A real American hero - Latest Comments

Re: Fedora 11 (Leonidas) and Adobe AIR

Federico — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 06:53:34 -0000

great post! you saved me from some pain :-)
thanks!

Re: CAPTCHA in Rails - an experiment in anti-spam

VidoopCAPTCHA — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 00:25:02 -0000

As promised, here is the link to the VidoopCAPTCHA Rails plugin: http://github.com/RobotDeathSquad/vidoopcaptcha...

Re: CAPTCHA in Rails - an experiment in anti-spam

VidoopCAPTCHA — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:03:06 -0000

At Vidoop, we're fortunate and excited to have a customer working on the Rails version of VidoopCAPTCHA right now, as I write this. When done (probably this week or shortly after), we'll put up a link here to where it will reside on code.google.com and GitHub.

Re: CAPTCHA in Rails - an experiment in anti-spam

thoraxe — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:56:10 -0000

Will take a look at it. Thanks for the heads up! simple_captcha just happened to be what came up first. Should be relatively easy to switch.

Re: CAPTCHA in Rails - an experiment in anti-spam

jnewland — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:50:59 -0000

Ditch the ImageMagick / RMagick crap and go with recaptcha: http://recaptcha.net/. I've used this plugin with great success: http://github.com/ambethia/recaptcha/tree/master

Way simpler, and you'll actually help digitize books as a part of the process!

Re: Enterprise Social Networking - Why build when you can buy?

thoraxe — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 09:31:20 -0000

I definitely smell synergy. However, I need another project like I need a hole in the head. If you'd just like to do some rudimentary planning / forge a partnership, that could certainly be worthwhile. Hit me up -- erikmjacobs ut gmail dit com.

Re: Enterprise Social Networking - Why build when you can buy?

mpstaton — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:04:00 -0000

Hey Erik,

Thanks for the shout. I agree with you wholeheartedly. If only we had the energy to pursue an app called "Business on Facebook." If you smell any synergy let me know.

Re: Reference designery, and the proliferation of Android

hank777 — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:51:57 -0000

indeed. I had one too. It does suck now, as often happens when the original visionary leader is out the door. They cant seem to do much but tinker around the edges. I left it for blackberry.

Re: Reference designery, and the proliferation of Android

thoraxe — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:48:05 -0000

I am a big fan of the Sidekick. I have had one since the original black and white one came out, and have had almost every iteration until the Sidekick 3. Unfortunately, the Sidekick's only saving grace these days is its always-on AIM client. Everything else about it is fairly junky and I am looking forward to Android's first T-Mobile device, the HTC Dream, due shortly.

Re: Reference designery, and the proliferation of Android

hank777 — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:33:07 -0000

Good points Eric. Although at the end of the day companies are just people, and Andy Rubin, creator of the Sidekick, and creator of and head of Android could have pulled it off, and if he did, they would have been better for it I think.

Re: The mobile web - aging dinosaur

thoraxe — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:02:34 -0000

James,
Excellent comments - thank you!

I guess I was hung up in how "different" the Japanese i-Mode "web" was, and not sure if it still is. I think you make an excellent point about how sites are capitalizing on the features of the iPhone and the other devices that visit them. This is part of the reason why services like WURFL, a device description repository, are popular. They let the site maintainer know the makeup of the device visiting and can allow customization of the features and layout to suit.

You are definitely true, the "reality" of the web is that there really only is one web. I guess the point that I was trying to bring out is that as the devices continue to evolve and become more PC-like in their power and functions that we may see less difference between what suits a normal desktop user and what suits a mobile user.

Re: The mobile web - aging dinosaur

jamesgpearce — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:51:49 -0000

If I can be delicate, I would say that thinking has moved on from these sorts of arguments in the last year or so.

What the iPhone showed was that actually people *didn't* want to visit the traditional sites designed for sedentary humans, even when the browser could take it. Witness the boom in iPhone specific sites that followed its launch: sites that capitalised on the mobileness of the user. And increasingly these capitalise on the devices' unique features (click-to-call, location information, different UI paradigm etc etc)

The word "mobile" in "Mobile Web" is an adjective, not a noun. It's a medium designed for mobile *people*, not particularly mobile *devices*.

(Incidentally, this is entirely consistent with the idea of "One Web". There is one web, but some parts of it are better suited for mobile users than for desktop users. Just as some parts are better suited for German users than American. It's not about the syntax or presentation of the markup, but about giving people what they want in their particular context.)

Re: “Network DVR” - Part 2

hank777 — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:49:29 -0000

interesting extended thoughts