Home - Stay N Alive

Wanna win a copy of the book?

Posted on April 12, 2008 by jessestay

Beth Kanter and I met over at Graphing Social Patterns this year. I was running late to the lunch and happened to sit down at a table I saw Rodney Rumford at. I introduced myself and Beth happened to be at the table. She asked if she could give a book away on her blog, and interviewed me briefly. She posted a great review of the book today (yes, that’s my big head in the close-up!), and announced the free giveaway of “I’m On Facebook–Now What???”.

Learn more about Beth and ways to “Change the World” using Facebook on FacebookAdvice.com…

Utah Social Media Developers Garage Has a Mailing LIst

Posted on April 11, 2008 by jessestay

I mentioned this at the Hackathon in March, but have not had the time to blog about it yet. Thus far all announcements for the Utah Social Media Developers Garage Meetings and Utah Facebook Developers Garage Meetings have been announced either through this blog, or our Facebook Group. I’ve now created a Google Group for us at http://groups.google.com/group/utsmdev. Please sign up there and I’ll issue all announcements via that list. Google Groups provides a more neutral ground in the sense that users don’t have to have an account to use it (to an extent), as compared to the Facebook groups. We’ll keep the Facebook groups around, and depending on membership I’ll still send announcements there as well, but I encourage all to sign up on the Google Group if possible. In addition, having a mailing list will allow us to have more of a discussion. This way if you are working on a project in Facebook, or OpenSocial, or even WordPress or Twitter or other APIs and you run into issues, you can ask the group and we can work together to solve the problem. I figure this way we’ll be able to all build a strong Social Media Development community here in Utah that others can rely on. Google groups will also give us a page we can tell others about the group, when the next meeting is, etc. If you have some graphics and HTML skills to help with that I am open to volunteers!

Also, I have created a Google Code repository at http://code.google.com/p/utsmdev/. For anyone okay with producing their code under the GPL, this will give you a place to store your code, and collaborate with others on the code, track issues, etc. If you want commit permissions to that repository please contact me and I’ll add you. As Google App Engine gets more integration into these things we’ll also set up a hosting option through Google App Engine to actually host your apps. Hopefully all these options will make it all much easier for everyone to get out and collaborate in their coding. It’s a good time to be a developer…

P.S. – We will continue on in our every-other-month meeting structure now, so our next meeting will be the second Tuesday in May. I’m working on a speaker, so if you know anyone or have ideas let me know!

Five Real Reasons Vista Beats Mac OS X

Posted on April 10, 2008 by jessestay

I’m going to step away from my normal focus on Social Media because the inner-geek in me just couldn’t resist. Recently Chris Pirillo posted a challenge that I just couldn’t help taking on. In it, he criticizes a post by Preston Galla of ComputerWorld stating “5 Reasons Vista Beats OS X”, and he makes some very good points. I admire Chris a lot because he’s one of the most unbiased Geeks I know, except when it comes to the Mac. Chris and I would get along well.

I too am a Mac user, in fact, the post I am typing at the moment is on MarsEdit on a Macbook. I absolutely love my Mac, and thus far have not found a preferred Operating System for development and desktop environment to work on, at least as a software developer (I should note that actually, most of my software development is over Terminal on the Mac, over to a Linux Server, my preferred server OS).

I will be the first to admit however that the Mac does have its flaws, in particular Leopard. I do run a Vista Ultimate machine, and I love it too, but for different reasons. Let me give 5 real reasons, and Chris, if you’re reading I would love to hear your response to this, why Vista, at times can be better than a Mac, in particular Leopard. Here are 5 reasons in response to Chris’s challenge that I think really make sense:

It’s all about the media. Chris, I’m not sure if you’ve used Windows Media Center to its full extent, but sit down, set up a Windows Media Center machine/server, and then set up an Xbox 360. Be sure your server has a good TV card or two in it as well. Now, sync the two, and begin watching TV live over your home network. Add on a Media Center Extender to another TV in your house and begin streaming live TV on another channel to that TV as well. Now, on one of the extenders, open up some music, maybe even from your iTunes library on your PC (assuming it’s not DRM protected, stupid Apple). Go on over and visit the videos you have stored on your PC. Install some MCE plugins, and begin browsing your videos on Youtube, or even Netflix watch now movies. Got HD? MCE supports it. Go to the sports section, see all the sports games playing currently and what their scores are, surf through all the sports channels (all in HD!). Go in and schedule to record your favorite TV Series. AppleTV isn’t even near ready for this (although I so desperately would love to see them do it!). Heck, turn off MCE even and start playing some games, or rent a movie. If you can point out a Mac combination that can do that, I’ll jump for joy!

The corporate environment. As a CTO and entrepreneur, I simply cannot force everyone onto a Mac. I have first, the expense of the learning curve and integration between Mac and PC, and second the cost of the Macs themselves. I can get a PC for under $500 these days. The closest equivalent to that is the Mac Mini, which still, at the equivalent PC level is more expensive. Now, add to that the expense of Parallels so those that need Windows apps like Quickbooks Corporate editions and others. True, integration with Exchange is possible, but is still pretty limited when compared to Windows. In the end I’m looking at a pretty expensive IT budget. Again, I think a Mac is an excellent development machine, and would still encourage a Mac for my developers due to their need to develop in cross-platform environments, but it just doesn’t make sense cost-wise across the entire company.

Hardware compatibility. I agree – there are a lot of options when it comes to supporting hardware for a Mac, but, can I just get a decent wireless print server that works with the Macs in my household? What about print drivers that work across the network with Windows-connected printers? Leopard fixes some of that, but it’s still not anywhere near compatible as the Vista machines are. Is it Mac’s fault? No, but it is a strong point to buying Vista. What about shuffling around every time I need to connect to a projector because Macs use the non-standard VGA/DVI adapters? I’m sure the readers can come up with more unsupported hardware.

Finance Software. I touched on this a little earlier, and Galla very broadly covered it in mentioning supported software, but his claim was not backed by specific examples. Simply saying, “Vista runs more software” is an opinion, and Chris, as you point out not necessarily proof that Vista is better. However, one thing I do have issues with is the vast array of Windows Finance software (aka Small and large business versions of Quicken and Turbotax) but lack of within Leopard. I run a very small business at the moment, and frankly, Quickbooks for Mac is simply too much for me. I’m looking for something more like Quicken Home and Business until my business gets large enough for me to hire an Accountant. There’s also the flip-side to that in that if you run a very large business, there are no enterprise versions of Quickbooks for Mac. This is why both my Father, and Father-in-Law who are CPAs do not use Macs. For now, I’m stuck to slowing down my machine with Parallels any time I need something like that, which, IMO is a hack.

It’s all about the animated wallpaper! Can your Mac run animated pictures of waterfalls, running streams, or flowing lava? My Vista machine can. Come on – you have to admit that’s something my Vista machine can do that my Macbook can’t, don’t you? So long as we’re going to praise the Mac UI this is one really cool feature I’d just love to see on my Mac. There are also other cool UI features on Vista that I like, even though I think Mac trumps them as a whole.

So, those may or may not be big things to some, but that is my list, and you asked Chris. Of course I could always come up with 10 more things that Mac beats Vista in, but my point is, as they told us when I was a Sales person at Computer City as a teenager, there are strengths to each OS – it’s important to evaluate what works best for you and your situation, and choose accordingly. Now, I ask my readers, are there any reasons (supported by true, concrete facts) that you feel Vista beats Leopard or the Mac in general?

The Reason Google Apps Engine Could be a Competitor to Facebook

Posted on April 9, 2008 by jessestay

The hype is out there and it is real. After the launch of Google Apps Engine, everyone is up in arms as to what exactly it is, and who needs to watch out. The truth is, everyone needs to watch out when Google launches something, since because of tight integration with all of their products, a slight tweak in one product could mean cross-integration between others, making it almost impossible for you to compete as a company because all of the sudden your space is being threatened by the new products.

Google Announces "Google Apps Engine"

Posted on April 7, 2008 by jessestay

Okay, so I was wrong – it was worth a try. I do still expect more large announcements related to Social Media from Google. Just recently, Google announced their “Google Apps Engine” (will it be nicknamed, “GAE”?). It is essentially a competitor with Amazon’s EC2, S3, and SimpleDB, but at a much higher level. You’ll be required to interface with the service via the Python Programming language at first, but it is intended to make scalability and server set up much easier. Google does say that the underlying infrastructure is entirely language neutral, so we should expect more languages in the future. The advantage over Amazon is Google takes care of all the server set up for you – this is essential for a small business that can’t afford to hire an expensive Linux Admin as Amazon requires.

The Service is only available to the first 10,000 developers that apply at http://code.google.com/appengine/, and will be available starting at 9pm PST tonight. You can read more at Venturebeat and TechCrunch here and here.

New, Big OpenSocial Announcements Coming Tonight?

Posted on April 7, 2008 by jessestay

According to Mike Arrington (I know, I said I wanted to boycott TechCrunch but it’s just so dang hard to avoid! I’ll stick to boycotting Crunchgear for now.), Google is having another “Campfire One” event tonight. The last Campfire One event they announced OpenSocial. It was the OpenSocial team that announced the event, and the biggest bloggers and developers in the industry were all there. Mike Arrington thinks this one is going to be the announcement of “BigTable”, Google’s answer to Amazon SimpleDB.

I think otherwise – see my thoughts at OpensocialNow.com.

5 Inspiring Uses for Twitter That Changed the World

Posted on April 5, 2008 by jessestay

I figured after yesterday’s post on Guy Kawasaki’s blog, I’d continue the trend, but this time into Twitter territory. Except this time I’d like to try to truly inspire you.

For those unaware with what Twitter is, in a sentence it is a mass communications tool which lets you post the status of what you’re doing, see what others, on a global scale are doing, and track certain terms within those global statuses. All of Twitter works either from the web at Twitter.com, from a desktop (similar to IM chat) client like Twhirl, or even from your cell phone. Not a user of Twitter and want to follow what I’m doing and discussing throughout the day simply via your cell phone? Text “follow JesseStay” to 40404 on your cell phone and you’ll see what I mean. (to turn them off just send “off JesseStay” to 40404)

Here are 5 inspiring uses for Twitter I have seen that in my opinion have in various ways, truly changed the world:

Track Earthquakes — send “track earthquake” to 40404 on your cell phone, or via Twitter if you have an account, and every time anyone mentions an earthquake, you’ll get updates sent right to your cell phone or IM client with what people are experiencing at the time.
This may not seem like much, but a month or so ago, I received an update for this tracked item from a user saying something to the effect of “woah – was that an earthquake?”. Suddenly I was receiving update after update on my cell phone, almost crashing my cell phone quickly showing there was a very noticeable earthquake somewhere in the world. Doing some research on each of the usernames, I quickly found out that there was an earthquake in the U.K. and I was getting updates from every single person in the United Kingdom that was experiencing the earthquake, at the time it happened. A search on USGS did not even show anything when I found out from Twitter. Twitter told me the news first.

Help out in an emergency — I recently just started tracking the term, “911” on Twitter. I get a lot of updates from people talking about the date/event of 9/11, but what if someone was truly in an emergency asking for Twitter followers to dial 911? I could quickly be one of the first “Twitter emergency responders” on the scene to help out. 911 is a fairly common term, but what if collectively we all came up with a “Twitter Emergency Number”? We could use something that is not going to be used elsewhere, like the letter combination, “xzq”, and those following would be able to help out in an emergency. Join the Twitter rescue squad and “track 911”!

Fight Forest Fires — @Rumford (Rodney Rumford, my good buddy from FaceReviews.com) reminded me the other day about the use of Twitter back in the Fires in the L.A./San Diego area. Twitter was used to point out the status of the fires, locate where they were, and collaborate amongst those affected or threatened by the fires. A strong threat to peoples homes and lives quickly became a very personal event to the entire world using Twitter.

Alert others and coordinate during child abductions — recently a young child was abducted and brutally murdered here in Salt Lake City. During the time of the child’s disappearance, I began thinking of suggesting Twitter as a tool to coordinate during the abduction. The abduction could be broadcast worldwide to alert the world in the event the child ventured any further than the home of the child, and at the same time volunteers could easily coordinate via cell phone and computer to track and update what areas had been searched, possible sightings, and more. I can only imagine what it would have been like if Twitter were around during the Elizabeth Smart abduction! One way of helping out in such efforts is to “track amber alert”.

Raise awareness for Breast Cancer — one of the most inspiring uses for Twitter I have seen thus far has been during the diagnosis and experiences of Twitter user, @susanreynolds, who was diagnosed with Breast Cancer and Twittered it live to her Twitter follows. She shared her experience, and the pains she went through as they poked, prodded, and even performed surgery on the cancerous areas of her body. She used a bag of Peas to ease the pain, and as a sort of comic relief (and sign of her strong character), posted a picture of herself and the bag of peas.
Quickly a movement of “Peas” spread through Twitter. Everyone began posting peas in their profile pictures in support of her fight with Breast Cancer. A fund was set up in her name, and Twitter users everywhere donated to the fund to raise money for Breast Cancer. Susan Reynolds inspired us all, through just 140 characters or less.

I have quite a few more of these examples I’ll post in a follow-up post, including a great mention by @DrBaher about the Twitter account, @makechange. Are there any inspiring examples you have seen through the use of Twitter?