I got some email from Dan Brickley on Friday asking for some help getting the MediaWiki OpenID extension working. It looks like the FOAF wiki now allows you to login with OpenID. Cool beans on that!
tags: wiki foaf mediawiki openid
Wikicalc
Speaking of people whose names match the production "Dan Brick*", Dan Bricklin just releases WikiCalc 1.0. WikiCalc is an awesome piece of software that provides shared spreadsheets with a Wiki flavor. I'm interested in using it for some new projects, so I'm really glad Dan's worked so hard on it. Congratulations to him and to sponsor SocialText for such good work.
tags: wiki wikicalc socialtext dan bricklin
Lucinda
I'm excited to see that one of my favorite people in Montreal has set up a blog. Lucinda Catchlove is a Montreal writer, and also a good friend with a clear voice and an honest opinion. I'm looking forward to seeing what her blog will have to offer.
tags: friends montreal lucinda catchlove
Google in Montreal
It's probably not an overstatement to say that Montreal's digerati are a-twitter with gossip that Google will be opening a small office in Montreal (note: link in French). It's only space for a dozen or so people in downtown, but more tantalizing is the prospect that they're shopping for commercial real estate capable of handling 200-300 employees.
The blogosphère (or is it the blogodôme...? I get those confused all the time) here is pretty excited about the news, but a post by star podcaster Julien Smith has been more controversial. In Montreal... Needs... Brains... he says that he thinks the Montreal tech scene isn't as dynamic and interdependent as in other cities. He thinks the city needs a Google office as a shot-in-the-arm for developing our technology culture.
I don't believe that this is the case. Montreal has a vibrant tech scene with a lot of cross-pollination. There are a lot of formal and informal venues for discussion in Montreal. We have the monthly Yulblog and Wiki Wednesday, last year's BarCampMontreal and the upcoming BarCampMontreal2, as well as RoCoCo. There's also the quarterly Montreal Creative Commons Salon.
On the informal side, Seb Paquet's had a few group lunches with some of the most interesting people in town, and Île Sans Fil gives us great hotspots like Laïka and L'Utopik for serendipitous or on-purpose path-crossings.
I guess my main point is that Montreal's got a great Scene, and I don't think it needs a big infusion of Googloids to make it better. Is there more that could be done? Sure. I think we need to get a Web Montag going to pull together the various sub-cultures forming. And we should probably be using SAT more -- it's a great space. But I think we're doing pretty good overall.
Side notes: Hugh MacGuire has a quick list of Montreals doing stuff, and Robin Millette has some ideas about Montreal Action.
tags: montreal technology scene google