JP on Rails

Rogers bringing Apple's iPhone to Canada in 2008

JP — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:08:00 -0500

«TORONTO -- Rogers Communications Inc. shares rose sharply in early trading on Tuesday after the telecom company said it plans to bring Apple Inc.'s iPhone to Canada before the year is out.»

Read more in this Financial Post article.

11 innovation lessons from creators of World of Warcraft

JP — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 21:59:00 -0500

Found an interesting article on OCRegister:

11 innovation lessons from creators of World of Warcraft. via /.

11 innovation lessons from creators of World of Warcraft

JP — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 21:59:00 -0500

Found an interesting article on OCRegister:

11 innovation lessons from creators of World of Warcraft. via /.

Apple unveils iPhone (and iTouch) SDK

JP — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:25:00 -0600

Apple on Thursday unveiled the tools and technologies that will allow independent software developers to create and sell programs for the iPhone and iPod touch. In an event at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, Apple executives unveiled a revised set of iPhone developer tools, based on the company's existing tools for developing Mac software.

“We’re excited about creating a vibrant third-party developer community with potentially thousands of native applications for iPhone and iPod touch,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

FINALLY!

Is this for real?

JP — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 02:51:00 -0600

Some guy apparently discovered a keylogger inside his Dell Laptop.

If this isn't a hoax, we're truly living in a fucked-up world.

BlitzWeekend: Design, Build, and Launch in one weekend

JP — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 14:58:00 -0600

BlitzWeekend: Thanks to Heri for bringing this to my attention:

The first - and hopefully not the last - edition of BlitzWeekend will take place ~~this Weekend~~ in Montréal. BlitzWeekend is a gathering of developers, geeks, technologists an entrepreneurs, divided into small teams, which each must design, build and launch a product in 48 hours!

Can’t wait to see what will come out of that.

~~Sad thing is, I can’t attend as I already had plans which make it impossible for me to attend or participate. I’ll definitely take a rain check though.~~

I made a mistake. Let it be known that the event will take place on the weekend of march 1st.

site: http://blitzweekend.com

wiki: http://barcamp.org/Blitzweekend1

To steal a website. What should I do?

JP — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 06:37:00 -0600

Almost a year ago, I created a website. Now, yesterday, while keeping an eye on the repercussions of my domain transfer, I stumble upon this thread in the World of Warcraft forums.

Someone actually stole my website.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against someone building a website that competes with mine, that's just healthy.

What I do mind is:

When they steal my stylesheet;
When they name their site the same as mine;
When they use the same layout, including the menu and complete phrases;
When they slap a "(c)2008" on a site whose HTML code was ripped off mine.

So, to get back at the guy, I implemented a few small features from the clone site and integrated them in my site. Why not. At least I didn't rip off his code.

Doesn't anybody know what copyright is anymore?

Anyways, what should I do about this?

Argh.

Moving a site to a new domain and its effect on PageRank and SEO

JP — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:25:00 -0600

I've decided to get a proper domain for my WoW Gem Finder application that was on a subdomain (wowgems.jponrails.com). The new domain is www.wowgemfinder.com.

This should be an interesting experiment and will yield an answer to the eternal question: what is the effect of moving a site to a new domain on the site's PageRank.

I expect my PageRank to be disrupted, but eventually, in 3 months or so, I expect it to be better, since the new domain name is more SEO-friendly than the old one.

I took care of all the necessary things, including:

Redirecting (301) incoming requests to the new domain using mod_rewrite;
Changing references to the old domain within the site (I had a few absolute links, notably for the widget and the add-a-link text);
Updating Wiki entries on a few websites that point to my application;
Sending out a few emails to my most important incoming link sources;
Letting Google (and MSN, and Yahoo!) know that the new domain exists.

Now, all I have to do is sit back and see what will happen to my PageRank. Hopefully, the transition won't be too brutal. I'll keep you posted!

Thin Ruby server is out. Fastest of them all.

JP — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 12:30:00 -0600

The ~~first publicly available~~ latest alpha version of Thin v0.6.1 (codename Cheesecake) is out. According to Marc-André Cournoyer, Thin's creator, it's the fastest Ruby server out there.

And best of all, it's Made in Montréal.

Check it out, I know I will: Thin

After the Air Guitar, the Air MacBook

JP — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:45:00 -0600

Who needs the real thing when you can have a pretend scratch-proof, water-tight, solar-powered, ultralight Air MacBook?

Like an Air Guitar, it's made of air, but think of all the upsides:

Don't need to send it back to Apple to change its battery;
Don't need an external CD/DVD drive;
Don't problems at airport security;
Can't forget it in a taxi.

IMHO, it's a much better value than the original.