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2008

  • 1 min read

Back Channels May Add, But They Also Subtract

I totally agree. Is it just part of the tendency of those people to always want to be the center of attention? Check this post Back Channels May Add, But They Also Subtract from McToonish:

"Rick Schwier and I were actually talking about this last week and then Stephen Downes blogged about it today. Is it rude for people to use laptops, cell phones (for texting) and other hand-held devices while sitting in on somebody else’s conference presentation? I know that this will likely be unpopular with the crowd that I run in, but I happen to think it is. [snip…]" (from Back Channels May Add, But They Also Subtract)

  • 1 min read

Here's something I hadn 't seen before: I IM'd a friend of mine at a Big Company and the message got rejected because it included a URL. I have to suppose that it's any URL that gets bounced, but who knows?

So the workaround? I sent the text for a Google query that returns the same url.

Further details: Discussing it with him, the logic seems to be that someone could send an employee a phishing link in an IM message.

  • 1 min read

Know Rule 240!

I recently was on a trip with United Airlines. It's a long story, but basically the short form is that the pilot didn't show up, our flight was about 2 hours late, and I was going to miss the connection, also on United.

A bunch of us were in the same boat (or plane) and so there was quite a buzz in the gate area, upon which a lawyer who knew something about air travel said, "Make sure you mention Rule 240". Huh?

Rule 240 is like a magic code word. When you use it with airline personel they know exactly what you mean and they seem to act on it (a little bit scared of it, even.) Rule 240 states that, if you miss a connection and it's the airlines fault (i.e. pilot doesn't show up, but not a snowstorm) then the airline is obligated to put on the next flight they have to your destination (free of charge) and if that's not possible, on another airline (free of charge.) Pretty amazing, eh?

Of course the rule is a little more complicated but that's the key idea. Read more about it here: Welcome to MY Travel Rights.com

  • 1 min read

[GEEKY] Cool open source product analogous to Yahoo Pipes

SnapLogic is an open source product (at least in it's base edition) providing tools to construct pipelines that deliver and process and filter information through collections of interconnected REST services.

As usual, they provide a free 'community' edition, and then variously priced developer and enterprise editions. Pricing wasn't indicated but if you have this kind of need, SnapLogic looks like it's worth a peek.

  • 2 min read

[GEEKY] Twitter and Ruby on Rails

TechCrunch:

"We’re hearing this from multiple sources: After nearly two years of high profile scaling problems, Twitter is planning to abandon Ruby on Rails as their web framework and start from scratch with PHP or Java (another solution is to stick with the Ruby language and move away from the Rails framework)." (from TechCrunch)

Well you know I am a Ruby on Rails fan and often when I propose it I am asked whether 'Rails will Scale'. Here are my quick thoughts:

  1. First of all, is the rumor true? See comment at the bottom of the post referenced above:

"Update: Regarding Evan Williams’ statement here, all I can say is that multiple sources claim that Twitter is telling people they are planning on moving away from Ruby on Rails. This is not the first time a company has denied something that has turned out to be 100% true."

  1. Twitter is at the extreme end of scalability challenges. It is a huge and incredibly fast growing system, so if anything would break scalability, it would be Twitter.
  2. No system of the scale of Twitter uses a single language of platform. I would be surprised if there's not a grab bag of PHP, Java, C, SQL stored procedures and other technologies in the overall architecture. So the notion of 'abandoning Rails for Java' doesn't really make much sense anyway.
  3. Most important: Designing, building and operating a system to achieve good performance at Twitter scale is really really hard no matter what language or framework you use. Using Java or PHP or C# or whatever you like doesn't change this basic fact. Consequently changing language of framework would not be a likely cure for a scaling problem.
  • 1 min read

Seven Do’s And Three Don’ts For Creating New Web Products

Seven Do’s And Three Don’ts For Creating New Web Products contains some excellent Do 's and Don'ts for someone (like me) thinking of starting a new business. Here is just one little 'Do' with which I agree whole heartedly.

"1. Do become a domain expert in some domain. If you are a computer science/programming oriented entrepreneur, there is a great temptation to try to solve general broad problems. This is because we tend to have no other skills. If you study programming that is a skill, but you need to marry that with some understanding of some real world issue. I strongly suggest finding an activity that has a problem and learning inside and out about the people that do that activity and what real issues they have that you may be able to solve." (from Seven Do’s And Three Don’ts For Creating New Web Products)

Check out the whole post Seven Do’s And Three Don’ts For Creating New Web Products from Why does everything suck?:

  • 1 min read

On the business impact of Web 2.0

Bill Ives of the Portals and KM Blog writes an interesting two-part article on the business impact of Web 2.0:

"Now with Web 2.0 the open architecture, the refinement of web services, and the ability to put together applications through mashups makes the basic development costs much lower and time to market much quicker. More effort can be placed on making the tools actually serve business and consumer needs. Startups now can also benefit from looking back at the mistakes and successes of the first generation." from Portals and KM: The Business Impact of Web 2.0: Part One.

Bill also covers a discussion with Elliot Katzman of Commonwealth Capital Ventures about the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 from a business investment perspective using My Team of Active Network as a case study. Ellliot, by the way, was the original founder of My Team before it was acquired by Active Network.

  • 1 min read

YCombinator startup application form

I came across this very cool and simple set of criteria or rules to apply for funding from YCombinator. Not sure how well it works for them but they are quite reasonable. Here's a sample:

"(4) Yes decisions will include the amount we'll invest and the percent of the company we'd want for it. We usually invest $5000 + $5000n, where n is the number of participating founders (i.e. 2 founders get $15,000, 3 get $20,000), in return for between 1% and 10% of the company. The median is 6%."

Cool. Does it work?