The AppsLab

I spend most of my time thinking about new and upcoming technology, but sometimes, it’s nice to reflect. The social enterprise is big news this week, and I’m glad this idea’s time has finally come. If you read here, you’ll know we were early proponents of socializing work, launching the IdeaFactory, which became Oracle Connect,… Read More

I don’t know very much about game development. Very little. I know a lot about enterprise software development. A metric ton. I wonder what would happen if enterprise software development took more cues from game development. The two aren’t really that different. You have users/players. Ostensibly, you want them to use the software/play the game. Your… Read More

I finally broke down and bought a new Macbook Pro on Friday. Since the unibody models were released a few years ago, I’ve been admiring them from afar, but I vowed to run my old white Macbook into the ground first. When I bought it back in 2006, I went for the low end model,… Read More

From Bits & Pieces, h/t Geekosystem

Ordinarily, this type of research wouldn’t interest me enough to post, but this hits home. Ladies love e-readers; guys prefer tablets — Tech News and Analysis Just last week, while traveling for the first time with our daughter, my wife announced that she wanted a Kindle. Her timing was funny, considering she had just bought… Read More

I guess a migration (diaspora) could begin as a lonely experience, but damn, Diaspora is a lonely place. You remember Diaspora, the open alternative to Facebook that kicked off with much fanfare in May 2010? Kinda the anti-Facebook. Anyway, I got an invitation to join over the weekend and decided to kick the tires. Paul… Read More

There’s a lot going on lately in the tech news arena. What’s interesting to me is that several major consumer players are converging to become all things to their users. Good old soup to nuts makes a triumphant return. Apple pioneered this model. They control every aspect of the user experience from the hardware all… Read More

This is very cool (h/t technabob). Project Tacit: Sonar For The Blind from Grathio Labs on Vimeo. Bonus points, it’s Arduino-based and CC-BY-NC licensed. Steve Hoefer (@grathio) even provides the code, schematics and parts list. This is the type of innovation I’m expecting will rise out of the Android ADK, announced at Google IO this year. Ben… Read More

In case you thought Java was for stuffy enterprise development, check out this Java ME-powered Hello Kitty phone. Behold the power of Java. Of course, Java ME powers a ton of devices, including loads of mobile phones, but this one is special. In case you think there’s no market for Hello Kitty phones, there’s an Android-powered… Read More

There will be tons of great WebCenter (@oraclewebcenter) sessions at OpenWorld this year. Check out Kellsey’s rundown: Oracle OpenWorld: Don’t Miss WebCenter Sessions (Oracle WebCenter Blog) In addition, check out the demo grounds, customer and partner sessions. Lots of WebCenter content this year, so make your plans now. In case you were wondering, we won’t… Read More

Just about a year after we said goodbye to Paul (@ppedrazzi), Rich (@rmanalan) is moving on to an outstanding opportunity at Atlassian. And then there was one, founding member of AppsLab, that is. As it was when Paul left, the mood is mixed. On the one hand, Rich is heading to a great company to… Read More

T-minus 7 days (August 26th)… until my final day at Oracle, that is. tl;dr; On January 6, 1997, I launched my career in enterprise software with PeopleSoft. I spent my early days traveling around the US, Canada, and Australia as a PeopleSoft consultant, implementing PeopleSoft HR/Benefits/Payroll. I even wrote some COBOL, however, you won’t find… Read More

This is just funny, h/t Geekosystem. @111001001101010 Apparently, there’s some disagreement on the current (vs. future) spelling of Sarah’s last name. Is that you Neil Kodner (@neilkod)?

So, this is kind of a big deal. Official Google Blog: Supercharging Android: Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility Obviously Google wants to control the end-to-end hardware and software experience of Android devices, a la Apple. From my brief couple weeks using a Nexus S, vanilla Android is pretty nice. You don’t really notice the major… Read More

If you login to any oracle.com properties today, you’ll notice there’s a new look to the SSO login page. This new page is designed to be mobile-friendly and uses CSS3 media queries to determine the viewport size of your device and render the page appropriately. If you’re not on a mobile device but want to… Read More

This is hilarious, and not just because several words relate to Portland. Hipster lorem ipsum The next time you need some dummy text for a mockup or prototype, why not spice up that lorem ipsum with some hipster ipsum? It’s been pummeled a bit by traffic, but here’s what it looks like: And here’s a sample: PBR… Read More

Randal Munroe’s comic about password strength this week is classic xkcd. It immediately reminded me of 1Password, which I use and love, and Agile Bits, the maker’s of 1Password, actually posted about the comic as well, breaking down some of the math and cryptography. About a month ago, all IMAP connections to my Yahoo Mail… Read More

The final act of my switch from the HTC EVO 4G to the Nexus S was returning the EVO to stock condition. The EVO is a great phone, despite being ancient in smartphone terms. When it debuted in June of last year, it boasted the largest screen (4.3 inches, which is still among the biggest available)… Read More

Interesting infographic from Cricket Wireless about the particulars of different types of touchscreens and how they work. h/t Peter-Paul Koch (a.k.a. @ppk), TNW

So, this happened today, at least for a few moments, as Apple’s and ExxonMobil’s share prices fluctuated during the day. Apple set to surpass ExxonMobil as large company in the world | TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog At market close, ExxonMobil was still larger, by about $600 million in market cap, the measure for largest… Read More