the.HackerConundrum

Developers Take On The Video App Challenge

2011-12-19T14:27:00.000-08:00

The Mashery spot prize (GoPro HD Hero 960 wearable HD camera), went to Screen Jumper by Abraham Williams - a Chrome extension that, as you browse Twitter, recognizes movie titles within tweets and injects movie trailers (YouTube), movie ratings (Rotten Tomatoes API) and movie schedules of nearby theaters. To the point that I made earlier about vertical hackathons, Abraham (a seasoned developer) was exposed to the YouTube and Rotten Tomatoes APIs for the first time ever, and now has new platform knowledge and experience in his toolkit.

via Mashery

Sync is currently experiencing problems

2011-12-16T11:41:00.000-08:00

After picking up a gorgeous Galaxy Nexus yesterday I was running into an issue where my browser data wasn't syncing to the phone. After a little Googling I found this is commonly caused by having all of my synced Chrome data encrypted instead of the default of only encrypting the passwords. These are the steps I went through to get my dat syncing again without losing any of it. The exact error I was getting was "Sync is currently experiencing problems. It will be back shortly."

In Google Chrome open the personal stuff settings page by clicking this link or by opening the wrench menu, and click on "signed in with example@gmail.com". Hit "disconnect your Google Account" to temporarily disable syncing from your browser.

Visit the Google Dashboard and "Stop sync and delete data from Google". I waited until the stored data was removed before continuing so I don't know what will happen if you don't.

Go back to the personal stuff settings page in Google Chrome and sign in with your Google Account to set up sync again. Open the advanced options to make sure "encrypt passwords" is selected and hit OK. You pre-existing browser data is now being synced to the Google cloud.

Open the Accounts & Sync settings page in Android, deselect "Sync Browser" and select it again. Your browser data should now be syncing.

Eggnog review: Trader Joe's Eggnog

2011-11-27T09:11:00.000-08:00

A number of people recommended that I try Trader Joe's Eggnog so I must admit, I had high expectations when I finally did. Luckily it is a good nog besides being light on the nutmeg. It is nice and thick with a good flavor that doesn't taste artificial. I could barley taste any nutmeg so I recommend adding some (you do have nutmeg on hand right?) before consuming.

Above average. Recommendation: buy with nutmeg.

Eggnog review: Horizon Organic Eggnog

2011-11-26T14:30:00.000-08:00

Provides a delicious rich and creamy flavor but it is more of a vanilla cream flavor and less of an eggnog flavor. It is very enjoyable but don't expect the traditional eggy taste.

Different but good. Recommendation: buy.

Eggnog review: Oakhurst Eggnog

2011-11-25T12:00:00.000-08:00

Oakhurst delivers a delightfully rich and creamy nog. While it could do with an extra pinch of nutmeg at times Oakhurst has wonderful flavor that is top notch.

Among the best. Recommendation: buy

Eggnog review: Bud's Famous Eggnog

2011-11-24T10:30:00.000-08:00

Nice thick eggnog but it leaves a slight artificial flavor and could use a little more nutmeg.

Better then average. Recommendation: buy.

Eggnog review: Clover Stornetta Eggnog

2011-11-16T23:45:00.001-08:00

An average eggnog that gets the job done but just barely. If other better options are available go with them. It is a little too sweet and doesn't have the rich creamy thickness it should. While it doesn't have a fake chemical taste, Clover isn't exactly bursting in any flavor and will certainly need lots of added nutmeg.

Average. Works in a pinch.

Business of APIs Conference

2011-10-07T11:22:00.000-07:00

"Thoroughly entertained by Abrahams presention on Unicorns (developers), and how to manage and encourage them within your community. I've seen his pitch a couple times and it gets more polished each time. I don't want to call his talk "the basics", I think "the essentials", is more appropriate. Every business looking to launch an API should watch his talk"

- Kin Lane

Google+ could bring world peace

2011-08-02T22:57:00.000-07:00

Google is the largest web application on the planet with over one billion unique visiters each month. This means that one in seven people on the entire planet used Google over the last 30 days. Having such a massive user base means that someone from pretty much every single geographical, political, and religious group is a user of Google. Once Google+ hits a billion our pals from Mountain View will be in the unique position of potentially bringing about world peace. And I don't mean bringing FarmVille to Google+.

How so, you might ask? Well Google is collecting so much personal information that they can create incredibly accurate profiles of personal beliefs and comfort zones. With these personas, the 900,000 machines, a few algorithms, and some time Google can connect people one follow at a time that are of similar interests but ever so slightly contrarian. Eventually even the most conservative views will become more open and accepting just through the everyday contact.

One of the most powerful tools at Google's disposal will be automatic translation. Breaking down the language barriers to allow easy communication between different cultures itself will go a long ways towards connecting people and we are less likely to pay taxes to wage war on our friends then a faceless country we can't pronounce.

This will have to be a conscious implementation decision on Google's part but it can be gradual enough that no one will even notice. We could just wake up in 200 years and there will be no war.

This would also subside any worries about online filter bubbles.

See what people are saying on Google+.

Tell Google to make Music awesome

2011-07-17T03:17:00.000-07:00

I've been playing around with Google Music a bit in the last few days and with the launch of Google+ I've been thinking a lot more about features Google can add. The one feature that would really make Music a killer application is instant availability from any Google page. The ground work has already been laid with the new black Sandbar launched with Google+.

If you would also like to see Google implement this go to https://music.google.com/, sign into your account, and click on send feedback in the upper left corner. Highlight a section of the classic sandbar, describe the feature request, and hit preview.

Sample text or you can write your own. Make sure it is clear what you are requesting regardless.

Please add music controls here that enable playing music from any Google page.

Finally hit send feedback to Google. You can now get back to trolling on Google+.

My Google ecosystem

2011-07-15T22:01:00.000-07:00

Google's ownership of my digital self is ever increasing and with the introduction of Google+ I don't see this trend changing. After taking a quick gander at my Google Dashboard I decided to write up a list of Google products to see how much of my online life touches Google's datacenters.

Primary tools
I use these Google tools more often then competing products

Gmail - My primary email client for many years.
Calendar - Keeps my events synced between everything.
Chrome - Fast and clean with great developer tools.
Reader - Keyboard commands
Google+ - Quickly taking the place of Twitter and Facebook.
Search - # 1 since I switched from Dogpile.
Openid delegation - I use http://abrah.am as my OpenID delegated to my Google Account.
Analytics - Wish it was realtime but I use it to track all my sites.
Blogger - Primary blog platform since I realized hosting my own Drupal site was a PITA.
Contacts - Tight integration with Gmail and sync to my phone.
Docs - Hosts all my documents, spreadsheets, and is starting to take over the roll of Dropbox as storage.
Groups - I've always disliked Yahoo! Groups.
Maps - Direction, finding stuff, and staring places.
Voice - Provides a single number I can use from any computer, or phone.
Android - Ties everything listed here together in my pocket!
Talk - I've never been happy with AIM or Skype.
Goo.gl - My primary URL shortener since the API was launched.

Up and coming
These products are trending towards being primary tools for me

Checkout - With the integration to the Android Market, YouTube rental, Ebook store, and Wallet launching this summer Checkout is quickly becoming a big part of my payment scene.
Music - Historically I've been a Pandora user but in the coming months I plan on uploading all my mp3s to Music. If music get integrated with the Sandbar I likely will cancel my Pandora subscription.
Ebook store - I had a Kindle for a couple years and never really used it. I've purchased a couple books from Google to read on my Galaxy Tab and I see it happening more and more. Google needs to let me upload PDFs to automatically sync though.
Picasa Web Albums - Instant upload with G+ is amazing and I just discovered the desktop software is a lot better then I remembered it being. I may not migrate my existing Flickr photos over but everything new is going on Picasa.
Latitude - I stopped using Foursquare a while ago and with the new integration with G+ I've started using Latitude when I want a monad associated with a location.
Profiles - Twitter used to be my primary third-party online identity. With the launch of G+ this is changing.
YouTube rentals - I'm not a fan of rental models as I prefer Neflix's subscription plan, but if the Hulu rumors end up being accurate this could be interesting.
Chrome OS - I've got a Chromebook coming and that will likely become my primary computer when I'm not coding.

Google+ branding

2011-07-14T20:54:00.000-07:00

I think the Google+ branding is brillent and works on many, many levels. It shows that is is still Google at the heart with the extension of so much more.

Google plus more
Google plus you
Google plus your friends
Google plus etc

But Plus is also it's own separate entity, strategy, and social layer. It is a new way for people to connect and communicate on the internet. It is even a new phase in Google's existence and a new approach to product and user interaction.

Going even further though we now find that Plus can be layered on top of any existing Google products and it is clearly just an extension of the existing features plus more, you, your friends, etc.

Chrome+
YouTube+
Blogger+
Documents+

Perhaps the most exciting aspect (for me) is the Plus concept getting extended elsewhere. Expect Google to eventually launch an API+ to bring the power of Plus everywhere.

www+ Google
www+ you
abrah.am+ your friends
abrah.am+ etc

There is a huge amount of work ahead to pull off this new direction, but Google has some of the most brillent people working on it and some of the best platforms, applications, and tools on the planet.

So far Google+ is showing an incredible amount of promise and I looking forward to seeing it progress.

HowTo: Autopost Google+ to Twitter

2011-07-13T23:59:00.000-07:00

Are you followers sad you aren't spamming them on Twitter as much as you were before Google+ launched? Well have no fear! With the help of a few Google services, your Twitter feed will be (over)flowing with G+ posts in no time.

Requirement:

A Google account with access to:

Google+
Feedburner
goo.gl

A Twitter account
2 minutes

Lets start by jumping over to your profile on plus.google.com. The URL should look like this https://plus.google.com/114233674199568482864/posts and you will want to nab the long string of numbers. That is your Google+ user ID and +Russell Beattie's plusfeed parser will use it to scrape your G+ profile for public posts to turn into an Atom feed.

Jump over to Feedburner to burn a new feed with http://plusfeed.appspot.com/114233674199568482864 (only use your ID not mine). Hit next and give any title and address you want, it really doesn't matter. Hit next again and then skip directly to feed management. Feedburner will now automatically pull in your latest parsed G+ posts ready for tweeting.

Switch to the socialize section of the publicize tab where you will set up the Twitter account.. Once you add (or select) a Twitter account, there are a couple of options you can configure. The important two are post content is set to title only and include link is enabled. A couple of optional ones you might be interested in adding are #plus hashtag to the end of each tweet, truncate tweets short enough to allow retweets, and only tweet posts that contain a specific string such as #twt.

You can play around with the options until the sample item preview is up to snuff and then active the service.

Congrats! Your Google+ posts will now automatically get posted to Twitter!

A few things to keep in mind:

Plusfeed is scrapping the Google+ page so if Google changes the layout of the page it could break.
Feedburner will post as many new posts as you specify but they will all get posted at the same time.
Your Twitter followers may get pissed off at you if you only post links to content elsewhere.
G+ posts that are just a shared link with no text may end up weird on Twitter.
Some HTML might start showing up in tweets.

CodeConf 2011

2011-04-10T21:05:00.000-07:00

The last two days have been filled with awesome talks of developer communities, code philosophies, merriment, and food consumption. @GitHub pulled off an excellent first @CodeConf and I'm already anticipating the next one. I've laid out my thoughts on a few presentations below plus an embed of some choice tweets from attendees.

www.flickr.com

More photos or video tagged with codeconf on Flickr

Metrics, Metrics Everywhere by @coda
Unfortunately I missed this presentation but I hear it was really good and I'm looking to implement some of the ideas for my upcoming @unicornmetrics project.

Hacking Space Exploration by @arielwaldman
Space is awesome!

Documentation isn’t optional by @jacobian
Excellent documentation is key and it should be readable.

Networks with Node.js by @ryah
Windows has a lot of issues but it is still the dominant OS platform.

OSS on GitHub: Your Community is Your Best Feature by @ginatrapani
Make it super easy for your community to contribute. Especially in none code related ways.

The Ethics of Abandoning Software by @mojodna
It is ok to abandon projects, or pass them on to new maintainers. It frees up a lot of time and mental capacity.

Our Best Practices are Killing Us by @stubbornella
We are doing CSS wrong but we don't have to!

Success, and Farming vs. Mining by @wilshipley
Work hard to make awesome products!

Joining @twitterapi as a Developer Advocate

2011-04-01T10:40:00.000-07:00

On this nice sunny day I'm happy to announce that I will be joining the Twitter Platform team as a Developer Advocate. This is especially exciting for me as I have been thinking about developer communities a lot recently and can now officially start implementing some of my Unicorn Theories.

I will also be acting as a voice representing the third-party community within the company and will be looking into pushing a few projects out the door. High on my priority list are: open sourcing Twitter for Android, increasing rate limits to 1500 requests/hour, launching a cleaner, simpler version 2 of the API, and opening Annotations to a wider audience.

As I start implementing Unicorn Metrics I will be keeping a birds eye out for potential additions to the advocate team. If you are interested solving hard problems be sure to check out #jointheflock. All new employees get an awesome Twitter shirt!

Stay tuned for news on Chirp 2 (Trust me! You are going to love it!), and be sure to to enjoy this beautiful April day.

Note: This page was posted for April Fool's Day - 2011

Please Feed the Unicorns at #apimeetup

2011-02-23T00:21:00.000-08:00

Image via CrunchBase

Recently I presented a brand new presentation titled Please Feed the Unicorns at the @apimeetup held at the @Apigee office. The goal being to bring attention to various methods of building a better developer community around your API platform by empowering, incentivizing, and recognizing the community Unicorns.

Please Feed the Unicorns from API Meetup on Vimeo.

Please Feed the Unicorns

View more presentations from Abraham Williams

Look Out Quora, InboxQ Takes Q&A Off-Site And On To Twitter

2011-02-17T01:10:00.000-08:00

As it becomes more difficult to find the answers you want on Google, using hashtags like #lazyweb to ask questions on Twitter has become some people’s recourse. Realizing this, Y Combinator company Answerly is announcing a product revamp today, going from a run of the mill Q&A site to something much more interesting. Their new product, InboxQ is a free browser plugin (right now only available on Chrome) that performs searches for questions on Twitter by keyword and other factors.

How to run multiple Firefox instances on a Mac

2011-01-06T00:11:00.000-08:00

With Firefox 4 just around the corner it is time to get those extensions upgraded, flash dumped and sites tested. Quite a few developers will to be testing in stable 3.6 as well as the new betas. In fact at this very moment I'm working on porting a Google Chrome extension to Firefox using the new Add-on SDK. Luckily Firefox makes it easy to run multiple version of concurrently. Keep reading to figure learn how.

1) First download the Firefox 4 beta (4.0b8 at the time of writing), open the dmg, copy Firefox.app into your Applications directory and rename it to Firefox4.0b8.app. Then download Firefox 3 (3.6.13 at the time of writing), open the dmg, copy Firefox.app into the Applications folder and rename it to Firefox3.6.app.

2) You now have two version of Firefox installed but if you open them at the same time all kinds of conflicts with sessions and dirty exits will cause issues. We can fix that by creating multiple user profiles so that each Fx instance has it's own safe data silo. To create a new profile open a terminal window and enter the following command.

/Applications/Firefox4.0b8.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -ProfileManager

You should now see a Firefox popup prompting you to choose a user profile.

3) At the prompt we are going to do a couple of things. First rename the default profile to default3.6. Then create a new profile named default4.0b8 (just leave the folder setting to default). Finally uncheck "Don't ask at startup". The finished settings should look like this:

4) Now you can highlight default4.0b8 and hit "Start Firefox", followed by opening Firefox3.6.app, highlighting default3.6 and hitting "Start Firefox" again. You are now running two version of Firefox at the same time.

What are you using as you default browser?

Eggnog review: Mountain Dairy Eggnog

2010-11-22T23:24:00.000-08:00

Rich and creamy. Not quite enough nutmeg. Don't try the vanilla flavor.

Better then average. Recommendation: Buy.

Eggnog review: Darigold Eggnog

2010-11-22T23:13:00.000-08:00

Not enough nutmeg. Cheap sweetener flavor.

Terrible. Recommendation: Don't buy.

Say no to broken Twitter avatars

2010-11-20T09:43:00.000-08:00

What do all of the many Twitter mashups hanging around on the internet have in common? Broken avatars! At the rate users upload new avatars every site will at some point have outdated profile information. I have come up with a simple and elegant method of keeping profiles up to date with very little wasted computer cycles.

The basic idea is to bind an event handler onto JavaScript error events with @jQuery. This handler will perform two actions. Fist it will replace the image source with a temporary static link to the users avatar so the visitor will see a working image. Second the handler will ping the server with the screen_name of the missing avatar so the persistent storage can be updated.

In your HTML load jQuery and use selectors to find all image elements with a class of twitter-avatar. The error handler bound to all the selected image elements updates the image source and pings the server.

The second file is in PHP and uses TwitterOAuth but can be in any programming language. It catches POST requests with a screen_name parameter and polls Twitter for updated user information to save to the database.

How are you keeping your database of user avatars up to date?

Hello San Francisco!

2010-11-19T16:12:00.000-08:00

I have enjoyed being in Seattle but have decided to take a job with @Answerly and move to San Francisco. Answerly is a @YCombinator startup building some awesome stuff and I am very excited to be joining the team. While I can't go into details yet, be sure to follow me (@abraham) on @Twitter to see my latest startup experience unfold. I love working with lots of social data so I'm sure there will be some of that mixed in. :-P

When am I moving? Well pretty much immediately. I will be in Portland for Thanksgiving before driving down I-5 early December. If you happen to be long the route drop me a note and maybe I will drop in for a bit.

View Larger Map

I am looking for an apartment in downtown SF so if you know of something or are looking for a roommate let me (and doxy) know.

And with that be sure to look for me at SF tech events and have a wonderful Thanks Giving.

8 Experts Break Down the Pros and Cons of Coding With PHP

2010-11-19T10:44:00.000-08:00

5. Abraham Williams: Copy-Paste Hacking

Williams is a developer and self-styled “hacker advocate.”
Williams, like his fellow experts, admits that PHP “has a short route to minimum viable product.” He also says that the readily available resources online can be great and terrible at the same time.
“There is a huge amount of code laying around on the Internet ready to copy and paste to hack together. On the flip side, the low barrier of entry results in a lot of crappy code that you really don’t want running on your server.”
He also says one of his favorite PHP apps is the open-source microblogging platform StatusNet. (http://status.net/).

The 1-step Google login from heaven

2010-11-15T13:02:00.000-08:00

@alain94040 had an experience with some of @Google's terrible user experience trying to access his @YouTube account. While Google definitely needs to improve their sign in system, (which they are doing) Alain's example is a perfect storm of everything going wrong.

I though I would share my YouTube sign in experience:

1. Click on Sign In

On YouTube I simple click "Sign In".

Since I am always authenticated with my Google Account...

Youtube refreshes and I am signed in.

Startup Weekend Seattle development tools

2010-11-14T22:44:00.000-08:00

Startup Weekend Seattle had 13 teams working nonstop Friday through Sunday brainstorming, designing, and building startups. These are the tools they used.

501K - @501KPlan
We are paying it forward one portfolio at a time

Chatter Sphere
Discovering People and Things Around You

Clpstr - @Clpstr
Watch it Later

Tellus Homes
We Create Ecologically, Economically and Socially Sustainable Homes

Snuggle Cloud - @SnuggleCloud
Romance in the cloud

StyleCast - @StyleCastMe
Broadcast your style!

We Referee - @WeReferee
Fans Make the Call

SayCal - @SayCal_com
Say hello to your calendar

Got Sway - @igotsway
What's your sway?

Txt Connect - @TxtConnect
Simply Exchange Contact Information through the Ubiquity of Text

Seattle REAP - @SeattleREAP
Connecting Homebuyers with Their Future Communities

Seesaw - @GetSeesaw
Collect and Connect New Faces

Purple Jazz - @PurpleJazzFM
The Jam Studio Community in Your Pocket

If I missed anything please let me know in the comments.