What the hell is Toluu? And does it require a prescription?

After generally ignoring my blog for several days (as I am wont to do every now and again, especially when Twittering so much), I checked back in today only to find that I was receiving an unexpected influx of traffic from a site called Toluu. Curious, I jumped down the rabbit hole and followed the link back to a republished page of my site’s RSS feed. I surmised that Toluu must be some sort of RSS syndication system, much like Feedburner or the syndicated subdomain of LiveJournal.

So, what do you do when you want to know about something on the internet? Easy: you ask the internet. I Twittered a question regarding this discovery and was gently reminded just how fast things spread in the new social world. A response was posted on Friendfeed almost immediately. From whom? Not just anyone, of course. No, not in the hyper-connected online universe. I heard from the actual Toluu developer himself, Caleb Elston (much like Louis Gray, I subscribe to the notion that it is important to know that there are people behind the products we use every day). Caleb cheerily clued me in on what is evidently the latest social craze. Toluu is an RSS feed aggregator of sorts, that allows one to discover new feeds through the interconnectedness of like-minded friends. I imagine this is what Dave Winer had always envisioned for share.opml.org, but was never able to fully realize.

Caleb also hooked me up with a private beta invite within minutes. I visit the site, greeted by a question that makes my heart sing (and I see far too rarely): “would you like to use your OpenID credentials?” Oh, yes, for the love of GOD, please allow this to occur.

So far, so good.

Import your Twitter, Facebook, or other social media profile? You betcha. Import OPML file? Sure, why not? Integrate Toluu with Google Reader? You’re starting to read my mind, here, SOFTWARE.

So far, even better.

A few minutes later, I’ve joined up with a few users I recognize from FriendFeed, and after a little while, I see something pop into the Toluu activity stream that looks interesting. I decide to add it to my own collection of feeds. This is immediately followed by a quick redirect to Google Reader to add the feed to my feed reader.

This, my friends. This is why God invented the internet.

More on this later.

NOTE: Caleb also happened to mention that my blog feed is somewhat popular on Toluu for some odd reason. I mention this at the end of the post so not to seem overly narcissistic. I assume he only said that in an effort to get my curiosity in the service piqued, which it did. Score ONE for developers that know their audience.

The next Nintendo console will just have to wait

So, I have a co-worker, and he and I are both die-hard Nintendo fanboys. We have always owned Nintendo consoles, we have always worshiped Nintendo properties, we have always waited with child-like glee and anticipation for every new nugget of Nintendo goodness.

Now, this co-worker friend of mine recently purchased an Xbox 360. No problem, I have nothing against other consoles. I’ve played the 360 myself. It’s a good system, there’s just very little on there that I want to play. I’m not a fan of FPS or war games, and there seems to be a plethora of both on the console.

But my friend just won’t shut up talking about how great the system is. He extols the virtues of achievements, the Gamertag, Xbox LIVE, arcade titles, the ease of online gaming, friends lists sans intricate coding mechanisms — it’s all a little too much for this simple Wii gamer. Maybe because I wish the Wii had all of those elements.

I mournfully take a glance at my meager catalog of games, look up the games on their way, and sigh with remorse. Nintendo had promised so much. Streamlined online play, excellent third party support, great downloadable content. More and more, I’m starting to feel like I’ve been had.

Don’t get me wrong; there have been some great experiences on the Wii. Zack & Wiki was amazing. No More Heroes was a blast. Super Smash Bros. Brawl managed to capture my interest for a couple of weeks, until Mario Kart came by and stole that attention away. I loved Lostwinds on WiiWare. But after a year and a half, I expected so much more on the horizon than Wii Fit and a weakened version of Rock Band. Yeah, I know, there’s some RPGs on the way, but who knows when those are going to hit the system here in the US? It’s the GameCube all over again. I wait, and I wait, and I wait for something great to come along; and it does, once a year (if that).

There’s some great stuff coming out for the 360, as well. A brand new entry in the Tales series, Tales of Vesperia. And Ubisoft is bringing out a sequel to one of my favorite games of all time, Beyond Good and Evil: to the 360 and PS3 only. Just those two titles alone are enough to justify me purchasing a 360.

And when they’re available, I’ll likely pick one up. And when Nintendo announces another console, along with a bucket full of promises they’ll never keep, I’ll try hard not to get excited.

I’m not falling for it again, Nintendo. Sorry. Unless something absolutely astronomical is announced, I’m just not falling for it again.

Twitter is NOT blaming Scoble for their problems

It’s amazing. Everyone complained when Twitter wasn’t saying enough about their downtime. Now that they are working to be more transparent, they are being harassed for it.

Alex Payne (no relation, as far as I know, though my youngest son’s name happens to be Alex) posted on the Twitter dev blog some answers to questions people had regarding the problems that Twitter has been experiencing. One of the answers he gave has Robert Scoble up in arms.

Alex posted:

charles asks if there’s anything users can do to lighten our load. The events that hit our system the hardest are generally when “popular” users – that is, users with large numbers of followers and people they’re following – perform a number of actions in rapid succession. This usually results in a number of big queries that pile up in our database(s). Not running scripts to follow thousands of users at a time would be a help, but that’s behavior we have to limit on our side.

This post, combined with the previous post detailing Twitter’s architecture problems, leads any rational person to come to a fairly well-informed conclusion: Twitter has some architectural issues, and the weight of power users on the system have brought those issues to light. Now, Twitter needs to work to fix those problems. Period. End of story. RIght?

Unfortunately, Scoble’s haranging is far too loud for its own good, and it’s completely drowning out intelligent and informed responses, creating a heated, fairly one-sided debate that’s been hanging out at the top of Techmeme. And Scoble’s army of followers seem to be acting like nothing more than sheep, bleating out his message across the internet, though it’s especially bad within the confines of FriendFeed, where the flaming fields of anti-Twitter sentiment have been burning at their absolute hottest. I understand that not every one of his followers is necessarily a mindless drone, incapable of individual thought that isn’t fed to them via the approved Scoble Communication Channels™. Obviously I’M not. There’s hopefully more that are equally immune to his vitriol.

Scoble is wrong on this, but good luck getting him – and many others – to see that. The Twitter hate machine has been in full force lately, I don’t see it stopping anytime soon. I can tell you this much, though: I was happy when I stopped following Techcrunch; I’ll bet I will even be happier still when I stop following Scoble.

Kevin Lawver leaves AOL…and Ficlets

Kevin Lawver, the AOL developer behind the amazing short collaborative fiction site Ficlets, has taken a position with another company after 13 years at AOL. I learned about it first in a tweet earlier this morning. That was followed not long after by a subsequent blog post on Ficlets.

Kevin built an absolutely amazing site in Ficlets, one that I wish I had more time to play around with. It’s funny, actually, how every time I go to the site with the intent to write a ficlet, I instead end up wasting the better part of an hour simply reading the fantastic content the site’s dedicated community has created. It’s a bit unfair to say I “waste” time there — no amount of minutes or hours are enough to soak in the wonderful contributions there.

I’m really eager to see what the future holds for Kevin. From what time I have been able to spend playing around with Ficlets, I can tell he’s a hugely talented Rails developer. He’s gotten an opportunity to lead a team with a small company to build Rails apps, and I wish him the best. I only hope that Ficlets is allowed to continue in his absence.

So, congratulations, Kevin! I will be watching your Twitter stream in earnest to see where you land.

Lostwinds is fantastic

I just finished the WiiWare game Lostwinds by UK developer Frontier. It is, in one word: amazing.

Yes, it is definitely short. I completed the game in about 2 and 1/2 hours, give or take. But it never once disappointed in the least. The concept of controlling the wind and a character in unison is so expertly crafted, that it is impossible to come up with a single gripe about the control mechanism. Everything works flawlessly. And the graphics are simple and elegant, every moment of the game is gorgeous to watch.

It’s already clear from the conclusion of the game that there will be more to come. As for me, I will gladly toss an additional $10 at Frontier for another 2 and 1/2 hours of this marvelous creation.

Going to the Barack Obama rally

Democratic Presidential nominee hopeful Barack Obama has planned a rally tonight, right here in Des Moines, IA. The wife and I discussed it, and we plan on attending. Not only that, but we’re bringing our oldest son along so he can witness history in the making.

If this stories are to be believed, tonight’s rally will mark the “beginning of the end” of the heated Democratic slugfest between Obama and Clinton. Obama apparently plans to “declare victory” tonight, in Iowa – the first place to really declare him a winner just a few months ago.

I’m excited about this. I’ve never been involved in politics to this level. I’m excited to be there with my son at this potentially historical moment (the other one is too young to be up that late and will be spending the night at his gracious aunt’s house). It will be monumental, and I am delighted that I will be able to take part.

There’s also going to be a pre-event #dmtweetup at East Village Books, hosted by the lovely and gregarious store owner @flysupes, featuring Mario Kart and beer! Must have badge to enter.

I can already tell; it’s going to be a great day to be an Obama supporter.

Happy anniversary to us!

Today marks seven wonderful years married to my wife. From our carefree days in the UNI college dorms, to our early married days living in a tiny shack in West Des Moines, to our current life in a tiny house in a tiny rural Iowa town, with two not-so-tiny boys running our every moment. Not every day has been easy, but I wouldn’t trade any of them for anyone else’s life.

There is a side to my wife that few in our circle of friends and family get to see. She is intelligent, beautiful, selfless, hilarious, adventurous, selfless, reckless, caring, considerate, and selfless. I am blessed every day that she remains by my side and constantly amazed at her resilience in the face of my unmistakable stupidity, shortsightedness, and selfishness.

To my wife, on this special day, I proclaim: I love you. More than I could ever clumsily convey.

Back to Firefox: sorry, Flock – I tried

So last night, I downloaded and installed the latest 2.0.0.14 release of Firefox (I’m just not ready for beta3 yet). I’ve been a Flock supporter for about two years now, but it was just time to switch. It wasn’t necessarily anything that Flock did that made me go back to Firefox. It was what it didn’t do that forced the uninstall. Or at least, what it claimed to do, but didn’t do so well. Man, that makes it sound more complicated than it actually is.

In essence, part of the appeal of Flock is its social networking/media integration. Only, it didn’t manage it well. The Twitter section showed all of your friends, in order of who has tweeted most recently, only displaying the last available tweet for each person. Anyone who has used Twitter extensively knows just how horrendously anti-Twitter this setup is. I tried using the function for two days, and lost significant portions of the conversations taking place. FAIL.

The Facebook section was marginally better, but all it ever showed me was what each friend of mine had as their most recent status. It would also apparently notify you when they posted photos, but evidently none of my Facebook friends ever posted any. That’s not a “fail” for Flock by any means, but it’s yet another question as to why I should be using the browser.

The Flickr integration was slick, I liked the media bar and the photo uploading feature. The only problem is that I have next to no Flickr friends/contacts, so once again, it just wasn’t a feature built for me.

Don’t even get me started on the built-in RSS feed reader. Nothing compares to Google Reader. Sorry, people – just stop trying.

When it comes down to it, I was using Flock as a fancy Firefox with some of my favorite extensions already built in. That was it. It didn’t necessarily make any of my online/social life easier to maintain or more convenient to access. It was simply there, and I decided there was little incentive for me to continue using it.

I’m sure there are a lot of people that get excellent use out of a tool like Flock. It’s unfortunate that I finally realized I wasn’t one of them.