Archive for November 25th, 2007

I’ve been giving a fair amount of attention to Google’s OpenSocial platform over the past week. Here are some initial thoughts

• You can build OpenSocial apps as Google Gadgets or on your own.
• Gadgets can be easily added to iGoogle and Orkut. Not sure how other sites will handle these.
• Orkut, Ning, and Plaxo are the only sites which have exposed any OpenSocial data.
• Authentication can be done via authSubRequest where you receive a token back, or you can collect uname/pw and auth the user yourself server side.
• User data security is an issue: http://hyper.to/blog/link/opensocial-insecurity-no-user-to-app-authentication/
• Running issues list: http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-api/web/opensocial-issues-list

You have to apply to a host before anyone let’s you participate. Orkut let me in, but Plaxo didn’t let me participate. They suggested I build my app first, then get back to them. I haven’t tried Ning.

The OpenSocial libraries and data are very buggy right now. Google is quick to remind us we’re part of a closed beta. I’ve also read reports of people in different parts of the world having different experience with uptime. For me, I was able to add my test Gadget to Orkut’s sandbox environment and have it work, but it wouldn’t work as an iGoogle gadget.

Here’s a list of a few OpenSocial links for further reading:

• OS Issues List
• Social Design Best Practices
• Publishing your gadget
• OpenSocialAppList.com
• OpenSocialStuff.com – Developer Applications

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I’ve been playing with VS2008 over the holiday weekend and have to say I love it. The more I dig into Linq, the more I think of all the possibilities it opens up both for rapid extensibility and ease of development. Below’s a quick example…

var userNames = from user in users
select user.name, user.email
where user.name.startsWith(“Bill”);

The compiler isn’t a sloppy JavaScript interpreter with the var label, it will discern that it’ll cast to 1..n number of class user and userNames is actually cast as such, and not left in type variant. After that it looks a lot like SQL script, but there’s more to it, but will let you find that out for yourselves. You can even use Excepts and Unions and Intersections – dealing with collections and dictionaries has simply never been easier (or faster).

Given the tight timetables we so often wind up having to face, having this new tool in the arsenal is going to help tighten up turn around times even moreso than before.

Importing projects from prior versions of VS happen very smoothly (it does prompt you to upgrade the project to the latest version – and as with the last time around, once the project has been updated you won’t be able to go back to open it again with the last version). However one way around that is to make a copy of the project file first, then you can use that file to open the solution with the older Studio version once the original has been taken over by 2008. The actual project files themselves aren’t changed at all with just the update, and both my personal projects as well as work projects were all able to build under 2008 without a single line change (woot).

Will post more thoughts as I get along further into it all.

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Megan Meier (above) was an 8th grade volleyball player who loved what any typical teenage girl loves – dogs, music, being outdoors, and of course, boys. She had a troubled past, including treatment for depression and ADD, and severe self-esteem issues. But she had been improving, losing weight and regaining her self-confidence after ending a lightswitch friendship with another girl. Megan’s mother, Tina, attributed the positive changes to her new MySpace friend, Josh – a boy who thought Megan was pretty.

Name them, and let them face their shame. Demand justice for Megan Meier.

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