Archive for the 'Web 2.0' Category

The Art of Community – Now Free

Published on October 8, 2009 in Web 2.0. 0 Comments Tags: .

Jono Bacon has released his book “The Art of Community” under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike Creative Commons license, which means you can download and read it legally.

If you like it, follow the author’s advice:

  • Firstly, buying a copy sends a tremendous message to O’Reilly that they should continue to publish books (a) about community and (b) under a Creative Commons license.
  • Secondly, it will encourage O’Reilly to invest in a second edition of the book down the line, which will in turn mean that communities around the world will have a refreshed and updated edition that is available to them.
  • Thirdly, aside from the voting-with-your-feet side of things, it is just a really nice book to own in print. It is really well made, looks stunning and feels great to curl up with in a coffee shop or on the couch.

Via Pedro Custódio

Google Chrome OS – Was I right or what?

Published on July 11, 2009 in Google, Linux and Web 2.0. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Last year, when Google released Chrome I wrote this.

Some might say it was futurology, but I say it was the most logical step of evolution. The fact is, I think I was really close on Google’s plans for Chrome.

Facebook Vanity URL’s Hysteria

Published on June 14, 2009 in Web 2.0. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Facebook

Much has been said since Facebook allowed the new “vanity URL’s” (or user url’s like I rather call it, since vanity urls is purely an american expression adopted from the vanity plates they have in their cars).

Most of the posts about this are from users bitching about the way Facebook roll out this feature, allowing the users to choose any alias to be used in http://www.facebook.com/whateveryouchoose regardless of their username, unlike Twitter that has http://www.twitter.com/username. Others rant about the fact that Facebook should have provided something like http://user.facebook.com, forgeting that Facebook has milions of users and something like that would have a termendous weight in their DNSs…

But, as always, there’s something good to learn. One of the posts I read about this subject (no link, sorry, can’t find it) mentioned a cool way to give your Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, [insert your favorite social network here] URL’s to other people, that is, if you have your own domain.

In my case, my domain is odrakir.com, so I created some subdomains redirecting to the social networks I use the most:

This way, I can give an url that’s easy to memorize and always mentions my “brand name”, cool enough to use on a visit card :)

The Konami Code

Published on May 10, 2009 in Code, Fun and Games and Web 2.0. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

A few months ago I wrote an article about the Konami code on 8-Bit Revolution which surprisingly is become an Internet trend / meme. If you don’t know what is the Konami Code, well, I’ll give you the light version.

The sequence of keys on the image above is the Konami Code, and is probably the most popular video game cheat code of all times. Most games from Konami have almost always a cheat or a small easter egg triggered by this code, but the most interesting is the number of publishers besides Konami that still today include this code in their games, as a “nod”, a small tribute to the Konami Code.

The Konami Code was created by Kazuhisa Hashimoto, the developer responsible for the port of Konami’s Gradius for the NES in 1986. After finding the game very difficult to play during the tests, he created a code that allowed the player to have all power-ups that would normally be acquired during the game. When the final version of Gradius was released on the market, the code was included by mistake.

The code would only become famous in Contra for the NES. The difficulty of Contra was too high but with this code the player could have 30 extra lives and playing the game became a possible mission.

Even today, all iterations Gradius react to the Konami Code, each in its own way. For example, Gradius III destroys the ship when you load the code.

Today, Konami Code is more than a simple “cheat code” is a cultural icon of a generation. A generation of retrogamers easily recognizes and identifies the code, many are proud to recite in the code by heart :D

There are references to the Konami Code / Contra Code in music lyrics, t-shirts and even in some sites like Digg and Google Reader, and it’s becoming more and more used, to a point that Konami Code Sites was created to track all sites that use this code. So, don’t forget to enter the Konami Code when visiting a site, you’ll never know what might happen. I’ll even give you an extra tip: 8-Bit Revolution is Konami Code enabled since 2007 :)

WordPress 2.7 FTW

Published on December 21, 2008 in Computer Stuff and Web 2.0. 0 Comments Tags: .

Yeah, just updated to WP 2.7 and everything went smoothly :) The new Dashboard is bliss and K2 works just as it did with 2.6.

WordPress is definitely the best blogging platform around!

Off to Codebits

Published on November 13, 2008 in Fun and Games and Web 2.0. 0 Comments Tags: , .

I’m attending Sapo Codebits 2008. Expect some major nonsense in today’s Lifestream :D If you’re there, twitt me!

EventBox – Dreams Come True

Published on November 9, 2008 in Apple, Fun and Games and Web 2.0. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

I confess that I’m a little addicted to social networking. I often try new social networks and apps but sometimes I wish that there was only one or only one way to use them all. The ones I use the most are Twitter, Flickr, Jaiku, Digg and the usual gazillion RSS feeds if you can count them as social networking tools.

One of the blogs I follow about Mac applications is UsingMac and in today’s “daily fix” of posts I came across EventBox.

EventBox is like a dream come true for me. It gathers 7 of the most used social networks: Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Digg, Pownce, Reddit and last but not least RSS aggregation all in one application.

The interface is bliss and pure integration with Leopard. Still in Beta, EventBox features high quality features for each social network service you use, like public and private replying in Twitter, section filtering on Digg, multiple file uploading on Flickr and everything gets to use Growl for notifications.

While very good, there’s still a lot of room for improvement in EventBox. A wide preview pane for RSS to better use widescreen space would be welcome as well as adding more social networks to the list like Jaiku. Adding search, groups and user profile information options in Twitter like Tweetdeck has would be very useful as well. EventBox is not free though, it costs $20 which is not much, specially when you can optimize your usage of social networks, getting rid of 5 or 6 different apps or browser tabs.

Recommended!

Still Capturing the Buzz

Published on October 29, 2008 in Web 2.0. 0 Comments Tags: , .

The dudes at Prt.Sc did it again! A new Alt.Prt.Sc episode 03 for your viewing pleasure. Keep up the good work guys, it’s getting pretty good!

MeMe

Published on October 4, 2008 in Fun and Games, Personal, Rants and Web 2.0. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Following the meme on Nuno’s blog…

Me!

Me!

1. Take a picture of yourself right now.
2. Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair…just take a picture. (should be super-easy with Photobooth)
3. Post that picture with NO editing.
4. Post these instructions with your picture.

Google Chrome: Google OS cornerstone?

Published on September 2, 2008 in Computer Stuff, Google and Web 2.0. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Google Chrome

Today, Google announced it’s new web browser. In merely 48 hours, the Internet was drenched in all the hype caused by leaked comic book scans and screenshots an plenty of rumors, that in the end became true.

An hour and a few minutes have passed since the beta version of Google Chrome and it’s probably one of the most downloaded browsers in launch day, I dare say, like or close to Mozilla Firefox 3. This only proves that people love everything that’s Google related and that they trust Google.

Google Chrome is like Google.com homepage page: simple and effective. The Chrome team mishmashed a few ideas from existing browsers, like Firefox and Opera, used Webkit (from Safari) and applied some ideas of their own for security and stability. I won’t go in details here, you can read a lot about that in the Google Chrome Comic. The result, from what I’ve tested, is a piece of software that will change the way that we’ll use the web. It’s easy to use for the common user, powerful, stable, very user friendly and fast.

But Google Chrome is not just a browser. It’s the cornerstone of a possible Google OS. I can imagine now a small linux distribution with a small footprint, loaded with Google apps like Google Earth, Picasa and a fully integrated Google Chrome, transforming all those webapps (Gmail, Google Tal, Calendar, etc…) we use into applications (through the Google Gears module in Chrome). Boot that from a USB pen drive and you have a portable OS, a thin client ready for the web, using the cloud for storage, etc… the applications are endless. You can already have this, with Firefox and few quirks, but I believe Google itself will create and optimize it’s own web OS.

After all, the web is Google’s business and, the more it can keep us online, the better.