I love this type of story. About a week ago, I get an email from Noel Portugal, a guy who works at Oracle and likes to hack around with APEX, Web 2.0 stuff, technology in general. In one line that stuck out, Noel mentioned that he was recently “bitten” by the Web 2.0 bug and… Read More
Author: Jake
a.k.a.:jkuramot
Do You Zombie Reply to All?
I’ve mused in the past about whether spam is really a problem or not. I find it a minor annoyance that I can easily ignore, like ads, but I can see how it would be both annoying in some situations and in others, a major problem. Spam in my work inbox is limited mostly to… Read More
Connect V2 is Live
I’m stoked to announce that we’ve opened our latest version of Connect, the internal community for employees, for beta testing. If you’re an employee, find me through email or otherwise, and I’ll get you the URL. We’ll be redirecting all traffic from the old version of Connect very soon, in case you’re not in a… Read More
Now Featuring the FriendFeed Plugin
I’ve been using FriendFeed off and on since last Fall. I go through phases with it, using it intently for a couple days, then forgetting to check it. Very much like my Twitter use. One thing I like about FriendFeed is that it exposes content to a much wider audience, via network effects, e.g. people… Read More
AppsLab FAQ: What Do You Do at Oracle?
Here’s another installment in my FAQ series. I’ve always had trouble explaining what I do to non-technical people. It’s gotten better over the years, but it’s still a struggle to explain my job. Usually, the conversation goes like this: Q: What do you do for work? A: I work for a big software company. Q:… Read More
Twitter is Your Friend
Insert Twitter post disclaimer here. I’ve noticed a humorous trend that you can use for a laugh. People like to rant at Twitter, just check out twistori’s hate feed for samples. The beauty part of Twitter and its many clients is that it provides easy outlet for your frustration. Can’t get a piece of software… Read More
Making Your Blog Faster and Greener
I’ve been meaning to blog this for a while now. On June 6 at Beer and Blog here in Portland, Jason Grigsby gave an informal talk about how to make your website/blog faster and therefore greener. Sounds a bit like voodoo, but the logic is sound. Cheap and plentiful broadband and iron have made website… Read More
Find Paul at the Churchill Club on Tuesday, June 17
Paul told me about this a while back, and Google just reminded me. He will be speaking at the Churchill Club on Tuesday, June 17 at 7 PM. The session is called From Dilbert to Dude: Succeeding with Web 2.0 Within the Enterprise. Moderating the panel is Forrester analyst and Groundswell co-author Charlene Li. Also… Read More
Blogger Program Renewed for OpenWorld 2008
I’m pleased to announce that Oracle is renewing the blogger program for OpenWorld 2008, which will be held at the Moscone Center in beautiful San Francisco, September 21 through 25, 2008. Most of the operational details are the same as last year: Oracle provides the conference pass to qualified bloggers. Oracle does not cover travel… Read More
Facebook is for Quitters
Digg pointed me to this gem today, Lack of Facebook Access Makes You Want to Quit? Grow up, Punks, penned by Ann All last week. I love the generation gap. It makes for the best (and worst) kinds of “teamism”, reminding me of a bit George Carlin does about nationalism. The crux is why do… Read More
Suggest an OpenWorld Session Extended
The submission and voting deadlines for OpenWorld 2008 sessions have been extended. Submissions must now be received by June 30, and voting now ends July 13. The Events team decided that due to the popularity of the offer, it should be open longer. So, you have more time to get your session idea submitted and… Read More
Discussing Disqus
If you’ve read and commented here in the past, you’ll have noticed we switched to Disqus to handle comments about two months ago. Rich made the change, and I was initially skeptical because frankly I had no real idea of what switching would get us. Disqus has a few distinct advantages over the built-in WordPress… Read More
Even More Fun with Numbers
Enterprise 2.0 2008 is going on now in Boston, and Oracle is a Diamond level sponsor. So, there are loads of Oracle people attending. I got a request for Mix metrics on Friday for someone’s session today, so I spent several hours yesterday hacking together SQL queries. Protip: when you scope your next web app,… Read More
Respect My Authority!
Apparently, someone thinks this blog is an authorative source for Twitter information. While browsing through our referrers for the past month, I noticed the Wikipedia listed, which struck me as odd, to say the least. At first I thought someone had created an entry for AppsLab, which weirded me out, but it turns out that… Read More
Play Name the Platform
If you read here, you’ll know the ‘Lab’s history. If you don’t or you’re a new reader, here’s the quick skinny: In June, we launched IdeaFactory to collect ideas inside the firewall. In August, we added social networking to ideas inside the firewall and called it Connect. In November, we added groups and questions to… Read More
Twitter is Like the Weather
Warning: This post is about Twitter, so if you don’t care about Twitter, stop reading here. Proceed at your own risk of boredom. Last week, friends of the ‘Lab David Haimes and Michael Krigsman were exchanging some jabs over Twitter, about Twitter. Michael argues that Twitter’s frequent outages make it appear suspect if/when a business… Read More
Topper’s Voting Widget
Matt has provided the community with a sweet widget to track all the sessions that have been suggested for OpenWorld. Since we deployed the session suggestion feature in early May, we’ve had 129 suggestions. You can view the full list on Mix, Latest and Greatest. One reason Matt built the widget, which pulls the Latest… Read More
Scariest Ride Ever?
The annual Portland Rose Festival is going on now, although Summer didn’t get the memo. You can see the carnival and rides along the western bank of the Willamette. Chief among the rides is this monster, which looks even more sinister in this picture (courtesy of joshualane on Flickr), than in real life. It’s basically… Read More
Maybe Email Isn’t Dead After All
I was wrong. You were right. I’m ugly. You’re pretty. I’m dumb. You’re smart. I fail. You rule. Almost a year ago, I riffed on the death of email. Apparently, email didn’t get the message, and rumors of its demise were exaggerated. While Generation Y thinks email is for old farts, it still serves as… Read More
Data Visualization Eye Candy
By way of Mashable, I give you another stunning and addictive data visualization, Tag Galaxy. Based on the Flickr API, this Germany-based tool is simple to use. Start out by entering a tag, and you get a “galaxy” of related tags. Here’s the “oracle” galaxy: