Google I/O Session: Secure Data Connector + FeedServer

Did the following presentation at Google I/O 2009. It shows you how to use Google Secure Data Connector and Google FeedServer to integration your relational data behind the firewall with Google Apps in the cloud, all with no coding on the server side. Yes, you can securely read and write your relational data behind the firewall from gadgets, AppEngine apps and Google Spreadsheets today, without poking a hole in your firewall!

If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft

Although an old post, it made a great Friday read for me: If Richard Feynman applied for a job at Microsoft or why is the manhole round?

Private Gadgets for Google Sites Launched!

Today we launched private gadgets for Google Sites. See the blog post on Google Enterprise Blog.

Public and private gadgets and Start Page template

Public and private gadget directory

Right now this feature is only available to Google Apps Premier Edition customers. If you are an administrator and/or developer, you should check out the resources about administration and development tools. Now you can develop private gadgets for your domain and deploy them in Google Sites!

Yours truly also has more than a hand or two in this. Very happy to get this out of the door.

Google FeedServer Opened for Business

Google FeedServer opened to the world yesterday. It is based on Abedra, the reference implementation of Atom Publishing Protocol. This is only the beginning. We are very excited about its future.

How to Recognize a Good Programmer?

Some very good points here. I remember a while ago I read something about Amazon's internal research about what were good indicators of success for people who joined Amazon. The number one was passion.

I want my bugs!

My son can have his legos and I want these cool bugs.

GData JavaScript Client Library for Blogger

The GData JavaScript Client Library family is expanding. In addition to support for Google Calendar, we now support Blogger. Here is the official announcement. It has the same cross-domain capabilities and support for authenticated read and write operations. Now you can create your mashups between your data, Google Calendar and Blogger without any server-side component (you can host your pages at Google Code).

Adobe AIR: Interesting!

Just viewed a screencast of Aptana's support for Adobe AIR. Although I had heard of Adobe AIR before, I didn't pay too much attention. Now I get it and think it's a significant piece of technology.

I compare it with Mac OS/X Dashboard Widgets (widgets). Widgets are a great way of building small applications using standard web technologies such HTML, CSS and JavaScript on Mac OS/X (will this change when Safari for Windows ships?). When I learned what widgets really are, I applauded Apple for doing a great job of keeping it simple and the same as the rest of the web: a widget is just a standard HTML file that has more privileges when run as a widget. Now comes Adobe AIR. It uses the same approach but goes farther and is a cross-platform way of building sophisticated desktop applications using standard web technologies. Wonderful!

A few years ago when people were talking about RIAs (rich Internet applications), I was concerned that when people rushed to building RIAs using Flash, they would build a second web, because Flash components are not accessible using standard DOM. I haven't revisited this point in AIR to see whether they have improved or not. But I'd like to see they make a Flash/Flex/AIR application's components accessible through standard DOM APIs so that these components are part of the web as we know. One example to illustrate what I am talking about is, if you see a link in a Flash/Flex/AIR application running inside a browser, you should be able to right-click it and see the menu with choices such as "Open in a new window", "Open in a new tab", "Copy link location", etc. This should come automatically by integration with the DOM in the browser. This is what I mean by not building a second web that is walled off from the first.

In any case, Adobe AIR is worth keeping an eye on at least.