Last Thursday and Friday, I attended the 2009 iteration of WebVisions, a conference held here in Portland focused on the future of web design and development. As with last year, my goal for attending was to gain new design perspectives. Web design is constantly evolving, and we use many of the innovations present on the… Read More
Use Twitter to Leave a Comment
I’m so far behind on my reading, having been on vacation and currently attending WebVisions. Still, I noticed a post to the Disqus blog from last week announcing their support for sign-in via Twitter. You may recall they also support Facebook Connect, which I enabled back in March, and now you can also use your… Read More
OraTweet Leaves the Nest
First off, thanks for hanging in there while I caught up on my R&R. I came back today to hear the happy news that OraTweet will soon be available to anyone who wants to give it whirl. Noel is prepping the final package for distribution, but if you’re interested now, head over to oratweet.com and… Read More
Wayback Machine: 24 Months Ago
It’s nearly over, you made it. I’ll be back soon to answer all your comments, right after I catch up on thousand or so emails. We didn’t really start blogging until June 2007, so technically it’s 23 months, but here’s the archive from June 2007. Googleforce.com Coming Soon?: My very first post and it still… Read More
Wayback Machine: 18 Months Ago
Third installment, you’re past halfway there now. I know you miss me. I’m probably jonesing for the ‘tubes right now. Enjoy. Here’s the archive from November 2007. Talk the Talk: Even if they got it wrong, CSI was at least a year ahead of the curve with the Twitter reference. You can’t turn on the… Read More
Wayback Machine: 12 Months Ago
The second installment of the wayback digest, a.k.a. the “I’m gone, but I want to keep the content fresh” series. Enjoy. Here’s the archive from May 2008, a mere twelve months ago. Feels like an eternity, looking over the posts. Anyway . . . My First BarCamp: I’m a fan of the unconference format. Hoping… Read More
Wayback Machine: 6 Months Ago
So, I’m headed off the grid for a while. In my absence, I figured I’d keep the content fresh by recycling some old stuff. A bit ironic, but bear with me. Blogging for me is very tied to what’s happening right now. We’ve been around for a little over two years now, but it seems… Read More
Twitter’s #fixreplies Boo-Boo
Update: Twitter founder Biz Stone has posted exactly the explanation we (all 3% of us) wanted, and I completely understand the hurry to rush out without fully thinking through the loud ramifications of the squeaky 3%. Kudos. You’ve probably heard about the Twitter @replies fiasco by now. Marshall has a good recap and explanation of… Read More
What’s New in Connect 4.0?
As I mentioned last week, we’ve released the 4.0 version of Connect, which includes a boat-load of new stuff. Our main goals for this release were: Put the focus on people, not on objects. Make it dead simple to share anything. Aggregate information by supporting multiple sources. Provide intelligent filtering for easy viewing. Consolidate output… Read More
My Jaunty Adventure
So, Canonical released the latest version of the Ubuntu distro recently, Jaunty Jackalope, version 9.04. I played with Jaunty in a VM a bit when it was in alpha, and I didn’t notice many new features, compared to Intrepid, aside from the new login splash screen and the Growl-style notifications. I waited a few days,… Read More
I Guess We’re a Product Team After All
Well, our big redesign of Connect, version 4.0, is finally live. Anthony and Rich are knocking out some final issues, but we cut over earlier this afternoon. Luckily, it’s the weekend. So, our users aren’t using right now. Unluckily, it’s the weekend, and everyone on the team has plans. Next week, I’ll fill you in… Read More
Kidnapping Data?
This is a new one for me. Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported (via Wikileaks) that hackers had compromised a Virginia state prescription web site, deleted the eight million records and replaced the home page with a ransom note. The ransom demand, $10 million. Apparently, this isn’t the first case of datanapping, which doesn’t… Read More
2009: Year of the Side Project
I started this post before the New Year, and it sat in drafts for a long time. It was never meant to be a prediction post, so the title makes it feel a bit funny. Still, I kept it because this year, the side project seems more common than ever. Maybe it’s a function of… Read More
Testing is Tough
We’re currently working on a redesign for Connect, and like any project, waterfall, agile or otherwise, we have a testing phase. I’ve been designing and building software for a long time, assuming you consider mid-90s a long time, and testing has always been the toughest part of the process. I’m talking about system testing, which… Read More
Follow COLLABORATE 09 with the ORACLENERD
Wow, that’s a lot of shouting for one headline. I’m not at COLLABORATE 09 this year, and right now, as Spring reminds those of us in Portland why it’s so lush and green in the Summer, I think I’d rather be in Orlando where it’s in the mid-80s and sunny. Then again, like most conferences,… Read More
Connect Flirts with 200,000 Pageviews
April was a big month for Connect, if you consider 195,000 pageviews and 11,000 unique visitors big anyway. If you’re Facebook or Twitter, that’s a slow morning, but for our little network, which has a capped number of possible users somewhere around 80,000, it’s gangbusters. Since January, Connect has been growing each month, and I… Read More
OraTweet in the News
Our buddy Noel (who has a new blog) got some mainstream news coverage today from Michael Hickins at Information Weekly. Hickins mentions OraTweet, calling Oracle as the “unlikeliest company to launch a product of this nature”, and quotes Noel in his post. Very cool indeed for Noel, whose little side project is all grown up… Read More
When Are You Most Productive?
I’ve been rolling hard with Rich and Anthony to finish up the beta-testing of our next major release of Connect. I’ll probably blog the highlights because this release contains the most new stuff since our second version, when we moved to the Mix codeline and added groups. There will be a ton of awesome new… Read More
Ask Google?
Remember when Ask Jeeves launched? The premise was simple. Instead of munging your search into keywords and hoping for the right result set, all you had to do was ask Jeeves a real question. If you remember that, you’ll also remember that it didn’t work very well. Google just announced they have indexed public data… Read More
Where Are They Now? Top 15 Web Properties of April 1999
I’m trying out a new idea. If Twitter is mirco-blogging, then blogging is, well, macro-blogging? I come across lots of stuff I think is interesting and worth discussing, but not quite full-post-worthy. So, to combat my blogger’s block, I give you mini-blogging. It’s not quite micro in size, but smaller and probably less well-formed (if… Read More