Google Gadgets

Apparently, gadgets are huge:

Google Map - 4,861,113
PacMan v2.0 - 8,114,344
DIGG - 3,228,599
My IP - 1,063,244
Wikipedia - 27,314,972
Countdown - 2,076,028
Online Second Life Friends - 1,396
Free Sudoku Puzzles - 4,450,349
Memory Game - 647,151

In that spirit … have some retro fun:

February 28, 2007 | Filed Under blogging, google, web2.0 | Leave a Comment

Apple iPhone TV ad: most excellent

Love it, love it, love it:

I tell you, there’s pure genius in simplicity, if you have the guts to totally sell out and pursue it.

Tags: apple, iphone, ad, tv, john koetsier

February 25, 2007 | Filed Under apple, marketing2.0 | Leave a Comment

Upgraded to WP 2.1

I just upgraded bizhack to Wordpress 2.1, so if you notice any odd squirreliness, that’s why.

Better backend Safari compatibility and updated security were the two reasons to upgrade … that and the fact that WP 2.1 is supposed to be a much stingier MySQL user (more optimized, better queries, fewer queries per page).

Plugin compatiblity was my big question mark, and it was a bit of a hassle to get my tag cloud working again. Still looks a little odd (top left column) but I’ll get to that soon enough.

. . .
. . .

Oh, the one other reason to upgrade to 2.1? Wordpress now auto-saves your blog posts as you’re writing them. Awesome! No more losing 95% finished posts because I was too dumb to “Save and continue editing.”

Tags: wordpress, upgrade, blogging, john koetsier

February 25, 2007 | Filed Under OSS, blogging, personal, social media, web2.0 | Leave a Comment

MediaTemple GridServer v. 2.0

MediaTemple is updating GridServer … the grid computing architecture that this blog and many other sites are running it.

It’s been a long hard road for MT with plenty of problems. In reverse chronological order:

December 2006: MediaTemple GridServer: #2
December 2006: MediaTemple: starting to rock again
November 2006: MediaTemple does the right thing
November 2006: MediaTemple GridServer is a disaster
November 2006: MediaTemple GridServer is buggy
October 2006: bizhack now on MediaTemple GridServer

Hopefully this will address all (or at least most) of the outstanding issues, including MySQL latency and just general slowness.

(And btw, yeah, I know that it’s not v. 2.0. But v. 1.2 doesn’t sound nearly as impressive. A point release? Give me a break!)

Here are the details, straight from the MT announcement email:

Highlights of (GMR v.1.2)

- Core count (800+). After the release of (GMR v.1.2), the combined processor cores in all Clusters will total over 800 and produce massive processing horsepower for customers.

- MySQL GridContainers (in private beta). (mt) Media Temple has completely re-architected the MySQL system on the GRID. This gives each customer their own container server with dedicated resources, an industry first, that’s running an unshared copy of MySQL. Please consult the new “MySQL Container Project Log” to learn more about this new database architecture and to sign up for participation.

Link: http://weblog.mediatemple.net/weblog/category/grid/mysql-container-project/

- Improved Email Functionality. Numerous changes made to the email sub-system including improved email delivery times, resolution of random duplicate emails, virus scanning and improved MailProtect anti-SPAM recognition. An overhaul of the allow-lists envelope sender component, and new sender-verify override feature are also included.

- Improved FTP. Faster FTP connection setups, improved overall transfer rates and large FTP transfers include better connection handling.

- 400% increase in storage performance. The GRID has achieved massive improvements in overall storage performance resulting in faster page load times, script execution, mail delivery, and a plethora of overall system benefits.

- Network Speed Increase. Reconfigured back-end network fabric that utilizes next generation hardware and software to improve speed and reliability of intercommunication between every GRID segment.

- New Clustered DNS. Improves speed of internal name resolution within the GRID which results in overall performance enhancement in applications such as web, email, containers, etc.

- More and more.
- 25% faster control panel access.
- Enhanced CRON system.
- Reworked directory password protection tool.
- New stable kernel releases installed for future enhancements.

We hope you that you enjoy the many improvements of (GMR v.1.2). (mt) Media Temple would like to thank all of the users that contributed feedback that lead to these improvements. Our customer’s direct feedback and experiences has been incredibly helpful and our systems are now more powerful and running better with your help. As always, we encourage users to continue telling us what you like, what you don’t like, and what you’d like to see in the future. GMR (v.1.3) is already in development and its release cycle is expected to be much shorter than (GMR v1.1) to (GMR v1.2).

Tags: mt, mediatemple, gridserver, gs, john koetsier

February 23, 2007 | Filed Under blogging, mistakes, personal, technology | Leave a Comment

Snakes on a plane (on a plane)

OK, so I finally watched Snakes on a Plane … on an airplane.

The guy next to me saw that I had a laptop and pulled out a stack of movies. Since he offered the DVD, I could hardly refuse and keep my geek cred.

The movie did pretty much suck, unfortunately. But it did allow me to learn one very cool thing: you can hot-swap the battery on an Apple laptop.

I knew I was running out of juice about 3 hours into the flight and 90 minutes into Snakes … so I closed the lid to go to sleep, flipped the ‘Book over, took the battery out, stuck my spare in … and voila: another 3 hours of electrical goodness.

Cool!

Tags: soap, snakes on a plane, airplane, powerbook, hot swap, movie, john koetsier

February 22, 2007 | Filed Under apple, movies, personal, social media | 1 Comment

Hidden Tiger, Crouching Vista

This is absolutely classic. Wonderful:

Tags: apple, vista, os x, tiger, funny, john koetsier

February 22, 2007 | Filed Under apple, personal, social media, web2.0 | 1 Comment

OpenID me

Just so you know, I am who I say I am.

Really.

You can take my word for it.

Tags: identity2.0, openID, john koetsier

February 20, 2007 | Filed Under future, personal, social media, web2.0 | Leave a Comment

Odeo being sold … what about the content?

Obvious Corp is is selling Odeo.

What worries me is whether or not audio I’ve recorded there will survive the transition. Like my wife’s grandfather’s last phone message. Like my my daughter’s thoughts on the Narnia move.

Ev says they’re selling it lock, stock, and barrel:

To clarify, what we’re talking about is selling odeo.com and studio.odeo.com, including all code, the domain, brand, database of three million MP3s, etc. Not a company, but a site and platform that could be ramped up to something much bigger.

… but will there be some kind of clause protecting existing recorded audio? I sure hope so. Any company buying it would be very foolish to immediately anger the existing user community by distrupting access, but you never know.

Tags: odeo, obvious, sale, john koetsier

February 20, 2007 | Filed Under business2.0, personal, podcasts, social media, web2.0 | 1 Comment

Oh that’s how many

Saw something funny while using Mac OS X Mail the other day:

Notice how many attachments are in the email at the top. I guess I’ve never had enough before to see this particular uncounted count.

Tags: mac, os x, mail, attachments, funny, john koetsier

February 20, 2007 | Filed Under apple, personal, work | Leave a Comment

Asheville North Carolina trip

Just came back from a conference in Asheville, NC … up in the Smoky Mountains. It was freezing cold … -10 Celcius with windchill … so I only got out of the hotel once, really, and took these shots as I wandered the town.

Click for a larger image of each: