Since installing all the jailbroken apps I have stated above, my iPhone boot-up time is slower and there are frequent lags while opening and switching between apps. Maybe, there are conflicts between the apps that I have installed but I never had such kind of performance lag before jailbreaking the phone. Probably, it’s the price that I have to pay for wanting more functionalities on my phone.

I think I am starting to understand why Apple does not allow certain apps to be listed on its store; to make sure that apps don’t clash with each other and most importantly preventing them from bringing down the iPhone performance. After all, great power comes with great responsibility, right?

First, almost 90% of attendee came from Sun Tech Days which means they are Sun staffs/professionals/developers. In fact, MC for the ClouddCamp was also a Sun staff who in my opinion does not have much knowledge on Cloud Computing or organizing Unconferences.  Nothing was stick to schedule, well except for the break when pizza and beer were served.

There was an initial talk from Alex of ClearManage/ClearGrid which is the only cloud hosting provider in Singapore, and he had a good talk (at least to me) about running cloud hosting service on AppLogic (by 3Tera) but I guess the audience were clueless what is AppLogic.

After the talk, MC asked audience to propose topics for unconference and the audience did (key providers, security concern and definition of cloud computing). First 15 mins or so was quite good with audience defining what’s cloud computing and arguing that cloud computing is still an early stage for using inside enterprise and government sector (healthcare and etc). Then the problem started, MC occasionally mentioned (should I say promote?) about his pet project @ Sun (sorry I have forgotten the name, but it’s sort of Sourceforge alike project built on RoR). After that, Sun developers/professional started to ask questions about Sun’s stance on cloud computing and the whole CloudCamp became feedback session for Sun technologies.

MC didn’t break audience into groups (which is the main part of unconference) and we (Alex, several people who knows cloud and me) found it very difficult to share our own knowledge on Cloud Computing and technologies. Things get worst after the beer/pizza break when the whole conversation moved to Sun Ray (which is under-marketed thin-client technology).

I know people who came to CloudCamp especially Sun people no doubt has deep understanding of various technologies (especially those by Sun) but they are totally confused about Cloud Computing (yet never admit that they do).

PS: To my amazement, there were no Wi-Fi  or power outlet available to audience. Camp was cut at around 9.30 (supposed to be 11.30pm according to schedule). I didn’t learn anything about CloudComputing though I did about Sun Ray and several Sun technologies.

Good chance for developers and start-ups to discover and learn about all the cloud computing stuffs.

Cloud Camp Singapore (Register at http://cloudcamp-singapore-09.eventbrite.com/). For LinkedIn user: http://events.linkedin.com/pub/29582

Raffles City Convention Centre
80 Bras Basah Rd
Raffles Ballroom, Level 4
Singapore, Singapore 18
Singapore

Take me as an example, I store my emails on Google App photos on Flickr (I do have backup but not for all photos), management my projects on Basecamp (lots of work related files there), contacts on HighRise and MobileMe, videos on Ustream, Qik and YouTube, social messages on Twitter, BrightKite and even this very blog is on the cloud (GoGrid). Companies behind these services are not going out of business for forseenable time. It’s almost impossible for me to lose my data with them as they do backup here and then but the question is those backups are with them and not me. What if there is no internet connectivity someday (like the major backbones are down for natural or unnatural cause) ? I will probably be cut off from everything, contacts, networks, email and even works.

Most SaaS providers have export function where you can download your data into your machine like POP access for gmail where you can download everything and sync contacts from MobileMe and HighRise. The question is: “Is it enough?”. Probably a big No. E.g. Flickr does not have backup function (unless you want to order a backup DVD and pay for it), Cloud Hosting Providers do not have download server image function (just like in several VM apps where you can export your whole OS image) and limited export function (Basecamp does not have function to backup everything, niether all the video hosting providers).

Conversations on the web has also become critical and even social bookmarking (all my bookmarks are on delicious), and I doubt Twitter and FriendFeeds give a way to backup everything or any other social network? With iPhone, even more content and data are pushed to cloud services with every second.

So I think the time has come for SaaS and Cloud solution providers to focus on the issue of data accesibility to ensure netizens that being in the cloud is save (as long as you backup).

Let say, a big guy like Twitter is facing this kind of attack then how about those start-ups that build their apps around or on Twitter? Vulnerable? No doubt they are and it should not happen to something that almost-considered as a mainstream.

Like last night when I suddenly saw a twit a few mins after the keynote: Steve Jobs is dead. It quite shocked me then I began to google for it then found out that he is still kicking.

Start-ups and corporation alike spend a lot energy on development and things like functionalities but does they test them for security? I guess no. None of the start-ups that I consult ever mention about the world “security” before. They have the app up and running and a developer to fix bug, and think that is enough. With the Twitter attacks, I forsee a lot to be followed on other social networks big or small as well. I think it is time for them to considering getting a security expert (not the developer) to audit the application security especially for those e-commerce start-ups.  Do not think you application is secured till you have it audited because I still see a lot application vulnerable to attacks as simple as SQL injection.

I have love to see the reason for attacks behind Twitter. Is it because of codes? framework language (RoR) ? First Facebook and MySpace, now Twitter and what will be next?

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From what I know, this is totally unethical in the first place and kinda like cheating clients money if you provide ads service to them. Beside that, TOS of many ads provider (Google, Yahoo and etc) prohabit this kind of activity. Not only the Google Account of that user (who run the ads) will be banned but all the domains associate with the account as well.

I just have one comment for this kind of thing: it’s cheating!

Is GoGrid right for me?

First of all, let me say this: Technical knowledge is required to get started with GoGrid. Unlike Media Temple grid service or Mosso Cloud, GoGrid is not sign-up and ready-to-go service. It requires server administration experience (Windows or Linux). So if you can’t bother yourself with command line, compiling and installing server stuffs, you better go get hosting service from Mosso or Media Temple. In the future, it will be good to see GoGrid server images come preinstalled with Plesk or Cpanel.

Budget wise,  GoGrid is neither expensive or cheap but I would say affordable if you choose the pre-paid plan option. Every GoGrid account comes with 10GB free cloud storage which is still useless for the time being for not having API or CDN (Content Delivery Network) support.

GoGrid vs the rest

Although GoGrid compares itself with Amazon EC2, I don’t think there is a need for comparison. Amazon EC2 is like geek level cloud service which requires a lot of technical expertise while GoGrid is like amateur-level and of course Mosso is the novice level with main intention of reselling hosting. Your existing application will be working without any problem on GoGrid and Mosso while tweaks are needed to be hosted on EC2. There is still one more uber-geek level cloud hosting environment called 3Tera but I am not going into that today, maybe perhaps another post for that.

Every GoGrid Cloud comes with storage (min 30GB) and free inbound data transfer (your uploads traffic to server is free) , generous amount of standard IP addresses and of course the crown jewel of the GoGrid, Free F5 Load Balancing. My only complaint is limited choice of server images and lack of proper compilation of preinstalled software. E.g. PHP in LAMP image is compiled without MySQL support.

Support wise, GoGrid technical support is a bit confusing and takes relatively long sometimes to response. They do not seem to have 24/7 support (although the website stated 24/7 support but I always have to wait around 5-7 hours) which is a bit problematic for customers from other timezones like me. Yet, their support personnel know what they are doing and have sound technical expertise. Even better, if you have any problem, just shout it out lound on Twitter and Michael will do his best in solving or at least assisting with the problem. Beside support, Wiki is still building up and need long way to go (Dreamhost Wiki is the best support Wiki ever!) and froum is kinda dead.

To make it short, manging a GoGrid cloud is like managing a unmanaged dedicated server. You have fully control of the server and of course its problem as well.

In my next article, I will write walkthrough guide for setting up LAMP and RoR cloud with GoGrid.

Here’s a new release of $10 TLD called .TEL  (you can start registering in around March) which you can’t host it on your own server. Yes, it may sounds crazy but that’s the fact. Regardless of domain register that you bought the domain, it will be hosted by a company called Telnic and only your name, contact information, location (GoogleMap link) and a URL to your website. Yes, that’s it without any images or logo of your company and with a fixed template provided by mighty Telnic. What a f* up idea, isn’t it?

FYI: You can check out demo of how your .tel site will look like here and here .

Most of the new TLDs introduced by ICANN are just failure (except maybe .mobi) and they are going to allow companies (with trademarks) to register their own TLD (and I suppose with their own policies). 

Nobody in this world cares about any other TLDs except .com/net/org/gov/edu. Instead of expanding the lists of TLDs, they should set stricter rules and regulations for registration and management (like the restriction they have for .gov and .edu). Lots of people out there own several domains (several mean from 10 - 10,000 domains) without actually utilizing most of them (90% are just under parking-page). I myself own several dozens domain (not as a mean for investment but to protect some of my ideal name). 

ICANN seriously needs to revamp their stands on domain names as well as their policies. Instead of creating new TLDs, do a spring-cleaning of domains that are not in used or just kept for investment purposes.

It started out to compete directly with Twitter, but failed to do so and just bought over by Six Apart (a company that played around with OpenSource) for unknown sum (I have checked for every sources on Twitter and blogs and still no clue on it).

Pownce has not done very bad job, they started the rise of Adobe AIR’s application by developing desktop version of Pownce using AIR. Apart from that, everything else has failed - in terms of userbase (not much people know what the hell is Pownce although they do know Twitter) and service performance (Twitter suffers several performance issues cos their userbase is HUGE but Pownce suffers as well although they have very limited userbase and their storage is outsourced to Amazon’s S3).

For me, although there were and still are many micro-blogging services out there, I still prefer Twitter.