First off, install the Buzzter Google Chrome Extension.

• Open http://gmail.com, logout from any gmail account.
• Login using your Google Apps for Domain account (x@x.com).
• Google will take you to a “Sign up for Gmail”-page. Close Gmail, DO NOT SIGN UP!

Buzzter should work now as you’ve got a valid gmail-cookie, but connected to a google apps for domains account. Also keep in mind that location-services works very very poorly using a browser (obviously).

You can also access Google Buzz via your Apps account using you mobile, just navigate to http://buzz.google.com (and be sure to be logged in as your Apps account).

GMail users can follow me using this link (Need to be logged in to Gmail) and Apps Users can follow me by searching for “tommie podzemski” on Buzz.

While link-shortening might seem like a brilliant idea, not to mention a huge benefit for the user – it raises a few questions-marks and issues which should not be taken lightly. Especially in a context where more and more users start their own shortening-services.

Here is a few general questions to ask yourself:

How will we archive the web?
As sites today are centralized around links, it will be a problem archiving websites for the future – how can one determine where a link will end up as it will be cloaked by a third party service? And how will robots be able to know which links to follow (internal) or which links to ignore (external)?

Is it really a smart idea to solely rely on a third party service?
A third party service is not something that should be considered to be constant, it might not be the best of ideas to pipe all your internal and external links through a service. As with any service, uptime is not at 100%, not even at Google.

No visual confirmation
Endpoints of links can often be determined by simply looking at a link, something that’ll take you to redtube.com/x/y/z is probably not something you should click on while at work. Though, the link above could easily be cloaked as bit.ly/zyx.

Validity of the link and service
Sure, today we can trust that Bit.ly, shurl etc will take you to the links intended endpoint. But what happens if one of the services are bought by, say, a porn or spam company? The purchaser will have unconditionally control over hundred thousands of links on hundred of thousand website, giving them the right to point the link wherever they see fit or quite possibly to the highest bidder.

Tipping the balance of the webs relevance
Keep in mind that we live in a link-economy, where your website relevance is partially judged by how many links in-links your website has. Using shortening-services on outbound links will “rob” the endpoint of it’s relevance in Google, and it’s quite likely that you will loose the same based on people not linking you directly.

With subsequent services like Twitter it’s important to save those bits, but the use of a third party solution might not be the most beneficial idea. Shortening-services should be used with care and concern.

On the bright side there have been talks about a link consortium, where all shortening-services reports their links to a central place/database where one can do legacy lookup of links. It might be the solution, though it’s far away.

While the rumor mill had gone crazy over the last months (like it always does), the expectations where at a all time high and even though Apple introduced a video camera to the iPod Nano, new iPhone os 3.1, new hardware platform for the touch and minor software-changes, I think we all felt a little disappointed and maybe even cheated.

The event itself was very centralized around the Apple Ipod Touch product-line and specifically using the Touch as a gaming platform and demoed Madden NFL 10, Nova, Assassin’s Creed, Riddim Ribbon. Where Riddim Ribbon looked particularly exciting.

Steve Jobs seems to be back in full force and did a much appreciated appearance on the stages which received standing ovations. Hopefully he’ll be a breath of fresh air for Apple as they really need to “wow” a bit more than the ‘It’s Only Rock and Roll’-event to stay on the cutting edge.

As it’s possible to extract your userid from the twitter-api, giving you a somewhat unique way to check how many users there are on Twitter. Given that they use a sequential userid-system, which many indications point toward.

So, how many does users twitter have?
Using the data from the API i found out the following statistics.

• I created my account back in spring 2007 which gave me userid 704XXX. (http://twitter.com/tommienu)
• I created another account this spring (2009) for a project of mine which gave me userid 26720XXX (http://twitter.com/slashat)
• I finally created an account this Summer (July) which gave me userid 63523XXX (http://twitter.com/foratweet/)

And if this data is sequential, we’re looking at roughly 70 000 000 users worldwide and its approx 100 times bigger 2009 than 2007 with a 10000% user-increase.

This also means that Twitter would have needed to scale their systems with over 10 000%, something we inevitably know that they failed with, which actually gives those numbers some substance.

Congratulations! Your nominated add-on, Casey Case Converter, has been reviewed by a Mozilla Add-ons editor who approved your add-on to be public.

Casey is a moderators dream come true, it automatically format caps correctly. Which is a big hassle to do manually, especially on big posts. While it’s pretty limited in its current form (only Proper-case, UPPER-case and lower-case), i plan to extend it further. Especially now when the Mozilla peeps think it’s good enough for public release.

Check it out at:
http://addons.mozilla.org/addon/9920

I probably goes without saying that this is a highly experimental release with no guarantees what so ever. But I’ve been running all my tests on it and it works fine. So i you can’t wait for the official release, use this one:

http://public.tommie.nu/tmp/selenium-ide-1.0.1.1-ff3-5.xpi

Alla trafikförändiringar synkas till http://tugg.nu/vasttrafik och vidare till http://twitter.com/vasttrafik, så är du medlem på någon av dessa kan du följa dem.

Om du hänger kvar i RSS-världen och av någon anledning inte vill köra på Västrafiks egna RSS kan du följa tugg.nus, http://tugg.nu/vasttrafik/rss

Så vad väntar du på, hoppa direkt till http://slashat.se och lyssna!

http://slashat.se/2009/03/25/slashat-avsnitt-001-premiar/

It’s built on the openmicroblogging.org protocol and it’s currently spreading like wildfire, wanna be ahead of the competition – make sure to build initial support on your blog for the openmicroblogging-protocol. While Laconi.ca is still in womb (version 0.6.0 recently released) it’s still worth checking out if you’re a enthusiast or developer. I for one are dedicated some of my spare-time to thrive the project forward.

So, will this end the reign of Twitter? Quite possibly, as history clearly shows that people tend to favor fragmented communities rather than massive communities.

I’d say Laconi.ca have a fair chance to actually rock the microblogging scene quite a bit.

References and links of interest:
http://openmicroblogging.org
http://laconi.ca
http://identi.ca
http://tugg.nu (my own laconi.ca server running a Swedish twitter community/clone)

In the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy.

Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up “revocation” in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up “aluminum”. Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘favour’ and ‘neighbour’, skipping the letter ‘U’ is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter ‘Z’ (pronounced ‘zed’ not ‘zee’) and the suffix “ize” will be replaced by the suffix “ise”. You will learn that the suffix ‘burgh is pronounced ‘burra’e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as ‘Pittsberg’ if you can’t cope with correct pronunciation.

Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up “vocabulary”. Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as “like” and “you know” is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up “interspersed”.

There will be no more ‘bleeps’ in the Jerry Springer show. If you’re not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn’t have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won’t have to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such thing as “US English”. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter ‘u’ and the elimination of “-ize”.

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn’t that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents – Scottish dramas such as “Taggart” will no longer be broadcast with subtitles.

While we’re talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is “Devon”. If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become “shires” e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British sit-coms such as “Men Behaving Badly” or “Red Dwarf” will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can’t cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, “God Save The Queen”, but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American “football”. There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American “football” is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays “American” football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game.

Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby which is similar to American “football”, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies.We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2005.

You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the ‘World Series’ for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls’ game called “rounders” which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.

7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don’t believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called “Indecisive Day”.

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables.

Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips. Fries aren’t even French; they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called “crisps”. Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all, it is lager. From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as “beer”, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as “Lager”. The substances formerly known as “American Beer” will henceforth be referred to as “Near-Frozen Knat’s Urine”, with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as “Weak Near-Frozen Knat’s Urine”. This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in Pilsen, Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

13. From November 10th the UK will harmonise petrol (or “Gasoline” as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices roughly $6/US gallon – get used to it).

14 You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you’re not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you’re not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you’re not grown up enough to handle a gun.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us crazy. Tax collectors from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

16. Last but not the least, and for heaven’s sake…..it’s Nuclear as in “clear” NOT Nucular.

Thank you for your co-operation and have a great day.