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Most of them are up now over on Flickr.
Author: Kevin Lawver
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Paris Pics
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Au Revoir, Paris!
It’s been a good week in Paris for XTech. I haven’t been able to do a lot of site seeing with Jen because of a chest cold and my foot, but the food’s been good, the company great and I’ve learned some interesting stuff and met some really cool folks. I spent most of the afternoon in the hotel bar with Molly, Simon and a bunch of other geeks laughing and drinking (them wine, me Fanta and a Coke). Then tonight, to cap all of this fun off, Jen and I had dinner with Daniel Glazman and his lovely wife at a fantastic French restaurant. The food was out of this world, and the company was wonderful. I love Daniel, and am always happy when we get to share a meal. We both love food and giggle over each course, how it taste, how they made it, where the ingredients are from… way too much fun.\
It’s up early tomorrow, breakfast, then off to the airport and home to see the boys and hear all about their adventures with Grandma. Au revoir, Paris! -
Tom and Kevin’s XTech Presentation
It’s called Open AIM as It Relates to You. I’m about to run downstairs to catch Simon Willison’s presentation, and then we’re up. Then, it’s time to pack, then go out to dinner with Daniel, go to bed, wake up, and then come home!
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Ghost in the Machine Podcast is Available!
I got e-mail from Hugh Forrest today letting me know what the the podcast for Ghost in the Machine – Spirituality Online is available!\
Mr. McNally did a great job putting the panel together, and it was a great experience all around. I was proud and honored to be a part of it. Go check it out and let me know what you think! -
Birthday Parties and Road Trips
Max, Brian, my dad and brother Steve all drove to Ohio last weekend for Tim’s birthday. We had a great time, and the boys were angels. I’m busy, but here are the photo sets:
- In the Backyard
- Birthday Party!\
I’ve got more to post on, but it’ll have to wait. I want to tell you all about Take Your Child to Work day and Max’s big plans.
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The Coolest Thing Ever: Share Your iTunes Library Over AIM
The guys in the next row have gone and pulled off a truly killer app. I know the title gives it away, but it really works! Greg explains how it works, but I know you really just want to go download it.\
What does it do? It makes iTunes’ music sharing work over your buddy list!!! So, instead of being limited to sharing music across just your local network, you can now share your tunes with everyone in your buddy list who has the plugin. Unfortunately, it’s only for Windows at the moment… but I’ve promised a pizza to whoever ports it to OS X. -
Heartbreaking
The most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever seen – a photo essay of a mother and son dealing with the horrors of childhood cancer. Don’t read it or look at it if you’re not somewhere you can have a good cry (seriously, unless you have an extremely cold heart or thick skin – you will).
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The Ficlets Logo’s Story
Jenna Marino has written a fantastic blog entry about how she came up with the logo for ficlets. I love the logo so much, and a bunch of people asked me how we came up with it. Mostly, I’ve just shrugged and said “magic?” Now, you can get the real story from the designer who came up with it!
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Web 2.0 Expo: Bridging the Gap, OpenAuth and Widgets
Greg and I presented at Web 2.0 Expo today in a presentation called Bringing the Gap Between Desktop and Web. It went well, although we were hoping to have some more announcements to make. There was a lot of discussion of the widget space, microformats (which 99% of the audience hadn’t heard of which surprised me), a little on OpenID and I got to talk about OpenAuth! I’ve had to stay quiet about it for months now, but I’ve been using it for a while, and it’s one of the things I’m most proud of AOL for doing.\
What’s OpenAuth It’s AOL opening up its authentication system to the web at large. We used it in ficlets instead of us having to come up with our own user system, maintaining all those passwords, writing code for encryption, sending those “oops, I forgot my password” e-mails, and re-inventing that wheel for the millionth time, I didn’t have to worry about it at all.\
I was able to integrate OpenAuth with Rails in about twenty minutes. And for those who don’t have AIM screennames, or don’t want them, we supported OpenID, which took about forty-five minutes to integrate.\
I linked to the presentation up there, but if you missed it, here are the slides. I mentioned my triple-headed widget that works in Dashboard, Opera and AIM Pages as well.\
Now, it’s time for me to go write some more stuff for the book and try to get caught up. -
One More: Music List
Before I fade away, here’s a quick list of the albums you should go out and buy right now:
- Kaiser Chiefs – Yours Truly, Angry Mob – Funny, bouncy and brilliant. You won’t be able to stop bopping along. The album gets better every time I listen to it.
- The Shins – Wincing the Night Away – Beautiful and haunting, great melodies and sweet hooks.
- Arcade Fire – Neon Bible – I can’t stop listening to this one. It’s eclectic and urgent, with so many layers, I can’t stop peeling them away. A great headphone album.
- Constantines – Tournament of Hearts – Rough and rocking through the entire album, but Soon Enough has some of the most gorgeous and sad lyrics I’ve ever heard, and the music fits perfectly. Kind of country rock without the cheesy affected Southern accent and weak slide guitars. This stuff rocks.
- Regina Spektor – Begin to Hope – I’m not usually into stuff that would be labeled “pop”, but Regina has such an amazing voice, I can’t help it. She genre hops a little, but her great voice and catchy lyrics follow through every song. Good stuff.\
That’s it. I’m really going to bed now.