According to Kevin Rose (of digg and diggnation fame) I am in the top 5% of php developers. In the last episode of This Week in Tech, he mentioned that 95% of the resumes he receives for digg.com positions are from developers who haven’t even worked on a site that gets 1 million uniques, let alone anything near the 26 million digg gets.
I have!
*toot toot* (that’s the sound of my own horn)
I don’t use the service – last I checked they did not have any Canadian area codes available. As techcrunch reports, google’s phone service has been down for the morning. It’s worth noting that this is the first time a major google service has gone down for any length of time.
I hope this does not represent a new trend for google. If you want to be a phone service you can’t go down, but more importantly to developers like me, if you want to be an app engine you certainly can’t go down.
CushyCMS is a new hosted Content Management System from Stateless Systems – the people who brought you bugMeNot.com, PDFMeNot.com and other similar services. It’s a dead simple CMS that requires no software install and no real programming knowledge. Found out about it via this Techcrunch post.
I don’t like to make judgements about things I haven’t actually tried, but this app is so simple that I think the video is all the explanation I need – I mean that as a compliment.
I’m a huge fan of simple solutions that solve specific problems really well and I think CushyCMS is a big step in the right direction. A lot of CMSes are extremely complicated to install, setup and do a poor job of actually managing content easily. Cushy is simple to set up and simpler to use.
It does a few things that I can’t really call good or bad, just “interesting.”
Hosting the CMS on a third party site definately makes it simpler to set up, but it has some obvious privacy concerns, you’re giving cushy access to your own site, not just setting up an account on an isolated service.
Using the CSS class property to define content areas is also interesting. I really want to say that this is a good solution to the complexity of implementing a templating language. I just can’t stomach the ideal of defining a CSS class that isn’t actually used to display a visual style, it’s just wrong; but I’ll admit, it is a pretty ingenious solution.
Even though I really really want to write a positive review about this app – I honestly think it’s a big step forward for simplicity – in it’s current itteration it has one serious flaw that makes it almost completely unusable. It is not at all possible to add any dynamic content! It’s only possible to edit existing HTML pages, with CushyCMS defined elements. The Administrator has to add individual pages with statically defined content areas. CushyCMS can’t even re-generate this content to create repeating elements within this HTML page. This means that Cushy can’t even be used to manage the even simplist newsletter, blog, photo gallery or photo gallery. Essentially, it’s only really good for managing what I would normally consider “static content areas,” things like about us, privacy policies, contact us pages, intro blurbs. For the most part this type of content doesn’t need to be updated often and therefore, doesn’t really need a management system.
Because of this, CushyCMS is almost nothing more than a glorified FTP client.
I received this confusing email the other day. I’m pretty sure this was in response to a question I posted to an advertiser on a kijiji.ca property rental listing.
I think this email represents a change in the way Nigerian 419 victims are being lured in. A few interesting things are happening in this email:
1) The premise of the scam is not mentioned in the email at all. Are scammers counting on their charisma to win over feeble minds? Seems like a long shot…
2) The scammer essentially admits he’s from Nigeria. He mentions “west africa” and the +234 country code is Nigeria.
3) The email contains very specific and accurate local information. “355 MAGNUS AVE” is a valid residential address located in “Winnipeg (North West)Manitoba”. Also $690 for rent in that area of town is pretty close to the mark, albeit somewhat suspiciously low when you consider that it includes an “electric cooker.”
Granted all of this information could be gathered/verified via google. I think this idicates that these scammers are putting a lot more effort into finding victims, which hopefully means they’re having a harder time ripping people off.
Here’s the email:
from the love of god <[email protected]>
to [email protected],
date Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 12:58 PM
subject house for rentGreetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
I am new to this internet stuff and probably I am newer to renting out houses.My name is Rev Michael Savage, I am the owner of the house you responded to the advert I placed online I lived in the house with my Wife Katherine and my daughter Lisa before I was transfered to California to head the Halfane Mission house branch,hence the reason I placed the advert .
The house is complete with hydro washer,internal heater and electric cooker and all other ammenities to make life comfortable the rent goes for $690 and it is available for immediate occupancy.
The house holds lots of memeories for us and we would like someone that would take good care of it and keep it neat and clean at all times.I started building an indoor fountain for the living room last month if you are someworth of a handy person it would give me great joy if you could complete it.I am presently in West africa Lecturing in a six week theology seminar on the divinity and godliness of Lucifer an intresting topic by the way i would love to share it with you if you might be intrested.
You can call me on +2348029684719 if there are any details you would like to clarify.The house is located on 355 MAGNUS AVE Winnipeg (North West)Manitoba you can go and view it and get back to me if you find the place suitable so i can forward you an application form.
God Bless you,
Rev Michael Savage
via Veronica Belmont