Stories

Kin Lane

Increasing Amazon S3 Data Transfer Performance

The Amazon S3 team is now beta-testing support for an important low-level networking feature which has the potential to significantly increase the performance of large data transfers to and from S3, particularly for long distance data transfers.Per the thread in the Amazon S3 Forum, early results from the beta testers are quite good with reported speedups of 4x to 18x! If you are m...
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Kin Lane

Google Home for Your Kids

A while back I started helping my daughter Kaia build her blog at http://kaialane.blogspot.com/. She really likes making pictures and stories and posting there from time to time.Recently she has been learning to read and write more so she started to want to chat with me and got on her mom's IM and would talk to me at work.So recently she said she wanted to chat with me on her own chat. So I set up a Google Account for her and setup a Gmail account so she can email an...
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Kin Lane

Better Folder Organization for Google Docs

Noticed today that Google slipped in the ability create sub folders now in your Google docs management.Definitely a nice feature to allow me to better organize my Google Docs and keep them meaningful and combined with he search you are able to find exactly what you need.
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Kin Lane

Amazon Digital Content Platform

I was reading through my blogs today and came across the post from Download Squad on Amazon Launches Software Downloads.I dug around a little more and saw where you can manager your Media Library on Amazon including E-Docs, Amazon Shorts, Unbox Videos, Kindle Books, Kindle Newspapers, Kindle Blogs, Kindle Blogs, Amazon Mp3 and Software Downloads. Read more →
Kin Lane

Application Ideas: Google Project

I have this notebook of application ideas that I have from time to time. Its overflowing with lots of stupid ideas. So I am just going to start posting them here and see if someone has done something like it out there or maybe someone will get motivated and do it for me.Most ideas I have if I perform a little due diligence, I can find someone who is doing something similar. However some I think are unique.Here we go: I would like a
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Kin Lane

A slimmer, more fit web site. The universal approach to content.

I was just helping my wife setup a new site for the new Local Search Marketing Service she is offering, called Oregon Local Search.I was enjoying at how simple the site is. It is simply:HomeAboutServicesFrequently Asked QuestionsContact UsI basically says:Here is who we are...
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Kin Lane

Large Companies Using Social Media Marketing

Just saw a commercial from Mountain Dew about their new soda creation web site, www.dewmocracy.com. It was another interesting usage of Social Media Marketing that utilizes its pro-users or audience to facilitate research and development (R&D). They are encouraging customers to go to the web site and help decide certain characteristics of a new Mountain Dew soda. It is a pretty simple web site surrounding a kind of game /...
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Kin Lane

Get Live Firefox Chat Support from Mozilla over at LifeHacker

I was reading Get Live Firefox Chat Support from Mozilla over at LifeHacker and it reminded me of one of my application ideas from my notebook.They are offering live Firefox chat support now using an all volunteer support staff. They are just passionate Firefox users willing to lend a hand.I had made this recommendation for a client back a few months ago to offer this in the venture ...
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Kin Lane

My Profile Organization

In a few of my last posts I talk about organizing myself and developing a routine. One thing I am working on is creating a platform and routine that I work on everyday to help organize my world both internally and externally.I have started by creating an outline in Google Docs that I keep updated. This has all the elements of my world. It is pretty large so I won't list here. But it outlines everything about myself and what I am working on.I run down this outline a...
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Kin Lane

Learning Objects and Web 2.0 Applications

I have been spending a great deal of time learning about "learning objects" from a site called Merlot. Wikepedia defines a learning object as:"Any entity, digital or non-digital, that may be used for learning, education or training""Any digital resource that can be reused to support learning""Web-based interactive chunks of e-learning designe...
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Kin Lane

Having a daily routine...

Was just reading a post by Ian Forrester called, Is having a Routine good, bad or indifferent?. It is nice to see other technology professionals struggling with the same problem. I am always working to have a balance between routine and "following the wind".I would say I lean more toward "following the wind" and less on routine. I a...
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Kin Lane

Google Data API Integration

I was syncing up some of my OWS Network systems with the complementing Google systems today. Such as when you post a blog entry to your blog it will post to Blogger, and when you post an calendar entry to your web site it automatically publishes to Google Calendar. So I started working with the Google Data API, and I noticed when you click on code samples and references it just sends to directly to Zend Framework. They have ...
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Kin Lane

My Online Information Storage

I was just thinking how much information I am putting on the Internet. I pretty much migrated to a web-existence completely. Only think I store locally are temporary files and my music. I store all my thoughts in my Google Notebook, all my docs on Google Docs. This is a lot of trust. What happens if my Google Account just goes away?What would make me feel better about the storage of all my information not from a privacy point of view, but from a backup pe...
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Kin Lane

Storefront 2.0

I was playing around with the Paypal Storefront Widgets today and getting my head wrapped around what they offer. They are a flashed based widget that are pretty slick.You can manage your storefront look and theme and all the details about your products. You can change your settings on whether your storefront is open or closed as well as manage yourproduct inventory and how many are available for sa Read more →
Kin Lane

Google Spreadsheets as a Data Store

I just finished BETA testing the DocSyncer tool which will keep mycomputer synced with my Google Docs account.At first I had settings turned on to upload .html pages, which was a huge mistake....instantly it started publishing thousands of files of my local workstation, be careful.Once I did get my 800+ word and excel documents published synced up without any effort I started looking through them and searching on topics. It was very interesting to find some items I do...
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Kin Lane

Another Sweet Amazon Web Services - DevPay

Amazon just added another quality web service to their killer lineup. They released Amazon DevPay in Limited Beta, which is a simple-to-use billing and account service that assists developers in getting paid for applications they build using Amazon Web Services.Its a layer built on their Flexible Payment Services and allows me to integrate it into applicat...
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Kin Lane

Amazon Web Services - Simple DB

So I jumped the gun and blogged about the new Amazon DevPay web service and realized I hadn't even mentioned the other latest release from Amazon, the SimpleDB.This is something I have been waiting for. I was already utilizing Amazon S3 for heavy storage of files, images, and large text blobs. I use MySQL or Microsoft SQL Server for most back-end databases, however 90% of the time I am using only about 10% of the capabilities available to me.I am looking to add, upda...
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Kin Lane

Information Architecture

I am working on a web site / web application for Roseburg Forest Products right now. Most projects we do have some level of frustration in getting the information you need to get the project rolling and built to the clients expectations.I have been going back and forth on the information architecture behind the products. It is pretty complicated and getting past the visual display to the customer is tough.There are 3 ...
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Kin Lane

Facebook Application Development

Been spending more time lately thinking about Facebook Application Development for small businesses.Was reading Andrew McAfee talking about The Impact of Information Technology (IT) on Businesses and their Leaders and talking about Facebook AS the Intranet.Was also talking with another acquaintance about the usage of Facebook as a learning platform for K-12.I reall...
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Kin Lane

Google Apps & Features

Google is really rock'n lately!I have been really impressed with the line of products and features lately. I was impressed with Android and OpenSocial, but some of the latest incremental features are just working for me.I really see things slowly coming together.IGoogle just...
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Kin Lane

New Google Collaboration Features

Really impressed with some of the collaboration features Google is rolling out.I noticed a little arrow on the tabs on my IGoogle Home Page. Noticed you can now edit and share each tab. Not sure if this was in there before, but it's cool.So I created a tab with elements that I wanted to share with my wife. I chose to share and emailed it to her, then logged into her account as I can see the tab and all the widgets on it.Pretty huge piece of collaboration...
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Kin Lane

My Single Social Interface

Just having a few thoughts tonight after reading several posts on statements made from Yahoo about the future of social networks being email based. Also did some more reading on OpenSocial tonight.It got me thinking about how I work on the computer everyday. All the tools I use to communicate, network and get my work and play accomplished. With the opening of networks, shar...
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Kin Lane

Sharing the Revenue

That is awesome that there are social media sites and networks starting to share the revenue with their top content generators.Let's go a step further. How about you pay me for all valid, professional interaction I have.I should be able to generate video, audio, files, pictures, etc and post them places and share in the revenue from these either being sold or ad revenue from eyeballs.I want to be able to take part in networks and spread the word through li...
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Kin Lane

Open Platform

To achieve the perfect platform for how I operate and think I don't think one company can deliver by themselves.To create the perfect suite or set of tools that I need to operate on a daily basis I need different applications that interact and operate on a common standard and interface.I need to be able to try different perspectives and approaches.If an application doesn't work for me I need to be able to say NO! This doesn't work dammit, and show me others...
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Kin Lane

Social Programming Platform

Ok. Now that I have been blogging somewhat successfully (what is successfully), I am starting to develop a rhythm. It is pretty erratic, but it is starting to flow and develop a voice. Well at least to me. So if you wish to read this blog it is more for my head to keep track and formulate some of the thoughts I am having about my evolution in the Social Media Space. This blog is based upon a mind map I am creating in MindMeist...
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