The Codebelay Blog

Author: barce

  • Ride a bicycle and save the planet!

    I so wish that folks would ride bicycles more.

    Liffy Hatchet aka Liffy Hatchet on a bicycle.
    photo by Lisa Valdez — model Liffy Hatchet

    Maybe if more hotties rode bicycles, then more regular folks would ride bicycles.

  • How To Boost iPhone App Ratings

    This is something I learned from Nirvino.com, the iPhone wine rating app.

    • have an event where you invite iPhone users
    • Make the entrance to the event downloading your app. In this case it was a winetasting
    • Have folks come in and enjoy the wine.
    • Before they leave ask them to rate the app at a set up terminal

    I thought I would be put off by it, but if you approach it in a smooth and non-pushy way, it’s a great way to get more ratings for your app. All of the ratings were positive.

  • WPTouch Makes WordPress iPhone Friendly

    If you’re on WordPress 2.7+ and have lots of iPhone hits to your blog then get WPTouch, the plug-in that turns your website into an iPhone friendly site.

    Trust me. It’s awesome!

    WPTouch Plug-in

  • How Secure Are iPhone Apps?

    I looked at the Linkedin, Flickr, and Facebook iPhone apps to see how secure they were.

    When you log-in your password is safe and protected with SSL:

    No. Time Source Destination Protocol Info
    1 0.000000 192.168.0.102 8.17.171.32 TCP 49891 > https [SYN] Seq=0 Win=65535 Len=0 MSS=1460 WS=2 TSV=840468191 TSER=0

    Frame 1 (78 bytes on wire, 78 bytes captured)
    Ethernet II, Src: AppleCom_94:9e:c2 (00:16:cb:94:9e:c2), Dst: D-Link_4a:41:9c (00:0f:3d:4a:41:9c)
    Internet Protocol, Src: 192.168.0.102 (192.168.0.102), Dst: 8.17.171.32 (8.17.171.32)
    Transmission Control Protocol, Src Port: 49891 (49891), Dst Port: https (443), Seq: 0, Len: 0

    However, let’s say that you view your list of contacts on the LinkedIn iPhone app:

    Exposed Email Redacted

    You’re basically giving away your contacts to the hacker at the cafe who is taking advantage of the fact that you’re using WiFi.

    Here’s the scoop on the iPhone Apps.

    Your data is not secure with these apps:

    Flickr: Password Secure, Data not
    Facebook: Password Secure, Data not
    Linkedin: Password Secure, Data not

    All your data is secure with these apps:

    Gmail: Password Secure, Data Secure
    Hushmail: Password Secure, Data Secure

    Hushmail even has an option to turn off security, but why would you? 🙂

  • Tweets You’ll Most Likely Read at SxSW 2010

    Here’s a list of tweets you’ll most likely read at SxSW 2010:

    • OMFG, landed! (Ya, you and 12,000 other people.)
    • OMFG, I’m @crowdedplace hanging out with my new BFFs @socialmediadouche1 and @socialmediadouche2.
    • I’m sick of folks tweeting who they’ll be hanging out with. I don’t care. Turning the twitter fire hose off.
    • OMFG, I’m just telling people who I’m hanging out with because my boss needs to know.
    • My hotel room is #69. Just bring yourself.
    • OMFG, That DM you sent?!!! That actually went public.
    • Big line in front of @crowdedplace.
    • No line @emptyplace.

    I think SxSW Interactive is an awesome event. It’s one of those few tech conferences where if you make a friend there they stay your IRL friend for quite a long time.

    Also it’s a great place for making complex deals in a really easy way. Think of the pieces that it takes to launch a major Internet app with mobile, web and video pieces. You can get those stake holders in one place at SxSW, and hammer out a huge deal with 2 days of face time.

  • Install Script For Rails on Debian

    The following works great on Rackspace’s Debian Virtual Servers and within 5 minutes you got a running rails instance.

    #!/bin/bash

    apt-get update -y
    apt-get upgrade -y
    apt-get install dlocate -y
    apt-get install build-essential libssl-dev libreadline5-dev zlib1g-dev -y
    apt-get install sqlite3 -y
    cd /usr/local/src
    wget ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/stable-snapshot.tar.gz
    tar zxvf stable-snapshot.tar.gz
    cd ruby
    ./configure && make && make install
    ruby -v
    ruby -ropenssl -rzlib -rreadline -e “puts :Hello”
    cd /usr/local/src
    wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/60718/rubygems-1.3.5.tgz
    tar zxvf rubygems-1.3.5.tgz
    cd rubygems-1.3.5
    ruby setup.rb
    gem install rails
    apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client -y
    apt-get install libmysql-ruby libmysqlclient15-dev -y
    gem install mysql — –with-mysql-include=/usr/include –with-mysql-lib=/usr/lib
    gem install mongrel –include-dependencies
    apt-get install git -y

  • Tweets I Liked

    Wow, I’ve just finished some work for a creative technology agency I work for, and am taking a break.

    Today was a pretty awesome day in tweeting.

    Here are tweets I liked:

  • Survival Books for 2010

    At a San Francisco ad agency, I’ve seen an office of well over 600 people in December of 2008 shrink to an office of less than 140.

    I got to visit the office on Thursday and it felt like a beehive where the queen bee has left and only hangers on are busy milling about.

    How did I survive? (Just to disclose: I am no longer part of the Ad Agency and have found work at a Creative Technology Agency.)

    I was the last hire at the SF office in December 2008. It wasn’t until an ex-MySpace executive got hired in November 2009 that the hiring freeze ended. However, there were still additional cuts. I was invited to a lunch where I was told that we were the last folks remaining in December and that there would be no more cuts.

    Here’s what got me through that rough year:

    How to Survive in an Organization
    by James Heaphey

    This is a pretty awesome book that gives a realistic look into how normal people act when they get into organizations of a certain size. This is the kind of book that will wake you up to the aggressive and covert competition that your office mates engage in to get ahead. I didn’t read this book to get ahead though. Historical forces demanded something more basic: survival.

    Here are some helpful hints the book gives:

    • find a mentor right away to help you get things done in your organization
    • avoid routine work because routines can be automated and don’t show growth
    • increase the organization’s dependence on your talents
    • gain a reputation for being tough but fair

    I think one of my biggest challenges is the last item and its the sort of thing you learn through a mentor.

    On the off chance things went really bad and I found myself on the street, I got this book:

    How to Stay Alive in the Woods

    This is a no non-sense guide to do exactly what you need to do to survive. I’ve found greens and picked berries in the woods, and also made a lean-to. The book has a waterproof cover and the pages can survive a rain and dry out without getting brittle.

  • Market Prediction means AI

    A brilliant insight just came to me:

    Achieving true market prediction means having the capacity to create and predict the behavior of an artificial intelligence.

    Here are the reasons why:
    1. The description of AI from Caprica suggests consciousness can be built given a sufficient amount of recorded on-line activity.
    2. If you know how the parts of a market works, you can know how the whole works.
    3. A person is a part of the market.
    4. How a person interacts on-line is part of a market, e.g. people build and use a system for products use.
    5. An AI can imitate on-line market behavior such that it’s indistinguishable from a person.
    6. If the program allows for predictive behavior, then you can predict a part of market behavior.
    7. Since you can predict the part, you can predict the whole.
    8. Therefore, in order to predict how the market will work, you need an AI.

    This implies that the more AI-like or better your modeling, the more you can predict how the market will behave.

    If AI proves to be un-predictive behavior, then perfect market prediction is impossible. (It might just be quantum in nature.)

    If AI proves to be impossible, then perfect market prediction is impossible. (See the Chinese Room Argument.)

  • Where are the people that hack together in meatspace?

    I’ve got a flu and am hopped up on ibuprofen and Nyquil.

    This year I’ve been telecommuting and co-working. I’ve made a few friends, but we don’t hang out much. I’ve actually been blown off by a few people to, but you know what? You’re hardly worth the thought.

    This rant is addressed to those of you I haven’t met or haven’t hung out with this year, but I truly feel you can do something awesome for the tech scene that’s more than just about your career. Actually if we do this shit that I’ll mention later, you’ll see that it’ll enhance our careers.

    I’ve seen you folks in cafes: the guy with the latest Apple laptop tailing server logs with an ev-do card, or the woman compiling drizzle on some beater Lenovo laptop converted to Linux. I’ve seen the creepy and utterly lame pick-up that you engineer dudes do at co-working places. Life’s more than eating where you shit.

    Next year, let’s do something awesome. Let’s fucking hang out in meatspace and build something awesome. Let’s have awesome discussions and turn a particular cafe as the place to talk tech.

    Let’s meet on some night during the week and actually build and learn shit, and actually help each other. San Francisco has about 17,000 people per square mile in some places. Why aren’t these folks hanging out and making there lives more awesome. Insert Matrix Quote Here.

    I know some of you hackers are one pay check away from disaster (if you’re not already there), or some of you are doing okay. Let’s all combine forces and create an awesome network and see if we can actually build something.

    You’re the kind of person who knows there’s gotta be better than Facebook or Google. Technology wasn’t meant to pigeonhole and objectify people as consumers but in some weird way liberate their human potential. Ya, it’s pretty hard to buy this BS given what a rough year it was, but if you are reading this here’s my proposal to you:

    We meet each week at some common space and work on technology together.

    This might sound too simple, but ask yourself this question: What community do you belong to?

    Having a hard time answering? Working on a tech project? Then the community I’m proposing might be the one for you.

    Maybe there’s already a group out there. If you’re out there, I’d like to talk to you. We have to stop isolating ourselves and unite in a really powerful way.