Damn, I can't believe I hadn't done a tech post since that last one back in April about ether (which I don't use anymore due to lack of interest). There are actually few things I wanted to touch on; some I will utilize on the blog in the future, and others I just thing are pretty interesting overall.

• I got an invite to PodCamp Atlanta, an "UnConference" about the domain of podcasting. It takes place March 16-18, 2007 and is located at Emory University at the Miller-Ward Alumni House [map]. You can register online, and it's free. Free. F-R-E-E.

  It should be interesting for any of you out there looking to jump onto the podcasting wagon, or just curious about the field and want more information. And it is free (yes, I'll keep mentioning that).

• Speaking of free tech conferences in Atlanta in 2007, there's also SoCon07, a conference to shape the future of social media in the South at Kennesaw State University on February 10, 2007 from 8:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. There's not a website for it yet, but early registration is encouraged over at Atlanta Media Bloggers. There's no website yet for the conference, so contact conference chair Sherry Heyl at 404-386-9801 for more information.

Simon Willison gives a great and simple tutorial on how to turn your blog into an OpenID. What is OpenID, you ask?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could use the same account to log in to multiple sites and applications, without having to trust them all with your password? Wouldn’t it be even better if you could do this without having to hand ownership of your online identity over to some monolithic third party? [...] The good news is, you can! OpenID is a decentralised authentication system invented by LiveJournal but now being developed as an open standard under the careful mentorship of the Apache Software Foundation.

It takes like 5 minutes to do and is pretty simple. In the new year, I'm going to see what I can do to get BGB.com to accept OpenID (it shouldn't be too much of a stretch with the Wordpress OpenID Plugin). OpenID also plays well with Sxipper for your FF heads like me out there.

At work, I've been preaching that we start to design our pages for use on mobile devices. Granted, right now that's probably not going to happen since we still use Java applets and *gulp* iframes, but I'm hoping it could happen one day. And if not, I can at least play around with it using the adaptive layout technique talked about over at A List Apart. There's also a quickie article over at 24 ways by Cameron Moll on the mobile web in a simple to follow format. I'm telling you, 2007 is going to be the year for mobile content in the US. You ain't seen nothing yet.

This is very useful for some "hit it and quit" web layouts — a page template builder utilizing the YUI CSS templates for easy building. I've been using it lately as skeletons for future designs.

And lastly, two camera tidbits for you snapshooters out there. The first involves turning your digital camera upside down for better portrait shots. The flash hits the face at a more flattering angle, providing for more realistic pictures. I'll have to try it out. The second one is on using your PDA or smartphone's integrated camera as a makeshift webcam using WebCameraPlus from Ateksoft. I found out about that little gem from Download Squad. For just $15, you too can be a budding James Bond!

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