Category: Technology

Recommendations, Technology

Check out Dabble DB from Smallthought

I was reading a post from Tim Bray about Dabble DB by Smallthough. So I went and watched the screen cast demo they have up on the site. Wow, very cool. Dabble is a collaborative data management, authoring, and publishing web application (I know that description doesn’t do Dabble DB justice). The application lets you copy and past spreadsheet data into the app. It lets you create associations not explicitly present in the original data. It lets you save views of the data. It publishes data in RSS and a lot more.

Just go and check it out, you will be impressed.

Links:

Tim Bray ongoing RSS Atom Feed
Dabble DB, Check It Out

Smallthough RSS Feed
Dabble DB

Technology

Account Authentication Proxy by Google

Google today announced the availability of Account Authentication Proxy for web applications. This is an authentication and authorization service for Google services. It allows third party applications to use Google services on behalf of a Google customer. Google by allowing 3rd parties to create businesses that use their services as a composite part, this only make their company more valuable. Creating opportunity for third parties to add value and profit is similar to the way Amazon has benefited from 3rd party retailers using Amazon services to sell products.

It appears to me Google is going to build a ecosystem around its services and customer data. This announcement just strengthens my belief that Google understands the coming cognitive economy and its requirements for ubiquitous identity and reputation.

Garett Rogers referred to Google’s Account Authentication Proxy as being similar to Passport from Microsoft. I can’t say that I have seen a feature by feature comparison, but I think the way Google has released the service is by far more insightful and politically astute. Google has just added another tool to the innovators tool box, without appearing coercive like Microsoft did when Passport first launched.

Most importantly with this announcment, we as Google customers need to encourage Google to explicitly recognize the right of the customer to own, control, transport and manage their cognitive data (including attention, perception, action, problem solving and memory).

I would be interested to hear what Dick Hardt has to say about google’s new service.

Links:

Google’s Account Authentication Proxy for web applications

Garett Rogers RSS Feed
Google releases answer to Passport

Reviews, Technology

My adventures with Ubuntu

I recently moved from Fedora Core 5 to Ubuntu Desktop for my laptop. This was due to the fact that Fedora Core 5 would freeze every now and then. So after having to do my development work on my desktop, I figured it was time to try a new Distribution. So as some background I have previously run Suse 9.x and Fedora Core 3 and 4 and Redhat. So I had read and heard that Ubuntu was polished and just worked.

So my mind was made up, I did the back-up dance and began to load Ubuntu 5.x loaded fine and everything worked, NICE! I did find a few issues, like the fact that the packaged version of FireFox was ancient (Similar to Suse 9.x) and the package manager used to add new software was passable at best. So I began setting up everything and just before I began using the laptop for current work, Ubuntu 6.x was released. So I did the online upgrade, and it went well, though it took a few hours.

So after the reboot everything looked great except no Wifi. Ugh… Now the funny thing is my wireless card is old, a Lucent Orinoco Gold only supports WEP, just plain old. It has been the only card that I could count on working with any Distribution, but not on Dapper Drake. So, I checked to see if the device was being identified, checked the driver etc…. No luck. So I fashioned myself an aluminum foil hat and dove into the forums. Plenty of ideas and support, I just haven’t had time to try all of them.

Recently people like Tim Bray and Nicholas Carr have recently written about how Linux popularity, as Nicholas puts it, with the “PC elite” is growing. Now Tim Bray cites the fact that Apple uses proprietary formats to store his data and is less open to community innovation / bug fixing. Now, I agree with Tim Bray, increased openness would benefit Apple and help to sustain its more advanced users. The reality is until it just works, the cost of my attention to fix something that should just work, is just to high.

So the bottom line is, my next laptop is going to be a Mac, because as the Angry Penguin put it “It just works”. I will worry about open later, that’s why I have Google.

Links:

Tim Bray’s RSS Feed
Time to Switch

Nicholas Carr’s RSS Feed

The Angry Penguin’s RSS Feed
The Lab Adds A Mac

attention, Food for Thought, Technology

The Cognitive Economy

I have been thinking real hard about the Attention economy and then about the Intention economy. In the past I have written about the Situational Awareness economy and online cognitive models, well I think I was in the right neighborhood. I think the economic revolution before us is the Cognitive Economy. The Cognitive economy revolves around memory, attention, perception, action, problem solving. It will be the businesses, organizations, services and people that build value around those key components that will be sucessful in the long term. Now in some ways this is a No Duh moment.

Continue reading “The Cognitive Economy” →

Food for Thought, Technology

The change in corporate technology ecosystems

I again was listening to the Grand Central Gang from the Gillmor gang. My only comment on the whole podcast is simply the choice in changing software platforms is not solely based on the technology. In my experience significant change in corporate technology ecosystems is heavily influenced by its IRR and if it is significantly greater than the IRR of current solution. There are many innovative technologies that get adopted slowly because no one is able to produce a cash flow analysis that can move the company into action.

As geeks we sometimes see the potential in technology but the realization of that potential usually trails significantly. This is due in some part to the inability of us geeky folk to relate the technology to the business. In addition to our geekyness corporations (read large) like to have projects that have high batting averages (read no failures). Even more limiting is the corporate desire for not only high batting averages but high power numbers (read no failures and big returns). Short term thinking of many middle managers adds to the ideas of no failures and big returns.

This is why we see time and time again small upstarts using technology to redefine a market and beat established companies.

Links:

Gillmor Gang RSS Feed
Grand Central Gang

attention, Technology

Flickr and Zooomr debtors to us all

I have to give the folks at Flickr credit for their competitor API position. I have been in heated discussions dealing with the openness of systems. In my experience there exists a group of people that fear losing something (Take your pick: money, customers, advantage, IP etc..) because of being open. My response to that group of people is that which you fear losing was never yours to lose.

In Flickr’s case, the images, tags, relationships, and comments are simply on loan from their customers. Flickr’s willingness to respect the customers ownership over those attention artifacts is only going to strengthen their position.

Additionally, I think the quid pro quo approach by Flickr is reasonable but not necessary. I subscribe to the belief that attention is symmetrical. Flickr by paying attention to their customers needs will only receive more attention from their customers, resulting in less attention for their competitors.

Links:

Flickr Central RSS Feed
Stewart Butterfield’s statement on FlickrCentral

TechCrunch RSS Feed
TechCrunch article on the Flickr Zoomer flap.

attention, Food for Thought, Technology

A life Connected

As we become more connected in our daily lives we are going to become more dependant on online cognitive models. These online cognitive models will become our primary conduit for knowledge. Today the primitive online cognitive models consist of a composite sets of applications, their rules and their data. The applications range from email to our cell phone, all providing some mechanism for us to be attentive to information. The models today stop short of proxying our understanding of the information. We are still faced with internalizing almost all the information we receive and then formulating some understanding. As that happens we will be forced to create mechanisms to maintain our situational awareness, and at the heart of that awareness will be our online cognitive models.

The models enabling situational awareness may be capable of representing our understanding and acting on that understanding. This may all occur beyond our site based on rich collections of attention/gesture data and rules. I think of email filter rules, pop-up and download permissions and IM presence rules as just the first step in creating the building blocks of composite online cognitive models.

Technology

Google personalized homepage with Google Reader is great!

I have kept my reading list in Google reader from the day it was announced at Web 2.0 in October. I have to say the product has come a long way. I would keep my list in Reader and then export to OPML and then import the OPML into thunderbird. Well that practice has come to an end. I just started using the Reader integration with Google’s personalized homepage and I love it.

Google Reader Feature Request:
I would like a way to create rule based filters.

attention, Technology

Attention and Gestures require an honest broker

In information centric economies, value is a function of trust. The role of the honest broker is to provide a well understood and transparent point of reputation for attention and gesture information. The information economy we see growing around links and clicks is driven by the reputation of a few silos in the economy. Google, eBay, Yahoo and Microsoft are major reputation providers in the link/click economy. I would never call any of these parties honest brokers, though some are closer to honest broker than others. These reputation providers are by no means neutral and each defends their reputation silo fiercely from competition. That defense can make the reputation less accurate as it is never clear where the interests of the provider end.

In the Attention Gesture information economy an honest Broker is required to facilitate the exchange of and valuation of information. Similar to financial scores, the honest broker provides the unadulterated reputation of an attention/gesture provider allowing the attention/gesture consumer to value the information and then provide the attention provider with some sort of value. The honest broker never has a hand in determining the value of the transaction, but by ensuring that reputation of the provider and consumer are well known to both parties it ensures that each party can trust the valuation. The honest broker provides reputation for both attention/gesture providers and consumers, allowing both parties to identify the value of the attention data.

This honest broker service might be free as part of a network collaboration or it may be a fee for service model similar to credit card industry. Regardless, an honest broker is required to defend the attention/gesture pools from fraud and hijack. The honest broker will become a mechanism for maintaining experience continuity across a long running set of interconnected actions and exchanges, in a life connected.

As we move from an attention economy to a situational awareness economy honest brokers will be woven into the fabric of our online cognitive models.

Reviews, Technology, tomcarroll.org

Testing Gmail for my Domain

I was granted access to the Gmail for Domains beta. The set up was extremely simple, but I still don’t think that a non geek will know what their MX record is. Adding accounts is a snap and the calendar integration is wonderful. I am now wondering how much it will cost for multiple domains. I have multiple domains and would like to manage all my email account for my whole family via Gmail without setting up forwarding. Google definitely has the email interface down. It works great and I love the way email threads are handled. If Google can provide a few more tools, there will be no reason to buy office. Google will have a completely integrated set of office web applications that are completely portable. I won’t have to worry about backing up anything or getting updates and security patches.

Corporations would be well served by a tool like Gmail for domains. Corporations have to get around and over the control issues, if they do Gmail is a no brainer. For companies with large field operations again it’s a no brainer. It’s only a matter of time.

I give Gmail for Domains 5 out of 5 Stars.

Links:
Gmail for your domain