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Fluid – like Prism, but webkit based (Mac OS X only)

Posted on by John

While watching James Walker talk about OpenID and user management in Drupal, I checked out his blog (and subscribed, on the basis of recent posts).

One of his recent posts was on Fluid: Desktop Web Apps.

If you’re a Mac user (right now this is Mac OS X 10.5 or greater app) and you rely on web based applications, you’ve got to check it out at fluidapp.com.

Dock with Fluid Icons

It’s webkit based, but otherwise like Prism or Adobe AIR in letting you create a desktop-app like presence for a web app – a single purpose embedded browser with a doc icon, notifications, and other OS level features.

It’s free (as in beer) but not open source (as in freedom).

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Graphing Social Patterns

Posted on by John

Ongoing at the same time as DrupalCon (which I’m at) is Graphing Social Patterns (which I’m not at).

However, based on the twitterstream (hashtag #gsp), sounds like lots of interesting presentations there:

I know I’m also missing lots of others blogging the conference – links in the comments appreciated.

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Online Communities Whitepaper

Posted on by John

New whitepaper on the Optaros site today (free registration required):

Online Communities: What Should a Retailer Do?

Abstract:

Most retailers have found success in providing online product ratings and reviews, and many have dabbled in engaging directly with participants in social networks. Many retailers are seeking to do more in the area of community, but the lack of clarity in both ROI and specific implementation ideas are causing many to pause and look for guidance.

This paper describes two specific community concepts that leading retailers are beginning to successfully deploy with positive economic outcomes—private event retailing and fan networks.

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WordPress Avatar Plugin, Movable Type Action Stream Plugins

Posted on by John

Finally got around to publishing out (see Code) some things I’ve been tinkering with. Nothing major, but hopefully someone will find some of them useful.

For WordPress, check out MBLA+, which is an avatar plugin (shows people’s avatars in comments) based on MBLA and hAvatar. I’ve been using it here and on Goatless for a while, and think I’ve got most of the kinks out, though it should still be considered beta at this point.

For Movable Type, check out Action Stream plugins for Amazon wishlists, Last.fm recent tracks, meetup profile, and a generic YourBlog template. I’ve been using these (with MTOS 4.1) over at JohnEckman.com.

I’m also working on a Twitter application using the API to turn a twitter account into a group. (All tweets by followers to a given account beginning with a specific preface get re-tweeted so that all other followers see them). Hope to have that done in time to be useful for VegSXSW (twitter).

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Windows Mobile still confused about Daylight Savings

Posted on by John

So in addition to the often recurring, never fully explained phenomenon whereby my Windows Mobile phone (a Samsung Blackjack) suddenly finds itself in the future (no, the phone has never been on the Lost island), the geniuses of the Windows Mobile platform have once again issued updates to “fix” Daylight Savings Time.

Thanks for the notice from the MobileViews Blog:

I thought this Daylight Savings issue was fixed in last year’s patch. Guess not. Here are the links for the CAB file download as well as the desktop (setup.msi) installer version.

Update for Windows Mobile for PC (KB949168) (SETUP.MSI)

Update for Windows Mobile for PC (KB949168) (WMDST2008-1.CAB)

FYI: I just installed the CAB file installer version on my Dash. It restarted my smartphone without even giving a warning that it was about to do so.

So now I have to go figure out which update I’m supposed to use, and apply it, or else my phone will be off by an hour for much of SXSW next week.

How soon will either an Adroid phone be released or the Nokia N810 line include cell connectivity, so I can use it as a phone – I’d buy one of those easily.