Sat 24 May 2008
The NYTimes OPEN blog talks about their TimesMachine implementation, and how they used EC2 to convert the archive information into something usable on the web. TimesMachine, by the way, is an archive of Times pages going all the way back to issue number one (18 September 1851).
Wed 9 Apr 2008
The New York Public Library now has a presence on iTunes U. This makes a lot of the library’s digital content a little easier to get at.
Fri 15 Feb 2008
Amazon’s S3 Service went dark for a time today. This, of course, effectively shuttered the businesses (or parts thereof) that rely on S3 for online storage. It seems that things are returning to normal, but some customers are upset–and rightfully so. Amazon touted this storage as being pretty much bulletproof; widespread, unscheduled downtime does not live up to that promise.
In Amazon’s defense, this is the first major S3 outage, so their track record is pretty damn good. I’ve been an advocate of S3 for some time, and will continue to be so long as outages like this one do not become commonplace.
This just serves as a reminder that functions relying on web services should fail gracefully. This may be a tall order, if not impossible, for some applications. But, compensating for these sorts of failures should be a major design consideration for developers of applications that consume web services.
Fri 4 Jan 2008
Back in December, Jonas said “Wouldn’t it be cool if you could highlight an address on a web page and get subway directions to that location?” Cool indeed. I thought a bookmarklet would do the trick, so I came up with this one: HS Directions from ESB (does not work in IE). This bookmarklet will give subway directions from the Empire State Building to an address (highlighted in the browser) in Manhattan. The idea here being that one would use their home or work address rather than that of the Empire State Building. By having this bookmarklet in your browser, you’re one click away from subway directions.
There are some limitations to this method. For instance, the “Manhattan” destination is coded in the bookmarklet, if your destination is, say, Brooklyn, it’s not going to work. If you traveled to another borough regularly, you could have an additional bookmarklet; more than a couple of these would become unmanageable. Further, HopStop takes other variables into account like time of day and such when calculating routes. This bookmarklet doesn’t really help with that.
I went as far as creating a little HopStop bookmarkelet generator that allowed one to select the default start and end points for routes, then it created a bookmarklet on the fly which could be moved to the browser’s bookmarks. This worked pretty well. But, given the aforementioned limitations, I wondered if it would be all that useful. If anyone is interested in this, let me know and I might dust off the old project. It, however, would be even better if HopStop offered a generator like this.
Thu 3 Jan 2008
Bits mentioned the human-guided search engine, ChaCha, today. ChaCha offers both browser-based and SMS search. Text a question to 242242 and ChaCha will answer.
I was interested in just how fast a person could answer a tough question. Today, I asked ChaCha three such questions via SMS and, in all cases, the answer came back within 90 seconds:
One correct, one wrong and one maybe, a passable job given the questions. These answers do seem to reflect 20 cents worth of research. That’s what ChaCha pays their human guides per SMS answer (see FAQ). For that kind of money, I’m surprised they got close at all.
I don’t see ChaCha replacing any of the popular search engines. Then again, I don’t think that is their goal. The SMS feature is nice and I really like the simple, definitive answers that come back. Even if they aren’t 100% correct, at least they sound confident. Just don’t ask any life or death questions like “How do I apply a tourniquet?”
Sun 30 Dec 2007
The 2.3.2 release of Wordpress was released on the 29th of December. This release patches a security hole and fixes a few other bugs.
Additionally, this release allows one to create a custom database error page. If Wordpress encounters a problem connecting to the database, it will show the template located at wp-content/db-error.php rather than the default error message. If you would like to customize your DB error, just create a template file, name it “db-error.php” and upload it to your site’s wp-content directory.
By the way, if you are not using subversion to manage your Wordpress installations, you should start. It makes life much, much easier at upgrade time.
Sat 15 Dec 2007
After what seems like an extended, semi-private beta, Dopplr launched earlier this week. Since they have such a well-crafted statement on their about page, I’ll let them speak for themselves:
Dopplr is an online service for frequent business travellers.
Dopplr lets you share your travel plans privately with a group of friends and colleagues whom you have chosen. It then tells you when people you know will be in the same cities. It also reminds you of people who live in the places you’re planning to visit.
Dopplr has a lot of potential if it can attract a critical mass of users. This shouldn’t be a problem since those who have been using Dopplr seem to really enjoy it. Integration with other applications will also help, and they look to be well on their way in this area. Currently, it works with Flickr and Facebook. Dopplr also uses OpenID and sports an API, which open up all sorts of possibilities.
In addition to all this great tech stuff, Dopplr is quite easy to use. The interface is uncluttered and beautiful in its simplicity. The team has done a wonderful job on this application and I really look forward to using it.
Tue 4 Dec 2007
Notify NYC is a program to rapidly distribute notifications about emergency and non-emergency events around the city. Depending on which areas you choose to receive alerts for, you’ll get the choice of SMS, email, or phone notifications. There are four areas of the city involved in this pilot: Lower Manhattan, The Rockaways and parts of the Bronx and Staten Island. For more information, check out the Notify NYC FAQ.
via City Room
Tue 4 Dec 2007
A taxi passenger recently found out how open NYC’s new taxi computers are to casual exploration. A wayward error message and some ingenuity lead to an open Internet browser and access to the computer’s file system. It’s disheartening to learn that these computers, provided by TaxiTech, are open to the probing of casual users. It is even more alarming when considering that these systems are used to process credit card payments as well. Are customers’ credit card numbers stored on these computers? If so, are they secure? Let’s hope that TaxiTech and its partners have designed a system that does not put customer information at risk when errors occur.
I also wonder how all these Windows machines riding through the streets of New York are patched and upgraded. Is there an automated updating scheme, or are they wide open to attacks from the Internet until someone gets around to patching the machines?
Until these questions are answered, paying with cash might be the best option.
via City Room
Sat 1 Dec 2007
BUG is an open-source, hackable hardware platform from Bug Labs. It is not only cool, but it also may be the holiday gift for the geek/hacker in your life. Keep an eye on their store as they promise to be open this year.
Robert Scoble recently spent some time at Bug Labs HQ in New York and has three videos to share (below). I was more excited about the BUG after watching the first five minutes of video than I have been reading the Bug Blogger for several months. No disrespect to the Bug Bloger here, I just think that the videos show how close these things are to getting into people’s hands. Very exciting.
via Webreakstuff