Basho Releases Riak 1.2
August 8, 2012
Basho proclaims, “Riak 1.2 Is Official!” Riak is the powerful open source, distributed database behind many scalable, data-intensive Web, mobile, and e-commerce applications. The software’s newest version has creator Basho celebrating. There are several new features; the write up specifies:
“*More efficiently add multiple Riak nodes to your cluster
*Stage and review, then commit or abort cluster changes for easier operations; plus smoother handling of rolling upgrades
*Better visibility into active handoffs
*Repair Riak KV and Search partitions by attaching to the Riak Console and using a one-line command to recover from data corruption/loss
*More performant stats for Riak; the addition of stats to Riak Search
*2i and Search usage thru the Protocol Buffers API
*Official Support for Riak on FreeBSD
*In Riak Enterprise: SSL encryption, better balancing and more granular control of replication across multiple data centers, NAT support”
The write up details Riak’s latest innovations in areas like cluster management, partition rebuilding, and LevelDB performance improvements. I highly recommend checking out the article for more information.
Basho ends their post with a thank-you to their open source community, and, naturally, a petition for feedback on the newest version of Riak. The company was founded in 2008, and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Customers, from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, use Riak to implement global session stores and to manage large amounts of structured and unstructured data.
Cynthia Murrell, August 08, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Crushing Teen Communication. Oh, Dear!
July 30, 2012
Mashable’s headline may be a little sensationalistic, or not, depending on whether you consider email to be social media. The site exclaims, “Without Social Media, 18% of Teens Would Stop Communicating.” (The infographic that goes with the piece is here.) The write up cites a recent survey from marketing company AWeber which asked American high school and college students about their communication habits. Writer Emily Price tells us:
“According to the survey, 90% of teens are on [Facebook], and an astounding 93% of teenagers use mobile phones – the same amount that use email. 74% of teens are YouTube users, and 47% use Skype to keep up with others.
“Facebook and Email own almost equal parts of teens’ hearts. With teenagers going for both when they wake up in the morning, while they’re in class, and even while they’re on vacation.”
The study went on to ask respondents what they would do if the unthinkable occurred: cell phones, and the technology to recreate them, have disappeared from the Earth. In that event, only six percent would consider using a landline or the postal service to keep in touch. Eighteen percent vowed the hardship would push them into a virtual oubliette, from which they would never communicate again.
Consider this, though. As my beloved publisher so delicately asks, is it a loss or is it a gain when eighteen percent of teens no longer share their thoughts with the world?
Cynthia Murrell, July 30, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Insight Into the Future of Search
July 30, 2012
As technology progresses, we are becoming more and more reliant on our mobile devices, really the apps on those devices, to get the job done. Nir Eyal of the Nir & Far behavior engineering blog recently published an article that breaks down the way modern apps are being developed, called “Stop Building Apps and Start Building Behaviors.”
According to the article, app developers are currently using interaction design and psychology to create products that will work with your brain in mind. There are three qualities that modern apps need in order to achieve this: be a feature, build it easier, and make it a habit.
When explaining the importance of building a simple yet engaging app, Eyal looks into the future:
“The next wave in mobile computing will move beyond the phone. Several companies are anticipating a world where users wear devices to make difficult behaviors much easier.LumoBack, a company now money on Kickstarter, has built a new way to improve users’ posture. [Disclosure: LumoBack co-founder Charles Wang is a close friend.] A device, worn like a belt around the waste, sends data to an avatar named Lumo on the user’s phone. When he or she slouches, so does Lumo, providing immediate, actionable feedback.”
So, the future of app development really has very little to do with designing overly ornate apps that meet your every need, but rather focusing on simplicity and elegance.
Jasmine Ashton, July 30, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Mobile Devices are Great but at Least Dust the Desktop
July 29, 2012
Today’s internet savvy individuals are texting, tweeting and Facebooking from the driveway to the grocery store. Mobile electronics are winning the popularity contest according to Hostway’s article,“Tablets Account for 4 in 10 Mobile e-Commerce Searches.” Are the people starting to forget there was internet before the mobile device?
If what the British Retail Consortium (BRC), says is true, many a neglected desktop and laptop sit being blanketed in dust. The BRC released a study that reflected the use of mobile electronics, like tablets and smartphones was increasing in the home. Mobile devices are even being used while watching television.
The factoids from the new research show:
“Some 40 per cent of online shopping searches that take place on a mobile device are carried out using a tablet. Interestingly, the sector which is experiencing the biggest increase in mobile e-commerce searches is food and drink, which is up by 163 per cent year-on-year. Smart consumers are increasingly using new devices to price check before purchasing their groceries.”
Apparently, there is now an ‘M’ (mobile) generation, as today’s youth often texts away while walking, driving, watching a movie or eating. Phones and tablets are nice, but seriously… staring at those tiny buttons most the day cannot be good for the eyes.
Mobile devices are great, but at least dust off the desktop every now and then. Our beloved leader, the addled goose, is too old to type on an iPad.
Jennifer Shockley, July 29, 2012
Android Fragmentation Pinching Some Developer Toes
July 18, 2012
Here in Harrod’s Creek, we absofreakinglutely know that there is no Android fragmentation. We remember what Google says. But some folks are not heeding the message it seems.
Google is trying to tip toe between their hardware developers and their partners to knock the edge out of fragmentation issues with Android. Slashdot’s “Google Trying New Strategy to Fix Fragmentation” talks about the impressive new features Android is offering while they sidestep the fragmentation problems.
Despite Androids release of Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean, the majority of users are still using Gingerbread. Google admits that according to their data only around 7% of Android users are utilizing the current version. The sad irony is that makes the latest OS innovations unavailable to the other 93% and developers are forced to test apps across multiple devices and versions.
How is Google appeasing the developers? Google is giving free tablets and phones to developers at the event, and:
“Google’s Hugo Barra announced a Platform Developer Kit during the opening keynote at I/O this week and the news was greeted with applause. The PDK will provide Android phone makers with a preview version of upcoming Android releases, making it easier for them to get the latest software in their new phones. But is the PDK enough to secure for developers the single user experience for big numbers of Android users that developers crave?”
The fragmentation continues to contribute to the cost of making apps and Google risks chasing its developers away. Google is walking on eggshells and ignoring frag issues with their hardware partners and developers who want to customize devices. If ignored? Maybe no one cares.
Jennifer Shockley, July 18, 2012
SEO Articles Have Confused the Search Goose
July 17, 2012
SEO and search go together like a goose and water, but two recent articles had this goose swimming in an oil spill. Let me tell you, getting oil outta feathers is a task.
Have some degreaser nearby if you are taking a swim through Search Engine Journal’s recent article, “Local SEO with Google+.” During the initial paragraph, one rejoices at the possibility of SEO enlightenment for the Google changes. However, disappointment soon follows as repetitive statements lead to the same conclusion, bogging this goose in techie sludge.
That conclusion was:
“These modifications have had a few, subtle impacts on Local SEO. As the integrations between Google+ Pages and Google+ Local pages begin to roll out, we’ll undoubtedly see more changes in terms of the best practices small businesses need to undertake in order to maximize their local SEO.”
Search Engine Watch’s article “The New Mobile SEO Strategy” leads geese to believe Google came out and supported a mobile strategy with specific SEO friendly recommendations, fee free. The article promises three simple steps to serve mobile content to users with recommendations.
The article explains:
“Google supports three ways of serving mobile specific content to users and have provided distinct recommendations for each. Using the starting point of a mobile user requesting a desktop URL, here are some details for the three options listed above.”
Both these reads start out simple, but end up as clumsy as a goose stuck swimming in oil. If you understand these articles, you are smarter than the geese who work at Beyond Search. All I could do was honk at the puddle…
Jennifer Shockley, July 17, 2012
Android Director on Voice Search Jelly Bean and More
July 15, 2012
Suddenly Google’s Voice Search is better than Siri, and now more natural. That’s one of several things Hugo Barra, product management director for Android, told Wired in a recent interview, as reported in “Android Director: ‘We Have the Most Accurate, Conversational, Synthesized Voice in the World.'” The interview is a couple of pages, but worth the read for anyone interested in Google and/or the future of mobile computing.
The first question pertains to Google Now for mobile devices, an effort to streamline search results. Where a query has just one or a few very specific answers, the app presents those results on a simplified, easily accessible “information card.” Google Now can also be formatted to serve up certain information with one swipe, good for checking the weather before heading off to work, for example.
The interview then moves on to Voice Search. Notably, the tool does not make jokes; the team feels this makes their voice more impartial, and has no plans to program in a sense of humor. The voice is derived from that of a real woman, carefully chosen from a wealth of applicants to be the voice of Google. The results, according to interviewer Nathan Olivarez-Giles, does sound more like a natural voice than the competition.
Next, Olivarez-Giles turns to Jelly Bean and the Nexus 7. This device looks very different from existing Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich tablets. Barra states that much of what the team did with that OS represents their ideas of where the mobile industry should head. He details two of these features:
“One is the home screen experience. We did this with Android with the first generation of widgets — this notion of having an application space of your own where stuff appears and actions can be invoked, without having to dive into an application. People want that, people need that.
“The second thing is task switching. There are all these awesome, specialized applications that exist today. I think there’s a specialization trend, by the way, in mobile. You use a lot more applications a lot more often, often for very simple tasks, so put those in the notification shade. Something as simple as calling back should not be three clicks away. It should be one click away. Bringing the application action value to the surface, when it’s needed, where it’s needed.”
Barra likes that the Nexus 7 is powerful yet small enough to fit in a small purse or a pocket; that is certainly a selling point for me. Still, Nexus 10 may be on the way.
Those are the tidbits from the interview that stood out for me. Check it out for more Googley information.
Cynthia Murrell, July 15, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Google and Android Focus on Consumer Electronics
July 13, 2012
Reporter Galen Gruman suspects the youngsters at Google just want to be entertained. That’s one speculation he puts forth in InfoWorld’s “After I/O: Google Tries to be Sony, Hobbles Android’s Business Case.” The renaming of Android Marketplace to Google Play should have been our first clue that the company is veering toward the fun stuff, he says.
The article notes that, back in the day, Sony was a consumer-electronics powerhouse; the Walkman cassette player was as significant in its time as the iPod, iPhone, and iPad have been over the past few years. (Will I seem like a dinosaur if I admit I used to own one?) That pioneering company is the Sony of Gruman’s title, the example Google now seems to be reaching for.
Gruman provides several examples of both Google’s current consumer-electronics focus and ways in which the company is neglecting business applications; see the article for his logic and evidence. Search functionality, I suspect, falls into this apparently diminishing category. The article observes:
“That entertainment focus may be the right move for Google — there’s a lot of money in the space, and Apple is proving hard to beat in the business market even as Android does well in the consumer smartphone market. Furthermore, Google’s business is based on advertising, and having a play-oriented platform that collects data about where people spend their time and discretionary dollars — made possible in the new Google Now service in Android 4.1 ‘Jelly Bean’ — could reap Google billions as it sells individuals’ behavior profiles to consumer goods and services companies.”
Gruman speculates that Apple will move in to fill the business gap Android seems to be leaving. He also supposes that, as the median age of Google employees goes up, the company may return to a more business-oriented space. Perhaps.
Cynthia Murrell, July 13, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
JackBe Quick Stratagem
July 8, 2012
Some professionals make spur of the moment decisions so easily it appears an invisible adviser is whispering solutions. Others may struggle with indecision when put on the spot both in and out of business. Those awkward moments of confusion may be getting easier with some new tools, according to Fast Company’s article, “2 Tools To Help You Make Smarter, Faster Decisions On The Fly.”
Now if you are caught off guard by a sudden concern, fear not… JackBe will swiftly do comparisons and find a solution. To put it simply:
“JackBe allows your people to assemble a set of iPhone-like apps that mash together information from disparate sources in real-time. Think of a highly customized mobile Bloomberg terminal that might show on one screen sales figures pulled from SAP, customer complaints on Twitter, and shipment statuses from UPS. By assembling all of these into one screen, you can more easily and quickly spot trouble and opportunity.”
The second tool highlighted in the article seemed more like a ploy to draw attention to the author’s book. Stratagem does not respond quickly but instead offers a time consuming process. The user asks a question, to which the app responds with 4 more questions. Depending on user response, the app than calculates 10 strategic patterns to apply to your original question.
Overall JackBe provides a useful tool that could actually be beneficial in a crunch. The Stratagem is a good concept, but the process is lengthy and could prove to be a time consumer.
Jennifer Shockley, July 8, 2012
Microsoft and Mobile Device Optimization
July 2, 2012
The word of today is optimize, and Microsoft is once again scoring at the top of the technology class. The article, ‘Microsearch Announces Mobile Device Optimization Features for its Hosted Search and Retrieval Services’ at Scotnetwork.com explains how Microsoft’s new mobile device optimization can benefit online publishers of electronic documents that want to take their classes from home, so to speak.
Microsoft just created a cover all cheat sheet to pass any test:
“As most mobile device users know, some mobile devices simply will not accept long documents when the device is in wireless mode. And when they do, download times can feel long for the user, and bandwidth use can be expensive. Our new Publishers Services are totally optimized for mobile device users, saving time and money.”
“Our new document search & retrieval optimizations are compatible with all contemporary wireless devices, as well as wired computers. Users can set their own device download preferences on the go.”
Even taking notes is easier. Microsoft offers a sticky note feature which allows researchers to add page content on their screen that will remain when they return to the pages. Locating and viewing information in long documents will now be faster, easier and cheaper for mobile device users. Owners of online content will be able to score higher by appealing to wireless scholars using laptops, tablets and other mobile devices. Microsoft’s mobile device optimization just won the title of class Valedictorian.
Jennifer Shockley, July 2, 2012
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