Nur Ahmad Furlong

Blog

  • Web Guru Spotlight 1 – Interview with Small Potato

    Web Guru Spotlight 1 – Interview with Small Potato

    Today is the beginning of the first in a series of interviews I hope to host with top web personalities, people who have made some kind of success online and who have something valuable to share with us about the web.

    The first in the series of Web Guru Interviews: nomad-one meets Small Potato of wpdesigner.com

    We will be speaking to Small Potato of WPDesigner.com, professional blogger and wordpress theme guru. Well at least he’s my Guru for now. SP runs a blog which focusses on the development of wordpress themes and all things wordpress in general. He offers a range of free wordpress themes which he has developed in a very short period of time and gives advice to other theme developers and wordpress users on how to make the most of wordpress.

    Good day Small Potato and welcome to nomad-one, my humble beginnings of a blog. Visiting your website, wpdesigner.com has become somewhat of a fixture on my daily to do list and is now also one of my RSS feeds I regularly keep my eye on. It seems that you’ve managed to achieve quite a bit of success in the last few months in increasing the size of your readership and subscriber base on your blog. I’m particularly impressed by what seems to be a very clear strategy you are implementing in achieving this growth.

    So lets get to it then!

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  • I’m looking to “virtually” attend Podcamp Cape Town

    I’m so disappointed to be out of town for this event that I’m thinking about attending virtually. How? Using MSN & a webcam and linking up with anyone at the event willing to do the same. I think doing so will be a great way to extend the attendance and show the power of online communications channels.

    Started in Boston, MA, USA in September 2006, PodCamp was born.

    In the same style as BarCamp, PodCamp is a community driven UnConference for anybody and everybody in New Media. Whether you create and/or consume content by podcasting, listening, blogging, reading, producing video, watching and anything else that is New Media

    Check out the PodCamp wiki for more info on other PodCamps around the world.

    First prize would be if we could organize for me to do a short presentation via msn onto a big screen and get some people to interact with me. I’ve got some ideas on collaboration which I’d like to share and looking for some insight into developing a few projects further.

    If anyone out there is attending … and I recommend you do if you have any interest in new media or media in general, then help me do the same by taking along your webcam & laptop (free broadband will be provided at the event by Skyrove). It’s  a chance to start interacting in a new way and adding another dimension to you experience of this event, as well as to showcase the power of networking and technology.

    my msn address is [email protected]

    Drop me a mail at [email protected] and let me know if you’re interested in helping me out on this one.

    Happy eventing!!!

  • I’m re-designing this site, give me some feedback!

    Just to let you know why things seem a bit odd around here lately, I am currently in the process of re-designing my website. All the content is still accessible as I didn’t want to completely remove the site so bare with me for a short while and the “new nomad-one” should be up and running full steam in a week or 2.

  • Re-thinking my view on the London 2012 Logo

    A little while ago I wrote an article discussing the Logo & Identity Designed for the London 2012 Olympic Games. At first glance everything about the logo seemed completely appalling from the colours to the jagged shaped and seemingly meaningless random nature of it all.

    Well I’ve just read something which completely shifts my perspective and I’m not shy to say I’m thinking twice about how I view the whole thing. It might be a tad impulsive of me as my initial criticism was inspired by the outcry which followed to unveiling of the design. I still hold many of my views on the pure graphic nature of the Identity but applying some perspective and context changes the impact of my initial views.

     You’ll have to read my intial article and then this one I found on “A Brief Message.com” written by Rob Giampietro (principal of Giampietro+Smith and a board member of AIGA/NY) and formulate your own opinion.

    Critics, in the excitement of newsmaking, have rushed to judgment. They’re writing history before it’s happened.

    They’re forgetting that the games these identities signify haven’t happened yet. How the London 2012 and Chicago 2016 identities interact with their respective events and audiences will ultimately determine whether they are lasting, valuable marks or not.

    Ugly or beautiful, these identities will ultimately belong to us. We will wear and trade them. We will merchandise and trash them. We will honor and deride them. They will belong to us the way celebrities do, the way monuments do, the way media spectacles do. Years from now, I suspect different opinions will prevail.

    Maybe both perspective have their merits, but sometimes its good to see both sides of the story. Its a good lesson in design, to know that no one design can be perfect or completely inappropriate at the time of their inception, but that perspective, opinion, experience and time are factors which have a say.

  • Podcamp Cape Town – 20 October

    Podcamp Cape Town – 20 October

    Podcamp Cape Town, the latest web 2.0 event for all those interested in web 2.0 and new media

    Part of getting to know what’s new and who’s who in the new media industry and web 2.0 scene is attending events. The upcoming Podcamp event is one I’m very sad to be missing since I’ll be out of Cape Town on the day. I hope to be able to link up the the event remotely somehow so I can get a scope of the happenings and meet a few of the attendees.

    Started in Boston, MA, USA in September 2006, PodCamp was born.

    In the same style as BarCamp, PodCamp is a community driven UnConference for anybody and everybody in New Media. Whether you create and/or consume content by podcasting, listening, blogging, reading, producing video, watching and anything else that is New Media

    Check out the PodCamp wiki for more info on other PodCamps around the world.

    Also, go download Issue #18 of Podcast User Magazine, see page 17 on a review on PodCamp Europe. It is an awesome write-up and describes the feel of PodCamp to the tee.

    If you’re attending this cool event be sure to let me know and fill me in on your experiences so i can do a bit of a writeup on the days happenings. If anyone attending will be linking up with a web-cam I’d like to project myself virtual to the event and chat with a few attendees. go visit www.podcampcapetown.com

  • Chris Garret – on blogging and internet marketing

    Chris Garret – on blogging and internet marketing

    On the lookout for new tricks and techniques to get my blog and those of my clients more airtime I came across Chris Garret (a professional blogger and online media consultant).

    Chris Garret on new media

    You might ask, what is a professional blogger, isn’t blogging just some kind of hobby or something someone does in their spare time. If that’s what you thought you’re about to learn what you’ve been missing all this time.

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