Hardware On Rails

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With the Open Source world riddled with opportunity for building software solutions for all manner of problems, Jono Bacon and Stuart ‘Aq’ Langridge explore whether there is a market for hobbyist plug and play hardware projects that don’t require you to string together capacitors and resistors but can do genuinely cool things such as the BaconSinkVision.

Remember, we are the very start of the conversation! What do you think? Do you have similar needs to Jono? Do you think it would be fun or useful to be able to build these kinds of home-brew projects? Do you think a market exists for this kind of need? Do you know of a company who is already doing this? Do you want to build Jono the BaconSinkVision because he isn’t clever enough? Share your thoughts in the comments below…

Publicity Bingo Win! Include a Shot of Jaq Easter Egg in your Next Application

balpha has created a winning page that outlines his/her success in including a Shot Of Jaq easter egg in an app. From the page:

Unicornify is a little fun project of mine that works very much like Gravatar’s identicons or monsterids. Given an MD5 hash, usually of an email address, it creates a random picture of a unicorn. Although it’s random, it will always be the same one each time the same hash is passed.

So here’s the easter egg: When you pass the hash b29b9f53a6358fae8f59237c182a45fb, which happens to be the MD5 hash of the SOJ feedback email address, you will not, as in any other case, have a picture of one unicorn, but two. And those are the unicorns created from the hashes of Jono’s and Aq’s addresses. Here’s a high-quality version of the picture — which you can’t get through the web service, but I can.

balpha even includes a code snippet as proof. Rocking work balpha, and great to see another shot on the Publicity Bingo Grid!

Inspired? Do you want to show off your kudos to the Shot Of Jaq community and succeed in acheiving one of the Shot Of Jaq Publicity Bingo Stunts? Well, go to the Publicity Bingo Grid, pick something, rock it and let us know!

Developing The Devop

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Within the hidden war inside software companies between agitated sysadmins and frustrated developers, Paul Hammond and John Allspaw from Flickr want to stop the madness. Jono Bacon and Stuart ‘Aq’ Langridge explore whether two old warring enemies can find peace and what needs to be done.

Remember, we are just the very, very start of the conversation! What do you think? Are you a sysadmin? Are you a developer? How do you think we can help code writing and server deploying friends seek peace, or don’t you think a problem exists in the first place? Do you think it can be solved or will the personalities never meet in the middle? Share your thoughts in the shot comments below…

Announcing: Shot Of Jaq Publicity Bingo

Alistair’s Golden Nugget Plecco fish called ‘Shot Of Jaq’

For the last few months Alistair ‘b1ackcr0w’ Munroe started work on putting together 100 ambitious, fun, and slightly bonkers ideas for spreading awareness of Shot Of Jaq and our wonderful community. The idea is simple: pick an idea, do it, share your idea and have a tonne of fun in the process.

Well, the final list of ideas is complete, and we are now looking to you good people to check it out, pick one and rock it. Each idea that is completed will get a blog entry on the Shot Of Jaq homepage. We can’t wait to see how you all get on.

We already have two ideas complete before the announcement:

• Name a family pet “Shot of Jaq” – claimed By B1ackcr0w
• The Shot of Jaq Big Screen Challenge – won by fanatikjim

Great work, folks!

Go and pick an idea here!

Jaqback, Issue 4

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In our fourth Jaqback, Jono Bacon and Stuart ‘Aq’ Langridge read out your letters, share your Shot Of Jaq ideas, and discuss other happenings going inside the awesome Shot Of Jaq community.

Remember, we are the very first part of the conversation. What do you think about the opinions and ideas shared from the Shot Of Jaq listeners in this show? Share your thoughts in the show comments below…

Review Of Jaq: Google Nexus One

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Jono Bacon and Stuart ‘Aq’ Langridge get their hands on some Google Nexus One phones and feed them into the brand new Review Of Jaq reviewing machine. We take Google’s new device through a Krypton Factor-esque set of challenges over the course of the week and report back with our verdict.

Of course, we are the very, very, very beginning of the conversation, and we are looking to you good people to share your thoughts on the Google Nexus One. Have you got one, and if so, what do you think? Are there any unanswered questions that we didn’t cover in the shot that we can answer in the comments? Share your thoughts in the comments below…

The Cult Of Personality

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At the heart of the success of many communities are loud, public and well known voices that sometimes take on an almost celebrity like status among fans and contributors to the community. Jono Bacon and Stuart ‘Aq’ Langridge explore whether these denizens of the cult of personality really bring value to a project, what opportunities they bring and what risks they face.

Remember, we are just the start of the conversation! What do you think? What are you experiences with the cult of personality in the communities you are interested in? Do you think these personalities are critical to a community’s success, or do you think we should get away them altogether? Share your thoughts in the shot comments below…

Riding The Wave

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When Google Wave was first announced back in May 2009, the hype-o-meter almost went off the scale. While bollocking Google is the new black, Jono Bacon and Stuart ‘Aq’ Langridge have a play with wave, explore it and talk about whether the hype is justified, what it’s opportunities are and what Wave needs to do to succeed.

Of course, we are the very beginning of the conversation. What do you think? Have you played with Wave? What did you think? Did you use it for anything other than type ‘here is a test of wave’? Do you think Wave will change the way we communicate? Share your thoughts in the shot comments below…

Piracy In The Party

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In recent years we have seen more and more focus on The Pirate Party, with particular growth in Sweden and significant progress being made in the areas of copyright. Jono Bacon and Stuart ‘Aq’ Langridge explore the rising popularity of The Pirate Party, discuss whether single issue groups are more effective as parties or lobbyist groups and whether the focus on changes in copyright law should be focused on content owners or government.

Of course, we are only the very beginning of the discussion. What do you think? Are The Pirate Party fullifilling a valuable role as a party? What do you think they could and should be doing to help their cause? What do you think of single-issue parties and lobbyist groups? What can be done to create better and fairer laws around copyright? Let us know your thoughts in the show comments below…

Monty’s MySQL Melee

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Towards the latter part of 2009, everyone’s favorite database MySQL was embroiled in controversy as it’s co-founder Michael ‘Monty’ Widenius opened a can of Finnish whoop-ass on Oracle trying to block it’s acquisition of Sun and subsequently, MySQL. Jono Bacon and Stuart ‘Aq’ Langridge explore Monty’s approach, assess allegations of hypocrisy and discuss possible causes for Monty’s dissent of Oracle and their future stewardship of MySQL.

Of course, we are only the start of the discussion. What do you think? Was Monty hypocritical in his approach or was he genuinely acting on a possible threat to MySQL? Was differences in business culture at play, paranoia, money or something else? Let us know your thoughts in the shot comments below…