After about a year of planning, the time has come for a long vacation. I’ll be in Australia for the next couple of weeks so posts will be on hold for a bit.
This is where guest writers could come in handy. Maybe one day.
Category / News
Pic of the Year
The Triangle Business Journal reports that Red Hat is moving into the Progress Energy building at 100 East Davie Street. More at:
CityCamp Raleigh Follow Up and The Council To Discuss Open Source
Campers on the last day of CityCamp Raleigh prepare their presentation.
The first ever Citycamp Raleigh was a huge success. The Friday government and business panels were thought provoking and insightful about how data can be used if it was opened up to the public. The unconference format was a perfect fit for the many discussions and brainstorming sessions that took place throughout the day Saturday and Sunday. After this weekend, I’m inspired and motivated to demand that our city, county, and state open up more data to the public for our consumption. Transit, parking, zoning, crime, pollution are all examples of the types of data being gathered already and could potentially be released to the public.
A really great story I heard during the CityCamp discussions was of an open data experiment that took place in Washington DC. The city of Washington DC opened up their transit data in a friendly format for web and app developers to play with. In a short time, many applications were created by citizens or small companies. While most failed to take hold, the few that did stick eventually became adopted by many users of the transit system.
What I like about things like this is that the city does not spend money on one application and we are forced into that one environment. What are the chances that it may fail? By opening up the data and allowing independent developers to take a stab at making an application, we can learn what works and what doesn’t before the city spends money. The risk is lessened this way.
I could go on and on about the benefits of open data and how other cities are embracing this philosophy but I’ll stop here and move on to the city council agenda for this week, the meeting on June 7th, 2011. Here in the special items section:
Open Government/Open Source Systems
During the May 3, 2011, Council meeting, Councilor Gaylord presented a resolution
concerning open government by encouraging the use of open source systems and insuring
open access to public data. It was directed that the item be placed on the May 17, agenda
for consideration.During the May 17, meeting, several questions were voiced by Council members and it
was directed that the item be placed on this agenda for further consideration. A copy of
the proposed resolution is included in the agenda packet.
If you support this and want to see more data available to the public then I want to ask readers to e-mail their councilors and tell them to adopt this. Info to get it done is below.
E-mail the entire council at: citycouncilors@raleighnc.gov
Write your own e-mail or copy and paste this one.
Reporting Broken Lights On Streets and Sidewalks
Have you ever complained to yourself about a streetlight that was out or one that turns on and off, constantly cycling through the night? It is possible for you to report these problem lights so that the electric company can take care of them. Keep this information handy because sooner or later you will hear someone complain about a streetlight and will be prepared to calm the worries of frustrated citizens. Trust me guys, pull this one out during that conversation at the bar and you’ll get free drinks all night.
When you see a problem light, it helps to take down the light pole number, which looks similar to the one in the picture above. Here’s the key information:
Progress Energy – Request Streetlight Repair
Bookmark the link above or try to remember the shortened link of:
bit.ly/fixthelights
You can also report broken walk signs to the city. It takes a quick call to the Traffic Operation Signal Shop at 996-6020. Here is the link for more phone numbers for the Public Works Department and their different areas.
Read RalCon On Your Phone
By the power of WordPress, I now give this blog mobility beyond its wildest dreams! Yes, that is right. The Raleigh Connoisseur is now mobile friendly through the power of a slick WordPress plugin.
I’ve been messing with a lot of side projects and back end tweaks on this site. If you’ve noticed a slowing in posts that is probably why. Either that or the hot temperatures in Raleigh this summer. Have no fear as I’m still 100% dedicated to continuing to grow this little hobby, even if it takes only baby steps.
And now, back to regularly scheduled programming…..
Guest Post On Raleigh DLA
I’m representing the Raleigh Downtown Living Advocates in the Moore Square Public Leadership Group. I’ve thrown up a post on their website giving some history of the redesign and what is coming next. I encourage all readers to jump over to their site and also consider joining the DLA.
Link: Public Leadership Group For The Moore Square Redesign
Acoustics Problem At The Downtown Amphitheater?
Click to see the video on Vimeo.
I was walking around the site for the new Downtown Raleigh Amphitheater last night and was lucky enough to see, actually hear, something rather interesting. For those at work that cannot play or hear the video above, I’ll try to explain it.
I was standing in the amphitheater taking pictures of the shimmer wall last night, the gate was conveniently wide open, and the daily train, the Piedmont, was sounding its horn while moving on the tracks behind me. If you listen to the video above, the very loud horn echoes off what has to be the convention center. You’ll hear it once, then again immediately after. If it is in fact an echo, then thinking about where the stage will sit, the speakers will be facing the convention center, and hello, echo!
Now I’m not saying this will or will not happen during shows at the amphitheater, hopefully acoustics were taken into account when the place was designed. It was just very interesting to hear a loud echo from the train’s horn last night when standing in what will be the main seating area.
Take it however you want.
DT Raleigh Is Back Up
Recently, the site was infected with some kind of virus. This came to my attention on Friday, May 7th around noon. If you visited the site on that day and encountered some strange behavior in your browser, I recommend you do a system scan. After hearing about the infection, I disabled the site and put up a simple maintenance screen in order to stop the spread.
After some phone calls and WordPress updates over the weekend, I’m confident that the problem has been fixed. Thanks to regular backups, not much content was lost except for last week’s posts and comments. I have recovered the posts but the comments are lost.
I am truly sorry if this has affected anyone. Computer viruses piss me off more then anything and I hate to be the cause if someone was infected visiting the blog. I’m using this post as an apology and to see that new posts continue to work regularly for the RSS subscribers.
Back to regularly scheduled programming……….