by Andy Brudtkuhl on August 30, 2009
Last month I wrote about how Google Reader changed how I consume information again. Prior to that announcement I had been using Feedly solely – as a “front end” to Google Reader. Feedly has once again been added into my daily rotation – because they have integrated the friends and comments features of Google Reader. This has made for a FriendFeed-like experience.
If you are not familiar with Feedly – it is a Firefox extension that acts as an interface with Google Reader.
Feedly weaves the content of your favorite sites and services into a magazine-like start page.
I like Feedly because it gives a sense of organization to an otherwise unwieldy stream of information that is Google Reader. If you are wondering why the addition of Friends and Comments is important, read this Google Reader post. Basically the friends feature creates a human powered filter for me to consume information.
Google Reader has made tremendous progress on the social aspects over the last months: profile, user search, asymmetric follow, comments, friends and comments view. We wanted to make sure that people who use feedly as a Google Reader client were able to take advantage of all these new features. As part of feedly 2.x.009, we are pushing out a new friends/comments page.
via Support for Google Reader Friends and Comments
by Andy Brudtkuhl on August 27, 2009
Normally this would have not registered with me but for the last year I’ve been finishing my basement. While almost done – I’ve been wondering why a service like this was not available. I’ve been using Basecamp to manage my home improvement project, and while not ideal it works better than nothing for keeping track of such a big home improvement project.
What is ManageMyHome?
“ManageMyHome allows customers to download online product manuals, receive expert project advice, organize lists of parts and materials needed for projects, calculate estimated project costs, read how-to articles, and also schedule Sears home improvement services and purchase home improvement products and materials. In addition, a team of volunteer homeowners called “Neighborhood Helpers” provide advice through an interactive blog and by posting “tweets” on the Twitter social networking site.” via MarketingCharts
by Andy Brudtkuhl on August 27, 2009
Today Google Reader added “Featured Reading Lists”.
These lists have been created by high profile bloggers. The idea is to offer up a list of what these A-Listers read.
Where do Arianna Huffington and Thomas Friedman go to get different perspectives on the news? Which economics sites does Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman read? What sites and blogs do the editors of Lifehacker, Boing Boing and Kottke read?
These questions have always interested us, so we decided to approach leaders across a variety of fields and ask them what they read online. We got lots of great responses, which we’ve collected into our second edition of Power Readers. In this edition, we’ve expanded from Power Readers in Politics to include journalists, techies, fashion critics, foodies, and more. We hope this will be a good place for you to find more great things to read, whether you’re new to Google Reader or already have an extensive reading list.
Will this do for these blogs what the Twitter Suggested User List Did?
by Andy Brudtkuhl on August 27, 2009
by Andy Brudtkuhl on August 26, 2009
As I’ve written before the Enterprise industry is extremely leery of the cloud – both because of security and data ownership. The idea is that if their data is not on their servers – they can’t protect it and they don’t “own” it. Yesterday I had a discussion with a colleague who was tasked with migrating a legacy SQL Server Environment into the company’s new virtual server environment. I said – “You know it would take a lot less work, time, infrastructure, money, and maintenance if you moved your data operations to the cloud”.
I got a blank stare… “I’d never get approval for that”, he said.
This is why – so far – the cloud has been relegated to the SMB (small-medium sized business) market. Companies like mine have been able to take advantage of the cloud in so many ways while remaining a small, low budget company.
Amazon took their first step in the direction of the enterprise market late last year by offering an SLA (service level agreement) to its users with a 99.95% availability commitment.
Today’s announcement takes the next logical step – private “clouds” that addresses one of their primary issues, security.
Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) lets you create your own logically isolated set of Amazon EC2 instances and connect it to your existing network using an IPsec VPN connection. This new offering lets you take advantage of the low cost and flexibility of AWS while leveraging the investment you have already made in your IT infrastructure.
What this means in RPS (real people speak) is that you can create your own private networks in the cloud that connects to your own private network – for authentication among other purposes.
