Who are you (again)?

Back in the beginning, I asked you in the readership to tell me who you are. It remains a great little snapshot of all of you.

I’d like to ask you to do it again: just make a comment to this post with a little biographical information and tell me how you found your way here — like “I am a shepherd from Bulgaria interested in open data. I found your blog through Peter Bihr in Berlin.”

I have an ulterior motive here, other than my usual curiousity: I’m testing the areyouhuman.com anti-comment-spam tool as a replacement for the increasingly annoying reCAPTCHA service (I too am tired of figuring out that text actually says “antiverticular”). Let me know if the new “CAPTCHA in a game” is more delightful or annoying, if you don’t mind.  (Or, if it confounds you altogether, and you cannot comment, drop me a line).

Comments

Martin Röll's picture
Martin Röll on July 11, 2012 - 17:56 Permalink

I am a person interested in various things. We both attended reboot in Copenhagen in 200, hm, 5? We stayed at the same hotel and met because we saw eachother online in Plazes. There must be a blogpost about that somewhere. Ah, here: http://www.roell.net/weblog/ar…

Liz Nicholson's picture
Liz Nicholson on July 11, 2012 - 18:05 Permalink

Mother of Susan, Bob, Sharon and Sandy. Your blog is my home page, I love reading about your travels etc.

Shawn McCormack's picture
Shawn McCormack on July 11, 2012 - 18:26 Permalink

I was born and raised in PEI, and live in Charlottetown. I was in Ottawa in 1994, wasting some time on the Internet, when I searched for anything PEI (forget the terms I used). I found your Digital Island website with a picture of the view, a field with cows. Been dropping by ever since.

Ton Zijlstra's picture
Ton Zijlstra on July 11, 2012 - 18:27 Permalink

Like Martin above, I met you in Copenhagen in the lobby of a hotel, due to Plazes. Been to your home (2008), and you’ve been to mine (last week), and are both shareholders of Co-working boat PAN. Interested in loads of stuff, of which complexity, making and open data are the most prominent topics at the moment.

Shawn McCormack's picture
Shawn McCormack on July 11, 2012 - 18:29 Permalink

Oh yes! The “Captcha in a game” took a few seconds to catch on to, but I thought it was interesting.

alexander's picture
alexander on July 11, 2012 - 18:46 Permalink

I’m an ex-pat islander now living in Silicon Valley, I started reading this site when you could count the number of PEI bloggers on one hand, it’s still in my Google Reader today.

Daniel the Von Fange's picture
Daniel the Von Fange on July 11, 2012 - 19:29 Permalink

I’m a freelance web applications developer from South Carolina, and started reading your blog so long ago that I’ve forgotten how I found it.

BenWedge's picture
BenWedge on July 11, 2012 - 19:47 Permalink

I’m an Islander currently based out of Halifax, but I really divide my time between here and the Island. I probably started reading this site ~3 years ago and have occasionally delved into the archives. I’m studying industrial engineering but do a lot of programming on the side. I probably discovered the site while searching for something Charlottetown-related on Twitter.

Andrew M's picture
Andrew M on July 11, 2012 - 21:19 Permalink

An Islander abroad (Calgary) I also came across your blog while looking up things PEI related in 2006, shortly before Twitter/facebook reopened many of my personal non family PEI connections. In the years since I have enjoyed the spotlight on a place I grew up in and left about the time you arrived. I share many of your views about the environment, stock markets, driving, the urban community and also have an only child finishing grade 5.

Valerie's picture
Valerie on July 11, 2012 - 21:33 Permalink

I live in Burlington, Vermont but spend the summer (as much as I can) on PEI. I came across your blog when I was curious about life in Charlottetown during the other seasons, and have been reading for years.

Fun CAPTCHA and easier for me than the blurry letters.

Oliver's picture
Oliver on July 11, 2012 - 22:18 Permalink

I am your son.

Daley's picture
Daley on July 11, 2012 - 22:58 Permalink

I am about to live in Kingston, ON and am a civil engineer. I came across your blog after either Dan Misener mentioned it or something from Spark.

Garrett LeSage's picture
Garrett LeSage on July 12, 2012 - 08:11 Permalink

I’m a UX|UI|graphic|web designer (whatever’s needed for a given project) in the free & open source software community, now working for Red Hat (again), previously at Novell/SUSE, and before that: Red Hat (part 1).

For the past few years, I’ve been living in Germany, which is an amazing country. Prior to that: Boston metro, near Raleigh, Tahoe, Bay Area, close to Sacramento, Savannah, Savannah locale, LA suburbs.

We met at Zap a few years back (PEI is awesome), keep in touch on Twitter, and keep meaning to meet up in Berlin (but it just doesn’t work out, at least so far).

Cynthia's picture
Cynthia on July 12, 2012 - 11:54 Permalink

Soon-to-be PEI’er found you by searching for local blogs.
You can follow my little family’s journey across Canada at crosscountrycats.wordpress.com starting on July 20!

Dave's picture
Dave on July 12, 2012 - 12:46 Permalink

I’m a writer broadcster dad living in Charlottetown. I started reading you in 2008 when I was living in Cape Breton.

Mike M's picture
Mike M on July 12, 2012 - 13:55 Permalink

I’m another former Islander and I now live in Ottawa. I’ve been reading for quite a long time so I don’t remember exactly how I found the blog but it was probably through Stephen Garrity’s blog or by Googling for PEI blogs.

Shelley L's picture
Shelley L on July 12, 2012 - 14:08 Permalink

Mom, speech language pathologist, and friend of Lori Joy Smith but I heard you on CBC in Charlottetown a couple of years ago when we were living on the Island… We’re in NB now… Thank you for your interesting posts!

Art Rhyno's picture
Art Rhyno on July 12, 2012 - 14:18 Permalink

I’m a librarian who first met you in 1994 when you gave a fantastic talk called “Adventures on the Information Red Clay Road: Getting Wired Cheap” which still stands up well after all of these years. As a result, I have tripped over my feet to get you to speak at any conference I have helped organize and I was a customer of your ISP services when my wife and I put together a web site for The Essex Free Press, which we owned from 2004 until 2011. Some of my colleagues and I had the privilege of attending Zap Your Pram, and your letterpress adventures remind me a lot of the conversations I have heard for a few decades now as a result of marrying into a newspaper family. I live in Essex, Ontario, but am originally from Coalburn, Nova Scotia and PEI is the favourite destination of our household.

Gordon Pierce's picture
Gordon Pierce on July 12, 2012 - 17:40 Permalink

I’m an “off-Island” Islander. Graduated from UPEI and ended up in Quebec City for reasons of employment (over a quarter-century ago). You’ve been my mentor for a number of years; I might have missed out on Wiki, and WordPress and OpenMaps and Plazes (the short list)if not for your detailed reporting and examples. Still not sure I can sneak “1500 pounds of letterpress” into the family basement, though…

Matthew's picture
Matthew on July 14, 2012 - 00:19 Permalink

We first met in Berlin over veggie burgers.

Todd Gallant's picture
Todd Gallant on July 14, 2012 - 01:28 Permalink

I’m a mid-40’s married techy-gadget-guy and father from PEI. I first heard about you through my sister-in-law who was also part of the LMM Land Trust. Started following you on Twitter a couple of years ago and your blog is one of only three feeds in my RSS reader. Always interested in what you have to say about technology, communication, open data, and our beautiful province.

Chuck's picture
Chuck on July 15, 2012 - 05:45 Permalink

Like Daniel, I’ve been reading your blog for so long that I’ve forgotten how I found it in the first place. We first met in person when I took you and the silverorange founders to lunch during a visit. I’m an Albertan with deep ties to the Island; my grandmother, several aunts and uncles, and many, many cousins live there. Career-wise, I have been a developer, a very experienced UX specialist, and a project manager. My wife and I have four kids and plan to visit the Island for a month or so in three years’ time. I may be back on my own before then.


 


I follow ruk.ca because many of your interests overlap with mine, because you report often on Island news, and because I enjoy your writing.

Timothy Cullen's picture
Timothy Cullen on July 27, 2012 - 17:10 Permalink

I couldn’t possibly say when we first met in person… I was certainly too young to remember it with any certainty today. I remember that Dad used to read your blog all the time, what with you showing him how the internet worked and all (http://ruk.ca/content/john-pri… — funny, I just re-read this story and noticed I was mentioned in the fine print at the bottom. I started on CBC around 10 or 11, so I guess I’ve known you at least 14 years!).

As for me, I didn’t become a regular reader of your blog until a few years ago when I was Googling the family name, as I sometimes do, and came across the Tom Cullen rukapedia entry (http://wiki.ruk.ca/wiki/Tom_Cu…. I was thrilled to be included in the rukapedia, albeit by being lumped in with the “gaggle of children”, but this was good enough for me at the time. From that point onward I’ve been a fairly regular reader. I subscribe to your blog through RSS and find that I’ll go weeks (and occasionally months) without reading it when I’m at my busiest. I always enjoy sitting down at a coffee shop and catching up on a stack of posts wherever I may be in the world. Last year that could have been in Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Turkey, or Greece. This summer it has been Switzerland, France, possibly the UK, and will include Sweden by next week.

You’re still my favourite PEI blog (far ahead of the second place Tim Banks, whose blog I enjoy for entirely different reasons).

Cheers,

- Timothy

p.s. The game was fun. Much better that squinting at squished-together letters.