Do you like Foursquare? Watch out! by Santiago on 8/31/2010

Checking-in everywhere you go is not always a good idea.

Original post is here.

Our Facebook Page - The first week by Santiago on 8/30/2010

Ok, here is the thing: we were late to the Facebook game: we just created the page two weeks ago (http://www.facebook.com/laurasoftware). All we did was inviting our personal friends to like the page, and you can see on the image accompanying this post how it was. Nothing impressive so we would like to improve this... a lot... really a lot. Our short-term goal: 500 likes.

We are not going to use Facebook Ads. Not at all. We want to grow our page using only content. Difficult? Maybe, but that is what we want to do.

I will publish every week the page statistics to keep a closer eye on them and see how they grow (or not). If anybody want to help, you're welcome.

How many articles per day you read? by Santiago on 8/30/2010

There's no doubt my main hobby is reading. 1,459 read items (ie. blog posts, news, articles, ...) over the last month makes about 50 every day, pretty impressive taking into account I have lot of things to do every day.

I'm glad to see Google Reader is giving away these candy-numbers. Digging into the chart I was able to discover some of my reading habits. I was even able to discover what sources I'm not really interested in (no read items for few months now) so I ended cleaning up my subscription list.

Hope these numbers help people to improve their reading habits.

Google... seriously... do something with the Android Market by Santiago on 8/30/2010

Yes, at least it works, but that's not enough. Do you want to compete with the iPhone? Then you need to take care of the Android Market somehow. It really sucks.

Every day new alternative markets are seeing the light trying to fill the gap Google left behind. Every single one is better than Google's. I admit I'm not a big fan of "too-many" alternatives. I rather prefer a "default" one... as long as it works, and right now, Google's doesn't.

Guys please, what are you waiting for?

Who disclosed our company information? by Santiago on 8/29/2010

Laura Software has a bank account, and of course it is related with a physical address in the United States. Laura Software pays taxes, and of course the IRS also knows where it is located. That's it.

Laura Software is not in the Yellow Pages, Laura Software hasn't its address on its website. The business cards do not include the address either...

Then, how in earth is possible we receive in the mailbox tons of junk mail directed to "Laura Software" for selling us pizzas for lunch, office space, servers, and all kind of crap like that? Who disclosed (read sold) our physical address? The Bank? The IRS?

This doesn't smell good.

Ignore "that" book at your own peril by Jorge on 8/29/2010

I love reading. Sadly I don't have enough time for it, but when I find this sort of book, I can't stop reading until my eyes start to itch.

A friend of mine gave me "Rework". As its name says, it's all about of opening up your mind to a fresh way to see the Business World, and why not? about how to learn around your own existence. Written by 37signals founders, it's a collection of best practices for your life, which is, in my point of view, the only way to digest this World.

In so many ways I felt connected to its proposition. I've always hated planing, presuppose things, act like a fool without consciousness about what other people says, and to stress myself for nothing.

I think exactly the same way these people do. Out of question: it is an excellent and wise book. You have to read it!

How to make YouTube videos available in the Android browser by Santiago on 8/28/2010

I've got a Nexus One running Froyo (Android 2.2). Of course, the Adobe Flash Player is also installed on it, so it wasn't a big deal to set up some YouTube videos using the code provided by them on a web page and load them seamless on my phone browser.

Not so fast. As soon as I tested the page on a Samsung running Android 1.5 I realized I was far from the end. The code doesn't work if you don't have Adobe Flash installed on your phone, and since this is only available for Froyo devices, my videos wouldn't work on the vast majority of Android phones out there.

After sometime thinking about how to solve this, I tried the YouTube site itself on the 1.5 device. Guess what? It worked, so the trick was there. Here is what I did:

1. I opened the mobile version of the YouTube site (http://m.youtube.com) on my computer.
2. I searched for the video I wanted to embed on my web page.
3. On the YouTube mobile site, videos are displayed using an image. I copied it and put it on my page.
4. I copied the link for this image, and did exactly the same on my site (link the image to the URL provided by YouTube).

Links to videos on the YouTube mobile site start with the rtsp:// protocol. This stands for Real Time Streaming Protocol. When accessing these links from an Android browser, the YouTube application is automatically opened with the linked video. Very cool.

As an example, below is a video working this way. If you open this post using an Android browser you will see how it works. The image is linked to the following URL:

rtsp://v7.cache8.c.youtube.com/CjYLENy73wIaLQmVJ-rZGBZLNRMYESARFEIJbXYtZ29vZ2xlSARSBXdhdGNoYMT9nbO37rnFSww=/0/0/0/video.3gp

We are on Tampa Bay Area by Santiago on 8/02/2010

What a beautiful place to live!

oDesk Android Application by Santiago on 7/26/2010

After sometime working through oDesk, and months after acquiring a Nexus One, I started thinking about receiving new job posts notifications in my phone. Nothing like that existed on the Android Market so we created our own application.

Today I'm proud to announce it was just released on the market. At a price of $1.99 you can create different alerts and receive notifications when new jobs are posted on the oDesk site. You can view jobs right inside the application, and even open them in a web browser if you want to become a candidate.

The application is very simple to use and we intend to make it better as soon as we get more feedback from the users. It was designed with our own ideas of how it should be, but I would love to hear what do you think about it.

If you want to download the application use this link from your Android phone or scan the code below:

Can't wait to hear your comments.

Quote: Premature optimization is the root of all evil in programming by Santiago on 5/22/2010

"Premature optimization is the root of all evil in programming".

Sir Charles Antony Richard Hoare