I am only a recent convert to Twitter, and when I say ‘covert’ I mean ‘I think it’s neat, a little weird, but has some interesting possibilities. Mostly I became interseted in it because it is one of the larger deployments of a Ruby on Rails web app out there; definitely the most high-profile, especially in regards to its reliability (i.e. the frequent downtimes and crashes) and Rails’ ability to scale to the huge demands being made on the Twitter service.

Most of this debate has degenerated down to the level of ‘Rails can’t scale…nuh-uh…ya-huh…nu-huh’. Myself, I firmly believe that Rails can indeed scale quite nicely, thank you, and it is a few high-profile cases (e.g. Twitter) and opinions based solely on experience running Rails apps on a VPS that have perpetuated this myth (and Phusion’s Passenger, or ModRails, may well do much to alleviate these opinions).

So, it was with interest that I read John Gruber’s entry on Daring Fireball pointing to an interview with two of the Twitter guys. They were answering questions posed on the TechCrunch blog about Twitter’s infrstructure, server setup, etc. Also, apparently the Twitter guys must have done many rather unseemly things to the pets of the TechCrunch bloggers, or so it would seem based on the amount of pure bile being spewed at them in the form of questions regarding the ‘damage’ they have perpetrated onto the Twitter community. To their credit, the Twitter guys answered all of the questions with aplomb and dignity. Good for you, guys!

TechCrunch’s response to the answers provided by the Twitter team stated that Twitter continues to be “annoyingly and constructively responsive to criticism”.

So, there I was, sitting on the iTunes U panel at the CCCU Tech Conference, explaining the process of how a school can be chosen by Apple to be highlighted on the main iTunes U Music store home page.

Someone in the audience pipes up, “Gordon is on there…”

“That’s news to me,” I said, turning around to see the image projected on the screen behind me. Sure enough, there we were under the ‘Commencement 2008′ section.

Thank you, Rick Warren!

UPDATE: Apple made some changes to the default configuration of the iTunes U store main page yesterday, and we are now no longer highlighted

Getting faculty to change is like moving a cemetary…you don’t get any help from the residents.

The view from 3,700 feet above Vancouver, high atop Grouse Mountain

I am currently attending the CCCU Joint Conference on Technology and Finance, being held in Vancouver, British Columbia.

We took a break from our regular sessions and speaking only in acronyms (CMS, ERP, SIS, CFO) and spent the afternoon on Grouse Mountain overlooking Vancouver. We saw some grizzlies, were entertained by honest-to-goodness lumberjacks, and had a great meal in the restaurant with a view of the Vancouver skyline.

Click on the picture to see more shots (taken with an iPhone, no less)

Tomorrow it is back to adding ‘2.0′ to the end of the names of things and thinking it’s clever.

Wow

That’s ALL sales, mind…not just online sales. Just under five years to do it, too. That’s impressive.

via Daring Fireball

Had to be done

There’s just too much in this book for one movie, even at 3 hours

Check out Professor John Granger’s take on where the split should be. I heartily concur.

So, the Acid3 Test is out and all of the major browsers (Safari, Firefox, Opera and IE) are scoring EPIC FAILS in the 30s.

But the latest build of WebKit scores a 90!!

WOOT!!

Read more on the Webkit blog

Hopefully they will bake these latest bug fixes into a new release of Safari sooner rather than later.

UPDATE:

The latest build of Webkit rocks an almost perfect 100!! Read more info at TUAW here

I have been a Backpack user for a while, along with Basecamp and Highrise. While Backpack was my first 37Signals web app, I quickly graduated to the feature-rich and seemingly more useful Basecamp and Highrise, and left my Backpack pages languishing in ignominy. Granted, I mostly use Basecamp and Highrise at work and for other professional endeavors, for which they both are perfectly suited. I didn’t seem to have much of a need for the ‘personal’ nature of Backpack.

Recently the guys over at 37Signals have given backpack a slew of upgrades and new features so I have decided to dive back into Backpack and give it another go.

I am using the free account, so some of my options are a bit limited (only 2 Writeboards active at a time, no file uploading and no calendar), but it does the job for now. The only thing I really miss is the calendaring which would be useful, especially for work, but I can use Basecamp Milestones for that.

So, I have started using Backpack to organize everything related to the ‘Existentialism in Film & Literature’ class taught by Herbert Dreyfus currently being podcasted by UC Berkeley. I have ToDo lists for each of the reading assignments and the lectures, so I can check them off as a read and listen to them, respectively.

Also, the Writeboard is a great place to organize the notes I am taking as I listen (yes, I am an Uber-Geek, thank you). Typing the notes is much more beneficial for me personally, as my handwriting is so atrocious that I have a hard time reading it only moments later. Plus, the Writeboards let you use Textile for HTML markup, which I love.

All in all, I am rediscovering my initial love for Backpack. I used to think that Backback was not very useful once Basecamp came around, but after using both for a bit now, I am learning the strengths and limitations of both, and I find that they fit together rather nicely.

While reading through a blog post about a certain software development company and their influence on those around them, I noticed one the comments referred to the devotees of said company as ‘lemmings’. OK, as a card-carrying member of this particular lemming club, I can handle the scrutiny. But someone was definitely offended, as can be seen further down in the comments:

Say what you will about me (call me a lemming), but the poor little rodents have been maligned for far too long!! Viva La Lemming-volution!!

Hubert Dreyfus’s excellent course, “Existentialism in Film and Literature” is up again for another go-round on UC Berkeley’s iTunes U site. I listened and read my way through this course the last time around in 2006 and I’m going to again. Professor Dreyfus is a bit scatter-brained at times, but aren’t all the best college professors just a bit off the wall?

You can subscribe to the course here

note: The link above will open your iTunes. You need to have iTunes to view iTunes U sites, just like the iTunes Music Store