Site we launched recently

I just figured I'd let everyone know what site I've been working on recently. It's a great idea and I'd love to see it be incredibly successful.

DeliverGood [1] matches Charites & Non-profits who need stuff with people who have stuff.

[1] - http://www.delivergood.org/

Dear Palm

Please release webOS in a manner that lets me put it on any device I own. Please open up the application specifications so that any application developed for webOS can be run on any OS that supports this specification.

If you do, I promise that I'll pay you double the cost of the Apple tablet for the first tablet that runs webOS and conforms to this specification.

You see, I want an open platform like the web, not a closed ecosystem like the app store. I want IDEs that run on any platform and operate on the cloud. I want all of my applications to blur the line between being "webapps" and being applet/mobile apps. And I want to develop these apps in the same languages that run in any browser.

Yours,

Lakin

[1] - http://developer.palm.com/
[2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebOS
[3] - http://www.htc.com/www/product/dream/overview.html
[4] - http://ares.palm.com/Ares/login.html

Facebook & OpenId

So, one can login to facebook using an OpenID http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=246 which at the surface level feels like a great step in the right direction. I feel that it's actually a step that furthers Facebook's Goal of wanting _everyone_ to have a facebook account. Now, I don't fault them for having this goal, but unless they do a bunch more things to open up their walled garden I don't want this to happen.

One large step that facebook could do towards opening up their systems is to allow their users to use http://www.facebook.com/lakin.wecker as an OpenID login for other sites. I really doubt Facebook will ever do this themselves as having this feature would be in direct competition with Facebook Connect. Althought, to be honest, I never understood why Facebook Connect _wasn't_ just an OpenID implementation?

As a developer - if you could support a single authentication system, Say google's Friend connect that includes OpenID, Twitter, Gmail - and it also includes all Facebook users - that would be an obvious choice. It would make Facebook Connect mostly obsolete except for those people who want to support _only_ facebook users.

My best guess is that Facebook is trying to do the opposite - that is, they want to convince developers to _only_ use facebook connect, and convince users to sign up for a facebook account via openid in order to use these facebook only services.

Awesome Graffito

Found on reddit's funny section today:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Saucy+illicit+sign+points+Constance+charms/1776726/story.html

That's brilliant.

Twitter Spam

The other day I replied to a twitter user that is following a few of my friends. I didn't even think twice about it, a few days later they replied. It was kinda neat.

I was thinking about what had happened and then it hit me! I had just sent an unsolicited message to someone on twitter - and they received it. Uh-oh, I wondered when the spam would start.

Well today, I got my first spam message in a reply form. From these guys:

Theconcreteboyz

I'm not making that a link above cause that would somewhat defeat the purpose. If you know how twitter works and want to check it out go for it. I wonder how long until I can't use twitter for all the spam.

Makerbots and Printcrime

http://blog.makerbot.com/2009/04/20/cory-doctorows-future-is-full-of-3d-printers/

Great read.

World of Goo - Linux

World of Goo is a GREAT GAME. And it's coming to linux now [1]. I highly recommend it. It's available for the Wii and for Windows/Mac/Linux. I've already bought it for my Wii so I'm not sure if I'll buy it for linux or not. I mean, I want to - and probably will, but I'm broke right now so it's unlikely to happen for a few months. In the mean time I highly recommend the game. Did I mention that already?

[1] - http://2dboy.com/2009/02/12/world-of-goo-linux-version-is-ready/