so garry came in today to have a chat to camera about what fastfind.info was and so that people could put a face with a name and at the same time bought along this wonderful IPS/HDMI touchscreen monitor from dell that i had not even appeared on my my radar.  i had no idea you could get such a screen at around £200.  

this starts to make the rattlr project very interesting.

these could become some of if not all of the screens for the rattlr project and combined with the raspberry pi boards our entry point could be a lot cheaper than originally thought which makes the overall package really attractive.  i think it’s about time to start process some thoughts about making our prototype a reality! :)

if you have not heard of fastfind it is an interesting development of finding information across nottingham and he has been rapidly building this over the past couple of months.  i really like gary and his work ethic and what he is trying to build here for the locality.  the fact that he has it running nicely on tablets, touchscreens etc is awesome and i do hope that i get to work with gary on a number of other projects and maybe become a preferred supply of audio/video elements to make his project a success.

i see the touchscreen service going down very well with the right people in the lifestyle and hotel arena here in nottingham.

believe it or not, we actually have a recording schedule for shows now.

i know, crazy right? - i still need to get the hook up working so these new things actually post on showyou and start looking at the distribution end but you know we are at least recording it behind the scenes.

wednesday, thursday and friday are our shoot, edit and drafting days and regardless if we record in the morning or afternoon the new short formats and the timing mean we can book them in the calendar and get them done.  we have managed to pull things together better by having an ipad countdown clock and scripts done in either pages or keynote.

it’s working much better.

right, it’s nearly 8:30pm time to head home me thinks! :)

http://fibreca.mp/couple-of-episodes-of-pcmupdate-for-february by posted email about believe it or not, we actually have a recording schedule for shows now. i know, crazy right? - i still need to get the hook up working so these new things actually post on showyou and start looking at the distribution end but you know we are at least recording it behind the scenes. wednesday, thursd …

save the date - 12th of March

if there was ever a time to watch me do something mad but cool and pushing forward in social media space with the eco, optimized edge i have been pushing forward on it would from the 12th of march.

on that day, i’ll take delivery of the smart fourtwo electric car for seven days as a trial in the hope that i can maybe raise some money to actually rent the vehicle and yet also at the same time, promotion, connect, network with and interview people while i’m driving around.  the plan is simple really.  i’m going to be spending my digital time mobile, out on the road for as many hours per day as i can testing out how well this electric car performs over the course of a week.

these are the things i’m pretty sure will be happening.. ..

streamed live
probably two, but maybe one.  i can definately do one on a stand in the car looking ahead with audio from in the car.  it could be two and at a total push it could be three.  but i have the connectivity, the knowledge and the technology to make it happen.

i’ll be using the cradlepoint mbr1400 for the first time and this badboy can have lots of usb dongles in to serve me up internet for me to stream with.

raising awareness of installation of charge points
let’s cut out the crap here, ideally i would love to be an advocate for raising awareness for businesses getting access to the funding help to put charging points around the east midlands for electric cars.  if there was ever a perfect fit for a project it is this one.

i need transport, eco as much as possible and i have a certain trip that i need to make three times a week at an awkward time (so no lifts or carsharing) and it involves an eco project at the other end.  it’s perfect.

i want this project to happen so i’m going to do what i can to see how many people we can get to download the pdf document and take up a conversation about providing a charging point for an electric car driver in and around the midlands.

testing 3g multi point internet with the cradlepoint mbr1400
i’ve been lucky to be blessed with the best sponsors, like really.  they are awesome.  it will be the first time out with the mbr1400 and i’m not even sure i can get it running in the car without some kind of converter block but i’ll work it out.  i’m pretty sure i can run a 4 way lead from the lighter socket and the draw for charging the phones and the router are fairly low.  we will certainly see how much power it will use from the onboard batteries and if that cause a great problem or not.

a custom website with videos and sponsors
i’ve not got long.  thankfully the website can be relatively lightweight will just being embeds and little blocks of refreshing content that i can include.  i’ve been secretly pulling together assets for the future streaming project anyway so i’m not starting from zero here.  i have a rough idea of the look of the site for the camera stream part.  it will require sketching out from inside my head thou and i need to move on that asap.

kickstarter (or other) fundraising over the course of the week
this will take the longest part to do and i’m not even sure if i’ll have time to push, get accepted and have all the things in the right place, i will for the ulule one because that’s nearly ready to go for the .tv student wordpress ten site project (yes, another part of the overall puzzle for social media deployment in nottingham but i’m going to push here.

i’m going to run two kickstarters for the ark project to see if we can raise awareness to getting funding for that and also another for funding for the car for the year.  if we can get at least the car funding for the year for the streaming project that will give us something to barter with for finding the five companies for finding the £5k from each.

surely, after this they will see the value of realtime social exposure - again, i need your help guys.  so spread the word, eco magazines, editors, social gurus, video people, streaming people.  dads that have daughters and must understand my pain of only seeing my daughter once a week.  ok, that was deep but it’s true.

getting to see my daughter three times that week
at the moment, when finances allow i get to see my daughter who lives about forty minutes away once a week on a saturday.  it’s never enough and i need my baby.  i love her dearly and these are formlative years.

i’m putting everything into this as those that have followed my blog over the last year will know.  having this trial will allow me to go and pick up ella three times or more over the course of the week.  i may even stay overnight locally to her and drop her into school in the morning to see how that runs like.

a ‘where has phil been’ tracking block
this might happen, all depends on if i can meet with my coder guy next week (that’s you dave) and we can pull something together, we have the code we just need to build it out on the site and make a cool little icon for the smart car.  i’m sure someone has one.

yeah, that’s quite an extensive list but i’m pretty sure i can get them things going.  i’ve got a tight timeframe from today until the 9th of march to make this happen and i have a lots of things happening before and after (TEDxNottingham anyone?!?) so this is tight.  i feel like this is another year for pushing the social media boundary of just what is possible these days.

the feels like a test bed to explore the idea of electric transport between nottingham and the ark and to test out the notion of charging and blogging for three hours while i wait for this car to charge (unless i go to a fast charger and then it’s only thirty minutes) - it’s going to be an interesting ride and test/trial and i’m super excited about the opportunity to make it happen.

the cosmos is just aligning for me on things at the moment.

i’m super thankful.  i need your social help thou team.  will you help?

Related articles

• North East has most electric car charging points (bbc.co.uk)
• Network of electric car charging points will link major cities (telegraph.co.uk)
• Electric-Car Buyers: Free Home Charging Stations Offered By ChargePoint (greencarreports.com)
• Electric cars step up a gear for 2012 (bfreenews.com)
• Vancouver to expand electric car charging stations (canada.com)
• Rinspeed Dock+Go provides bolt-on solutions for small electric cars (InnovationToronto.com)
• Green light for electric car project to expand (scotsman.com)
• Revealed: There are more charging points than electric cars in UK as sales slump (tarpon.wordpress.com)

http://fibreca.mp/the-power-of-seven-or-how-many-epic-projects by posted email about save the date - 12th of March if there was ever a time to watch me do something mad but cool and pushing forward in social media space with the eco, optimized edge i have been pushing forward on it would from the 12th of march. on that day, i’ll take delivery of the smart fourtwo electric car for se …