Disqus - Latest Comments for Neil

Re: My Techmeme Obsession

Neil — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 10:16:28 -0000

Doesn't Hacker News have a points system (karma, IIRC)? I seem to remember a guy called NickB being the first to reach a certain amount of karma points (and receiving a trophy-tastic, color:red; username to help him stand out from the crowd).

Yes, Twitter does work well for sourcing information that's relevant to you and your profession, but it doesn't appear to be packaged or promoted in that way. Are there third party tools to aid in sharing URLs on Twitter? I'm always on tinyURL.

Re: Online Storage Royal Rumble (sort of)

Neil — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:11:47 -0000

Before I made the move to Mac I used to use Carbonite (it was ugly and Windows only, so it didn't make the jump). Loads of people seem to praise Mozy though, so it would be my first choice if I felt the need to buy in to cloud-based-backup again.

Re: Black Friday 2008

Neil — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 02:56:50 -0000

Ooh thanks for the MX Revoution tip-off; my 'MX1000' has been refusing to drag things (i.e. it seems the left mouse button can no longer sustain/hold clicks). I'm very nearly fed-up with accidental attempts at opening Fireworks PNGs in iCal...

John, what mouse do you use?

Re: Black Friday 2008

Neil — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 03:39:49 -0000

John, that doesn't sound like a bad choice to me; I do a lot of coding so I prefer to touch type and use the touch pad on my MBP whenever keys don't do the biz, subsequently avoiding the mouse. A Mighty Mouse would be fine but I've had the MX1000 since before I bought a Mac (I'm in the same position as you, can't justify the expense on a mouse at the moment), but I do like the zillion buttons on it (Expose, tab through apps, show desktop, Return, forward/back through browers, etc).

I'm just waiting for the Mac 'Airboard', a wireless keyboard with a touch pad built in (think MBP but without the screen).

Re: How to Organize Your Inbox

Neil — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:05:14 -0000

The recommendation for a single Archive folder is a good one.

I did an internship where I tried organising my inbox (Outlook) in to folders on a per-client basis. It just became too complicated.

I now prefer to treat my inbox as though it's the open web, and I use the Thunderbird search box just as I would Google. But it helps that I only report to myself at the moment!

Re: A Photographic Journey to Yahoo! HQ

Neil — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 06:56:13 -0000

Great snaps, have you shared them with the guy running OfficeSnapshots.com? I bet he'd love to post these.

Grilled chicken pasta sounds good to me. And free coffee would just send me off-the-rails!

Re: Ruby on Rails Hosting Round-up | Ruby Pond

Neil — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:50:32 -0000

I recently signed-up to Engine Yard for a single production slice (eek, where's staging?! I know, I know, but money is tight, and it's private beta testing, for now) to run http://SoIndustry.com. It's going ok, a few mix-ups in the beginning getting the deploy.rb working with all the dependencies and background processes, but EY IRC is very helpful and overall I've been pretty happy. I also think it's too expensive, though. The Sterling falling from $1.80 (when I signed-up) to $1.46 (as it is now) against the Dollar, doesn't help.

Everyone seems to rave about SliceHost. Brightbox are another one to consider, if you're in the UK.

Re: MaxLength on a Textarea

Neil — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:07:16 -0000

Sorry, I'm probably two years late to ask this; do you have a copy of Bens script? I just get a 404 when I click the link.

Re: MaxLength on a Textarea

Neil — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 05:37:55 -0000

Thanks, offbeatmammal. I actually ended up not cutting off the input length. Instead, I'm going with a minus counter in combination with a submit.disable="disabled" attribute + class="disabled", so that the button is disabled & greyed out by CSS when the typist takes it past the pepsi max.

Re: Will Classmates.com Have A Successful IPO?

Neil — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 16:43:45 -0000

Nick, I'm not sure that Classmates.com will be the first ever social network IPO;

http://www.e-consultancy.com/news-blog/362352/w...

Re: Why Not Make OpenID the Law?

Neil — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 02:09:05 -0000

Very topical, Nick. Government control of OpenID has crossed my mind serveral times, but being a British citizen I tend to shiver every time it does.

You may have heard about a UK government employee attempting to post a CD with the personal identities of 25 million people, and the postal service subsequently losing the CD. If the government is allowing incidents like that to happen, I'd hate for them to have control over something that the experts are already handling, i.e. Mark Zuckerberg, Simon Willison, Data Portability etc.

What would a government really add to the equation? More paperwork and bureaucracy?

Re: Web 3.0 Means Pay for Service

Neil — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:59:13 -0000

I'm all for subscription-based premium services. Everyone's filling the Web with information, so someone needs to cut through the noise, find the best information, present it better than everyone else, and offer potential customers a fair price for the (Google Adsense-less, pun intended) privilege.

Re: Buddy Press Turns Wordpress Into Social Network

Neil — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:35:34 -0000

Nick, unless I'm misunderstanding BuddyPress (each BuddyPress/WordPress MU community is isolated and requires a new user profile, correct?) I imagine you're betting on something like BackType (or the handful of other apps which handle decentralized commenting) over BuddyPress. Or perhaps one of the comment infrastructure plugins, or even FB Connect(?). Afterall, this really is just about aggregating comments, rather than a must-have new profile; I think most blog commentators would be happier linking straight to their own site than a BuddyPress profile which only then leads on to their site.

Re: How Facebook Can Fix Their Ads

Neil — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:29:06 -0000

Smells like a long-term strategy to me.

Zuckerberg wants people to stay on his site. He's not going to build up the social OS if his users keep trailing off down highly relevant advertising channels. And it's not like he doesn't have the development expertise to implement more relevant advertising.

He knows what he's doing - and it's an excellent strategy. Who cares if he isn't making the revenue now - look at the growth rate. It's all one big teaser for the big three.

Re: Facebook As An Email Alternative

Neil — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 18:15:23 -0000

I wouldn't dream of sending one of my friends an email now that they're all on Facebook. I do, however, have to communicate with older generations through email. I don't expect this to last for much longer though - Facebook is simply far more efficient. Why would you want to communicate through a medium that completely isolates each communication transaction? Facebook ties it all into one place, and makes communication relevant to all the important data that exists in your social network, i.e. videos, images, and audio.

Re: The LinkedIn Killer?

Neil — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 09:43:06 -0000

Joe has done exactly what I wanted to do. Well done Joe, and good luck against the Jobster app - I think your app will offer so much more, because it doesn't want to take people away from their beloved Facebook.

Re: TrackBot: The Trakzor Competitor

Neil — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 12:56:34 -0000

Nick - do many of your friends use either of these tracking apps and, if so, how do you feel about it? I've seen a total of two people using Tracksor in my network, and although I'm more than happy to use Google Analytics on my blog, using a Facebook application which tells me exactly who, what, and when, just seems a little bit on the creepy side. I'll admit that one side of me wants to use this app from a wannabe Web professional standpoint, but the other side knows how strange my friends would think I am.

How do all the other AllFacebook readers feel about tracking apps?

Re: Help With AllFacebook Video

Neil — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 12:27:17 -0000

Hey Nick, I'm looking forward to this!

How about - The significance of friend lists/contact groups within social networks? And, how do people go about categorising their relationships with others in online networks?

Re: Social Networking Addiction

Neil — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 15:18:00 -0000

I really should be forced into attending that.

Re: Friendster Announces Developer Platform

Neil — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 10:35:18 -0000

Won't the smartest widget/app developers just bounce from one fresh platform to another? Why would you continue to battle it out on Facebook when MySpace, Friendster, and Hi5 will offer unsaturated marketplaces?

Re: The Impact of OpenSocial

Neil — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 11:13:12 -0000

Most importantly - AllOpenSocial.com?

Re: MoveOn.org To Challenge Facebook Beacon

Neil — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 02:16:55 -0000

Nick - see if you can find any stats on the percentage of online purchases which are intended as gifts. I imagine it's a pretty high percentage, so that's a huge amount of data which Facebook will, by default (if the retail partner permits), pull straight into the Newsfeed. And we're getting ever closer to Christmas, too!

Re: Facebook Beta Tests Payment System

Neil — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 06:45:30 -0000

Looks like facebook has just released Friend Lists! Get the scoop Nick!

Re: PSA: How to Respond to a Facebook Wall Post

Neil — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 10:45:31 -0000

Not being allowed to post on my own wall!

Re: Has the Facebook Buzz Died Down?

Neil — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 04:31:01 -0000

The Facebook dev team just need a break over Xmas and NY - and they're the guys who craft all the buzz-tastic features. In fact, they really should be receiving an award for their great work over the past 18 months; newsfeed, mini-feed, platform and Beacon (the later may not have been a hit, but from a technical standpoint it's pretty cool, and I'm sure a lot of work went in to it). Nick, you'll have more to write about in the New Year, I'm sure of it.

Re: Profile Clean-up Tool Coming Soon

Neil — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 10:24:58 -0000

Is this really a 'Profile Clean-up Tool' or is it a time machine with the dial set to the golden days?

Re: Facebook Launches Extended Profile

Neil — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:27:00 -0000

Doesn't look like they've shipped it to the UK just yet...

Re: Facebook is on the Cusp of a Messaging Revolution

Neil — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 11:58:58 -0000

That system only ranks communication by people, not by what those people have to say to you. So, you'll effectively be presuming that a person will only ever say something of a certain level of importance to you. That just wouldn't work for me, because I never know what people are going to say to me next.

I doubt I'll ever get in to GTD stuff, and I've tried once already. It turns into a hobby, and that's time you could be spending on actually doing stuff. I'd rather scramble through with a freestyle system, and only do what is most important to me right there and then. That's what you'll ultimately do anyway.

Re: Get a Sneak Peak of Your Facebook Chat

Neil — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 03:50:36 -0000

Now that is a nice hack! And I never thought I'd find Facebook managing feature roll-out by simply hiding html elements...

Re: Facebook Announces Profile Redesign Integration

Neil — Thu, 08 May 2008 05:03:17 -0000

Supporting a developer platform really does slow down the internal development on your app, doesn't it?

To me at least, these changes indicate just how Facebook feel about apps; they provide little value. The boxes tab is going to see absolutely no traffic, and I see it following the Network link within 3 - 4 months of the re-design.

Nick, do you have any info on the average length of a Wall Post and Status Update? Character length, word count, no. of paragraphs, etc? I'd love to know where they sit in relation to Twitter's 140 character limit...

Re: 10 signs you’re a product fanatic

Neil — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:36:22 -0000

Beautiful, innovative websites & apps built using TextMate on a MacBook Pro!

Seriously though, there's definitely a balance to be struck between taking a ridiculous level of pride in your work, and producing something quick and dirty to get to market asap. Only revenue can generate bread & butter!

Re: Tweet

Neil — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 06:52:43 -0000

I was the same; I didn't want to become some kind of compulsive thought sharing freak, but Twitter is great! It's obvious that the head honchos at Facebook want a slice of the action, too. Slowly but surely, they're taking 'Status Updates' closer to the way Twitter works. 'What are you doing right now?'...

Re: Stumbleupon: The Richest Source Of Traffic?

Neil — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 02:48:10 -0000

I used StumbleUpon absolutely ages ago, but it never made it's way in to my fav apps collection. Since then, I've made a move to Mac, so I'll see if it works on Firefox on OS X and give it another punt. I'm having crazy ideas about setting aside 10 minutes each day just to check out something random from across the Web.

Just out of interest, how did the community at SU handle your submissions? I know the people over at Digg can be a bit negative about self-submissions. Would be interesting to know how the other voting sites feel about it.

Re: Stumbleupon: The Richest Source Of Traffic?

Neil — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 08:46:11 -0000

Great - I might try submitting something to SU as an experiment. As a company, it's a huge success story, so it would be good to understand the user experience anyway!

Re: Beat Me Sideways With A Sandal

Neil — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 07:40:44 -0000

Join the club! I haven't been ill in years (touch wood), but I got the sniffles the other day, and although it didn't slow me down, it still annoyed me. I thought I had some kinda of mega-immune system. That, or I've spent so much time at my desk that I haven't been exposed to the common illnesses!

Re: People, sites, and software I am thankful for this year - Locomotivation, the technology blog from Squeejee

Neil — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:42:53 -0000

People:
• Rails IRC
• Rails Forum
• Ryan Bates
• Ryan Townsend ThinkRefresh.com

Sites:
• Github + 1
• Hoptoad

Software:
• Workling
• Paperclip
• Yahoo reset.css (a component of YUI)

Re: People, sites, and software I am thankful for this year - Locomotivation, the technology blog from Squeejee

Neil — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 02:45:07 -0000

No probs (almost typed 'ho probs' and posted it, I shoulda kept it in, it's a great typo!).

Talking of Shoulda, I believe many Rails devs would add said testing framework to the list (haven't had a chance to use it myself, but at least one friend has dropped Rspec entirely).

And I forgot a couple...

People:
• Pat Allen

Software:
• Thinking Sphinx

(this list could end up being rather long; it turns out that Rails has had an infinite number of cool new people, sites, and software in 2008 alone)

Re: Ruby Best Practices - The Universe between begin and end

Neil — Sun, 03 May 2009 04:48:25 -0000

Great post , Robert, it's the kind of topic that people coming to Rails as a first time developer (like me) struggle to grasp. Last night I was tackling a 'token verification' method, with which I use Hpricot to parse a site URL for a unique verification token, to prove ownership. Unscientifically, I managed to get a rescue working for an OpenURI 404 error when no URL exists, but I certainly don't fully understand why I'm doing the rescue (I'm reading through your post 3 or 4 more times today) - I just know that it stopped the method from breaking;

http://pastie.org/466530

What would you guys do differently? I'm coming to the conclusion that the rescue should be using another class for handling the error, perhaps along the lines of the rescue Exception => e, as detailed by Phil Hagelberg here http://technomancy.us/114 (p.s. I have read the above post, and the linked-to posts - but I only really learn new things if someone critiques something I've attempted on my own).

Re: Ruby Best Practices - The Universe between begin and end

Neil — Mon, 04 May 2009 11:31:46 -0000

Not a problem, thanks for the feedback. I'll add a comment for the rescue. Someone on rails IRC pointed out that I could do without the 'self' where I'm referencing the instance of the Site class. I was already aware of this, but I must admit to liking how it reads with self.attribute.

I doubt the Ruby Best Practices guys will ever run out of topics, but if you're ever looking for something, I'd definitely read a series on improving other peoples code, i.e. taking user-submitted design patterns and sprucing them up with RBPs wisdom.

Re: Ruby Best Practices - Hello World (Literally)

Neil — Tue, 05 May 2009 05:27:07 -0000

• Who are you & where are you from?
I'm Neil Cauldwell, currently based in Stratford-Upon-Avon, UK (Shakespeare's hometown). I'm working on some web businesses and using Ruby/Rails to build them.

• What is the Ruby scene like where you live?
London is the nearest scene. There isn't much here.

• What would you like to see on the RBP blog?
More of the same, mixed in with examples of code improvement. There has to be tons of regular design patterns in Rails apps (for example; I do appreciate this isn't just a Rails blog) which could be improved with some RBPs.

Re: Will Widgets Hit A Mainstream Wall Just Like RSS?

Neil — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 05:46:06 -0000

I've tried the following explanation of RSS for several business leaders, and it seems to work;

'RSS turns a web site into a well trained employee. Instead of going to an employee every five minutes to see if they've finished the report, you tell the employee to come to you when the report is finished. Subscribe to an RSS feed for a web site, and the content will come to you when it is ready, which means that you don't have to keep checking up on it.'

I don't think it is a question of widgets gaining mainstream adoption - it's a matter of how people will refer to them, and in what format they will be delivered. Even if my generation (18-24 yr olds) are able to customise a MySpace profile, most of them still have no understanding of the underlying technology, but that doesn't matter. They want to add custom elements to their on-line space, and where there is demand there will be solutions. Six or seven years ago most web users would have struggled with customising MySpace. And now look at the average MySpace profile, it's completely transformed by visual and aural elements. Humans are just getting better with the computer.

Re: Will Widgets Hit A Mainstream Wall Just Like RSS?

Neil — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 10:45:02 -0000

Widget load times are a problem. But let's not forget that the average Internet user (if still discussing mainstream adoption of widgets) will have a higher tolerance for page load times than Internet power users, such as the people who visit this tech blog.

Would you rather have instantaneous page loads, or widget functionality that helps to make a visit to a URL so much richer? (Has a never-ending plague of 404 really affected MySpace?)

Re: Digg Is The Apotheosis Of Niche Media

Neil — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 05:00:32 -0000

It's not a question of a media company capturing an audience - it's the audience capturing itself. The 'under 25, male, liberal, interested in tech' group of people was (unsurprisingly) the first to adopt Digg. Try and find another new technology which isn't touched by this group first - they are always the first to discover and adopt things on the web.

There is room for a Digg style service to grow through the mainstream, but it's just a small matter of hitting enough of the mainstream audience first so that the subject orientation doesn't become niche. But then surely it means you'll need to get a few early adoptors on your side if you want to filter to the mainstream? In which case, if Digg has captured all the early adoptors, maybe it still has a chance to make a crossover to the mainstream.

Re: Can Google Transform The Entire Web Into A Direct Marketing Machine?

Neil — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 06:36:36 -0000

It will make you long for the days of network TV when you only had to sit through three minutes of commercials.

You're wrong - there will be more marketing, but avoiding it will always be an option, just as it is now. If one web entity forces too many advertisements on me, I'll go where I can get the same content without the ads. And if there's a need for content with cut down advertising, there will be someone who's more than willing to provide the service.

Re: Facebook: Sponsored Feed Items, Irrelevant Ads, Still Tailored For Students

Neil — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 05:54:38 -0000

Scott

Facebook really is worth all the attention it now has, but it's the early twenty-somethings that currently reap all the benefits from the service.

I could use Facebook all day without becoming bored. It enables me to communicate more easily with my friends, so much so that I honestly couldn't imagine a social life without Facebook now. If you want to experience this, you have to build up a network of people that you'd communicate with regularly in the offline world even if Facebook wasn't there. Otherwise you won't use Facebook enough to realise how it makes your life easier to manage, i.e. birthdays, events, keeping in touch etc.

You said you prefer to use blogs to keep in touch with friends - but would you use a blog post/comment to ask someone if they were still interested in going for a drink later on that day? That's how I use Facebook.

I've experienced older generations trying to get into Facebook - the Jobster.com CEO and CTO both added me as a friend once they announced their exclusive career partnership with Zuckerberg's network - but only one of them acted like he knew anything about Facebook etiquette. Age really does make a difference.

Re: How Age Matters In Media, Web Services, And Social Networking

Neil — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 15:36:24 -0000

BillG

If I ask post a 'wall message' on a friend's Facebook profile, all the friends that exist in both our Facebook networks can also see this and, therefore, join in with the communication.

Rather than emailing, txting, phoning around one person at a time, I can make a wall post or a group invite, and everyone knows what they need to know in a single, and incredibly efficient, process.

Communicating on Facebook is wildly different to posting on blogs and 'publishing to the web'. Facebook offers all the privacy functions you could ever wish for, so I have no qualms with telling someone something through Facebook. If I must send a message to just one person I'll send them a direct message through the Inbox. That way, it's kept out of the Facebook social graph, but still in my preferred place for communication.

Re: Google Introduces User-Generated Content For Maps Without Community

Neil — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:32:56 -0000

"And it’s a weakness that can be exploited."

By Mark Zuckerberg?

You know I really should get sponsorship from those guys.

Re: Facebook Monetization: Lessons From Google

Neil — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 16:43:36 -0000

Take a step back for a moment, and consider Zuckerberg's F8 launch speech;

- Has quick revenue generation ever been on his agenda?

- Will he struggle to carry on funding Facebook, bearing in mind a VC fund has been opened that focuses only on investing in widgets for his service?

- Does he not speak of the 'social graph' (or the much heralded social OS)? Would a highly efficient advertising strategy on a social network help to foster the growth of a social OS?

That twenty-three year old knows what he's doing. Banner ads on Facebook is a fox-like way to monetize.

Re: Facebook’s Vulnerabilities

Neil — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:57:47 -0000

Adsense works by targeting ads based on the content that I'm looking at, i.e. by analysing HTML. If Facebook intend to use cookies from past Facebook sessions to formulate SocialAds, then the ad campaign targeted at me, the user, would follow me everywhere - it wouldn't need to match the content on the page. This wouldn't be a good thing, because the ads would encourage me to part with my cash no matter where I am. I'd rather the ads were relevant to the page in question. SocialAds wouldn't have to be.

In a world with ad campaigns based on social network browsing history, won't people just log-out of their social networks whenever they need to get their work done? Clearing browser history (cookies) would become a regular activity.

Re: Creating Customized Social Networking Applications For Business

Neil — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 15:35:47 -0000

Scott, there's huge potential for social networking in business, everything we create on our workstations/laptops within the enterprise firewall will probably end up being shared with someone else, either to create value or to share knowledge. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access....what do you invariably do with a file generated by one of these apps?! We share it!

Even the most old school of the old school corporates (and I've worked with them, and been raised by them!) will end-up using social networking, whether they like it or not. We just need a bit more social network mobility so that 'wall-postings' are a pivotal component of Crackberry thumb syndrome.

As for Facebook (and MySpace) - it's like going to Asda or Wal-Mart - technically they have everything you need, but wouldn't you rather use a more appropriate, clear-cut, specialist channel?

Re: Decommoditizing Social Networks By Connecting User Profiles Via OpenSocial

Neil — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 03:38:13 -0000

Scott, you've overlooked University networks. I graduated last summer, but I still know useful the University specific networks are. They are anything but generic, and are far more useful than anything Ning currently hosts - at least to a twenty-something whose every peer is on FB.

On Facebook, people 'friend' each other for generic reasons because the popularity of the service affords it. But Facebook was once very specific to educational institutes (and in many ways it still is), so the generic social networking interactions have grown from a very stable foundation in highly targeted networks. Those foundations are still there - they're just overlooked.

Re: Rails Session Storage: Cookie Vs Active Record

Neil — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:52:00 -0000

Dave, have you worked on any apps with a 'ban user' feature which immediately ends any session associated with the respective user? Apparently it's lot easier with AR session store; I tried to find out how to do this using restful_authentication and cookie sessions (and I think I managed to hack something together) but there didn't seem to be much discussion on the topic.

Re: Rails Session Storage: Cookie Vs Active Record

Neil — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 04:02:00 -0000

Yes it's a 1up for AR session storage. I opted for what is probably a hugely inefficient approach (based on cookie sessions); authentication_system.rb has been hacked to include a check for current_user.enabled? at the same point at which it checks that the user is logged_in? (it all fits within the authorized? method which already existed in RA). It's an extra, frequent boolean check against current_user, but in a private beta app with only a few users and no benchmarking done yet, I'm not going to worry until things start to break down...

I'm glad I don't have to worry about sessions in the DB though.

Re: Bort! Now with OpenID!

Neil — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 04:28:01 -0000

Is Bort's Asset Packager working on Git for the versioning of compressed base files? I just stumbled across Asset Packager and Borts integration and wondered if anyone had worked round the (as far as I'm aware) SVN only integration for managing different versions of the base collections....