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Online advertising moving to.... your car?

2009-11-10T17:38:00.000-05:00

Another one of mine on the work blog -

Online advertising moving to.... your car?: "

With the release of Android 2.0 on the Motorola Droid, the Google Maps for Mobile application brings turn by turn GPS navigation (with voice) to your car. A great feature by far, it actually made Garmin and TomTom's stocks tank, but what does it mean for the future?

Currently adwords is all over the web; on pages, in your mail, on maps. Now picture this possibility and keep in mind this is all hypothetical: You are using Navigator to get you to the local movie theater and it randomly chimes in with 'You are about to pass Joe's Pizza!' This could be good and bad. Good because you might be able to set the navigator to find restaurants you've never tried and didn't know were there. Bad because it could get annoying. Good because it would open up a whole new form of advertising for small businesses.

Either way, just something to think about, times are changing with all the technology we now carry around in our pockets.

A demo of navigator in action:

Google’s Christmas gift to America is free Wi-Fi at airports starting today (reblog)

2009-11-10T16:03:00.000-05:00

Google’s Christmas gift to America is free Wi-Fi at airports starting today: "

Those that hate Google but travel frequently might feel a bit conflicted over the next couple of months because of Google’s holiday gift to America. Starting today and ending on January 15th, Google will be offering up free, no strings attached Wi-Fi at 47 airports while Virgin American flyers will be getting free in-flight Wi-Fi as of the 18th. The In addition to this, Google has set up a way for travelers at each airport to donate to charities Engineers Without Borders, the One Economy Corporation and Climate Savers Computing Initiative. Google will match each airports donations up to $250,000 and will also give the most generous airport $15,000 for the charity of its choosing.

Read

Google Wave as a Project Collaboration Tool

2009-10-29T13:21:00.001-04:00

I'm a'bloggin on the company blog! (Alexander Interactive) Google Wave as a Project Collaboration Tool: "

If you aren't already familiar with Google Wave, check out some basic info, and a very in-depth video here. Wave is a new project from Google that reinvents email communication. Forget everything you know about email, it was invented back in the 70's, things have changed; technology is faster, we have cloud computing, web apps look fancier, and for a while, a large portion of email users are moving (back) to web based clients.

Email is the current method of communication and collaboration when working on a project. You usually have a folder for that project in Outlook, some rules to filter project related messages into that folder, and an email chain for each issue. People reply to messages inside that chain somewhere, the thread gets continued, people get added to the thread, people drop off. You don't know where you are in the chain when you check in a few hours later, and you get bombarded by... STOP!

Wave is very early in its adoption, it's invite only, but it has the strong potential to fix a lot of these problems. It can clean up a lot of the clutter of project communication and throw it on the cloud so you can get to it anywhere. Wave does need some more security built in for the corporate settings, but that is in the pipeline. Right now waves can only be private or public, but once inside a private wave, that user can invite anyone.

Some notes on how Wave can help a project:

Each Project would get its own folder in wave

Anyone working on the project would have access to this folder

Every issue or conversation would get its own wave and everyone who needs to be involved in the issue is added to the wave.

At this point every project related message is confined to the projects folder. No Outlook rules or message dragging will ever be needed. If a new person needs to be involved in the discussion, they are just added to the wave, no forwarding or reply-all.

The conversation can continue similar to email, with individual replies, but it can be so much more. In line replies with related topics can appear right with the original topic, not hidden down 6 replies in an email chain

You can show only new replies on the wave and get caught back up in the discussion quickly

You can do a playback of all or part of the discussion and see who chimed in and when

Need to share documents? You will eventually be able to drag them right out of your file system into the browser and into the wave. (This is currently only supported for pictures)

As I said, Wave is very early in its adoption, but after more people join, and more developer plugins come out, I think it will be a very valuable tool both in the workplace and at home.

Use Google Voice with your existing number

2009-10-27T10:17:00.004-04:00

WOOHOO!!!! It's working on my verizon blackberry!

"Up until now, if you wanted to use Google Voice, you needed to choose a new number (a "Google number"). Taking calls through your Google number allows us to offer features like call recording, call screening and getting text messages via email. But we know not everyone wants to switch to a new phone number, so it made sense for us to create a lighter version of Google Voice for people who are willing to trade some features for the ability to use their existing numbers.

We're excited to announce that you now have the choice to get Google Voice with your existing mobile number OR with a Google number.

If you sign up using your existing number, you'll still get many of Google Voice's features. Most notably, you'll get all the functionality of Google voicemail, as explained in this video:

If you already have a Google Voice account, you can add Google voicemail to any mobile phone you've linked to your account. If you're not yet using Google Voice, you can request an invite or ask a friend with a Google Voice account to send you an invitation. When you receive the invitation to sign up, you can choose to use Google Voice with your existing number — or to get a Google number for additional features.

Google Voice is about giving you more control over your communications. We hope this new option makes it easier for you to manage your messages and personalize your voicemail experience."

Google Wave checker for firefox

2009-10-14T16:12:00.001-04:00

I'm liking google wave so far (not loving yet, but there aren't that many people on it yet), but one of the annoying things was actually having to be in the app to see if I have new waves. Firefox plugin, problem solved!

Firefox Keyboard and Mouse Shortcuts

2009-10-05T11:06:00.000-04:00

Here is a list of Firefox keyboard and mouse shortcuts for each of the three major operating systems organized by topic.

Checking if a remote file exists in python

2009-09-30T15:51:00.000-04:00

Normally, to check if a remote web file exists I would use urllib's getcode() but that is a 2.6 and newer feature. In Python 2.5 its a little more interesting. Thankfully, wget's spider command can help us out.

from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
def url_exists(url):
    command = ["wget", "-S", "--spider", url]
    p = Popen(command, stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE)
    stdout, stderr = p.communicate()
    exists = stderr.find('ERROR 404')
    if int(exists) > -1:
        return False
    else:
        return True

Twitter get phone calls, Facebook gets voice chat

2009-09-18T15:40:00.000-04:00

Twitter users on Thursday will, for the first time, be able to make voice calls directly to each other through the microblogging service.

Look out, Facebook users: Here comes voice chat.

Sometime in the next few weeks, the social network's tens of millions of users will begin to be able to have high-quality voice conversations, even as its third-party developers are able to start including voice in their applications.

Fight Gone Bad IV

2009-09-10T15:18:00.001-04:00

Anyone want to help me out by donating?

Fight Gone Bad IV: "

On Sept 26th I am competing in Fight Gone Bad IV to raise money for Wounded Warriors and Athletes for a cure. Fight gone bad is a CrossFit workout scored by the number of reps.

Description from the CrossFit website

4.3. Explain Fight Gone Bad

In this workout you move from each of five stations after a minute. This is a five-minute round from which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. We’ve used this in 3 and 5 round versions. The stations are:

Wall-ball: 20 pound ball, 10 ft target. (Reps)
Sumo deadlift high-pull: 75 pounds (Reps)
Box Jump: 20″ box (Reps)
Push-press: 75 pounds (Reps)
Row: calories (Calories)

The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. On call of “rotate,” the athlete/s must move to next station immediately for good score. One point is given for each rep, except on the rower where each calorie is one point.

If you can, please donate to help me support these initiatives

Location, Location, Location

2009-08-29T14:39:00.000-04:00

This will be pretty cool when it comes out

Location, Location, Location: "Twitter platform developers have been doing innovative work with location for some time despite having access to only a rudimentary level of API support. Most of the location-based projects we see are built using the simple, account-level location field folks can fill out as part of their profile. Since anything can be written in this field, it's interesting but not very dependable.

We're gearing up to launch a new feature which makes Twitter truly location-aware. A new API will allow developers to add latitude and longitude to any tweet. Folks will need to activate this new feature by choice because it will be off by default and the exact location data won't be stored for an extended period of time. However, if people do opt-in to sharing location on a tweet-by-tweet basis, compelling context will be added to each burst of information.

For example, with accurate, tweet-level location data you could switch from reading the tweets of accounts you follow to reading tweets from anyone in your neighborhood or city—whether you follow them or not. It's easy to imagine how this might be interesting at an event like a concert or even something more dramatic like an earthquake. There will likely be many use cases we haven't even thought of yet which is part of what makes this so exciting.

Developer Preview

We're going to release geolocation to platform developers before we add the feature to Twitter.com. Most of the mobile applications people use and love are built by Twitter platform developers. Developers will have access to this new geolocation feature early which means it will most likely be available on your app of choice before it's available on Twitter's web site. Later, we'll add it to our mobile web site and Twitter.com as well.

We're very excited about the potential of location metadata combined with Twitter. Our platform team has been on a roll lately. Geolocation lead @rsarver is particularly enthusiastic about location given his personal interest and involvement in events such as WhereCamp and his career history with location-aware services.

Tech Support Cheat Sheet

2009-08-24T14:32:00.000-04:00

Tech Support Cheat Sheet: ""

Send To Tumblr And Track With Bitly Google Reader Custom Link

2009-08-14T09:43:00.001-04:00

Testing the "send to blogger" button... Send To Tumblr And Track With Bitly Google Reader Custom Link: "

Google Reader just launched a “Send to Twitter” feature that allows you to share bit.ly links to interesting items in your reader with your Twitter friends. First, awesome!

Second, Google Reader has been getting lots of product development attention lately, and with all the awesome stuff they are adding, I spend all of my time there as opposed to twitter.com/home, facebook.com/home, or Tumblr Dashboard. One thing I miss about Tumblr dashboard was easy reblogging.

How to Create Custom Send To Links in Google Reader

There is a “Send to Tumblr” link as one of the defaults, but it doesn’t use bit.ly urls. So, I hacked together a custom “Send to Tumblr” link.

URL: http://tumblr.com/share?v=2&u=&t=Send To Tumblr And Track With Bitly Google Reader Custom Link&s=Send To Tumblr And Track With Bitly Google Reader Custom Link%0Avia%20kortina

Icon URL: http://assets.tumblr.com/images/favicon.gif?2

Custom Send to Tumblr with Bitly Link from Google Reader Link

Possibly related posts:

Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy by Moving to Remote Village

2009-08-13T17:20:00.000-04:00

Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village

The author of the Windows file copy dialog visits some friends

2009-07-20T09:40:00.000-04:00

Android hacked to run on x86

2009-07-15T10:51:00.000-04:00

I foresee this being my weekend project http://androidcommunity.com/android-hacked-to-run-on-x86-20090714/

Wordpress Plugin: Displaying your Google Reader RSS subscriptions

2009-06-02T11:07:00.005-04:00

I've been meaning to write this code for a while, and I really wanted to take a stab at writing a wordpress plugin so here it goes.

The following takes in Google user credentials, and allows the user to display what RSS feeds they subscribe to on their wordpress blog

Example: The RSS that I read
Update: This plugin is now hosted by wordpress. click here


/*
Plugin Name: Google Reader Subscription List
Version: 1
Author: Timothy Broder
Description: Lists a users subscribed Google Reader feeds
*/

/*  Copyright 2009  Timothy Broder (email : timothy.broder@gmail.com)

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
    (at your option) any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
    Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301  USA
*/


if (!class_exists('GoogleReaderSubList')) { 
 class GoogleReaderSubList {
  
  var $show_list       = 'show-google-reader-sub-list';  //the hook in a page
  var $login          = '';
  var $pass          = '';
  var $source         = 'wordpress-google-reader-sub-list-';  //the source the api sees when logging into Google
  var $service         = 'reader';   
  var $login_url        = 'https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLoginAuth?service=mail'; //URL to login to google
  var $subscription_list_url  = 'http://www.google.com/reader/api/0/subscription/list'; //URL that holds a users subscriptions
  
  function GoogleReaderSubList() {
   $options    = $this->get_admin_options();
   $this->login  = $options['google_login'];
   $this->pass  = $options['google_pass'];

   $this->source = $this->source . $this->login;
  }
    
  function show_sub_list() {
   $stop = false;
   if ($this->login == '' || $this->login == null) {
    echo 'Google login not set
';
    $stop = true;
   }
   if ($this->pass == '' || $this->pass == null) {
    echo 'Google password not set
';
    $stop = true;
   }
   
   //check to see if the zend plugin has been installed and activated
   //http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/zend-framework/
   if (!(defined('WP_ZEND_FRAMEWORK') && WP_ZEND_FRAMEWORK)) {
    echo 'The Zend Framework Plugin is not active.  Please install and activate it.';
    $stop = true;
   }
   if ($stop) {
    return;
   }
      
   $client = new Zend_Http_Client($this->login_url);
   
   //connect, authenticate, and handshake with Google
   $client->setCookieJar()
    ->setMethod(Zend_Http_Client::POST)
    ->setParameterPost(array(
     'continue'             => $this->subscription_list_url,
     'service'              => 'reader',
     'niu'                  => 1,
     'hl'                   => 'en',
     'Email'              => $this->login,
     'Passwd'               => $this->pass,
     'PersistentCookie'     => 'yes',
     'asts'                 => ''
    ));
    

   //$error_level = error_reporting();
   //error_reporting(1);
   $response = $client->request('POST');
   $client->setUri($this->subscription_list_url)->setMethod(Zend_Http_Client::GET);
   $response = $client->request()->getBody();
   
   if ($client->request()->getStatus() == 400) {
    ?>Unable to login with supplied Google login/passwordlist->object as $e) {
    $url = $e->string[0]; 
    $title = $e->string[1];
    $cat = $e->list->object->string[1];
    
    //make sure a feed is filed somewhere
    if ($cat == '') {
     $cat = 'unfiled';
    }
    $t = $hashmap["$cat"];

    //a category hasn't been used before
    if ($t == null) {
     $t = array($e);
     $hashmap["$cat"] = $t;
    }
    //category has been used before
    else {
     array_push($t, $e);
     $hashmap["$cat"] = $t;
    }
   }

   //sort the categories
   ksort($hashmap);

   //output
   ?>
   Tags: 
    $t) {
     echo "$cat";
     if ($cat != $endKey) {
      echo ', ';
     }
    }
    ?>
   
$t) {
    echo "";
    echo "$cat
";    
    foreach ($t as $e) {
     list($feed, $url) = split('feed/', $e->string[0]); 
     $title = $e->string[1];
    
     echo "$title
";
     
    }
    echo '
';
   }
  }
  
  function addContent($content) { 
   // Only do this if this is a page and it has the appropriate custom field
   if (is_page()) {
    $cust_field_values = get_post_custom_values($this->show_list);
    if ($cust_field_values != NULL) {
     if (defined('WP_ZEND_FRAMEWORK') && WP_ZEND_FRAMEWORK) {
      require_once 'Zend/Loader.php';
      Zend_Loader::loadClass('Zend_Http_Client');
     }
     $content = $this->show_sub_list();
    }
   }
   return $content;
  }
  
  function init() {
   $this->get_admin_options();
  }  
  
  function get_admin_options() {
   $admin_options = array('google_login' => '', 
    'google_pass' => '',
    'use_accordion' => 'true');
   $options = get_option($this->adminOptionName);
   if (!empty($options)) {
    foreach ($options as $key => $option) {
     $admin_options[$key] = $option;
    }
   }
   update_option($this->admin_optionsName, $admin_options);
   return $admin_options;
  }
  
  function printAdminPage() {
   $options = $this->get_admin_options();
   
   if (isset($_POST['update_greader_sub_list_settings'])) {
    if (isset($_POST['greader_sub_list_login'])) {
     $options['google_login'] = $_POST['greader_sub_list_login'];
    }
    if (isset($_POST['greader_sub_list_pass'])) {
     $options['google_pass'] = $_POST['greader_sub_list_pass'];
    }
    
    update_option($this->admin_optionsName, $options);
    echo '' .  _e('Settings Updated.', 'GoogleReaderSubList'). '';
    
   }
   //$submit = _e('Update Settings', 'GoogleReaderSubList');
   
   echo "         Google Reader Subscription List
     Google Login
     
     Google Password
     
           
     
    
   ";
  }
 }
}

if (class_exists('GoogleReaderSubList')) { 
 $greader_sub_list = new GoogleReaderSubList();
}

if (!function_exists('greader_sub_list_ap')) {
 function greader_sub_list_ap() {
  global $greader_sub_list;
  if (!isset($greader_sub_list)) {
   return;
  }
  if (function_exists('add_options_page')) {
   add_options_page('gReader Subscriptions', 'gReader Subscriptions', 9, basename(__FILE__), array(&$greader_sub_list, 'printAdminPage'));
  }
 } 
}

if (isset($greader_sub_list)) {
 add_action('admin_menu', 'greader_sub_list_ap');
 add_action('activate_google-raeder-list/google-reader-list.php', array(&$greader_sub_list, 'init')); 
 add_filter('the_content', array(&$greader_sub_list, 'addContent'), '7');
}

Quick Google Authentication in PHP

2009-06-02T11:02:00.002-04:00

Here is a quick way to authenticate against Google and retrieve a protected feed. It does not use the supported ClientLogin method but it does allow you to get to some unsupported feeds (Reader, Bookmarks, etc) The Zend Gdata library is required

$show_list       = 'show-google-reader-sub-list';  //the hook in a page
$login          = '';
$pass          = '';
$source         = 'wordpress-google-reader-sub-list-';  //the source the api sees when logging into Google
$service         = 'reader';  
$login_url        = 'https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLoginAuth?service=mail'; //URL to login to google
$subscription_list_url  = 'http://www.google.com/reader/api/0/subscription/list'; //URL that holds a users subscriptions

 
$client = new Zend_Http_Client($login_url);

//connect, authenticate, and handshake with Google
$client->setCookieJar()
->setMethod(Zend_Http_Client::POST)
->setParameterPost(array(
 'continue'             => $subscription_list_url,
 'service'              => 'reader',
 'niu'                  => 1,
 'hl'                   => 'en',
 'Email'              => $login,
 'Passwd'               => $pass,
 'PersistentCookie'     => 'yes',
 'asts'                 => ''
));


$response = $client->request('POST');
$client->setUri($subscription_list_url)->setMethod(Zend_Http_Client::GET);
$response = $client->request()->getBody();

if ($client->request()->getStatus() == 400) {
?>Unable to login with supplied Google login/password

Diggnation NYC, June 4th!

2009-05-28T10:29:00.000-04:00

Veeeeery excited about this. Last year was a blast

When?

Thursday, June 4th, 2009
7:30pm

Where?

Webster Hall
125 East 11th Street, New York City, NY
view map

Streaming?

Live Event?

Yes

Venue Website:

websterhall.com

Google Maps F-Bombs street names!

2009-04-30T20:16:00.002-04:00

Good stuff. Link

How a Programmer reads your resume

2009-04-28T12:00:00.002-04:00

How to manage podcasts in Winamp (screw itunes)

2009-04-17T15:11:00.001-04:00

So I really have been digging the Windows 7 beta. However, Itunes does not sync podcasts correctly on the 64 bit version. IF syncing works at all, it takes a while. I had used winamp to listen to my music a while ago, but had switched to amarok when I started single booting linux (yes, I hated Vista that much). Now that I'm back to using windows a bit, I wanted my podcast experience to go flawlessly.

As much as I dislike iTunes, they have got podcast management down pat

search for podcast
subscribe to podcast
download episodes
sync with ipod
after an episode has been listened to, delete from computer hard drive

That last point is the most important part, everything else can be done manually

All this can be done with winamp. You will need two things, winamp and the ml_iPod plugin. While winamp does come with ipod support built in, ml_iPod has many more features. The following steps should get you up to speed on podcasting with winamp

install winamp
install the ml_iPod plugin (it will tell you it has to remove the built in ipod plugin, this is ok)
set a directory to save the episodes in
plug in your ipod
enable podcast support for the ipod
point it to your episode folder
set the query for when to delete old episodes
Add your podcasts by searching for them in the directory, or adding them manually using their RSS feed

After this you should be good to go. podcasts!

Big Appengine news: Cron, Java, Firewalled Data, DB Import

2009-04-08T09:45:00.000-04:00

Java Support: This was the first, and most popular request in the bug tracker. Followed closely by PHP support. Google has merged the simplicity of appengine with the robustness of java, and added it to their Eclipse plugin to boot.

Cron Support: The cron support works by calling a URL at a given interval. I'm not sure if cron jobs are also restricted by the timeout policy, hopefully they will be allowed to be longer.

Secure Data Connector: An exampled of this would be accessing data behind a corporate firewall. Might be a (good/bad) idea ;)

Bulk Uploader: Dump data into appengine from another database or a CSV file

Twitter Blog: Replies Are Now Mentions

2009-03-31T10:33:00.000-04:00

Twitter Blog: Replies Are Now Mentions Hopefully this is a step towards official support of @reply (or @mention) notifications again

First Google Chrome Extensions

2009-03-19T13:11:00.000-04:00

Extensions are coming for chrome.

Google’s Matt Cutts in a blog post says: “Extensions currently have very Greasemonkey-like functionality: you identify which web pages should be modified, plus JavaScript to be added to those pages. By default, the extension’s JavaScript runs after the page loads, but you can specify that the extension’s JavaScript should run before the page loads. Right now, you can only load one JS file, but that could change in the future. You also can’t currently load Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), but that might also change.”

Personally, I think they should just port greasemonkey directly so chrome can take advantage off all the existing scripts

Google’s JavaScript/ Chrome Experiments Showcase

2009-03-19T13:08:00.000-04:00

Google at ChromeExperiments.com released a showcase site for JavaScript experiments especially aimed as promotion to demonstrate their own Chrome browser’s capabilities. From games to 3D graphics, these demo's really show off what the chrome javascript engine can do