Yesterday Google opened up their Wikipedia killer Knol for public beta.  Currently the number of Knols is small but I predict we will see an explosive growth now that it's open.  I'm not sure it's any better than Wikipedia although it is different enough that it could prove to be a reasonable and slightly more reliable competitor.  In the end I suspect that they will co-exist and serve two different masters.

The reason I'm bringing this up at all is that it is brand new and there isn't a lot of information currently available.  That makes it a pretty bad research tool right now but does offer a limited window of opportunity.  One of the things about a Knol that is unique from a Wikipedia article is that the author of a Knol is visible.  The thing that makes a Knol more reliable is that it isn't anonymous and the person who writes the Knol is putting his or her reputation behind it.  When a user views a Knol they see a picture of the author as well as the author's name and a short set of credentials. 

This exposure could be a huge marketing boon for an individual looking to increase their exposure and image in a particular area.  Since there isn't a lot of content right now, you could "own" a niche which would quickly elevate you to the status of leading expert.  For example, if you were a consultant with a fair amount of knowledge in SaaS architectures, you could write Knols on SaaS, Cloud computing, SOA etc...  Your name would be associated with that niche and would appear again and again when a company began doing research before a major system upgrade.  Before long you would become "the guy who wrote the book on SaaS."  The demand for your services should increase dramatically as a result.

Opportunities like this don't come along very often and certainly don't last very long.  The opportunity is here now and the window is small.  Strike now.

TTFN

Project "affairs" are a great way to explore new technologies and ideas without mucking up projects that actually need to succeed. 

I started working on yet another little project idea the other night, a private torrent tracker.  Conceptually it's a pretty simple idea that I could probably complete the basic functionality in a few days by brute forcing it, but what kind of fun would that be? ;-}

The goal is to provide a means to exchange files between "friends" whom I trust.  The files would only be available to members of the network and the only members of the network would be people I know and trust and their friends. 

The easy way to do it is just setup an FTP or WebDAV server, problem solved.  Simply setting the right permissions on an S3 bucket would work, but I wouldn't learn anything from the experience and although S3 is inexpensive, once the number and size of files grew it could cost me some serious squids to maintain.

S3 also has the ability to act as a torrent tracker by simply appending a "?torrent" to the end of a file's URL.  That could reduce the storage and bandwidth costs significantly.  I like that.

The answer I decided on is a private BitTorrent tracker that uses S3 to store the torrent files and possibly even some of the files themselves.  The next requirement is storing meta information about the files.  Again S3 comes to the rescue via the use of additional header attributes which can be retrieved by an http HEAD request.  This eliminates the need for a DB although complicates searching a bit.

All that remains is a UI to make life easier.  Originally I was thinking a web interface would be good, and may still be nice but given the audience I'm beginning to think that a smart client would offer some sweet benefits and play nicely into another idea code named Hologram. 

I've completed some of the leg work now all I have to do is write it.  If I'm being honest with myself I would say it will never see the light of day but in the process of working on it I will gain valuable insights that will help me become a better geek.

TTFN

My lovely wife bought me a Kindle for my birthday.  I've only had it for a day but so far I'm loving it.  It's easy to use, easy to read and easy to get content.  I think it's going to become a new fundamental part of my world.

Also of note is the open source meeting service Dimdim.  It's similar to Webex but is free and doesn't require participants to download / install any software (to host a meeting you must install a small add on).  It's not quite as feature rich as Webex but does include audio / video support, chat, a whiteboard and desktop sharing.  All in all a great tool too keep in your toolbox.

Another interesting development this week is Google's foray into the virtual worlds space.  Lively is no second life yet, load times are poor and features are weak but it's backed by the Google so it's worth keeping an eye on.

TTFN

Ek Palmer

I'm almost at the end of a three day weekend, a weekend with no kids, no wife and sadly enough no life.  The wife took all five kids to the lake for the weekend so that I could get caught up on some projects.  I managed to get as caught up as I could although I would have liked to have gotten more of a jump on some other tasks which, as always, will undoubtedly all become top priorities at the same time.

As it turns out, three days alone is a really long time.  I cleaned the ovens, the downstairs bathroom, ran the sweeper, cut the grass etc... just because I didn't know what to do with myself.  I spent most of the hours locked away in the Sandford and Son lab putting in about 20 hours of billable time before venturing off onto other projects.

I finally got a chance to update my router with the latest DD-WRT firmware (v24).  Much like the previous version, it Rocks!  If you have one of the many supported routers this is a must have!

I also finally got around to investing some money via the P2P lending site Prosper.  I only dropped a hundred bucks but I'll keep you posted to let you know how it works out.

I also order business cards from MOO.  I loved this company since I first heard about them but didn't like the mini card format.  Earlier this week they started offering full sized business cards so I placed an order.  Should be here in a week or so (they are based in the UK).

I'm currently in the process of getting my Vistafied laptop working again.  The whole Vista debacle pretty much bricked the machine.  It's a Sony Vaio with a broken DVD drive and since it can't boot from any USB device other than a detachable floppy drive, I've had no end of trouble getting it operational.  What I finally ended up doing was configuring my newly upgraded router and a VMWare Ubuntu machine to enable booting over the network via PXE.  22% and climbing.  So far so good.

I'm also half way through season 1 of BSG.  I got hooked somewhere around season 3 and I've just been waiting for the chance to catch up.  This has to be one of the best shows on TV and if you're a geek and you're not watching it you should be ashamed!

Next on my list is scripting the creation of VM images.  I can't wait to get that worked out!

Most guys if given a few days with no wife and kids would have gotten in a few rounds of golf or hit the road on their bike or at the very least down a few beers at a strip joint with their buddies.  Me?  I'm alone at midnight sitting in a room filled with computers basking in the seedy glow of a reincarnated sci-fi series giddy with anticipation over a progress bar reading 97% complete.  Yeah, I suck as a bachelor but I'm loving every minute of it.

TTFN