Check out Redis

August 16th, 2009

Off late, I’ve been working on a project where we’re using a simple key-value store instead of a relational DBMS like MySQL, and I’ve come to realize that if done properly, a lot of applications don’t require a relational database. Redis, being a simple key-value store is ridiculously quick, so try it out, and avoid MySQL when its not really required.

Redis

Do they even know what ‘Beta’ means?

June 6th, 2008

I have had it with these people. Seriously, of all the software in the world that can be classified as Beta, the last thing you’d expect is a movie rental service who probably bought off the shelf code and hacked it a little to use it. But hell, they dont care anymore, as far as they’re concerned, its a fashion statement to use unstable software in a public release!

Facebook Opens Up Platform: fbOpen

June 3rd, 2008

Here it is, many considered it inevitable after OpenSocial, and Facebook have responded by opening up their own platform. Even though the OpenSocial adopters are sticking with Google for now, I think fbOpen will catch on eventually, at least I find it the easiest platform to develop for.

The fb-open-platform.tar.gz archive contains the tools necessary to implement Facebook Open Platform — including the API, FBML (Facebook Markup Language), FBJS (Facebook JavaScript), and FQL (Facebook Query Language) — in your own environment. It also contains libfbml-1.2.0.tar.gz, which contains the essential libraries for parsing and rendering FBML.

Download fbOpen

AdSense vs. Cubics: Two Weeks Later

April 29th, 2008

Here’s how the AdSense experiement on Facebook went:

AdSense eCPM: $0.35 (ranging from $0.02 to $1.60)
Cubics CPM (Average): $0.70 (minimum $0.67 to maximum $0.74)

Take Cubics, play safe, or take AdSense and try to maximize clicks in whatever way you can.

Yahoo: One Giant Social Network?

April 26th, 2008

Yahoo

If this bit of information is anything to go by, the social networking bubble is either bordering on the edge of being ridiculous, or Yahoo might be on to something.

Yahoo are looking a little stagnant, and a switch to social media might create the largest social network overnight. On the other hand, if implemented poorly, Yahoo will keep going down the drain. With 500 million active users compared to MySpace’s 110m and Facebook’s 60m, Yahoo will automatically get the largest userbase in no time at all.

This represents the first time a major force is switching to the social format rather than experimenting with smaller projects like Orkut or the now dysfunctional MyWallop. Open application development is also on offer, so this might as well become much bigger than Facebook or MySpace, if they do it right!

Facebook Insider’s Guide to Viral Marketing

April 22nd, 2008

This was in an update sent to certain users by Facebook.

Why Facebook might be worth more than you think!

April 20th, 2008

A lot of people have cried out over Facebook’s $15 billion valuation. However, there are certain points that support such a ridiculously high value. Investor Paul Buchheit has written an interesting article about how Facebook has the benefit of knowing about your entire real-life social network, clouded only by a few random online friends here and there, and how they could leverage it.

Facebook Application Development: 10 Things to Know

April 20th, 2008

This comes from padrenel’s blog. It discusses important things to know while getting started with Facebook application development. Must read in my opinion, helped me immensely. It discusses:

  1. PHP4 vs. PHP5
  2. Session Keys
  3. Updating Profiles with fb:ref
  4. Debugging tools
  5. Support and Documentation

Complete article here.

Getting beaten at my own game!

April 20th, 2008

Trust me, it doesn’t feel good, but it proves a point, I made a fair game! Yes, the Indian Premier League has begun and so has my application for Facebook. Here’s how I’m doing in the fantasy game:

Not looking too good, I’m afraid!

Periodically back up MySQL with a Shell Script

April 19th, 2008

There are many advantages to using the shell, one is making backups. With the following code and a cron job, periodically backing up MySQL databases is a breeze.

#!/bin/sh
mkdir `date +%m-%d-%y-%Hx%M`
cd `date +%m-%d-%y-%Hx%M`
mysqldump -h localhost  -u user -ppassword dbname > file.sql