Stories

Kin Lane

Mimeo Connect Print API

I've talked about the My Mimeo online print and publishing, and the My Mimeo Marketplace where you can publish documents for people to purchase. Now I feel I can actually introduce you to the Mimeo Connect Print API, now that you have an overview...
Kin Lane

Facebook - The Future is Mobile

I just finished attending the Facebook Mobile Event, a press conference to inform everyone about several new mobile initiatives coming out of Facebook. Primarily Facebook reaffirmed their commkinlane-productions2 updating their releases of Android, IPhone mobile apps and the SDK to support these platforms. More specifically Facbook launched thre...
Kin Lane

Drinking the Kool-Aid in Technology Adoption

I feel I have a decent perspective of riding the waves of technological change, wisdom that has come from playing in the Internet world from day one. We have to make certain commitments regarding our career or as application architects when it comes to specific platforms, technology or programming languages.kinlane-productions2kinlane-productions2 I drank the Microsoft Kool-Aid for a long time. Eventually in 2005 I started m...
Kin Lane

Computing Essentials in the Cloud with APIs

As we continue to move computing off the workstation and servers and into the cloud, we need to recreate all the essentials of computing we are used to. APIs are how the next generation of computing essentials like email, print, DNS, and file system will be delivered in this environment. As we distribute and virtualize our web sites, applications and other tools, APIs are playing an ever more increasing role in connecting these applications for us. A couple examples are:
Kin Lane

My Mimeo Marketplace - Creating a Online Print Store

As I said in my last post My Mimeo - Future of Technology and Printing, I am starting my new career as the Mimeo API Evangelst. And before I can even talk about the API I really have to talk about the core products that the API gives you access to. I talked about Read more →
Kin Lane

My Mimeo - Future of Technology and Printing

I am in New York City this week kicking off my new career as the API Evangelist for Mimeo Connect. Mimeo Conneckinlane-productions2r the Mimeo Print Platform. Before evangelizing about the API I have to talk about the Mimeo Platform for a bit. I have spent the week learning every...
Kin Lane

Sencha Animator is an Alternative to Flash

Sencha just released a new GUI desktop application that enables designers to create rich media animations for HTML5 capable browsers. Sencha Animator allows you to put objects such as text, shapes and images on to re-sizable areas and you can move, scale, skew and rotate objects in 2D or 3D and Read more →
Kin Lane

Day 2: Switching from PC to Macbook

It is now day two of being on my new Macbook Pro, and I am fine. I haven't used an Mac computer since high school. I am 38, so 20 years? I have been a PC user my entire adult likinlane-productions2on a Mac from time to time to troubleshoot something, view a web site, or show my kids something (I bought them an IMac a few years back). Other than that...I've spent thousands of hours on Windows workstations and servers. Read more →
Kin Lane

Google Apps Scripting

Google introduced scripting for Google Sites today. Google Apps Script uses JavaScript to allow automation across Google products and interaction with 3rd party services. Google Apps Scripts allow you to: Automate repetitive business processes
Kin Lane

Startup School 2010

I was fortunate enough to attend Startup School 2010 yesterday. #sus2010 Startup School is a day of learning for anyone with either early onset or chronic entrepreneurialism. I suffer chronically, but have it under control. I was impressed with all the youthful, intelligent energy at the event. Unfortunately not a very diverse crowd, it was the usual male imbalance. C'mon guys....lets work on this. The speaker lineup was pret...
Kin Lane

Starbucks as a Center for Innovation

I have been very fortunate in the past months to have attended some amazing tech community gatherings, featuring some very interesting minds of our time, including Elon Musk, Andy Bechtolsheim, and Mark Zuckerberg. One common theme I noticed from listening to thought ...
Kin Lane

Instagram - Doing One Thing Well

I have talked in the past about doing one thing and doing it well in the technology space. A mistake I've made many times, and other developers make is trying to do too much when building applications. You build a system and try to please everyone, by including lots of features, tools, integrations and supp...
Kin Lane

My Brother Wants to Find a Tech Job - Get a Blog

The other day I talked about my brother Michael was looking for a tech job. He's a .NET programmer with a Computer Science degree, and a working currently. I told him I would give him advice on how to stand okinlane-productions2he is looking for. I took a look at his resume, then put it down and Googled his name. I just didn't see what I was looking to demonstrate that he was active and p...
Kin Lane

Riding the Waves of Change

Change happens. With technology, change seems to be accelerating, or at least the waves of change seem to come more frequently. I feel I've developed a certain rhythm fkinlane-productions2es. Part of this rhythm is a regular evaluation of where I stand, a sort of agile career methodology. I'm in one of those evaluation periods right now. What wave is next...
Kin Lane

My Brother Wants to Find a Tech Job

My little brother Michael is looking for a job in the tech industry. He asked if he could send his resume my way. I said sure. I opened his resume and scanned it as I would any other potential hire. It read: I'm very excited about technology I have computer science degree I worked at my school I worked at Circuit City I work at a small dev shop in my home town. Then I went to Google like I do fo...
Kin Lane

Rogue API Development

Application Programming Interfaces (API) are a necessity in today's fast paced business community. An API can encourage mobile application, web application, and desktop development by your most passionate users, partners and the public. Even with all this value many businesses don't have time or resources to dedicate to developing, marketing and managing an API. Read more →
Kin Lane

New Blog Considerations

I was talking with a friend of mine recently about his job search. We were talking about different ways employers ask you to demonstrate your skills while interviewing. Some make you take tests, some want code examples, and some just expect you to sell yourself. My number one way to demonstrate my skills is through my blog. It not only is a quick way to demonstrate my skills to prospective employers, it also attracts employers that I do not apply to.kinlane-productions2kinlane-produ...
Kin Lane

New Twitter Consumes Their Own API

Twitter released a brand new twitter.com today with all kinds of new features. The feature that really stands out for me is now the main twitter.com web site runs off the Twitter API. The Twitter mobile site and Twitter Iphone and IPad apps all run using the Twitter API, but now the most popu...
Kin Lane

500 Startups Launches their Site

Seed funding and startups isn't something I normally write about on my blog. I tend to be more vocal about the technology, than the money. Through exposure from Audrey and the ReadWriteStart Channel I am paying more attention to this world again. I have plenty of business planning exposure from working at Palo A...
Kin Lane

10 Principles of Successful Web Apps

Here are Fred Wilson's 10 Golden Principles of Successful Web Apps from the February 2010 Future of Web Apps Miami conference. You can watch the video and get the full transcript over at Think ...
Kin Lane

API Review - Box.net

I am walking through the Box.net OpenBox Developer area tonight. Box.net offers a pretty robust set of API for managing files and content on the box.net platform. It is a great example of a very robust API. They get you started with: Introduction to OpenBox Actions Getting Started Guide for API Easy Sig-nup Project Setup Page...
Kin Lane

Platform - Google Alerts

I spend time each week to define the technology platform I use to accomplish business. One of the goals of this platform definition is to assist in my migration to the cloud. I realized another tool I use daily, but have overlooked. I use Read more →
Kin Lane

Explaining Your API to Consumers

Kin Lane

DARPA Helps DoD Track Network Activity, TOR Works to Protect

I learned about TOR, a free software helps you defend against network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security while reading the Rolling Stone Article about Jacob Appelbaum and his Read more →
Kin Lane

Google Wave Open Sourced

I was happy to see the announcement by Google, that they were open sourcing more of the Google Wave platform. I was at the keynote speech where they released Google Wave, and I really believed in the potential of it as a platform. kinlane-productions2 The code they released adds more features and delivers a more complete "Wave in a Box" solution. Th...