Stories

Kin Lane

Different Approaches to an API Ecosystem

I'm reviewing four major Application Programming Interfaces (API) today. Zendesk, Scribd, Twili...
Kin Lane

Google Storage for Developers Interoperability

I finally got my Google Storage for Developers email invite the other day. They promised attendees of Google I/O would get them quicker, it took 3 months. I clicked on the link in my email and requested my keys and logged into the Read more →
Kin Lane

API Review - Scribd

I have been reviewing a lot of APIs lately. I"m evaluating their potential for integration into applications. As I'm going through I"m also evaluating how they deliver t...
Kin Lane

Rich Contact Profiles in Gmail

In addition to adopting Gist, I have quickly adopted a new tool that shows you rich contact profiles right inside Gmail. It is called Rapportive. I have hear...
Kin Lane

My Social CRM

I have successfully integrated social CRM service Gist into my platform. I have bee using it on a daily basis for about a month now.
Kin Lane

Framework for Comparing Cloud Computing Service Providers

CloudCommons has developed the Service Measurement Index (SMI) Framework, a set of Read more →
Kin Lane

Windows Updates

I once quit a job because I got called into a meeting where the agenda was to discuss having too many meetings.
Kin Lane

Adding Methods to my Amazon EC2 Object

I am needing more programmatic control over my Amazon EC2 environment. I am rebuilding all server instances on my Amazon Web Services network. I needed to reconfigure using EBS Volumes for file and data storage, and upgrade the operating system...
Kin Lane

Transforming Text Into Knowledge API

I had a chance to play with the AlchemyAPI I came across today. AlchemyAPI is a semantic tagging and text mining Application Programming Interface (API).
Kin Lane

Meaningful Key Phrases and Tag Sets

I can parse any document or web page and tell you what words exist in the content. I can tell you which words are most used or potentially meaningful in the content. What I would like to have is more meaningful sets of key phrases and tag sets that are specific to certain topics and industries. I w...
Kin Lane

A Programmers Need for an Application Programming Interface (API)

I have a "hobby" harvesting project going on right now. I'm am harvesting several thousand web pages from various locations on a certain topic. I'm not really interested in the content itself, but the top keywords that are used in the content. I pulled the page and extracted the body content that I am interested in analyzing. I then want to pull a list of the top keywords and key phrases used in the page. So I am faced with next steps: Spen...
Kin Lane

API Products and Services

I'm seeing a lot of chatter on the Internets lately about API development and best practices. Like 10 Common Mistakes Made by API Providers at RWW and Read more →
Kin Lane

API Postive Feedback Loop

A positive feedback loop can occur whenever an API becomes popular, it keeps becoming more and more popular due to network effects. The most important network effects are: API gets support by partners API gets support by vendors Developers are more likely to already know how to use it. This feedback loop and network effect are the momentum you need to create in your API community. I'm working through this thought ...
Kin Lane

15 Facts About Net Neutrality [Infographic]

[Via: Online MBA Programs]
Kin Lane

Scaling Your Amazon Infrastructure

I am still processing a great post at High Scalability called, Scaling an AWS infrastructure - Tools and Patterns. They cover several tools you can use to take advantage...
Kin Lane

8 Rules for API Development

I was reading a good post on getting your API right. They propose following these rules when developing your API: Read more →
Kin Lane

Internet Service Provider (ISP) at Amazon Web Services (AWS)

I was just refining a wiki page of various building blocks I use at Amazon Web Services. I noticed it would make a great Internet Service Provider (ISP) package for someone who wanted to start an ISP, or even used as model for an existing ISP looking to migrate to cloud computing. These are a few of the comp...
Kin Lane

Management as a Service (MaaS)

I have been reviewing as many Cloud Service providers as I can get my hands on. I am building a database right now of them and their products, locations, and types of providers. I am breaking them into the following types: Software as a Service (SaaS) Platform as a Service (PaaS) Read more →
Kin Lane

Application Programming Interfaces (API)

I am fascinated by APIs. I got to listen to the engineer from Mashery talk about their API services the other day. Ever since then I've been thinking a lot more about APIs. I just reviewed 25 top APIs out there:
    Read more →
Kin Lane

Application Programming Interface Ecosystem

Last night I went through 25 of the top Application Programming Interfaces (API), and documented what type of services they offer as part of their API Ecoystem. I'm trying to get a handle on best approaches to delivering an API. I'm still processing this information but so far I have these API Ecosystem building blocks:
Kin Lane

Internet Explorer NOT in the Lead

Check out these browser statistics taken from my blog for traffic over the last 30 days: Firefox - 40.55% Chrome - 30.86% Safari - 11.90% Internet Explorer - 11.19% Of course my audience is made up of mostly geeks (and my mom), but it sure is good to see even Safari kicking Internet Explorers butt!!
Kin Lane

Internet Explorer Has Stopped Working

Kin Lane

Standards for Managing Clouds

Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) announced the availability of the final two documents produced by its Open Cloud Standards Incubator, which is working to establish a strate...
Kin Lane

My Current Platform

Every once in a while I like to take inventory of my personal IT platform. It helps me pull together all the tools I use to "make the magic happen". Here is a current break down: Communication Gmail Skype GTalk Ideas, Documents, Collaboration Google Calendar Google Docs Google Sites Evernote CRM Gist Google C...
Kin Lane

Increased Amazon Usage

Once again I'm pushing the limits of what I"m allowed within an Amazon Web Services account. I need more server instances and more reserved IP addresses. So I have to go to the form(s) Amazon provides to: Request to Incr...