Stories

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.

Google Wave Embed

Dec 18, 2009

I was playing with Google Wave tonight. I am curious to see how I can use it. I keep thinking about using Google Wave as a content management system (CMS). I am starting with the basics. First I started a new wave and filled it with some dummy content.kinlane-productions2

Event Position - Backchannel Management

Dec 18, 2009

I am doing a lot of research around using social tools in event and conference planning right now. I am researching usage of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social tools in event presentation and speaking at the moment. Planning, preparation and then ultimately presenting a session or Read more →

Email in the Amazon Cloud Part 6 - Restored Faith in the Clouds

Dec 18, 2009

I strongly believe in the cloud, and more specifically in Amazon's approach to cloud computing. I constantly battle people on my decision to use the cloud for my core IT infrastructure. It allows me to scale my infrastructure as needed and gave a completely new face to my IT strategy and operat...

Email in the Amazon Cloud Part 5 - Reverse DNS

Dec 18, 2009

I was really excited when I got this email response on my ticket from Amazon Web Services: We've reached out to the Amazon EC2 team and here are the next steps. In order for us to proceed, we'll need to setup DNS Read more →

Email in the Amazon Cloud Part 4 - TrendMicro Maps

Dec 18, 2009

I woke up one morning and got an email from a project manager. The original email from a client had a returned email with the following email server response: Remote server replied: 550 5.7.1 ... Mail from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx blocked using Trend Micro RBL+. Please see http://www.mail-abuse.com/cgi-bin/lookup?ip_address=xx.xxx.xxx.xxx We were black liste...

Email in the Amazon Cloud Part 3 - Maintaining IP Addresses and DNS Quality

Dec 18, 2009

Sending large amounts of email and ensuring they get received requires a lot of work and you need to make sure your mail framework is setup correctly and is healthy. This takes a lot of work and maintenance. First off I reserve 11 IP addresses with Amazon Web Services. I reserve these 11 IP addresses and never let them back into the general po...

Email in the Amazon Cloud Part 2 - Scaling Email for Large Blasts

Dec 18, 2009

I needed to send a large amounts of email. We are talking 500,000 to 1 million emails in each send. These are emails being sent to encourage event attendance or interaction, so they need to go out quickly. The powers that be wanted to have emails go out in 24 hours. In the past we would send emails and then sit and watch servers for 24-72 hours, with constant server restarts and other problems. I came up with a new base configuration that involved using a single blast server f...

Email in the Amazon Cloud Part 1 - Using the Cloud

Dec 18, 2009

Amazon is a great place to really take care of business when it comes to IT. First order of business at my new job last year was to take care of a really troubling "hostage" situation with their current server co-location contract. My boss said, "move us to the cloud". I had used Amazon Web Services before, I thought I should check out other providers as well. So I toured a handful of cloud providers, but ended up back with Amazon Web Services. They just offered the computing and stor...

Web Site Contact Information

Dec 15, 2009

I really like this contact information on this site I was researching tonight. The colors don't really appeal to me. It is the fact that their contact information is clearly: Available on every page at the bottom. Provides Email, Phone, Twitter, Instant Message Links newsletter information Links to blog These are all mission critical ways of staying in touch with customers. Users should never have to search around a si...