Dented Reality

Running WordPress 3.0 alpha

Mar 08 2010
4

I’m now running the development version/alpha of WordPress 3.0 on this blog so that I can get a feel for any changes (and fix any bugs!) before the official release. So far so good, the upgrade was clean and nothing significant is broken. This release is going to be awesome!

Twitter API/Developer Meetup Notes

Mar 01 2010
0

Here are some notes I took during the Twitter developer meetup that was tonight, at Twitter Headquarters. They’re probably not complete, because I only took bits and pieces on my iPhone, then filled out some details when I got home. It does sound like Twitter are really trying to bulk up their efforts to support developers and let their community flourish, which is probably a great approach given their “we are a platform” strategy. Taken/formatted via ListML, thus the very-hierarchical list approach. Enjoy.

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Amazon Introduces S3 Versioning

Feb 09 2010
4

Today, Amazon Web Services introduced beta access to a versioning system across all S3 regions in their cloud. This means that you can now save additional copies of an object within S3, while retaining older copies behind the scenes. You can read the developer documentation about this new functionality in amongst the other Amazon Simple Storage Service docs.

I’ll be interested to see how long it takes for someone to build a Time Machine-style backup service using this new core functionality; retaining all revisions of all files stored within that volume. People are going to have to be a little careful about how much they store with this new model, because I imagine it will be very easy to start adding up a lot of space when storing duplicates of objects over time. It seems as if AWS stores full copies of objects (not partial differences between versions), so storage space should be easier to calculate/account for at least.

Versioning is enabled on a per-bucket basis, and you may also optionally require multi-factor authentication with a hardware device to delete versioned objects. The new functionality introduces a versionid concept for each object within a versioning-enabled bucket which keeps track of specific versions of an object, while a normal GET request will get the most recent version available.

It’s great to see Amazon continue innovating and listening to their customers. They are definitely not the only players in the cloud storage/computing game, but they seem to be doing a pretty good job at staying ahead of the curve.

WordCamp Indonesia, 2010

Jan 31 2010
23

WordCampID – January 30, 2010WordCamp Indonesia. The event was very well organized, with a core team (the same group from last year) involved in putting together all the logistics, handling media, organizing speakers etc. They handled things very well, despite a few problems which were out of their control (like bad name-tag printing and their stickers/WordPress buttons not making it in the mail!) and the day seemed to be a success for everyone.

Below are the slides and notes from my presentation, which covered the current state of WordPress, what’s coming up in the next release and some of the related projects. You can also get the slides on SlideShare. Click the link below the slides to expand my full outline/notes.
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Web Service Authentication APIs

Jan 23 2010
5

For a project I’m working on, I’ve been looking at a lot of web service authentication/verification APIs lately. I thought folks might be interested in the results. Here are the methods available for a variety of web services/applications online, with links to their appropriate docs:

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A Thank You to our “Sponsors”

Jan 21 2010
1

This is a post to say thank you to all the people who made our trip to Chile special, fun or interesting in any way. I may have forgotten someone, but here’s a list of specific people who we met/knew/hung out with while we were there and how they helped make our trip better (in no particular order):
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Valparaiso Day Tour

Jan 21 2010
0

Even though we’d already been there (twice, actually), Robin really wanted to go to Valparaiso again. The opportunity popped up when Pastor let us know that he was taking a day-tour from Santiago to Valparaiso on our last weekend in Chile.

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Santiago Metro Marathon

Jan 21 2010
0

This past Sunday (the 17th), there was another election being held. Because of that, most things are shut, so we needed something to do for the day. For some reason, I had the hair-brained idea that we should travel the Metro and go to the end of each line, take a look around, then keep going, until we had visited the end station on every line in Santiago. Somehow, I convinced Robin to come along, and so we set off from Manuel Montt (our nearest station) to visit the Metro-limits!

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The Final Countdown

Jan 19 2010
2

It’s been a long trip here, but the time has actually gone by really quickly. Here are the details of the last week-and-a-bit in Santiago:

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A Day in the Andes

Jan 14 2010
4

As one of the bonus services offered through Robin’s language school, students are able to take part in weekly activities, offered through a guy by the name of Pastor. He has a degree in ecotourism, and seems to be really into outdoor activities, which makes him a great guide. Oh, and “pastor” in Spanish translates to “shepard”, so it’s in his name to herd people around the place ;)

On this Sunday, we had arranged to go along on a trek in the Andes. I don’t know exactly what we (Robin and I) were thinking, but we were pretty unprepared for the trip, turning up without a backpack (to carry our food/water), not much water and no extra sun-screen. We got it sorted out though, and had an amazing day; here are the details.

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