Victor Harbor NYE Fireworks (adamskee/Flickr)

Start writing a blog

This was the first of my resolutions last year, and the one that went to plan the least. My original schedule of 4 to 6 posts a week was ridiculous, and I had completely underestimated the amount of time required to write a quality blog post. This year my aim is at least one post a week, with more if I feel I have something useful to say. At this pace I hopefully won’t burn myself out, and leave plenty of time for doing other computery things, but also living my life.

Become fit and healthy

I am proud to say that I have made significant improvements in this area! Whilst I have periods of laziness, I am much more active than I was 12 months ago. I bought running shoes, and I go running. I bought netball shoes, and I actually play netball. The Sunday afternoon games have become something that I look forward to the most every week, and hopefully I can play a second night next season. Although we don’t win many games (and that’s being generous), I’m in much better shape and it doesn’t feel like work. So for this year my goal is to keep up the exercise, and really try to get a good 30 minutes in every day of the week.

Play the piano

I was very keen to get back into playing last year, but unfortunately I lost access to a piano on a regular basis. So this resolution is still on the cards, but on hold for the time being. Later in the year I may have another opportunity to take it up again.

Develop an open source application

Being a software developer by day can really sap your enthusiasm for doing any substantial coding when you’re at home. I think I set my sights too high with the projects I had in mind, and so I never found the time to complete them to a releasable level. I have had success with a number of small coding activities (such as a social assassin game for my partner’s birthday – post coming soon!), but there is nothing in the public domain that I can put my name to. I have an idea for something really small that will hopefully get me started on this front, but Paul (the first ever commenter who I don’t know personally!) suggested a different option. He recommended that I contribute to an open source project and add a significant feature. I think this is a great idea, and will probably lead to a number of ideas and opportunities. The hardest part is choosing where to invest my time…

New resolutions

This year I’ve decided not to make any new resolutions. The four from last year all still need a bit of work, and I probably should devote my time to achieving them. I’m looking forward to writing in my blog more, and honing my programming skills on some different projects. Like all resolutions, only time will, so come back in 2012 to see how I went! While you’re at it, tell me how you’re on track with yours.

Imagine the following situation. You’ve spent half an hour in your favourite webmail client, meticulously writing an email, making sure that it is completely word-perfect. After reading it over for the third time, you decide it’s ready and you anxiously press the send button. Just as you breath a sigh of relief, “Error: Cannot connect to the server!” What?! Quick click back! The form is EMPTY! Aaaaaarrrrrrrrrrggggghhhhhhhhhhh! This is where Lazarus comes to the rescue.

Lazarus: Form Recovery continuously encrypts and stores everything you write as you type it. A simple user interface allows you to quickly bring back any content you lost due to a server error, browser crash, or inadvertently hitting the back button. All it takes is a single click. The current version includes 2048-bit RSA and 256-bit AES hybrid encryption, so you can be sure your data stays secure.

Lazarus works on ordinary web forms, WYSIWYG editors, and even AJAXified comment boxes, and will save you from pretty much any given server, browser, or connection problems that might otherwise cause you to lose your work, or that really pithy blog comment you struggled on for over an hour.

It’s not the kind of addon that you use (or even think about) every day, but when you need it, Lazarus will be there. Just don’t forget you installed it, because it won’t be as helpful once you throw your laptop out of the window. Check out the info page, or simply:

Yes, shh, I can hear you. No need to yell at the internets. I will tell you which addons make up the amazing collection that keeps me firmly rooted. Rather than one giant post though, I’ll focus on a single addon per post over the next few weeks. Keep this page bookmarked as I’ll update it as more posts appear.

My Top Firefox Addons

• Xmarks – Bookmarks and password synchronisation
• Lazarus – Automated form recovery

Every time I install Firefox on a new machine, I go through and add every one of the above addons. Until Chrome can provide alternatives for most of them, I can’t see myself switching. Of course as always, I could be wrong? Is Chrome already the next best thing, or have I missed some addons which would transform my world?

Alas, no

Paul Graham may have saved the world from spam back in 2002, but where is he now that my inbox is being bombarded from all of the random websites that I once signed up for?

image: niallkennedy/Flikr

The Problem

Websites all over the internet require you to register if you want to comment on a blog, upload a photo, or super poke your Aunty. Each one of these sites gives you the ability to “opt out”, but only after you search until the end of the internet for the option. I’m usually pretty good at this, but you try unsubscribing from WheresWally.com! And once you do find it, there’s those websites that just choose to ignore you. It’s an all too common problem, but what can a simple guy like me do? After all, I’m just one person…

The Solution

Mailinator is an instant throwaway email inbox that you can use as an alternative to your regular account.

• Simply make up a random email address @mailinator.com when you sign up to those pesky websites.
• Go to www.mailinator.com and use your made up address to check your inbox.
• Open the email you receive and confirm “your account”

The emails will only last for a few hours, and will automatically delete themselves. It’s wise to choose a fairly unique address, because you wouldn’t be the first person to think of using “test”. And obviously you definitely should not use it for personal information, because it’s not secure in the slightest!

There’s lots of bonus features if you check out their FAQ, including address aliases (so that you can prevent the sender knowing the location of your inbox), and the ability to subscribe to your inbox via RSS. Aside from keeping your inbox clean, you could use it in development for testing your email/signup systems.

With over 25 million emails being received per day, Mailinator is standing strong in the wake of its popularity. Next time you need to post a question to a forum, or sign up to order some of those *cough* pills, save your inbox, and let them eat spam!

http://www.findwaldo.com/

Whilst normally I’m involved in a show or two which chews up my time, this Fringe I was completely free! Rather than relax and watch the month pass by, I jumped in front and got hit head on. Dragging my family and friends along, I checked out the following 15 shows. They were all unforgettable, and yet I’ve forgotten enough to be able to review them coherently. Instead I’ll write a random comment, and instead of getting myself into trouble by criticising the bad ones, I just won’t say anything at all

My 2010 Adelaide Fringe in order of attendance

• Tim Minchin – This musical comedy genius singing about red haired people and “If I didn’t have you, I’d probably have somebody else”, is always a top shelf act.
• Bart Freebaird – A Breathtakingly Magical Journey into the Ordinary was watched by 8 people in a store-room at the Tuxedo cat. The most intimate show that I’ve ever been to, but very relaxed and entertaining.
• The Boy with Tape on His Face – How many shows have you seen when the only person on stage has a piece of tape covering his mouth and never speaks? Hard to explain, but one of the funniest shows I’ve ever seen!
• Claire Hooper – A Few Small Things You Should Know About the Future didn’t mention anything about the future from memory, but she’s pretty on TV and funny in real life.
• Pip – Hypnolarious.
  
• Adelaide Comedy Debate – Is it a long way to the top? Just like the comedy debates that you see on TV, but up close, at the Arkaba Hotel, and without the TV. 3 hours of side-splitting laughter thanks to Jason Chong, Steve Hughes, Tom Gleeson, Dave Callan, Greg Fleet, Justin Hamilton, and 2 other comedians who I’ve forgotten (oops!).
• Philip Escoffey – Six Impossible Things Before Dinner really is six impossible things, but after dinner. Philip Escoffey blows your mind as he reads it, leaving you completely stumped about how he does his amazing feats.
• Wil Anderson – Wilful Misconduct.
  
• Dan Willis – CONTROL-ALT-DELETE is geek comedy at its best. The only show I’ve seen with the audience bursting out in laughter from the indentation of source code. As they say in the business, comedy gold!
• Tom Binns – Ivan Brackenbury‘s Hospital Radio Roadshow was the gem of the Fringe. Ivan’s radio hour broadcasting back to a hospital in the UK, is filled with dedications like “Achy Breaky Heart” for the cardiac ward. This one man show never stopped, with the risk of sending the audience to hospital from split sides.
• David O’Doherty – The David O’Doh-party was a late night show so I came dressed in my pyjamas. David’s a funny little Irish guy with a funny little keyboard and sings funny little songs. Even though he just stepped off a plane from Ireland, he put on a great show, even going 30 minutes over time for the cheering audience.
• The Sapphires was a State Theatre Company show that happened to be on during the Fringe. Starring Christine Anu, this musical also featured Casey Donovan the not-so-popular Australian Idol winner. Turns out though, that’s she was great, and has certainly found her calling.
• Sammy J and Randy – Ricketts Lane was quite funny at the beginning and got better as the show went along. I enjoyed it, but it was performed inside of a noisy circus tent and I think that skewed my opinion.
• Dan Willis - Michael Jackson: World’s Greatest Entertainer is the other show by the friendly UK comedian. With his impressive dancing skills and knowledge of Michael Jackson statistics, it’s hard to believe that’s he’s still single! Ladies?
• The Small Poppies DON’T CARE (that the end of the world is nigh) - A sketch comedy show by a small group of actors. While it gives me warm memories of the shows I’ve worked on, it wasn’t the funniest show I’ve seen. Also it lacked audience numbers which would have helped to overcome the low points.

Now before I give my recommendations about what you should see, I have to disclose something. Dan Willis and Tom Binns are not only talented comedians, but are also friendly visitors and enjoy moderately priced beer. After seeing CONTROL-ALT-DELETE with Emily, we chatted to Dan over a beer, met Tom after his show, and spent the rest of a blurry night at the Artist Bar. They were a great couple of blokes to hang out with, and together with the other cool people were met, made this my best Fringe yet.

Recommendations

If you like comedy, then you absolutely must see Ivan Brackenbury’s Hospital Radio Roadshow (youtube!) and CONTROL-ALT-DELETE. They were by far the funniest shows that I have seen, and it is a rare treat whilst they are still relatively unknown in Australia. Soon their international reputations will follow them here, and you’ll have a hard time getting tickets. So brilliant!

The other person that you can’t miss is Philip Escoffey. His “mind reading” tricks were amazing, and I was left speechless. Even when I thought I had an idea about how it was done, Philip would add another something else to make it really impossible. Facebook was filled with people recommending the show to their friends, and so I am recommending it to you!

UPDATE: Congratulations to Tom for Ivan’s success down under! If you’re in Melbourne, check out his show in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Ivan was a Best Act Nominee in the Adelaide Fringe 2010 he’s also the “sleeper hit” of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and Pick of the Festival!!!!!!! according to the posh paper in Melbourne, The Age.

Sidenote

As you may have noticed, this is my first blog post in quite a while. It is true that Mad March had something to do with it, I lost motivation whilst everything was still calming down. I’m trying to get back on track with my 4 posts per week, but I am going to try to limit the time I spend on each post to 90 minutes. I’ll split the larger posts into a few smaller ones that will not only be less demanding to write, but less time spent reading for you.

Audience Participation

So if you’ve seen any of these shows, or any that I’ve missed, leave a comment and let me know what you thought!

Flickr is almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world.

As I followed the “Magical Feature Tour”, I continuously asked myself, “Why on Earth are all my photos in Facebook?!”

Ok, so that really is a rhetorical question. The power of social networking is huge, and to get anyone to check out another site it would have to be a pretty amazing photo of me exposing Hannah Montana’s real identity. (Sorry folks, I’m not that lucky!) So we have to live with Facebook’s flaws, including the lack of automatic tagging and low resolution images. The real problem though isn’t the photos I upload, but other people’s photos of me.

Back in the olden days, when someone took a photo of me on their Sony Mavica camera, they’d just whip out the floppy and I’d take a copy. As technology advanced and you could take more than 10 photos a night, we progressed to sharing the weekend’s snaps on a compact disk. It worked great, and means I still have those photos of me dressed up as Elvis from when I was 16. (Yes, this is full resolution!)

So what are my options today? I could email all of my friends and ask them to email the photos back to me one by one. That’d take waaaayyy too long, and I don’t necessarily want to have that level of contact with some of my Facebook friends. I could go through every photo, right click, Save Image As…, etc, but that doesn’t sound like my idea of a fun evening!

Well I’ve discovered FacePAD, a Firefox Add-on which is a Facebook album downloader. Once you install it (making sure you have default download location configured for Firefox), you just right click on a link to an album and choose “Download Album with FacePAD”.

The extension will whiz into action, and download each of the photos in the album. UPDATE: So it turns out it only downloads the photos on the first page of the album, and you have to repeat the right click action for each subsequent page. The files will be in your preconfigured download directory, helpfully named with random numbers, and placed in the middle of the rest of your files.

Mmm yeah, it’s pretty rough. Instead of asking for donations, perhaps the developer could spend some of his time cleaning things up a bit. However it does what I need, and I now have a simpler way of getting a copy of my embarrassing memories. I’m not sure that it’s going to be enough to motivate me to do it regularly, but is there anything else I can do?

What is Google Buzz?

Well I’m glad you asked, otherwise it’d be pointless explaining it!

Built right into Gmail, Google Buzz is a social networking slash near-realtime aggregator. Or for my mother is reading, it’s like a Facebook from Google. Basically, whenever you log into your email account, there’ll be a page that shows you all the recent updates from people you follow. These updates can be in the form of status updates, links, photos or other rich media.

Instead of yet another social network hub that nobody can be bothered using because it’s deserted, Buzz pulls the updates from a number of existing sites. This solves the classic chicken and egg problem, making the service instantly useful. While the concept itself isn’t new (with services like friendfeed on the scene), Buzz has the advantage of building on the existing Gmail user base. According to the Official Gmail Blog, tens of millions of people have tried out the service in the first 48 hours alone!

I’ve heard there are privacy issues?

When you first sign in, you’ll be prompted to choose a list of people to follow based on your most commonly emailed contacts. Only a few days after the release, this prompt replaces the original behaviour of automatically following these contacts. The problem was that the people you follow can be publicly visible, and this was seen as a privacy risk that exposes the people you most commonly email. Google said “Oops!” and have since changed the behaviour, but not before receiving criticism from a number of sources.

Well what can it connect to?

As of today, Buzz is integrated with Twitter, Picasa, Flickr, YouTube, Google Reader shared items, and Google Chat status updates. Or if you like pictures:

You can even add the RSS feed of any content you publish, with updates being posted straight to your feed! Of course there’s also the typical “Share what you’re thinking” box that you can post Buzz specific statuses, links, or media.

As you may have noticed, there’s no Facebook support. In fact, only 6 of the 206,741,990 websites in the world are connected! But fear not young reader, our hero Google is coming to the rescue with this quote:

Buzz itself is not designed to be a closed system. Our goal is to make Buzz a fully open and distributed platform for conversations. We’re building on a suite of open protocols to create a complete read/write developer API.

Ding ding ding! That’s the “open” bell ringing, which is what we developers love to hear.

What can’t it do?

Buzz is great at aggregating your content in one convenient place, creating a conversation of comments and likes between followers. Just like other aggregators (such as Google Reader), this conversation doesn’t get back to the publishers, effectively breaking the feedback loop. This deprives publishers of useful feedback or motivation (in the case of small time bloggers like me). It’s a core problem with web 2.0.x, and Matt Haughey’s blog is an excellent discussion on the topic.

How do I get started?

This is as easy as a nice slice of cherry pie!

1. Log into your Gmail account, and click the Buzz logo on the left (under the inbox link).
2. Next choose the people you want to follow.
3. Connect to the sites you want to access.
4. Start Buzzing! (I think I’ve just coined a new verb!)

For those inclined, there’s plenty to read over at the Buzz homepage, and don’t forget to check out Buzz on your phone. Time will be the ultimate test, but I expect Buzz to common place in conversations of the future. What do you think about all the Buzz?

This morning, I woke up to hell that’s worse than the blue screen of death: a hung system. You know the type: mouse frozen, unresponsive keyboard… Today, the situation got worse because now, the system won’t boot either. It booted fine yesterday. I get to the Windows splash screen, but after that, something goes terribly wrong and the hard drive, which sounds normal up until a point, starts to make a rhythmic grinding noise as though it’s trying to get at something it just can’t get at.

I’ve had a hard drive or two fail in my time (stupid good for nothing lightning!), so I am aware of the situation. Every year or so I have copied some or my important files around to other computers on my home network. Also I’ve recently bought a portable hard drive that lives on top of my server, and I store another copy of my files on there. All in all, it’s pretty inadequate. I’m left completely unprotected, losing all of my precious files in the event of fire, meteorite, or theft.

So as my blog starts to take shape, I thought it was about time I looked into implementing some sort of real backup system. I don’t need anything fancy, and I’ve come up with this list of requirements:

• Cheap – I don’t like wasting money.
• Simple – If I have to constantly manage the backup then I’m not going to do it.
• Automatic – Same as above. I’m too lazy to think about backing up, let alone click a button to do it.
• Offsite – If the next asteroid near Earth takes out my house, my photos will still be safe.
• Versioned – Sure I can restore a deleted file, but what happens if I delete the contents and save it? (rhetorical)

I’ve been an avid listener of TWIT for a while now, and if you’ve ever heard Leo Laporte open his mouth you’d know about Carbonite. It’s an offsite backup service that automatically uploads your selected files and folders to their servers distributed across multiple data centres. I thought that I should give it a go, so I signed up for the 30 day free trial.

Yeah mmm it was ok. I did everything that I wanted it to I guess. There was just some little things that annoyed me, and for about $6 a month it didn’t seem worth it. One of the things that bugged me was the user interface. Mainly based around shell integration, the look and feel seemed almost hacked together and unfriendly. Also, Carbonite has a “feature” (probably designed to save storage space on the server) that stops videos as well as system style files from being backed up by default. To a developer like me, system and configuration files are really important, and it was too much effort manually selecting them all. Goodbye Carbonite!

I generally liked the idea behind Carbonite, just not the implementation. Using the Google comparison trick I checked out the competition.

Hello Mozy! And welcome to the family! Mozy was exactly what I was looking for, and has none of the things I complained about with Carbonite. These are the things that I like:

• The interface is clean and simple, which makes it easy to select the folders you want backed up.
• Every file type is backed up automatically, with no exceptions.
• It even backs up open and locked files like Outlook PST files!
• Every fixed disk in your computer can be backed up.
• 30 days of version history.
• Backups are scheduled incrementally, and only when the computer is in low use.
• Multiple restore options, including ordering your data on a DVD!

So for approximately the same price (US$4.95 a month), I get unlimited storage space with all of these features! In comparison it seems much cheaper. For those of you who think they don’t really have enough data to warrant the cost, Mozy offers a free version with 2GB storage. If you need a little more space, then every 2 friends you refer gives you another gigabyte of space.

I’m sleeping much better at night knowing my precious 1′s and 0′s are floating around safe in the cloud. It doesn’t complete my system as only my server is backed up, but that’s where most of my data lives. The next step is to use another third-party tool to back up my other machines onto a network share (yes that’s supported!), but all in good time. So next time you hear the click of death, will you be crying, or sighing with relief that you signed up with Mozy?

Gravatars are globally recognised avatars (the original image kind), that follow you around the internet. You can sign up to the service for free, upload your chosen image, and it will automatically appear on a number of sites. The comments you make on all WordPress powered blogs (such as this one) support Gravatars by default, thanks to Automattic’s acquisition in 2007. That’s just the start, with a growing awareness leading to an explosion of support, including:

• WordPress.com
• Stack Overflow
• uhh…
• And more!

It’s pretty cool signing up to a site and seeing your face (even if it is cartoonised). As a user it’s a great, simple, no downsides service that makes surfing (is that word even used anymore) the world wide web cooler. As a web developer, you’ve got no excuse for not implementing it in your sites. It’s dead easy, and means you don’t need to mess around with your own profile pic system. You have a lot of control, including setting a rating to censor inappropriate images, change the size of the images, and the choice of default image categories for the users who haven’t woken up yet.

Identicons

MonsterIDs

Wavatars

The process basically involves creating an MD5 hash (helpful online tool) of the user’s email address. You then request the image from the Gravatar server with a simple HTTP get request. So for example, the following request retrieves my Gravatar with a size of 80 by 80 pixels, rated G, and users Wavatars as the default.

You can read all about it on the developer site, as well as reference implementations for a number of different languages. And don’t limit yourself to just the web, with Gravatar’s popping up on the desktop too!

So draw a crazy cartoon head of yourself, and create your Gravatar today!

Now to be honest, the mobile interface isn’t very strong. It’s not a genuine replacement for native bookmarks, but apparently there’s an iPhone application in the works.

Well until that iPhone application eventuates, I’ve come up with a quick fix. It’s not perfect, but it uses the native iPhone bookmark system which is a whole lot better.

Step 1: Download Xmarks for Internet Explorer

You can get the installation from here. Just do it. I know you don’t like Internet Explorer, and neither do I.

Step 2: Login and Setup

Make sure you choose to keep the server bookmarks and delete your local favourites! Otherwise you’ll end up with the useless default Microsoft links everywhere.

You could set up a separate mobile profile, but I’ve been using my home profile instead and it seems to work for me.

Step 3: Enable iTunes Bookmark Sync

Plug in your iPhone, open iTunes, and click on the Info tab. Select the option to “Sync bookmarks with Internet Explorer”, and click Sync!

Step 4: Comment

That’s it, you’re done. So comment on this post and tell me how it works for you, because as Jeff says, A Blog Without Comments Is Not a Blog. That’s all for today!

The main problem with bookmarks that has existed since they were born, is the issue of keeping them organised. These days I use multiple computers, with a number of different browsers, and my bookmarks get out of control. Why would anyone want to use bookmarks anymore? In his post titled “Do We Still Need Bookmarks?“, Jono answers this question with these insightful use cases:

The Todo List. “I want to look at this, but not right now.” Someone gave me a link to a cool video about robots, but I don’t want to watch it right now, because I’m in the middle of something. Or, there’s a web form I need to fill out, but I don’t have the information I need yet. I bookmark the page because there’s an action I want to take later.

Sharing. “Oh man, this is funny!” This time, I found the cool robot video, and I want to show it to someone. I found a hilarious picture, or a news article that proves I was right in that argument we had a week ago. Either way, the value is in the sharing. I bookmark it so that later on I can give the link to others.

Frequently Used. “I want to get back here fast.” The page where I view my bank account status, the central documentation page for the project I’m working on, or a hub from which I often start surfing. I bookmark it because I expect to return often and I want to get there fast.

The Research Collection. “This fits right in to something I’m working on.” I’m a history teacher, preparing a lesson plan, and I’m collecting resources about World War 1. Or, I’m a political blogger, and I’m collecting links about all the ways my Least Favorite Politician has screwed things up. I bookmark pages because I want to add them to my growing collection of data on a certain topic.

This is exactly how I use my bookmarks, as well as everyone I know. We’re all just stuck copying our bookmarks from one computer to another and importing into the various browsers we use. What else can we do? Call Captain Planet and the Planeteers? No, they’re too busy fighting Dr. Blight and Looten Plunder. What we need is Xmarks!

Formally known as Foxmarks, this service lives in the cloud and performs automatic synchronization of bookmarks between all of your computers and browsers. What evolved as a Firefox Add-on, Xmarks now supports the top 4 leading browsers today with a range of plugins and native applications. As it’s in the cloud you have the benefit of your bookmarks being backed up and available wherever you have internet access.

“It sounds ok, but I’m not convinced,” a random reader might say. Well that’s just the start, look at this impressive list of features:

• A simple web interface to access and organise your bookmarks.
• The ability to define different profiles for home, work, etc., to filter which bookmarks are available where.
• Secure sync of stored passwords between when you use Xmarks with Firefox.
• Mobile bookmarks are supported with a special mobile interface directly in your browser.
• The website has a cool blue colour scheme (I like blue).

Now to be honest, the mobile interface isn’t very strong. It’s not a genuine replacement for native bookmarks, but apparently there’s an iPhone application in the works.

Xmarks is my number 1 favourite browser plugin ever. The first thing I do when I use a new computer or browser is download the appropriate plugin, and pull down my bookmarks and passwords. The process usually takes less than a minute, and I have an exact copy of my toolbar links and all of my saved login information. Any changes I make will be synchronized immediately, which makes it perfect for the “Todo List” style of links. For the most important things I’ll place them on the toolbar so that I see them right away when I get home. Best of all, it works over HTTP so you can use Xmarks behind a proxy.

A year ago I would have agreed that bookmarks were dying off. With the power of the cloud, Xmarks brings back bookmarks, big time!

Not a good thing. What if someone jumped onto my computer when I forget to lock it? They’ll find out that my passwords are cooldude, password, and ilikepink, which will be really embarrassing. Luckily, there’s an easy fix. Go to Tools > Options… > Security, check the “Use a master password” box and set a (strong) password. Periodically, and whenever you startup the browser, you’ll be asked for this password. Without it, prying eyes won’t be able to see your password list or automatically login to Facebook and pretend to be you.

As I’m sure most wannabe bloggers do, I like to regularly check out how many people have subscribed. No surprise here, as it’s still stuck on 2 (and one of which is me). Next to it though, there was this little message: (Actually I forgot to write down exactly what it said, so I just paraphrased from my memory for you.)

Google Reader is unable to update your feed due to connection issues.

In my head I questioned:

No, my site’s not down, is it? I just checked it this morning and it was fine, so there’s no way it’s down. Google must have gotten it wrong!

I pulled out my trusty bookmarks, went to downforeveryoneorjustme.com and did a quick check. You wouldn’t know it from the title but it’s a simple, no-nonsense site that checks if a given website is down for everyone or just me (or you in your case).

Oh. Now I’d like to say that I was on the Digg front page, or that I’d been virally retweeted overnight, but I’m not that lucky. I’d been reorganising my office, and changed the structure of my network in the process. I forgot to check the state of my server afterwards which is a big mistake as I try to increase my pagerank.

Moral of this story: When you think Google is wrong, you are wrong! (Unless your name happens to be Chuck Norris)

UPDATE: I’m in the process of finding a simple and free website monitoring service so I can be alerted next time something happens. I’ve tried a few but they all seem pretty appalling. Can anyone recommend one that they find useful?

Cloud computing is Internet- (“cloud-”) based development and use of computer technology (“computing”). In concept, it is a paradigm shift whereby details are abstracted from the users who no longer have need of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure “in the cloud” that supports them.

Understand?.. No?.. Neither did I. I see the cloud as a magical room up in the sky, filled with an infinite number of computers that can store as much data as you like, and do a zillion calculations a second. The best part is you can access it from almost anywhere because it’s always up above you. It’s considered the future of computing, with Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, all competing in the race to become the cloud king.

So now that I’ve written an intro around the fluffy photo above, I’ll get onto the real post. What I love most about keeping my data in the cloud, is that it allows me to keep my data backed up in once place, and synchronized with all of my devices including my iPhone. Google have a number of services that help you do this, which I use to sync all of my email, contacts, and calendar entries “over the air” (another fancy term). If you’re nice, I’ll show you how to do it.

Doesn’t iTunes already do this for me?

Well kinda, but you have to plug your phone in for it to update your contacts, and it will only synchronize your calendar with Outlook (or the Mac equivalent)! If you follow these instructions, you’ll be constantly up to date without having to think about it.

1. You must have a Google account

If you haven’t already, head over to mail.google.com and sign up for a new account. Please please please use a sensible username, and save fluffy_bunny_69 or imdahottest for your Hotmail account. Have a play around and get a feel of your new home, then check out calendar.google.com to activate the calendar. You use the same username and password for every Google application, but you have to log in at least once to activate them.

2. Turn off iTunes sync

Next, we want to completely disable iTunes controlling the synchronization of your data. If we leave this enabled, it will mess with the data you store in the cloud.

• Open iTunes
• Connect your iPhone
• Go to the “Info” tab
• Ensure that synching of contacts, calendar and mail are all disabled.

3. Connect to Gmail via IMAP

The IMAP protocol allows you to keep your email messages synchronized between all of your clients and the server. You can use the standard Gmail option in your iPhone settings, but Google recommend that you use the custom account configuration:

What if I tap ‘Gmail’ instead?
Archiving and deleting messages will work differently. Our instructions ensure Gmail works as designed.

In particular this deals with the way Gmail archives emails instead of deleting them directly. Although not completely necessary, it’s probably best to follow their instructions.

4. Setup Google as an Exchange account

The Microsoft Exchange system is the market leader in the enterprise communication market, and for good reason. The wise folks at Google realised this and have emulated an Exchange server, which your iPhone can connect to. Now Google suggests that you enable synchronization of all of your data this way, but I recommend that you do not enable Mail synchronization via Exchange. I find the iPhone has trouble receiving notifications of incoming mail, especially when you have a large number of emails.

With the above caveat, follow these instructions on configuring an Exchange account.

5. Choose which calendars to sync

Whenever I add a new Google calendar, I always forget this step and wonder why it’s not working. It’s such a simple step that I bet you’ll do the same. Just head on over to m.google.com/sync, log in with your Google account, and pick which calendars you want configured. Bookmark the page so you can update your options in the future.

6. Play in the clouds

Now you’re set up with your data in the cloud! When you put new people in your phone book they’ll instantly be transferred to your Google contacts, and events you add to your calendar will always stay in sync between devices. Fiddle with the options, and suss out how to make it best work for you. Just remember if you’re going to play in the clouds, don’t forget to bring your umbrella!

Bonus!

For those of you who’ve made it past the corny images, here’s a bonus Facebook tip. With the latest version of the Facebook iPhone app, you can enable automatic synchronization of your contact’s profile pictures. Enable this using the “sync” button at the top right of the “Friends” page (choose both options). If you followed the above instructions, the pictures will also float up into the cloud and be added to your Google contacts!

In the future I’ll show you how to add Facebook events to your calendar, and how to share calendars with family and friends, but are there any other ways that you synchronize your data and live in the cloud?

Now last time that I checked (which I did do about 2 minutes ago), there are a few people who live outside of the US. Check out this population graph from Google:

Yep, I was right! I’m not the only one who doesn’t live there. Phew!

Now here’s a tip for the other 6,387,970,276 of you. (Now before the perfectionists comment, I didn’t include myself in that number!) It can be convenient, for a number of technical reasons, to let websites think that you are in the United States. Luckily Hotspot Shield by AnchorFree can do it for you!

Once you download and install the free software, you can activate the “Privacy” mode. This will open a secure VPN tunnel connection to the Hotspot Shield servers, which luckily for us, are located in the aforementioned country. Once connected, all of your web requests are routed through their servers, appearing to the site as if you are a local.

Now I’ve tried a number of proxy or anonymizing services in the past, but most were expensive and flaky at best. Hotspot Shield is blazingly fast and seems only to be capped at the speed of my internet connection. Downloading large files or (cough) streaming flash videos is not a problem. Best of all, it’s free!

Readers should note that using this software should not be used for any illegal purposes. This software will not make you anonymous, no matter what they say. Please make sure you read the terms of service of the sites that you access to make sure you do not breach any laws.

This is the best service of its kind that I’ve come across. I love its simple interface, great performance, and especially the price tag. It meets my needs, but do you know of any better?

Now if you’ve never heard of an iPhone, or that you think that you buy apples in the fruit and veg section, then this post probably isn’t for you. Just imagine that there’s a magical shop where you spend electronic money to buy what we in the biz call “Apps”. Here’s my pick of the top iPhone Apps for 2010!

1. Facebook

In this day and age, everybody uses Facebook. My mum, my auntie and my friend’s inflatable sheep join the 350 million active users world-wide. The latest update from the internet giant brings push notifications to the app, notifying you instantly when someone comments on your wall or tags that photo of you from Saturday night. Instantly killing off a number of competing apps, version 3.1 automatically syncs your friends’ photos with your contacts every time you run the app. Facebook gets the number 1 spot for the number of hours I’ve spent falking instead of sleeping. Facebook on iTunes.

2. Google Mobile App

For all those times when you’re in the supermarket and need to find out the difference between cornstarch and cornflour, without the hand free to type your search. Just pull out the app, hold it up to your ear, and (instead of asking the guy stacking the shelves next to you) ask your phone. Google uses a previously disallowed API to determine when your phone presses against your face and begins the voice recognition. While also providing links to the most common Google sites, what I like most is the ability to change the voice recognition beeps to monkey noises. That’s why the Google Mobile App gets my number 2! Google Mobile App on iTunes.

3. Shazam

“Got my bands up, do doo do doo song” isn’t the best search phrase when you’re trying to find that song you heard on the radio. You knew that it had something to do with butterflies and taxi cabs, but the search results are questionable at best. If only you’d reached into your pocket and used the amazing power of Shazam! Is the exclamation mark part of the name? I’m not sure. You hold up your iPhone next to the speaker, and “tag” the song. Shazam will listen for 30 seconds, send it away for analysis, and come back with the name and artist of the song. I’m not sure how it works (Josh does), but if you really care how Miley parties in the USA then you should get Shazam! Shazam on iTunes.

4. Pocket Weather AU

Brrr it’s cold in here, and I can hear thunder outside, but can I go and fly my kite this afternoon? The iPhone comes with a built-in weather app, which people love so much that they wish they could lose it. Developed by a couple of Adelaide guys, Pocket Weather is the next best thing to having Jane Reilly in your pocket. The app provides a comprehensive 7 day forecast with rainfall, humidity and wind readings. For the really keen you can check out the live radar direct from the Bureau of Meteorology. Best of all, this app could save your life. Using the new push technology you’ll instantly receive the latest weather alerts, notifying you of road weather warnings and sheep grazier advice. Not free at $2.49, but easily the best in its class. Pocket Weather AU on iTunes.

5. Photoshop.com Mobile

When I pulled my iPhone out of the box, the first thing I tried was the camera. Yeah it’s not the greatest in the world, but with some cropping and rotating you can really tidy up the images. It’s a pity that the default photo viewer has absolutely no support for doing this at all! “What, no rotating?!” I hear you say. That’s right, because Mr. Jobs decided that we can just turn our phones on their sides (if you don’t mind continuously chasing the rotating image). Thankfully the power that couldn’t bring Flash to the iPhone, brought this other major offering instead. Photoshop brings cropping, rotation and lots of other things, and is offered for the low price of $0.00 (Australian Dollars). Photoshop.com Mobile on iTunes.

6. MultiConvert

Here’s one for the inner geek. MultiConvert allows you to convert kilometres to miles, fahrenheit to centigrade, and pints to cups. They are just 3 of the hundreds of different units available using the simple user interface. Some of the less common conversions include imperial pecks to dashes, quires to reams, and pascal-seconds to poises. I don’t know about you, but I’m always confused by my quires! The application will also download the latest conversion rates for currency and a number of other variable quantities. This one certainly doesn’t impress the ladies, but you can quiz yourself on cup sizes for hours. MultiConvert on iTunes.

7. Now Playing

If you do happen to have a lucky lady in your life, it’ll get you into the good books if you take her to see a movie. Pull out your phone (making sure you close MultiConvert without her seeing!) and open Now Playing. Using data downloaded from community critic site Rotten Tomatoes, you’ll get the latest reviews on current and future flicks. Using the built-in GPS, Now Playing will list the cinemas closest to you with the available session times. With links to trailers and online ticket sales, you can skip the lines and head straight to the seats. Don’t forget to buy your date a large popcorn though, otherwise you’ll undo all your good work. A note for the newbies: popcorn is the only food that you can buy the largest possible size for a girl without her being insulted. In fact buying her a small translates directly to “I think you’re fat”. Now Playing on iTunes.

8. Remote

If you took my popcorn advice, and saw a good rom-com (none of this Avatar or Zombieland business), then you might be in the need for this next app. Remote by Apple Inc. allows you to take control of iTunes running remotely (hence the name) on a networked computer. It gives you access to your entire iTunes library, letting you choose which songs/artists/playlists to set the mood with. The album art is transmitted directly to your phone and updates whenever the track changes. You can adjust the volume whenever you like, with just a slide of your finger. I recommend some Robbie Williams or Pete Murray, because remember it’s not all about you! Also useful for pretending to be a ghost/computer virus, Remote for your iPhone is a must. Remote on iTunes.

9. Domino’s

This new release application is a dream come true. Now you can use your phone to order pizza! There’s not a lot to say here. The interface is very similar to Domino’s online offering, but with the added advantage of… umm… being on your phone..? Although it doesn’t offer much more than dialing your local store, it does become handy sometimes. If you want pizza from Domino’s, and you want to show off your geeky abilities, then that’s the time to use this app. Otherwise, maybe pick up the phone and call a better store? (Legalese: There is nothing wrong with Domino’s pizza, and Matthew Blackford of Serialize This highly recommends their delicious round circles.) Domino’s on iTunes.

10. Footy Lite

Like all good Australians (awsies for the internationally inclined), I support my football team. That’s Australian Rules Football (AFL) where two teams compete by kicking an oval-shaped Sherrin, with players being allowed to catch the ball but not throw it. I love to watch the games live when I can, but with my busy lifestyle it’s not always possible. Footy Lite (the free version of Footy) keeps me up to date with the current scores and top goal scorers. Covering all 22 rounds of the home and away season, as well as the final series with that big day in September, Footy Lite is part of being Australian. (Sadly to get a screenshot where my team won, I had to scroll back six weeks and even then it was against one of the worst teams in the league… ) Footy Lite on iTunes.

11. Scramble 2

“Top 11 Apps for 2010″ wouldn’t have been anywhere near as catchy, and now that I’ve sucked you in here’s my number 11. I’m breaking the rules for this word puzzle sensation that’s so good it’s 2. What seems to be an electronic take-off of the popular game with the letters called b*****, Scramble 2 is the only game to make it into my top 10 11. The aim of the game is to find words in a random selection of letters, within a short time frame. The larger the words the more points you get, and the better your bragging rights. You can even configure the app to annoy your friends on Facebook with every game you play. “Not” is not the best word I’ve ever found, but you have no idea how hard it is trying to screenshot mid animation! Plus I would not have been able to make all these cool “not” puns otherwise. Get Scramble 2. It’s fun, competitive, and stops you from losing your mind. Scramble 2 on iTunes.

11 is never enough, especially when it comes to iPhone apps. I ran out of room for some of my favourites such as Flight Control and Cricket Lite, and left out others because they are so 2009. With Apple’s New Years Resolution being to approve apps faster, there’s sure to be a bunch of amazing apps I’ve never heard about. What apps would top your list for 2010?

Personally, I’ve never taken my resolutions very seriously, and as a result I have rarely achieved them. Like most people I’m sure, there are always so many things that I want to do but time just seems to pass with nothing to show for it. In 2010 I want things to be different. I want to be watching Google’s 2010 count down (hoping for something better than a dodgy JavaScript animation!), and be able to say that I’ve made the most of my year. As with most problems in my life, I turned to the internet in search for some tips. Whoa. I was completely overwhelmed! There are entire web sites dedicated to helping you meet your goals filled with advertising and propaganda. Instead, I’ve come up with this (yes another!) list of tips that I’m going to follow:

1. Be realistic. You can’t learn to fly just by flapping your arms. Set goals that you know are possible to achieve even if they will take some hard work. Aiming too high will only set you up for failure when you jump off a second story building and plummet to the ground.
2. Set clear and specific goals. You need to be clear about what you plan to achieve. There’s no point saying that you’ll save money without specifying how much you plan to put away. Break the time frame into smaller chunks, so that you can track your progress at regular intervals.
3. Spread the word. Not only will this keep you honest about your resolutions, but you may find other people doing the same thing. Support from friends is beneficial, as is the threat of mockery from people you dislike.
4. Keep your resolutions visible. Create a chart, graph, or diagram that depicts your progress. Us tech types love to collect data and display it in occasionally useful ways. These charts keep our goals in mind, and remind us when we’ve been naughty.
5. Re-evaluate your goals. On a regular basis check how you’re going. If you’re easily meeting your goals, maybe step it up a level. If you’re falling behind you should get yourself into gear and stop making excuses! Otherwise go back and change your original blog entry to make it seem like you’re on track.

So now that I’ve procrastinated with this list of tips, here’s what I hope to achieve in 2010:

• Start writing a blog. That blog of course is this blog! I’ve talked about writing one for the past year and have found every excuse not to. I spent months coming up with a custom engine and theme without actually writing any content. So I’ve scrapped it all, created a blank WordPress theme, and I’m starting to post. I’ll slowly work on the design over time, but content is the number one goal. Now for the specific part, I will write 4 to 6 posts a week for the next 12 months. I’m going to commit to that schedule to give myself the best chance of being successful.
• Become fit and healthy. As with most developers, 8 to 12 hours a day in front of a computer screen isn’t the best for my health. Mostly my diet is pretty good, as I do a lot of cooking with plenty of fresh fruit and veg, but I definitely don’t get enough physical exercise. As a minimum, I am going to do 30 minutes of continuous exercise everyday. It doesn’t count if I walk 15 minutes to work in the morning and back in the afternoon, it has to be in a single block. I’m not going to fuss over the type of exercise because anything is better than what I do now.
• Play the piano. I’ve only had a few formal lessons, but I’ve been teaching myself to play it for the last decade. My enthusiasm has dwindled lately, and I haven’t even plugged in the piano since moving into my current house. I don’t want to become a virtuoso, but I’d like to become more fluent. Every night that I spend at home I’ll turn it on and play for a good 15 minutes. Eventually I’ll try to learn some new songs, but for now I’ll just frustrate my girlfriend with the same 3 in a loop.
• Develop an open source application. I want to write a single open source application that gets at least 10 users outside of my family. This goal is light on specifics as I don’t really care what it is, what language it’s written in, or how complicated the task. I want to get the experience of managing a project with real world users, bug reports and feature requests. I’ve got a big list of things I’d like to do, but I’m always on the lookout for more ideas. This is something I’ll definitely follow-up in future blog posts.

It’s a simple list, but hopefully achievable. Following my list of tips, I’ve scratched a few other resolutions that either weren’t achievable or that I couldn’t break down into clear and simple goals. I’ll be posting my progress on this blog, and will be doing my best to meet my 2010 resolutions. How are you planning to keep yours on track?