Stories

OExchange - Sharing Standard

Jun 4, 2010

Data Storage in the Clouds

Jun 3, 2010

I have been answering a lot of questions on LinkedIn and Quora lately about where the best place to store data in the clouds. There are a lot of answers to this question. Cloud storage comes in many shapes, sizes, and prices. Business class, personal usage, storage APIs and much more. I store my: Amazon EC2 machine images in Read more →

AT&T Rants and Raves

Jun 3, 2010

ATT decided to stop offering unlimited data plans to new customers today. I'm going to ride the Anti ATT sentiment for a bit. I have several complaints about AT&T that I need to explore here on my blog. I have had the phone number 541-913-2328 on the AT&T network since January 1999. It was my primary business line for ...

Google oAuth Calls

May 25, 2010

While working with the Google API tonight I registered my primary research and development domain with them so that I could make oAuth calls to Google API. You need to go to: https://www.google.com/accounts/ManageDomains You need to register your application with Google. Using this page, you can identify your web domain(s) . Once you've successfully registered your domain, you will be able to programmatically access G...

Creating "Contaxt"

May 25, 2010

Using oAuth I've pulled my email from my Gmail Inbox. Then using AuthSub I pulled my Google Contacts. I will replicate what I've done and pull mail and contacts from my kinlane.com Google Apps domain. I'm putting all this information into a MySQL database on my server and creating a sort of CRM. Then I will build hooks that publish data back to my FREE ...

Rediscovering Zend Framework

May 24, 2010

I am working with several Google APIs this evening. I am pulling my Gmail Messages using Oauth. In the Google Code samples they use Zend Framework. When I had my web development company I made the transition from ASP to PHP I used the Zend framework as a backbone to my platform. So I am familiar. Looking through the libraries I think its definitely time to rediscover the

Facebook Deleted

May 10, 2010

The Internet is an important tool in our every day life. We can't support businesses who don't respect the Internet as an open community and respects its users privacy. There are many networks and service providers who do.

Leaving Facebook

May 9, 2010

Facebook has long been a thorn in my side when it came to social application development. They just haven't played nice with the other kids on the playground. They cause extra work for us developers, but we have to do it....because that is where your users are. It is very much like Microsoft play in the browser game for the last 10 years. I gave into Microsofts game for a while, and same with Facebook. However I convert every person I can to Read more →

Speed of Your Web Site, Google and the Cloud

May 3, 2010

I've seen several post by Google that the speed of your web site now matters a great deal in the relevance of your site. Using site speed in web search ranking Read more →

A Fresh Look at What Amazon Brings to the Cloud

Apr 5, 2010

One of the reasons I blog is to provide a focus to my research and learning. I use this research to help me revisit many of the technologies that I stay in tune with. With many of the top cloud providers I like to step back and look at what they offer from time to time to see if I have missed anything or may see things in a different light. Tak...

Making a Few Changes

Mar 31, 2010

Its been a while since I made any changes to my blog. I haven't given my blog much love at all lately. I could easily blame work and say I don't have time. I do not think that is it. I just started feeling like I wasn't saying much at all, there was no organization to my approach. To change thi...

Scalr

Mar 3, 2010

What is Scalr? Scalr is software that creates redundant, self-curing, and auto-scaling clusters to run your website. Using EC2 and Cloud Computing. It allows you to create server farms through a web-based interface using prebuilt AMI's for load balancers (pound, nginx, or Amazon's load balancing service), app servers (apache, rails, others), databases (mysql master-slave, others), and a generic AMI to build on top of. The health of the farm is continuo...

Living-Stories - A New Format for Online News

Feb 18, 2010

Living Stories are a new format for presenting and consuming online news. The basic idea of a living story is to combine all of the news coverage on a running story on a single page. Every day, instead of writing a new article on the story that sits at a new URL and contains some new developments and some old background, a living story resides at a permanent URL, that is updated regularly with new developments. This makes it easier for re...

Grouping and targeting my Google Buzz

Feb 13, 2010

I was spending time organizing my Google Contacts. Up until now they really didn't "require" any sort of organization. Then I was playing with Google Buzz and seeing how I can use as part of my communication and production platform. With an organized Google Contacts and logical groups, I could get very fine tuned in my Google Buzz targeting. They allow you to to quickly mark your buzz as private, then distribute to certain groups:

New Billing Structure for Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Feb 12, 2010

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...

Google clears up a few things on Google Buzz

Feb 11, 2010

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<...

Google Buzz API

Feb 11, 2010

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 ...

Building Network Around Common Interests

Feb 11, 2010

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...

Download my Credit Card Statements

Jan 29, 2010

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.

Top Social Network Promotion on Web Site

Jan 23, 2010

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...

Personal Budgets

Jan 20, 2010

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.

Use Google Apps as Hard Drive

Jan 12, 2010

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...

OpenSecrets Open Data

Jan 12, 2010

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...

Google I/O 2010 Open for Registration

Jan 12, 2010

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...

Asking the right question...

Jan 12, 2010

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