It’s been a wonderful (italics = sarcasm!) week so far. My second presentation at Web 2.0 Expo got moved to Wednesday at the last minute, and I won’t be here, so I’m not giving it. It’s a long and sad soap opera, and I’d rather not talk about it. But, instead of giving up entirely, I’ve decided to make some lemonade. Instead of doing the presentation (Microformats for Web Services and Portable Content) in a hallway at Web 2.Open, I think I’ll go to the Mashroom and see if I can get some help turning it into a Rails plugin. While I’ve launched a product on Rails, I’m no expert. I’ve been meaning to play with plugins, but haven’t had time (oddly enough, working on this presentation). I’ve zipped up the Rails app if you want to play with it. You’ll need to install the mofo and ruby-openid gems for it to work correctly (and you need a database for the profiles).\
What does it do? The main demo takes OpenID and after you log in, it grabs the OpenID URL looking for an hcard and pre-populates your profile with some selected bits of info. It was pretty painless to throw together, and I’d love to turn it into a plugin to make it even more painless. I think this could be a great alternative to CardSpace and the OpenID 2.0 attribute exchange stuff that’s still in the works. With delegate links, you could have multiple hcard “personas” that all point to the same identity provider but contain different profile information. Wouldn’t that be cool?\
In related news, I’m tired of conferences. I’d rather stay home, work and spend time with my family, who I feel is getting away from me. I’m missing too many of Brian’s little developments, the little things that kids learn on their ride from babies to little boys. He’s already a toddler and well on his way to kid-dom, and I don’t want to miss anything I don’t have to. Max gets smarter every day, and I want to be there to help answer questions.\
Other than Mashup Camps, and XTech (only because I already agreed to do it), I’m done until SxSW next year. It’s a gigantic pain in the ass to travel, and conference organizers don’t make it any easier. You’d think they’d treat speakers better, but they don’t. Yes, it’s a privilege to speak, but it’s also a huge commitment – both in time and money. They move your presentations around (without warning, or checking to see if you’re available), the network never works, and no one will answer e-mails (oops, here I go, I’m dwelling on this conference again). I’m tired and I need a break.\
So, if you’re going to Mashroom on Tuesday, come help.\
Update: I ended up not doing the Mashroom because I wanted to meet John Allsopp and see his microformats presentation (which was fantastic, and mine would have been a great sequel to it). By the end of that, I was tired and didn’t feel like writing code so I went back to the AOL booth to help out.
Web 2.0 Expo – Making Lemonade
Come home, Kevin. We need you back here at the ranch.
Your plugin sounds like a perfect project for the mashroom… see you there. I’d love to help!
I guess you’ve discovered Web 2.Broken.
What about me? Mememememeeee. Waves hands in the hair, way up high.
You forgot the part where you are missing out on watching me turn gray and how I have grown fatter cuz you aren’t around to eat your half of the piece of cake.
Love you babe. And support you, no matter what.
Hi Kevin, sorry to hear of your troubles. I wanted to say that I appreciate your commitment in coming to XTech, it’s a long way from home for you for sure. I appreciate the same commitment from all the speakers.
I think it’s probably a fair criticism that organizers get caught up in marshalling hundreds of speakers around and don’t always remember that there are people and families behind the email addresses. We do try to keep the information flow strong, so it’s regrettable when that breaks down.
Please email me personally if you’d like to rearrange or withdraw from your XTech commitment: as chair I plan for these eventualities, as people often have good reasons for not being able to come. As a new father I understand the frustration of being away from home too.
— Edd