Jason Rundell

In WordPress MU: Jason Rundell added an answer.

The answer is no - but only as long as you carefully engineer the architecture that scales it. The database and permalinks are going to be your biggest hurdles. Put user file uploads on a CDN as much as possible (i.e. TanTanS3 plugin is great).

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Jason Rundell voted up an answer.

First, a caveat: I think Node.js is wonderful, and has an excellent chance of becoming the gold standard for web applications over the coming year ... but you asked about the disadvantages, so:

• Unstable API: The Node API has a habit of changing in backwards-incompatible ways from release to release, and frequent changes to your codebase are required to keep things running on the latest version. That said, things are supposed to be more stable since 0.2.0 has been released.
• Lack of a standard library: JavaScript is a language with a beautiful core, but an absolutely anemic standard library -- things that you would take for granted as part of other server-side language installs will simply not be there.
• Lack of libraries in general: Need to find a mature database interface? An ORM? An image processing library? An XML parser? An S3 client? -- Since JavaScript hasn't yet enjoyed years of popularity on the server side, things like these are either brand-new and relatively untested, or still-in-the-works.
• It's not battle-tested yet: I think it's still a relatively open question about what the pain points are for large Node.js applications -- and until we have some in production for months and years, we're not going to know where the trouble might lie. There isn't anything obvious to be careful of, but it's uncharted territory, with respect to performance, security, and maintainability.

That's about all I can think of -- note that I didn't say the JavaScript was a disadvantage, or the evented model, or V8... I, for one, can't wait to have strong enough library support to justify using it for green field projects, and we seem to be approaching that day quite rapidly.

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Jason Rundell voted up an answer.

I'm currently the lead architect and developer for (what's becoming) a decently large Nodejs application, and can confidently say that a lack of inherent code organization is a huge disadvantage.[1] It gets especially exacerbated when the development team as a whole isn't familiar with asynchronous programing or standard design patterns. There are just too many ways for code to get unruly and unmaintainable.

There are definitely modules that ease those pains though, such as: the cross-browser WebSocket for realtime apps., Express, and Mongoose. The issue I have with them is that they haven't had enough "competition" from other modules, and thus haven't matured to the point of being "generic" solutions. On a personal note, I still prefer Connect over Express, simply because it provides just enough functionality to make HTTP in Node manageable, but not so much that it forces you into one paradigm or another. I'd also suggest using ws instead of the cross-browser WebSocket for realtime apps. for the same reason.

A quick case study: LinkedIn uses Nodejs to power the JSON API for their mobile site/app. It does not however, power their backend. The Node services most likely draw from a caching layer, or use RPC/REST to query necessary data from the backend services. The advantage there is that they get really high throughput and a straightforward solution to horizontal scaling, without huge memory or CPU usage. (JVM)

[EDITS]

[1] - Mocha, is actually a great, flexible testing framework. I highly recommend it.

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In Business Attire: Jason Rundell voted up an answer.

tl;dr because "professional" really means "not working-class."

When they were invented, jeans were associated with blue-collar work. They were meant to get muddy and gross and take lots of abuse without falling apart, even if you wore the same pair every day. The people who bought them were the ones whose lives required durable clothing.

Khakis and slacks (and the women's equivalents) are basically useless outside the 9 to 5 world of white-collar office work. Try to do anything physical and they'll get scratched, stained, wrinkled, or otherwise ruined—and I do mean ruined, because their purpose is to look a certain way and they can't do that if they're damaged or dirty. Their primary function, and the reason you wear them, is to signal certain things that tell the boardroom crowd you're one of them: you can afford to buy relatively fancy clothes, you have the resources to clean and maintain them, and you don't plan on doing any work for which they wouldn't be appropriate.

In other words, it's not the jeans themselves that are the problem; it's the people who've traditionally worn them. "Professional dress" is a thinly veiled excuse for the upper crust to keep out the riffraff, and it doubles as a cynical way to keep the average office worker happy—give them a group to feel like they're a part of, let them feel superior to people who aren't, if they choose to, and they'll work for you without making trouble even if they don't really like their jobs.

This is archaic nonsense with no place in modern society. We've found better ways to get work done and better ways to manage power structures. And the funny part is that jeans today don't even mean what this dumb social code said they meant 200 years ago. Look at the places where talent is valued over status and conformity, and then look where it's the other way around. I think that offers some perspective on the answer.

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Jason Rundell voted up an answer.

"Fiiiinaaly, found what the inside of a tube of toothpaste looks like. This used to always baffle me when I was a kid.

Apparently I wasn't the only person who found this baffling. I can't tell if I am disappointed at how simple it actually is."

http://frednorth.blogspot.com/20...

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In Security: Jason Rundell voted up an answer.

During my counterintelligence training I learned a few great tips to confirm if being followed by a vehicle, here are three easy ones to remember:

1) Climbing Stairs- Make four right or left turns. The probability that another vehicle who just happens to make the same 360 turn as you is slim to none. You might both make one or even two turns, but anything more means you might have a tail.

2) On, Off- While driving on the highway, take an off ramp and then get right back on the highway. Like the above probability, not many people get off the highway and right back on. The tail is assuming you are exiting and exits with you but quickly is burned when they follow you right back on the highway.

Beware this doesn't always work against large teams. A good surveillance team knows this trick too and will actually exit the highway the proper way (turn around later). The first almost burned vehicle (Car A) drops being the lead and radios back for another vehicle (Car B) to continue on the highway (without exiting) to take the eye. A few minutes/seconds later Car A is back on the road, out of sight as secondary eye. 

3) To fool the above, skip exiting the highway all together. Stay on the highway and every few miles pull over to the side of the road to "smoke" or "make a cell call". Both the lead tail (Car A) and any secondary surveillance vehicles (Car B, C, D) won't make a stop on the freeway; this is way too obvious and they will be forced to drive by you. At the next exit they could be waiting for you to pass though, so beware.

As for the posted scenario, just call the police. If it's a local police surveillance, dispatch will put the call out and the undercover unit will cancel it and move along for now. If it's feds/state police, they most likely did not tell their brothers in blue about their surveillance and local PD will roll up on the vehicle. Watch them run the plates and then back off. If its a PI or stalker, local PD will light them up, tell them to move along or even let the reporting party know what is going on.

Big picture question -- does it make sense to burn the surveillance team? My personal belief is yes. Think of it like calling their bluff and will make them back off. It really comes down to why you are being tracked. Surveillances, especially mobile surveillances are not common or easy and only used for important investigations. So if you show your skills at counter surveillance during a basic drug surveillance they will arrest you or back off. They aren't going to use resources over and over again just to be burned.

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Jason Rundell added an answer.

Yes. But, you'll need to request it.

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In History of Technology: Jason Rundell voted up an answer.

• "modern plumbing" is a severely flawed system, particularly toilets. Potable water is becoming an increasingly valuable resource, and yet we have plumbing that in order to handle a few ounces of waste requires polluting many gallons of water.

• The width between train rails, or gauge, has been set for centuries based on the width of wooden roman chariot axles.

• The sizes, shape and locations of windows on residences are generally based on tradition. These traditions originally occurred because of physical construction limits. Now, we could easily build homes with more and better natural lighting, but we don't because we are stuck in an old pattern.

• Cars have 12V power connections in the cabin, they are still based on old car cigarette lighters, despite very few people using such a lighter anymore.

• Most television remotes have dozens of buttons, one for each function the remote does, this is the opposite of most technology which is heading in the direction of simplification, less buttons, and more intuitive design.

• Money is still printed on paper and stamped with coins, while nearly everything in our entire world operates on a digital platform. We have work around solutions with credit/debit cards, but the money itself could be improved by taking a different, more useful form.

EDIT: 10/02/12:

This answer has been up for quite awhile, here are some thoughts from the numerous comments below.

• On the rail gauges, I've read the snopes.com article, but commenters are typically missing the point. Current rail standards are narrower than an optimal design. Earlier rail cars and certainly ancient wagons were much smaller than modern rails cars. Modern trains would benefit from having a wider track and wheel base. This would allow for more stability in the train (reducing the risk of overturning and derailing at high speed turns)
• Windows can be designed larger than in the past. Modern techniques make this quite simple. In fact we do this on many modern style homes, but most builders and individuals, in the US, are stuck in an old fashioned mindset of what a house and room should look like. There is little reason to have 2 small windows side by side, on the same wall, in a room, other than the fact that at one time, this was the only option. Now, we can do better.
• I'm aware of adapters based on the 12V, but that is the point, why not go directly to a more conventional power connector and skip the need for adapters
• I'm well aware that economies used in many countries around the world are still based on direct exchange of paper and coins. I believe implicit in this question is that we are referring to advanced first world countries, if this were not true, and we were referring to poor third world countries, then most of the answers to this question would be out of place. This is not meant as a value judgement comparing one country to any other.

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In History of Technology: Jason Rundell voted up an answer.

The education system.

Public education systems funded by the taxpayer were created to support the Industrial Revolution. The goal was to get them up to a level where they could staff factories.

This worked because the public education system turned out what industry needed: cogs; interchangeable parts.

Even going into the 1950s, the schools did a good job at readying some students for college and some students for labor.

Manufacturing isn't creating the need for interchangeable people that it used to. Our education system needs to focus more on developing skills needed to create real value, and less on measuring to see if people are smart enough to man a workstation.

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In Radian6: Jason Rundell added an answer.

No, but it has been brought to their attention as something their customers really want.

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In WordPress Plugins: Jason Rundell added an answer.

I don't think it's a routing issue. Unless you have Super Admin access, you can't use the option to not send email. There's got to be something that also allows Admins to have this checkbox/option.

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In Domain Registrars: Jason Rundell added an answer.

Only place I know is http://tonic.to. Would love to know if there is another as Tonic.to's site is sketchy looking as hell.

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In PHP: Jason Rundell added a question.

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In WordPress Plugins: Jason Rundell added a question.

Jason Rundell added an answer.

I think it would be a slow process for you but definitely not impossible. Trail and error working around the PHP but most of the PHP in the TwentyTen theme are commented and written in an undertandable way.

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In WordPress: Jason Rundell added an answer.

(NOTE: Ubuntu/Apache setup) I had this issue just this weekend. I always have to remember that I need to edit the httpd.conf file.  To elaborate on Toby's answer, here's an example of my file:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

<VirtualHost *:80>     ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost     DocumentRoot /var/www     <Directory />         Options FollowSymLinks         AllowOverride None     </Directory>     <Directory /var/www/>         Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews         AllowOverride None                 Order allow,deny         allow from all     </Directory>     ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/     <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin">         AllowOverride None         Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch         Order allow,deny         Allow from all     </Directory>     ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log     # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,     # alert, emerg.     LogLevel warn     CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined     Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/"     <Directory "/usr/share/doc/">         Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks         AllowOverride None         Order deny,allow         Deny from all         Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128     </Directory> </VirtualHost>

Lines 11 - 14 are what you want to probably mimic.

Also make sure after restarting your Apache to clear your browser's cache then restart the browser and try refreshing your index.php url.

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In Gawker Media: Jason Rundell added a question.

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Jason Rundell voted up an answer.

For managing social media profiles and streams for business I recommend HootSuite:
- the reason I chose it over others is for its scheduling, reporting and most of all that you can share the workflow space with a team (for example, you can see what pending status updates and tweets your colleagues have scheduled to the same profiles using their HootSuite).
http://hootsuite.com/

If you add a ping.fm account in HootSuite - you should be able to post to all of the streams/sites that you listed! And benefit from the reporting/management that HootSuite provides!

For publishing all updates to one stream I currently use
Lifestream for WordPress on the sites I build.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plug...

If you have or manage several blogs and want a quick and easy way to automatically update your Twitter and Facebook accounts whenever a new blog article is published I'd recommend the Networked Blogs application.
http://www.networkedblogs.com/

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Jason Rundell voted up an answer.

Google just announced a new Chrome extension that allows you to block sites from your results. Check out the blog post below for more info: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2....

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If you're into coding up your own themes from a baseline, you can use Boilerplate, the HTML5 modification of Elliot Jay Stocks' famous Starkers theme:

http://wordpress.org/extend/them...

Similarly, Toolbox is a theme by Automattic (of Wordpress fame):

http://wordpress.org/extend/them...

DevSnippets.com has a pretty fresh list of complete HTML5 themes:

http://devsnippets.com/article/1...

Good luck! :-)

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Jason Rundell voted up an answer.

The retweet button is the "like" button. Shows people like your tweet or want to discuss.

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Jason Rundell added an answer.

1) More media coverage 2) It's more collaborative 3) Industry leaders have better visibility

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Jason Rundell voted up an answer.

In a word, Ubiquity. As mobile devices become increasingly complex, connected, and integrated with our lives we will more easily carry our online world into our offline existence.  Reputation really can become more important than credit score; online reviews and ratings really can impact an in-store experience; regional revolutions really can become a worldwide-shared experience in real time.  Rather than becoming insulated from each other, I think you'll see more and more digital groups meet and act together "in real life" as they're able to easily carry that digital context into a physical handshake.

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Jason Rundell voted up an answer.

The only way I see social become relevant for TV is by leveraging your friends as the filter to find interesting content. As pointed out above, TV is a laid back environment, where people kick-back and expect to be entertained. Status updates, hashtags etc does not come naturally from the couch.

In this case, social TV would answers the question:

• What are my friends watching now? (most likely through Twitter)
• What have my friends been watching?
• What are they planning to watch? (most likely through Facebook)

At the end of the day, the content is really what matters on TV. However, I can definitely see  how engaging live events (politics, sports, concerts and disasters ) can be driven by social (powered by Twitter/Facebook). In this case, the value is surfacing the linked content and not the Tweet/Status updates. Think of it as Flipboard for TV.

For the majority of TV users, this is going to be a challenge and take time to adapt as most people just expect to turn on the TV and browse through as opposed to the challenges like setting up their Twitter/Facebook account, internet configurations etc will take time for most people to learn.

Having said that I expect to see a lot of variations & interpretations on what social on TV should look like, where most companies will get it wrong and only a few get it right. However, theres is no doubt that that social TV is coming strong and the most exciting layer to the TV experience coupled with mobile.

To summarize:

• Social on TV is a way to filter & discover new content through your friends (social discovery)
• Hashtags & status updates is less important and more likely a distraction
• Content will still be King
• Live events is where social really is going to shine through (engagement)

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Jason Rundell added an answer.

Thanks Hillary but that's not what I'm looking for. I know about the different roles. What I'm after is literally what I've described in my question. Baked in WP, as an Admin, you can not lock a post from being re edited by someone with Editor privileges.

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I'm using a plugin called Capability Manager and it does the trick. Works on 3.0.1 and Network: http://wordpress.org/extend/plug...

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In WordPress Plugins: Jason Rundell voted up an answer.

Well, if i would be at your end i would have choose the way Alex goes as i prefer to have code instead of Plugins but if plugin is the only choice i would go go this http://wordpress.org/extend/plug... (almost 4.5 of rating)

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Peter, as much as I would like to weigh in on this question, I can only speculate because today is my first day on Quora.  I will say this, however:  To the extent that like-minded Social Media devotees can communicate directly with each other, the power and reach of Social Media as a component of successful business will expand.  My initial view of Quora is that it represents a more effective and efficient tool than either Twitter or Facebook in that it hastens that ability to communicate directly.  What are your views on the subject?  Regards, Michael.

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Jason Rundell voted up an answer.

Difficult to say.  The biggest obstacle is that Minecraft is very early alpha software and assumes players are comfortable with a range of behaviors and actions common in PC games, and does very little to train the player how to play.  Many essential actions -- like crafting new objects, building structures, or harvesting materials -- can only be found through experimentations with the keyboard and mouse (or by watching online tutorials). 

Angry Birds requires no prior knowledge, relying on very simple gestural input.  For this reason alone, I'd guess that it would be an exercise in frustration for the average iPhone gamer.

Aside from that, they're very different games.  Minecraft is a sandbox game, where you're encouraged to build and explore in an open, infinite landscape, where the goals aren't always clear.  Angry Birds is a very closed world with simple and straightforward goals.

That said, I love both.  They do share one interesting thing in common: they're both being actively developed, with frequent updates being pushed to audiences over the network by the developers.  Much of the joy of both games is seeing how they grow and improve over time at no additional cost to buyers.

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Voyeurism I think is a big attraction for most people. It's a household name is another. Most of my family and friends are on Facebook and it's still the best way to share what I'm up to and photos and etc. I get way more engagement on Facebook then I ever do on Twitter.

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Closest thing I've found is Pulse: http://www.appbrain.com/app/puls.... Not as fancy as Flipboard, but a great way to consume feeds.

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In Google-Groupon Negotiations (December 2010): Jason Rundell voted up an answer.

A successful company like GroupOn is really more than the sum of its parts.  An outsider could put all the same pieces together, on paper, and end up with a total failure.  Why?

The biggest issue, IMO, is tacit knowledge.  GroupOn has grown from a tiny company to one that's worth billions, and along the way the management team, middle managers, and rank and file employees have learned thousands of tiny things about what makes the business successful.  Relationships, processes, communications, etc.  Many of those are too small or ambiguous or experience-based to teach effectively, let alone copy from an outsider's perspective.  So all of that would be missing from a cloned company.

Then there are culture and motivation.  Acquisitions have a way of destroying these, but it's also even harder to try to conjure them up from scratch inside the bowels of a big company because management told you to start a new business.

How do you replicate the "state" of a company with thousands of people?  Especially when you just have an outsider's knowledge of the company, the answer is that often you just can't.

Finally, trying to build a #1 in a category where there's already a strong incumbent, unless you have some brilliant special sauce, is often doomed to failure.  This is especially true in a business with network effects.

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In Google-Groupon Negotiations (December 2010): Jason Rundell added an answer.

It's not just the site they're buying, but also all of the model and infrastructure. If you were in the business of making buildings and wanted to get into the automotive industry, would you rather spend 6 billion to start from scratch? Or spend 6 billion to own a proven automotive company? Keep in mind that if you start from scratch, you have to bu the land, the buildings, the parts contracts/supplier contracts, the offices, the paint contracts, the research and development team, the sales team, the hr team, the people to work in the plants, the janitors, the marketing team, the designers, the testers, all of the accreditation and legal hoops, the branding, the business model, insurances, lawyers. All of that overhead would probably cost more than 6 billion and in the end all you really gain is the badge of your hard work to get something off the ground - which by the way may not happen as you have to compete with all of the other automotive companies.

Yes, the above example is not really the same but it's the best way I can explain why it's easier to acquire a company rather than start from scratch :)

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Jason Rundell added an answer.

Mashable.com social media news, and the other two for me are travel specific so you should tailor your sources based upon your preference or what's related to your job.

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