Stories

If you are in the business of technology like I am, you probably get the random emails from people trying to sell contacts from leading technology companies. They are usually pretty savvy at getting past SPAM filters and are persistent at trying to sell the information of leading companies from SalesForce, Microsoft, Amazon, and pretty...

I've been pretty vocal about running the API Evangelist network of sites on Github Pages, ever since I first started doing it back in January of 2013. Back then I was just playing around with the concept, but in 2016 my entire public presence...

When I am working to push back on various aspects of the API space, one of the ways people feel they need to push back on me is to tell me that I shouldn't be getting all worked up about it--that markets will work things out. Aside from this being a silly argument about something that I don't really acknowledge as a reality (markets do...

There are many definitions of what exactly constitutes "real time". I find it is a very relative thing, depending on who you talk to. When asked, many will respond with push notifications as an example. Others immediately think chat and messaging. If you are talking to developers they will reference specific technology like XMPP, Jabber, and W...

I am working hard to fine tune my world after coming back from the wilderness this summer. Now that I'm back I am putting a lot of thought into how I can optimize for efficiency, as well as for my own happiness. As I fire back up the old API Evangelist machine, I'm evaluating every concept in play, a process being used, and tool in produc...

I am slowly getting back into the routine of doing my weekly roundups. It has been a while since I published any, even though I regularly do the work. While I was going through this week's roundup of items I curated, I thought some of the blockchain related goings on were particularly interesting. Read more →

I recently read a couple of articles that focused on the data collection practices of businesses, where the moral of the story was that you should be collecting all the data you possibly can, even if you don't need it because you never know what you'll need in future. This is the popular perspective of a significant portion of the data c...

I added a specific project for aggregating and tracking on vulnerabilities in our online infrastructure, in addition to my existing security and cyber security research. Not all of ...

Github repositories are the heart of all of my API research. Each of the 200+ areas of my research lives as an individual repository, and I publish most of my raw research here as JSON, and YAML--then make it viewable, and explorable using JavaScript and HTML. Github + Github Pages + Jeklyll is what mak...

I feel the drone space is a poster child for the overall technology space for me lately. I'm heavily influenced because it is what I have been doing for the last couple months, but as I turn my head back to paying attention to mainstream tech, what I'm seeing with drones has taught me lessons that I'm finding apply very nicely to the wider techn...

One thing I'm experiencing as I come out of my Drone Recovery project is the drowning effects of our real-time worlds. I am talking about the desire to stay connected in this Internet age, and subscribe to as many possible available channels (ie. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, RSS, etc.), and more impor...

I find myself even more aware of the demands being placed on our lives through Internet-enabled technology after spending two months in the wilderness, away from my computer and cell phone. As I fire up my tools for monitoring the API space, the assault on our digital self by the tech community streams by on the scream like a scene from the Matrix movie. One of the tools I operate regularly is called Charles Proxy. Read more →

I love Evgeny Morozov's (@evgenymorozov) tweet defining the acronym SMART as Surveillance Marketed As Revolutionary Technology. It has provided me with a wealth of material for my alternate storytelling channels, and provides an excellent litmus test to apply to companies I co...

I am doing an increased amount of monitoring of security, vulnerability, and cybersecurity reports lately. While doing this type of work, it can become easy to slip into despair, as you realize how vulnerable we are to attack, in conjunction with how badly behaved everyone is being on all sides. As I see it, we have to work very har...

There are many differences between the leading blogging platforms like Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr, and Blogger. Different types of bloggers will view these solutions in different ways, with very different reasons behind why they (we) do.  Each of these blogging platforms has their pros and cons, and bring a variety of network eff...

Two things Americans are suckers for are entertainment and convenience. We will give up almost anything if it makes our life easier, and keeps us entertained--no matter how simple that is. We love our movies, tv shows, and games, and we love ever...

It's been almost three months since I've written anything on API Evangelist, and sitting down to form my thoughts into some sort of coherent blog post is proving to be more challenging than I imagined. I now realize how much of my storytelling has been driven by the momentum I have built up in six years of writing about APIs.  Th...

I often fall for the Kool-Aid flavor of the day, out of tech community. I'll be sipping it regularly, thinking I'm immune to its effects, until one day I'm like, "that is some damn good cool raspberry flavor!". Even though I know better, I still get duped by the magic of it all sometimes. When I read the regular flow of marketing comin...

  Utilizing Eagle Eye Network’s Managed PoE Switch with your Eagle Eye Networks system will provide an even greater level of manageability and more functionality than ever before, allowing for remote configuration and management.  Now, authorized users will be able to power cycle an individual PoE camera or the entire switch remotely. 

I feel like “the savage” in Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World as I begin to get back to my Twitter stream and RSS feeds — I just want to read Shakespeare. I’m eight weeks into Drone Recovery, I just finished re-reading A Brave new World, and I am finding it very difficu...

My partner in crime Audrey and I have been struggling her son's depression, and pharmaceutical pill addiction for a couple years now. This is not the type of thing you plan for, and when it happens, your response involves keeping it as quiet as possible when it comes to friends, family, and the public. Nobody wants to be tha...

I got rid of my cell phone number 541-913-2328, which has been my AT&T driven identity since 1999. I'm not doing much traveling this year, so having a $100 / month bill for a thing, that sits in the corner made no sense. Honestly, if feels fucking great not having, but that is another story. Beyond it feeling good, in the wake, I'm...

I started API Evangelist on the premise that the API community while immersed in a debate about the merits of REST and Hypermedia, were ignoring some very important aspects around the business of APIs. Six years later, these business considerations still plague the space, but I'd add a lack of awareness of the industry, organizatio...

I was talking my friend Dan Cundiff about Page2RSS shutting down, and the viability of offering up tools like this for us mere mortals to use in our every day work. Hmm, page2rss shutdown quickly - it will be missed. Makes IFTTT recipes for that sort of thing a little harder to cook up. — Dan Cundiff (@pmotch) Read more →

I am an old database guy. I got my first job working on databases in COBOl in 1987. I have worked with almost every database platform out there, and I love data. I remember writing my own indexes, relationships, and other things we take for granted now. I remember being religious and dogmatic about the platforms I used, which included ...