Paul dropped a great analogy today when he compared product managers to doctors. I love a good analogy, and this one is gold, at least when applied to sustaining a product. Plus, it’s funny when you inject a little Hollywood into it. When you’re not feeling well, you go to a doctor and explain what… Read More
PubSubHubbub: Cool, but Hard to Say
PubSubHubbub, a 20% time project of two Google engineers, Brad Fitzpatrick and Brett Slatkin, launched a few weeks ago. In addition to being a tongue-twister, PubSubHubbub is: A simple, open, server-to-server web-hook-based pubsub (publish/subscribe) protocol as an extension to Atom (and RSS). Parties (servers) speaking the PubSubHubbub protocol can get near-instant notifications (via webhook callbacks)… Read More
Goodbye _why.
If you’ve had your hand in Ruby or Rails, you’ve probably heard of Why the Lucky Stiff (aka, _why), an online persona of a programmer who was one of the more influential Rubyists next to Yukihiro Matsumoto (creator of Ruby, aka, Matz) and David Heinemeier Hansson (creator of Rails, aka, DHH). As of this afternoon,… Read More
Risks in the Cloud
Channeling Floyd a bit here, I’m reminded of “Get off of My Cloud” by the Rolling Stones. I’m not a huge fan of the term cloud computing. Not entirely sure why, but I prefer using some variant of service, e.g. service-based computing or SaaS, because including “service” more accurately reflects what’s really going on in the cloud.… Read More
Maker’s vs. Manager’s Schedule
This blog is full of work-hacking lately. Along those lines, Paul passed along an interesting post by Paul Graham that discusses the differences between schedules of makers and managers and how to account for them when scheduling meetings. In short, one reason makers (i.e. developers or anyone whose work requires uninterrupted blocks of time to… Read More
What Was I Doing Again?
I’m glad I finished my schooling back in the dark ages, when nearly everyone carried a notebook and wrote longhand notes. Sure, we had computers, but they weren’t terribly common. Plus, the World Wide Web (or “Internet”) was in its infancy and not available everywhere. I wonder how educators and students survive today with all… Read More
Do You Work Too Much?
Interesting article in the WSJ about a couple recent lawsuits from hourly workers who were required to perform work-related tasks during off-hours. The proliferation of broadband, laptops and smartphones have made it ridiculously easy for work to bleed into personal time, or at least time that’s not classically work-only. Add to that the fact that… Read More
There’s an App for That?
Another interesting tidbit from earlier in the week, also forwarded to me by tipster Chet, was an announcement (h/t TUAW) from USAA, a privately held bank and insurance company. Surprising, since bank’s haven’t been getting a lot of good ink lately. USAA plans to update their iPhone mobile banking app to allow certain customers to… Read More
Facebook Buys FriendFeed
So, I take a couple days off and Facebook buys FriendFeed. A bit ironic considering there hasn’t been much to discuss lately. Chet cordially invited me to comment on the acquisition, and even though I planned to anyway, let’s just give him credit for being the tipster. There certainly hasn’t been a shortage of coverage… Read More
Amateurism or Art?
I read another great entry from Emails from Crazy People the other day. This one attacks an amateur photographer’s pictures (fauxtos as he calls them) posted to a Flickr group as “artsy and cute” but not “real” photography. Funny stuff, but only if you’re not the poor person who received the email. Reading these emails,… Read More
Poll: How Should Links Behave?
Earlier in the week Noel “Mr. OraTweet” Portugal asked a question over OraTweet, natch, that created some interesting discussion. Do you think that all links in websites should open on new tabs (or windows)? I think so, but thats just me… I figured I’d share it with you all to widen the audience, but first,… Read More
Hotlinking? What Year is it Again?
During this morning’s feed reading, I came across a great post from one of my new favorites, Emails from Crazy People, another hilarious UGC-based blog from the Cheezburger Network. These guys provide various forms of hilarity to brighten your day, including I Can Has Cheezburger? and the Failblog. Incidentally, they have the best business model… Read More
Interesting Data Pr0n
Maybe it’s just me, but there doesn’t seem to be much interesting blog fodder floating around lately. I don’t have the best memory, but I can’t recall a period this devoid of fun stuff for debate. Sure, there’s some news out there, but I’m just not finding it all that interesting. Prove me wrong if… Read More
PC Repair Horror Stories
Recently, Sky News in the UK ran a sting to investigate local PC repair shops. They disabled a honeypot machine by loosening one of the RAM chips and took it to various repair shops for service. The machine had “private” data on it, including photos, documents, the usual stuff, and it also had spyware on it, not… Read More
Connect Adds Keyboard Shortcuts
Rich cracks me up; yesterday, he IMs to tell me he’s added JS shortcuts to Connect for quick keyboard navigation through posts. Standard stuff, like j/k to navigate through posts, r to refresh, l to like/unlike a post, etc. The funny part is that he qualified it with “I know I’m not supposed to be… Read More
Jolicloud and Netbooks
I finally got my invite to Jolicloud Tuesday and promptly installed it on a VM for some geeky fun. I first heard about Jolicloud from Rick Turoczy, who wanted to put it on his new netbook. Jolicloud is a remixed Ubuntu distro, looks like Netbook Remix, that brings an iPhone-like O/S interface to your netbook. I don’t… Read More
Oracle on Twitter
Even as we debate the ongoing utility of Twitter and other social tools, there are still ways to get good information from social sites. One easy way to cut through the noise is to use your personal network for recommendations. Assuming you consider this blog a trusted source, I have a couple recommendations for you.… Read More
Geek or Nerd?
Over OraTweet last week, I gently corrected an old friend of mine when she called those of us using Oracle’s mirco-blogging tool “nerds”. We’re not nerds. We’re geeks. This person hails originally from Eastern Europe, so the nuances and cultural connotations of the two aren’t part of her DNA. Being the quizzical type, she asked… Read More
DataMapper Oracle Adapter for Ruby
Raimonds (@rsim) recently posted his initial version of an Oracle adapter for DataMapper. DataMapper maps Ruby objects to relational database objects, so if you’re a Rails or JRuby developer, you can use Raimonds’ adapter to get into your Oracle databases. Raimonds previously created an Oracle adapter for ActiveRecord, another Ruby-relational database mapping tool that he… Read More
Why Don’t People Update Software?
This question applies to personal software more so than IT-supported software. I understand the complexities involved with taking updates to software that IT is on the hook to support. What I don’t get is why people aren’t more vigilant with their own software, specifically browsers and O/S. Over the years, updates have become more in-your-face,… Read More