Social IT: Jolicloud, Firefox Collections, and Ubuntu PPA. OPML for our computers?

Posted by andy on June 14, 2009

If you’re a fan of RSS, you might know that OPML is a way to share a list of all your favorite feeds, without actually transferring the content of those feeds, saving them the hassle of manually subscribing to said feeds.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do the same with our operating systems and applications (web or local)?  System administrators can already make profiles with a variety of configuration tools, but it’s not at all based on user behavior, it’s based on what the sysadmin thinks to plan for.

What if everyday computer users could share their favorite email setup, easily as they share a link? What if IT was social?

Last week I saw to glimpses into the future of what I’m just gonna call “Social IT.”  Sorry. New Word Alert. Social IT.

JOLICLOUD

First let;s take a look at Jolicloud. I haven’t used it yet, but the screenshot is pretty clear.  Your OS is social. I don’t mean it has a dashboard of view of other social apps. I mean information about the OS can be social.  Jolicloud’s “First look” preview showed an interesting screenshot where the user could see everything theirs friends installed, and even suggested that you could subscribe to info about any topic:
dashboard.notifications

There was also a group feature which was not really screenshotted thoroughly, but one could envision subscribing to notifications about all apps relating to music or business intelligence when you don’t subscribe to a person who knows about that stuff.

FIREFOX PLUGIN COLLECTIONS

Next, let’s look at Mozilla’s Firefox Plugin Collections.

firefox_collections

This does two things.  By installing a Collection, it saves you the hassle of downloading and installing each extension manually.  It also lets you browse by collector rather than plugin.  So if somebody had good taste about web developer tools, they might also be trustworthy about ad-blocking.  Firefox Collections is a great service, but the social part is a little under-designed for.  It was hard to just browse various users’ collections.  It also would be nice to have more cross-linking, like a list of everybody who likes or uses a certain collection. But the service just launched, and these shortcomings are just another way to perceive the huge potential.

UBUNTU PPA

Last I want to mention something that’s been here for a while.  It’s a little different from the services above in that the individual actually touches the software, rather than merely sharing their usage of it, but Ubuntu’s PPA is a great idea that lets individual contribute software that might otherwise be hidden from users.  It’s also meant to be used by advanced users (whereas I see the trend of Social IT to be something that all regular users will participate in.)

GUESS WHO’S NOT CRAZY

Before you think this vision of personal computing is just a crazy dream of a system administrator, there’s reason to believe “regular people” want to easily share infomation with their friends, family, and professional peers, saving them the hassle of manual tweaks and step-by-step instructions.

Earlier this week, I saw a provocative tweet from @turoczy, wishing he could share Tweetdeck setups more easily.

tweetdeck

I see this configuration sharing happening not just with local apps, but even hosted apps.  Obviously applications that already store meta-data in a relatively portable format will have an advantage, but I don’t think this will be limited to open source software.

Notes on Amazon Associates

Posted by andy on April 21, 2009

A bit of a break from sysadmin work, have been learning some affiliate stuff for some volunteering I’m doing.

Notes to self:

  • Once you sign up for Amazon Associates, you get access to refferal links, astore creation, widgets, and developer tools.
  • The management interface is a little ‘web 1.0′ (calendar days have giant drop down for every day of the month), but clear and well organized.
  • Reports (not just earnings, but mere clicks) are delayed 24 hours, so if you’ve made a mistake/sent the wrong link, you may not notice for a bit. 
  • Amazon’s kickback is not dynamic, but it is variable. If you only refer one item, it’s 4%, 9, 6%.
  • Because reporting is so delayed, this link checker is pretty handy. It tells you the page your link goes to, and what ID is associated with it. A nice sanity check when you start getting paranoid.

Further thoughts about Amazon’s delayed reporting:

I don’t want to complain too much about this, because in general, Amazon’s setup was friendly enough for me to pick up pretty quickly. But it definitely sticks out in this era of near-realtime reporting.  We can watch our bit.ly click’s update in as they come in.  Even the blackbox Google Adsense reporting/Analytics, though delayed, is less than a full day behind.  I’m only a few days into this, so I may find an alternative way to get these results.

Google Apps wishlist: More finely tuned administrative controls

Posted by andy on April 1, 2009

In Google Apps there are users, and there are administrators… of everything.  A Google Apps administrator has the permission to change anything and everything about a domain’s settings.

Wish: Google would let organizations create administrators of just some things. 

As it stands,  organizations are unable to give administrative power in an a la carte manner via the Google Apps Dashboard. This can bring  extra burden to organizations who typically would let first level support handle basic account stuff, and leave more delicate configuration changes to a select group of people.

This can result in the person you trust to change your SSO server configuration, having to be the person who resets a user password.

Not optimal.

When your pilot is small, it’s fine limiting your Google Apps cabal to a small set of administrators who have the power to change anything in the Google Apps dashboard, but who rarely get called on to support uesr requests. But once your Google Apps implementation grows, that design doesn’t scale so well.

Google Apps does have an API which has led to many 3rd party tools, (some costing $30,000+), which may allow customers to more finely tune administrative rights, but this basic characteristic would be most welcomed in the native Google Apps Dashboard, as most pilot users will need this before they commit to anyting enough to buy 3rd party tools.

Google Apps in the Enterprise: What’s hard, what’s easy, what’s unexpected.

Posted by andy on April 1, 2009

There are plenty of people talking about cloud computing, hosted apps, and Google Apps, but not that many documenting the process in the enterprise, except for soundbyte-ready “We saved thousands of dollars!” testimonials.  I thought I’d share some of the highs and lows of implementing Google Apps, especially Google Docs, in a non-web enterprise with thousands of users.

There will be both raves and complaints, but mostly just decision-making quandaries, as this stuff is so new, both culturally and product-wise.  I’m a big fan of Google Apps, and would recommend it to any type of organization, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t tons of challenges and improvements to be made by Google, 3rd party tools providers, and even us users. :D

When it comes to adopting emerging web tools, industry coverage typically represents two extremes:  hip private companies and independents who embrace the chaos, and archaic giants who fail to recognize the value of  web productivity tools, are overcome by fear and conservatism, and are handicapped by (perceived?) regulation.  

Many organizations don’t fit in either of those buckets. Most of us work in organizations with people of varying degrees of literacy and enthusiasm about cloud apps.

I’ll write about having a cloud initiative in a thousands-of-employees public company that has: people wildly enthusiastic about 3rd party cloud computing, hostile gatekeepers, and most plentiful, people who don’t necessarily care either way, but who need to get on board for any initiatives to move forward.

I’m going to take you on a magic ride.

Stay tuned for posts about wishlists, gold-stars, and shoulda-woulda-coulda’s.

Did 30 Rock reference Tim O’Reilly last night?

Posted by andy on March 20, 2009

View the 20 second clip:
(apologies people not in the States who haven’t configured a hack/proxy server yet to watch Hulu)  

Now imagine… If you were nerd predisposed to O’Reillyisms… if you and your friends followed him and his posse on twitter, and read the O’Reilly Radar blog, you’d be hyperventilating over twitter, too, when Tracy Jordan says, “You’re my Radar O’Reilly!”  Except he didn’t. He said, “You’re my Radar Oreily.”  That slight difference in the spelling of O’Reilly matters.  I found out tonight there was a character named Radar Oreily in a popular television show, MASH that took place in the military. (And now the helicoptor part makes so much sense…)

Le sigh…

Ah well.  One day we will reach the singularity, and Liz Lemon and Clay Shirky will be on the same panel. But for now, we wait.

Learning Windows for virtualization reasons: What’s a scripting language you can count on?

Posted by andy on February 18, 2009

Though I’m a Linux a system administrator, I find myself interacting with Windows more often lately, usually because it touches the virtualization workflow in some environments I work with.  Lately I’ve been working on a bunch of Windows XP Professional hosts…. because they all run VMware Workstation 6.5, with Linux guests.

There are a couple of things about the installation I’m looking to script, so I’ve had to look up what: What’s a scripting language available on all Windows XP systems?

Answer: VBScript and Jscript  (Found out via this helpful  Stackoverflow.com post where somebody already asked this, so I didn’t have to.)

Windows does have another environment, Powershell, which looks great and quite Linux-like.  It can be installed on XP, but does not come stock.  It should come stock in Windows 7.

Guess Who’s Not Crazy: That little Plugin notification in WordPress 2.7

Posted by andy on February 8, 2009

In my fresh WordPress 2.7 install, the Plugins nav had a “1″ next to it that would not go away. I couldn’t figure out what the heck it was trying to notify me about.

Here’s what I’ve been trained to think it means:

  • 1 plugin needs attention
    (As in, “you’re not quite done installing a plugin, you need an API key or something.”)
    or
  • 1 plugin just got installed. Or enabled. Or disabled.
    (And this notification will soon fade away.)

Sometimes it was red.

Sometimes it was grey.

Here’s what it actually meant:

An inactive plugin that came with my install, WP-Super-Cache,was eligible for an upgrade. This was installed via Dreamhost who may have packaged some dormant plugins. I have no idea at the moment whether non-Dreamhost installs will run into this.

I guess it’s a variation of the “needs attention” design pattern, but given that it was an inactive plugin, and the status of the available upgrade wasn’t particularly prominent or connected or linked-to from the Plugin (1), I know I’m not the only one who’s been stumped by this. I won’t name names, but a WP vet I asked didn’t know either.

GUESS WHO’S NOT CRAZY.

The more you know.

Google Video is winding down new uploads, hopefully it doesn’t touch Google Apps Video.

Posted by andy on January 14, 2009

I just read over at Search Engine Land that Google announced it will be shutting down/stopping new development on multiple Google products, including Google Video (so far, just new uploads, not deleting anything, or disabling the search of existing content).

As you may or may not know, Google Apps, the Google suite of collaboration and office tools, includes a video component.  While parts of the experience resemble and no doubt share technology with Google Video, the upload and video administration experience are different enough to suggest they’re two separate products (with frustratingly similar names ;D), and that Google Apps users shouldn’t worry about their Google Apps Video going anywhere.
Still… it got me thinking… consumer Google Docs features roll down to Google Apps customers all the time, it’s not so crazy to think that a consumer Google service change could impact Google Apps customers.
For this reason, I posted on the Google Apps support forum asking for emotional closure :D

These Drupal links matter to you 20080909

Posted by andy on September 9, 2008

  • Oh yeah, Lullabot is the primary organizer behind a big Drupal conference, Do it with Drupal.  3 days in New Orleans in December.  No BarCamp or Drupalcon, it looks to be a highly curated event, with major speakers from within and outside the Drupal community, 1000-2000 attendees (?).  I’m super excited that Drupal is getting a major event like this. The Drupalcons and Drupalcamps are great, but I think this kind of context for Drupal can legitmize in some corporate environments.

  • I swear I don’t work for Lullabot, but another announcement related to them: There are some Lullabot Drupal workshops next week in Portland.
  • BTW, Drupalcon Szeged was very well documented, often with full videos and slides from the talks. Check out the full session page with links to files and descriptions for the Drupalcon Szeged talks. Bravo to the group who ran it. I’ve heard only good things from those who attended, that it was a great atmosphere. Also, as somebody viewing from afar, the speed with which they’ve uploaded videos after the event is quite fast!
  • This is interesting. Web-learning mainstay Lynda.com has Drupal training videos. As with most Lynda.com content, there are some free samples on the course page. It’s great that they have some Drupal training, but it’s confusing that they cover MAMP and WAMP installation, but neglect what is by far the most prominent Drupal hosting environment (or any web hosting environment): LAMP (Linux). Maybe the context is proof of concept?
    Also, Lynda.com has WordPress coursework up, so Drupal is not the first open source tool to make the cut, but it’s still significant that a site mostly known for teaching HTML and Final Cut Pro has Drupal videos.

  • LA People, DrupalCamp LA is next week, September 13th, 14th
(Very cool Drupal  knitting chart by ejhogbin)

How to install the Python prerequisites for the Memetracker Drupal module

Posted by andy on September 8, 2008

How to install the Python prerequisites for the Memetracker Drupal  module.

Usually the installation of Drupal modules is pretty straightforward:

  • Download module to modules/
  • Uncompress
  • Enable
  • Configure
  • Profit

But the Memetracker module is a bit different, requiring a bunch of Python stuff, and ideally, “root” on your server.  It’s not that hard to set up, but if you’re not used to installing stuff outside of the Druapl-verse, these notes might help you.

(These instructions are for Ubuntu Hardy Heron. The steps are likely very similar on other Debian-based distributions, including earlier versions of Ubuntu.
I’ve also successfully installed Memetracker on Centos 5.x/Redhat Enterprise Linux 5.x. I have a document for that coming soon, though the packages and steps are very similar, and you could extrapolate these notes and apply to other Linux versions.)

Most of you should skip to step 2, as you probably already have Drupal running..

1. Make sure you have all “normal” LAMP and Linux utilities installed for your typical Drupal install.


1a. Install the LAMP stuff, mail server stuff that Drupal requires.

# apt-get install apache2 php5 libapache2-mod-php5 php5-mysql mysql-server php5-gd postfix 

(Note: Though Drupal core can run on PHP4, the Memetracker module *requires* PHP5, so that’s what we’re using here.  You don’t have to go out of your way to get this on Hardy Heron, but there is a small possibility some of you went out of your way to get PHP4, so I’m steering you towards PHP5 here.)

1b. Though not required to run Drupal, these additional packages make life much easier, and it’s just a matter of time before you miss them:

# apt-get install openssh-server wget build-essential groff-base man-db unzip

2.  Unlike most Drupal setups, you also need to have some Python resources handy to run Memetracker.

2a. The first bunch of Python tools already have nice Ubuntu packages already made up for you.

# apt-get install python-numpy python-numeric python-dev python

2b. Pyclust doesn’t have an Ubuntu package made for it.  We need to compile it from source (There will be a python-cluster package in the next Ubuntu version, Intrepid Ibex.)

Get the source:

# wget http://bonsai.ims.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~mdehoon/software/cluster/cluster-1.41.tar.gz

(Note, this is the newest version as of 20080908.  Please check http://bonsai.ims.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~mdehoon/software/cluster/software.htm  for newest version.)

Uncompress the source:

# tar -xvzf cluster-1.41.tar.gz

Now install it:

# cd cluster-1.41
# python setup.py install

You now have all your Python stuff installed. 
Let’s verify it works:

# python
>> from Pycluster import *
(You will get your Python prompt back if you have your Python stuff installed correctly.)

That’s it. You now have your environment ready for Memetracker.  There’s lots of other stuff you can do to optimize your system for Memetracker, and I have some additional Memetracker documentation coming up.  However I noticed an immediate need for this Python stuff to be written down in a step-by-step manner, as many Drupal folks don’t usually have to do so much Python/Linux stuff.