Stories

Kin Lane

New Billing Structure for Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon Web Services has added a new and more flexible way to manage an account. They have added the ability for: Consolidated billing across multiple AWS accounts Volume pricing across more than one AWS account Way to track the cost of a project across an organization. The new billing feature lets you designate one AWS ac...
Kin Lane

Google clears up a few things on Google Buzz

Google responded to everyone on the Gmail blog about some of the open questions around Google Buzz. They addressed some of the privacy concerns around your Google Contacts and how your Buzz network operates. They cover: More visible option to not show followers/people you follow on your public profile Ability to block anyone who starts following you<...
Kin Lane

Google Buzz API

Over the next several months Google Buzz begin rolling out APIs for developers. Our plans involve full/read write support for updates with the Atom Publishing Protocol, rich activity notification with Activity Streams, delegated authorization with OAuth, federated comments and activities with Salmon, distributed ...
Kin Lane

Building Network Around Common Interests

I have explored the sharing and social networking options within my Google Reader. My network has not really grown or evolved. Ocasionally I found someone who had liked an article I really liked and I would add them to my Google Reader network. Since I started using Google Buzz it has brought this social network out in front. It is forcing me to clean up my Google Contacts and starting grouping my network. I spend my entire day in Google Reader. It is logical to build a busine...
Kin Lane

Download my Credit Card Statements

It just drives me nuts that I can't get good data access to my credit cards. I just want an easy download of ALL my credit card transactions. You'd think you could but Chase now B of A. You just can't easily. Ok...I was able to download an easy spreadsheet for last year at American Express.
Kin Lane

Top Social Network Promotion on Web Site

I was setting up a demonstration event web site to show how events can become more social. I setup new accounts for the event at Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Facebook has their Fanbox tool that easily allows you to build a widget or badge to showcase your Facebook page on your web site. Twitter has their profile widget that quickly puts your Twitter st...
Kin Lane

Personal Budgets

Just came across a cool web application called Bundle that lets you see how people like you save and spend their money? You can use Bundle to compare yourself by age, location, income and household status. I love the tools out there that help us understand our money and spending.
Kin Lane

Use Google Apps as Hard Drive

Over the next few weeks Google is rolling out the ability to upload all file types to the cloud through Google Docs, giving you one place where you can upload and access your key files online. Google Docs now supports files up to 250 MB in size, which is larger than the attachment limit on most email app...
Kin Lane

OpenSecrets Open Data

I love data. When I find great sources of data I have to record it. Here is RAW and API data from the Federal Government. OpenSecrets Open Data It has: Campaign Finance - PAC and individual contributions to, and expenditures by, Candidates, PACs and Party Committees Lobbying - Clients, registrants (generally lobbying firms), lobbyists and bills lobbied...
Kin Lane

Google I/O 2010 Open for Registration

We launched registration for Google I/O this morning. The third annual developer conference will be at Moscone West in San Francisco on May 19-20, 2010 You can register for Goo...
Kin Lane

Asking the right question...

Keep hearing discussion discussion on my social networks about whether or not global warming or global climate change is real.
Kin Lane

Where Does My Money Go?

I found a much more colorful visual of where government spending goes. It is in the UK, but still very cool. They did a much better job visually displaying the data then I did on my Oregon or California State Budgets. Where Does My Money Go? Pretty cool visualizations of Government spending. I predict much more...
Kin Lane

Visualizing a Ubiquitous Oriented Architecture

I was just playing around with a new visio diagram to help me keep evolving a Ubiquitous Oriented Architecture.
Kin Lane

Video in the Cloud

I was looking for an open source image gallery solution for a friend the other night. Tonight after reading The Coming Tornado: Cloud in the Enterprise. I got into researching a couple of other areas of open source or cloud tools that I can add to my IT cloud stack. I came across Panda, an Read more →
Kin Lane

Social Budgets and Contributions

Many projects I do in my spare time are purely for the exercise and learning experience. I have been developing a tool I am calling social budgets. I am very political, but I get frustrated when I don't fully understand what is going on at a state and federal level. I like to have a deep understanding before I take action or even open my mouth. So I wanted to understand where the State of Oregon is spending their money and create a way I can voice my opinion on Read more →
Kin Lane

SDK for Google Android 2.1

Google released the SDK for Google Android 2.1 today. I need to play with the new release.
Kin Lane

Open Source Government Data Marketplace

Someone needs to create an open source version of data.gov. Every city, county and state municipalities need a copy. There needs to be a well written, secure and standards based open source version available. It would be setup identical with: RAW Data Catalog with XML, CSV, KML, etc data files Tool Catalog or Marketplace GeoData Catalog It would also give all the links to integra...
Kin Lane

Google Fusion Tables and Data 2.0

I pulled this from the Google Research Blog. I was going to write my own, but they said it all. I just modified a little: Database systems are notorious for being hard to use. It is even more difficult to integrate data from multiple sources and collaborate on large data sets with people outside your organization. Without an easy way to offer all the collaborators access to the s...
Kin Lane

Google Charts

I wanted to reintroduce everyone to Google Charts. If you haven't heard about it, it is a quick and easy way to create chart from data sources. It is so easy to use. I think it is a tool that more people need to hear about and understand how they can easily use to embed charts in web pages, word documents, pdfs, spreadsheets and much more. To create a chart, all you do is pass your data and labels for the data using a URL or web...
Kin Lane

Oregon State Budget

I was doing my taxes the other day. I thought to myself. Where does all my tax money go. For quite a while I thought how nice it would be to be able to tell the government how to spend my money. I would like a multiple choice form showing how I want it spent. Everyone told me it would not happen in my life time. ...
Kin Lane

California State Budget

I came across a blog post in the Huffington Post called, "Schwarzenegger Proposes Budget For 'Tough Times'". So I went and checked out the California Proposed Budget for 2010 and 2011. I am seeing a lot of PDF documents available regarding the budget, but no data feeds or spreadsheets. I went ahead and plugged the
Kin Lane

CSS Portal

I was looking for some nice CSS styling for text and memo boxes tonight. I stumbled across CSS Portal. They have some great information to improve your CSS skils. I found some greate CSS text boxes, CSS memo boxes, and CSS buttons. There ...
Kin Lane

Browser Usage

I just realized a funny thing. I use 3 different browsers on a daily basis now.
Kin Lane

Open Source Image Gallery

I am trying to find to find an appropriate solution for a friend that will allow him to manage a photo collection. Rather than build something from scratch I thought I'd take a look to see whats out there. I came across Plogger, a great open-source web photo gallery. It is an excellent example of quality FREE / Open Source software that has a single purpose and lives up to it. I just quickly do...
Kin Lane

Government Data

I am going through the 2009-2011 Governor's Recommended Budget for Oregon. I can get at some pretty good PDF docuemtns with information on budget. Good data in there. Problem is I can't get it in any digestable format. XML? CSV? Excel? JSON? Someday all city, state and federal governments will have to publish all of their data via API. Luckily in Adobe PDF Reader I can just highlight the tabular data, right...