Josef Nankivell » Web

Google Buzz – First Impressions

Josef Nankivell — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:56:40 +0000

Firstly, I think Google Buzz is the reincarnation of Google Wave. I think that Wave was perhaps not adopted by people as a communication medium as well as Google had expected. However, I am not saying Google Wave is dead, just that Buzz is a version of Wave (with geo-location/social media/feeds) that people are ready to use and integrate in to their lives.

Buzz has great potential, a lot of which isn’t apparent at first. Currently you can pull up Google maps on your Android device and look at all of the Buzzes in a certain location. Want to see if there is an accident on the road to work? Check for clusters of Buzzing on Google Maps. Want to know what a gig is like? Keep an eye on Buzzing in that location for information and photos.

It does seem to encourage the Google Wave communication methodology that exists somewhere between Google mail and Google Chat (but this time with social media goodness thrown in). Plus, with the vast varity on information stored on Google’s services these days (photos, email, docs, feeds etc) Google Buzz could be a medium way to share your information.

The public/private functionality built into buzz is interesting because it appears to reside in the space between Twitter’s public functionality and Facebook’s private messaging. I realize you can make tweets private and Facebook updates public (especially now), but each service carries a different expectation. It looks like Buzz will use a public/private switch as a differentiator.

Buzz also partially resides in FriendFeed’s super-aggregator domain (FriendFeed is owned by Facebook). You can integrate your Picasa (owned by Google), Flickr (owned by Yahoo), Twitter and Google Reader updates into your Buzz feed.

Buzz does not only seem to lie between Google Mail and Google Chat, but also also partially exists in the space between Twitter’s public nature and Facebook’s private messaging, due to the public and private functionality built in. Obviously tweets can be private and Facebook public, but each service is perceived differently. It looks like Buzz will sit in the middle, using the option to change between public & private.

Google Buzz is reminding me slightly of FriendFeed and it’s ability to amass data. You can combine your Picasa, Flickr, Twitter and Google Reader updates into your Buzz feed in a similar fashion to FriendFeed.

I am curious as to what will happen to Google Wave now that Buzz is here. The two do overlap somewhat, although not entirely – But enough to be significant. Google Wave was excellent for taking collaborative notes and producing reports with a group (when I didn’t forget to check it!) but my use of it slowly faded. However, Gmail is now still the best email service out there, plus I am always signed in to Gmail on my Nexus One. It’s going to be interesting to see if Buzz and Wave develop their own personalities, or will Buzz just replace Wave?

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Push Gmail Comes to iPhone and Windows Mobile

Josef Nankivell — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:27:13 +0000

I nearly tumbled from where I am perched as a friend turned to me and announced, “Push Gmail for iPhone and Windows Mobile”. He sent me the link to the blog post which I quickly read and immediately fumbled for my iPhone.

As I already have Google pushing contacts and calenders to me, I just navigated to the Mail section of my iPhone to find my Google Sync settings and one quick flick of the “Mail” switch later I started to received emails via Push!

If you haven’t set up Google Sync with your device yet, you can find out how here.

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Ten Best WordPress Plugins

Josef Nankivell — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:35:34 +0000

Akismet

Akismet is the wonderful plugin that fights the evils of spam! It’s a plugin that comes with WordPress and it works very well indeed! Use this plugin and you won’t need to crawl through lists of spam comments looking for the genuine ones. Akismet is so good you won’t even need a captcha your comment form. Link: Akismet.

All in One SEO Pack

Stop worrying about your SEO and concentrate on writing awesome content! This plugin manages all of the SEO details that your blog needs; giving you so much more free time! Link: All in One SEO Pack.

Google Analytics For WordPress

Sure, adding Google Analytics on to your WordPress blog is easy, but this plugin lets you take advantage of its full power! Use it to track just about everything that’s going on with your blog! Link: Google Analytics For WordPress.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Do you think that linking articles is pointless? You’re very wrong indeed! Linking to another article within articles is a great way to allow uses to find related posts, improve your page rank and keep users on your site for longer. This plugin uses keywords to create links between articles. Link: Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Thank Me Later

I love this plugin. It emails first-time commentators with a message of your choice. Remind users of new posts or invite them to connect with you. Link: Thank Me Later.

Insights

Want to insert an image into your post? Tired of opening a new tab, searching for an image, copying the URL and inserting it into the image field? Insights will allow you to create posts much faster by enabling you to search your blog for previous posts, search and insert Flickr/Google images, insert videos from Youtube, link to Wikipedia articles, search Google and add a map from Google Maps. Link: Insights.

Tweetable

This plugin is magic! It allows you to host your own TwitPic-esque gallery on your blog. Everytime you post a photo on twitter, users are directed to your site and not somewhere like TwitPic.com. Works great combined with an iPhone and Twittelator. Link: Tweetable.

Google Syntax Highlighter for Wordpress

Want to include source code to your posts, but don’t like the lack of syntax highlighting? Then this plugin is for you. Write or paste your code and let it know what language you are using. Simple as that! Link: Google Syntax Highlighter for WordPress.

WP Super Cache

This plugin is a must. It makes your pages load several times faster and takes a huge load off of your server too! Link: WP Super Cache.

Contact Form 7

Allow your users to contact you with simplicity and ease. Easy to customise, even if you have no programming knowledge. Great at stopping spambots getting hold of your email address too! Link: Contact Form 7.

Conclusion

There you have it – A list of my ten favourite WordPress plugins that I couldn’t run a blog without! These plugins can increase productivity, performance and do lots of other impressive magic tricks. Give them a go on your blog and let me know what you think. Or leave a comment sharing the WordPress plugins that you couldn’t live without!

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Google Fast Flip Newsreader

Josef Nankivell — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:54:55 +0000

Google has released “Fast Flip” – the online news reader. Including stories from media corporations – including the BBC, and The New York Times.

Google, likened using the Fast Flip to flipping through a magazine – “really fast without unnatural delays.” Fast Flip enables users to browse through news stories in a quicker, more natural manner. The user can move from one article to the next much faster than loading a Web pages.

“As the name suggests, flipping through content is very fast, so you can quickly look through a lot of pages until you find something interesting,” said the Fast Flip engineer Krishna Bharat.

It shows the first page of a story to the user, to read the rest the user clicks the front page and is taken to the site. Users can share content with friends and social networks and there is also a mobile version.

Currently, Fast Flip is an experimental “Google Labs” product. It is accessible at here. Try it out and let me know what you think in the comments below.

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WordPress Cheat Sheet by Ekin Ertac

Josef Nankivell — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:33:22 +0000

If you want more information about developing on WordPress, you can have a look here for a complete list of functions.

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Google Grows

Josef Nankivell — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:08:15 +0000

Google, the internet giant, increased the size of the search box this week.

“Our search box is growing in size,” Google vice president Marissa Mayer said in a blog post. “The new, larger Google search boxfeatures larger text when you type so you can see your query more clearly.”

“Google has always been first and foremost about search, and we’re committed to building and powering the best search on the web — now available through a supersized search box.”

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I Can Has Tweets Plez?

Josef Nankivell — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:34:42 +0000

Yesterday’s change in Twitter’s Terms of service, in which they explicitly state that every user owns their own tweets is cool, but what does it really mean for the user?

The exact wording that Twitter used in its TOS is: Twitter is allowed to “use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute” your tweets because that’s what we do. However, they are your tweets and they belong to you. Ok, but if Twitter can do all that, what’s left? What’s really yours here? Well, there’s one thing you can do.

To my knowledge, Twitter doesn’t promise any kind of back up for your data; this responsibility lies entirely on the user. However, you’re not completely helpless here. There are a couple of services out there that can back up your entire collection of tweets!

We’ve already had a detailed look at Lifestream Backup, a service that works not only with Twitter, but also with Flickr, Photobucket, Google Docs, Wordpress, Delicious, Basecamp, and Zoho. The service isn’t free, though; having your social universe backed up will cost you a monthly fee of $4.95, and you can try it out in a 15 day free trial.

Yesterday, the Twitter Gods edited their Terms of service to declare that tweets belong to the user:

“Twitter is allowed to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute your tweets because that’s what we do. However, they are your tweets and they belong to you.”

Now, you might be thinking if Twitter can “use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute your tweets” – What is left for me? I can think of only one thing – Backup.

Twitter does not provide a service to backup your tweets, however, there are a few kind folks out there that will backup ALL of them for you.

One company called, “Lifestream Backup” will not only backup your tweets from Twitter, but your photos from flickr, your docs form Google Docs and your words from WordPress. A you may have realised by now, this is not free and will cost you about £10 a month.

There is also TweetBackup which, as the name suggests, backs up your tweets (daily). However, it is FREE and doesn’t even want your Twitter password!

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Facebook Lite Launched

Josef Nankivell — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:47:33 +0000

Facebook Lite, a no-fuss, cleaner looking version of Facebook. It removes all of the distractions that Facebook has accumulated over the years, taking it back to the main features – Think Twitter plus extras (even more so since Facebook now uses twitter-like tags).

Although work is still being done you can checkout Facebook Lite at http://lite.facebook.com

Alternatively, have a look at the screenshots below.

Facebook Lite Profile

Facebook Lite Info

Facebook Lite Events

Facebook Lite Inbox

Facebook Lite Settings

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Facebook Releases FriendFeed Code as Open Source

Josef Nankivell — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:01:22 +0000

In his first Facebook blog post today, David Recordon has announced the open sourcing of Tornado, FriendFeed’s real-time web services technology. As described by Recordon, Tornado is a “non-blocking Web server framework written in Python”. In addition to open sourcing many of their other technologies, Facebook is continuing to support the open source movement by providing more libraries for developers.

For those looking to build large scale real-time engines, Tornado will serve as an excellent module to rapidly digest large amounts of data. The technology enables FriendFeed (and now any other real-time service) to process significantly more data. Recordon published the following chart which describes some of the company’s benchmarking statistics:

Tornado benchmarking

If you’ve heard of django then you know what a web development framework is. A development framework is essentially a reusable design for software systems. For web applications, things like page templates, user logins, form submissions, and more are typically part of a web framework. Rather than reprogramming a lot of the basic components, developers can focus on the core code which makes everything run effectively.

What’s interesting about Tornado is that third party authentication is natively supported. This means that users can use their logins from “Google/Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, and FriendFeed” in order to gain access. Considering how recently FriendFeed was acquired by Facebook, you would have to expect that FriendFeed was in the process of open sourcing Tornado.

Now Facebook gets to include Tornado as one of their many open source technologies including Hive, Thrift, and Scribe. There are some interesting modules that many Python developers will find to be useful including s3server which is a basic service for testing out services that will run on Amazon S3. You can check out Bret Taylor’s blog post for more information about Tornado.

It is no longer just the traditional Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP stack that make a site like Facebook or FriendFeed possible, but new infrastructure tools like Tornado, Cassandra, Hive (built on top of Hadoop), memcache, Scribe, Thrift, and others are essential. We believe in releasing generically useful infrastructure components as open source (see Facebook Open Source) as a way to increase innovation across the Web.

For more technical details about Tornado, check out the blog post from Facebook Director of Products, Bret Taylor. If you find this interesting, keep in mind that we’re always looking for exceptional software engineers to join our team.

Yesterday at the Facebook blog, David Recordon announced that Tornado, FriendFeed’s real-time web service platform written in Python is now open source. This is what Recordon has to say about Tornado:

“Real-time updates have become an important aspect of the social Web that make it easier to share with friends. In March, we introduced a real-time News Feed to make the stream as relevant and engaging as possible for users. Similarly, FriendFeed, which we recently acquired, built their entire site to support real-time updates. It hasn’t been easy to build and scale these features, so today we’re open-sourcing a core piece of infrastructure called Tornado, which was originally developed by the FriendFeed team.”

Facebook has made many of its frameworks open source, which of course is very good for developers.

A framework is essentially a re-usable design for software applications. For things like Facebook app, things like page templates, user logins, form submissions, and more are typically part of a web framework. A framework is exposed via an API, that allows developers can focus on the unique application code and not have to worry about coding basic functionality.

A great freature of the Tornado framework is the support for third party authentication, that allows users to authenticate themselves using their Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo and FriendFeed accounts.

If you want to know more about Tornado, read this blog post from Bret Taylor at Facebook. Or if you want to get your hands dirty right away, here is Tornado’s source code and documentation.

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Free and Legal Stream of The Resistance by Muse

Josef Nankivell — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:01:30 +0000

Just click on the following link to listen to Muse’s fifth album, The Resistance:

Free music – The Resistance (we7 listening party)

“I don’t know if it needs to be bigger,” he said. “The main thing is it needs to be different, those are always the conversations we have at the beginning. We don’t always know how it’s gonna be different, but we always want to challenge ourselves and the only way to do this is to try something different. Fans come to expect that of us now – everything we release is a shock.” Chris Wolstenholm

If you haven’t read my review of “The Resistance” yet, you can do so here.

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