McBlog

I got a call the other day from Thomas at Jackson Black Films (he’s also associated with Fitzroy Shorts). He was putting together an educational video series with VEA covering a variety of technical issues for Grade 9 to 12 school kids. One of these episodes covers the basics of database systems, and I was asked to come in and be filmed for it.

I wound up in an office with my laptop, talking about database concepts, examples of databases, open source systems, security and APC.au. Over a few hours I was interviewed on camera and then walked through a variety of data-driven web systems, back-end interfaces and scripts. All captured on tape and then to be edited into something coherent (if that’s at all possible given I’m the one doing the talking :)

An interesting aspect was being asked about removing my earrings as the target educational market is generally regarded as being rather conservative. I took one off but the one in my right ear stayed (it’s not designed to be removed). Hell, if they can survive a near-bald head with pink glasses, what’s an earring??? :)

All up, it was a lot of fun and the guys seemed happy with my ramblings and samples, so I guess it went pretty well.