10 Websites I Don’t Want to See Die in This Economy
- Vimeo - Just love this video site with an even better community. Very well done guys.
- Viddler - Another great video site that is doing some great stuff with their API and other features.
- Twitter - Duh.
- LastFM - I just fell back in love with this music site, I would hate to see it go now.
- Yahoo – I know, I know…but they are doing some really cool stuff in there.
- Current – They are doing some cool things over there with the “Hack the Debate,” just wish I got the channel.
- Facebook – Look, if I have to keep one social network, this is the one I’m picking.
- TWIT – Gotta give some Leo Love out in this list.
- UStream – This was a toss up between Justin.tv, UStream and the other “live streamers”, but UStream was top of mind. Very important technology.
- YouPorn – Just being honest, and if you were the same it would be on your list too.
AJAX is the New Polyester
Ted says that Meebo is what’s wrong with the internet.
In AJAX development, programmers can’t be held responsible for, say, the amount of memory their giant JavaScript application uses, because hey, that’s the browser’s problem. We don’t care about the browser taking 100% of the user’s CPU to drag a window, because those Firefox & IE developers just need to get off their lazy asses and write a decent JavaScript interpreter. Well, I tell you what: if you develop desktop applications for Windows and your application uses 100% CPU when you drag a window – pack your shit, you’re going home.
I can’t say he’s wrong. AJAX is new polyester: Sure there are some great uses for it, but if you cover yourself it in you will end up looking stupid.
(via Daring Fireball)
Highschool 2.0
You think tech guys like Tim O’Reilly, Dave Winer, Robert Scoble and Anil Dash are some how above the underlying bickering and squabbles that happen every day on blogs all over the place? Then open your eyes my friend and read the comments of this post. Big-time tech names are bouncing in and out whining, begging and trying desperately to be witty all over a conversation about the exclusive FOO Camp.
Here’s a run down:
- Here’s the original post
- Here’s Tim O’reilly saying: “Dave Winer’s just pissed because I didn’t give him an invite to my party at lunch and he was all like ‘whatever!’”
- Here’s Dave Winer saying: “Dude, whatever, I don’t hate you. But I also didn’t even want to go to your stupid party, even if I was invited! Also, I’m removing you as my friend on MySpace.”
- Here’s Dave Winer saying: …well pretty much the same thing. [see above]
- Here’s Anil Dash trying way to hard to get in to this conversation: “Um, no one in my click was talking about the party. I don’t think its a big deal…you know unless you want to invite me.”
- Here’s Robert Scoble saying: “Tim, do you remember when we use to hang out? I went to last year’s party, I thought we had a good time…I guess my invite this year was lost in the mail or something… Oh god! Please invite me back! I’ll do whatever you want.” [Scoble begins to unbutton his shirt]
- Here’s some guy at the end saying: “Shutup Dave Whiner! Ha ha…did you see what I did there?”
UPDATE: 2:24pm CST
Its still going! Dave Winer’s comments are getting shorter though, which I’m taking as a good sign. The bad sign is Shelley is trying so hard to be funny that she is making it hard for me to tell her she isn’t funny and she needs to stop. Here’s the tough love: Shelley, you aren’t funny. Please stop. If you don’t stop the people from CBS will come to get you and put you to work writing sitcoms about a fat guy and his hot wife where the rest of the people that think they’re funny but aren’t work.
Is it just me picturing all of them in a crowd with the arms outstretched slapping at each other, or are the rest of you doing that too?
UPDATE 2: 4:36pm CST
Shelley, I’m begging now. Stop. Your comments aren’t even a little funny. I’m on your side. I’m trying to help you out, but you have to take the first step and back the hell away from your keyboard. Also, that splashing sound you heard was Dave Winer squatting and firing out a long comment again. I guess this will only end when finally someone pushes Dave and Tim in to the middle of the circle and starts pointing and yelling “Fight! Fight! Fight!…”
Mike Uses Lala and Likes It So Far
After hearing a few things through the grapevine and reading an article on Wired.com, I finally got the bug and decided to sign up for one of the new hip Web 2.0 services LaLa.com
LaLa is a webservice that provides a cheap and easy way to get new albums (CDs) and at the same time get rid of your old dusty CDs you have lying around. I like to think of it as a Distributed Used Music Store. I make a list of all the CDs that I own on LaLa’s site and then a make another list of CDs I would like. If someone has a CD on their Want List and I have on my Have List, a little “Ship It” button appears and I have the option to ship my CD to them using the cases and envelopes LaLa provides. In turn I can recieve CDs the the reverse fashion and I’m only charged 1.49 for the CD ($1.00 for the trade, and $0.49 for the shipping). The real beauty of the system is their Karma score each user has. You generate Karma by trading and sending out CDs quickly; Even sending out CDs with liner notes included provides your Karma score with a little extra juice. Not only that but you get a little extra real-life karma too because not only is this service 100% lawyer-free and sue-proof but they also give a portion of the proceeds to the artist after every trade.
This is usually the paragraph where I tell you why I hate it, but there’s not much not to like here. One problem I did have right off the bat was while I was creating my “Have List” I accidently clicked on a CD I own and added it to my “Want List”. I didn’t think this was much of a problem until I tried to remove it but someone had already initiated the sending process which, I found out, locked out my ability to remove the CD from my Want List. Bummer. I really didn’t want two coppies of Live – Throwing Copper. I got the problem resolved after to quick emails to the sender and the site admin. Wasn’t a big issue, but that might be something worth automating becuase I can’t be the only one to fall into that hole so far. Other tham that though, my weekend with the service has been great. I’ll let you know how the following weeks go and if they ever send me the shirt they promised me.
Link: Mike’s public LaLa page
Microsoft’s start.com
Let it not be said that I dump on all things Microsoft! I really like the beta of their new start.com. In fact I really like start.com. It has a nice feel to it. Very clean, everything works, its easy to add feeds or modify the look. If Microsoft keeps this going in this direction, and doesn’t add a bunch of useless crap on here…like forcing one of your feeds to be their blog or something, then they really have something here.
Check it out. Its a really nice use of Web 2.0 features with a clean interface for everything.
Good job (so far) Microsoft.
Clean URLs Are All the Rage
I know what you are thinking! “The permalink on this post has an ugly extension on it! ‘.php’? What the hell is that? Get with the times man!” Yes, I know clean URLs are one of the cool hip new steps to becoming part of the “Web 2.0″ movement. Well I finally decided into looking into cleaning up my URLs, the problem is, I don’t want to do the work. Do you want to dig ourself out of a self-created extension mess? Here are some links to help:
The first link is a great tutorial on the way this all works and how you can do it yourself via PHP [ Making "clean" URLs with Apache and PHP ]
This is just a .htaccess file that someone wrote up that will take a passed, clean, URL and show the user a .php that has the information they’re looking for. This a nice way to go if you don’t want to actually change your URLs around. [ Neat Tip for Clean URLs ]
Ok, great huh? Clear as mud right? Well I would like to implement my whole site with clean URLs, not just my media page. I think I have a plan or two, but neither sound fun. Are there any users of MovableType out there that have made this switch? Any suggestions to save my self some time? I don’t exactly use a stock setup of MT, but I’ll take any ideas that come this way. Hell even if you aren’t using MT I would love to hear what a huge pain in the ass this is to syke myself up.