J-dee.com

AmpliFeeder Preview

Mark Krynksy over at lifestreamblog.com has written a fantastic preview of my new open source lifestreaming platform: AmpliFeeder  that pretty much sums the project up entirely. The plan is to get the self hosted version to release a quickly as possible with the other versions ( including the hosted version ) rolling out towards the summer.

Mark provided me with some invaluable feedback that has pushed the release back a little, but the app will be so much better for it. From a technical point of view, the initial release is 90% jQuery and only 10% ASP.NET so knocking out alternate platform versions will be a breeze. I’ll keep this site updated with developments as they break but if you want to contact me instantly I’m always on Twitter @jonpauldavies. Here are a few more exclusive screen shots of what is to come.

Twollo – Long Tail Twitter Search

Twollo.com is the new Twitter application knocked together in super quick time by my mate Paul Kinlan, and even though it’s written with Google App Engine ( blech! ) it’s a cracking little solution.

A simple twist on the Twitter search, it auto follows people that match your search terms and is remarkably good at finding cool people. It works best with targeted search terms, searching for ‘Internet’ is asking for trouble! I searched for JQuery and it instantly found me 40 fellow JQuery fans all happy to chat and offer advice.

It’s way better than Mr Tweet, as that only serves up super high profile tweeters like Scoble et al. Twollo really digs out long-tail users that are better matched to your interests. A great service that is only going to improve and offers functionality that Twitter itself is sadly missing.

MicroBlog Update

• Those lovely people at Zendesk have sent me a Buddha Machine! Lovely! http://www.zendesk.com/ http://www.buddha-machine.com/
• Visual Studio 2008 SP1 released. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/products/cc533447.aspx
• AppDev Silverlight 2 training DVD is excellent http://www.appdev.com/prodfamily.asp?catalog%5Fname=AppDevCatalog&category%5Fname=XS2Product
• Layer Blending in WPF looks exceptionally powerful http://rakeshravuri.blogspot.com/2008/08/blending-modes-in-wpf-using.html

MicroBlog Update

• Hmm thinking about Nassi-Shneiderman diagrams as a way of visualising VXML documents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassi-Shneiderman_diagram
• Dynamic modules in Silverlight 2 via a similar process to my beloved System.Activator trick http://www.theadvents.com/?p=11