CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-05-19 10:00:10 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

That was about the most locked up my laptop has ever been, even holding down the power button didn't shut it down.... I had to physically remove the battery!

2013-05-19 01:55:45 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Hadn't tried that until now, but thankfully j/k work rather well to navigate in new layout G+.

2013-05-18 00:48:09 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

I really like how the new hashtag system works with g+. Very snazzy!!

2013-05-18 00:46:54 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Have spent all morning playing with lego.... all in the name of sorting out the lego sets from my daughters kindy.

Lego is still a lot of fun making the sets up, and the sets are a lot better now days than I remember!

Of course I was only doing it because I had to..... maybe :-)

2013-05-13 09:28:53 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

If you haven't seen this give it a go..... rather fun.

http://geoguessr.com/

You get dropped into a location somewhere in the world using google street view. You have to figure out where you are and place the pin on the map.

2013-05-09 00:20:01 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Awesome that Google IO is doing live streaming..... what would be really great is if there was some easy way to add to your google calendar all of the sessions that are being streamed.

2013-04-29 01:07:08 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Folder management tools have arrived! Check out the details in our new blog.

2013-04-04 00:12:42 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

<blink>Chromium</blink>

So Google is building their own rendering engine "blink" (or at least forking the webkit codebase). Google has done a lot of good things over time in the web space, good browser using their own V8 javascript engine..... but although this most likely will turn out for the best I am filled with a feeling of trepidation.

I definitely don't want to have to do "if webkit else if blink" (enough of this type of thing out there already). Yes libraries will hide this mostly away from me, which I am very thankful for, but does that just mean we end up at the lowest common denominator anyway?

At least we have robust standards in the web space that everyone follows, oh wait I am thinking of email standards.... oh wait, never mind.

Google are planning on trying to keep everything as standards compliant / compatible as... more »

2013-04-01 20:56:16 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

For those Google Reader users amongst you I have found that feedly is starting to look pretty good.

Does most of what I personally used Google Reader for, and there is zero migration cost as it directly accesses your Reader settings, and keeps the read / unread between the two.

2013-03-14 08:26:06 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

So Google have decided to end of life Reader. I am a wee bit annoyed at that to be honest. Apparently I am in the minority though (otherwise I would assume that it wouldn't be going down the end of life path). I read this "article" tonight:
http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/2013/03/14/SomeThoughtsOnTheDeathOfGoogleReader.aspx

Which led me on to another article, which took me to this article:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/rss-a-good-idea-at-the-time-but-there-are-better-ways-now/23276

Which says, "I catch headlines on Yahoo News and Google News. I have a pretty extensive lineup of browser bookmarks to take me to sites that I scan throughout the day. Techmeme is always in one of my browser tabs so I can keep a pulse on what others in my industry are talking about."

I'm sorry.... what?!?!? The future of consumption of content is having to... more »

2013-01-22 21:37:50 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

We've added some great new advanced search tools to Fuseworks - check out the update on our blog.

2013-01-14 21:23:42 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Great new case study from Leigh Catley, Communications Manager, Horticulture New Zealand. "Fuseworks finds you the news and even measures it. Very cool."

2012-12-13 22:08:13 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Not bad.

2012-12-11 05:23:14 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

The way real christmas trees are made is all wrong, the needles point the wrong way, makes it difficult to put the decorations on, but very easy for them to come off.

Who thought that it was a good idea to have them go that way? I want a comity formed to look into this!

2012-12-07 07:46:17 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

2012-08-31 03:53:02 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Introducing Fuseworks media monitoring and analysis tools

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2012-07-31 22:11:01 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

New Blog: News Analytics takes off

2012-06-14 21:54:48 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Ajax Push vs Pull

Recently I saw reference to this paper as a decision maker in relation to whether to use ajax push or pull (optimising for scalability):
http://swerl.tudelft.nl/twiki/pub/Main/TechnicalReports/TUD-SERG-2007-016.pdf

Apart from the fact that it is rather old now days, and is based on a very old version of Jetty (6.1.2), I feel that something is seriously wrong with the test / results. This may come down to how IO is handled in this version of Jetty (the paper says that it uses NIO).

The paper is around using long polling so I will keep my thoughts around that. Now I am sure that using long polling does consume more sockets, and more memory resources due to holding connections open longer, but unless the implementation is seriously wrong it shouldn't be maxing out CPU the way that it says it does in this paper.

The most telling thing... more »

2012-06-10 22:07:25 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

New Blog: New folder analytics and easy email notification

2012-05-28 00:17:40 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 0 +1s)

New Blog: Top 10 tips for writing a press release

2012-05-24 01:09:01 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Why is it that collecting tens of millions of statistics on hundreds of thousands of pieces of content is so much easier than then cleanly and clearly providing access to those statistics and pieces of content through a UI.

2012-05-23 21:51:13 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

“Oracle presented overwhelming evidence at trial that Google knew it would fragment and damage Java. We plan to continue to defend and uphold Java's core write once run anywhere principle and ensure it is protected for the nine million Java developers and the community that depend on Java compatibility,” Oracle said in a statement.

I am one of those nine million Java developers, and know quite a few others. Personally I know nobody who likes Oracle "protecting" us.... also I know of nobody who even thinks that is what Oracle is trying to do.

Oracle is causing more damage to Java through this litigation than anything that Android could possibly do.

Good win for sanity so far.

2012-05-15 22:32:33 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

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2012-05-15 03:08:25 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

New Blog: Fuseworks releases sharp new analytics using filters

2012-04-16 03:26:20 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Score! Reduced query execution time from 14.5 secs to 50ms just by increasing the PostgreSQL statistics gathering target for a single column.

PostgreSQL is still getting the estimate of returned rows wrong by a long way.... but at least it is close enough to avoid the approx 1500 loops through a sub plan it was doing before.

Amazing what a big difference query plan can make.

2012-04-15 06:32:35 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Very true, and something I have to deal with.

2012-04-10 22:47:25 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

New Blog: Fuseworks launches next generation of online PR/comms innovations.

2012-03-19 20:38:12 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Woohoo, I just had free beer delivered! Great start to the morning.... though I am not drinking them now. Tasting samples for Boundary Road Brewery.... there is IPA and IPB.

2012-03-19 10:07:59 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Didn't realise that Linux 3.3 was getting support for running Android apps (with it apparently being fully ready in 3.4). Sounds good to me.

Wonder if this will have an impact on Android on tablet devices. Seems to give a bigger market for them (i.e. any Linux desktop), though supporting the difference in screens and input devices could be a pain.

Will that mean the biggest source of games for Linux is going to be Android apps?

2012-03-13 02:40:13 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Anyone able to help me on this?

2011-12-13 09:33:18 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

This looks rather cool, going to have to have a play with it me thinks.

2011-12-13 03:10:59 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

All cards being played by the different parties it is conceivable to imagine that it could get to a state where it is illegal to sell any smart phone or tablet within Europe. Personally I don't see things going quite that far, but can't the people who make the rules that everyone plays by see that this is getting stupid.

At least though someone has managed to play a decent card back at Apple, it might bring some sense to the table if all parties come to realise that mutually assured destruction is not the best option.

2011-11-21 21:21:28 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

I always enjoy a good story validating my coffee intake.

2011-11-17 01:20:15 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

So an +Amazon.com CC2 instance if you pay up front for a year is just $345 a month, for a whole lot of compute power, and 60G RAM. I can't help but compare this against +Rackspace Hosting 8192M cloud server at $350 per month. Not quite completely fair though since there is no commitment.

Not aware of any discounts that Rackspace gives if you commit to X time period so they might offer something comparable. Though there is the dedicated hosting option with Rackspace that seems to be somewhere around $1200 per month for something not even half the specs.

Hmmm....

2011-11-15 08:01:58 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Looks rather interesting.

2011-11-14 01:57:11 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

2011-11-09 08:47:54 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

I mentioned it earlier in another post, but hadn't actually installed the agent and tried it out at that point.... oh my god, New Relic is awesome (this is from all of 3 mins looking so far, so who knows there could be issues in the future). But right now very much a big RECOMMEND. By the way if you are a +Rackspace Hosting the standard package is free.

2011-11-09 03:21:01 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Looks really interesting.

2011-11-08 06:34:21 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

You know what I like most about Google and the Google+ team, including +Bradley Horowitz +Vic Gundotra and others? That we/they talk about our users first, our products and experience second, and everybody else way down the line. It's not about picking fights or one-upmanship. It's about creating something new and incredible that brings value to everyone here. It's about bringing even more value to every Google user. Stay tuned.

2011-11-08 00:01:01 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 1 +1s)

2011-11-07 07:39:01 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 1 +1s)

I snorted at this (snort like nerdy snort, not lines of coke!)

2011-11-07 03:03:36 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

What are the ways that technology could help create jobs?

I interviewed +Reid Hoffman at the Web 2.0 Summit about how technology could help address a key issue in the United States at present: unemployment and job creation.

Hoffman had a number of suggestions, including a "Khan Academy for entrepreneurship," and listed a series of companies doing interesting work in the space.

If you missed it, the New York Times published a terrific profile of Hoffman today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/business/reid-hoffman-of-linkedin-has-become-the-go-to-guy-of-tech.html

2011-11-07 02:38:13 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

#patents #legal #google

"In an interview with The Chronicle's +James Temple, Google's patent counsel, Tim Porter, argues that the system itself is broken. For too long, the patent office granted protection to broad, vague or unoriginal ideas masquerading as inventions. That inevitably led to the legal dramas now unfolding, he said."

** Also, don't forget to circle both the author and +David Drummond, Google's Chief Legal Officer.

2011-11-06 09:23:09 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

I have read a lot of stories regarding people complaining about the changes to Google Reader. Personally I think the new way of sharing is much better than the old one. I may already have shared more through the new G+ system than the old G Reader system.

So adding my voice to the people who actually like the change. Great job.... though please keep improving.... keyboard shortcuts for share and +1ing please.

2011-11-04 01:30:45 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

Great that companies keep competing with each other, bringing out better / cheaper products constantly. Isn't it great having competition in the market place.... even die hard Apple fans shouldn't be upset about Android tablets / phones.

2011-11-04 01:20:25 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

I still wonder how much growth in Marketing solutions and Hiring solutions LinkedIn would get by removing premium subscriptions all together, i.e. give everyone full access. I think they would probably easily make up the difference in the growth in the other areas.

2011-11-03 20:31:23 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Handy new features, though I would like to see more integration of this kind soon for G+. Particularly what I want is being able to see who has shared a page (and the post / comments) of the page that you are currently on, and especially if people within your circles are talking about the given page / site.

So with me posting this, if someone who has me in a circle comes to the page it should highlight that someone in your circles has shared this page.

Further to this if I share this non-publicly, then the people in the circle that I shared it with should still see this when they come to the page.

Distributed commenting platform for the entire web.

2011-11-02 23:27:17 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Very cool to think about what applications this could have in the future.

2011-11-01 08:38:56 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

In cleaning out my feeds I am also finding new stuff. Quite a good comic, not much to go through so good to start from the beginning.

2011-11-01 08:10:08 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Thought the change in Google Reader seemed like a great time to clean out my reader feeds.... there is a lot of stuff in there that I very regularly skip over, and it probably means I miss some of the "good stuff".

The only problem is I have collected a lot of once interesting feeds over time, this is going to be a long job.