JumpSocial Blog

I suppose there could be a couple of people missing because they are out trick-or-treating.

I’m sure there will be lots of good food for thought on this one. I think this subject matter can benefit from lots of ideas from different people.

SNTTT — Social Patterns and Etiquette
Wednesday 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm, Oct 31 (20071031)
at Pub 101

Event Brief Description: Tim Inkpen Over 13 years in the IT field ranging from non profit and government to private industry. Tim has been studying recruiting and training and the application of social networking. He recently designed the OTI Work Experience Program. Social Patterns and Etiquette Tim will share some ideas that he�??s collected from his research and experience. Open discussion on what we think the rules are.

Event Description: *SNTTT (Social Network Theory Think Tank) — Format: 10m social, 10m talk, Questions and discussion. This regular activity is hosted by Darcy Whyte (Darcy@Siteware.com) of JumpSocial. Contact Darcy Whyte for details about future session locations and times. Ideas and feedback are welcome! Please RSVP to Darcy@Siteware.com if you do not indicate in JumpSocial that you are attending. Also feel free to add Darcy@Siteware.com as a jumpsocial contact. It’s in the 2nd floor of the pub.

Event Interests: No Cover, Talk, Seminar, Cocktail Party, Business, Marketing, Planning, VC and Angel, Mentoring, Technology

Pub 101: 101 York Street, Ottawa, Canada, 613-789-3515

Brief Description of Venue: A 3 Level Pub/Sports Bar/Night Club in the Heart of the Byward market. A Little something for everyone!

Open for lunch and dinner 7 days a week Pub.101 boasts a great menu full of amazing daily specials including 2 wing nights.

Table of Contents:
-) Ottawa Facebook Developer Garage POSTPONED
-) Last Week, TravelPod Redesign
-) This Week, Tim Inkpen
-) Perl Programmer

If you are or know a seasoned Perl programmer, please contact lucl@travelpod.com.

Here is a cartoon for all you database programmers.

For your information, SQL injection is a way that people can break your Web site by filling in forms and querystrings and such with database commands instead of real data. Because the contents of these forms are merged with database commands, it is a vulnerability for Web database systems.

Tim Inkpen of the SNTTT sent me these resources:

http://www.ottawabusinessjournal.com/320767738221139.php
http://www.ottawabusinessjournal.com/320767744774653.php

Book: �??The Social Construction of Reality�?� — Berger

Formula: Michael Hughes formula for measuring the depth of a relationship:

Familiarity (1-10)

Trust (1-10)

Potential (1-10)

Fun (-10 to +10)

Add up the total to get a score. Those people with the highest score are the contacts that you should focus on. This a network application of the 20-80 rule.

SNTTT — TravelPod Redesign / Social Network Theory
Wednesday 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm, Oct 24 (20071024)
at Pub 101

Event Description: TravelPod Usability Review with Luc levesque (General Manager / Founder, TravelPod.com): Participate in an open exercise in design and usability by giving your feedback on TravelPod’s new yet-to-be-launched homepage design. Try their Traveler IQ Challenge on Facebook http://apps.facebook.com/travelpod-challenge/

Presenter #2: Mr. Sanjay Belkhode — Abstract: In our very first session, Sanjay presented Part 1 of the Basics of Social Networking Theory. Since then, many attendees have indicated their desire to see this presentation again. This will be mostly the same presentation as before with perhaps a few changes/additions. You’ll learn more about the different types of social networks and how they relate to real life.

*SNTTT (Social Network Theory Think Tank) — Format: 10m social, 10m talk, Questions and discussion. This regular activity is hosted by Darcy Whyte (Darcy@Siteware.com) of JumpSocial. Contact Darcy Whyte for details about future session locations and times. Ideas and feedback are welcome! Please RSVP to Darcy@Siteware.com if you do not indicate in JumpSocial that you are attending. Also feel free to add Darcy@Siteware.com as a jumpsocial contact. It’s in the 2nd floor of the pub.

Event Interests: No Cover, Talk, Seminar, Cocktail Party, Business, Marketing, Planning, VC and Angel, Mentoring, Technology

Pub 101: 101 York Street, Ottawa, Canada, 613-789-3515

Brief Description of Venue: A 3 Level Pub/Sports Bar/Night Club in the Heart of the Byward market. A Little something for everyone!

Open for lunch and dinner 7 days a week Pub.101 boasts a great menu full of amazing daily specials including 2 wing nights.

Here’s a really cool article on the how content can be filtered. The author likens machine learning to evolution.

http://karmatics.com/docs/evolution-and-wisdom-of-crowds.html

It’s worth a peak.

For those who are wondering how my Facebook lockout is going, here are the messages I’ve received so far. I received two copies of the message that I received today (Sunday).

I’m still not able to log into Facebook.

I’ve had more people get in touch with my by email asking what’s up (the fact that I’m disappearing from Facebook makes people think that I’m blocking them).

—–Original Message—–
From: Appeals from Facebook [mailto:appeals@facebook.com]
Sent: October-14-07 10:56 AM
To: darcy@siteware.com
Subject: [rt.facebook.com #xxxxxxx] AutoReply: RE: Hey!

Hi,

Action has been taken on your account, and Facebook Customer Support has received your inquiry. We will review your situation and get back to you as soon as possible.

Thanks for contacting Facebook.

-Facebook Customer Support

—–Original Message—–
From: Craig from Facebook [mailto:appeals-comment@facebook.com]
Sent: October-12-07 10:02 PM
To: darcy@siteware.com
Subject: [rt.facebook.com #xxxxxxx]

Hi Darcy,

I apologize for the inconvenience. We have reactivated this account.
Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

Craig
Customer Support Representative
Facebook

—–Original Message—–
From: Appeals from Facebook [mailto:appeals@facebook.com]
Sent: October-11-07 9:38 PM
To: darcy@siteware.com
Subject: [rt.facebook.com #xxxxxxx] AutoReply:

Hi,

Action has been taken on your account, and Facebook Customer Support has received your inquiry. We will review your situation and get back to you as soon as possible.

Thanks for contacting Facebook.

-Facebook Customer Support

This message went out to the Think Tank group yesterday:

Table of Contents

1) Wednesday, October 17th

2) Thursday, October 18th, Think Tank is on Thursday

3) MyChannl follow-up

4) Ottawa Facebook Garage

5) Facebook Lockout!

==========

1. There is an excellent event organised by the Ottawa e-Business Cluster this Wednesday (October 17th) so let’s have the Think Tank on Thursday (18th).� The is called building a better mouse trap and it features Tobias Lütke of jadedPixel. For more information please visit: http://www.jumpsocial.com/index.php?&action=events&c=20071017

==========

2. Thursday, October 18th, 5:30pm at Pub 101: Drupal as a Social Networking CMS with Peter Lindstrom (www.LiquidCMS.ca) - A discussion of The Open Source CMS: Drupal and how it can be used for the design of SN websites. A very brief overview of Drupal followed by a simple demo of how to create a simple custom SN application in 15 minutes.

*SNTTT (Social Network Theory Think Tank) — General Format: 10m social, 10m talk, Questions and discussion. This regular activity is hosted by Darcy Whyte (Darcy@Siteware.com) of JumpSocial. Contact Darcy Whyte for details about future session locations and times. Ideas and feedback are welcome! Please RSVP to Darcy@Siteware.com if you do not indicate in JumpSocial that you are attending. Also feel free to add Darcy@Siteware.com as a Jumpsocial contact.

For details please visit: http://www.jumpsocial.com/index.php?&action=events&c=20071018

==========

3. Thanks to Bill Love of MyDEO for his presentation of MyChannl. It was very informative for me since so many people gave interesting feedback.

To offer feedback please visit: www.JumpSocial.com/blog

==========

4. The Official Ottawa Facebook Development Garage

It is tentatively booked at the Mercury Lounge (56 Byward Market Square, Ottawa, ON K1N7A2, 613-789-5324) for Tuesday, October 30th.

If you would like to show your Facebook application or are thinking about creating one be sure to contact me at Darcy@Siteware.com. Also if you are looking for peer review on your ideas or have anything to share, I’d love to hear.

==========

5. Facebook Lockout!

To all my Facebook friends, I have not removed you from my friends or blocked you. I have been locked out of Facebook. This is obviously an error and is being looked at since I’ve emailed them. Facebook has sent me a note to indicate that the account is now returned to normal but obviously they are still working on it since it’s still inaccessible by me.

This leads me to an interesting observation that there is a considerable vulnerability here. I was locked out without any notice, warning or indication of why. I’ve had friends become alarmed because I disappeared and also my parents call me as I’ve disappeared of my families profiles. Also some of my business contacts that I had in Facebook became inaccessible.

Do you have a copy of your Facebook contact list?

This is interesting food for thought.

I went into Facebook on Thursday at the end of the business day to play around with MyChannl (Facebook Application by Bill Love et. al.). I watched a few videos and then went to the shwarma shop around the corner in the Ottawa Byward Market near my office.

I connected to the Hotel wireless internet across the street and went into Facebook to make a chess move in a game with Guy from my high school chess club.

I eyeballed my inbox a bit and then went home.

When I got home, I went back onto my portable computer and was greeted with the message:

Your account has been disabled by an administrator. If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ page here.

How annoying. I had no idea what caused it and received no warning. I just lost access to everything.

Nuts, I felt I was winning at the chess game.

Also, many of my business contacts were there and I was blocked from getting in. I needed to contact one of my business friends to arrange something for the SNTTT event next week that I’m organizing. But I couldn’t.

I contacted Facebook and someone got back to me today in the morning to say that I was now allowed back in. The message had an apology but they didn’t indicate what triggered it. Further, I still can’t get in. I sent them more messages. I got to the point where I felt the need to let them know that it was causing harm. I said that I felt that it was careless as well.

People might think something is up because I’ve disappeared from their contact list. They might think I’ve removed or blocked them.

Already my parents called me from Saskatchewan because I’ve disappeared off of all my families contact lists.

I guess I can get through life without Facebook but this is something to be aware of. Any of the information that you have in Facebook can disappear at any time.

Also, beyond your control and awareness, you can appear to be blocking or to have removed our friends and family from your contact/friend list.

This can create a mess (long distance phone calls) and lots of extra work to clarify the mess that it creates.

Have you backed up the information you have in Facebook?

Darcy

Last Wednesday we had another great SNTTT session at Pub 101.

Personally I love the MyChannl Application.

It’s really cool to be able to have relevant video content without having to do an explicit search. The MyChannl system takes information from your profile, searches various sources then presents you with the content.

You can also view videos based on your friends. I’m understanding that it uses votes from your friends for this. I think it should use your friends’ interests to come up with content and use the voting for ranking rather than content selection. Also that if I have viewed a video, it should be listed lower in my list. (The ones that I like will be in my favourites).

What’s your opinion?

Darcy

I just came across this article because it was SlashDotted recently.

I’ts an article by Derek Sivers on his experience with Ruby. He is involved with www.CDBaby.com.

Here is the article.

Here is some of the text:

7 reasons I switched back to PHP after 2 years on Rails
Saturday September 22, 2007 5:49PM

SUMMARY: I spent two years trying to make Rails do something it wasn�??t meant to do, then realized my old abandoned language (PHP, in my case) would do just fine if approached with my new Rails-gained wisdom.

INTRO / BACKGROUND:

Back in January 2005, I announced on the O�??Reilly blog that I was going to completely scrap over 100,000 lines of messy PHP code in my existing CD Baby (cdbaby.com) website, and rewrite the entire thing in Rails, from scratch.

I hired one of the best Rails programmers in the world (Jeremy Kemper aka bitsweat), and we set off on this huge task with intensity. The first few months showed good progress, and Jeremy could not have been more amazing, twisting the deep inner guts of Rails to make it do things it was never intended to do.

But at every step, it seemed our needs clashed with Rails�?? preferences. (Like trying to turn a train into a boat. It�??s do-able with a lot of glue. But it�??s damn hard. And certainly makes you ask why you�??re really doing this.)

Two years (!) later, after various setbacks, we were less than halfway done.* (To be fair to Jeremy�??s mad skillz: many setbacks were because of tech emergencies that pulled our attention to other internal projects that were not the rewrite itself.) The entire music distribution world had changed, and we were still working on the same goddamn rewrite. I said fuckit, and we abandoned the Rails rewrite. Jeremy took a job with 37 Signals, and that was that.

I didn�??t abandon the rewrite IDEA, though. I just asked myself one important question:

�??Is there anything Rails can do, that PHP CAN�??T do?�?�

The answer is no.

What can be done to make this site better?

http://www.artschallenge.ca

I don’t know if there are any experts on crawlers and Search Engine Optimization but I posted a comment at:

http://www.robertnyman.com/2006/01/11/how-bad-is-a-query-string/#comment-101595

I’m curious if anyone has any thoughts on it.

Darcy

Hello!
I just installed an RSS feed into the JumpSocial Calendar. (There was already one on the JumpSocial Blog of course).

Here’s an interesting question. The JumpSocial Calendar is usually rendered for a particular location. For example, if you are in Ottawa, we figure out that you’re in Ottawa (via IP address or Postal Code), then render a calendar for Ottawa.

For the feed, if a Web site is reading it to render content onto the same Web site, we may be able to grab the IP address of the Web site and use the local that we get from it. The difficulty is that many Web sites are hosted very far away from the locale that they are for.

If a user subscribes to the feed in some sort of feed reader, I’m betting we can read the IP address of the user’s internet access and we can probably use that to guess their locale.

Any thoughts?

Darcy

Thank to Lani and everyone who came last night.

We had about 12 people. I asked Lani to come on short notice and she was happy to come along to answer any math questions that would come up. Given the number of people that couldn’t make it, I was surprised. If people hadn’t have been so busy we would have had a fairly large group.
I went through a paper on Centrality and Aids and also we all shared a few anecdotes. http://www.analytictech.com/networks/centaids.htm

This paper is quite convincing to me that Eigenvector Centrality is a measure of something useful. Of course there is all the argument about how you model a network. (What is a tie etc.)

There is another article I mentioned on Scale Free Networks from Scientific American. It’s mentioned earlier in this Blog.

Darcy

There was a great article in Scientific American on Scale-Free Networks a while back in May 2003 written by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi and Eric Bonabeau.
If you read up on Network Theory, you’ll find that most texts assume that large networks are random graphs. This is a wrong assumption.

Many of the most interesting characteristics in graph theory is a result of the underlying architecture of scale-free networks.

I highly recommend this article so it’s worth a stop at the public library. I have that magazine so you could ask me too.