It's going to be an exciting new year. The news, though it's not live on the site yet, is that CNUK is going to take on another task. We're going to do free software and free culture now. This is not much of a surprise - we've built the whole operation on free software. Plone, our content management system and Debian GNU/Linux, our operating system. We're going to be pushing some great aspects of free software, not just for culture, but also in a more general sense.

Free software is an important aspect of a free culture. Software is as important to the social change as culture - afterall, you can't be free if you can't read a free book freely!

I've been busy lately, learning Ruby on Rails (I'm still learning) and future projects might well use it. If I can figure out FTP or HTTP uploading with Rails, RemixAnywhere will be a great application for starters. And of course, public subversion and everything GPL licensed.

Local groups are another important aspect, and we'll be putting some considerable effort into this area, too.

It should be fun.

PodReader, a handy little free software application distributed under the GPL that makes reading electronic documents easy and fun for your 3G or newer iPod. Releases are soon planned that will allow you to sync the weather, news, and other related things via RSS and Atom feeds.

Want to put it on your own blog? Do whatever the hell you want with it, really.

(In all fairness to Tim O'Reilly, it's not his fault at all. He's selling great books, but sadly, he's also the author of this piece, and it makes me want to cry.)

You've got some things and they belong in a category...

class Thing

Google: Ten Golden Rules - Getting the most out of knowledge workers will be the key to business success for the next quarter century. Here's how we do it at Google.

Really Getting Started in Rails: "Really Getting Started in Rails"

Rails stuff is starting to take shape in my head. I want to make a basic forum, kind of like Rforum (which I can't get to install yet!) but write it from scratch. I need a good few play apps, and then I can work out what I want to make.

I have some projects to work on, too.

So, I'm fast learning Ruby on Rails (whilst trying to keep the OMFGBBQTHX meter to a low - trying hard to not AJAX/tag everything) - it's coming along well. It's a lovely environment, and perhaps the only bit of 2.0 bullshit I'm excited about so far. I can now show you how to make a blog in a few minutes, from scratch. I've yet to start saying 'Whoops!', but I can work on that.

What else is new? Met with John Buckman from Magnatune - they really are not evil, and they're doing some great stuff over there. For those of you not in the know, Magnatune is a great alternative to the mainstream evil label. They sell mainly online (so you don't have wait) and they do all the formats you could shake a stick at... but they do some awesome stuff that major labels just aren't doing... they encourage you to share your download with your friends/family (3 of them!), you can get a lossless recording, you pay what you feel an album is worth (having listened to it completely) and they're doing some great stuff for podcasters. If you've got a podcast, you should be using Magnatune music.

CNUK and Magnatune are going to be running a contest very soon. In the meantime, I am distracted by conversations about rubbish sitcoms, playing Mario Kart and cheating in pub quizzes.