to know how long to roast a chicken. Having been here in New Zealand since 1996, I will also reach for every student’s cooking bible, Edmonds Cookbook . Both these fine tomes pale into nothing when compared to my wife’s recipe “book”. It is handmade, full of very old bits of paper and uses a hope and a prayer as a means of organisation. This collection of recipes (to be called “Liz’s Recipe Book”, even though it’s not strictly a book) is chock full of IP — that is, Intellectual Property , that nebulous stuff that seems to be both t

I've just left The Johnson Group ("public sector recruitment specialists") after delivering a quick fire, "This is the cloud" and "These are some tools based on the 'cloud', your mobile and your browser' that you, as a contractor working in Government can use". The 3 uses and toools to support those uses are: Note taking Writing Reference / Research The highlight for many was  +IFTTT  ... I am so happy about that! As is typical with my presentations they are graphic heavy but at least this has the Google Play Store, iTunes, Windows phone and Chrome Web Store links to the tools I spoke about - enjoy. My thanks to those that attended, engaged, asked questions and of course to Claudia and Heather for inviting me. I leave with some thoughts from the discussion before and after: There were around 25 senior Government consultants in the room Majority of questions were about security Hardly anyone used any of the services me

On the weekly podcast  +Raj Khushal 's and I create, Access Granted   on the  Hashtag ME network , we are setting up a series of interviews with the tech reps of the main political parties. Once we have the interviews in the can we'll put them all together in an election special for release on Tuesday 2nd September in time for Election Day on the 20th. Whilst we have some areas that we'll definitely be focussing upon such as, "What exactly is your party's ICT policy" we also want to open it up to you, the NZ tech workers and give you a chance to pose the tech-related question to the political parties. Loading... (thanks to whatisitwellington: New Zealand ICT Government Worker Survey 2013: Take one, pass it on for the image) short url: http://goo.gl/WAuhRd

photo source: Sky Sports Where does New Zealand have it's tech centre, and does it have to have one or can we have many thriving, sustainable and scalable points all over our fair country ... remembering we're a bloody small population that is spread thin across quite a large land mass and even more so when we think about the number Kiwi tech workers . Auckland According to  +New Zealand Trade and Enterprise  (NZTE) it's Auckland: Auckland is recognised for its food and beverage sector, high-value manufacturing, and as a centre for New Zealand's developing ICT industry . (my emphasis - source: NZTE's regions of opportunity ) And they go on to say this in detail : Dynamic ICT sector Auckland offers attractive opportunities to invest in its growing ICT and services sector and to take advantage of shared time zones with international markets. Many global ICT companies are choosing Auckland to service the Asia Pacific region. Wellington But  +Positivel