Technology Mashup

Thoughts from my first 5 minutes of using Google Chrome

Ok, so I've checked it out on my windows box and I must say its very impressive. My corporate system is very secure, and Chrome seems to have coped with the proxy very well. Here are my notes.

Computerworld is reporting that over 100 domains have been registered in the past 48 hours relating to hurricane Gustav.

Although not all will have nefarious purposes, security experts are warning people to be careful of phishing scams and bogus charity scams that might emerge as relief operations go into full swing.

I had a meeting yesterday morning with AMI Software, creators of a rather interesting Enterprise Intelligence / predictive intelligence software suite.

Without going too deep into the mechanics of how the product works, its functionality includes:

As Beijing ends and thoughts turn towards London 2012, I thought it would nice to highlight this quote from Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee. Atos Origin the world-wide IT partner for the Olympic Games ensured that the technology infrastructure was designed, delivered and operated seamlessly...

If you are following developments in the forthcoming Oslo project from Microsoft, then you will want to check out these two videos from endpoint.tv. Oslo will be released later this year affecting products such as .NET Framework, Visual Studio, BizTalk Server and others. It will provide some neat enhancements to WF / WCF and will give Microsoft a stronger offering in the SOA space.

The first video is a high level introduction and discussion with David Chappell. The second video deals with preparation for Oslo and discussion with Jon Flanders.

I was reading through a list of Drupal modules and spotted one that supported tipjoy integration. This brought me back to thinking about tipjoy and its potential.

The service launched in Feb 2008, so is a relatively new venture. The simple idea is that a virtual tip jar is added to your site / blog to help monetise the content. A tip is added by a happy consumer that wants to reward the author with 10 cents (for example) made as a micro-payment.

For those interested in JBOSS BPM, I recommend reading Heiko Braun's latest post on JBoss SOA Governance: Project Overlord blog.

It is interesting (not surprising perhaps) to see the focus on GWT as the AJAX environment for creation of the RIA.

If GWT is not a familiar term, I guess for Web Dev's it will be very familiar - particularly for all of the Java heads.

If you've got a spare 50 minutes and you would like more details on GWT check out this video from Google...

Is this You?

Starting to type this post I'm thinking that it is about as wise as trying to paint your house with a flame thrower! But some things need to get said, even when it is the metaphorical equivalent of rubbing mustard on the unmentionable bits of a savage dog.

I follow quite a bit of the Social Media chatter and I notice an arrogance and self-righteousness creeping into some commentary that I do not think is constructive.

There is a sense of "I will teach you the new way, the right way, the way you didn't think of yourself and can barely comprehend without my years (cough!) of insight". Well - newsflash folks...

Popular gadgets really turn me off, but nothing has me hurtling towards brain calcifying boredom quicker than an iPhone 3G owner.

Yes, it's reasonably attractive, it does some fairly neat things, but it's too big, too buggy and too expensive.

I've also lived through decades of must have gadgets, and believe me this one isn't even in the top 20 of all time coolness. Every time one is produced I fantasise about skimming it across a murky piranha infested lake. You would need to rub butter all over one just to grease it up enough to drop it into a pint of beer!

I'm at a complete loss as to why this seems to be the pocket version of a 'a new numberplate'. So just for the record:

1. No I don't want to see it, put it back in with your pocket mulch

Bizreport have a recent article indicating that 3 new social ad formats are coming to Facebook. I was writing not so long ago about the need to do more in inline interactive advertising, to treat ads as more natural social content than some of those dreadful interruptive techniques.

Widgets, comments and fan pages will be utilised in an attempt to virally distribute the brand messages.

It will be an interesting one to check out, I hope it is not just more petrol on the fire of 'capitalist spam'.

Two interesting Redbooks out this week dealing with technology transition to WebSphere Process Server.

1. WebSphere MQ Workflow transition to WebSphere Process Server
2. Migrating WebSphere Business Integration Server Foundation to WebSphere Process
Server V6.1

I was thinking a while back (before I started the site upgrade) about why the Social Media love-in on Problogger had been so successful. In time honoured tradition I thought I would list the 5 key reasons as I see them.

1. Topical - Social Media is certainly on the hype wave, and timing is everything
2. Centralised credibility - By this I mean Problogger was an established hub for those with an active interest
3. Success breeds success - As the popularity grew and the word went out on other platforms this pulled more contributers into the 'perfect storm'
4. People followed through - contributors actually hooked up with others and the Problogger folks produced consolidated lists of people on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. for simple reference
5. The activity was 'time boxed' which created a sense of urgency

A new one from MrMashUp.

Carl Theobald, Sr. VP of Products and support, mashes up software and music by bringing together Mozart, Blues, Mashups, and more for this original musical performance. A music mashup from the man who helps deliver business mashups.

If you love Firefox and blogging, you need to check out ScribeFire. In a nutshell this little beauty is an add-on that allows you to blog content without ever leaving Firefox.

I'm addicted, it's very light weight, and adds some neat little tools so you can quickly and easily blog snippets and pages. The editor does all the usual text based editing as well as Flickr pics and YouTube vids.

Here's the link...

ScribeFire - Fire Up Your Blogging!