Category: Computers/Internet

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By now, you’ve heard that Netflix is splitting their business in two: one for streaming movies over the internet, which will keep the name, and one for renting DVDs by mail, which will be called Qwikster. Here are links to several funny (and a couple of serious) takes on the situation.

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Between the ticker and the plans to auto-share even more activity on the timeline, I’m beginning to think that Facebook should call itself Firehose instead.

I’m tempted to ask, “Who the hell wants this?” but based on past experience, that usually means I’m just not in the target audience.

TechCrunch | Share Buttons? Ha. Facebook Just Schooled The Internet. Again.

(Originally posted on Google+)

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Google has released the first taste of what will become a larger Google+ API for third-party applications built on their social network. So far, all you can do is authenticate, retrieve someone’s public profile, and read their public activities. That doesn’t sound like much, does it?

Well, here are some ideas I came up with over lunch:

  • Add Google+ activity to a lifestream.
  • Allow someone to comment on your blog using their Google+ identity.
  • Create a map of movements of based on public checkins.
  • Analyze posting frequency & times.
  • Analyze most popular posts based on reshares, +1s, replies (basically: add Google+ to Klout [Update: That was fast!])
  • Associate a person with other profiles you might have from other social networks, based on their profile URLs.
  • Build a list of people who work at an organization and speak a particular language.

Of course, it’ll really start taking off when they enable write access and the link-sharing and cross-posting services can get in on the act.

So, how about you? What else do you think can be done with the limited API released today?

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Sometimes it’s worth stepping back and asking yourself, “Is the problem I’m trying to solve really the problem I want solved?”

For example, “I can’t connect to this coffee shop’s wifi” may be worth trying to fix for a couple of minutes, but the real goal is connecting to the internet. The coffee shop just happens to be the most convenient/obvious means of doing so. If you have another way of connecting — say, by tethering to your phone connection — you’re better off switching methods instead of continuing to chase what may be a dead end.

Similarly, with software design, whenever you begin with a set of parameters and start off down a path that seems to be getting more and more complicated, it’s worth taking a step back and asking: what am I really trying to solve here? Are the constraints real, or can I drop some of them and take a different, more effective approach?

If the problem is presented as: How do I use these tools to accomplish this task, sometimes you’ve got to use those tools — but sometimes another set of tools will do the job better.

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Years ago, I wanted a smartphone so I could write down all the blog posts I compose in my head when I’m away from a computer. Now that I have one, I end up reading Facebook, Twitter, or Google Plus instead, and I compose blog posts in my head when I’m away from both my computer AND my phone. Maybe I just need a pencil and notepad.

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Wow: A researcher studying the way people use computers found that most people don’t know how to search for a word on the current page!

Crazy: 90 Percent of People Don’t Know How to Use CTRL+F

Google’s resident search anthropologist, Dan Russell, dropped this incredible statistic on us. And no, he couldn’t believe it either.

To someone used to using computers, it seems so basic, but I guess if no one shows you it’s there, it’s the kind of thing that’s not easy to discover on your own. (via Slashdot)

The article doesn’t actually say which side of the 90/10 split people using toolbar buttons or menu items to search fall on, but it does mention people paging through an entire document to look for something by eye.