Welcome to Version3 of The Web Blog of Daniel Brusilovsky. We are currently working on Version4 of the blog with Adam Fisher-Cox and Adam Debreczeni.
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If you’ve been following me on Twitter, or you are “friendly” with me on Facebook, you would know that a truly amazing event in my life is rapidly approaching. If you don’t know, here’s the big news: I will be traveling to China from June 3rd until the 14th with my high school, as part of a school music tour.
Technically, the trip is just ten days long, but my group (there are two of them) will be laying over in Hong Kong along the way, providing an extra few hours of excitement. This really is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I surely would like to savor every moment of the trip.
Obviously, while I’m on the road, my communication options will be somewhat restricted, but I’ll definitely work on sharing the experience and remaining open for contact.
To put it in simple words, this is going to be an awesome trip! Expect to see blog posts and photos on my Flickr photostream that detail the entire experience. Beijing, China – here I come!
Disclosure: The thoughts mentioned in this blog post regarding Qik are of my personal opinion and do not represent the business practices of Qik, Inc., or any of its employees or management, or those of its subsidiaries.
The Web Blog of Daniel Brusilovsky will be under construction. Daniel and Adam Fisher-Cox, will be working hard this new project.
Lots of cool changes to come. Stay tuned by following me and Adam on Twitter. Graphics made by Keaton Brant.
Every year, with this year being the fourth in succession, there is Where 2.0 Conference by O’Reily. And every weekend after the conference, there is WhereCamp. Here is an excerpt from O’Reily’s website that describes the Where 2.0 Conference:
Now in its fourth year, the Where 2.0 Conference is where the grassroots and leading edge developers building location aware technology intersect with the businesses and entrepreneurs seeking out location apps, platforms, and hardware to gain a competitive edge. In the O’Reilly conference tradition, Where 2.0 presents leading trends rather than chasing them.
At Where 2.0, you’ll find source mapping tools, open standards for data and location web services, and sensors for obtaining location data. We’ll learn how the established geo industry is reacting to the first businesses making money from their grassroots geospatial projects. There’s no better place to meet the people behind the mash-ups, the people behind the platforms, and the people looking ahead to the future of geospatial. Join us at Where 2.0 to debate and discuss what’s viable now, and what’s lurking just below the radar
.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it to Where 2.0 Conference, but able to make it to WhereCamp! Originally, I was supposed to head to TiECon in Santa Clara, but didn’t have a ride to there, so I convinced my parents to let me go to the GooglePlex in Mountain View, CA, where WhereCamp 2008 was held. We spent night atthe GooglePlex, where they were handing out tents for those who didn’t have money to spend on lodging. Who knew that I’d be sleeping under the stars on the premises of my favorite search company?
I got there at around 8:00 PM, and met up with two people, Robert Scoble and Rex Pechler.
At around 10:00, I started talking to the Poly9 folks. I met the CEO and Chief Architect. Then, without me even knowing, a much younger man (but still older than me) comes and sits next to me and Poly9 folks. We started talking about Press and Media Badges, when the CEO of Poly9 asked who he was. He had a Google badge on, so we though he was a Google Employee. The Poly9 CEO (Greg) quickly googled his name, and his blog, On the iPhone, comes up. We all looked at each other, and said in awe, that he was the first to unlock (to allow a phone to operate on a network that’s not the phone’s distributing carrier) the iPhone! George Hotz was sitting next to me and chatting with me for about 20 minutes before we realized who he was. Greg quickly asked him to sit down to talk, George sat down, and we ended up talking for about 8 hours, from 10:30 at night until about 6:30 in the morning. This had to be one of the best nights of my life. We were all asking questions, and of course, Qikking. Here is Rex’s and my stream:
This was such an amazing night. For more Qik Videos, please either go to my channel, or Rex’s. To conclude, here’s a photo with George and myself:
Although I haven’t released too many blog posts in recent weeks, there sure is lots of cool stuff going on. One of the matters that I’ve been working on is a talk that I will be joining at a conference called Teens Plugged In: Second Annual Teens in Tech Conference. Here is an overview of the event:
Come join us in this teen-driven event, where we invite teens to share their insights into their “always connected” way of life. Teens are using technology to communicate like no generation before them – mobile text messaging, IM, MySpace pages, video cell phones and online video games, etc. Technology permeates their lives and their interests drive innovation in a significant way.
At the same time, in addition to spending money on technology, teens are emerging as innovators in the industry. These young entrepreneurs are changing our world-using fresh tech-savvy ideas to create new businesses and garnering the attention of investors in the process.
How are teens impacting the way technology is developed? How are these technologies scaling into businesses? And what about the teens themselves- are they creating companies? These are just some of the questions that will be addressed during this exceptional program.
This program is an exceptional opportunity to learn first hand from the teens themselves how they are driving the tech industry and what new ideas they’re working on to move the industry forward.
As of now, the agenda calls for me to be speaking during the “Teen Developer Panel” at 3:00 – 3:30 PM. Rishabh “Shooby” Kumar (@shooby on Twitter) will also be on the panel, along with two teen speakers. (Shooby and I both work at Qik.)
Here’s all of the information regarding the event:
It would be absolutely awesome if you could make it to the conference, but if you can’t, we are going to try to stream the event live on UStream.TV. Stay tuned for details.
Update:
We will be streaming the conference over on Ustream. Below is the stream. I don’t know when we are going to start, but keep your eyes out!
After writing about the new MacHeist Bundle, Jonathan Davies left a very interesting comment:
I wasn’t to impressed with the bundle, I already have most of the apps with the last Mac Heist so I don’t have much of a need to get the retail package – but I am looking forward to the next MH.
What apps would you like to see, Daniel, in the next MH?
I did offer a response in a comment, but I’d like to elaborate on the subject much more.
Wouldn’t everyone like to see $3,000 USD Apps bundled together for $49 USD? C’mon now, who wouldn’t? Adobe CS3 being part of MacHeist Bundle is an amazing selling point. You combine applications and tools like these, and not only does this help MacHeist, but it of course helps Adobe.
MacUpdate is holding its own bundle, but of course, MacHeist is cheaper.
Here are some other apps I would like to see in the next MacHeist Bundle:
This is just a brief list, but as you can see, MacHeist Bundle can definitely do some good with these applications. At this point, we can only wait and see what the MacHeist Team comes up with next.
What do you think should be in the next bundle? Let us know in a comment below.
This is a guest post by Spencer C. You can find more about Spencer on
his own blog, or you can
follow him on Twitter.
An Online Social Network, in my opinion, is a hosted service that connects individuals or groups of people. There are many pros and cons to the many social networks out there. Below are my opinions and reviews of various types of social networking platforms.
Microblogging-based social networks provide profiles that are designed to be updated very frequently, but without huge detail. One of the ones I use most is Twitter, which is probably the largest microblogging social network. The service lets you update through several different interfaces, including their web site, SMS, one of several instant messaging networks (although AIM is
regrettably not supported), or desktop applications like Twhirl and Snitter. You can keep up with family and friends with a click of a button. There are other “copycat” networks like this, with two examples being Pownce and Jaiku, but they
simply aren’t as popular as Twitter. (Editor’s note: the Editor (and the writer) is a huge Twitterholic – don’t end up with the addiction that he picked up thanks to Twitter!)
This category is, by far and wide, the most popular, including sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Generally, one would put together a profile using the service’s tools, adding various levels of interactivity, and friends look at what other friends post to their friends profiles as well as their own. Typically, the main goals of these services are to help you create new friends, find old friends, and to express yourself online. Let’s take MySpace as an example. They have a search feature for finding old friends and options to find people with interests that are similar to yours. Extras from MySpace include a blogging feature and an instant messaging network.
There is much controversy over MySpace (although there’s much less in respect to other networks), mostly over people giving out too much information, like address, phone numbers, and other personal data. This data may be picked up by sex offenders, who pose a significant risk to users of social networks. If you think that there’s no danger involved with MySpace, and that all of the Dateline NBC stories are fakes and rarely happen. This is NOT so. In July 2007, the company found and deleted 29000 profiles belonging to registered sex offenders! Around 30 thousand profiles were sex offenders! Facebook is much safer in this regard, but there will always be a problem with safety in profile based systems.
With networks like Last.fm, the connections lay around the media. People sign up for these services,
provide the service with data, like favorite movies or songs, and the network in turn finds people and groups
with matching interests. These sites help you find both new media (i.e.. new
songs and videos), and meet the people who produce them.
These social networks are basically profile based systems that are made for a specific group of people. An example of this is MySpace Music.
They are based on profiles, but also include functionality like a music player
where you can buy an artist’s songs.
(Editor’s note: Sites like Ning allow
you to build your own social networks that focus on a specific niche and provide
services and resources relevant to that niche.)
There are, of course, many networks that I didn’t even mention, since the ones listed above are definitely the most notable. You can check out Wikipedia’s extensive community published list of social networking sites to find one that suits you.
Do you have your own opinions about social networking? Leave a comment and let your voice be heard!
The third iteration of the MacHeist Bundle is here, and even better than ever! In this bundle, you get twelve great apps at a deeply discounted price:
You can get all of these great apps for just $49 USD! If you would like to support Apple Universe and Daniel’s Blog, use our affiliate link.
On April 5th, 2007, Apple Universe was born. It was an idea that came to my head mainly because of Leo Laporte and his network of podcasts, TWiT, and also because of Douglas Bell. Douglas has a podcast called PreviewCast, which he recorded and edited an episode of live at my high school. I saw the work behind the scenes of podcasting, and wanted to start.
Now, one year later, Apple Universe is going strong. One hundred fifteen episodes have been released, and many more will be coming. I wanted to commemorate the first anniversary of Apple Universe. I also want to thank everyone who has ever helped Apple Universe. Your help is very appreciated. To all my listeners, thank you for listening, and helping make this such a good podcast. Thank you Robert Scoble who took me from a nobody, a random high school student, into a somebody, almost a celebrity of my demographic.
Thank you,
Daniel Brusilovsky
On March 25th, 2007, Daniel’s Blog was created on WordPress.com. Much like the birth of my podcast, Apple Universe, this was meant to be at first an experiment. Robert Scoble inspired me to start blogging, and has since inspired me to publish new media, and go out and do the unexpected. Robert Scoble is not only an inspirational person in my life; he’s someone I really look up to. His work is extraordinary. Personally I don’t care that people hate his constant Twitter updates, but I like them.
Let’s fast-forward back to the present, about one year later. Danielbru.com thrives upon its own domain and hosting (free from the somewhat tight shackles of WordPress.com). Like in the case of Apple Universe, I’d to thank Robert Scoble so much for inspiring me to start blogging. If it wasn’t for Robert, you wouldn’t have known about me. Thank you to everyone who has ever read articles on or helped produce this blog.
Thank you everyone,
Daniel Brusilovsky
Daniel Brusilovsky 