Martin Gordon's Blog

Apple WWDC Banner Revealed

Originally uploaded by Martin Gordon.

Someone was able to sneak into the Moscone Center and snap a photo of a banner they were putting up. I've gone through and added notes for most of the icons (check out the image's Flickr page), but there were a couple that I was unable to identify. This is also the first glimpse we get of the Leopard "X" design. It's hard to tell whether its the image itself or not, but it looks to be darker than the Tiger "X".

The keynote kicks off the conference on Monday morning, so we should know what Apple's been up to soon enough.

Technorati Tags: Apple, WWDC, Worldwide Developer's Conference, Leopard, Mac OS X, Mac, rumors, icons

Flickr is down. According to FlickrBlog:

We've had a temporary storage failure affecting a sizable chunk of old Flickr photos and are moving about 20 terabytes of photos across a few thousand miles (between two of our data centers) to ensure consistency and smoothness. ALL PHOTOS AND DATA ARE SAFE AND NOTHING HAS BEEN LOST.

Even though nothing was lost, this event does bring up a serious issue now that a lot of people are keeping the bulk of their lives online instead of on their local machines. Giving in to a false sense of security, I'd venture to say that a large majority of people are even more lax about a backup strategy than they were when most of their stuff was kept locally. The ease of starting up a website is a double-edged sword; it's a by-product of the fact that most websites are hosted on commodity hardware – largely the same stuff that sits on your desktop.

The only difference is that you aren't in control of the backup strategy. Flickr may have a great backup strategy or they may have gotten lucky. We don't know and we probably won't. But hopefully this little incident will push people to order DVDs of their Flickr photos or download their GMail to POP or even to create utilities that'll get your data back in your control.

Now that we're practically placing our lives in the hands of others, we just need to decide just how much actually trust that those hands won't drop us.

Technorati Tags: Flickr, Web 2.0, backup, data, information, storage, failure

Background
Just about 50 days ago, on May 30, on a whim I started a blog dedicated to the Dave Matthews Band titled The Blog That Jane Likes. This series of entries deals with some of the things I've learned after running the blog for a mere 50 days.

While there are strong communities centered around several message boards, there really are no real DMB blogs out there. In addition, most one-shot audio recordings (as opposed to full-length lossless recordings) are shared via yousendit and other ad-supported downloading sites. Since these sites are bandwidth or download-limited, most popular files need to be re-posted ad infinitum. It's a huge pain and a rather unreliable form of file propagation. With over 1TB/month of bandwidth and 25GB of storage to spare, I set out with the goal of making BTJL the place to download songs from the current tour.

The site has been a huge success, exceeding all my expectations. In the month of June, I've had 397 thousand requests to the site; July has had 150 thousand so far. I served 316 GB of data in June and 149 GB in July. All of this has been at zero incremental cost aside from the $7 domain registration.

I've made more from AdSense in the first few days from BTJL than I have in the year and half I've run this blog. Granted, I've peppered that site a bit more with ads than this one, which only had one ad until the latest redesign where it now has zero. While there's no way I could live off of the AdSense revenues, they will most likely cover my hosting costs for the year, which is good enough for me. I'm doing the site more for the fun of it than for any monetary reward.

Without incurring any costs, I had little to lose on a failed BTJL. Though I was in a bit of a unique situation with pre-existing hosting, there are plenty of free options (Wordpress.com and Blogger, for instance) for anyone who wants to start a blog. I don't know what those sites' policies on placing AdSense is, but I'm sure you can get away with Amazon referrals and the like.

Even if you do have to spend a bit, how's this for an idea: do it for fun and compare the cost to the price of a movie ticket, sporting event, video game, etc. Which one do you think will come out ahead? Talk is cheap, do it.

Technorati Tags: blogs, blogging, niche blogging, niche, Blog That Jane Likes, adsense, amateur, talk, tips, lessons

Digg 3.0 was released to the world today with a bunch of new features detailed all over the 'Net, the most important of which are the five new categories now featured. They are tagged "beta", as is par for the course, and encompass Science, World & Business, Videos, Entertainment and Gaming. Note that you must be a registered member in order to try out the new categories. The tag cloud is also a new feature that weighs stories based on their popularity. I haven't spent much time in either Digg v2 or Digg v3, so I'll the real in-depth reviews to those more qualified.

What's more interesting is the war being waged between Digg and the new Netscape home page. Kevin Rose fired the first shot by saying that Netscape should have waited until this week to copy Digg's features and now Jason Calcanis fires back about the number of ads on the new version of Digg. My first visit to Netscape's site (just a few minutes ago) greeted me with the (non-anchored) headline, "Digg 3.0 Disappoints". My only hope is that the two communities not use the sites as the battleground and stick to the sites' real purpose.

Digg has first-mover advantage but Netscape has AOL's relatively infinite purse to back it up if times get rough. Like I said, I'm not invested enough in Digg and the two sites are similar enough that I don't really care which way it goes. In the end, it's the users who benefit. Competition is always healthy.

Technorati Tags: Digg, Netscape, social news, news, competition, Web 2.0

Now that my iMac can boot Windows and I'm spending more time in general away from my computer, I'm looking for ways to synchronize my data across OSes. The easiest way, I've realized is to do everything on the web.

I've taken the first step today by deactivating POP access for GMail in Mail.app. That way I can manage all my GMail email online. If Google decides to offer IMAP sometime, I'll turn it back on. Until then, I need my email to be the same everywhere and that place is online. My school email is IMAP/Exchange, so there's not much of a synchronization issue with that, except that Mail.app's IMAP isn't too good and the school only gives us 50 MB of storage. Exchange Webmail is as good as Outlook if you're using IE, but in anything non-IE (e.g., any Mac browser) it reverts to an old version of Outlook Web Access which is terrible. Once I can spend a bit more time with Parallels, I can decide if running it 24/7 for just Outlook is worth it. If it's not worth it, I don't know what to do. Is there any way to push 3rd party email accounts through the GMail interface?

I was never a big fan of iCal and the lack of Exchange over HTTP on the Mac kept me from using Wharton's Exchange calendar, so I haven't really used an electronic calendar. Instead, I've been resorting to text files and post-its. Until Google Calendar showed up. Google Calendar has everything I need in a calendar (save Tasks), and with text messages to/from GVENT and RSS feeds, I can access my calendar away from the computer or offline.

I am still in search of a decent online RSS reader as I have yet to find something that can replace NetNewsWire. I like having a desktop client because I can read feeds offline if I have no connectivity. There is always NewsGator's multiplatform syncing solution, but I'd rather save myself the $50-$80 ($30 each for a Mac client, Windows client and $20 for the online reader) if there's a free solution available. My main requirement if I do decide to stick with NetNewsWire is that any online reader has to be able to do status syncing. I don't want to have to go through 100+ posts deciding what I've read and haven't read. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if I can find an online reader that is fast and fits my workflow (is that readflow?).

I listen to a relatively small number of podcasts and I'm so far behind that I don't need a cross-OS sycning solution. I'm backed up enough that I always have something fresh to listen to on my iPod even with only syncing once every few days. I haven't had a chance to set up iTunes in Windows yet, but I think with MacDrive I'll be able to share libraries between OS X and Windows without a hitch.

My other main concert with "going online" is that I won't have access to anything if I'm without an internet connection. There were many a time where I would be on-the-go with my Powerbook and still have my RSS feeds to read. I have no idea how good my internet connection will be in the new apartment, but if it's spotty then I'll be in trouble. Another issue is backup. Can I really trust Google and Mr. Online RSS Reader to hold my data for as long as I want it? What are my backup options for GMail/GCal, etc?

Technorati Tags: online, RSS, GMail, GCal, Google, Google Calendar, OS X, dual boot, Windows XP, Google OS, NetNewsWire, Exchange, synchronization, sync

The University of California, Berkeley has posted recordings of some classes on iTunes. This is a great step towards Education 2.0 (.edu + Web 2.0). Students don't have to be in the same physical room as the professor to hear the lecture anymore. Heck, the student doesn't have to be go to the same school.

Critics may complain that podcasting lectures will completely destroy class attendance. I disagree. There is definitely something about being able to see lecture slides and be able to ask questions on-the-fly and have discussions with the professor and other students. But imagine being able to learn twice as much by being able to fill in downtime with recorded lectures (see the jar of rocks metaphor).

This is only the beginning. What I see a few years down the line are many-to-many podcasts much like the way blogs work now. The professor puts out (or it happens automatically via classroom technologies) the day's lecture. Slides are timecoded so as automatically follow the audio. Students post audio comments, listenable by everyone else. Each student has their own feed for each class they're enrolled in. If I like a particular student's comments, I can subscribe to his/her feed and have their questions/comments brought to my attention. I can hear what he has to say in other classes. I can respond to them even if I'm not in that other class. I can respond on my own time.

There's no need for everyone to get together in the same room at the same time to have class. Class can happen on your time.

Technorati Tags: UC Berkeley, Berkeley, iTunes, iTunes U, education, podcast, lectures, audio, education 2.0, college, university, school, Web 2.0

Rumors has it that Facebook is on the block and looking to get $2B.

I just heard a Knowledge@Wharton podcast by my former professor and Supernova founder, Kevin Werbach, entitled, "What Makes An Online Community Tick?" featuring Craig Newmark of Craig's List, Julie Herendeen of Yahoo, and Bill Flitter of Pheedo.

Scoble and others are raving about Second Life. They're going as far as claiming its an OS.

Social networks are on everyone's minds these days. Can they last? I'm not too sure.

Amazon believes it had a sound business model. They make money by selling stuff. If people can find things more easily they are more likely to make a purchase. So Amazon released an API. Take the load off the company's shoulders and let others make Amazon better.

Google: same thing. AdWords is a solid business model. It helps everyone make money! Advertisers don't waste ads on people they can't reach; Google takes a bit off the top. All this is funded by people buying things from the ads they see. AdWords has an API. It's in advertisers' best interests for AdWords to be as good as possible. "Fine, do it yourself", says Google. Google provides an excellent service, and advertisers make it even better for themselves. Most of the products Google puts out has an API. They say, "we don't need you to come to our site to make money, we do just fine on other people's sites."

MMORPGs are a different kind of social network. They have some bonus activity attached that only makes the network stronger. Blizzard/Linden can and do charge for this value-added. They also allow scripting of the game. They let others make their software better, driving more people to pay for the service.

What about Facebook and MySpace? They have no APIs. The "software" is closed off to tinkerers for fear that an API could do away with the need to visit the site and feast our eyes upon lovely banner and click-thru ads. Pretty much anything I could imagine wanting from a Facebook API would bring me alternate ways of getting information available on the site, ways that are far away from ads. Tom Carden's brainstorm of uses for a MySpace API mostly deal with getting data off of the network in a different way. He wants podcasts, RSS feeds, etc, just like I do. And I'm sure many others do also.

So will a lack of an API drive Facebook and MySpace into the ground? Probably not. MySpace is already owned by News Corp and Facebook will get bought out any day now. But the lack of an API does signal that these networks are scared and that their revenue models may be a bit flimsy.

Technorati Tags: MySpace, Facebook, social network, Wharton, Knowledge@Wharton, Kevin Werbach, Supernova, podcast, Craig's List, Yahoo, Pheedo, WoW, World of Warcraft, Second Life, API, programming, development, web services, Amazon, Google

I just started watching Scrubs, and after realizing I have ~50 episodes left to watch before I'm all caught up, I came to the conclusion that I consume too much media.

TV

• American Dad (22 min)
• Desperate Housewives (42 min)
• Drawn Together (22 min)
• Family Guy (22 min)
• Reunion (Cancelled) (42 min)
• Scrubs (22 min)
• South Park (22 min)
• The OC (42 min)

On a week when all shows are on, this takes up: ~4 hours/week

This is a bit of an overestimate because not every show is on every week (especially over the holiday season), however, it doesn't take into account the time spent acquiring the shows (maybe another 15 minutes a week).

Podcasts

• Daily Source Code (4×50 min)
• Coverville (2×40 min)
• Squadcast (1×50 min)
• This Week In Tech (1×65 min)
• A few others not updated too frequently (~30 min)

Total time: 7.25 hours/week

Podcasts take a long time to listen to because a lot times I have to really pay attention or else it becomes background noise. I've had to unsubscribe from IT Conversations because I fell so far behind, there was no way I would ever catch up. It's a shame, because the shows I did have time to listen to, I really enjoyed.

Blogs

I've got 51 feeds in my feed reader that are updated at varying frequencies. I figure that even at 10 minutes per feed per week, I'm looking at 8.33 hours weekly. This does not include the sites I read that don't have feeds, or links that I follow from the feeds in my reader.

All things considered, this adds up to almost 20 hours a week that I spent not doing homework, reading for class, socializing or doing something that doesn't involve sitting in front of a computer. Somehow I need to trim some of my consumption, but its not going to be easy giving up the things I've grown attached to over time.

Any suggestions on how to cut down? What's your weekly media consumption look like?

Technorati Tags: consumption, blogs, podcasts, media, overload, information, lifehacks, television, time, American Dad, Family Guy, Desperate Housewives, The OC, South Park, Drawn Together, Scrubs, Reunion, Daily Source Code, DSC, Coverville, Squadcast, This Week In Tech, TWIT