idisposable.net: a blog about web 2.0, search, collaboration, Ruby on Rails, Microsoft, Google, and other fun stuff

Two new Google Mail announcements - contacts and security

August 14, 2008 – 12:32 pm

Now you can click on the [TO:] link in GMail to get your contacts. This was one of the most annoying missing features in GMail. Nice work.

Gmail supports easier access to contacts when composing a message

Google is also improving their Postini offerings with some very robust security features. http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/security/web.html

This is great news for Google Apps Premier customers, especially large companies and educational institutions who need this sort of peace of mind and protection on their network.

Holla back if you are using Google Apps…

By ed | Posted in google apps | Comments (0)

Getting Ready for Ruby 1.9

August 12, 2008 – 10:37 pm

Ruby 1.9: What to Expect goes into some interesting language changes for the 1.9 release.   It is still in development, however there are changes and new features abound. I wonder how much adoption we’ll see, as I assume this is going to break a ton of popular gems and plugins out there.

My favorite bit:

{a: b} #same as { :a => b }

So much cleaner! =>

By ed | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Google Apps adoption on the rise for colleges and universities

August 1, 2008 – 12:59 am


Google Apps Education Edition helps attract solution providers

Back in May, Microsoft began offering hosted Exchange on college campuses through its Live@edu service — a move some saw as a direct response to Google’s success in the higher education market. Yahoo is also pushing to entrench its Zimbra email and collaboration desktop in higher ed. It’s part of an overall trend toward hosted email services on college campuses, Laczynski said.

“We’re seeing interest in this space in general and specifically with Google Apps,” he said. “There’s a lot of excitement. … These are students that are used to Gmail. They love Google. They’re used to hosted services. They’re not corporate email users.”

I spoke with Colin Steele, from TechTarget, earlier this week  regarding the opportunities for solution providers working with Google Apps in the Education space.   It is truly an exciting time to be involved in a transitional technology wave.  Hosted and cloud-based services are the way things are going, and Google Apps is a great example of a real world case.  We’ve seen so much great interest from colleges, universities, and school districts around the country.

By ed | Posted in cloud, google apps, microsoft | Comments (0)

Ruby on Rails Plugin for the Compete API

July 31, 2008 – 12:46 pm

I wrote a Rails Plugin for Compete.com’s API.

Check it out, leave comments if you like it or use it.

Thanks

By ed | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Microsoft’s Web 2.0 Developer Program Scores Points, but read the fine print

May 7, 2008 – 10:02 am

According to this headline, Microsoft has “edged” Google in Web 2.0 services for developers.  The report being discussed is from Evans Data, a technology research group.

Microsoft  and eBay score unexpectedly high marks with developers, according to Evans.

You decide, the  report can be found here.   But I can’t quite grasp what sort of survey panel they used that didn’t have Amazon, with AWS - arguably the most robust and uniquely used Web 2.0 service framework yet, and Facebook - with the highest profile and most accelerating and deftly used developer program in the short history of Web 2.0 in its Facebook Apps program, blowing everyone away.

But then I read Evans Data’s client list, revealing both eBay and Microsoft as customers.

John Andrews, president of Evans Data, shills for Microsoft here:

“Microsoft has much more experience in developer programs and it shows”

Now this has traditionally been true, heck my company was a Microsoft shop for years because of the quality of their developer programs in a sea of almost non-existing offerings from the players of the day (Sun, Oracle, IBM, and the like).  But today?  I think that putting up MSN widgets against Facebook and Amazon just shows how little the offering is.  Google is an upstart and already commands high marks in this area, despite not being an Evans Data Advisory Panel member or client.

It would be pretty cool if someone wrote a Web 2.0 survey/rating system for Web 2.0 development programs.  I would trust the community at large more than a sample group programmed by a private analyst group that may very well be paid by the entities it is reviewing.

By ed | Posted in amazon, cloud, ebay, facebook, google, microsoft | Comments (0)

Bill Gates goes out on a limb, claims internet will change in next 10 years

May 7, 2008 – 12:09 am

Bill,

Please run Microsoft again.  It needs you.

I think you may need it too.   Your recent comments are not very helpful.

I was kind of hoping for something more profound and insightful than  “We can expect that the variety and quality of software will accelerate in the years ahead.”

You used to say cool stuff like “Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.”   Now you sound like an article from the in-flight magazine, from 1996.

Your brainchild’s most threatening competitor, Google, has a CEO too.  Eric Schmidt is definitely in tune with the future of the web. His recent interview in Wired was revealing and revealed the visionary aspect of being a CEO of a major force in web technology,

Steve Ballmer is awesome. His videos are great.  He eats hippie CEO’s like Jerry Yang for breakfast.  However, Microsoft needs someone at the helm for all the software stuff that you were good at for all those years.  No, it wasn’t perfect.  But it sure was popular and effective.  The question really is, what does Microsoft look like in 10 years?  Because the Internets aren’t waiting for it to catch up.

Best,

Ed

By ed | Posted in cloud, google, microsoft | Comments (0)

More Doom and Gloom for Microsoft

April 18, 2008 – 5:01 pm

According to Gartner and some industry folks that are “in the know,” Microsoft is in for some dire straights ahead because of the failure for Vista to take off as expected and the way things are unfolding in the internet and application development space.

Kind of like I’ve be saying for the past few months (here and especially here), Microsoft has a serious challenge ahead of them. Cloud computing is becoming more popular. Almost every new project that I’ve been working on relies on some sort of cloud based system.

By ed | Posted in cloud, microsoft | Comments (2)

Do you miss ASP.NET? Try the Acts as ASP.NET Rails Pluging

April 4, 2008 – 3:23 pm

Hilarious code comedy from Rails Jedi

My favorite:

“Viewstate is back. Now new and improved on top of Rails. acts_as_aspdotnet overrides form_tag to put a hidden variable that contains loads of crucial processing data on every postback that will fill your server pipes with more glorious bandwidth.”

By ed | Posted in .net, microsoft, rails, ruby | Comments (0)

Another big move by Google. Offline Docs. Word.

March 31, 2008 – 5:39 pm

http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2008/03/bringing-cloud-with-you.html

Google has been rocking lately with updates to Google Apps.  Every week there seems to be more news coming out of Mountain View.  The latest news, hot of the press from Google’s Official Blog, is more evidence that this technology might just turn out to be as disruptive to Microsoft as anything else happening right now:

Now I can create, edit, publish, and fly on an airplane without loading up any Microsoft programs.

By ed | Posted in google apps, google gears, microsoft | Comments (0)

More gloom for Microsoft? Brand in decline says researcher

March 28, 2008 – 11:41 pm

I picked this up from Slashdot today.

I am still a huge Microsoft fan, I think that they blazed the trail for personal computing in a way that has helped thousands of developers and millions of users in the early ’90’s through the start of the “Web 2.0″ era.

However, as I mentioned in my post about Microsoft’s decline  at  the  hands of innovators like Google, I think that the clock is ticking for Redmond unless they make big changes.

But they can’t take my XBox 360 away…

By ed | Posted in microsoft | Comments (0)