Postcards From My Life

Dear Reader,

I’ve been doing a lot of research on PHP running on Windows lately and I’ve been really surprised by two things.
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Dear Reader,

Ok, you are lost on a desert island and you can only follow 5 people on twitter. (Don’t think about it too hard, it’s just a freakin’ game) Who do you choose and why?

Here are my 5.

5: @andigutmans
Ok, so I work for Andi. (Actually, I work for @markdevisser) Andi is new to twitter but has already begun to see the potential. He’s started monitoring Zend’s footprint on twitter and I’ve seen him answer people’s questions or gripes about Zend, even when they are not addressed to him.

4: @lizziekeiper
I only met Lizzy a few month ago but she’s fun and every few days she asks her “Question of the day”. I like people that make me stop and think for a minute during my day.

3: @weierophinney
I work with Matthew and we usually talk every day or so. Matthew only tweets when he has something to say. (and that’s rare on twitter) so if Matthew says something, I stop and read it and if he posts a URL, I almost always visit it.

2: @mtabini
Marco is a good friend and a really bright guy. I follow him because his posts are almost always funny or insightful.

1: @everysandwich
Fred Leo is the funniest man I’ve never met. (No offense @SoupySales) We’ve been on-line friends for about 3 years now. I help him with his blogs from time to time and in return he makes me laugh almost every day. Before twitter, Fred and I would talk on AIM every day. Talking with Fred on AIM is difficult, not because he’s hard to understand but because I hated to just blather. Since the things he said made me laugh out loud, I felt I had to be funny too. Which was fine, we had some awesome discussions but it’s taxing on my brain. With twitter now, I can get my Fredisms without feeing the pressure to be funny back. (We still talk on AIM though, just not as much) If you’ve got time, go visit his blog and listen to PETA Girl or root around till you find the story of Aunt Mary. It’s worth it, I promise.

Until Next Time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=

Dear Reader,

Over at the Small Business Idea Forum, Staci asked about twitter and I replied. This, along with a couple of other things today are pointing me towards a blog post and possible a podcast this weekend.

Twitter has gone from WTH to ZOMG to “Hey, I can use this for my benefit!” I like any tool that hits that last stage.

Three things have come together today to prompt me to write this post.

First, my friend and editor Elizabeth Naramore tweeted today:

someone explain to me the reasoning behind a company “following me” on twitter; are they just hoping I follow them too?

She’s not the first person that has noticed this trend, just the latest. The trend of following everyone on twitter because a lot of people automatically follow you back is growing. The obvious benefit is if you follow 10,000 people on twitter and 10% follow you back because they don’t know any better, when you post, 1,000 people see your post. So as a side note to this blog let me jsut advise any twitter user out there, don’t auto-follow. When you get a twitter “follow” notice, check out who it is. If it’s not someone you know then it’s twitter spam. Don’t bother to follow them. (You don’t have to block them though, let them artificially inflate your follower number.)

Then I saw this post from Michal Arrington. (Whom I do not follow because I do not know and usually don’t care to hear what he has to say outside of techcrunch.com.) It was an A-Ha! moment for me. I do a lot of scanning with Google Alerts but his point is very important.

Twitter is the place where conversations are exploding well before they even make it to mainstream blogs.

It’s not enough these days to just monitor the web via Google alerts or some paid clipping service. Blogs are a trailing indicator these days. To be on top of your brand you have got to take it to the next level. tweetscan.com lets you do just that.

Finally, a forum post over at the Small Business Idea Forum again mentioned twitter and my reply there got me thinking.

Twitter started as a way to connect friends but is fast becoming a powerful marketing and business intelligence tool. I cover the former briefly in my forum post and on Sixty Second Tech but it’s the latter that I really want to talk about.

tweetscan.com

tweetscan.com is just what you think it is, a search engine for twitter. Yes, Google indexes twitter but these days that just not fast enough. Thankfully the guys and gals behind tweetscan solve that problem for us. It looks like they database and index the public feed. I don’t know where they get their resources but I hope to god they stay alive because this is something that twitter really needs.

If you have looked at their page by now and can’t figure out how to use it, please turn in your Internet secret decoder ring and shut off your modem. If you did figure it out, bully for you, you are as smart as a fifth grader! A couple of notes. If you read their blog and wiki (these people are on the web 2.0 ball!) then you know that they support OR and “-” operators. This makes life ever so much more interesting. GO ahead, play with a few queries like cats OR dogs. Hopefully they will add AND and NOT in there soon.

So, you can scan for topics. That’s kind of cool but other than replacing google egosurfing with twitter egosurfing what’s the pint, right? Here’s the point. Search for your brand! In my case I have searches for “Cal Evans”, Zend and ZF. All fine and good, as Arrington points out, I can now see things before they happen as twitter is a leading indicator. But who wants to go visit their page every so often and execute a series of searches?

FEED ME!

Thankfully, the people behind tweetscan are fully Web 2.0 compliant and they provide me with a custom feed for each search I execute. This means I can plug the RSS feed of the above search for “Cal Evans”, into ANY feed reader and voila, instant ego surfing!

Now, I use Google Reader as my primary feed reader and it does a wonderful job. However, these feeds (I’ve got 8 now) are much more important to me than anything I have in Google Reader. I almost need them to be push. The next best thing to push is pull in a program I already use. I did NOT want to have to install yet another piece of software to make this whole thing work. (Que Attensa to enter stage right) I used to use this Outlook plugin back when I was at Jupiter Hosting. It’s a great way to add RSS feeds into Outlook. It’s made some progress since 2005 and now is very unobtrusive.

Wrap It Up

So, to summarize; tweetsearch.com + Attensa’s outlook plugin = quick and easy business intelligence. Don’t forget to add feeds for your major competitors brands as well!

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=
So,

Dear Reader,

I was talking to a friend of mine recently and mentioned that I have a podcast (yes, I routinely try and convert my friends to podcast listeners.) His response to me was “Yes, I have an iPod but I’m just not a member of the podcast generation”. His problem is that he is suffering from information overload. Others that I have talked to complain that they just don’t know where to start. No matter what your excuse, if you are not listening to podcasts on a regular basis then you are missing out on a lot (I mean a LOT) of good information, tips and entertainment that is there for the taking.

So, I’m going to make it my mission to try and convert people to be podcast listeners. I hope, along the way, I’ll pick up a few listeners to my podcasts but honestly, a rising tide floats all boats. So, if you don’t currently listen to podcasts on a regular basis, keep reading. If you are already a member of the podcast generation(you subscribe to at least one podcast), I want you to send the URL to this article to at least 5 friends that don’t. If you’ve got a twitter account, tweet it. Let’s see if we can’t increase the number of podcast listeners significantly in the next month.

Editors Note: If you are in a hurry, just skim the bullet points and visit the URLs.

Cal’s 4 Step Program to joining the Podcast Generation:

1: Figure out how you are going to listen.
If you don’t have an mp3 player, you are not out in the cold, it means you will most likely have to listen to them on your computer. I have 2 iPods myself and a total of 8 in the family and I still listen to about 25% of my podcasts on my computer. So don’t fret if you don’t have an mp3 player.

Most podcast sites these days have an embedded flash player. If you are going to be listening via your computer, take advantage of these. The only downside here is that you have to go check each podcasts site on a regular basis. The embedded players are great for testing out a podcast to see if you want to subscribe though.

If you don’t want to have to check each site regularly, You will however, want a “Podcatcher”. A podcatcher is a program similar to an RSS feed reader that gathers all the feeds from all the podcasts you want to subscribe to and puts them in one place. Your podcatcher checks each feed on a regular basis to make sure that when you are ready to listen, you have the content downloaded and ready to go.

By far, the most popular podcatcher on earth is iTunes. iTunes is free from apple and comes with every iPod. It works on Windows and on OSX. You don’t have to have an iPod to use iTunes but if you have one it makes life so easy.

There are a lot of other podcatchers and originally I was going to list all I could find. However, in researching the list I found that someone else has already done the research. If you don’t want to use iTunes, visit PodCatcherMatrix.org and find the podcatcher that is right for you.

I know that Microsoft packages software with the Zune but I do not yet have one so I can’t comment on it. If you have a Zune and the software, please leave a comment telling us what you like/don’t like about it.

2: Figure out what you are going to listen to.
This may sound simplistic but you really don’t want to listen to everything out there. (Actually, you probably couldn’t but that’s beside the point) To get started, pick one topic that you like and find a single podcast you like on that topic. This could be more difficult than you think. First, there are several good podcast directories out there. If you use iTunes, by far the most popular is the iTunes store. It is, however, not the only source.

• podiobooks.com
• podshow.com
• Yahoo’s Audio Search

Find one show that you like and subscribe. Then as you have time, find a second, a third, etc. Since most shows release every week or every other week, if you are using podcasts to fill time on your commute, you will eventually find how many you need to fill the void. Resist the urge to type in a keyword into iTunes and then subscribe to every one of them. Podcasts vary in quality of content an production values. Not all the high quality content podcasts have high production values and that’s ok. However, you will want to be selective in who you subscribe to. Also, don’t be afraid to drop a podcast that is not filling a need.Speaking as a podcaster I want “listeners” not “subscribers”.

3: For the first month, commit time each week to look for new podcasts
If you do this for a month, it will become as natural as checking your email. Just check the directories for new podcasts that match your keywords. If there is a new one and the description looks interesting, either subscribe to it in your podcatcher or give it a listen on-line if you’ve got the time.

4: Participate
This is where most of the podcast generation fail. Podcasters want feedback, we want lots of it. So if you like a podcast, take the time to tell the podcaster you do.

• If they have a blog, comment.
• If they are listed in iTunes, rate them.
• If they are on one of the directories, rate them.
• If they have a forum, post.

Participation is one of the things that sets podcasting apart from traditional “broadcast” media and it’s an important part of being part of the podcast generation. While most podcasts resemble radio shows in that the host talks to you, almost all podcasts have some way for you to communicate back to the host and we really want to hear from you. Regardless of the topic, most podcsts are one side of a conversation, you are the other half. Make sure you hold up your end of the conversation.

Many podcasts these days have “listener call-in lines” They actively encourage you to call in and pe a part of the conversation. You don’t have to have any special equipment or even a “radio voice” to have your voice heard. If your favorite podcast has a listener call-in line, put it on your speed dial and when listening, pause the podcast and call in. Let the host know if you agree, disagree, or just have more information.

Podcasts I listen To

That’s my four points. Now, I’m going to share with you the podcasts I listen to on a regular basis. Not because I have some deep insight as to what you should be listening to but mainly as a small way of saying thank you to the people that produce these shows. Consider my listing them here as an endorsement, if they fall in your area of interest, I would highly recommend them to you. (These are in alphabetical order, not in any order of preference.)

• Technology
  • Sixty Second Tech (I produce this one)
• New Marketing/New Media/Social Media
  • Jaffee Juice
  • Managing The Gray
  • Marketing Over Coffee
  • The New Mediology
  • Podcasting Underground
  • Six Pixels of Separation
• Fiction
  • EscapePod
  • PsuedoPod
  • Scott Sigler Audio Books
• Programming
  • P3
  • PHP Abstract (I host this one)
• Entrepreneurship
  • HBR IdeaCast
  • Killer Innovations

So, there you have it, a primer on joining the podcast nation. As I told my friend, our dues are cheap and our benefits are plentiful. No more excuses, get out there and participate!

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=

Dear Reader,

I had the pleasure of attending OSBC last week. All in all, it was a positive experience. However, my eyes were opened to a whole new side of Open Source.

Most of you know that I work quite closely with the PHP community. It’s my job. It’s a rough life but somebody has to do it. PHP was built by thousands of volunteers across the world. Most contributions are made by people “scratching their own itch” without any real though given to “monetizing their contribution”. (I’m learning a whole new language in this job, we used to call that “getting paid”)

At OSBC, most of the attendees were working on a project that they had labeled Open Source but in several cases, the focus was not on sharing code, sharing rights, or…sharing. Their focus was on project monetization, business models, “Demand Management” and a host of other new buzzwords and concepts that boil down to making money off of open source. Now, to be fair, most of the projects on display were not permutations of other projects, i.e. somebody repackaging Joomla and selling it as a commercial product. These were all project that the companies had created and I presume, owned 100%. I respect any company’s right to license their code any way they want to. It’s their code after all.

There was lots of talk about building community. In many cases, community was equated with “user base” and was mainly something that was to be minded for paying users, not something to be fostered because a healthy community helps ensure a healthy project.

Here are 7 thoughts that I jotted down during the course of the conference. Take them for what they are worth, I don’t pretend that this is anything profound, just the thoughts that hit me while sitting in the sessions. Also, I respect the owner of the project’s right to license the project in any way they feel is appropriate.

1. Developers seem to be willing to sell out for bucks these days. There were a LOT of ex-JBoss developers who have started new projects. While I don’t pretend to be an expert on JBoss history, my recollection of the project was that, like other early open source projects, it was a community effort, not a grab for the brass ring. Apparently the developers that were involved in the project, now feel that sharing for the sake of sharing is not a valid goal. All the projects I saw that were by ex-JBoss developers were all hybrid OS/Commercial projects. In all the cases I saw, the emphasis was on the commercial.
2. Free Download!=Open Source. Many of the projects I saw represented were using the term Open Source as a marketing gimmick. Like the “free trial” that Id gave away of the original DOOM, many companies are now treating open source as their free trial version but it’s a crippled version. Projects like Zimbra and SugarCRM get it, they provide full-featured versions of their product and then sell valued-added upgrades. You can use the product as is though without the upgrades. I saw two projects that were egregious violators of this. Giving away what can only be described as crippelware (with full source code) and hoping that people liked enough of what they saw to pony up the bucks. This, in my opinion, violates the spirit of open source.
3. Business people who work with open source consider it a business model. Even those who have worked on open source projects tend to get a selective amnesia when there is money involved. They forget that open source is about sharing, not about monetizing. I’m all for developers getting paid for their work but let’s not do it under the color of open source. Either your project is open source, in truth and in spirit, or it’s not. If it’s not, that’s no sin, but don’t call it open source.
4. Hire from your community. This is one of the things the JBoss team and then RedHat did very well. If you’ve got a community, that’s your candidate pool when trying to fill an opening. The hardest thing about filling positions is finding people who you can work with and can do the work. If you’ve built a community around your project then you’ve already overcome the first hurdle and the second one is very easy to judge. Why more projects don’t understand this I’ll never understand.
5. Transparency is the new black. This applies to all companies but it came to light at the conference so I thought I’d mention it here. Inside your company, you have to be 99.999% transparent. This is especially important in software development companies. If your C-Level is not 100% transparent to your development staff (the talented ones that the C-Level is sponging off of) then I guarantee you that your talent will move to greener pastures. No, most developers don’t want to be involved int he day-to-day business of the company but with very few exceptions (and most of the valid exceptions deal with local privacy laws, not things you want to keep secret) there should be nothing “above the pay grade” of your development staff. And if you are going to treat your developers with that kind of respect, you might as well go all the way and treat everyone like that.
6. Outsource everything that is not a core competency. This is one that I picked up from several speakers. In this day and age, people are perfectly willing to outsource key components of their business like development but feel it necessary to staff an HR department. That’s just backwards. There are hundreds of solutions for dealing with HR, benefits, payroll, etc. That’s a commodity these days. True development talent is a precious resource. If your company develops software then spend your money on developers, if it consults, spend your money on consultants. Unless you are an HR company, outsource such non-essential jobs.
7. If you take yourself too seriously, no one else will take you seriously at all. I saw a lot of these companies showing their wares, participating on panels and talking in the halls with very solemn looks. I can’t stress this enough, we develop software, we do not cure cancer. Yes, we feed our families with the work we do but honestly, software development, with very few exceptions, does not rise to the level of practicing medicine. (There are exceptions, I didn’t see a single one at OSBC) Lighten up! Customers can tell if you take yourself too seriously and they won’t.

Like I said, take this rant for what it’s worth. You may not agree with one or more of my points and that’s fine with me. (it doesn’t make them wrong though.) :)

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=

Dear Reader,

Friday evening I rented 2 movies from the Apple store for my trip home Saturday from Cupertino. Saturday morning, I transfered them to my iTouch (1.1.4) and everything was sunshine and roses. I boarded the plane, climbed to 10,000 feet, whipped out my iPod and watched 1/2 of the first one before landing in Las Vegas.

While in Vegas, I decided to top off the charge on my iPod since i had a few minutes to kill. Something bad happened here and to the best of my knowledge Apple failed to notify me. Since iTunes was already up, my iPod synced and then charged. The only notice I got was ‘iTunes can’t connect to the store’ (or something like that.) which I thought nothing of since I had not yet connected to the airport’s free wi-fi. (That is one of the few great things about flying through Vegas. The food on Concourse C is teh suxor but they have free wi-fi!) Anyhow, I left it charging for a while then packed up and got in cattle shoot B, which is where Southwest had assigned me. Fast-forward to 10,000 feet and I’m anxious to finish the movie, so I pull out my iPod…only, there’s no movie, both had been deleted and the time was wrong too. Now I’m pissed off because both my movies are gone and I’ve still got 3 hrs in the air. Oh well, what are you going to do while in the air.

So today I start poking around. I found this on the random ipod time issue. and the best I can figure, when I plugged in my iPod, iTunes assigned it a random time, that invalidated my movie rentals and they were deleted. (It’s a theory, we may never really know the cause.)

So, I’m out $10. More importantly, this points to the underlying reason that buying anything from Apple makes me nervous. I got in a “twitter-spat” the other day about Apple and how their customer service is horrible. In most cases, Apple’s hardware/software works and works great, that’s what makes them great. However if you have a problem and need to get help, you are usually out of luck. In my case, there is no way to dispute the fact that I didn’t watch the movies. Apples assumes that if I didn’t watch them it’s my own fault because their software could never malfunction therefore if I’m looking for a refund, I’m just trying to rip them off. (I’m projecting here kiddies)

The random time issue has been discussed for a year now, Apple has released several iTunes and iPod updates since it was first reported and yet, they have still not fixed it. c’Mon guys, you are really starting to look like Microsoft here. Fix the dang bug because now it’s costing people (me) money and I’m betting that it’s going to affect other people too.

Anyhow, if you rent movies for your iPod be careful. If thing go wrong, you are out of luck.

UPDATE: I found the “Report a problem” button and have reported both movies and the bug. Let’s see if they respond.

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=

Dear Reader,

I have launched a new project called Sixty Second Tech.

Sixty Second Tech is the tech podcast for non tech people. Each weekly episode discusses a new technology, idea, or concept for one minute.

In the first few episodes we cover topics like:

• How to Find a Programmer
• Websites on the Cheap
• OpenID

…and of course, the episode that C.C. Chapman featured on his podcast, “Managing the Gray”, “Go Relevant or Go Home!“; the only SEO secret any web site owner needs to know.

I’ve been working with technology for 25 years now. (yes, I actually owned a VIC-20!) For most of those 25 years, I’ve been explaining technology, demystifying buzzwords, and correcting misconceptions to anyone who will listen. Sixty Second Tech came about because repeating the same explanation of a concept like OpenID individually to 50 different people just got old. (For my technical friends, the model just didn’t scale.)

Of course no one is going to become an expert on a subject in sixty seconds. Each episode of Sixty Second Tech will however, spark your imagination and give you enough information so that you can decide if the concept is important to you.

Subscribe Today

It will soon be on iTunes but for now, you can subscribe to Sixty Second Tech via the Sixty Second Tech RSS feed,

Spread the news

I’m asking my (4) regular readers to help me spread the word.

• Blog about Sixty Second Tech
• Link to Sixty Second Tech homepage
• tweet it
• become a fan on facebook and invite others to do so as well
• Stumble it
• When you see someone suffering from BSS, send them to Sixty Second Tech for the cure.

Thanks!

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=

Dear Reader,

Well podCampNashville is in the can and what a wonderful time we had. I got to meet C.C. Chapman, Joseph Jaffe and a bunch of other cool people. I also got to see my pld boss Paul van Hosen, whom I never get to see anymore except at *CampNashville.

For those who wanted copies, here are my slides. I hope you enjoyed the presentation.

| View | Upload your own

Until next time,
=C=

Dear Reader,

DISCLAIMER: I have 2 Lifetime Tivo subscriptions and have been a member of LinkedIn since it was in beta.

I know a lot of you out there right now are scratching their heads and wondering what a Networking site and a PVR/DVR have in common. Here is what they have in common, ranks of upper management with closed minds.

Tivo

I was out at tivo.com yesterday and the first thing they did when I hit the page was ask if I would answer a survey after I finished my business. I of course agreed (I’m just that kind of guy) and so when I finished, I filled out the survey.

I gave them the usual answers anyone visiting tivo.com would.

• 30 seconds is too long to wait for a page to load
• Your site navigation is goofy
• Your documentation is incomplete

However, the question they did NOT ask me is “What could we do to make your Tivo more useful to you?” See that’s a question I could write a book on. However, I won’t here, I’ll boil it down into a single concept. “Open it up and let me discover new ways to use it.”

I’m a programmer, when I look at a box like that (or my XBox 360) where the mfgr has obviously gone to great lengths to make sure that I can never run “unapproved” code on it, it just makes me sad. Open it up a bit. Let me build services that can interact with my Tivo. I understand your issues with copyright and I’m not trying to steal content. but hell, it’s a Linux box. Let me write a service that feeds a widget on my blog that shows what I’m watching at the moment. Let me suck down the data on what it’s recording and slice it and dice it myself. Who knows, maybe I’ll find a better way to recommend new shows.

There are hundreds of thousands of ideas for product enhancements that you don’t have to write, we, the hordes of hobbyist programmers and 21 Century tinkerers will make the Tivo an indispensable piece of equipment if you quit locking us out and realize that the Tivo can be so much more than an appliance, it can be a platform.

Oh and it’s ok if you don’t make any money off of each and every service written…make your money on the stuff you do and don’t try to charge me for the privileged of making your device better. Get it together Tivo, if you open up and let us help you, then Hollywood can’t stop you. You can either be the big dog, or stay a whipped puppy.

LinkedIn

These guys still don’t get it. (This is getting to be a regular topic for me.) I’m on LinkedIn and FaceBook both for very different reasons. However, I’m on facebook 3-4 times a day and linkedin 1-2 times a week. See the difference LinkedIn? Pictures in my profile aren’t enough, I want to actually DO SOMETHING with the data I’ve been giving you all these years. We’ve had this discussion before, “Why LinkedIn Sucks (and why I’ll keep using it)”, “LinkedIn Rant – Part II” and you’ve even promised progress but so far…nothing. Open up, let me do what I want with my data and all of a sudden you are useful enough for me to start paying for your service. Have you ever stopped and wondered why you aren’t growing as fast as facebook? It’s not the teens and tweens on facebook, it’s the fact that on facebook, people have freedom to experiment. On LinkedIn, I still can’t write a program that allows me to simply figure out which of my friends know each other…hell on facebook it’s a game!

If Facebook ever wises up and decided that it wants to be the big dog in your yard, you are so toast. Don’t wait for OpenSocial, give me an API and give it to me now. Anything I can do via a web page should be doable from an API. Do that and do it NOW and it’s a good start…it’s only a start but it is a start.

To both tivo and linkedin, I write this post, not because I’m a disgruntled user but because I really like both of you. Both of you however, need a swift kick in the ass to get you moving before you are relegated to the pile of other services I liked once but are now gone. (anyone remember GEnie? I LOVED GEnie!) Come on guys, closed is so last century, open up, let us into the playground and I guarantee that what we create will do more for your bottom line than any overpriced CEO will ever do.

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=

Dead Reader,

Flock, the “Social Browser” built on Fire Fox. It’s now in release 1.0 so I decided to try it out.  I have to say, if you use any of the “Social” website, you are going to like Flock.

Social, All in One Place, Instead of All Over The Place

The main feature of Flock is it’s tight integration with social web sites.  As i write this, I have Flock open  with a side bar with tabs for FaceBook, Twitter, Flickr and youtube. As usual, LinkedIn seems to have managed to screw themselves out of another great opportunity by refusing to create an API. Their loss not withstanding the integration with the other sites is awesome.  The sidebar allows me to see the status or changes that I would normally have to visit the site to see.  Additionally, in the case of FaceBook I can change my status and in the case of twitter, I can tweet, directly from the sidebar. Additionally, there is an “All” tab that combines all the feeds into one. Great way to get a birds eye view of what is going on and what has changed.

The handling of media is great also.  When my daughter uploads pictures to her facebook account, the word “Media” under her facebook picture turns orange.  Clicking on it doesn’t open up another web page though, it opens a tab at the top and shows me her pictures. Flock truly integrates with these sites they feel like part of the browser, not just an add on or afterthought.

As much as I like my friend Ed’s AIR application Spaz, Flock has become my interface to twitter.

A Better FireFox Than FireFox?

One of the things that originally drew me to Flock was rumors that they had improved FireFox’s memory management.  Possibly because I’ve not yet installed all of my extensions that I use in FireFox but Flock is snappier, uses less memory and can stay open for days at a time without leaking memory. With FireFox, I routinely have to shut down all browsers after more than 4 hours because it starts to pause between page loading, field switching or tab switching…it gets really annoying.

Blogging Friendly

Another great feature of Flock is the blogging tool they integrate into it. I’m writing this post from the “Blog Editor” It easily integrates with any of the major blogging sites or, as in my case, WordPress. However, no matter what page you are on, your blog is just a right-click away. The right click menu contains a “blog this” menu item that brings up the blog editor ready with a link ot the page already pasted in for you.

Summary

I live in a browser, it’s just the world I work in, so browser performance is very important to me. Add to it the fact that I actually save RAM by not having to run a separate twitter client as well as time and bandwidth by not having to check the sites I participate in regularly to keep current and I have to say that Flock is really a winner. If you participate in any of the socal networks mentioned or you have been having performance issues with FireFox, I highly recommend you take a look at Flock.

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=

Tags: flock, firefox, youtube, facebook, flickr, blogging, linkedin, review, browsing

Dear Reader,

I help a lot of small business owners with a variety of projects.  One thing that is true with most small businesses is that do not have a full time IT staff member and therefore rely on contractors and vendors for IT advice, especially when it comes to their web site. If you are not careful though, you can quickly find yourself in a bad situation, even when everyone’s intentions were good. Take 5 minutes and find the answer to these three questions.

Do I own my domain?

The Number one mistake I see companies make these days is letting someone else register their domain name for them. No matter how well meaning your web development company is, letting them own this crucial piece is dangerous.  Eventually, you will get tot the point where you want to change companies, if they own your domain then at best you have to ask them for the transfer before you can leave, usually tipping them off that you want to leave. The worst case scenario though is that they don’t want to give it up.  Yes, you can take it away from them but they can also trash your website in the interim. Don’t get yourself into this situation to begin with.  Registering a domain with godaddy.com or enom.com is easy. (If you get stuck, drop me a email, I’m happy to help)  If you are not sure the answer to this question, it’s easy to find out, go to http://www.whois.sc/ and enter your domain name. (i.e. calevans.com, NOT www.calevans.com) Once the page comes back, scroll down to the part labeled “Whois Record” and look at the registrant. If it’s anyone other than you and your current address, you need to correct that immediately.

Is the company that designed my website committed to my success or their own?

First, if your answer to this is, “I don’t have a web design company, my next door neighbor’s niece designed my site”, please stop reading now. You have bigger problems than this blog post can solve. Good web sites don’t have to be overly expensive but a professional is always worth the extra expense over an amateur. Don’t turn the success of your company on the web over to someone who does not work 100% on helping companies with their web presence.

On to the point though; yes, every company is committed to their own success but the best web development companies know that their success depends on the success of their clients. Do they contact you with ideas on how to leverage new technologies to your benefit, even if it means that taking their advice isn’t going to make them any money? A good web development company will help a small business leverage the Internet to grow and in doing so, get a higher ROI for their web site. If they haven’t contacted you lately about how to use this new idea or that new concept to help market your site then you really need to move to a company more committed to helping their customers.

Do I own the hosting agreement?

Finally, another critical mistake that companies make, don’t let your web development company decide where your site will be hosted. Most web development companies, especially small ones, farm out their hosting to hosting companies.  For the most part, this is fine but the agreement should be in your name not your web development company’s. Part of the logic is the same as for point #1, don’t let your web development company have control over your site. Beyond that however, if the company you chose for development decides to fold up and do something else, you could be stuck with the fact that you don’t know anything about your domain or hosting agreement. This could be disastrous. Make sure that you are the one paying the monthly hosting bills and that you have the login and password for any control panel or ftp accounts. One of the important reasons that you want to own the web hosting account is that if things do go sour between you and your web development company, if you own the  hosting account, it’s much harder for them to lock you out or cause any damage. No professional web hosting company would allow anyone other than the account holder to make changes to the account and even if things are changed, since you are the contact, you can call the web host and get things put back together.
That’s it, simple and to the point, just 3 questions you need to ask about your current web development company. If the answer to any of these questions is no, you need to correct that immediately.Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=

Tags: webdevelopment, web site, small business, web hosting, advice

Dear Reader,

Just a quick note to say I have a new project, http://www.phppodcasts.com. It’s an aggregator for PHP podcasts and I hope eventually for it to be an archive as well. This isn’t a replacement for subscribing to the feed of your favorite PHP podcast and this feed won’t be on iTunes. With 3 podcasts now dedicated to PHP thought, I felt it was a good idea to have once place everybody can go to find all of your favorite podcasts.

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=

Dear Reader,

A while back a blogger named John wrote a snarky review of my review of Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP. While his review was a bit on the “untrue” side and prompted me to write Just Say No to SEO, his blog was interesting enough to put in my feed reader and follow. Heck, from time to time, I even clicked through and read an entire entry and believe I even commented once.

Sadly, those days are now over. See John feels that just because it is possible for me to block ads from FireFox that I must be a criminal and stealing his content. This, by the way, is the same asinine logic that makes the NAB feel that if we don’t watch each and every commercial in a television show that we are stealing their content. (I’ve got news for you John, for 5 years now, I’ve blocked ads at my router! FireFox, IE, Opera, hell, even Lynx…I don’t read ads unless I want to.)

So yea, by all means please do continue blocking a good chunk of your audience. Maybe, like me they will realize that your content is well, just not that great and move on to things more important…like Lindsy or Paris or even Britteny’s latest escapades. Should you actually produce something compelling enough to warrant an extra 5 seconds of work, we (FireFox users) can always just switch FireFox’s useragent. (yeah, boy, you showed us…)

So thanks John, this is now twice you’ve inspired me to blog and I’m the better for it. Sorry I won’t be reading your blog anymore. Like NBC’s move away from iTunes, the only one you are hurting is yourself. If I can live without NBC’s content, I’m pretty sure I can live without yours.

Just so you know John, I’m not picking on you. I feel the same way about anyone who feels that the content they produce is so damed important that they get to dictate to me how, when or where I consume it. Drop me a line if you drop this idiocy, I’ll add you back into my reader.

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=

p.s. Just say not to crap like this. My current useragent is “o noes, I haz UR blog wif da fox.” when that gets blocked, I’ll get more creative. I encourage every FireFox user (you thievn’ bastards) to change the useragent string. Get creative, have fun with it.

Dear Reader,

Of late I’ve noticed a disturbing trend, people talking about “Web 3.0″. I’ve received IMs, Facebook questions, and most recently, this blog on what Web 3.0 really is. Enough!

Someone ask me the other day why the term Web 2.0 took off where “Semantic Web” faltered. The answer is easy. Web 2.0 is nothing more than a marketing term. marketers love terms that can mean just about anything because then no one can hold them to their product promises. “Semantic Web” is an easily definable term, it actually means something. By definition, this means it can’t be a buzz word.

So if Web 2.0 is the fart out of a marketers mouth, guess which end Web 3.0 comes out of. Cm’on people, if you want to talk about the current web phenomenon, use terms with concrete definitions, semantic web. Don’t use terms like “Social Networking”, “Web x.y” or any of their relatives. If we all agree to speak in concrete, definable terms, the the marketeers will just disappear. (and take the hair stylists and phone sanitizers with them)

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)
=C=

Dear Reader,

I’ve been working on a project for a while now and it’s finally ready for testing. Queuebuddy.com started life as a way to help me keep track of movies I want to see but don’t feel like paying to see in the theater. (If you are really curious, email me, I’ll give you what Wife 1.23 refers to as “The Hollywood Speech”) Anyhow, you can register, login and grab the bookmarklet. Then when you are surfing imdb.com you can click on the bookmarklet when you are on a page of a movie you want to see on DVD> When it comes out on DVD.

There’s no fee, there’s no commitment and other than an email when the DVD comes out, we won’t even bug you. So if your interested, drop by and try it out.

Two notes:

• Since it relies on a bookmarklet, it’s only really usable in FireFox. Apologies to all my Microsoft friends.
• I’m currently only tracking Region 1 release dates. Since the MPAA and it’s friends deem it necessary to screw over the rest of the world with this stupid region encoding scheme, I will too. (I did have high hopes that Austrailia was going to pass a law a few years ago that made region encoding illegal but I guess too many people decided they couldn’t live unless Hollywood craps in their living rooms because the law failed to pass.)

Oh yeah, as with every web 2.0 property, this is a BETA. There will be bugs and I’m a programmer, not a designer, so it’s pretty ugly right now.

One final note, it’’s written using the newly released Zend Framework 1.0. I’m working on a tutorial for DevZone that shows some of the things I learned.

Until next time,
(l)(k)(bunny)

=C=