Five Things I Like About The New Flickr Interface

Flickr recently updated the user interface of the online photo service, which has basically been the same for as long as I can remember. Honestly, I didn't think Yahoo! would even get around to sprucing up Flickr, but they did and here are the five things I like about the new interface:

1. Larger Images
Photo sharing services typically compress or shrink photos you upload to save space, but I really like the bigger cleaner crisper version of the new Flickr interface.

2. Better Navigation
I really like that you can now find all the features in a drop menu right above the images. Before I was always hunting for what I wanted to do.

3. Zoom
There is a handy Zoom button right above the image now, which takes you to a lightbox version, with the ability to see multiple sizes.

4. Improved Thumbnail Slider
In the old version of Flicker, you could only see two thumbnails, previous and next, and it was very clunky. The new thumbnail slider let's you see 5 images, and in fact slides back and forth without reloading the page.

5. Geo Tagging
Geo tagging is all the rage, but I really like being able to see where a picture was taken. Sometimes I want to go see the places people have taken pictures, but without having to email and ask, I can find the location right on the map.

Over all this is a huge upgrade for Flickr. Now, if Yahoo!/Flickr would just step into 2010 and add real social network sharing, they would have a killer service, one that would rival TwitPic or Posterous.

My Flickr photos.

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Fall 2010 Utah Code Camp

September and October are turning out to be a complete geek fest. With the Kynetx Impact Dev Day on 9/18, Utah Code Camp this week 9/25, and of course Utah Open Source Conference 10/7-10/9. Check out the camp schedule here.

I hope to attend these classes:

• Keynote 9:00am - 10:00am Modern Software Development, the State of the Craft -- David Starr


• 10:10am - 11:10am ASP.NET MVC 3 Razor -- Nathan Zaugg


• 11:20am - 12:20pm Internet-Enabled Applications for Windows Phone 7 -- Richard Thomson


• 12:20pm - 1:00pm Social Networking and Building your brand -- Pat Wright


• 1:00pm - 2:00pm What is ALT.NET? -- Craig Berntson


• 2:10pm - 3:10pm WPF MVVM Design Pattern -- Danny Staten


• 3:20pm - 4:20pm MVC and Entity Framework -- James Johnson

This should be a great event. Pat Wright and company do a great job. If you're Microsoft Developer, or want to learn more about Microsoft development tools, this would be a great place to start.

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Kynetx Impact Developer Day

I was fortunate enough to attend a Kynetx Impact Developer Day at the Kynetx World Wide HQ. I just wanted to share a few notes and links, and my over all impression.

First, the Kynetx group did an awesome job. One thing I have a hard time with at developer conferences are speeches and sales pitches. This event was far from that. We walked through code, wrote code, compiled code, deployed code.

I was impressed that the actual API engineers were presenting, demoing and coding. I was even excited that Jessie struggled to get some code to work he was writing on the fly. He's human, it's something programmers deal with a lot, and he handled it gracefully, all the while CEO Stephen Fulling was sitting in the audience. In the end, he got the demo to work, and it was very cool.

Founder and CTO Phil Windley opened with the reason he built what eventually became the Kynetx platform. He saw an opportunity to program the web. He saw the increase in available API's, and the ease in which data from various points on the web, and user initiated events, could be used to enhance the experience. Read more about Kynetx, the KRL language, and even sign up for a free developer account with an easy to use coding IDE.

Lunch was provided, prizes were awarded, and plenty to do, made for an exciting and educational day. In my opinion, if you don't leave an event like this with hundreds of new ideas you weren't really paying attention.

The only part that could have been better was the layout of the space. The tables weren't set up in a way I could use my computer and watch was going on up front. We were sideways, so I was always turning. I eventually gave up because I was more interested and watching what the presenter was doing. Guys, next time put the tables in classroom mode. You would have had plenty of room.

If you have a chance to attend an Impact Developer Day in your community I would do it. It's worth it.

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The Best Part About iOS 4.2

Apparently the best part of Apples iOS 4.2 software for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch will be AirPrint. I can see this is a much welcomed feature for the iPad, but not so much for the iPhone/Touch. Other features such as access to the Game Center, multi tasking and a new ad service.

This new release will take me further and further away from the latest iPhone offering. My 3G is at it's limit. Time to upgrade to ... the Droid!

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A Hard Days Night

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Inside The Redbox

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The Business Of Writing Group

Like most writers, I want to spend more time writing, and focus on building a long term writing career, but I know just writing isn't enough. There is a business to writing. And if this part is ignored your successes will be limited. Off the top of my head I can think of marketing, selling, social network interactions, accounting, contracts, and negotiations. Writing something only get's you part of the way there.

The last few writing conferences I've attended have all been about the act of writing. I don't know if this is planned, or just coincidence. But I have to think the hundreds of people attending these conferences have no clearly defined plan for building a business writing. Why aren't there any panels or presentations on the business of writing? I'm creating an outline for this exact panel, and I'll pitch it to a few conferences. Must eat my own dog food. And I have a lot of great ideas to share.

Here is the kind of group I want to start or participate in. One that's not about writing, but the business of writing. The legal and technical aspects of writing. The things that will help me build a good writing business. I don't think you should have to do this alone. There are so many resources out there, but a group of people with the same interests and goals have tremendous value. Not to mention meeting other writers, and learn from their experiences.

For example, when negotiating with an agent or publisher, what are the top things you should be concerned with. Beyond money, what are authors typically offered or expected to do? What should an author expect f the agent or publisher? Pitch sessions.

I guess since it's my idea I should do more research on the subject. Find out who would be interested in participating, and more importantly sharing their insights. Once I have enough interest I will push for a public meetup for all writers to confabs learn.

Maybe there is already a group like this in my city. I just haven't found it yet. But if there is I'm looking for you.

Posting this via e-mail from Barnes and Noble.

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WordPress 3.1 Has A Feature List

Last week the development team for WordPress came up with a list of features/bug fixes they want to include in 3.1. As with all software, the end result may differ from this list. Check it out here.

Two things I'm excited about, and really hope are implemented, is a new multi site Admin, and a configurable Dashboard. This is kind of interesting, because at WordCamp Utah 2010, Matt Mullenweg asked Adam Dunford, "if you had a magic wand, what would you change in WordPress?" His response was a cleaner, configurable dashboard. Spot on Adam.

Looks like the WP team is shooting for a mid December release, with a feature freeze in mid October. That's not too far off.

If you haven't already upgraded to WordPress 3, you should do it soon. This is a fantastic release, seems to be very stable, and the further you fall behind the more problems you will encounter.

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Why iTunes Ping Will Suffer Like Google Wave

There are a few reason I think iTunes Ping will, in the long run, fail. I realize the service has only been available for a few days, but I can already see it has the same problem Google Wave had when it was released. It's not part of everyones workflow.

For one, you must have iTunes, not everyone uses iTunes. Until there is some type of web interface that allows you to connect with other, this will be a huge barrier. Two, iTunes must be running to even interact with your followers, share music taste, and invite others. Invitation? A service such as Like.fm or Blip.fm allow me to share my music tastes with anyone, regardless of the platform they are on. And that's where Ping will fail. I could be wrong, and Apple could choose to make major changes to the service, making something usable and accessible by everyone.

I would love to see Amazon come up with something open and web based to compete. Amazon could compete on several fronts, music of course, but also books, games, movies, electronics. That maybe on the roadmap for Apple, but you have to hit some type of home run out of the gate, or you suffer like Wave has.

While I hate to be a nay sayer, I don't think the Apple engineers thought this through for a first rev. Does it seem like that is becoming a reoccurring theme from Cupertino?

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Join Me For #devchat On Twitter

I started a Twitter chat called #devchat, all about the software development business. Right now the time is every Wednesday at 7PM MST. Everyone is welcome, but I'm hoping this will be a very technical discussion. A little background on Twitter Chats here.

Please follow the Twitter user @dev_chat, and use http://TweetChat.com to follow #devchat. No need to register, but you can find more information here.

Please Tweet this, blog about it, post to Facebook, or any other resource you use to communicate with other devs. You can also follow me on Twitter by clicking the Twitter icon in the sidebar at the top.

See you on Wednesday, September 2nd, at 7PM MST.

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