Freedom

If you know me, you know I am a junkie for three things: interacting with young people, the many aspects of sustainability, and my job. From my work in the

This past year, CivicActions has undergone a transformation in the way that we organize project teams.  We've moved from a "matrix" model (people contributing to several projects) to what we call "Pods" (dedicated teams focused on one or two projects at a time). This transformation has yielded incredible results for clients and project team members. This model also means that we can more easily scale, which we are preparing to do in 2010.

In Seattle, our local Drupal User Group is organizing a Drupal conference called the Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit.  This event includes technical and business oriented talks.  It's going to be a great time, and I recommend signing up now before it fills up. 

We are limited to 150 people, and we already have about 50 people signed up. 

Given the highly polarised debate on healthcare reform, it is an interesting exercise to examine some of the arguments put forward.

Paris public transport has always been stellar, with an tight network of subway (métro) stations, commuter rail (RER/SNCF), and buses that can can get you within spitting distance of anywhere in the city, quickly and economically.  But the implementation of the Velib bike-sharing program two years ago put Paris public transport a whole other level, by any measure--ecological, economic, public health, noise pollution, etc.

There are over 10,000 Velibs parked at over 1000 parking spots across the city.  For a euro or day, or 5 euros a week, or 29 euros a year, you get an unlimited number of rentals lasting 30 minutes.  Thirty minutes is enough to get you from Drupalcon to almost anywhere downtown.  Need 45 minutes to bike somewhere?  No problem, just find a Velib parking lot (they are rarely more than 200m away), park the bike you're riding, and pick up a new one.  You could daisy chain your rides all day if you wanted to...

Each year, Amnesty International releases a comprehensive report on the state of the world's human rights. Amnesty International decided on Drupal as their website platform for the 2009 report based on the successful redesign of their main site with Drupal in 2007.

Ah, admin/build/modules...I really want to love this page. It lists all of my modules. It shows version numbers. There's a lot to offer. When you work on a larger site, there are so many modules. CCK, Internationalization, and of course Core provide long lists of modules. How do I find that one module in that big list?

The Obama administration has taken a big step back from transparency in one area of critical importance to the FOSS movement. Just like George Bush did, the President is asserting that draft trademark and copyright agreements with Japan and the EU are "state secrets," and has refused to release them to the public -- even though the same drafts have been widely distributed among corporate lobbyists.

Is it possible to have one headset for my computer running Ubuntu and my mobile phone? The answer is Yes! At CivicActions, we have team members working all over the world. In order to keep us connected, we have plenty of meetings on the phone. Although I have resisted, I finally decided to get a proper headset for my SIP phone.

The online protest against changes to copyright law in New Zealand – aka Internet Blackout NZ – was successful in that it has resulted in a 4-week delay. It is expected that this will give the new New Zealand government enough time to reconsider the consequences of such a ridiculous law change, and most probably repeal the changes entirely. The NZ Herald has more details. This is an enormous shout out to everyone who drove the protest and participated in some way. In particularly;