Archives for the month of: February, 2009

Bespin: A Cloud Based HTML Editor Even Lando Would Use.

February 28, 09 //
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bespinlogoOk, so I apologize for the uber-geek star wars reference in the title… but, i couldn’t pass it up… And for those of you who aren’t Star Wars geeks, Bespin is the name of the Cloud City from Star Wars Episode 5.

Bespin is an experimental online Code Editor by Mozilla Labs. 

I had a chance to login and check out the service for a few minutes today and it has some promise.  Even though this is just a technology preview and not a full production tool, it has some interesting capabilities.

Working with a few of the sample files included in the preview, it has many of the standard features you would find on a basic code editor… code highlighting, code repository, view files in a browser, etc.

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Newspapers: It’s not the Format, It’s the Experience.

February 27, 09 //
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NewsPapers

For years now, the publishing industry has been having problems.  From Magazines to Newspapers, readers are leaving in droves to the web.

So, what is the obsession with having an newspaper delivered to your door every morning?  Why does it matter if the same content is delivered via email, on a phone, or on a browser?  Why are so many people so upset about having their local newspaper shut down? 

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Unbelievable Picture of the Inaguration

February 26, 09 //
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This may be old news, but it’s a great example of how technology is moving forward.

It’s a picture of the President Barack Obama’s inaguration.  What makes it unique is that it’s an extremely EXTREMELY high resolution picture, which allows you to zoom in to the entire picture. 

What I find most fascinating is looking into the crowd at some of the people’s expressions and faces.  They have no idea they’re being watched. 

The picture first provides you with a panoramic shot of the inaguration and it’s attendees.  Then, the controls on the left – similar to Google Map’s controls – allow you to zoom in, out and pan in all directions. 

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Which Came First, the Science or the Logo?

February 11, 09 //
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New Pepsi LogoAs some of you may have noticed, Pepsi recently redesigned their logo with a fresh new twist on their old design. 

Now, this may not be something most people would comment about, but a recently leaked document on the design process, attributed to the Arnell Group, shows the process behind the remaking of this iconic brand identity.

If you’re into design or branding, I recommend you take a look at this pdf.

Here’s a small excerpt from this document: (more…)

An API With a Social Conscious

February 4, 09 //
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KivaEarlier this month I wrote about a new type of lending and investing service called “Micro Finance” which enables anyone to make a small investment and help end poverty.  The blog post I wrote about was an eBay organization called MicroPlace. 

Today, a similar service called Kiva.org released an interesting API that allows outside developers to connect to their database and build applications around their data.

Web Services and API’s are nothing new… companies like Google, Amazon, and eBay have been integrating them into their services for years.  However, this is the first time I’ve seen a non-profit organization open up their data for outside developers.

Here’s a few examples of the types of data available through this service: (more…)

Google Bans the Internet… Give that Man a Raise!

February 3, 09 //
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We’ve all been there before… accidentally hit the “reply-all” at an innappropriate time, do the time zone conversion wrong and don’t show up for the big meeting, forget to do a 3rd spell check before an email newsletter gets blasted out to 2 million subscribers.

Most of the time, these types of mistakes are either brushed off or overlooked because, hey… they happen.

Simple Global Error

However, as you may have heard this weekend… a simple mistake by a Google employee essentially banned the entire internet for about an hour. 

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