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Re: The Next-Gen Web: HTML5 - Will We Ever See A Real Standard?

Michael Bleigh — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 10:30:42 -0000

Speaking as a developer of web applications, I honestly care much less about HTML5 than I do about cross-browser support for CSS3 (or at least universal support for CSS2 and translucent PNGs). Developers are literally wasting thousands of hours a year working out inconsistencies in the CSS rendering employed by Internet Explorer vs. the standards-compliant browsers. Worse still, this work is the single biggest morale-killer I know of to web developers across the board; they hate having to do it and burnout is a serious concern for anyone who has to do it for any kind of long stretch. IE8 seems to be a step in the right direction, but if the adoption rate is anything like IE7 developers will still be forced to work with broken software for at least the next 3-5 years.

HTML5 is great in theory, and bringing an open standard to web applications to support a richer interface is an admirable goal. However, cross-browser JS libraries are abundant and let us "make do" with the browsers we have now in the user interaction and dynamic content arenas. In my opinion it would be far more useful to the developers for the vendors to unilaterally step forward with CSS Level 3 support including a forced upgrade path if at all possible.

Re: What's New in Edge Rails: Easy Memoization

Michael Bleigh — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:48:00 -0000

Hmm, I'm not sure I'm 100% a fan of this implementation. As it stands this is more code for less clarity (a separate memorize call that could get lost in the model if separated from the method definition). Perhaps I'm not seeing the big picture?

Re: Sexy Forms in Rails

Michael Bleigh — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:42:13 -0000

I also have a plugin that does semantic form building as well as semantic menu building: http://github.com/mbleigh/u...

Re: Present.ly - The Constant Awareness Communication Tool

Michael Bleigh — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 18:24:28 -0000

We integrate great with Fluid, the Mac SSB generator (including Growl updates and badges), but won't have an AIR client at launch. We hope that with the Twitter API developers will really get inspired and build some stuff that's way beyond even what we can conceive. If not, we'll definitely be building it ourselves.

Re: Present.ly - The Constant Awareness Communication Tool

Michael Bleigh — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 18:43:06 -0000

Code blocks are definitely something we've thought about. As far as "scratching our own itch" that is up there on our radar of useful features.

Re: Present.ly - The Constant Awareness Communication Tool

Michael Bleigh — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 07:27:13 -0000

Yes, it will! Additionally, you can direct message a group and the messages can then only be seen by members of that group.

Re: Twhirl Makes Yammer Irrelevant

Michael Bleigh — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 13:29:18 -0000

I think ultimately the idea is giving companies more options. We're launching Present.ly in this same space next week, and with it the option for enterprises to install a private Present.ly instance inside the firewall.

Laconi.ca may well be the best solution for some companies, while a hosted solution like Present.ly or Yammer may work for others. For one thing, it will certainly be less expensive to use a hosted solution than to dedicate a server or multiple servers to an internally hosted service. It's all about matching the feature set, security concerns, and general feel of the solution to the problem.

Re: Present.ly - The Constant Awareness Communication Tool

Michael Bleigh — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 13:38:18 -0000

It is indeed possible to send updates that are only visible to members of a particular group, so you would be able to use Present.ly in that way. Present.ly can also add users from any e-mail domain, it only takes the invitation of an administrator.

Re: Present.ly - The Constant Awareness Communication Tool

Michael Bleigh — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 04:13:32 -0000

Our pricing model will be available when we launch (the morning of September 16 in New York), so stay tuned on that front. While attached documents aren't currently searchable, that's certainly an idea that we will keep in mind for future versions.

Re: How safe is Yammer or Present.ly

Michael Bleigh — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:03:08 -0000

Security is absolutely a concern with any kind of business communication. But the same arguments could be lodged against Basecamp or any other hosted SaaS provider. That's also why we give a choice at Present.ly: you can buy the hosted version or you can work with us to get a behind-the-firewall installed license.

Every business's needs are different; that's why there are so many web apps out there in the first place!

Re: Introducing BackType Alerts

Michael Bleigh — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:52:53 -0000

Great feature, guys! I've been waiting for exactly this.

Re: Contest: We're Giving Away A Dash GPS. Just Come Up With An App To Make It Better

Michael Bleigh — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:08:00 -0000

List local radio stations and what genre they play including distance to their broadcast tower so you can pick the best signal and music to listen to on long road trips.

Re: Present.ly - The Constant Awareness Communication Tool

Michael Bleigh — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:21:22 -0000

Our newest feature, Text Attachments, allows you to post code snippets along with your updates. Enjoy!

Re: Present.ly - Present.ly On Twitterrific

Michael Bleigh — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:54:47 -0000

Thanks for the info, Craig! I've updated the post to point people to your method if they want some persistent Present.ly action.

Re: Present.ly - Present.ly On Twitterrific

Michael Bleigh — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:28:47 -0000

I recorded it in ScreenFlow at 1440x900, exported it to QuickTime at 1280x720 (HD Resolution) and uploaded it without converting it to FLV first.

Re: Underscore no more: Twitter renames Al Gore

Michael Bleigh — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:44:23 -0000

Anyone can rename their login and keep all of their followers with Twitter. You don't have to win a Nobel Prize first.

Re: Present.ly - New Signup Options, Better Customization, and More!

Michael Bleigh — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:54:30 -0000

We're aware of the system icon...that was a bug in transitioning to a new way of handling avatars. We are working on a migration script to move everything over correctly.

Deletion of updates is gone for the time being...there were some inconsistencies that were causing both performance and synchronization problems throughout the application. We are working to re-allow it as soon as possible.

Re: Present.ly - New Signup Options, Better Customization, and More!

Michael Bleigh — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:07:54 -0000

As an additional note, you can also just upload a new system avatar if you don't want to wait for it to be migrated. It's only the old icons that are affected, new ones should be just fine.

Re: Mufin Opens Automated Music Recommendation Engine To The Public

Michael Bleigh — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:44:15 -0000

I tried three different artists/songs that I wanted more music like and not a one of them turned up any results. This isn't exactly out-there stuff either (Ben Folds, Postal Service). Perhaps it's just luck of the draw, but I won't be coming back any time soon.

Re: GemPlugins: A Brief Introduction to the Future of Rails Plugins

Michael Bleigh — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:01:01 -0000

Donald,

There are still some issues with GemPlugins, so even my proposed solution might not work correctly. What I would do is create a rake task that does the installation such as myplugin:install and instruct people to run it after they have included the plugin using config.gem. However, the last time I checked GemPlugins don't associate rake tasks correctly, so it still might not work. Thanks for the comment!

Re: Blog Migration

Michael Bleigh — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:02:12 -0000

I probably could have saved the comments, but couldn't find a good Mephisto to Wordpress script and I maybe had 10 comments on all posts in the whole site, so it wasn't a big deal.

Re: If you only could follow 10 people on Twitter…

Michael Bleigh — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 01:37:15 -0000

Honored to be followed by you on Twitter AFTER this post! I would probably cut my followings to immediate family, close friends, and colleagues if I could only follow 10.

Re: Rethinking authentication (Scripting News)

Michael Bleigh — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:28:53 -0000

The problem I see is that it is easy to circumvent this problem by spinning up a new server (assuming EC2 or other cloud service) and otherwise rotate the IP from which your app is making its abusive calls. It boils down to the fact that it is not possible to permanently ban a service with your full credentials without changing your password. OAuth cannot be circumvented by spoofing your IP.

But it certainly is an interesting idea.

Re: Rethinking authentication (Scripting News)

Michael Bleigh — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:49:25 -0000

That's true, but at the point that you're individually authorizing IP addresses you're basically at an OAuth workflow anyway, so I'd say you may as well implement OAuth and get it over with.

I think that the IP approach would feel like more of a band-aid than a fix, while OAuth would actually provide the kind of robust control that most people seem to be concerned with having. I would definitely rather have the ability to ban IPs than have nothing at all, though.

Re: SASS: The Better, More Powerful CSS - Intridea Design Blog

Michael Bleigh — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:39:12 -0000

I don't know of a way to do live previewing with SASS (short of using a Javascript bookmarklet hack to autorefresh a page every x seconds), and I'm pretty sure SASS won't work with CSSEdit. I've always written my CSS bare-metal without any special tools so that isn't a downside for me, but let me know if you come across anything that helps you out!