Author: Jake

Rich (@rmanlan) told me last week that JSConf 2011 will be held May 2 and 3 here in my hometown, Portland, Oregon. Apparently, this is one of the awesome JavaScript developer conferences out there, and so, Rich and Anthony (@anthonyslai) will be attending because they love JS. And so should you. JSConf is currently accepting… Read More

This was an interesting nugget that didn’t get a lot of hoopla, or maybe I just missed it or read the wrong blogs or something. Internet Identity System Said Readied by Obama | OpenID Thoughts on a government-issued, privately-managed/maintained internet ID system? Is it more convenience than necessity? People are the weak link in security, and… Read More

Looking at Google Analytics for this blog today, I noticed a trend I’ve seen before but continues to surprise me. Android how-to posts have driven about a third of the traffic here over the last month. I shouldn’t be surprised, since the same thing happened with iPhone posts years ago. I guess it’s striking to… Read More

Run Chromium 10 (the dev build) and enable Google Instant in the Omnibox. That sounds like gibberish, but if you get what it means, you’ll want to try it. This should work for the Chrome 10 dev build as well, but I haven’t tested it. So why is it trippy? Google Instant searches as you… Read More

Memolane puts all your checkins and activity on a timeline, foursquare checkins, tweets and Facebook updates, YouTube videos, flickr and Picasa photos, TripIt trips and music from last.fm. Tell a story with your checkins, tweets and photos on Memolane [INVITES] According to the post, they’re taking requests for other services too, including Untappd, the network… Read More

I covered this very topic a few months ago, although I didn’t have the historical references and term “lifelogging” as background. Everything the Internet Knows About Me (Because I Asked It To) – Digits – WSJ (h/t FlowingData) Modern services make it dead simple to track pretty much everything about you. I’m beginning to feel… Read More

Mobile is super hot now and has been for a while. I know, duh. If you’re in development, you’ve been thinking about mobile, or at least, your users have been pushing you to do that. We’ve dabbled with mobile a bit, e.g. Anthony’s (@anthonyslai) Android app for WebCenter, but being Android guys, we tend to build… Read More

If you thought this piece on the lies we’re told by volume and battery indicators, this will be up your alley. Behold, the Ubuntu 10.10 volume control. Anything strike you as odd? Maybe this is a subtle h/t to a certain number to which all volume controls aspire? For fun, I slide past 100%, and… Read More

Maybe you’ve heard of My6Sense (@my6sense), a newish mobile service that observes your Google Reader habits and serves up content that should interest you. If you read Louis Gray’s blog (@louisgray), you likely have, since he joined My6Sense last year. Anyway, Rich (@rmanalan) reminded me of My6Sense, which had gone on my list of apps… Read More

Interesting, but not all that surprising. The No. 1 Habit of Highly Creative People | zen habits People seek solitude instinctively when deep thought is required, and if you can make it work, telecommuting is an outstanding way to get the solitude your creative mind craves. Semi-related note, it’s a bit funny (not ha-ha) that… Read More

At least one person (ahem, Gary) wanted to read my predictions for 2011. So, here we go. Let’s start by reviewing the 2010 edition. Here’s what I predicted: Reputation will be all the rage in 2010. Fail.  I did read that Twitter has an internal way to measure the weight of a user, and at… Read More

I usually put a fair amount of effort into recapping the year in all things AppsLab, but this year, I don’t really feel like it. Oh, and Rich (@rmanalan) accidentally nuked our Google Analytics data earlier in the year. No biggie, we don’t drive much traffic anyway. One interesting note is that my post about… Read More

Interesting to ponder the newish pay what you want model, which is pretty much a remix of shareware. Pay What You Want — a Sustainable Business Model? – Slashdot Radiohead tried this same model with their album In Rainbows back in 2007 with mixed results. I’d argue that software and music have much different perceived… Read More

I recently got a new work laptop, since my old one’s USB ports had started to go. I depend on USB to do backups and to run my KVM. Since the rise of the Macbook, I had hoped that the pointing device mess that exists on most non-Apple laptops had been simplified. Nope. Dell still… Read More

Let’s call it beernovation. Meet the BottomsUp draft beer pouring, erm dispensing, system. It fills the cup from bottom to top, greatly reducing the foam factor and therefore the overall pour time, leading to much faster beer enjoyment and sales. It’s pretty amazing stuff. The BottomsUp site has video of people pouring 44 and 56… Read More

Hey there, welcome back, assuming you weren’t reading over the holiday weekend. This post on three types of developers (or six depending) amused me greatly. It’s actually pretty accurate. Someone should pen a companion piece about the x types of IT people, another highly enjoyable topic. I suppose I should clarify that I consider myself… Read More

I continue slowly making my way through “The Design of Everyday Things” by Don Norman. Today, I hit an obvious point that speaks volumes toward why apps are finding such quick success: The difficult of dealing with novel situations is directly related to the number of possibilities. . . . If there is only one… Read More

Thinking about this subject a lot lately, what with ripping video to share and gearing up for the stretch run of the pregnancy. How much do you share about your children online? I know a couple friends who obfuscate their kids’ real names, but talk about them openly. Rich (@rmanalan) told me today he dialed… Read More

I’ve never been a video guy. I tried out a camcorder, but the video I took was jerky, upset-stomach-inducing stuff. I suppose this will change when I become a parent next year, but for now, my unborn daughter is giving me a crash course in video and copyright. We had a 4D ultrasound done recently,… Read More

You must have noticed the inaccurate behavior of your gas gauge, i.e. it’s full and empty for long stretches of time. The psychology behind why is interesting. How Does Your Gas Gauge Really Work? The imprecise nature of the gas gauge is something that has always struck me as odd. Different auto makers create different… Read More