Archive for October, 2008:
I Am Now Intrepid
I dumped Windows for good back in July and have been running Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron on my Dell since then. I love Open Source, and for the most part, I’ve enjoyed running Ubuntu. I’ve found it to be on par with XP for stability and superior in usability. Before you quibble with the stability [...]
A Posse, I Has One
The sadly unfortunate and untimely death of one of our own has me waxing philosophically about our “community”. Those of us who blog about Oracle (or even just blog in general) form a loosely-coupled community of like-minded individuals, i.e. we don’t agree on everything, but we can all agree that blogging is important. I’m impressed [...]
Google Web Search RSS, Finally
Previously, I’ve listed the methods I use to keep track of all the information floating out in the ‘tubes. One method I didn’t cover is using search, duh. I didn’t cover it because one glaring omission from Google’s web search has been RSS feeds for keywords. If you’ve ever tried to monitor a keyword search [...]
LinkedIn Launches OpenSocial Apps
Did you notice that LinkedIn debuted their applications platform and some very serious business apps yesterday? LinkedIn continues to chug along as the business social network, and their launch on OpenSocial is of interest to us because of our own work to do this on Connect and their business focus. So, I did a pretty [...]
No, We’re AppsLab, You Have the Wrong Number
Yesterday, Google announced Labs for Google Apps: Google is making it easier for business customers and schools using Google Apps to also take advantage of our innovations and ideas that aren’t quite ready for prime time. We encourage your organization to experiment with the Google Labs features listed below to improve how you communicate and [...]
Remember Music Videos?
My latest Intertubes distraction comes courteousy of MTV. Hard to believe, considering how far out of their core demographic I am, and yet here we are. Anyway, the network rolled out MTV Music earlier this week. It’s an archive of music videos, remember those? MTV infamously strayed away from playing videos in favor of reality [...]
Geolocation: Cool or Creepy?
Location aware services and apps are white hot right now. Cases in point, two new iPhone apps: Google Earth and Brightkite. I can’t seem to find any use for Google Earth beyond the obvious eye-candy, cool factor. This has always been my complaint with Google Earth. It’s nice to look at, but not very useful. [...]
We Miss You Carl
Carl Backstrom died in a single car accident early Sunday morning. He was 35. Earlier today, the news trickled through several of our Twitter feeds, as a nurse involved attempted to find and notify Carl’s friends. Carl was an avid APEX evangelist and blogger, snowboarder and generally well-liked, nice guy. Carl read this blog and [...]
AppsLab FAQ: What if Someone Says Something Negative?
It’s been a few months since I did an FAQ post. This one has been on my list of to dos for months, and since I’m not doing as much community management as I did in the past, I wanted to crank out a post before I forgot all the content. The focus of this [...]
As Goes the Economy, So Goes Open Source?
I’ve heard the future of Open Source during a recession debated quite a few times recently. It’s a pretty hot topic now, what with the downturn in full effect. Andrew Keen, the author of “The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture”, blogged (irony noted) his thoughts earlier in the week. [...]
Qwitter Points out How Boring You Are
If you don’t use Twitter, proceed at your own risk of boredom. If you’ve used Twitter for a while, specifically the web interface, you may have noticed you followers count fluctuates without any rhyme or reason. Well wonder no more. I read about Qwitter in Mashable last week; it’s a very simple service that notifies [...]
Firefox Still Pwns the Field
Generally, I prefer choice in software. Intertubes browser is no different. However, in this particular category, I am an unabashed Firefox fanboy. I’ve been using it since 0.8, and it hasn’t let me down yet. I’ve tried the field, both for personal and professional purposes: Chrome, Opera, Flock, Safari, IE (all versions, 3-8), Netscape/Mosaic, even [...]
Macs in the Enterprise
I noticed that the Cult of Mac converted another member this weekend. Floyd bought an iMac. He’d been pondering the jump for a while, and now, his love for Mac has leeched over into his work. Full disclosure here, I’m a convert too. So is Dan. So are Paul, Rich and I assume Anthony, too. [...]
Does Blogging Matter Anymore?
Or is it just a matter of perspective? This piece in Wired today seems like flamebait, and several bloggers have gladly obliged. The title alone begs you to clickthrough, i.e. “Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004″. It reminded me of a conversation Paul and I had months ago; the short version was “does [...]
WhereCamp PDX Roundup
This weekend was WhereCamp PDX here in Portland. WhereCamp is another Bay Area-born unconference imported here by the great folks at Legion of Tech As you can probably guess, WhereCamp focuses on geo-geeking. It began in 2007 as a way to extend and build on conversations and topics presented at O’Reilly’s Where 2.0 conference. There’s [...]
Another Reason to Network
The layoff parade continued this week with cuts announced by several companies. I won’t call out all the names; you can find them listed on Techmeme pretty quickly. Having been riffed twice during the dot-com era, I cringe whenever I hear about layoffs. For me, getting laid off was a lasting lesson that forever changed [...]
Thoughts on the OpenWorld Blogger Program?
Now that the dust has fully settled on OpenWorld 2008, it’s probably time to start planning next year’s iteration. Justin and I spoke recently with the people who manage the Blogger Program to debrief about the event, how the program was received and ways to improve it for next year. If you read that sentence [...]
The Complicator’s Gloves
Thanks to Chet “for great” Justice, a.k.a. ORACLENERD, for passing along this gem from the Daily WTF. Alex Papadimoulis lists three types of developers attacking good software development, the Amateurs, the Career Amateurs and the Complicators. The Complicators are the focus of the post; I love the description: They’ve acquired a sort of sixth-sense: the [...]
Communities Exchange Recap
The Communities Exchange conference wraps up today. I spoke yesterday and then bailed to meet a previous commitment today. This was an interesting conference, unlike any I’ve attended. For starters, there were only 45 attendees, small by design. Also a surprise to me, most of the 45 attending were from out-of-state, including several from overseas, [...]
Low Tech Wins
So, I’m speaking at the Communities Exchange conference in San Jose today, filling in for Paul. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind since he announced last week that he couldn’t make it. Hence the lack of content here. Anyway, looks to be an interesting conference, only 45 attendees, small on purpose. I hope to [...]
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