Radical Behavior » Web

Who Wins with the Google App Engine?

Josh Kenzer — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 23:47:07 +0000

In case you haven’t opened a web browser today, Google released a new platform to allow developers to quickly and easily deploy web applications leveraging Googles infrastructure as the back end. The advantages to the developer is they don’t have to worry about the very complicated system architecture issues that usually require a brilliant IT engineer to solve. Instead they can focus on writing the code.

The extreme press coverage is no doubt due to the simple fact that it is Google offering the service. Amazon has had some what similar services for a while and has received a fraction of the press that Google has or will garner over this platform. However, there is still some very important differences about Google’s offering.

It’s dead simple. Amazon’s services still require a lot of very technical IT knowledge to utilize. If the video demos of Google’s version are to be believed, the developers need not worry about these system details.
It integrates with Google’s account services. This means it’s very easy to build a web application that allows logging in via Google. I’m not sure if this is a pro or a con and I believe only time will tell on this one.
It only has support for Python. Sorry PHP and Rails developers. However, they have said they will release other languages after some intial feedback. My money is that PHP will be the first.

So here’s my thoughts. When they open it to PHP, a ton of PHP developers will flock to it. It will be free, or at least very cheap, and much easier to manage then a shared host or a dedicated server. Google will continue to roll out objects/modules that make it easy to integrate with other sites and services, and since it will be on the Google infrastructure, it will be easier for Google to aquire the popular apps and integrate them into their services.

So who wins?

Google does because it means more page inventory that they can sell advertising on. More data in their database that they can organize and present in different ways. More adoption of their technologies like GFS and Big Table.

Developers do because it means scalability and rock bottom costs. It means a farm system for exit strategies. It means feeling like you are “part of Google” without being employed there.

Who do you think wins?

Safari 3.1 on Windows: a true competitor

Josh Kenzer — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:19:26 +0000

Give Apple enough time, and they get things right:

Safari 3.1 on Windows: a true competitor arrives (seriously)

When the Internet was a New Phenomenon

Josh Kenzer — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 23:51:18 +0000

If you only watch one viral video this year…

Via Chris Brogan who found it via Jack Lail’s site who credits Rocketboom.

Too many blogs!

Josh Kenzer — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 18:17:45 +0000

In an effort to reduce the number of blogs I am updating, I am going to stop updating this one. I know you are all crushed but the good news is I will still be developing this type of content, … Continue reading →

Nevada Blogs

Josh Kenzer — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 20:04:22 +0000

In my routine search to see who is blogging in Reno, I stumbled upon NevadaBlogs.net. Nevada Blogs is a directory and aggregator for blogs through out the state. I was surprised to see it had my disneyfrontier.com and submitted this one and thekenzers.com.

Live Writer Insert Map

Josh Kenzer — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 20:45:33 +0000

Just curious about the Insert Map function:

Microsoft Live Writer

Josh Kenzer — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 20:39:49 +0000

In no way did I plan on reviewing two different blog authoring tools today but after listening to Monday’s Buzz Out Loud podcast I heard of this one. This is Microsoft’s foray into the space. It has a very Word like look and feel.

The installation process asked if I had a spaces account or wanted to use my own blog software. After selecting my own, it asked for the URL and username and password. After that, it auto detected all the settings without issue.

To insert this screenshot, I clicked Insert Picture which took me to my local machine. I browsed for the image and them was presented with a nice interface for alignment, drop shadow and other effects.

Unlike Writely, this software does have the option for setting trackbacks and currently there are two plugins available. One allows you to browse Flickr photos to add to your post and the other generates tags for Technorati and other tagging search engines. These two plugins appear to be community written but obviously some one had advance notice from Microsoft to prepare them.

It is very much like Zoundry, which I have been using for quite some time. It does feel a little lighter on system resources.

The web preview is really nice. It took my wordpress template and apply it perfectly giving me an acurate representation of what the post will look like. I am a little worried about the HTML/XHTML it produces. We are all a little nervous after seeing the code Frontpage produced.

Anyway, not a bad first go at it.

tags: Microsoft, Live Writer, Blogging

Blogging with Writely

Josh Kenzer — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 16:28:49 +0000

So Writely just went open beta meaning you don’t need an invite. Writely is the online AJAX driven word processor that Google bought a while back. It basically allows you to write documents online and share them with others. If its like Google spreadsheets, you will also be able to collaborate real-time with those that you choose to.

Once I registered and logged in, I saw the blog option and thought I would give it a spin. This post is written completely in Writely.

A couple of observations:

The UI is completely different from Google Spreadsheets. The colors, icons, layout all different.
Its a little slow.
When blogging, I don’t see a place for trackbacks

UPDATE : After posting from writely, I viewed the post. Everything looks fine except the title didn’t carry over. I had to edit in WordPress to add it. Also, the tags/categories didn’t populate when posting.

Interested in Reading Faster

Josh Kenzer — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 15:25:02 +0000

Here is a great article/post on techniques to read faster while still retaining the material. How much more information could you learn if you could read 25% faster? What about 100% faster?

On to Ruby on Rails

Josh Kenzer — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 19:44:33 +0000

After spending some time evaluating content management software and blogging software, I wanted to get back to roots and do some actual programming. I’ve had an idea for a web 2.0 applications for awhile and want to use it as an excuse to learn Ruby on Rails. I listened to the Inside the Net podcast where they interviewed David Heinemeier Hansson about creating Rails. Saturday, I sat down and read a couple of tutorials and installed the development environment on my old G4 Powerbook.

It was a great experience. I used to program in PHP a few years back and found this environment easy to learn and fun to code in. I basically coded two applications from the tutorials and started a third on my own. I can’t wait to learn more (I just bought Agile Web Development with Rails from The Pragmatic Programmer site).