Posts tagged tech
Developing the Developer’s Mind
Sep 1st
As many of you know, I have been spending much more time developing than consulting. I have been working more on my PHP skills, while also learning Ruby on Rails and Python.
This is partly because much of my work has been both working on developing @SMCpros social media tool and with developing Facebook apps and contests.
When I first started developing, I was a freshman in high school. I wrote PASCAL, and was instantly hooked. These programs were basically long scripts, and used long control loops. This is the class that I learned how to scan things for exploits, write self-replicating programs, and generally be a geek.
Fast forward to 2 years ago, when I started with PHP. I was still writing long scripts, with big ass control loops, and they worked. However, they were slow, and bucked all major conventions.
Now, I write OO PHP. I am learning Ruby and Python, both of which use OO and the MVC ideas extensively. I am going from a script writer to an app writer. I am having to develop the developer’s mind.
This also means that I am taking debugging to a new level, writing tests, focusing on my tools and coding process, and actually acting like a developer, rather than just someone who writes code.
Super Cool Web Thing Of The Day – Greplin
Sep 1st
I have decided to put my daily trips around the internet to good use, and start doing a “Super Cool Web Thing Of The Day” post. Now, this will only happen on days that I do find something cool, but when I do, you will hear about it.
First up for this auspicious honor is a startup that I am in love with, even though I haven’t fully tried the service yet. Greplin is billing itself as a “Spotlight for the Cloud”. (For you PC users, Spotlight is Apple’s full computer search tool).
Greplin can search through most of your major cloud accounts, including GMail, GCal, Twitter, Facebook, Dropbox, Basecamp, and several more.
Signups are still getting processed, so you will have to be patient. However, once you are in, you will be amazed how much you need this tool on a day-to-day basis.
The $5/month (or $45/year) pro account gives you more storage, more services, and faster indexing. Once I get to fully play with it, I am sure that I will upgrade.
Greplin is currently in beta. You can sign up at Greplin.com.
NOTE: I have no material relationship with any company that I promote. I sometimes have a paid account with them, which will be disclosed at the time of writing. If I have an affiliate link to sign up, I will disclose that as well.
If you have a suggestion for a SCWTOTD that you would like reviewed, please let me know at scwtotd@mitchellhislop.com
On Ideas
Aug 2nd
Ideas are a fickle thing. Sometimes, they manifest themselves as the best thing ever, only to be an idea that has already been had some number of times.
I recently got into a discussion at CoCo about ideas. We were talking about how interesting it is that they can get lost. For example:
- The Romans had plumbing and elevators, which then took several hundred years to get “invented” again
- Several people have had similar ideas at roughly the same time, many miles apart, each thinking its their own
- Similar ideas always end up at the same end
We were also talking about how there should be sattalies orbiting the Earth, storing and backing up the internet, so that we dont lose our place in the world should something happen.
That was what got me thinking.
It is not that we are running out of ideas, or that we are using them up faster in this day and age. Since we can all communicate instantly, wirelessly, we are just finding out that the idea is used faster.
We have fewer and fewer ideas happening simultaniously, since we find out that they are already being worked on.
This is going to lead to a drought of ideas, until some innovators really kick it up a notch.
This post is just something for you all to rattle around.
- Will you be that innovator?
- Where are your ideas coming from?
- How can we protect knowledge better?
(p.s. This is the first post on my new server. I now rock a Linode VPS, and am so pleased thus far. Be nice to it, everyone. And let me know if you see issues. )
The Whole Privacy Debacle
Jun 13th
So, tons of people have been all up in arms over privacy online. This is mainly headed by Facebook, but it comes up anytime information is shared, whether it is being shared with other people or with advertisers.
However, I have a huge problem with this. Like, boil my blood, go crazy frustrated. Users seem to miss a few MAJOR points when they get mad about this:
- Ultimately, it is the users fault. If they dont sign up, nothing is shared. If they dont share something, it doesn’t get out in public. If they dont read the notices on their accounts, its their fault.
- Sharing information is GOOD for the person. I prefer to share things like my location and information about my interests. Why? Google Latitude will tell me about my traveling. As will TripIt. Facebook will serve me more relevant ads, and Google will tailor my search results to my location. All networks, knowing my social graph, will allow me to leverage my friends even more.
- The downfalls of sharing have not shown themselves to me. If you are able to point them out, please post them in the comments.
Many people’s objections are not about the sharing itself, but how networks manage privacy. It more of a meta-getting pissed off about privacy. I cant describe how selfish and stupid that argument is. Facebook has 400 MILLION users. How is one, or even 30,000 (the number who participated in “Quit Facebook Day” ) user’s opinion enough to sway Facebook.
So people, figure out the settings. Look through the settings, play with them, and only share what you want. You are 100% in control of you, and your online persona.
Lacking Context
Mar 31st
The other day, while writing code to work with Viralheat (for an SMCpros client), it hit me. The flaw, the thing that I dislike about ANY social media monitoring tool (although, I do love ViralHeat, because their RESTful API kicks some serious tail).
Its a lack of context.
No tool out there (and I have demoed most of them) can give context to a tweet. They assign sentiment based on a database of wordlists of what is positive and what is negative. They have no way of telling if someone is just being snarky, if they are in a foul mood, or even if they use pronouns. If I tweet “Man, @twitter is the best company to work for” followed by “They really know their stuff, great job”, all tools will only grab the first one. Same goes if I am tweeting bad things. This issue is joined with the issue that there is not a ton of follow up-when a rep from a company responds to someone tweeting, not much is done to see how it changes the sentiment regarding that company. Mentions of a brand are treated like islands-concise, self-contained bubbles of information, not a chain of data.
Now, being someone who sits right at the intersection of Social street and Developer drive, I am going to fix this. I cant tell you too much about it (believe me, I will when I can), but know that we are making a solution. We want to provide context, and more layers and views of data, to the social sphere. More abilities for people to view data, more ways to use all the data that is being generated by everyone.
Minnedemo quick hits
Feb 5th
Here are my quick thought on the first three presenters. I will add new posts for the rest.
ArtsApp: online media application management for arts students. Really cool idea that you can check out at artsapp.com. I see a ton of uses or helping many schools application processes.
Relicloud: a cloud hosting service from visi. Launches Monday and looks decent.
Pedalbrain: super cool integrated iPhone accescories and app that turn the iPhone into an Amazing bike computer. One of the first really cool hardware addons to the iPhone I have seen.
