Cloud Triumvirate ( not teh Celtics but sort of)

Not simple but putting up a Big Three can get you the trophy

Cloud Triumvirate and don't think you're seeing a ghost. That's Yahoo, alright. Remember, the company on top of naysayers' list. Live notes, for those who care..

If anybody still has doubts on the eventual march to the cloud compute era better build your own power generator and keep on hoarding those network servers you find. Otherwise, wisen up. This is no bandwagon, this is a freight train! But don't get hyped up; instead, in the future, you will just have to 'take the cloud for granted'. Like air, bad backs, open source and getting scr*wed by politicians who get elected time and again... Ughh. Fortunately, you can be life savvy...

And other cloud 'hype' that you might want to dust off ...
Make way for 10Gen. Like the trio above, they're pulling (and pooling) for open source.

Yup, Open Source Cloud.

To remind us that they are still relevant and not just some view or vista. MSFT.

With the cloud, there will be changes says Alistair and he's right.

Anyways: Before we all choke on hot cloud air, there's also this 'print newspaper demise thing'. I am a big NYT reader and they just seem a good match for my taste (if it means getting hyped-up, whatever that is). So if you're interested, let's save (them) and buy 'em out.

Being Cuil and not Popular Ain't That Bad

Either you're spending way too much time offline and you haven't even heard - Uncuil. I mean Cuil. I like their take on 'popular' as not always important and on serendipitous search. Google-killer? I think Google has more lives than a cat but hey, even sabre-tooths became extinct.

Taking on Google
Good but not great.
Despite hiccups, finally, gets going.
Dark version? Uhmm. Mysterious, yes.

Speaking of Dark: The only dark that matters for now so Expand your Batman Knowledge.

F8: Never leave anything to chances.
Facebook Connect to conquer the world.
Copycat.
Fb Fund seems promising. Here are the winners! Have they heard about the Morph Appspace, hope they use it for their deployments because it is made to scale!
Hold it! What facebook didn't announce but should've.

I've just began to tinker with it but you should try it out for yourself. No kidding. Mixx.Com Mixx is your link to the web content that really matters.

Different kind of mix. The kind I used to make regularly until recordable cds arrived. Mixa is cool. Really!
Admirable and scary. Yahoo pays back! They're still the Number 1 content site in my book.

Slaying the Beast called 'Complacency'

How? Don't know all the solutions. It may start with drive or perspective but I'm pretty sure it involves insight and what better way than to read.

Top Ten Concepts Every Programmer Should Know. The should just hooks most people but what the heck, it won't cost you a thing to read. Here.

15 Sites to cut-Start-up Operating Costs. No dice? Pitch to Paul Graham.

Productivity Lists. We can never get enough of but root word to success in all of this might be discipline.

From Zen Habits.
From Lifehack.

10 Gadgets to Gear them up for school. It may not make them earn honors but they'd have a great time at school they can't afford to not be there.

Eco-czar: Sometimes 'think locally' just won't suffice to make it leapfrog as a top priority.

And just in case you have the patient to read through all of these, you might want to check out fitness to go with the busy desktop personality.

Web as Windmills; Open Source, Clouds and Social Media

We'll get to windmills later near the end of the post ...

Go Open Source! Follow OSCON in Portland and check out the Rubyists there. You might just bump into some Mor.ph people.

Sweetcron: Open Source that looks Interesting. Go ahead and sign-up for the invites.

More Cloud Stuff (till everybody agrees that it isn't just condensed H2O)

Cloud Review
Versus
Cloud Sectors to Watch. Please read through the comments and you might see an alphadog help push awareness for Mor.ph. Yaaay!

Social Media: Giving Cloud a run for buzzword top 'o the list

What the f**ck is it? Use of expletive from author but sound just how most of us would feel.

I'm still in baby steps so I need more of this to really learn what it's like. Social Media Club

Noise to Signal: Social Web in Cartoons. Just hits the spot and more fun!

It's not just about the posts and most of the time the gems are in the comments so why not put these on center stage? Every Dot Connects just did that.

Don Quixote would really lose it if he finds the web like this!

Finding Dulcinea: Bills itself as the Library of the Internet. About finding meaning in the wealth of the web and best sites for every topic. Call me Sancho Panza

Mean Lean, Green, Portable Cloud Machine

Amazon Outage caused no data loss; except loss for words to describe frustration. What outage? Ask Mor.ph and it's Morph Appspace customers. Nada. And Phil's right on this one on the solution.

Frustrated or just plain link-baiting: Lacy isn't SaaS-sy. Slog, she says. Say what, Bob? Schadenfraude.

Cloud PC, Ultra-Portables and Web Tablet? This isn't OLPC but it would be a worthy alternative as long as the price remains within reach for mere laboring mortals like me. No more aching backs and software clutter that you rarely use - given that you are aware that there are some that is actually installed. First out of the gate, the CherryPal. More.

Twhirl: While competition continues to creep on Twitter, see who's making the most of it.

Use your opposable digit! Rule of Thumb for every problem or concern.

Yoono Many Still Loves Printed

Got time for a Virtual Conference: Sign up for Enterprise 2.0.

Appropriately titled: Cloudy Times by Markus.

The Wisdom of the Long Tail just keeps on getting longer. But it is the first time I've come across the insight that speaks about migrating opportunities towards the uptail.

Faux? Must be. Corporate Social Networks is a waste of money.

Don't know if Yoono, but must try!

I admit, I still am a printed material freak. I like the touchy feeling apart from the visual. Here's about postcards

No Sense of Sin, Yet.

It is like going to the 'event' of the century and all the people are friendly but then I just stand on one spot freezing and doesn't know where to start. That's Friendfeed for me and I bet for some other misfits, too. Help is here, sorta.

Open Cloud Standards. Now, we're talking sense. I don't see it happening soon and maybe the one to set it up isn't a company yet like a Black Swan or something but it is all good. Or maybe, just maybe, an open sourced PaaS player can fill this up for now - whatever the cloud ....

Oh, NYT on EC2

Cloud and Social Media aside, the Personal Knowledge Base is somehow lagging in terms of emphasis but I think this one's pretty important, too. Personal indexing like your own personal library connected with every facet of your own interests. And automating it. That kind of s*cks but it does make sense. I feel robotified already.

Metrics: As if our very lives depended on this so might as well learn about it. Like Kraftwerk music on a garage. And it is still good music. But mechanized.

Radian6. I just had a demo of this a couple of hours ago and it rocks big time. This has got to be the coolest tool for eavesdropping legally and anonymously. Like big brother for benevolents. Like traffic monitoring for an entire city, giving you the locations where you need to step up and drop in. Social Media teams (and PR, too) has just been handed an equalizer. No more unfair advantages, big spenders. Great design graphics, too!

Now, is there a way to list a conversation or comments standard where you can pick which best phrases to use for a type of discussion? I bet there will be. As long as they have the personality of Wall-E married with that of Anton Yelchin. Look it up and he's that good.
Post Rank. Looks simple and promising.

          (Learn more about social media platforms.)

Speaking of graphics, what you dread has never looked so cute. Yiying Lu and FailWhale. Maybe Plurk should also ask her to design something for them like uhm a Segway surrounded by bicycles. I feel for them really.

And for something really meaningful. You should take Phil's challenge. I just can't but maybe you could.

Happy Weekend!

Big Bangers: CERN, Facebook, Clouds and SaaS

Big Bang: Whatever this is, it must be important? Playing advanced physics is the CERN Project.

As we move closer to f8, let us revisit how the much ballyhooed platform has performed after being touted as the next big thing. Oh and if anybody is into Ruby on Rails and would want to put web apps on it, you should definitely check this out. Morph Appspace

Print and Publish, Web-Style. Lulu and Scribd. That means easy.

Cloud Computing.

Computing the cost. Will we ever come to a standard rate?

The Invisible Infostructure. Sound good.

SaaS creates cloud computing alternatives. Like proprietary platforms? Why can't we see more open source ones. I know, it's complicated.

Does this SaaS app sound like 'Terminator' or something wickedly cool? Don't ask me as I also don't have any idea what it is. Registro!

Mixing the Cocktail in the Cocktail Conversation -Social Media

Programming:

• The name alone says it all. Groovy Actors. (Is there a casting couch? Nope, not me but for mor.ph?)
• I don't have much time nor money to spare so I need to learn it now. Sorry, because "it's 10 years, bro", says Peter Norvig.
• RubyKaigi2008. An interview with Matz and a recap, in two parts.
• Kontra Lason - Kapeng Barako to Java: Duke's Choice Awardee.

Social Media is a Cocktail Party from Mike Wagner. I'll drink to that.


On hand or on head? I admit. A beautifully printed photo is still a marvel to look at and hold. Jeremiah's take on this.

SaaS Collaboration Tool called Group Swim from Ben Kepes and RWW.

Cloud Computing. We're still counting definitions and we're not even close to finding which will be the standard. Another one.

5 Important Questions to Ask Before Making That SaaS Move

This just makes so much SaaS sense that I'm putting this as a separate post. With permission, of course from Mr. David Abrawowski.

SaaS Trust and Confidence

Buyer beware! Careful, unstable application ahead! Your data is at Risk! These are a few of the labels that should be visible on the front page of many Software as a Service offerings today.

Just recently I heard a story about an online software company that made a system administration mistake and their users information just vanished into thin air. The company apologized to their customers and blamed it on the fact they were still in beta. No recovery, no data, no nothing - just an “oops”. Imagine if that was you. Imagine if your company lost several days of your CRM data or months of your accounting records because your Software as a Service vendor didn’t really know how to run the back end systems?

We have a strange phenomena in business today. We tend to blindly trust just about any web site. And if that web site has official looking features like secured payments through PayPal or a Hacker Free label, we tend to trust it even more. But what about the reality of today’s Software as a Service. In a matter of minutes almost any developer can take an open source project and then host it on a $10/month internet account. They can immediately sign up for PayPal and get a hacker free certification in a matter of minutes. The developer can create a fancy sign up page and start to take your money. You begin to put your valuable customer data into the online service with a hope that the software vendor/consultant knows how to keep it safe and keep the application up and running. But as more stories of data loss and application problems surface, it’s up to the buyer to start to put pressure back onto the SaaS providers to ensure that we increase the trust and confidence of online applications.

Before you trust a SaaS provider and put your confidence in their system, you need to ask some questions. You need to know if the application is going to be available, if your data is going to be safe and what the company is doing to make sure everything stays up and running. On the flip side, many SaaS providers are going above and beyond. They just don’t tell their customers. Therefore to be proactive, I suggest that every SaaS provider have a simple web page that answers these questions to help increase the confidence and trust in their applications:

1. Is there built in redundancy for the application and the infrastructure so that it is going to be available when I need to use it?

2. How is my data kept safe and secure from other users or hackers on the internet?

3. If there is a failure, are you prepared to handle it quickly and is my data recoverable? How often do you backup my data?

4. Do you monitor the system & the application on a continuous basis? If there is a problem, who is watching the system and how long until they will be able to fix it?

5. Do you keep the system up to date with security patches & fixes on a regular basis?

Future: Which Way?

Now that iPhone 3G is out, what do you think makes it top dog among mobile handsets?

New PC?
The caveat is in the small details? Screen. Locator awareness. Games!

So can the tail wag the head? Despite the furor over the iPhones platform restrictions, it does seem that the blinding cash benefits trump the worries. Platform over software?

Your move, Android.

Doesn't seem to be a future: Yahoo and MSFT

Lovely

Wall-E. Environmental Future.
The future's trashy but can't help but be inspired by this. Endearing robot shows us what it means to be human.

Future Business Class:Case 2.0. Where wiki meets reality enterprise best practices. Yes!

Future Application Dev Platform: Force.com?
Salesforce is brilliant and the hiring of Mr. Lucas is another strong move towards another level of innovation (or PR) but they better hold their horses before making any bold predictions. Unless they open source...

Thanks to ReadWriteWeb, GigaOm and NYT :)

iPhone: Jobs Well Done?

Pics from Flickr: Andyi and JohnnyVulcan

iPhone 3G is here. Duh.

Review from Engadget.

Holistic

You just can't have too much of a good thing, no not even comfort. (Spoiler: Watch Wall-E and you'd have an idea). Excess is a real bummer and life is better appreciated through balance - yin-yang, anyone? Work and play. Personal and family. Offline and offline.

Anyway, allow me to digress once a week for a post on other things beside the usual. I'm a person, too you know.

Sitting in front of a computer for long hours can be back-breaking, literally and figuratively. Here's the solution and it's completely free!

You will never know when you need some practical advice on just about anything, say about your passions or just how to make life more meaningful. (Not talking about religion here). Visit Lifehack or GTD Times. Ok, A List Apart is kind of in the same league except it's about 'tech' again.

And how can we forget about music? I don't. So here's the hottest music sites according to Wired.

Until next. Om.

Alliance: PaaS -sing it on to Java, Grails and maybe some more

www.gamespot.com

It is easy to lose perspective when the hugeness of buzz and hype envelopes most that surrounds you. And the preference of coding tools is not an exception. Look at the time Google launched its AppEngine and debate around the support for Python was hand-in-hand over the threat of lock-in. Fast-forward today and the lock-in issue has been more or less addressed (by the community, of course) but regarding coding language, much ado about nothing.

Still coders are a hardy lot when it comes to turfs. Despite the prevailing sense of reason that languages are but tools towards a projected application result, many continue to espouse the "ours are better than yours" mentality. And you thought that religion was divided enough.

But the programming world is such a big pie that a premise contrary to this isn't guaranteed to make a worthy app. What developers need is an environment that provides the support and the tools to make them better at their craft and increase the chances of hitting it big. It could be something regarding workspace or culture and for the better part, we know all types/kinds of workers need that.

But there's also the coding environment.

Clouds like Amazon's are a big help now. It is language agnostic that with proper configuration, programmers will have a good enough place for their apps for a fee. But it takes effort to work on this and more so, on managing it. This is where PaaS providers come in and lighten the load literally. Ruby on Rails got better momentum leveraging the PaaS platforms and replicating this for other languages isn't a bad idea. Many providers are coming up with their different solutions right now and despite the apprehensions, I honestly believe that cloud space adoption will increase.

But for that to happen, platforms will need to continue to innovate. Using open source technologies is a great way to start and pushing them to include support for all languages will be mutually beneficial. Ruby on Rails may have gotten a head start but the Java community with Grails is just too big in numbers that we can expect it too to have adopters equal to or maybe more than the number of PaaS Rails users there is in the world now.

The possibilities with clouds and platforms are endless at this point given that mobile is also focusing its signals on it. I guess there is a lot more we haven't thought of yet. That it shouldn't stop with Ruby on Rails or with Java is something certain. And what about the other emergent web frameworks? Maybe some PaaS providers need to just take a chance with it and help it grow.

Anybody who says PaaS exists only for the big programming languages is short-sighted. But that is another story which is not for the faint-hearted.

Twin Featured: To sub me at work so I can camp for an iPhone

iPhone goes iCloud. "Apple's strategy to becoming a cloud computing/ platform services provider". Won't be surprised if the waiting line goes way up the atmosphere - not just for consumers but developers wanting a piece of the apps pie.

Overcast

Cloud Computing Book? Believe the hype.

Cloud Computing sites you may want to check out. One and Two.

Structure 08 Recap: Not just silver but gold in them clouds.

Webbies

Lively: It's like who killed Roger Rabbit for regular sites. Sorry, OSX support not yet included.

Bit.ly. Tiny-URl alternative and more.

If you have plenty of quality Flickr photos, be happy. Time to cash in.

How to be Top-Digg. As if we don't know. Techcrunch does and seriously employs minions for self-serve buzz.

Be Unreal.

Mirror Image in the Real World. Amazing. Improv does it again.

Spread the Love (and Labs, Mor.ph)

Bumper Sticker by Liz Davey

Stick it Up: Who would've thought that LinkedIn would have the biggest Rails apps in Facebook? Not me by a longshot but they do! Bumper Stickers is what they call it and it wasn't easy coming up with one.

Still for Facebook addicts - Games

This is a Stick Up!: When it rains, it pours. The Google exodus has been written of a lot and now reading about thisthis isn't going to make them like-able especially with kids.

And Instead, what we want more of! Spread It.

Kiva. Loans that Change Lives. Amen.

Refrigeration without electricity from Adam Grosser. Intermittent Absorption Refrigeration. Say what?

Using the fridge to, err, promote a book! Miranda July: I thought it was really cool!

Mor.ph: Spread the word online and earn. Not gimmick, you &*@#! It's called Affiliate Program. Understood? Or go to the blogs in case you need more proof.

The tail keeps getting longer even with The Long Tail (but this one isn't an endorsement).

"Problem Is Computers Only Give You Answers"

The Best Seat (for Thinking). Period.

I think therefore I am. I Google therefore I correlate and will have more time to think about other more meaningful things.

Both leads to learning nirvana, right? Only that the casualty is the 'scientific method'. Is it time to do away with it? Doctors practice correlation all the time and indeed it makes for a quicker response. There was a general belief back then in college that if you can memorize, then you can be a doctor (Apparently, you also need a money-bearing tree).

Computers (having the best memories) know all the answers.

And questions? That's where humans come in.

Thanks to Kevin Kelly and Chris Anderson for making me think.

Universal Status: In(ter)dependence Daze

Tell us what you're doing: Nothing much, really?

So-shall u Network? Tired of going over your different social networks and typing the same number of characters to say what you're doing exactly at the right moment? You're in luck as there's this growing number of ways that let's you update your status by just going to one site. Check here, courtesy of ReadWriteWeb.

Cloud Security: Doggedly, until people feel safe. But there's a feeling that it's just a matter of time before everything gets hitched on it and not because it can be proven to be really, really secure but more on the realization that people have been ceding their security and privacy (much like US citizens who accepted the Big Brother -type laws under the guise of Anti-Terrorism). Anyway, here's Gartner.

Cause you gotta have F8! Probably the biggest event after today, especially for Developers. Check it out.

Oh, forget independence so you won't spoil the festive atmosphere.

Workplace Utopia is a Myth: Darn

When meeting new people, I think there are far more first questions about work than even getting the names right. That says something about how people view themselves and others as opposed to 'being'. Human knowing, human working, human doing and not human being. Hope you get the point.

Being said that, invariably, most people want dream jobs and so dream workplace environments. Some, like me, are able to peddle wares without leaving home. Oh, the many ooohs and ahhs I get. But it is far from being rosy as the lines between personal and household time gets blurred with being 'productive'. Still weighing the pros and cons, I'd rather not spend money on gas and big plus is I get to be with my kid.

My point is workers can only be grouped as a collective in terms of earning money (why's and w's of salary) and work results or outcomes (the product or services the group contributes to). As far as needs, wants and other interests - it is mostly anybody's guess. Short or long leash, wads or trickle of money, own space or group space - the list goes on. What will work (pun unintended) is dependent on deep personal interests as they are aligned with company vision. And as these two intersect more than diverge, I think it is as close to a good match as there will ever be. Calling it work won't suffice; I'd rather it be called 'life's work'. Awww.

And we thought Sergey and a few lucky (or duh) ones had it good. But to each his own and to thine self be true. Just in Nick of time for this post.

So 'What should I do with my life?'

Awe, Shucks: Cool Web

Videography: TubeMogul is a free service that provides a single point for deploying uploads to the top video sharing sites, and powerful analytics on who, what, and how videos are being viewed. Nice!

Build, share, download Fonts. For free.

Kindling. Idea Management and Collab Tool. Some things are just meant for groups of people, like this one.

SmugVault: Amazon storage for a tiny fee

Been trying my hand at doing a screencast once again and yes, there are segments which you can do separately and it seems I'm learning it the hard way. And now comes this for the future video/film maker.

Pre-production software: Celtx replaces 'paper, pen & binder' pre-production with a digital approach that's more complete, simpler to work with, and easier to share.

BBC's Cloud Clicks; More SaaS for the rest of us

Part of LG Ad; Thanks to Szymon

I honestly think TV still has quite a great many punches left. Yes, I've been spending way too much time in front of a keyboard and even if it isn't much of a difference, 'sitting back and letting the reins' by turning on the box can also help me re-charge a bit.

Funny thing is, seems like web is out to get me as I can't get past BBC's Click. Check their top cloud links.

SaaS: The Hunters and Farmers Can any person or worker actually do everything and be successful on the SaaS field? Maybe, but having roles to play can be more efficient.

SaaS for those who still don't get it.

Open Source, GPL and SaaS from Mike Beckerle. I do believe this is going to be a source of a lot of discussions and people better start now.

More SaaS pricing itself out

Mor.ph goes Sun-ny: Extends to Java and MySQL plus some Cloud Stuff

Welcome to the start of the second half of 2008, folks. And there seems to be no stopping the endless cloud and platform developments (where's the biggies?).

After Rails, Mor.ph goes after Java and Grails with MySQL on the side. [Yep]
Structure 08 is Om-niscient. Nick Carr on Infra Ethics; The Cloud Panel
Check out the site cause there's a whole lot more.

Cloud Pyramid-bigger than Giza

Yes, I think it will (and so do many others). The Question