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Monitor the status of popular APIs
Ubuntu opportunistic Developer Week
Browser Plugins to See Mutual Friends on twitter

Posted: 09 Feb 2010 08:28 AM PST

If you are a professional blogger or running a website, then one way to build a community is to have APIs on your website. It is very important in today’s world to have APIs because it is one way for websites to communicate with each other. Facebook, Twitter, Digg etc all have APIs available to be added to websites. API-Status is a website which monitors API’s for their up time.

api_status

About API-Status

As you can see in the image the website shows if the API service is operating normally of it there is a downtime. For instance in the above image; GeoNames API is facing service disruption.
Clicking on one of the APIs link displays current service performance by country, a average graphical display of the daily downtime. (see image below)

api_status_data

There is a total of 30 APIs which are being monitored and I could not really think of any popular API which was not included.

This website will a great use for webmasters or developers to refer to as quick reference point for a API’s performance. It can also be a great way for developers to see how API’s perform based on country specific locations. Do try it out and drop in you comments with your views and opinions.

Link: API-Status

This Post Monitor the status of popular APIs is Published on Devils Workshop .

Ubuntu opportunistic Developer Week

Posted: 09 Feb 2010 07:59 AM PST

For all the Geeks out there who swear by open source technology , you have a friend in Ubuntu ! Yep , thats right ! Ubuntu , famous for being the most user friendly Linux based operating system , is compiling their second round of developer week ! The Ubuntu Opportunistic developer conference has been slated to be held from 1st-6th March 2010 , the details for which can be found on Ubuntu`s Home page .

What is the Developer Week ?

Ubuntu

The Ubuntu Opportunistic Developer week is an Online meeting of aspiring developers and professionals , to help
inexperienced developers develop applications that suits their needs on the Open source framework. The agenda for the developer week this timearound, is to give the developers a head start on the various technologies that they will use to build applications , like python tools and frameworks , Bazaar , Launchpad and infrastructure etc.The previous developer week was held from Jan 25th 2010 toJan 29th 2010 .

If you want to be a part of the Developer week you need to register here . All the Developer sessions are conducted online. And if you think you can contribute to any one of the sessions you can drop an email at : jono@ubuntu.com .

The growth of Open source technology has indeed been phenomenal , from web servers to operating systems ! Linux has proven to be a robust operating system and is now barely trailing their competitors Microsoft. So , all you techies out there , pull up your socks and make the most of this Technovanza ! For any other information you can check Ubuntu`s website !

There are empty slots in the upcoming conference . The rough schedule is as follows :

	Mon 1st March	Tue 2nd March	Web 3rd March	Thu 4th March	Fri 5th March
16.00 UTC (9:30 PM IST)	Welcome ! Ubuntu for opportunistic developers – Jono Bacon		Getting your app in launchpad with Bazaar - David Futcher
17.00 UTC (10:30 PM IST )	CouchDB support in you app with DesktopCouch – Stuart Langridge	SHOWCASE: Gwibber- Ken Vandine	Creating stunning interfaces with Cairo- Lazslo Pandy	SHOWCASE: Lernid: Jono Bacon	Creating a PyKDE app-Rich Jonson
18:00 UTC (11:30 PM IST)	Creating an application from scratch from Quickly -Rick spencer	Microblog from you app with the Gwibber API -Ken VanDine	Whats new in Quickly 0.4 – Didier Roche
19.00 UTC (12:30 PM IST)	Building in Application indicator support -Sense Hofstede	Writing a RhytmBox plugin – Stuart Langridge
20.00 UTC ( 1:30 AM IST)	Integrated development workflow with Ground Control – Martin Owens	Building multimedia into your app with GStreamer – Laszlo Pandy			Web browsing and rapid UI with WebKit – Ryan Paul

If you would like to confirm what your local time is as compared to the UTC time : just run date -u in a terminal to find out what the current UTC time is.

Are you going to participate on this Open source frenzy? Do let me know via your comments.

This Post Ubuntu opportunistic Developer Week is Published on Devils Workshop .

Browser Plugins to See Mutual Friends on twitter

Posted: 09 Feb 2010 05:43 AM PST

Twitter recently introduced the much needed Hovercards feature, but if twitter is still missing on something, then it is the ability to show mutual followers. Whenever I come across any profile, I would want to know, who I have in common or, Which of my friends are following him? And since, all of his updates would be visible on my twitter page, so, Is he reliable enough to follow back?

Understanding the need of users, many third-Party web apps have been created, that fill this gap. MutualTweeps, ReFollow, Twitual, Twtfrnd are a part of the long list. All of them work on the functionality of Comparison between two twitter users, where you need to input your twitter user name and user name of the fellow tweeter.

Since most of the twitter users still use twitter.com to access their twitter accounts. The plugins below, will let them discover mutual friends, from their twitter domains. As of now, the plugins are in early stages on development, but still, we found them interesting and useful because of the functionality they bestow us with.

Ul.timate.info – A Firefox add-on offering the ability to display Mutual friends you have with any other twitter user. This is a neat little add-on that does not require any user name input from user.

After installing the add-on, go to ul.timate.info menu in the menu bar. Configure the settings by verifying your twitter account. Then right click on any other user’s Name or Profile picture, and select “View Mutual Friends”. Quickly, you can see the people you two have in common. This add-on finds it usage with other social networks like Facebook, MySpace and FriendFeed also.

Firefox Users can install the Ul.timate.info add-on.
Don’t worry! We have a similar, but an advanced Extension for Chrome Users also.

Intersect – As the name suggests, a Google Chrome extension that lets you see users who mutually follow you and another user on Twitter. It adds an embedded column just under the Followers module. This extension does not work on Protected accounts.

Chrome Users can install Intersect extension.

Mutual Followers add-ons provide us a much better idea of the people surrounding us. We wish, twitter itself comes up with a feature of its own! Because, it's not what you know but who you know that counts!

Do let me know if you use any such similar service via any website or addons.

This Post Browser Plugins to See Mutual Friends on twitter is Published on Devils Workshop .