Software, Digital Content, Geopolitics, Economics & More from of a Libertarian Serial Expat and Entrepreneur
This API status meta dashboard is great, as it scratches an itch I’ve had for almost a decade. I meant to suggest to the Zapier folks that they develop exactly that, but didn’t end up sharing that thought, and here they are! Brilliant team, excellent product. Now they need to customize the datatable and RSS feed [...]
I have been consuming newsfeeds since Pointcast (1996) and CDF/IE 4.0 (1998) so obviously once RSS gained momentum about a decade ago, I got hooked. It remains my main way to keep on top of both fresh news and background material. In recent years I tried several times setting up Twitter (by itself and via [...]
In our dealings with various SaaS vendors, it is interesting to see cultural differences translating into behavioral patterns. You can see from the outside which functions have heft, which ones are afterthoughts, and where are the missing integration points. A behavior that I see pretty often is a good level of quality in customer support, [...]
In: web apps
28 Jan 2009Gmail + Gears if finally happening. The pieces are really starting to be put together by Google here. Good move.
After Zoho, Google. Now we’re talking: System Status Dashboard, Quota Details Page, and a Billing Sneak Preview. These quotas and billings make me think Google must have hired someone who used to work in the mainframe business at IBM. There’s a pretty decent roadmap and feature release log too. Someone knows what they’re doing in [...]
In: web apps
11 Nov 2008Kudos to Zoho for introducing a detailed dashboard monitoring the health of their online applications. I’m very pleased to see more and more web app vendors delivering on transparency I advocated as early as 2001 for online apps and services. At Watershed we have our own mini health portal with tabs for our internal and [...]
In: web apps
10 Nov 2008Jon Udell just experienced some of the practical limitations getting in the way of sharing and representing structured data easily that I’ve been running into myself. To produce an entry about Circuit City’s store closures, I had to spend a lot of time massaging the source data (coming from a PDF) in Excel so that [...]
In: web apps
26 Sep 2008I’ve looked at online databases and spreadsheets rather extensively a couple of months ago, and DabbleDB had hands down the most powerful yet usable user interface of the bunch, significantly ahead of what Zoho or Google (among others) have to offer. Too bad DabbleDB is right now heavily focused on private use. Its dynamic features [...]
In: web apps
20 Apr 2008Hilarious email from HP today: “On Thursday, April 17th, HP suspended operation of the HP Upline Service. We fully anticipate that suspension of the Upline Service will be temporary and short in duration, and will notify you when the Upline Service is operational again. Please accept our sincere apology for this unanticipated interruption of your [...]
In: web apps
26 Mar 2008In August 2005 I wrote The Microsoft Office I Really Want. When I tried to engage Robert Scoble at the time on the topic, he showed he relied too much on speed reading to properly address my points and/or was quickly out of his depth (I’m betting on a combination of both factors). I don’t [...]
I'm CEO of an online trade publishing firm in the marketing and defense verticals. We try to make news and data digestible and useful in an environment that is more noisy each day. This personal blog mixes my thoughts and interests on politics, business, software, and more, based on my business and personal experiences. Over the years I have posted items that turned out spectacularly wrong, and a few posts that stood the test of times better. Personal views only.