sentient beings

Brightkite is a rather new social networking website that adds a different element to the mix: geo-based networking. The idea is rather simple: you check into places and other people on Brightkite will be able to see your position and maybe network with you if you're in the same place or near them.

I've been using Brightkite for about a month now. At first, I was rather pleased with the idea of being able to tell everyone where I am. Especially since Brightkite can send your updates to Twitter. I meticulously started entering all the places I frequent and gave them names.

In reality, after a month, I hardly use Brightkite. There is no local support and I think I'm the only one in the Netherlands to have a Brightkite account. This means that checking into places is rather cumbersome. I have to send an e-mail from my mobile (no PDA at the moment) to brightkite. And this is where it gets annoying. When you send an e-mail, brightkite sends you a new e-mail asking you to confirm that you want to check in. Only, that mail takes about 5 minutes to arrive. I'm not going to keep polling for five minutes just to check in on Brightkite. On the whole, I rarely have time to confirm my check-in, so I just don't check in at all, anymore.

It's a shame because it could have been nice.

I've been trying to perform Basic HTTP Authentication using Flex/Air yesterday and couldn't figure out what was wrong - until I RTFM'd and found out that .encode only encodes and returns void. One needs to .flush() to get the encoded data back.

 
private function loadSomething():void
{
	var strUserName:String = 'foo';
	var strPassword:String = 'bar';
 
	var myLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
	var myRequest:URLRequest = new URLRequest();
	var authEncoder:Base64Encoder = new Base64Encoder();
 
	var authHeader:URLRequestHeader = new URLRequestHeader();
	authHeader.name = 'Authorization';
	authEncoder.encode(strUserName + ':' + strPassword);
	authHeader.value = 'Basic ' + authEncoder.flush();
 
	myRequest.requestHeaders.push (authHeader);
	myRequest.url = "http://yourown.domain/your/url";
	myRequest.method = URLRequestMethod.GET;
 
	myLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, urlLoaded);
	myLoader.load(myRequest);	
 
}
 
function urlLoaded(e:Event) {}
 

Aral Balkan wrote this little rant on del.icio.us's "forgot password" procedure.

I always use strong passwords. A mix of symbols, numbers and letters ensure the safety of my account. I even have a human algorythm to create different passwords for each website. Unfortunately, for the algorythm to work, the password always requires symbols, numbers and letters.

Cue website that enforce password constraints. I don't know why websites insist on enforcing rules on passwords. If your user wants an easy password, then it's up to him. You can always tell him how low-security passwords pose a threat to his privacy, but in the end he will not care. If you enforce constraints, he will probably only write down the password on a sticky piece of paper and stick it to his office monitor.

Even worse is the scenario that I encounter quite frequently as of lately. Upon registration, I enter my password which, for didactical purposes, is doogietitia+0, and I get an error message which says the following.

As it pops up in more than 1 website, I'm sure that somewhere there's a free password checker that everyone is using and haven't checked properly. Websites that I remember to have this problem:

• ben.nl, a T-Mobile brand
• iscards.nl, a VISA card issuer

ISCards support was extremely frustrating. "Yes sir, we have had a few more complaints about this, but we can't do anything about it. We have reported it but it's not likely that it will be fixed soon". For F's sake, you're a financial institution and you have my credit card statements available online!

Peter Elst just launched riajobs.org. Riajobs.org is a community-based jobboard. Amazingly enough, the site is free - even for companies that want to post jobs. There's of course the odd feature that requires a fee but even then, 20 percent of the monthly revenue will be donated to charity.

As I write this entry, jobs are being added to the site. The few jobs currently posted originate from all over the globe. Community support looks strong and will be a major success factor for riajobs.org.

The only thing this site needs is a little space for potential candidates and freelancers to leave an impression and the matchmaking site will be complete. And whaddayaknow? Peter already added that to the list of features to be added "in the near future".

Let's hope riajobs.org is not going to turn into another "enter ALL of your details including highschool friends and that female teacher you had a crush on and all the different types of pasta you've eaten in your life and all of the places you visited" setup, but, instead, a simple 1-minute setup. I've always felt that careersites asked way too much information. Just the basics and company and candidate will sort things out themselves, thank you very much.

I believe "niche" websites like this will become the ultimate future. A small company in the Netherlands has set-up a jobsite aimed solely at the creative industry and it's becoming increasingly popular as well.

Let's root for riajobs.org! From the community, for the community and, eventually, by the community.

Silverlight has very few to no features that do not exist in Flash or that cannot be created in Flash. Still, Silverlight fanboys insist on holding a peeing contest with Flash users.

Another painful example of this can be found at Tweakers.net which is a Dutch tech-site. The article reports on Dutch public television using Flash for online TV. A previous article on a Dutch Public Television using Silverlight already resulted in a Flash-Bash in which some people threw around "But Silverlight can do ... " statements, only to be countered by Flash-savvy people.

There are good and valid reasons for choosing Silverlight over Flash. For organisations that are deeply rooted in Microsoft development, with money invested in Visual Studio and .NET development, Silverlight is a logical choice. But please, stop making it all about features - neither Adobe nor Microsoft would be foolish enough to leave out obvious options and with Flash 10 on the way, possible existing gaps will be closed and the difference will be minimised.

Instead, both parties should be happy with the competition because it will probably mean a better effort from the developing companies.