Bebo Embraces Facebook Apps With Its “Open Applications Platform”

Bebo Embraces Facebook Apps With Its “Open Applications Platform”: Today, Bebo is announcing the availability of a new platform called the “Open Application Platform”, but it’s not really a new platform. Rather, it’s like a clone of Facebook’s proprietary platform. The idea is to create a platform that matches the functionality and structure of Facebook’s platform so closely that it’s easy to deploy applications built for Facebook on Bebo, with little or no changes to the code.

Bebo’s new platform accepts something called SNQL and SNML (as in, social networking query language and social networking markup language), each of which mirrors Facebook’s FQL and FBML, albeit with subtle differences. CEO Michael Birch says that it has been developing these parallel languages for about five months and in communication with Facebook itself, which has been assisting Bebo in its efforts to essentially adopt its platform. [Brilliant.]
Source: TechCrunch

Amazon launches new database service

“Many developers simply want to store, process, and query their data without worrying about managing schemas, maintaining indexes, tuning performance or scaling access to their data,” the documentation explains. “Amazon SimpleDB removes the need to maintain a schema, while your attributes are automatically indexed to provide fast real-time lookup and querying capabilities.”

SimpleDB costs 14 cents per machine hour, with no minimum fee. This is normalized to the hourly capacity of a 2007 1.7 GHz Xeon processor. There’s also a data transfer charge of 10 cents per Gbyte transferred in. For data transferred out, the rate starts at 18 cents per Gbyte for first 10 Tbytes per month, then drops to 16 cents for the next 40 Tbytes per month, and finally drops to 13 cents per Gbyte for 50 Tbytes and beyond per month. These fees apply to data transferred in and out of Amazon SimpleDB. Data transferred between SimpleDB and other Amazon Web services is moved without additional cost. There’s also a $1.50 fee per Gbyte per month for the storage of structured data.

There’s one significant cost that SimpleDB users can avoid: keeping a database administrator on the payroll.

[We live in interesting times…]

Google Knol – Google’s Play To Aggregate Knowledge Pages

Google Knol – Google’s Play To Aggregate Knowledge Pages (Danny Sullivan/Search Engine Land): Google Knol – Google’s Play To Aggregate Knowledge Pages  —  Move over Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers, Mahalo, and Squidoo.  Maybe.  That’s because Google’s testing its own service to let people build a repository of knowledge.  In fact, knowledge forms the core of the service’s name: Google Knol. [Hmmm. If nothing else, congrats to Seth for having the Squidoo idea validated. Not that that’s helping at the moment…]
Source: tech.memeorandum

HUDZ

Reviews – HUDZ:The Shimano and Campagnolo compatible replacement brake hoods have since been featured and reviewed by the likes of Cyclingnews and PezCycling News.

While these reviews showed how HUDZ can make your current steed look uniquely and distinctly your own, or make a brand new bike that much sexier, neither spoke to the philanthropy behind it. HUDZ are truly the cycling product that gives back.

A portion of the sale, for specific colors, is tied to a charity.[I know someone who has to have these in pink. Shouldn’t be too long.]
Source: Triple Crankset

Fluid – Free Site Specific Browser for Mac OS X Leopard

Fluid – Free Site Specific Browser for Mac OS X Leopard: f so, Site Specific Browsers (SSBs) provide a great solution for your webapp woes. Using Fluid, you can create SSBs to run each of your favorite webapps as a separate desktop application. Fluid gives any webapp a home on your Mac OS X desktop complete with Dock icon, standard menu bar, and logical separation from your other web browsing activity. [Trying it now… early days, but it seems to work as advertised. Nice.]

Shoup Dogg, Parking Policy Cult Hero, Fills Fordham Auditorium

Shoup Dogg, Parking Policy Cult Hero, Fills Fordham Auditorium: Shoup quoted Seinfeld’s George Costanza to sum up the essential New Yorker attitude when it comes to curbside parking: “It’s like going to a prostitute. Why should I pay when, if I apply myself, maybe I could get it for free?” [I think the quote says it all… (however the article is a bit about Shoup who believes that the congestion problem can be improved by charging a more accurate cost for street parking in NYC.]
Source: StreetsBlog