I signed up for SnapShots today, and really like it. Here is a screenshot:
What it does?
Without clicking a link, you can get a general impression of what the page behind looks like. Very cool, innit? Check this out ...
Latest Features:
Future of Web Apps (www.futureofwebapps.com), the UK's premier web industry event, is returning to London this October.
Highly recommend it, because:
+ The best speakers
You won't see this many leading companies and exciting individual
talent anywhere else in Europe at this price.
+ The best content
Rigorously briefed to talk about ideas and techniques you can take
away and learn from, each speaker will show you how to build and grow
better, stronger apps and sites.
Topics include:
- Community Building
- How to take your app offline
- Smarter client-side development
- Launching a web app
- Making your app social
- Putting users first
- The future of blogging
- Copy as interface
- And lots more!
+ The choice
With three separate tracks on the keynote, developer and entrepreneur stage,
you get to pick and choose what's relevant to you - and we'll make all
the presentations available to you after the show.
+ The facilities
ExCel is the UK's premier conference location - purpose built to offer
you the best all-round experience.
+ The networking potential
Want to be amongst the cream of the UK and Europe's web talent?
You just need to be here. We'll be using two amazing apps, Pathable + CrowdVine,
to help you get the most out of the event.
+ Last but not least, the partying!
Only by booking your FOWA ticket will you have access to the Future of Web Apps Party.
The Revision 3 crew will also be in London to record the very first
episode of diggnation from the UK.
Amazon S3 helps me to focus on innovating with data, rather than figuring out how to store it. Each file is stored and retrieved via a unique key which is stored on a DB table, together with its folder name (or associated object id) which fitted well in the document store structure. I am totally free from worrying about where the uploaded files are going to be stored and the safety on the hard-disc level.
Sample PHP code (Please contact me if you want a full copy):
if($s3->createFile($bucket, $key, $filePath, $contentType, $contentLength, $acl, $metadataArray, $md5))
{
if (!empty($focus->name))
{
$sql = "INSERT INTO .......";
$dbh->query($sql);
}
header("Location: index.php");
} else {
printError($s3->parsed_xml, $s3->responseCode);
}
Google's position was the most curious to me. At WidgetCon here in NYC last week, Christian Oestlien, Google business product manager, said the company is putting as much brainpower developing widgets as it is to search engines. Right now, Google has two plays with gadgets.
The first is iGoogle. That's the service that you sign up to to use so that you can create your own personalized homepage where you can track news, your calendar, those kinds of things. The way your personalize it is by using gadgets, which is Google's word for widgets. iGoogle was Google's fastest growing service last year and Google is encouraging more developers to write gadgets through a recently announced financing program that provides seed and grant money to successful gadgets.
The second big push Google is making is Gadget Ads, a service it's testing now. iGoogle is fundamentally different right now from Facebook. At Facebook, because the widgets are social, they're inherently viral. Through your news feed, you can see what widgets friends are adding. And also you can get invites, though they're limited to 10 a day. iGoogle is about the homepage, and about your personal experience. The gadgets can be public and you can share them via email, but that's not the same thing. So, the question I keep wondering is does Google need to become more Facebook-like with its widget/gadget approach. And how would they do that? Maybe through the work it's doing on with Carnegie Mellon to create a new social network? Does Google focus on being the place where developers create widgets simply for your personal use? That doesn't seem that strong a place to be.