Blueprint, Process Mapping | Lombardi Software

Blueprint, Process Mapping | Lombardi Software: "The simplest way to document your processes.

It’s 2008. Why are we creating workflow diagrams the same way we did in 1988? Most tools haven’t changed in over 20 years – still drawing lines and boxes, without a way to simplify a diagram, or reuse a common process! Blueprint is the next evolution of process documentation and workflow diagramming tools. Inline editing, collapsible sub-processes, and linked common processes all make diagramming simple, reusable, and time saving. Start using the only tool designed for today’s process documentation and diagramming challenges – plus it's free to get started!"
Watch the video
[Interesting application built with Google Web Toolkit mentioned at Google IO -- sc]

TweetWheel - Find out which of your Twitter friends know each other!

TweetWheel - Find out which of your Twitter friends know each other!: "Find out which of your Twitter friends know each other!"
[Interesting application built with Google App Engine mentioned at Google IO -- sc]

LaterLoop: Read Webpages Later on Your Phone or Anywhere

LaterLoop: Read Webpages Later on Your Phone or Anywhere:
Interesting application built with Google App Engine mentioned at Google IO -- sc
"You may not have tried it but reading webpages on your phone can work surprisingly well.

Whether you’re on the couch at home, taking the morning commute or waiting at the airport, you can catch up on your reading list whenever you have a minute or more.

LaterLoop is a free service that’s optimized for iPhones, Blackberries, Nokias and similar smartphones. LaterLoop also has a clean web interface for your regular browser."

Google Code University - Google Code

Google Code University - Google Code: "This website provides tutorials and sample course content so CS students and educators can learn more about current computing technologies and paradigms. In particular, this content is Creative Commons licensed which makes it easy for CS educators to use in their own classes.

The Courses section contains tutorials, lecture slides, and problem sets for a variety of topic areas:

* AJAX Programming
* Distributed Systems
* Web Security
* Languages

In the Tools 101 section, you will find a set of introductions to some common tools used in Computer Science such as version control systems and databases."

What is BlogThis! ?

What is BlogThis! ?: "What is BlogThis! ?

BlogThis! is an easy way to make a blog post without visiting blogger.com. Once you add the BlogThis! link to your browser's toolbar, blogging will be a snap. Or rather, a click. Clicking BlogThis! creates a mini-interface to Blogger prepopulated with a link to the web page you are visiting, as well as any text you have highlighted on that page. Add additional text if you wish and then publish or post from within BlogThis!"

Javascript Book

Pro JavaScript Techniques

Dive Into Python

Dive Into Python: "Dive Into Python is a Python book for experienced programmers. You can buy a printed copy, read it online, or download it in a variety of formats. It is also available in multiple languages."

Google Hosts Popular JavaScript Libraries

Google Hosts Popular JavaScript Libraries: "If you've ever wanted to use a JavaScript library like script.aculo.us, Prototype, jQuery or Dojo, but you couldn't upload its files to a site or you found it difficult to manage all the different versions, Google hosts them for you.

'The AJAX Libraries API is a content distribution network and loading architecture for the most popular open source JavaScript libraries. By using the Google AJAX API Loader's google.load() method, your application has high speed, globally available access to a growing list of the most popular JavaScript open source libraries. (...) The AJAX Libraries API takes the pain out of developing mashups in JavaScript while using a collection of libraries. We take the pain out of hosting the libraries, correctly setting cache headers, staying up to date with the most recent bug fixes'."

Official Google Website Optimizer Blog

Official Google Website Optimizer Blog

"Now let's look at how we do website redesigns today. We typically invite local agencies to razzle and dazzle us with their portfolios. We choose things that look nice and make us feel good about spending tens of thousands of dollars (if not more) on a redesign. We get enchanted by talk of Web 2.0, widgets, gadgets, video, surveys and interactive movies. If we're using a really good agency, they'll ask for or already know our current web-analytics metrics so there's a baseline against which to measure. And after months of brainstorming and discussions, we see initial concept mocks, and the new site is unveiled—perhaps a press release is issued.

The irony is, that launch day should really be the first day of a test, to see if the new site really does perform better than the old one. Sure, you think it looks better and your gut tells you it must perform better (especially since you've become emotionally invested in it). But the reality is you don't know. Even if you compare baseline web stats, you won't know if improvements are seasonal (almost any redesign in the fall outperforms a summer predecessor) or due to another external factor (like a new ad campaign)."

On the bleeding edge of videoconferencing at John Quiggin

On the bleeding edge of videoconferencing at John Quiggin
Yesterday, I appeared on video a National Symposium to be held by the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society in Adelaide (details here and program (PDF) here).

Unlike previous videoconferences I’ve done for smaller seminars (audience up to 30 who can fit into a dedicated venue) presenting to a big event like this posed lots of difficulties, though most were satisfactorily resolved at the end. After initially giving assurances that they could handle a videoconference, the venue advised that they didn’t have an ISDN line, or any adequate alternative, and that installing a line would cost thousands of dollars. We looked at various computer-based options, but eventually decided that we would be unlikely to get sufficient reliability and video quality that way, so I stepped back from the frontier and made a DVD of my presentation which I mailed to Adelaide. Even that fairly low-tech approach created some problems, as playback of computer-burned DVDs turns out not to be 100 per cent reliable. There was a scramble to find a setup that would play the DVD, but it all went well in the end.

The plan was to take questions by audioconference, and this was incorporated in a panel discussion where questions were addressed to several speakers. The organisation on this point was a bit ad hoc, and the sound quality was very poor. Fortunately, perhaps, the format only allowed for one or two questions per speaker.

A benefit of going this way is that it’s reasonably easy to make a podcast. Unfortunately, my slide design, which works fine on standard projection equipment, and seems to have gone OK in the DVD, is very hard to read in a small movie format. Even with this poky format, 30 minutes of video turns out to be too big to upload. I’ll have to split it into parts. I’ve attached the presentation for the moment, but even that is 8.3MB..

Overall, my experience here is an indication of some of the kinds of adjustments that need to be made if videopresence is going to replace air travel on a large scale. None of them are huge in themselves, but they reflect the marginal status of this option When the problems are overcome, the advantages, such as the permanent availability and reusability of the video and podcast will be substantial, but at the moment, it’s still on the bleeding edge.

YouTomb Lists YouTube Removals

YouTomb Lists YouTube Removals: "YouTomb is a research project by the MIT “that tracks videos taken down from [Google-owned] YouTube for alleged copyright violation,” as the site explains. [Via Google Operating System.]"

What is Evernote? | Evernote Corporation

What is Evernote? | Evernote Corporation: "Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at anytime, from anywhere."

YouTube - MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU

YouTube - MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU

Simple astonishing new short film by Blu: an ambiguous animation painted on public walls.

Made in Buenos Aires and in Baden (fantoche)

http://www.blublu.org/

NBC.com > Saturday Night Live - Update: Sen. McCain

NBC.com > Saturday Night Live - Update: Sen. McCain

2008 JavaOne Conference

2008 JavaOne Conference

"In a general session with James Gosling at JavaOne last week, Tor “NetBeans Guy” Norbye demoed the really nice JavaScript support that was just added to NetBeans (code completion, browser-compatibility warnings, syntax highlighting, refactoring, etc). He did so using YUI, and NetBeans did a very nice job with the code complete, etc. Really slick demo…"

skip over the first 8.5 minutes to get to the YUI/Netbeans demo

Kyle Hayes: YUI Makes Animating the DOM Easy

Kyle Hayes: YUI Makes Animating the DOM Easy: "Despite being an Adobe fanboy, I never cared much for how the Spry framework handles things like animations. Seemed complex at the time for basic operations. At work, they have standardized on using the YUI framework. This has been great for me because I have always wanted to dive deeper into it and learn about its ins and outs. With that, I needed to do some basic fade animations for a User Interface I am working on."

YouTube - Campfire One: Google Friend Connect (pt. 3)

YouTube - Campfire One: Google Friend Connect (pt. 3): "Google Friend Connect lets you grow traffic by easily adding social features to your website. For more info, visit http://www.google.com/friendconnect"

note: video shows adding FriendConnect to Ingrid Michaelson's web site -- sc

YouTube - Le Nozze di Figaro by Harnoncourt Trailer

A very interesting production of a funny Mozart opera with Anna Nekreboko -- sc
YouTube - Le Nozze di Figaro by Harnoncourt Trailer: "Le Nozze di Figaro - Harnoncourt D'Arcangelo, Anna Netrebko"

IBM Press room - 2007-11-15 IBM Introduces Ready-to-Use Cloud Computing - United States

IBM Press room - 2007-11-15 IBM Introduces Ready-to-Use Cloud Computing - United States: "Armonk, N.Y. and Shanghai, China - 15 Nov 2007: In Shanghai today, IBM unveiled plans for “Blue Cloud,” a series of cloud computing offerings that will allow corporate data centers to operate more like the Internet by enabling computing across a distributed, globally accessible fabric of resources, rather than on local machines or remote server farms."

IBM developerWorks : High Performance On Demand Solutions

IBM developerWorks : High Performance On Demand Solutions: "Welcome! This page provides resources to help you plan, design, and build real-world on demand solutions. The HiPODS team is a group of specialists within IBM's Software Strategy group, with seven locations around the world. Our skills represent a cross-section of IBM from the Software, Research, Global Services, and System and Technology divisions. We work to solve customer problems by innovating and collaborating with leading edge IBM customers.

The HiPODS team delivers first-of-a-kind, end-to-end integrated solutions that span IBM software and hardware brands to deliver a unified solution for our customers. HiPODS has worked with a wide range of businesses, such as eBay�, Google™, New York Stock Exchange, China Telecom, Sprint�, the Vietnam Ministry of Science and Technology, and more.

Some of our current project areas include:

• Cloud Computing

  Develop and deliver process-driven virtualized infrastructure solutions. Values to customers include:

  • Reducing IT management complexity and skill requirements
  • Sharing resources among multiple applications
  • Accelerating application launches
  • Supporting both existing and emerging, data-intensive workloads

"