Brian Sweeting

I’m off to SXSW this morning. For those of you going, I look forward to seeing you there. For those of you staying, I’ll be blogging as much of it as I can.

When I worked for Novell, I used iFolder to keep my laptop and desktop files in sync. iFolder uses a central server model where it keeps all of your files and then the client, that runs on your computer, continually sends changes to this server. On other machines, the client is continually polling the server for changes so all of your files stay synchronized between multiple machines. Ever since I left Novell, I’ve been needing something to do this.

Enter FolderShare. This is a product that was bought by Microsoft last Fall and made part of it’s Windows Live services. FolderShare works similar to iFolder, but instead of having a central server, it is Peer2Peer. Meaning, that when I change files on my PowerBook at work, it sends notification of what files have changed to a central server. Note that it doesn’t send the files. My PowerBook at home is running the FolderShare client and is continuall polling for changes. When the server responds that files have changed, my PowerBook at home initiates a transfer of files from my PowerBook at work. The files are not stored on a central server, but are distributed between all the clients instead. Therefore storage isn’t an issue for Microsoft, and transfer really isn’t either, because the files are being exchanged between my computers, using my own bandwidth.

Some other cool features of FolderShare is that you can use Spotlight or MSN Desktop Search to search files on any of your computers. It also allows you to share folders with other FolderShare users, and access your files remotely through the web interface. FolderShare authenticates via RSA and encrypted via 256 bit AES over SSL. FolderShare also has no problem working behind firewalls or through proxies.

I highly recommend FolderShare. It is free, so download a client and get syncing!

Jeff Han from NYU demonstrates a touch interface at eTech that makes Minority Report pretty much reality. This is pretty amazing stuff. Watch the demo: Quicktime | MPEG

I have been using del.icio.us for about a year and a half, and it has been a great way to save links to things that are interesting to me. I recently started subscribing to some of my friends link feeds, because I find that what is interesting to them, is also interesting to me. I also subscribe to the del.icio.us popular feed to see what everyone is linking to. The problem I had is that to find other people’s link feeds, I had to guess at their username.

Enter Ma.gnolia. After finding the site through a link on Jeffery Zeldman’s website, I had imported my del.icio.us bookmarks, added some contacts, and joined some groups. It took about 10 minutes to make the switch. I also changed a single url, so the recent links section on my site was pointing at Ma.gnolia instead of del.icio.us.

I tend to be fairly loyal to a web service once I start using it, mainly because I become accustom to the way they work. With Ma.gnolia, I was able to easily make the transition and see that it has more to offer that del.icio.us ever has. Ma.gnolia does a much better job on the “social” aspect of “social bookmarking”. So go try it out and make sure to add me as a contact.

Guy Kawasaki, entreprenuer and author of The Art of the Start has started a blog. He only started it at the end of December, and I’ve hardly found a post so far that isn’t worth linking to. Great posts on entrepreneurism, venture capitalistism, innovation, Apple Computer, presentations, and life.

I caught this on Digg this morning. How diabolic! Beware website owners, this is a common exploit that all browsers are capable of executing.

Back in the old days, which for me was about 1998, I remember how much of a pain it was to set up a web development environment on a computer. Go get this package, install this component, build with these options, etc.

That pain has been completely eliminated for me now. I use two standalone applications that give me a robust environment for developing with Ruby on Rails, PHP, MySQL, and Apache/LightTPD on my PowerBook. For Rails I use Locomotive, which gives me a quick way to get a Ruby on Rails Environment up and running with LightTPD and FastCGI. I also use MAMP, to get a Apache, MySQL, and PHP environment setup quickly. MAMP even has a dashboard widget that lets you start and stop the servers.

If you’re on Windows and need a good Apache, MySQL, and PHP environment, I recommend WAMP. For Rails you can use: InstantRails

Update: Randy recommends XAMPP for Windows. I tried this today, and I must say it seems quite a bit better than WAMP. Thanks Randy.

Internet Archive has 26,097 public domain movies that you can download for free. I especially recommend the classic cartoons section.

I recently discovered Handbrake, free DVD Ripping/Encoding software for the Mac. There are plenty of apps for Windows that will rip DVD and turn it into an .avi or .mpg file, but it has been an arduous process on the Mac until now. Handbrake will rip DVDs into .avi files, mp4, or H.264 format all in one simple step.

Okay, so at the risk of being forever branded a “Mac Nerd” I was about the 50th or so in line for the grand opening of the Apple Store at the Gateway. I arrived at about 7:30am, but the first person in line was there at 9:00pm the night before. I felt like 2 and half hours of waiting was “nerdy” enough. So the store looks great, the employees were really getting into all the excitement, and overall it was pretty fun. They started letting 70 people at a time in at 10:00am. I left there about 45 minutes later, and the line was about 2-3 people wide and about two blocks long! I took some photos, you can see them on this site or on Flickr.