tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212Sun, 20 Dec 2009 03:18:02 +0000http://mashraqi.com/noreply@blogger.com (Frank)Blogger240125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-2700566444224209005Sun, 20 Dec 2009 03:17:00 +00002009-12-19T19:18:02.715-08:00http://mashraqi.com/2009/12/mia-loving-her-dinner.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-4142204546402512424Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:35:00 +00002009-08-26T16:46:15.968-07:00bloggeradsensemonetizationgoogleI noticed that Google has silently added a "Monetize" button to Blogger's interface.http://mashraqi.com/2009/08/google-adds-monetize-button-to-blogger.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-4100637147103633086Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:33:00 +00002009-06-03T09:37:31.924-07:00social networksociologyInteresting study showing that the size of personal network remains stable over the years though “half of all friends” are replaced every 7 years. “The results showed that personal network sizes remained stable, but that many members of the network were new. About 30 percent of discussion partners and practical helpers had the same position in a typical subject's network seven years later. And http://mashraqi.com/2009/06/will-you-fire-half-of-your-friends-in-7.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-1373657678485289599Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:22:00 +00002009-04-22T11:15:09.551-07:00mysqlconfmysqlmarkcallaghangoogleMark Callaghan is taking the stage to present his Key Note at the MySQL Conference and Expo, “This is not a web app: The continuing evolution of MySQL at Google.”I am going to take notes as fast as I can. Excuse any typos etc.Mark worked on DBMS internals at Informix and then at Oracle. He worked on embedding BerkeleyDB at a startup. He joined Google in August, 2005. At Google his team is workinghttp://mashraqi.com/2009/04/mysql-at-google-by-mark-callaghan.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-9200321362149078884Sat, 28 Mar 2009 03:46:00 +00002009-03-27T20:59:14.006-07:00twitterbookJames Briddle has published his 4100 tweets (posts on Twitter) in a 270 page book, "My Life in Tweets." The book covers his tweets from February 2007 to 2009. He has also provided the script he used to download all his tweets from Twitter.. In case you are wondering what was his motivation? “When Twitter is inevitably replaced by something else, I don’t want to lose all those incidentals, the http://mashraqi.com/2009/03/tweetbook-publishing-your-tweets-into.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-8340244935180545810Sat, 28 Mar 2009 02:42:00 +00002009-03-27T19:53:02.813-07:00hunchdecision-treesflickrcaterina-fakeTired of using rock, paper, scissors, spock, lizard to make your decisions? Well Caterina Fake's (Flickr co-founder) new startup, Hunch, is coming soon to help you. At the heart of Hunch are decision trees that allow a human user to go through a series of questions in order to make decisions. Caterina says:“Look. Decision-making is difficult, and decisions have to be made constantly. What should http://mashraqi.com/2009/03/hunch-caterina-fakes-new-killer-startup.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-4477599009310666041Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:25:00 +00002009-03-26T11:27:27.326-07:00venndiagrampiechartgooglechartI came across Google Chart API today which lets you create charts online for free*.Supported charts include: 1. Line charts 2. Bar charts 3. Pie charts Updated! 4. Venn diagrams 5. Scatter plots 6. Radar charts 7. Maps 8. Google-o-meters 9. QR codesThe sample charts look really cool.Venn diagramPie chartRadar chart* If you plan to call Google chart API more than 250,000 times a http://mashraqi.com/2009/03/create-free-online-charts-with-google.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-1202020134752794081Fri, 20 Mar 2009 23:29:00 +00002009-03-20T16:29:48.032-07:00startupgoogleventuresgoogleventure capitalRich Miner, creator of Android, is moving to jump start Google's latest venture, Google Ventures, which will provide capital to startups.Google has been working on this for quite some time. In 2007, Business Week reported that Google is going to take on a new role as a Venture Capitalist. WSJ reported last year in July about Google's new venture capital arm.TechCrunch thinks Google Ventures is ahttp://mashraqi.com/2009/03/google-ventures-is-almost-here.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-930374998888221085Wed, 18 Mar 2009 05:02:00 +00002009-03-17T22:08:11.243-07:00javaconferencesunmysqltwittercloudcomputingsoaCommunity One East is happening this week and I for sure will be attending. The event is taking place at Marriott Marquis Hotel, New York, NY. I am especially looking forward to the announcements tomorrow which sound very interesting :). Unfortunately, I can't go into details about what Sun Microsystems is announcing.The first day of Community One is a free event featuring. The second day of the http://mashraqi.com/2009/03/cloud-computing-and-community-one-east.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-6143285890542353146Tue, 17 Mar 2009 03:44:00 +00002009-03-16T20:44:37.767-07:00intellijideaRESTrestletwebservicestomcat6I recently started using IntelliJ IDEA. To get familiar with the interface, I decided to create a Hello World REST web service with Restlet. For those unfamiliar with Restlet, it is a lightweight REST framework that allows you to quickly and easily create web services using Java. A screencast is available on Restlet website to help you get started.Some other useful links for beginners:- Using http://mashraqi.com/2009/03/java-restful-web-services-with-restlet.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-4648271068702921005Tue, 17 Mar 2009 03:27:00 +00002009-03-16T20:28:54.395-07:00leopardtomcat6macbookI needed to install Tomcat 6 today on my Macbook with Leopard. The installation was very easy. I simply downloaded the binary core, extracted the software and moved the files to my desired location. That's about it. It was pretty painless.More in depth instructions on how to install Tomcat 6 on Mac OS X 10.5 are also available.http://mashraqi.com/2009/03/install-tomcat-6-on-mac-os-x-105.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-2201508985013777571Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:07:00 +00002009-03-06T10:13:21.370-08:00xkcdcorrelationYet another funny comic by XKCD on correlation and causation:http://mashraqi.com/2009/03/correlation-and-causation.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-2520678996281403577Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:06:00 +00002009-03-04T11:19:32.046-08:00Facebooksocial-graphfriendfeedtwitterToday, Facebook is holding a press conference about features expected to come in two weeks.Here’s the latest insight I have been able to get.via Robert Scoble: Mark Zuckerberg just announced that businesses and brands will have full access to the social graph. (Still looking for details as to what the "full access to the social graph" means.)Facebook’s new home page is implementing more and more http://mashraqi.com/2009/03/facebook-makes-moves-to-be-more-like.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-1680430117520289036Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:53:00 +00002009-03-04T10:00:55.028-08:00barter-websitesu-exchangeU Exchange is appearing on the hot trends list by Google Insights. Apparently it was mentioned on the Today Show. As the recession deepens, bartering websites are becoming more and more popular.“Trade Anything, Pay Nothing. U-Exchange is the Largest Free Swap Site that specializes in every type of trade. No membership fees, barter currencies or commissions taken on trades. It's Free to contact, http://mashraqi.com/2009/03/u-exchange-free-site-for-bartering.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-986463051103111877Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:45:00 +00002009-03-02T20:00:52.696-08:00wernervogelsseminarmartenmickossunrightscalemysqlec2cloudcomputingAmazon, RightScale and MySQL (Sun Microsystems) will be hosting the Executive Seminar on Cloud Computing at NASDAQ MarketSite (NY) tomorrow.Since I have been busy developing our new startup on EC2, it would be great to catch up with Mårten Mickos and Dr. Werner Vogels whom I originally met at Structure 08.Cloud Computing is probably the most abused buzz word, but if anyone rightly deserves to be http://mashraqi.com/2009/03/cloud-computing-seminar-with-werner.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-3173253731083617142Sun, 01 Mar 2009 02:00:00 +00002009-02-28T18:13:48.938-08:00kindle-2authors-guildEven though it was experimental, I liked the Text to Speech feature on my Kindle 2. As I discussed in my Kindle 2 review, Amazon was under pressure from Authors Guild to remove the feature based on alleged copyright violations. Now, it seems that to some extent, Amazon is giving up and allowing the text to speech feature to be turned off unless the book publishers explicitly allow it.“Kindle 2's http://mashraqi.com/2009/02/kindle-2-text-to-speech-feature-amazon.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-7489979510471408766Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:43:00 +00002009-02-27T18:07:52.855-08:00project-voldemortlinkedinLinkedIn uses Project Voldemort to solve some interesting problems. I was reminded of Project Voldemort by my colleague. I remember coming across it few months ago but didn't dive deeper. I am not 100% sure but it seems LinkedIn originally released the project.From Project Voldemort site:"It is used at LinkedIn for certain high-scalability storage problems where simple functional partitioning is http://mashraqi.com/2009/02/project-voldemort.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-8337173467126628094Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:51:00 +00002009-02-27T16:50:20.776-08:00kindle hacksoreillykindle-2safarikindle-feedergpsamazonMy Kindle 2, a present from my lovely wife, finally got here on 25th, just one day after the official release. From the time I opened the black packaging, I fell in love with it. Amazon has put a very clever "Once upon a time..." label on the packaging. Kindle 2 is very slim and Apple-esque.What I like:Harry Potter-ish reading gadget: Reading the New York Times on Kindle 2 feels like something http://mashraqi.com/2009/02/kindle-2-review.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-7026951509347125027Fri, 09 Jan 2009 19:09:00 +00002009-01-09T11:10:40.437-08:00whopperFacebookburger-kingThis is very funny. Burger King is asking you to sacrifice 10 Facebook friends and in exchange, you will get a free Whopper. Would you do it?http://mashraqi.com/2009/01/sacrifice-10-facebook-friends-for.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-3705393477944301621Fri, 14 Nov 2008 04:30:00 +00002008-11-13T20:33:26.626-08:00fail-whaletwitterJust noticed that Twitter wasn't showing Fail Whale anymore. Instead I got a fail whale, fail bird, fail cloud and fail something: http://mashraqi.com/2008/11/fail-whale-being-replaced.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-294659736770257509Sat, 08 Nov 2008 23:48:00 +00002008-11-08T16:08:22.059-08:00web 2.0markzuckerbergjerry-yangmike-walshal-goreEarlier this month Web 2.0 Summit took place in CA. I had received an invitation to this event where Al Gore, Mark Zuckerberg, Arianna Huffington, Jerry Yang and Lance Armstrong were among the many stars present. Unfortunately, I couldn't go.In a blog post Mike Walsh provides his takeaways from Web 2.0 Summit. Mike's post provides a high level overview of what happened at Web 2.0 Summit.Chris http://mashraqi.com/2008/11/web-20-summit-takeaways.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-6020260808678789316Sat, 08 Nov 2008 01:36:00 +00002008-11-07T17:42:44.803-08:00javascriptFound this Javascript Beautifier to be really handy in making sense of Javascripts.http://mashraqi.com/2008/11/javascript-beautifier.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-5458002529146369561Thu, 06 Nov 2008 18:56:00 +00002008-11-06T11:00:07.528-08:00cookiesxsshttponlyFound a great article by Jeff Atwood (Coding Horror) about how HttpOnly can protect your cookies from dangerous XSS vulnerabilities. Also read Mitigating cross side scripting with Http-Only Cookies.http://mashraqi.com/2008/11/httponly-protects-your-cookies.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-3946946728543442754Wed, 24 Sep 2008 05:29:00 +00002008-10-01T23:46:39.912-07:00conferencestartonomicstipscalability12 Tips for Building a Scalable StartupSince scalability is considered a non-functional requirement, it is often overlooked in the hopes of decreasing time to market. Adding scalability down the road can decrease the time to market but only after assuming significant technical debt.Balancing performance and scalability vs. fast iteration and cost efficiency can be a significant challenge for http://mashraqi.com/2008/09/startonomics-startup-scalability.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20698212.post-9212198752586794238Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:47:00 +00002008-09-18T13:53:48.229-07:00sandy-jenweb 2.0web2exposcalabilitymeebosynchronousSandy Jen, co-founder of Meebo, is on the stage talking about Scaling Synchronous Web Apps at Web 2.0 Expo. There are about 40 million unique people using it and they are around 50 people or so.The presentation is about tips and practices they have learned about how to scale now vs in 3 years. Scalability is very subjective.the "hole"- multi-platform (lots of browsers)- spotty network connectionshttp://mashraqi.com/2008/09/scaling-synchronous-web-apps-lessons.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Frank)0