Posts from January 2005

Tonight I am hosting a geek gathering at Vino Venue in San Francisco. Anyone is welcome to come check out the intersection of wine and gadgets while socializing with new media types. I start my new job at Technorati tomorrow so this is my last night as a free man. Meet at 6:30 p.m. at VinoVenue, 686 Mission Street, on the corner of Mission Street and 3rd Street. Over 100 wines are dispensed using smart cards, Windows servers, and database technology to suggest new wine types. It's like Attention.xml for your wine habits! They also serve Oprah's favorite teas and...

Read more...

TiVo released a Java SDK for their broadband-connected Series2 DVRs. There is already a RSS reader for the TiVo. James Gosling will judge your Java code in the TiVo Developer Challenge with prizes such as a Segway and other gadgets....

Read more...

Last night I attended a Future Salon presentation about digital and online identities. The event was hosted at SAP in Palo Alto. Eric Sachs of Google spoke about Google's relatively new entry into the digital identity realm with services such as Orkut and Gmail. Jeff Hodges of Liberty Alliance talked about identity systems in the enterprise marketplace. Fen Labalme of Identity Commons talked about identity systems built at the grassroots level for non-governmental organizations. I recorded all three speeches as well as the question and answer period using a directional microphone from my seat in the front row. Eric Sachs...

Read more...

Would you like to get your hands on the latest Apple product as soon as it hits your local Apple Store? You can go online at the store or from anywhere in the world to reserve a product when it becomes available. I used the system to reserve an iPod shuffle and I received a call today that the San Francisco Apple Store will keep one on hold for me until the end of the day. URL syntax is http://apple.webassociates.com/request/reserve.cfm?sid= + your local Apple Store ID. Visit the Apple Store retail page, select your nearest store, and note the store...

Read more...

Yesterday I dropped by the Six Apart headquarters unannounced. Everyone was very busily working for 4 p.m. on a Friday. I took some pictures of their new office space. The office layout is open and airy allowing for easy collaboration between teams. There are plenty of conference rooms if you would like some privacy. Two conference rooms are identified as Movable Type and TypePad battlegrounds as the War Room and the Make Love Not War room respectively. The central core of the office space contains lounge areas, executive offices, and a kitchen. Their kitchen had four or five refrigerators,...

Read more...

I am hosting a geek wine gathering and tasting at VinoVenue in downtown San Francisco on Monday, January 31 at 6:30 p.m. VinoVenue dispenses 1-ounce sample of wine by inserting a smart card into an automated machine hooked up to wine bottles. Very geeky, and a good space to mix after work. If you plan to attend please leave a comment so I can get a reasonable headcount. If you do not drink wine they also have some nice teas. There is a small market next door, A.G. Ferrari, and outside food is allowed. VinoVenue is located at the...

Read more...

I try to keep track of events in the Bay Area of interest to techies like me. There seems to be enough interest from like-minded people that I decided to publish an aggregated calendar of local events of interest to me. I pull information from venues, local groups, and personal contacts. Cost information will appear at the top of the notes section. Yes, I could output in hCalendar or RSS as well but publishing my calendar on .Mac is just so easy. Click on one of the links below to view my list of San Francisco Bay area events of...

Read more...

Technorati opened up their tag API for anyone to query for posts associated with a tag. The query currently only returns Technorati's own XML. Some other API changes now live: You can choose to not receive claimed weblog data for cosmos and search queries by setting the claim parameter to 0. Search query now has a limit parameter to allow for selective browsing. Cosmos query has a highlight parameter to highlight the anchor text within the excerpt....

Read more...

Take 2 Interactive Software announced that it has purchased the Civilization game franchise from FIRAXIS. Civilization IV will be released in late 2005 with 3D graphics and support for XML and Python user-created add-ons. I have spent many days over the years playing Civilization and its expansion packs. I'm looking forward to being able to code for the next version and bringing the Irish closer to virtual world domaination!...

Read more...

Amazon's A9 search engine added a business directory today with images of the business storefront alongside the address and a clickable telephone number. A search for Starbucks returns Starbucks locations within five miles of your Amazon.com default shipping address by default with thumbnail images for the business location and an overlay of a MapQuest map. You can even browse up or down the block to see surrounding storefronts. Very cool technology! In my sample searches I found Starbucks location in a mall or office park setting had an address that did not match the picture on the listing. Business owners...

Read more...