Andy Johnson Web Developer Ramblings

Brilliant Web 2.0 Applications As I Use Them - imcooked - EXTRA

Whilst I was watching Mr Desabrais cook his “Shepherds Pie” with butternut squash mash I knew something else was bothering me. It wasn’t the herbs and spices he used, or the strange broccoli / cauliflower puree bit. I just couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it struck me lightening bold style. Guys using beef (suggested alternative, turkey)

Shepards Pie is made with Lamb. Stop thinking about it, it’s a fact. Beef makes it a Cottage Pie (turkey, Christ knows what.

Again, don’t worry, comments left.  

Brilliant Web 2.0 Applications As I Use Them - imcooked

www.imcooked.com

I;ve just spent ten minutes watching a massive bloke cook shepards pie and crazily use butternut squash in it. dont worry, comment left.

http://www.imcooked.com/view_video.php?viewkey=d659463f9af00b142dd6&page=2&viewtype=&category=mr

Community video site with peoples own recipes on, videos of them cooking and discussion about the results.

Of course some great disasters.

Seemed a tad slow but that could be BTs fault, will try again in a bit.

Brilliant Web 2.0 Applications As I Use Them - Daytum

www.daytum.com

“Daytum is a home for collecting and communicating your daily data. Begin tracking anything you can count and display the results immediately… or just look around and see what other members are recording.” This is what they say.

Is still in beta right now, but you can request an invitation to test. Mine took a couple of days to arrive but a friends took over two weeks.

So all you do with this one if put in data about stuff you are up to or not up to, and you can create graphs. Figure out how much money you are saving by drinking the rancid office coffee rather than going and getting a Neros. Keep track of how much time you spend on which web sites.

you can share these publically or privately, comment and discuss other member stats. The interface is great and very intuative. If there is one complaint it would be that the adding of data is a little fiddly and could probably made alot simpler and quicker.

Theres an example a post or two down. 

Explaining Web 2.0 To My Dad Pt 3 - Restart

Having just finished reading another book (a real one you hold in your hands and can read in the bath without fear of electrocution) about Web 2.0 definitions I can safely say that nobody really knows.

The book was Web 2.0 Heros by Bradley L Jones and contains interviews with people from ebay, internet.com, blogline, Ning, Technorati, Zoho, Read/Write web, ThinkFree, Linked, DotNetNuke, Twotter. meebo, del.icio.us, YouSendIt, StyumbleUpon, Skype, IBM Corporationm Microsoft Corporation, Sun Microsystems and Adobe Systems Incorporated. The questions are always the same, all about the deffinition of web 2.0.

The overall conclusion seems to be that it means different things to different people and companies. Noone came up with a comprehensive definition and some even said why bother. So taking these people we will see what the key themes are and who thinks they are web 2.0 or not.

Broadly it seems that web 2.0 is a way of identifying a time in the evolution of the web and this evolution has come about with three main supporting columns.

technoilogy - RSS, AJAX, mashups

business models

Social / users

So lets go through this book and summarise who thinks what is most important. Again, I’ll use daytum to help visualise this.

This is the result, discussions soon.

Max Mancini - ebay - technology and business models.

Alan Mckler - internet.com - business models

Eric Engleman - Bloglines - social

Gina Bianvhini - Zing - not important to define

Dorion Carroll - Technorati - social and technical

Richard MacManus - Read/Write web social and techinical

Patrick Crane - LinkedInn - social

Raju Vegesna - Zoho - social

KJ Kang - ThinkFree - technical and social

Shaun Walker - DotNetNuke - technical and social

Biz Stone - Twitter - social

Seth Sternberg - Meebo - technical and social

Joshua Schachter - del.icio.us - social and technical

Ranjith Kumaran - YouSendIt - technical

Garrett Camp - StumbleUpon - social and technical

Rodrigo Madanes - techinal and business

Rob Smith - IBM Corporation - social and technical

Tim Harris - Microsoft Corporation - technical and business

Tim Bray - Sun Microsystems - social and technical

Michele Turner - Adobe Systems Incorporated - all

Collaboration / sharing and all that good 2.0 shizzle online is pretty bloody big right? so why dont i even know my next door neighbour?

We all know collaberation and sharing online is one of the biggest social changes of recent years. We now perform all sorts of activities via our keyboard tappings that we used to do “outside” - chatting, telling people about our holidays, buying stuff, recruiting, dating, blah blah blah, pretty much everything.

So it seems from this that generally we all love being social, meeting people, achiving things via other people, chatting about anything, letting people know stuff about what we do and how we feel. So why do my neighbours just give me a suspicious nod when i bump into them in the lift, and why do i do the same despite my desire to say “Hey, i live next door why don’t you come over for a cup of darjeeling and a macaroon”. If it was online i would have done it ages ago right?

How many people can i get to listen to Seasick Steve without talking to them?

The gig of the year at the venue of the year took place last night and I was there. Seasick Steve played at the Bethnal Green Working Mans Club. At around 9.30 Steve walked from the back of the room, from the toilets i think, playing his 3 string transwonder and played his way to the stage where he destroyed the place.

He turned up on his own in a black cab and was made to queue with the punters because the doorman didnt recognise him.

“Sorry mate, you need to queue” - doorman

“He’s playing here tonight mate!” - punter

“Dont matter, still needs to queue” -doorman

“Y’all love to queue dont y’all” - steve

Once in, and hand stamped with a Royal Mail stamp (1st class), he watched the support - Joe Guideon and the Snake - with us before producing the best show of the year. Anyway, i decided i needed to get as many people as possible to listen to doghouse blues. but i am not to going to talk to anyone, i am going to use electronic means only. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=pNoPNC3ebYQ

I gave myself half an hour to send out as mush electronic shizzle to people i know to see who will listen. The first graph shows what i sent out, the second is the response. Hit the links to get the latest. These graphs are made using daytum, daytum.com a great app, its beta at the moment but you can get an invite if you sign up, took a couple of days.

Sent - http://daytum.com/panels/13871

Listened - http://daytum.com/panels/13873

Explaining Web 2.0 To My Dad Pt 2 - Technology

There were a number of technology things that came together at a similar time to make the development of Web 2.0 apps possible.

Connection speeds, endless amounts of storage, AJAX, SOA, rich internet application, feeds, rss, mash-ups. All this combines to bring the richness of desktop applications into web applications. We can now make applications rather than websites that are easy, intuitive and pleasurable to use.

But having the technology isn’t really the issue, loads of other thinking has to change to get to a Web 2.0 model too. In fact, even as a developer, the technology could be considered incidental. I mean, stick a paint brush and some paper in front of me and see what comes out. I know what the paint does and i have seen some great stuff when its combined with the canvas but… OK so maybe that’s not a great analogy but you get it, just because the brush paint is there and i slap it on some paper dont make me no rothko.

In fact i was thinking till recently that is was all about the technology making it possible but after reading and reading and even thinking i decided its not. It seems that theres the user, the buisiness model and the developers all in the race for whose most important and my money at the moment is on the user.