Flipboard

The layout of content and images is remarkable.  The look and feel is very much like a magazine including the page turn visuals. 

Unfortunately, the Flipboard team didn’t anticipate the overwhelming respose from users and weren’t prepared for huge growth.  Until they can get the correct infrastructure in place, links into Facebook and Twitter will be queued allowing them to scale out gracefully.

In the meantime, Flipboard is offering a lot of additional syndicated content to keep the application fresh and to keep you in touch with what’s happening.

This could be the tipping point for me.  I’ve been wanting an iPad since day one and this applications showcases what’s possible with a handheld digital device.

Video:  Meet Flipboard

I truly believe that this is the greatest country in the world.  I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.  This week…this Independence Week… my son and I are embarking on a short road trip to see some of the country that we haven’t seen before…both natural and man-made.  Knowing all the way that we can do this because of the brave men and women that have given their lives in defense of this country and the freedoms that we hold dear.  Without them, this trip wouldn’t be possible.

Photo by jcolman.

The reception problems that have been reported seem to be related to them metal strip running around the edge of the phone.  Unfortunately, holding the phone the way any normal user might hold it causes cell reception to decrease significantly.  Maybe all of those reported dropped call weren’t AT&T’s fault afterall.

Here’s a video that demonstrates this.

UPDATE:  This site reports that a software update to fix this issue should be available early next week.

Many good bloggers and other webmasters know their audience.  They’ve got log analyzers that trace their visitors as they navigate through their site.  They know which articles are the most popular and which get no traffic.  But when you include a link to another website, how do you tell how many people have clicked the link to visit the page?  The destination blogger knows, but you don’t.

Shorten that URL

Using bit.ly, we can convert longer normal links to a shorter link that can be tracked.  Bit.ly will track every time someone clicks on your shortened link.  They provide some of the same basic tracking features that web server log analyzer use like number of clicks, referrer even locations.  Bit.ly will show you how many total clicks when through their service to the same long link (the URL before it was shortened).  It can give you an idea of how (in)significant your website is by comparing the number of clicks through your specific URL against the other shortened URLs that point to the same long link.

Bit.ly will also give you a list of micro-blogging conversations (Twitter, FriendFeed) that contain a reference to the destination link.  You can use this to find other people that are interested in the same topics or talking about the same things.

Branding Your Short URL

Bil.ly offers an additional service called Bitly PRO.  With this service, you can use your own domain in the short URL.  For example, the short URLs that I get from Bit.ly all start with http://mrobb.me rather than http://bit.ly.  This is a great way to promote your brand in Twitter and other micro-blogging services.  The Pro service is currently free (they do moderate applications) and they have an Enterprise service under development.

Easy to Use

It may seem like a hassle to shorten all of the URLs that you need and if you had to do it manually, you would be right.  Fortunately these services have published APIs to automate the shortening process for you.  Good Twitter clients will have the built in for you and Bit.ly provides an easy to use in-browser tool that let’s you send a Tweet or email with a pre-shortened URL in just two clicks.

Using these services, you will be able to track external links on your website nearly as easily as you can track visitors within your own web site.

The industry is evolving so rapidly that it’s impossible to find people that understand it all.  The best you can hope for is someone that has a good understanding of several different areas but specializes in one or two.  Certifications may be able to help but use caution.

I’ve held Novell and Checkpoint certifications in the past but they are not current since I don’t use these technologies anymore.  Over the last 10 years, I’ve become a little skeptical of most technology certifications.  When “certification schools” like MicroSkills started popping up promising a certification, a great job, a Porshe and a beautiful girl to anyone in just 60 days, the market was flooded with certified people but no real world experience.

Now, I’m studying for my CCNA certification and I’m starting to question the value.  A lot of the material is extremely valuable to any IT professional.  An understanding of the OSI model, routing, switching and firewalls are the basic building blocks of every networking career.  But as I take the practice exams, I find myself questioning the value of the certification itself.

The exam doesn’t seem to be testing my knowledge of the various routing protocols and networking fundamentals so much as it’s testing my ability to memorize cryptic, arcane, vendor specific syntax.  I get it….this is a Cisco certification so it’s going to be vendor specific.  But is it more important that I understand how OSPF or EIGRP works or that I’ve memorized specific commands that aren’t even the same between different devices from the same manufacturer (Cisco routers and ASA’s both run IOS but command syntax is significantly different).

Would you rather hire a person who knows the technology and can implement and support that technology or someone who memorized the syntax for equipment that you *might* have, passed an exam and received a certification?  There’s no right answer.  It’s quite likely that two potential hires with CCNA credentials could fit either description.

I’m not saying that certification is pointless.  I just believe that the the whole certification process has become watered down as it has been turned into a money grab for vendors and training centers.

What will it take for certifications to regain the value they once had?  When will I be able to trust a string of acronyms on a resume?

This video is an example of Sports Illustrated’s prototype web site built entirely in HTML5.  What can you create?

Watch the video…

While watching the Olympics this year I got interested in all the hype around Twitter.  I didn’t really understand micro-blogging until I started myself…I was hooked.  The ability to follow people that I wouldn’t normally communicate with has been very cool.  Currently my Twitter world consists of Olympians, Microsoft Developers and a very funny girl with a strangely familiar, sarcastic sense of humor.

Facebook is about Family and Friends

With Facebook, I’ve been able to get in touch with family and friends that I haven’t seen or spoken to in years.  People that I went to school with.  People that I used to work with.  We can easily share things that are happening, photos and videos.  I check Facebook at least once a day.  I’m eager to connect with them again and while our paths have taken us (often) drastically different directions, we all have a common place to get together and just talk about stuff.

But there are two faces to Facebook.  I’m a big fan of extensibility.  Most applications that support plug-ins or addons provides flexibility that the original creators couldn’t foresee.  But just because you CAN extend an application doesn’t mean that you should.  There are so many “applications” on Facebook that it often gets in the way of what I use Facebook for…..connecting with my friends.  The signal to noise ratio is so low that it takes away from the essence of Facebook.

Twitter is about direct communication

On Twitter, I can follow nearly anyone.  Microsoft developers, game developers, average Joe developers.  Celebrities, comedians, people that I just think are funny.  This is two-way communication and it gives the the ability to reach out to people I wouldn’t otherwise meet.  I’ve learned a lot from people on Twitter that I wouldn’t normally have run across in my standard browsing on the Internet.  And it can be a powerful tool when used properly.  Conan O’Brien says that he sold out his entire tour with just a single Tweet.  Not a single penny spent on marketing it.

But what can you really say in 140 characters or less?  Most of the time it’s easy, especially with URL shortening resources like http://bit.ly.  Occasionally though, it gets in the way and you really have to stop and think about how to get your point across as succinctly as possible.

Best of Both Worlds

In all of this, I rarely go to the Facebook and Twitter websites themselves.  There are many different ways to get your Facebook and Twitter fix.  Two of my favorite are TweetDeck and Seesmic.  These clients give me the things that I like from Facebook and Twitter without all of the things that I don’t like.  They have built-in support for URL shortening and picture/video sharing.  They’re also available for multiple platforms including the iPhone (TweetDeck) so you can tweet and post to Facebook on the go.

This video provides a pretty cool demonstration of the capabilities of this new feature.

How do you determine when a software release is successful?  Each release is different and different types of software can measure success differently.  There might be errors during deployment that don’t adversly affect customers…was it successful?  A successful release starts with a well designed release plan. 

Software developers and QA personnel don’t typically have permissions to production servers, so there is a hand-off between these teams and the production team.  Without a release plan, the process is full of uncertainty for the release team.  How do I know if it worked?  What if I need to roll back?  Is it normal for the deployment to take this long?

Here are some things that should be included in any release plan: 

• Maintenance window.  It’s highly unlikely that new software can be deployed without an interruption of services.  An understanding of customer patterns will help determine the best time to release new software with the least impact.  Once a maintenance window has been determined, it’s important to communicate this time to customers, QA and the release team.
• Backups.  Before any change to production servers you should ensure that you have backups that are sufficient to restore or rebuild the system.  While this may seem like common sense, this is sometimes taken for granted and thus, forgotten.
• Detailed deployment instructions.  A step-by-step guide to deploying the new software including:
  • The location for all files that are to be deployed.
  • Module dependancies and the order in which these modules should be installed
  • Any services or processes that should be stopped before or restarted after deployment
  • Changes to configuration files
• A roll-back plan.  As much as we’d like to think that every deployment will be successful, it’s a simple fact that some are not.  If we determine that the deployment has failed, what are the detailed instructions for returning the system to a known working state?
• Go / No Go.  If a release is not initially successful, the immediate reaction is to troubleshoot the problem to try salvaging the deployment.  How long do you try to fix the deployment before rolling back to a known good state?  Who can make this decision?  You should have someone on  hand that understands the impact moving forward (increased downtime) as well as the impact of rolling back.
• A way to determine success or failure.  How do we know if the deployment was successful or not?  The release team will need to be able to determine if the release was successful in the event that a representative from QA is not available.

 The percentage of successful releases is a great metric to bring focus to your release plans.  It’s a metric that crosses departmental boundaries and encourages communication and planning prior to a software release.

What do you expect to see in your release plans?

Here are some of the things that I love about this car:

• It’s a head-turner and there’s just nothing else like it on the road.  It’s got sleek lines like a sports car yet looks mean like an old school muscle car.  It’s not uncommon for people to start a conversation when they see it…the gas station, a stop light or even driving down the road.
• It’s got a V6 with 300 horsepower.  Now I’ve never owned a car with this much power, this car is fun to drive.
• It runs smooth and handles great.  It wants to go about 85 to be comfortable.  It was a conscious effort to keep it under the speed limit when I first bought it.
• Decent gas mileage.  While not getting anywhere near the EPA rated 29mpg on the highway, I get about 22mpg when I drive it nice….so I’m getting 18mpg.
• Clean lines on the inside.  The gauges are round and retro with a modern touch.  At night, the blue and red dash lighting looks great.
• The stereo has everything…AM/FM/XM/CD/MP3/iPod/Phone/Navigation.  With the optional connectivity pack, my iPhone plugs into a USB port under the center console.  It’s nearly perfect.

 Now, some of the things to be aware of:

• Low Profile – While this makes the car look great, it does make it difficult to see in some scenarios.  The windows are only 11 inches high and you only got about 5 inches of usable view under the rear-view mirror.  When sitting at a stop light, it’s not uncommon to have to duck to see the lights.  After driving an Explorer, it certainly is different, but I can live with it.
• Problems with iPhone/Stereo – After about a month, navigating the iPhone with the in-dash controls stopped working properly.  I see blank entries or incorrect album titles.  I’ve taken it back to the dearler, but they can’t seem to find anything wrong with it…even though I can demonstrate the problem.
• Navigation – GM offers turn by turn navigation via OnStar but a complete in-dash navigation systems would have been the icing on the cake.
• Weather-stripping – The day after I bought it, a 4-foot piece of weather-stripping started to come loose on the passenger-side roof of the car.  I was told this was common and the dealer glued it back down.  It fell off completedly last weekend and I’m still waiting for a replacement.

 All in all, this car was worth every minute of the wait and every penny that I paid for it.  If you’re looking for a modern muscle car, the Camaro sets the bar very high.