So, considering my affinity for microblogging (remember? That was the point of this post) and my long-standing love for all things FLOSS (look it up) you can imagine my excitement (no really, excitement is the word for it) at hearing about Laconi.ca, the open microblogging solution that has all us tech geeks squee-ing in delight. Here’s the idea:

I set up the Laconi.ca software on my server.
I then let my friends access my microblog server so we can have a private network.

It’s really that simple. So, remember how I said Twitter sucks? Well, imagine a solution that allows you to microblog to your personal community without the issues of universal scalability that has threatened Twitter’s success. Okay, so it’s not anywhere near as much fun as the wide-openness of Twitter and for that reason likely won’t replace the much-maligned service.

Where it will be very useful, however, is in corporate environments. A company looking for a way to blast out short updates to its sales force could set up a Laconi.ca server, meaning they no longer have to rely on a third-party for such service. Moreover, with the current level of interoperability between Twitter and Laconi.ca (and more to come, as well as for Pownce, Jaiku, etc.) those individuals would not necessarily have to subscribe to multiple services to get all their messages.

I’m planning to play with the software in the near future. I’ll keep everyone updated with my findings. In the meantime, check out this article for a brief overview and this article for a more technical explanation of how it works.

To this point, I have dismissed this sense of caution as mere paranoia. Google, as we know, is the great anti-corporation of our time. The emphasis on employee productivity through benefits and pet projects instead of fear and intimidation are all the evidence we need of that. Right? Right?!

In the past couple of months, however, the word coming out of Mountain View, CA has sounded more and more like corporate belt-cinching. Preston Gralla, in his article today entitled, “Why Google has lost its mojo — and why you should care”, outlines some of the recent clawbacks on perks in his review of other signifiers of Google’s change. Here, however, are a couple of the indicators:

• In June, Google CEO Eric Schmidt denied the existence of the fabled “evil meter”. Basically, Schmidt backpedaled a bit from previous statements and implied that Google’s mandate not to be the kind of destructive corporate entity like we’ve seen in the past may be as tenuous as any “flavour of the month” belief.
• In July, Google jacked up its rates for on-campus daycare to an amount well above market rate. This alone isn’t an issue (the company can charge whatever it feels is right for such a service), but the way the decision was allegedly made begs the question whether the top echelon is still “in-touch” with its employees.

I’m not trying to bash Google. I just agree with Gralla that we need to keep our eye on the company. We’ve all been lulled into a sense of security about this controller of information and have invited it into our lives virtually unchecked on the grounds of past platitudes. We need to remember that, like any other corporation, Google exists to make money for its shareholders and self-imposed ethics are the easiest to relax when things go a little sour. Google certainly isn’t there yet, but there isn’t anything to stop them from should the need arise. As with everything, we must be vigilant.

Addendum: I just read this article that outlines the latest in Google’s perks clawbacks. Interestingly, though, I’m pretty sure the Google jet is still flying….

With sections on Disasters, Medical Science, Space Exploration, The World of Tomorrow, Thinking on the Edge, Your Tax Dollars at Work and more, there’s enough content there to keep you from getting any work done all day, if not longer. Plus, a “Random Article” feature lets one explore the site without structure, much like one would expect from font of the mundane.

In short, the site’s URL says it all. You’ve got to check it out.

I was forwarded a link to Mark Greefield’s article (it’s more of a stub, really) What are the new “Emerging Technologies”? which I found intriguing since, not days earlier, I listened to Leo Laporte and Amber MacArthur on Net@Night talk about how old fashioned it seemed to refer to people as “bloggers”. Similarly, Greenfield states that the tech he lauded in 2005 as “emerging” is old hat now. He then lists five sites that are examples of what is today’s emerging tech.

While Greenfield makes a point (as do Leo and Amber), I have to disagree with his contention that RSS, blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc. are “behind the times”. I think tech pundits like himself are so far ahead of the curve that they fail to realize that the average population are just now figuring out how to integrate these technologies into their businesses and communities. For them (us?) these very much are emerging technologies and many organizations are still unable to cope with the “new reality” that surrounds them.

That said, though, there are some organizations that are almost as far along the curve as Greenfield, giving hope that, in the future, maybe guys like him won’t be so ahead of everyone else that he won’t already be bored of the tech the rest of us are just wrapping our heads around. As an example of such a company, check out this article from Business Week on IBM’s integration of in-house social networking. Who would have thought that Big Blue could be so agile.

Tags: emergingtech, Mark Greenfield, Leo Laporte, Amber MacArthur, Business Week, IBM, social networking

So, when I stumbled upon the script.aculo.us library, I was curious to see if it would truly simplify the incorporation of Javascript into web pages. You can imagine my glee when, in a matter of a few minutes, I had built a page with some simple, yet impressive, display effects. Script.aculo.us delivered on its promise. But, what exactly is it?

Most simply, it is a library of Javascripts that provide cross-browser functionality for animations, AJAX, DOM manipulations, etc. There are other script libraries, but what I like about this one is how easy it is to call these functions. Even more amazing is the fact that they work as expected on the first try. Of course, all of the heavy lifting is done for you, including the programming and testing, so you’d expect it to be straightforward in its implementation. Still, I’ve tried a number of tools intended to make Javascript easier and, more often than not, things are only made more complex.

The library is built upon the Prototype framework. This framework is, itself, a pre-programming of scripts needed to perform most of the fundamental actions in AJAX web applications. It extends the DOM by adding a number of methods to elements and objects. It uses JSON, an alternative to XML for transmitting data to and from web applications. It all combines to allow a developer to easily create new classes of Javascript functionality. Thus, the folks at script.aculo.us created the classes that power the animations and other interface tricks that have become ubiquitous on web applications.

The only issues I have found with script.aculo.us thus far is its pathetic documentation. The wiki that is supposed to provide documentation is under perpetual construction. There is a ’static snapshot’ of the wiki in its previous state, but its vanilla HTML doesn’t allow for examples within the documentation itself. The state of the documentation can make using the library a challenge if you are not savvy enough in Javascript to glean usage from the code itself. The good news is that both Prototype and script.aculo.us are popular enough to have spawned a book from the Pragmatic Programmer, written by Christophe Porteneuve, among others.

In conclusion, script.aculo.us is a brilliant tool for quickly building Web 2.0 interfaces, so long as you can figure out how to use it.

Without question, email is among the least secure communication methods we have, akin to shouting your most private details while standing on a busy street corner. The question, however, is not whether this method is insecure, but whether it is too insecure for the purpose of communicating login information.

Perhaps the best argument against Mr. Caswell comes from the person he called out to in his article, Jason Calacanis. Writing in the comments as “Jason”, the founder of Mahalo suggested that for something as irrelevant as a social networking site, the ease of email outweighs the lack of security. He suggests that your bank login would be a different story, requiring a much more secure process.

While Mr. Calacanis’s point is justified, there remains much to be said about catering to ease-of-mind. In this environment of sensitivity to issues of identity theft, there is a strong business case for keeping login information secure no matter the application. As Mr. Caswell suggests, most people reuse the same passwords for many purposes. Those with a bit of knowledge about the ‘perils’ of email communication might, justified or not, reject a company for the reason that they do not adequately protect the information with which they are entrusted. With more people worrying about protecting every aspect of their identity, is it really worth losing customers because you decided your site does not warrant greater security? Are you, Mr. Website Owner, really the best person to make that determination? Should you not provide the most secure option possible to ensure you are not the point of weakness in a person’s attempts to maintain their privacy?

I apologize for all the questions. One thing I have learned, when it comes to security, privacy, and other such issues, is that there are always more questions than answers.

Computers have long presented problems in terms of the chemicals they require and the energy they consume. Among the issues that challenge computer manufacturers today are the following:

• Toxins (i.e. mercury and arsenic) in LCD screens
• Use of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs)
• Improved energy conservation

The fantastic eco-blog, EcoSpace, provides a great explanation on how Apple has addressed these environmental issues. However, it is important to point out how Apple’s machines may not have been the ecological scourge that they were painted to be. I’m not expert enough to argue the point with Greenpeace, so I will let an article by Mary E. Tyler on arstechnica.com do it for me.

Ms. Tyler displays the scores given to Apple’s computers by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), using their “Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool” which rates computers on 23 required and 28 optional criteria. As Ms. Tyler points out, all of Apple’s computers score well in comparison to those offered by other manufacturers on criteria such as the amounts of toxins used in monitors and batteries, the use of post-consumer recycled plastic, adoption of ENERGY STAR® specifications, and even corporate policies. This high score came before the launch of the new Macbook Air a machine identified by EcoSpace to adopt almost all the changes required to truly ‘green’ a personal computer.

How other manufacturers are doing is another story and one harder to evaluate due to the lack of publicity surrounding the policies of other computer makers. Dell and HP, for example, offer environmental policy statements that are long on good intentions but very short on specific details. Users and developers have come up with unique ways to improve how PCs affect the environment. One of the most unique of these is the Green PC project which uses software to share a single computer among as many as ten users simultaneously. Prominent on Green PCs website is its claim that switching just 1% of the world’s personal computers to its DiscoverStation software is “equal to taking 26 million cars off the road”. And, that statistic is even documented right on the home page.

The manufacture of all electronics uses such hazardous materials that it is reasonable to believe that even the best manufacturers could, in theory, do a whole lot better. Targeting Apple was a brilliant way for Greenpeace to ride the coattails of the computer manufacturer’s recent successes to make their quite valid point. Whether this campaign pushed Apple to adopt more eco-friendly policies is debatable. What remains to be seen is whether other manufacturers will make specific changes to improve their own environmental records or whether some of the more unique solutions like Green PC will be what addresses our computers’ ecological impact.

The clever fellows at MacHeist have the answer for you. MacHeist, for those not in ‘the know’, is an interesting organization created by three independent Mac software developers. The purpose of the organization is to promote independently-produced Macintosh software (programs not produced by Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, et al.) while also raising money for a variety of charities.

Having completed their second round of ‘missions’, they are now selling their software bundle, a collection of very useful programs sold at a cut-rate price. For only $49, you get the following software gems (regular price in parentheses):

• VectorDesigner ($69.95)
• Snapz Pro X ($69.00)
• Pixelmator ($59.00)
• CSSEdit ($29.95)
• AppZapper ($12.95)
• Speed Download ($25.00)
• 1password ($29.95)
• CoverSutra ($22.00)
• Cha-Ching ($40.00)
• iStopMotion ($49.00)
• Awaken ($12.95)
• Tiki Magic Mini Golf ($29.95)
• Wingnuts 2 ($29.95)
• TaskPaper ($18.95)

Chances are you won’t need or want all of the programs here, but chances are as good that you will need or want enough of them to make it worth the $49. And, you raise money for charity, too. Though, you don’t get a tax receipt. Instead, you get great software. But, the clock is ticking as today (January 23, 2008) is the last day the bundle will be offered.

Anyway, just in case you’re interested….

FOLLOW-UP:
I listened to Macbreak Weekly, specifically episode #74 (the one to which the link will deliver you) in which they discussed the merits of Macheist. Even more informative was the interview with Rich Siegel, the founder of Bare Bones Software (developers of BBEdit, the best text editor ever) and one of the ‘grand-daddies of Mac software development’ (Leo Laporte’s words, not mine). In this interview, Mr. Seigel outlines why Macheist is not only a bad idea for the developers that participate, but how it taints the entire shareware software development community by extension. I highly recommend that you listen to this podcast episode before you decide whether to participate in the next Macheist.

According to the article, while iPhones account for only 2% of all smartphones, there were days in late December when iPhone traffic outpaced traffic from all other smartphone platforms. While this can be explained away by post-Christmas excitement and holiday mothballing of others’ smartphones (they tend to be business tools, after all, and not much business happens between Christmas and New Years’) there is one thing that the iPhone heralds that web developers should not ignore: Real web users on mobile devices.

Of course, mobile phones have had web browsers for years. In fact, the mobile market was one of the compelling reasons to built sites in standards-compliant XHTML since the bare bones browsers on these could best represent pages in plain text using the unadorned (as in, non-styled and image-free) code of a well-constructed web page. The days, however, of being able to rely on a non-graphical representation of your web pages as the default mobile presentation will soon be over as the iPhone pushes other platforms such as Nokia’s Symbian and Windows Mobile to include much more capable browsers.

Google has prepared for this. Using their GMail client on an iPhone is downright dreamy, with the list of mail messages best accessible in the Apple phones standard (and easier-to-hold) vertical position. As more devices mimic the iPhone (it’s what the tech industry does, after all — and you don’t have to be an Apple fan boy to see it) websites will have to do a better job of presenting their entire content (images and styled text) in a mobile-friendly manner. Detecting screen sizes and orientations, not to mention the specific features available on a platform (for example, the iPhone still does not support Flash, though it may be coming soon) will allow websites to improve the experience of surfing for their users. Sure, these devices present will websites as they appear on desktop browsers; but, catering the experience to the device will only help to engender the warm, fuzzies we all want our users to feel when they interact with our websites.

So, just when you web programmers out there were getting excited by the possibility of coding a web page without having to work around Internet Explorer’s myriad bugs, in comes the phone market to complicate your lives once again. I would love to predict that these companies, having lived through the pains of browser non-compliance once, will ensure that this time, we get it right from the start.

But who are we fooling? If we thought building sites for near-limitless combination of platforms, browsers, and screen sizes on desktop machines was hair-pulling-ly frustrating, now we have a whole new class of devices for which to build. If you thought having two or three computers on his desk was a cluttered way to do browser testing, imagine your desk with a dozen or more mobile devices as you try to ensure the site works on all major smartphones. Fun for everyone!

Have you ever wondered why it seems that all new websites are green? Or, perhaps less specifically, why certain colours seem to come into fashion one year only to be replaced by others the next? I’m sure that the fashion industry has a great deal to do with this, but how do these things trickle down to us (fashion-phobic) plebes?

Enter the good folks at Pantone®. As reported on the site ‘Colour Lovers’ (also Canadian? British?) it seems that blue is the new green this year. Pantone® has even chosen a specific shade of blue, 18-3943 Blue Iris. (Which, if you ask me, looks more purple than blue, but who am I?)

I guess we can look forward to a whole crop of over-designed websites using various hues of blue over the next year. I’m fine with that, so long as they start spelling words correctly (Flickr and Digg, I’m looking at you here) and get rid of all those damned reflections and bubble fonts in their logos.

Geesh! I’m starting to sound like a cranky old man.