My New Venture (reblaze.com)
Posted: April 20, 2012 Filed under: Cyberlife, www | Tags: cloud, reblaze, saas, security, startup, www Leave a commentI have been quite busy lately, ever since I have started working on Reblaze in the winter last year (2011).
We all wish to make the world (wide web) a better place. I think we have found a way to improve the web, to make it a better, safer and cleaner.
I guess we can be categorized under the SaaS tag, in fact, we are SaaS x2, we provide Software as a Service, as well as Security as a Service.
Visit us at reblaze.com and read all about, as well as add your site, it is free now, and so it will remain for all those who join during public beta.
Installing Python 3.0 on Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex
Posted: December 4, 2008 Filed under: Cyberlife, Linux & OpenSource, Python, ubuntu | Tags: python python3 ubuntu install 21 CommentsUPDATE (Dec, 7): apt-get install python3 works now. this might be the prefered way for most of us.
Based on sofen’s blog’s post about python 2.6
This was the easiest thing I did recently. It went so smooth that this post is totally redundant.
Seven commands and you are all unicode.
Step 1: Make sure you got all the prerequisites
$ sudo apt-get install build-essential libncursesw5-dev libreadline5-dev libssl-dev libgdbm-dev libbz2-dev libc6-dev libsqlite3-dev tk-dev g++ gcc
Step 2: Grab the bits, extract them and build them
$ wget http://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.0/Python-3.0.tgz $ tar xvzf Python-3.0.tgz $ cd Python-3.0/ $ ./configure $ make $ sudo make install
That’s it my friend. You now have the best software development platform in the entire universe!
$ python3.0 Python 3.0 (r30:67503, Dec 4 2008, 21:27:40) [GCC 4.3.2] on linux2 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>>
Good luck and enjoy the sweetness of open source software!
jQuery vs. Prototype
Posted: June 23, 2008 Filed under: Cyberlife, jquery, www Leave a commentjust put both libraries on wordle to visualize on which each library have focused.
Here are the results:
jQuery
Prototype
Do we need more facebok applications?
Posted: June 10, 2008 Filed under: Cyberlife, webdev, www | Tags: Cyberlife, facebook, web20, www 4 CommentsMy friend has 73 friends and 152 Facebook applications.
IMHO, the layout is lack of usability and functionality.
Let alone the fact each application require other users to install them in to their accounts in order to view standard web content (images, flash, videos, etc.)
I am sure Facebook’s dudes need to rethink the whole concept and come up with something more sensible.
def grab_contacts(ask_for_password = 0)
Posted: June 7, 2008 Filed under: Cyberlife, webdev, www Leave a commentstefan fountain -> coding horror -> hacker news
Stefan Fountain on June 5, 2008 05:37 AM
Is Facebook the next Microsoft?
Posted: January 7, 2008 Filed under: Cyberlife, facebook, opensocial, social-networking, www, www-pop Leave a commentI just came across this post by Robert Scoble
If you are trying to contact me on Facebook, please don’t. My account has been “disabled” for breaking Facebook’s Terms of Use. I was running a script that got them to keep me from accessing my account. I’m appealing. I’ll tell you what I was doing as soon as I talk with the developers who built what I was using and as soon as I talk with Facebook’s support (I sent an email in reply to the one below, but haven’t heard back yet).
…
I am working with a company to move my social graph to other places and that isn’t allowable under Facebook’s terms of service.
While they wrote their own screen scrappers 
so they can read all your contacts and friends that stored in the addresses books at gmail or hotmail or live.com, and many others. They blocked Robert Scoble’s account for running a script that (as far as I can read between the lines) exports his own friends list.
It is pretty clear now why Facebook preferred to go along with Microsoft instead of Google.
It is even more clear why they don’t join open social.
I can see what they thought at the first place when they released that cursed Beacon, and I don’t buy the apologizes that came after the rush.
Here is a short description of [Windows|Facebook] (you choose) platform.
- It is a closed source system that comes with a set of APIs, which let third parties develop new applications.
- If a user wants to use a third party application he must install that application.
- If a user decided to uninstall a third party software.
- When a user run the uninstall process, most of the data might remain in the system.
- You never know who has access to your private data.
Getting things right vs. Getting things done
Posted: January 2, 2008 Filed under: Cyberlife, google, javascript, jquery, web-devel, webdev, www Leave a commentMost of today’s web developer will tell you that
the following:
<h2 id="foo">Click Here</h2>
<script>
$('foo').click = function(){alert("Hello")};
</script>
is better than:
<h2 id="foo" onclick="alert('Hello');">Click Here</h2>
and the following:
<style>
body{
background-color:#ffffff;
color:#000000;
margin-top:3}
a{color:#0000cc}
a:visited{color:#551a8b}
</style>
<body>....</body>
<script>
$(document).ready(function(){
sf();
if(document.images){
new Image().src='/images/nav_logo3.png';
});
</script>
is far better than:
<body bgcolor=#ffffff
text=#000000
link=#0000cc
vlink=#551a8b
alink=#ff0000
onload="sf();if(document.images){new Image().src='/images/nav_logo3.png'}"
topmargin=3 marginheight=3>....</body>
and last but not least: Using HTML tables for layout-ing is evil.
The point is that the code above is taken from Google, Facebook and Yahoo.
Yep! All the majors seems to be caring less on standards and more for their own interests.
None of them are valid HTML and Google.com uses a table to align the two buttons (Google Search and I’m felling Lucky) in the middle of the page.
My brother thinks he’s a chicken
Posted: December 22, 2007 Filed under: Cyberlife 1 Comment“… I thought of that old joke, y’know, the, this… this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, “Doc, uh, my brother’s crazy; he thinks he’s a chicken.” And, uh, the doctor says, “Well, why don’t you turn him in?” The guy says, “I would, but I need the eggs…”
— Annie Hall (1977) by Woddy Allen
I have been thinking allot recently about some significant decisions I have to make regarding my career, many times I found myself summarizing: I would, but I need the salary… ♥
Startup Entrepreneur?
Posted: December 16, 2007 Filed under: Cyberlife 1 CommentFirst they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you.
Then you win.
MK Gandhi
Python vs. Lisp (Your favorite dish)
Posted: October 3, 2007 Filed under: Cyberlife, lisp, Python 1 CommentUsing Python is like eating delicate gourmet foods. You know, great and innovative ideas, small portions, cheering up your mind, and tasting of the “Good Life”. Whereas using Lisp is like cooking that food.
Who made reddit?
Posted: August 18, 2007 Filed under: Cyberlife Leave a commentToday I noticed that Aaron Swartz’s name is missing from the list of those who made reddit. For some reasons I think the name is missing on purpose.
When I read Aaron’s post Office Space, I felt the same as I felt When I read How Software Company Dies. These are the mistakes done every day everywhere by so called decision makers.
As far as I can tell, in my opinion, firing Aaron Swartz is one of the biggest mistake a software company can make. There aren’t many Aarons in the universe, and if you were lucky enough to came across one, and shake his hand, leave your hand at there, that is, don’t let the person go. It seems like the guys at Wired probably don’t get it.
Making mistakes is one thing, being evil is another.
This is the current page at reddit.com
(http://programming.reddit.com/help/team_reddit)
This is the one I managed to find at Internet Archive
(http://web.archive.org/web/20061222002224/http://programming.reddit.com/help/team_reddit)
Related links:
- http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-05-07-n78.html
- http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/fired
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reddit
- http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/officespace
- http://programming.reddit.com/help/team_reddit
- http://web.archive.org/web/20061222002224/http://programming.reddit.com/help/team_reddit
PS: It would interesting, seeing this post in reddit
Looking at gift horse in the mouth (or Google Reader is missing a core feature)
Posted: August 18, 2007 Filed under: Cyberlife, google 1 CommentI know they said: don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Yet, since I have been riding on this horse for so many miles, I feel comfortable to point out few missing features I believe would make this a-grade web application even better.
I could not believe that a *Made In Google* application will miss a search function. Can you?
Every day I go over dozens of RSS/ATOM feeds, I sometime tag the important/interesting/future reading post, or even share them. Yet, if I ever wanted to re-visit a site or blog for an article I’ve read, or wanted to read but didn’t have the time when it was originally posted, and I found myself scrolling over thousands of post hoping to get lucky and finding what I am looking for.
In sum, Google Reader Team, Thanks for this great application, It helping me allot and saves me time every day. However, I believe that by adding a search capability, is necessary.
Update:
Google reader now has that desired function: See at
http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2007/09/we-found-it.html
10 Years of Rendering Proprietary Vector Graphic Content
Posted: August 11, 2007 Filed under: Cyberlife, Linux & OpenSource 3 Comments1997 was the releasing year of Macromedia Flash 2. Since then, GNU/Linux became the most progressive operating system, mySQL is one of the most popular database on earth. Firefox has bitten and beaten IE, and Open-Source software is the hottest thing Intel processors ever calculate. Yet, at this moment, in case my artistic soul has the desire of rendering slickly content over the web I am bound to do it using proprietary software.
The only browser which fully supports SVG is Opera, Firefox implements many features but not all. VML comes from the same streets that Windows came from. Canvas is owned by Steve Jobs, Flash is a proprietary of adobe [and I don’t feel like going into WHATWG and HTML5 and all the political arguments].
In March 2001, that is 6.5 years ago, Jeffrey Zeldman published an article titled: “SMIL When You Play That” and yet, I can barely remember myself seeing websites using this method.
On the other hand, in the DHTML/DOM/JS field, we have many of the same, a great collection of community supported cross-browser libraries such as: YUI; Prototype+Scriptaculous; jQuery; Mochikit; Dojo and many more, each of which dose more or less the same, making web development as easier and elegant as possible.
I wish I had enough time and knowledge require to push this into Mozilla. I just think it is time to do to Flash whatever was done to IE and Windows, taking away the monarchy and give us the freedom and comfort of open sourced technology.
EVALINUX 
Jeff – here are the links for you:
Google Contacts API: http://code.google.com/apis/contacts/
Yahoo! Contact API: http://developer.yahoo.com/addressbook/
Windows Live Contact API: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb463989.aspx
I’m glad these malpractices are getting more attention, they deserve to get the bad wrap on their wrist for these kind of infringements of respecting users’ data.