Stories

Google I/O 2010 Open for Registration

Jan 12, 2010

We launched registration for Google I/O this morning. The third annual developer conference will be at Moscone West in San Francisco on May 19-20, 2010 You can register for Goo...

Asking the right question...

Jan 12, 2010

Keep hearing discussion discussion on my social networks about whether or not global warming or global climate change is real.

Where Does My Money Go?

Jan 11, 2010

I found a much more colorful visual of where government spending goes. It is in the UK, but still very cool. They did a much better job visually displaying the data then I did on my Oregon or California State Budgets. Where Does My Money Go? Pretty cool visualizations of Government spending. I predict much more...

Visualizing a Ubiquitous Oriented Architecture

Jan 11, 2010

I was just playing around with a new visio diagram to help me keep evolving a Ubiquitous Oriented Architecture.

Video in the Cloud

Jan 11, 2010

I was looking for an open source image gallery solution for a friend the other night. Tonight after reading The Coming Tornado: Cloud in the Enterprise. I got into researching a couple of other areas of open source or cloud tools that I can add to my IT cloud stack. I came across Panda, an Read more →

Social Budgets and Contributions

Jan 11, 2010

Many projects I do in my spare time are purely for the exercise and learning experience. I have been developing a tool I am calling social budgets. I am very political, but I get frustrated when I don't fully understand what is going on at a state and federal level. I like to have a deep understanding before I take action or even open my mouth. So I wanted to understand where the State of Oregon is spending their money and create a way I can voice my opinion on Read more →

SDK for Google Android 2.1

Jan 11, 2010

Google released the SDK for Google Android 2.1 today. I need to play with the new release.

Open Source Government Data Marketplace

Jan 11, 2010

Someone needs to create an open source version of data.gov. Every city, county and state municipalities need a copy. There needs to be a well written, secure and standards based open source version available. It would be setup identical with: RAW Data Catalog with XML, CSV, KML, etc data files Tool Catalog or Marketplace GeoData Catalog It would also give all the links to integra...

Google Fusion Tables and Data 2.0

Jan 11, 2010

I pulled this from the Google Research Blog. I was going to write my own, but they said it all. I just modified a little: Database systems are notorious for being hard to use. It is even more difficult to integrate data from multiple sources and collaborate on large data sets with people outside your organization. Without an easy way to offer all the collaborators access to the s...

Google Charts

Jan 10, 2010

I wanted to reintroduce everyone to Google Charts. If you haven't heard about it, it is a quick and easy way to create chart from data sources. It is so easy to use. I think it is a tool that more people need to hear about and understand how they can easily use to embed charts in web pages, word documents, pdfs, spreadsheets and much more. To create a chart, all you do is pass your data and labels for the data using a URL or web...

Oregon State Budget

Jan 8, 2010

I was doing my taxes the other day. I thought to myself. Where does all my tax money go. For quite a while I thought how nice it would be to be able to tell the government how to spend my money. I would like a multiple choice form showing how I want it spent. Everyone told me it would not happen in my life time. ...

California State Budget

Jan 8, 2010

I came across a blog post in the Huffington Post called, "Schwarzenegger Proposes Budget For 'Tough Times'". So I went and checked out the California Proposed Budget for 2010 and 2011. I am seeing a lot of PDF documents available regarding the budget, but no data feeds or spreadsheets. I went ahead and plugged the

CSS Portal

Jan 7, 2010

I was looking for some nice CSS styling for text and memo boxes tonight. I stumbled across CSS Portal. They have some great information to improve your CSS skils. I found some greate CSS text boxes, CSS memo boxes, and CSS buttons. There ...

Browser Usage

Jan 7, 2010

I just realized a funny thing. I use 3 different browsers on a daily basis now.

Open Source Image Gallery

Jan 6, 2010

I am trying to find to find an appropriate solution for a friend that will allow him to manage a photo collection. Rather than build something from scratch I thought I'd take a look to see whats out there. I came across Plogger, a great open-source web photo gallery. It is an excellent example of quality FREE / Open Source software that has a single purpose and lives up to it. I just quickly do...

Government Data

Jan 5, 2010

I am going through the 2009-2011 Governor's Recommended Budget for Oregon. I can get at some pretty good PDF docuemtns with information on budget. Good data in there. Problem is I can't get it in any digestable format. XML? CSV? Excel? JSON? Someday all city, state and federal governments will have to publish all of their data via API. Luckily in Adobe PDF Reader I can just highlight the tabular data, right...

Google Feed Server

Dec 28, 2009

Google Feed Server is an open source Atom Publishing Protocol server based on the Apache Abdera framework. Google Feed Server provides a simple back end for data adapters, which allows developers to quickly deploy a feed for an existing data source such as a database. Google Feed Server also provid...

Backing up my cloud with backupify

Dec 28, 2009

I came across a cloud backup tool the other day called backupify. It runs in the cloud and backs up your cloud. Very cool. backupify is pretty easy to setup. It acts like most social aggregators like Friendfeed, however it then backs up your data rather than syndicating it or providing a single feed. I authorized backupify to access the following accou...

Activism 2.0, Cloud Computing, Mobile Technology

Dec 28, 2009

Just finished reading Activism 2.0: Creating Casablanca in Copenhagen, The Fresh Air Center by Chrissie Brodigan. It is an interesting look at what happened (or didn't) in Copenhagen and more specifically at the Activism 2.0 techniques of TckTckTck's Fresh Air Center

IT and Cloud Computing

Dec 27, 2009

IT tends to scoff at cloud computing. But obviously, there's a fear factor, too. If IT is too caught up in other projects to have the resources to launch some new initiative, the business side may threaten to use a cloud service instead.

#Hashtag Management

Dec 27, 2009

Just doing some reading and organizing thoughts on Twitter Hash Tags. Seems like hash tag management is becoming a regular occurrence in every day business. Companies should be establishing, disseminating, and evaluating hash tags for their company. Seems like at a basic level a company should establish and regularly use # hash tags for their company. #KinLane Then they should then establish # hash t...

Google Voice Integration

Dec 27, 2009

My Firefox browser opens all my default tabs when it opens and gives me quick access to all my core web applications. One of these is Google Voice. I am still working Google Voice into my overall platform. It isn't quite there. Today I was thinking about some good uses for it beyond receiving calls. I was mourning the deactivation of Google Noteb...

Tools - Share, Synchronize, backup files securely with Nomadesk

Dec 20, 2009

Always on the watch for quality file management tools to suggest to people. Nomadesk virtual fileserver acts just like a hard drive, storing important documents in one place with local and remote access from a PC, Mac or iPhone. You drag and drop your files into a virtual fileserver and files are automatically encrypted, backed up and available for file sharing. With Nomadesk, you can organize your files and folders just like any hard drive on your computer with no new interface to learn. ...

Enterprise 2.0

Dec 20, 2009

I was just going through my Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, and Feedburner stats. I noticed in my Google Webmaster Tools that I come up number 7 in Google Search for Enterprise 2.0. So I went to Google and typed it in. Sure enough I'm number 5 for Enterprise 2.0. I even beat o...

Google Wave Server

Dec 18, 2009

I was going through the different areas of my Google Wave research this evening. It was time to learn more about the Google Wave Federated Protocol. I just haven't had enough time to keep reading on the subject. So to update my research: Google released their open source version of the Google Wave Federation Prototype Server.