August 2011 archive

Facebook Now Reminds Us Of What We Posted One Year Ago?

When did Facebook start showing you "On This Day in 2010"? Is this new? Or something I've just not noticed?

While in Facebook today, I noticed this box appear on the right side above the sponsored ads:

Facebook oneyearago

Now, I've subsequently not seen that box anywhere when I've been in Facebook, and I can't for the life of me remember precisely what page I was on when I saw that box.

It's curious that Facebook would do this... just randomly show me one of the status updates I posted a year ago. I say "curious" only in that it's not clear how I would really interact with that post. I mean... would I be so overwhelmed by nostalgia that I would click on the comments or likes to see what comments were left on that post? Maybe... but that seems a bit of a stretch.

I didn't dislike having that box appear in my sidebar. It was actually more interesting than seeing the ads that I usually ignore (and obviously interesting enough to write a blog post about ;-). It was just strange... since I'd never seen this before.

Have others of you noticed this kind of box appearing inside of Facebook?


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A Monday Morning Reminder About Those Best Laid Plans…

HandswithinkIt's Monday morning. For me, summer is effectively over. My vacation week ended yesterday. It's time to get back into the flow of work and life and get out there and kick some serious _____. I was up early and went for a 5K run this morning focused on speed and came in just over 8:30/mile even while pushing the jogger stroller the whole way.

I had all sorts of blog posts planned... I knew I had to run out to Staples to get a printer cartridge so that my fax/printer/scanner could fax out a document (a rant for another day!)... but I expected to be up in my home office around 8:20am pounding away on those blog posts.

Then... I made a critical mistake.

I handed my used-and-theoretically-dead inkjet printer cartridge to my 2-year-old to carry into Staples because she wanted to "help".

Other parents or those interacting with toddlers reading this undoubtedly know what is about to happen...

HOW MANY WAYS CAN YOU SPELL "FAIL"???

Leave it to the 2-yr-old to discover that yes, indeed, the cartridge did have some ink in it... and to get that ink ALL over her hands... and on her clothes... and subsequently on my hands....

Oops.

So there I was at the checkout counter using some Purelle and paper towels they had to attempt to clean up the major parts of the mess. The cute little hands you see in the picture here are after most of the ink was scrubbed off... but back at home where I could use some more aggressive soap.

As it was all unfolding, I felt myself starting to get agitated and anxious because I had all these plans! I had things to do, articles to write, messages to send... I could feel my blood pressure rising even as I externally was calm and patient.

And then I breathed deeply.

And reflected that this is the reality we all live in...

life happens.

You can plan all you want... you can make incredible plans, in fact... only to have them derailed by some little action, perhaps by your own action as it was in this case, or perhaps by circumstances outside your control.

The measure of ourselves as people is how we choose to react to those changes to our plans and what we learn from those changes.

In my case, I just sighed and went about the actions of trying to clean up all the ink... (and I made a note to myself that it's probably better NOT to let the wee one hold "dead" ink cartridges ;-)

Looking For IPv6 Application Migration Case Studies To Include In The Book – Care To Share Yours?

Ipv6 200As I have continued to talk and speak about IPv6 and issues around migrating applications over to IPv6, one of the themes that has repeatedly come up is that developers are looking for examples of people who have gone through the migration from which they can learn.

Understandably, they’d like to know what pain – or NOT – other developers had to go through to migrate their app to work on IPv6.

With that in mind, I’m thinking of adding a new section to the book with specific case studies around apps that moved successfully into a IPv6/IPv4 world. Basically capturing what the developers did or did not do, what they had to change, how their application needs to be configured to work with IPv6 (if it does), etc., etc.

I have several companies and individual app developers that I will be contacting to include, but the beauty of an e-book is that there really isn’t a limit on what I can include in terms of length. So…

IF YOU HAVE MIGRATED AN APP TO IPv6, I’D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU!

I have some questions I’d like to ask you about what you’ve done, the challenges (or lack thereof) you encountered, etc. I expect that an email exchange is all that is needed, although if you are interested I’m toying with maybe also doing some video interviews as well (typically via Skype video).

Please do contact me if you’re willing to share your experience. Working together we can build a compilation of case studies that can help more people make the move to IPv6! Thanks!

Node.js Knockout Contest Coming Up August 27 – Will You Compete?

NodejsknockoutDo you know Node.js? If so, have you thought about joining the Node.js Knockout contest starting on August 27th?

It’s basically a 48-hour contest to see which team can create the most awesome Node.js application, as decided by a panel of judges. The contest rules explain all the details and as I write this post there are 321 teams entered in this year’s event. Teams can be virtual – and some are gathering in various locations around the world to hack in the same physical place. There is apparently still room to sign up, although it’s closing soon (8/20).

While I’m not personally joining this year, I’m looking forward to seeing what these teams come up with. It should be fun to see!

P.S. In full disclosure, I should note that Tropo.com, one of the services of my employer, Voxeo, is one of the sponsors of the Node.js Knockout.

PodCamp NH Begins Tomorrow (Sat, Aug 13) in New Hampton, NH

PodcampnhIf you live in New Hampshire (as I do) and are interested in all things related to social media: blogging, podcasting, digital marketing, Twitter, Facebook, and so much more, PodCamp NH is happening tomorrow, Saturday, August 13, 2011, from 8:30am to 5:00pm in New Hampton, NH.

The schedule of sessions so far has been posted (tip: note that the schedule box has both vertical and horizontal scroll bars - there are simultaneous session tracks), and I've seen from Twitter that a number of great folks are already planning to head up that way.

The latest PCNH blog post has some more info - including that over 70 people have already registered! It sounds like a great event... and so if you are here in the Granite State or one of the surrounding states, please do head on over and check it out - and join in, too, because PodCamps are by design a place for people to collaborate and be involved.

P.S. Alas, I am not one of those 70 people going as I have other family plans tomorrow... but I'm looking forward to getting to one of the PCNH events one of these years...


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Friday’s Humorous Video: 10 Reasons Why We Hate Facebook

Admit it... at least one of these (and perhaps many) will make you laugh...


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Voxeo’s Hiring a VP of Marketing – Come Be My Boss!

Voxeo logoHere at Voxeo, we're looking to hire a VP of Marketing! We've got a great team of people in our marketing group who are doing an amazing amount of work... and we're looking for someone to lead that team and help lay out a strategy to take us even farther!

Yes, I'm part of that team - I'm looking for my new boss!

Opportunities like this don't come along all that often... are you up for seizing the chance?

A word of caution... if your idea of a "VP of Marketing" job is someone who sits down in week-long strategy sessions, has long alcohol-fueled lunches, spends half the time at fancy conferences "networking"... and takes a few weeks to create fancy PowerPoint slides before handing the work off to staff or agencies to create glossy direct mail pieces before heading out to the golf course... well... please don't waste our time by applying!

Voxeo is a %#$&@$ rocketship that is taking on the traditional players in the industry and winning pretty much every major deal out there. You have to be able to grasp on to that rocket and if you can't... you're going to be burned to a crisp. (And, oh, by the way, you're supposed to be helping steer that rocket!)

It's an incredible place to work with an amazing team of people and an incredibly open culture. Coming up on 4 years here at Voxeo, I can say definitively that this company is going places... and this is an incredible opportunity to join the company and help shape that growth.

It will probably be one of the most rewarding jobs you'll ever do - and one of the most fun - and, well, a heck of a lot of work!

As the job description says:

The Vice President of Marketing will run Voxeo’s Marketing organization from Voxeo’s Orlando, FL Headquarters. Executives at Voxeo are expected to create strategy and high-level goals, and then jump in with their team and help get the job done. We are all “doers” at Voxeo. We work hard. We play hard. We’re in this to win it. Pure thinkers who don’t like to get their hands dirty won’t work well here.

Voxeo has the best products in the industry, a rapidly growing customer and partner base, an insanely high 62% Net Promoter Score, and recognized by analysts at Gartner and Ovum as one of the top vendors in our industry.

What we need now is a phenomenal Vice President of Marketing who will strategize, implement, analyze and improve marketing with a focus on lead generation.

We have an existing team of top-notch experts in SEO/SEM, social media, event marketing, and analyst relations. We need to improve our messaging, press relations, and again… lead generation.

And here's a key point:

At best 1 in 20 buyers in our market know who we are. When they know who we are we win almost every time. You need to get us into the minds of the other 19 buyers.

Ready for the challenge?

The job description has more of the responsibilities and requirements of the position. This position is based in our Orlando office as many of the marketing team members are remote and you need to be interacting with the other executives and staff. And if all you know of "Orlando" is Disney... forget what you know... downtown Orlando is a completely different world from the empire of the Mouse.

To learn more about what we do, visit our website ... but then look at our many blogs, our presence on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and the many (20+) other web sites and services that make up Voxeo's offerings.

I'd give you the links... but if you can't find them you don't deserve a chance at an interview, let alone the job! :-)

Come join us... it's going to be fun!


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MarsEdit Offline Blog Editor For Mac OS X Has a New (Minor) Version Out

Yesterday Daniel Jalkut released a minor update to MarsEdit, my favorite offline blogging tool, and while the 3.3.2 release itself was really just about bug fixes, I thought I'd mention the tool again here on this blog for those who may have recently moved to Mac OS X and are looking for an offline blog editor. I've written about MarsEdit a number of times before and continue to find it probably the program I use the most on my Mac outside of email and web browsers.

Granted, I write across a lot of blogs... but that's the point! MarsEdit gives me a consistent editing interface across all the blogs, no matter what platform they are running on. I also never have to login to any sites because I'm doing all the editing on my local Mac. For the same reason, it's very fast to get in and start editing... and I can easily drop in graphics... and everything else I want to do to write posts.

If you are on a Mac and write blogs posts, do check out MarsEdit. Yes, it's NOT free software... but I've found it well worth the price.

Marsedit332

P.S. I have no financial relationship with Red Sweater Software other than being a happy customer, i.e. I am not getting any compensation or anything else if you buy the software.


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Facebook Acquires eBook Maker Push Pop Press – See The TED Video To Understand

PushpoppressIs Facebook going to get into eBook publishing? That was the first question I had when I saw the news that Facebook has acquired Push Pop Press, developers of a very cool eBook technology that was used mainly by Al Gore for his latest "Our Choice" book. The announcement on Push Pop Press' site said this:
Now we're taking our publishing technology and everything we've learned and are setting off to help design the world's largest book, Facebook.

Although Facebook isn't planning to start publishing digital books, the ideas and technology behind Push Pop Press will be integrated with Facebook, giving people even richer ways to share their stories. With millions of people publishing to Facebook each day, we think it's going to be a great home for Push Pop Press.

Which was similarly confirmed in a statement from Facebook that was published on All Things D (and other sites):

Facebook isn’t planning to get into the digital book business, but some of the ideas and technology behind Push Pop Press will be integrated with Facebook

I'd not seen their book myself prior to this news, but to understand how cool Push Pop Press' "publishing technology" is, check out the video of co-founder Mike Matas' demoing the technology at TED:

It will be fascinating to see how Facebook adds Push Pop Press' technology into the Facebook user experience... could be fun!


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New Android Malware/Trojan Records Your Phone Calls

AndroidtrojanNews out of the CA Security Advisor Blog today is that there is a new piece of Android malware that records phone calls that you make on an Android phone. The post author, Dinesh Venkatesan, goes into some detail about what they found – and how they found it – in testing this malware.

While this is not a “VoIP” issue, per se, as the trojan seems to record calls over the “regular” phone connection it is a general communications security issue and something we all have to watch out for. Over on the ReadWriteWeb, Dan Rowinski published a good piece putting this malware in context with other recent Android malware.

The net of both posts is that ultimately you need to be extremely careful about the source of applications you are installing on your Android phone – and what permissions you are granting them.

Meanwhile, I expect that we’ll continue to more creativity coming out of the attacker community..

Image credit: CA Security Advisor Blog