Stories

Kin Lane

Series - 3D Printing - Files Formats

3D models used in 3D printing are stored in files. These files can be a wide range of standard or specialized file formats. File formats often depend on the type of 3D modeling software used, but there are many common formats: .stl - STL is a file format native to the stereolithograp...
Kin Lane

Series - 3D Printing - Delivery

3D printing is about delivering a virtual object as a physical object, on demand. This is where our current shipping industry steps in; UPS, Fedex, USPS, DHS and other shipping providers will make sure we receive our 3D printed objects. With growing fuel costs, the need for localized delivery will grow, and here is another are...
Kin Lane

Series - 3D Printing - 3D Scanners

3D printing doesn't always start with a human designer or creator. There are wide variety of 3D scanners that can be used in the 3D printing process. A 3D scanner is a device that analyzes a real-world object to collect data on its...
Kin Lane

Series - 3D Printing - 3D Modeling Software

When it comes to creating 3D models for 3D printing there are many types of software to choose from. 3D software solutions range from commercial to free, and can be desktop or part of a newer evolution of web-based applications. Popular 3D modeling software includeds 3DTin,
Kin Lane

Series - 3D Printers - Printers

A 3D printer works by taking a 3D model, then by making a series of slices that are printed one on top of the other to create a 3D object of the model. Since 2003 there has been large growth in the sale of 3D printers, due to the decline in their cost. You can find 3D printing used in jewellery, footwear, industrial design, arch...
Kin Lane

3D Printing and Manufacturing Supply Chain

In preparation for Maker Faire this weekend I'm collecting more of my thoughts around 3D printing. As I do with all my research, I blog along the way, to help me learn and organize my thoughts. This is a first post in my ongoing evaluation of the role of APIs in 3D print...
Kin Lane

Mimeo Cloud Print Widgets

Widgets and other embeddable objects are the number one request we get at Mimeo Connect. Everyone is busy these days, and they just need a quick way to enable users to build, purchase and print documents from a...
Kin Lane

Reinventing a Dying Print Business Using APIs

kinlane-productions2kinlane-productions2 As an evangelist for a print API, I often get asked, What are you doing working in a dying industry? I don't see the print industry as dying, I see it as evolving. I often say that the largest and loudest sectors of print are making a lot of noise, and have trouble adju...
Kin Lane

New Google Books API

Google released a new Google Books API this week. The new Books API will allow developers to build mobile and web applications using the more than 15 million books titles available on books.google.com. The Books API allows searching of books metadata, pricing and working with...
Kin Lane

NYC Tech Meetup

I was fortunate enough to attend the NY Tech Meetup last night at NYU while I was in town. Interesting to see the startup energy in NY compared with Silicon Valley. Anyways I got to see some cool startups and tech businesses:
Kin Lane

Mashup, Annotate Then Print Classroom Materials

APIs are transforming the way we print. I'm always looking for other APIs that compliment the Mimeo Connect Cloud Print API. I recently addedCrocodoc to our application directory. Crocodoc takes PDFs, Word documents, an...
Kin Lane

Hazards of Developers Evangelist for an API.

I'm working to make it easier to get up and running using the Mimeo Connect Cloud Print API. One concept that is tough to understand at first, is that all printing starts with a Mimeo document. Then using the API you can either order that document as is, or merge one or many PDF documents with it, generate a dynamic document, then order...
Kin Lane

Aviary Launches Image Effects API

Aviary, a creator of web-based image editing tools, launched a new Effects API that can apply filters and utilities to photos via a RESTful interface. What used to be done with server-s...
Kin Lane

Upload Any File Type to Google Docs with API

kinlane-productions2 Over the next few days google will be rolling out the ability to upload any file type to Google Documents List API for all accounts. Previously only Go...
Kin Lane

iPhone Case is a Polaroid Printer

As technology rolls forward, there are many new concepts, but sometimes things we know from the past can also be reborn. A new concept IPhone case from Read more →
Kin Lane

Build Photo Collages with Photovisi

I was just playing with a cool new, free photo collage tool called Photovisi. With Photovisi you can select one of the many layout designs, add your photos and then customize by dragging items around. After the co...
Kin Lane

Selling Access to My Google Analytics to the Highest Bidder

I'm an avid reader of Fred Wilsons blog, A VC. He provides a "real" perspective into his world, and thus the world of VCs. Yesterday he posted a blog post titled, "A Month Of Traffic To A VC". He shared what a mon...
Kin Lane

3 Things To Add to Google Translate

Google Translate is an amazing tool. It translates those random foreign web pages I run across, and those ever growing number of emails I receive from overseas. I have 3 suggestions for Google to add: Geek - Translate geek so I can...
Kin Lane

Mimeo Cloud Print vs. Lulu

One search term I've seen come up in my Google Analytics frequestly is: Mimeo.com vs. Lulu.com I wanted to help people u...
Kin Lane

Managing Print Files with Box.net

As the Mimeo.com API Evangelist one of my jobs is to find other platforms, services and technology that goes well with the Mimeo Connect Cloud Print API. One such platform that I've identified as a Mimeo.com partner platform is
Kin Lane

Cloud Printing with Box.net

I'm publishing some recent work I've been doing with the cloud storage platform Box.net. Box.net provides enterprise class, cloud storage services, and their developer program and the OpenBox platform makes it easy to integrate commercial printing servi...
Kin Lane

Brochure & Flyer Printer with Box.net and Mimeo Connect

As the Mimeo.com API Evangelist one of my jobs is to find other platforms, services and technology that goes well with the Mimeo Connect Cloud Print API. One such platform that I've identified as a Mimeo.com partner platfo...
Kin Lane

Bound Document Printer with Box.net and Mimeo Connect

As the Mimeo.com API Evangelist one of my jobs is to find other platforms, services and technology that goes well with the Mimeo Connect Cloud Print API. One such platform that I've identified as a Mimeo.com partner platform is Read more →
Kin Lane

What Really Caused the Amazon Web Services Outage?

Amazon released a summary of the Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS service disruption in the US East Region today. These so caled stuck volumes and stuck EC2 instances, well those were mine. Right after midnight on April 21st I was working on one of my harvest tools, which pulls feeds f...
Kin Lane

DeltaCloud API as a Service

The DeltaCloud API provides a single API interface to work with multiple cloud computing providers. With theDeltaCloud API you can start an instance on an internal cloud, then with the same code start another onAmazon EC2 or Read more →