last journal entries (total: 105)
my se23 forum hits member #1000
Really pleased that my SE23 forum has reached its 1000th member:
SE23.life welcomes our 1000th member
This represents a major milestone, and also we've managed to verify over 200 of those profiles in person (or electronically via email domains).
We've now had 18,600 posts created, in 1,600 topics.
The forum continues to grow apace!
17/03/17 5:22pm
(3 months ago)
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add photoverified users on se23.life
As my SE23 forum grows, I've been astonished at the number of people who've been willing to visit local venues in order to get their forum profile verified.
We now have 650 signed-up members and of those, 140 are verified. This means that almost all topics have representation from people who the forum team have met in real life.
This is really valuable, especially for topics which recommend local businesses. Finding ways to build trust in online communities has been a long-term interest of mine. In fact it was the subject of my university dissertation.
Turns out a simple, scalable, local-first approach works wonders.
28/09/16 1:33pm
(8 months, 3 weeks ago)
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favourite topics from the se23 forum
Our local SE23 forum is attracting some fun topics. Here are some of my favourites:
Community projects
A better welcome to those passing through SE23
Brightening Up Perry Vale
Our community partnership library bid has been shortlisted!
Local animal lovers:
Calling all Cat Spotters of SE23
How to recognise me (via dogs)
We also have some great threads in the opt-in "Politicos" and cyclists categories.
The team and I have tried to set a positive tone and theme to the site by seeding it with exemplar posts, and by staying engaged with our early adopter users. It's working well.
11/08/16 10:55am
(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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se23 forum - three meetups later
My new SE23 forum had it's third meetup last week in Forest Hill, which was a great success. We're seeing a diverse bunch at each meetup in terms of ages, tech savviness and gender (the last meetup was female dominated).
Been great to meet so many local SE23 people, and to feel closer to my local community.
Seems craft beer, local street decoration and photos from SE23 are all very popular in this neck of the woods.
02/08/16 7:36pm
(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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photos (total: 1)
SE23 residents at the meetup in Forest Hill.
the se23 forum is taking off
The SE23 forum I created has really taken off. Today, news of a sinkhole in Forest Hill SE23 on the forum brought in 500 visitors over the lunchtime period alone!
Since launching in May, the forum has gained six paying customers and there are a bunch more lined up in the segregated "commercial" category for SE23 businesses. There's a diverse slice of SE23 life on the forum. We've reported big news, and we've shared pictures of local cats and dogs. Above all, there's a really positive spirit and an overwhelming feeling of community. It's been a pleasure to run.
18/07/16 3:53pm
(11 months, 1 week ago)
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forum for honor oak park and forest hill se23
Honor Oak Park (near Forest Hill, SE23) is a fantastic little nook of South East London. Liz and I moved there in 2013.
There was a basic forum that locals used to chat online but it's old-fashioned, and has dubious moderation.
I felt it was time for a fresh new forum for the area, so I used Discourse to build a brand new forum for SE23: SE23.life.
What's great about Discourse is that it automatically unlocks features and moderation powers for users that contribute positively to the forum. It's also real-time updating, mobile-friendly and packed full of features behind a deceptively simple UI.
27/05/16 11:25pm
(1 year ago)
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cointouch - find friends of friends that trade bitcoins
After much frustration with exchanges I built CoinTouch to find friends of friends that want to trade bitcoins.
CoinTouch shows offers to buy and sell from your extended social network. Prices are pegged to market rates (MtGox or CoinDesk), at your chosen spread, and thus automatically update every minute. There are no fees and no delays.
USD, GBP and EUR supported. Currently supports Facebook login. Google and LinkedIn coming soon. More altcoins also coming soon.
Any feedback, please drop me a tweet @cointouch
04/02/14 1:41pm
(3 years, 4 months ago)
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streetlend - share things locally
In February I founded a website which, happily, I am now working on full-time:
StreetLend.com makes it easy for neighbours to lend things to each other. DIY equipment, DVDs, baby gear, anything you can lend, you can list on StreetLend. Local sharing is great for the environment, for building community spirit and earning cash from things you don't regularly use.
I'd appreciate if you could give my new site a whirl, and list an item you'd be willing to lend. The more people that use StreetLend, the better it will be:
www.streetlend.com
09/05/13 11:02am
(4 years, 1 month ago)
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finding out how long munin plugins are taking to run
Munin data updates occasionally timeout due to long-running plugins. The munin-update log isn't very helpful. Here's a little bash script to find the offenders:
su - munin --shell=/bin/bash
for file in /etc/munin/plugins/*; do
time_start=`date +%s`;
$file > /dev/null 2>&1;
time_end=`date +%s`;
time_elapsed=$((time_end - time_start));
echo "$file: $time_elapsed secs";
done
25/02/11 2:30pm
(6 years, 3 months ago)
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stephen fry on the ipad
How much easier it is to distrust, to doubt, to fold the arms and say: "Not impressed."
I'm not advocating dumb gullibility, but it is has always amused me that those who instinctively dislike Apple for being apparently cool, trendy, design-fixated and so on, are the ones who are actually so damned cool and so damned sensitive to stylistic nuance that they can't bear to celebrate or recognise obvious class, beauty and desire.
The fact is that Apple users like me are the uncoolest people on earth: we salivate, dribble, coo, sigh, grin and bubble with delight.
Stephen Fry: why the Apple iPad is here to stay [Guardian]
29/01/10 10:05am
(7 years, 4 months ago)
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Well quoted and I say this as I peruse your site with my iPad2. BTW - very nice site!
3:28pm
I love my ipod touch and apple is infact a truely amazing company.
5:45pm
Can't wait to try one of these!
5:40pm
Okay, fine. I'll stop with my diatribes on Apple.
6:58pm