For those who deal in selling stuff online and not just Ebay

So you are selling a lot of things (which hopefully, do belong to you) on Ebay and making a career out of it. Check out Auctomatic and make your life as a serial trader more organized.

And I love the site. Simple and easy to navigate. My instinct tells me it must be Rails.

Of Mavens, Connectors and now, Outliers

Malcolm Gladwell has become some sort of a favorite of mine not because of his hairdo but because, whether you agree or not, the guy does make you think (and get you to perceive social phenomena differently). Well, he is also a master at observing things and finding data relative to it within pop culture and even those seemingly untouched by it.

Anyway, CEO Read just amped the excitement. Hope it goes on sale early!

While the rest of us are comfortable ...

My sympathies to the Myanmar people whom we used to refer to as Burmese. I haven't got a lot to spare but some people do. Just wanted to give my support, too. Hang in there.

Please visit Beth Kanter's post about what people are doing to help.

Messing with Green just gets everyone in trouble

Stop contributing to the pollution and head for the clouds. From NYT

I don't want to keep on repeating myself on this. Don't make me angry, please. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry....

Ruby is Hot-rod Red or Red-hot Read, Whatever.

I've recently come across a bunch of posts for newbies who would like to try their hand on Ruby or Ruby on Rails. Regardless of your motive, no doubt that the buzz that Ruby has received the last few years has contributed to its ever-growing popularity. Thanks to the web, you too can become a much sought after Rubyist or Rails programmer. You just have to put the necessary effort to learn the program which is touted to use the least effort and code. Bit of a tongue-twister there.


A List Apart
You can never go empty-handed with A List Apart. Found two (2) fairly recent articles for Ruby/Rails newbies written by Dan Benjamin and Michael Slater, respectively. Read both so you will be able to find out how to sign up for a free online learning course.

Getting Started with Ruby on Rails
Creating More with Less Effort using Ruby on Rails

If you're like most people who are too busy to search and click for references, you may want to head over to Aeonscope.net. This one is about as comprehensive as it gets from reference materials to news and even Rails hosts should you be able to succeed in building your very own apps.

Last but definitely not the least, head over to Ruby-Lang.Org and complete your research into Ruby, the Programmer's Best Friend. Try your hand in their 20-minute tutorial and be prepared to get hooked.

Still not satisfied, eh? OK, you need to haul off your butt and pray you're in time for Satish's class at Ruby Learning. Read through the testimonials and it will give you an idea of how interesting this site is for aspiring Ruby-wannabees. What's more, resident Ruby Guru is one cool teacher.

Now, 'scuse me as I build my own Jarvis. An armor suit definitely is a welcome breather for visions of 'men-in-tights'.

SaaS to PaaS and ultimately, the CLaaS (Clouds as a Service)

Just read that wonderful post from Kent at Production Scale about the '-aaS' clarifications. Let me offer my two-cents worth on the subject. You can skip the CLaaS, just thought it sounded uhm classy. Not.

We won't be going to historical details here with regards to dates. What I'm after is a confirmation regarding the natural progression of Software as a Service.

Simply put, Software as a service refers to a method of deployment wherein applications can be accessed via the web as opposed to the traditional model of software installation on your computer. Samples of which are the mail apps like Yahoo Mail and Gmail and best made into a web byword by the highly successful CRM apps company called Salesforce.

SaaS exposed, not only the need for a successful conglomeration of web apps to be made easily available via a single site and easily accessible by demand, but more importantly, that apps need to be more or less housed in a common platform.

Consider the benefits:

1. It gives users - both business and individual consumers, a common point of experience which equates to shorter learning curve resulting in faster adoption.

2. Developers tend to congregate using common expertise on programming languages. Nothing better than a platform to unite 'em all. And what good is SaaS if you don't have the apps to showcase?

3. A common platform allows companies who offer SaaS easier maintenance requirements. This translates to savings that can be passed on to both third party developers and ultimately to users.

It doesn't stop there. On demand apps and on demand platform can only reside in the web. And so comes the Cloud.

Surely there is still a lot of debate on the eventuality of the (few) Clouds ruling over the whole computing space. But business is business. And as long as SaaS, PaaS and Cloud players continue to offer very good deals (esp under threat of recession) leading to better revenue, the march towards increased business adoption will continue faster than pundits expected.

Tabbed: Quick Eeds

Old habits just don't go away. When it comes to browsing the internet, I have my own quirks. It comes from being a really long-time dial-up user.

Using Firefox, I was amazed that it can do multiple tabbing instead of opening new windows. Not only was it more organized, it also freed my bottom toolbars (we're talking PC love here) from those incomprehensible boxes with first letters.

Anyway, since internet time was precious money saved then, I kept opening tabs as I was reading something. As long as the browser can handle it, I tabbed away. And that is how it still is with me. Now, let me share some of it here.

Green Issue
Carbon footprints and the like. Most people won't act because they think they're puny enough to make a dent on improving the situation. No prob for me, call me Don Quixote.

Twitter
It's addictive once you get to find the value of it, both personal and in business. It's in the mid of some big dough funding thing and then this issue creeps in. Baad timing. Well, the rest of us can just tweet about it. Until the next major downtime! Can you pencil that in my Twistory?

PC now refers to...
Personal clouds. Whaddaya, think? And this isn't some form of weed... Just flaunt of wealth, in my opinion. Lemme say again,"Green, green, green".

Microhoo!
This one's as dragging as the film, Remains of the Day (totally,just didn't get it or maybe it just isn't a date movie back then). Now for some respectable press opinion of it, here.

MacCopycat
Even if this didn't come from Steve Jobs' branding idea, it still does pack a lot of 'kwan'. Kwan = something that customers would buy. Non-admittedly it seems. Psystar - the brand is just so eighties, like me.

And I've save the best for last. This is something personal. A kindred being to my LinkedIn profile. Real cloud stuff and it's from the Philippines. Way earlier than the PaaS buzz we hear today.

Ciao!

Reading collected from the New York Times, Techcrunch, ZDNet, Forbes and Washington Post. Newspaper naysayers, take that!