Year: 2008

My love-hate relationship with Connect2Edmonton: Twitter & FriendFeed to the rescue?

connect2edmonton Connect2Edmonton (C2E for short) is a community website serving Edmontonians that launched on March 30th, 2006. On March 4th of this year it surpassed 3000 registrations, and announced that it receives 45,000 unique visitors per month. Those are pretty good numbers for a website all about Alberta’s capital city!

You can find all sorts of great stuff on the forums at C2E. Users post about construction projects, sports, new restaurants, you name it. Sometimes they simply post links to articles from the Journal or the Sun, other times users are breaking news at C2E. The wealth of frequently updated information on Edmonton is the main reason I love C2E.

Here’s what I hate about it: C2E looks and feels and smells like it was built in 1996. There are quite a few “Web 1.0” aspects to the site, such as the old school message boards, the lack of permalinks, and the horribly ugly URLs for the pages that do have permalinks. Instead of blogs, they have “columns”. Thank goodness the site has RSS, or I’d probably never use it.

For the moment, C2E seems to have an edge in that it has the community. I wonder how long that will last though? There are so many other up-and-coming services that could easily make C2E nothing more than a fond memory. Here’s a couple of examples that I’m involved with:

Edmonton’s Twitter Community
I still think that Twitter is changing the world, one tweet at a time. It’s transforming the way news breaks, and is making real-time conversations extremely public. Here in Edmonton we have a really strong Twitter community. We’ve had a Tweetup – follow us here – and we’ve loosely organized ourselves with things like the #yeg hashtag. Imagine if C2E users posted to Twitter with the #yeg hashtag instead of to the C2E forums! Others could reply without needing an account, they could get notifications to their mobile devices, through the API to other applications, etc.

The Edmonton Room at FriendFeed
Another thing I’ve created recently is the Edmonton room at FriendFeed. Anyone can join and start sharing messages, links, and of course comments and likes. And thanks to a recently added feature, I can add RSS feeds to the room so that entries automatically appear. So far I’ve added the Edmonton Journal and a couple of filtered blog feeds (such as the Edmonton tag on my blog). Again, this goes beyond C2E – instead of finding the Journal article and posting it to the forums, they automatically appear in the Edmonton room, ready for commenting and sharing. (I suppose I could add the C2E feed, but that’s beside the point.)

What both of these examples highlight, more than the “Web 1.0” look of C2E, is that it’s still a relatively closed system. Twitter and even FriendFeed are both much more open systems. They encourage data to be shared freely, and as a result, they are the platforms on which the news engines of the future are being built. Want an example? Check out NewsJunk.

I’m not saying that we need to abandon Connect2Edmonton. Instead, C2E should embrace Twitter, FriendFeed, and other services to make itself more open. C2E is a great service for the Edmonton community, but I know it could be so much better.

UPDATE (6/27/2008): I just tried to add the C2E RSS feed for Columns to the Edmonton FriendFeed room, only to find that the feed lacks datestamps, lacks authors, includes entries in a random order, and is otherwise useless. EPIC FAIL.

Putting the Caps Lock button to good use with Enso 2.0 Launcher Prototype

enso launcher

All keyboards have a CAPS Lock button, but how often do you actually use it? If you’re like me, you probably press it accidentally more than you press it on purpose. What if you could put that button to good use? Wouldn’t that be great?

Unless you’ve just installed a fresh copy of Windows XP, chances are your Start Menu is a ridiculously large list. As you install applications over time, it becomes more and more difficult to find the one you want! What if there was an easier, faster way to launch applications? Wouldn’t that be great?

Humanized’s Enso 2.0 Launcher Prototype solves both of these problems at once.

I’ve been using a launch utility called Launchy for quite a while now, but the latest version has been nothing but trouble for me. It uses far too much memory and CPU, and most of the useful plugins from the old version don’t work in 2.0. So I went looking for something better (to be clear, this is far less of an issue on Vista thanks to the search functionality of the Start Menu).

Eventually I came across Enso. I noticed that there was a new “prototype” version out, and decided to download that instead of the stable release. I’m glad I did! Enso 2.0 Launcher Prototype runs in the background, and is summoned simply by holding down the CAPS lock button.

It’s important to note “holding down the CAPS lock button”. One of the unique things about Enso is that it is quasimodal – as soon as you let go of the CAPS lock button, it disappears. The way most applications work is with a hotkey, they are modal – press the button and the window appears until you get rid of it. You can read more about that here. It might seem awkward at first, but it actually makes a ton of sense and is pretty easy to get used to.

enso 2

I guess Enso 2.0 is actually quasimodal and modal…that is, you hold CAPS to open Enso, and type the “open” command to get the modal box shown above.

Enso does more than just launch applications, websites, files and directories. It has some other handy commands such as “uppercase” which will convert whatever text is selected into uppercase letters. It can also do things like calculate “2+2”. More than a launcher, Enso is a command system.

My only complaints thus far are that Enso seems to launch after everything else does on system startup, and occasionally it crashes. It’s definitely solid enough for day-to-day use though.

If you’re looking for an excellent launch utility, give Enso 2.0 a shot, and put your CAPS lock button to good use! (for the record, you can configure it to use a different key)

Notes for 6/22/2008

Here are my weekly notes:

  • Happy Birthday Sharon! (tomorrow) We celebrated yesterday with dinner at Characters, some skee-ball at Chuck E. Cheese, and Get Smart. Fun!
  • Popular blogger Louis Gray documented the birth of his twins this weekend using Twitter and FriendFeed. He summarized things on his blog. How did he do this? Wi-Fi at the hospital. Yet another reason to support free wi-fi.
  • The Coca-Cola Happiness Factory is one of my favorite advertisements of all time. Scott Beale has found the original 60 second spot, the 3:30 mini-movie that followed, as well as a “making of” video. Very cool.
  • PwC thinks that gaming will be a $68 billion business by 2012.
  • Despite server hiccups due to the load, the launch of Firefox 3 was a success with over 8 million downloads in 24 hours.
  • Time to start planning Edmonton’s second Tweetup. Unless someone comes up with a much better idea, I think it makes sense to go back to Three Banana’s Cafe downtown. On a related note…some of us in Edmonton have started using #yeg to denote tweets that are of interest to the Edmonton community (we copied the #yyc guys).
  • Congratulations to Chasing Jones, a local Edmonton band who released their debut EP on Friday at the Starlite Room. I went to high school with front-man Nick Di Lullo. He’s interviewed in Vue Weekly here.
  • My Dad is passing through town on Thursday, so I’m looking forward to meeting up with him for dinner.

Extremely Handy: Google SMS

google mobile I’m a little surprised that I’ve never blogged about Google SMS before, because it’s a wonderfully useful service that deserves more attention. It’s amazing how few people know about it! What is Google SMS? Basically, it’s Google via text messaging. The power of Google in your pocket!

Using Google SMS is really simple. All you have to do is send a text message to 466453 (GOOGLE). There are a bunch of built-in commands you can use, but the default is just a local search. For instance, when Sharon and I were in Calgary last weekend, we used Google SMS to give us the address of Tubby Dog. I sent the following message:

Tubby Dog, Calgary

And Google SMS replied immediately with:

Local Listings: Tubby Dog 1022 17 Avenue SW Calgary, T2T 0A5

I’m not exaggerating when I say immediately either – Google SMS is incredibly fast.

The built-in commands or “search features” include: weather, glossary, dictionary, stocks, directions, flights, translations, calculator, currency conversion, sports, and more. There’s a full list with examples and an interactive demo here. The ones I use most are local search (as above), movies (such as “get smart t6p”), and the calculator (such as “0.45 lb in kg”). The weather search (“weather edmonton”) is also handy.

I’m fairly dependent on Google for looking stuff up, so Google SMS is great because I don’t need to be at a computer. Do yourself a favor and program 466453 into your phone now!

My favorite things about Opera 9.5

opera 9.5 Everyone is talking about Firefox 3, but I’d like to take a moment to talk about a different browser! On June 12th, Opera released the latest version of its desktop web browser. Version 9.5 includes a bunch of new features and lots of incremental improvements. Here are some of my favorite things about it so far:

  • Faster. Opera says the new version is twice as fast as 9.2 at rendering HTML and Javascript, and my experience would support that. I haven’t timed it obviously, but 9.5 does indeed seem quicker.
  • Quick Find. Firefox 3 has the so-called “awesome bar” that remembers page titles and such, allowing you to type in the address bar to find pages you’ve visited in the past. Opera 9.5 does this too, and a whole lot more – it indexes the actual content of pages! Remember a word you read on a page you visited? Type it in the address bar, and Opera will help you find it again. Very slick.
  • Vista stability. I don’t think this is an official improvement, but 9.5 definitely seems more stable on Windows Vista than 9.2 did.
  • New look and feel. When I first launched 9.5, I was a little surprised at the black default theme. After a day or two of using it though, I’m hooked. I love it. It looks great on Vista too.

Opera 9.5 also has support for Extended Validation (EV) certificates – finally!

One new feature that I haven’t tried yet is Opera Link. It allows you to synchronize your bookmarks and Speed Dial settings between computers and devices. Firefox 3 has a similar feature. It’s a great idea for the average user, but for someone like me who uses del.icio.us, it’s kind of useless.

Of course, my list of ten things to love about Opera from last year is still valid too!

Want to give Opera 9.5 a try? You can download it here.

City-provided Wi-Fi project to continue in Edmonton

wireless This morning I attended an Edmonton City Council meeting along with Eric. I had never been to a council meeting before, so the whole process was rather interesting and at times even entertaining. That said, I wonder how they get anything done! Item E1 was titled “City-Wide Wireless Internet and Wi-Fi Service – Pilot Project Internal Evaluation” and was marked on the agenda as “time specific, first item at 9:30 AM”. They finally got around to it at 10:30 AM.

Two members of Next Gen Edmonton joined a representative from the city’s IT branch to provide council with an overview of the report on Wireless Edmonton that was published on May 15, 2008. I haven’t actually seen the report, but it outlines the following information:

  • The first eZones were established at City Hall, Churchill Square, Kinsmen Sports Centre, and Commonwealth Sports and Fitness Centre
  • Usage is increasing and currently averages 250 users per day with an average connection time of 30 minutes
  • Public feedback has been generally positive, and indicates a demand for expansion of the service
  • Marketing efforts have been largely word-of-mouth, supported by media coverage, signage, and brochures
  • Ongoing annual operating costs are estimated at $1000 per eZone
  • Setup costs for each new eZone are estimated at $20,000

The current service is built atop the City of Edmonton’s existing Internet infrastructure, which is how they can keep costs fairly low (Eric and I still think it’s too expensive though). That means that future eZones could quite easily be setup at any City-owned location that has Internet/wireless already for administration purposes. Other potential expansion sites include transit corridors (LRT and/or high priority bus routes) and mobile units that would travel to smaller festivals and events.

The council passed the following recommendation/motion:

  1. That the City continue to provide and promote publicly accessible Wi-Fi (Wireless Edmonton) service at Main Floor City Hall, Sir Winston Churchill Square, Kinsmen Sports Centre and Commonwealth Sports and Fitness Centre.
  2. That the City continue to explore opportunities to expand the Wireless Edmonton service where existing City network infrastructure is available and where there is a public interest, as outlined in the May 15, 2008, Corporate Services Department report 2008COT002.

There wasn’t too much discussion, but a few interesting questions were raised:

  • Councillor Ben Henderson asked about the quality of the service, noting that the current practice of filtering means that common services such as email do not work for many users.
  • Councillor Karen Leibovici questioned the business case, and wondered why the city should provide such a service when Telus, Rogers, and others already provide similar services for a fee.

I think Councillor Henderson’s question is extremely pertinent. What’s the point of offering the service if you’re just going to cripple it? I’m definitely in favor of getting rid of the filtering.

Councillor Leibovici’s question is responsible, but largely misses the point in my opinion. The city isn’t operating the wireless service to turn a profit, but rather to facilitate indirect returns. The productivity gains and everything else that comes along with having free wireless is what really matters.

The IT representative (didn’t catch his name…might have been Stephen Gordon, who is Manager of Operations) made a really great point. He said that offering the wireless service is important for Edmonton’s credibility. There’s an expectation that world class facilities have Wi-Fi available, and Edmonton needs to live up to that expectation if it wants to compete on the world stage.

The presentation today made it clear that the City of Edmonton doesn’t want to compete with commercial providers of wireless Internet access. Instead the city can serve a particular niche, offering service in public locations that commercial providers would probably ignore (such as the library). I think that makes sense.

I think more needs to be done to improve the state of wireless in Edmonton, but it doesn’t have to fall on the city. There’s definitely opportunity for the private sector to get involved. I’m glad the city is doing something though, and I look forward to the expansion of their eZones.

Talking Twitter at BarCampCalgary2

twitter I decided to fully embrace the idea of BarCamp on Saturday, and put my name down to do a presentation. I hadn’t planned to do one, and I certainly didn’t have anything prepared, so it was a “game-time decision” as I like to say. I figured I’d talk about Twitter, since I talked about it all the time anyway. I titled my talk:

Why Twitter Will Rule The World

Catchy right? Must have worked, because there were a lot of people in the room. I started with a brief overview and introduction, and then started showing some third party tools that make Twitter really useful, such as Summize and TwitterLocal. I also spent a little bit of time extolling the virtues of FriendFeed.

The best part of the presentation was the discussion. We talked about the signal-noise ratio of Twitter, and decided that there’s value in noise. We talked about spam, how Twitter breaks news, the scalability issues, and where we see Twitter going in the future. It was great, and the questions people asked definitely gave me something to think about.

Maybe I’ll lead a Twitter discussion at BarCampEdmonton in July. Definitely seems as though there’s interest.

Thanks to John Bristowe for letting me use his laptop (mine wouldn’t output to the projector for some reason). You can follow me on Twitter here.

Notes for 6/15/2008

Happy Father’s Day! Here are my weekly notes:

  • Had a great time in Calgary, and BarCamp was awesome. I’ll write more about it tomorrow.
  • Sharon and I went to see Young People Fucking last night. The movie was actually pretty good, and it was a lot funnier that I expected it to be. We thought the actors and actresses all resembled more well-known actors and actresses.
  • Opera released the latest version of its desktop browser this week. I like the new look of Opera 9.5, and it does indeed seem faster.
  • Here’s a fantastic sign-off post from one of the blogosphere’s best Microsoft commentators.
  • The empty Dell building on the southside of Edmonton is going to become the new head offices for Servus.
  • In 1983, Edmonton hosted the first and only Universiade to be held in Canada. This week it was announced that our city will have another shot at it, in 2015. The other bid the CIS evaluated was from Quebec City.
  • TechCrunch turned three years old on Wednesday. Certainly seems like it has been around a lot longer than that!

BarCampCalgary2

Just arrived in Calgary. I’m here mainly for BarCampCalgary taking place tomorrow at Mount Royal College from 10:30am until 3:30pm. More details are here, and a list of attendees can be found here. I’m curious to see how things will go tomorrow – I’m sure we’ll learn how to make Edmonton’s first BarCamp in July a success.

barcampcalgary

Sharon decided to come down with me, so we’re making a weekend of it. That means food plans! Tomorrow we’re going to check out JAROblue for dinner and possibly Tubby Dog. On Sunday, we’re going to go for brunch at Nellie’s (one of the locations, not sure which yet). And on the way back, the plan is to stop in Red Deer to see Tom, for food at one of these places.

Should be fun!

Something to keep an eye on: Microsoft Velocity

Last week I heard about a new project from Microsoft code-named Velocity. You can think of Velocity as Microsoft’s version of the very popular memcached:

“Velocity” is a distributed in-memory cache that provides .NET applications with high-speed access, scale, and high availability to application data.

Basically it’s a backend technology that helps to make websites perform better. Instead of accessing the database every time a page is requested, the website can often get the data it needs from the cache which is much faster than accessing the database.

ASP.NET has had caching built-in for years, but it doesn’t work in a server farm. That is, if you have more than one web server, there’s no way for all of them to share the same cache. Velocity makes that possible. For a good technical overview of Velocity, check out this post from Dare Obasanjo. Also check out Scott Hanselman’s podcast interview with two of Velocity’s architects.

We use memcached in Podcast Spot, and we’ve been very happy with it. It’s simple, efficient, and does just what we need it to do. Of course, our memcached installation is no where near the size of Facebook’s. I’ve read in a few places in the past that they run a 200 server cluster with 3 TB of memory solely for memcached. I’m sure it has grown since then too.

I have no idea how well Velocity will perform compared to memcached, or even if it’s full of bugs or not! I am eager to play around with it though, and it’s a project I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on. Velocity is a project from Microsoft that is long overdue, in my opinion.