beriberikix

I’m a officially a NorCal resident as of this weekend. For this LA native, the bay area is drastically different then my hometown. But even for the things that are the same, like car washes, I gotz no cluez. Can folks who’ve lived here long enough answer my cries for help? Gracias.

Where do I get a car wash?

Is Verizon any good? Should I switch?

Are Woot shirts not considered clever up here?

Should I buy boating shoes?

Where are the best coffee places to check in on Foursquare to look bohemian and/or working hard?

Is there a good Bart app for Android?

What’s the deal with dog parks? Do you need licenses to go to one?

Where are the best dog parks, or a list of them?

If I get a bike, do the tires have to be skinny and the seat made of leather?

What are the radio alternatives to JackFM, KROQ & The SoundLA?

Where should I buy groceries? Why is it so hard to find a Trader Joes?!?

Please list the best places to get fresh fruit. If you do, I will provide the Gelato I will be making from said fruit.

How can I get a crash-course in SF politics?

How can I get a crash-course in political satire about SF politics?

Are there secrets to apartment hunting on Craiglist? Please help there.

Do people really place fake CL ads to swindle folks from their application fees?

I heard there are more dogs than kids in SF. Please verify.

I’ve been told that the sushi in LA is way better than SF. Say its a lie?

Best Mexican food? All classifications welcome. (authentic, healthy, cheap, different)

How’s the internet speeds? Cable vs dsl vs FIOS?

Is there a good deli? My genetic disposition needs an answer to that one.

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That’s it for now. I may add more to the post as questions slap me in the forehead.

Hello San Francisco, I can’t wait to see what we accomplish together!

I’m really digging Google+. From the UX to the tight integration with Google products, I feel this is what I would want Google to build for me. As much as I think its great, Google+ is ripe for some serious modz - open platform style.

Here are some of my ideas on ways Google+ could open up to developers:

CRUD fluff

This is the most obvious. Give me R/W access to the Stream, Photos, Profiles & Circles. Make sure the API is consistent and all GData-ish. I realize Picasa already has an API, so make sure it fits nicely into the G+ stack. Also make sure that XFN/FOAF/Friend Connect is as easy to use and as well documented as the Facebook Graph API.

What’s not obvious is that the Stream should have the firehouse from day 1. But let me filter it like we did @ MySpace (we had limitations that I bet you could remove.) Actually, make it more like MySpace and let me subscribe to it. Let me subscribe to anything, with filters, PuSH style. PuSH it baby!

Hangout, from the inside

If Hangout is the killer feature of G+, then Hangout Apps will be a developer’s dream.

I bet a lot of Wave developer’s will be dusting off their old ideas around collaboration & games for this one. Speaking of wave…

BRING BACK ROBOTS!

Why can’t 1 of the 10 Hangout peeps be a bot? Still popular in IRC channel, a bot can actually be useful. For business folks, a bot can create project tasks based on text or audio commands. In games, a bot could be a teammate or an announcer.

Media Apps

It would be great to build rich media experiences around Images & Video. I’m not talking about an Aviary clone or an image slider. I’m talking about RICH experiences. I can’t think of anything right now, but reference anything Hakim El Hattab would make. Like Textify.it.

Mobile Social as a Service

This is easy - become the next OpenFeint. Differentiate by not just being for games - everything is better with friends. Also, it would be great if it was more like a native service, so products like PhoneGap would work sans SDK.

Final note

Lastly, don’t make this hard. Learn from the Facebook Graph API, OpenSocial & ITunes. Get the docs right, the SDKs on the homepage & real-life partners making money.

You can sign up to be on the Beta list here. Looking forward to see if anyone of my ideas predict the future. Or even better yet, become suggestions for the roadmap. :)

./BBK

I recently tried to update my systems to the latest version of Node.js (v0.4.7 at present time.) I followed the instructions in my previous post but ran into issues compiling - I kept getting “Cannot find config.h.”

The node github page had the solution:

git clean -f -d -x

Git experts (not like me) probably find this to be obvious, but whatevs. Iz gotz nodz.

Cloud9 IDE is a slick web-based ide optimized for NodeJS, built on - you guessed it - NodeJS. If you’re developing Node on Windows, you’re probably using Cygwin (see previous post for instructions.) Trying to run Cloud9 on my setup threw an error.

With a a little trial and error, I discovered I needed to install ‘libxml2-dev.’ Re-rerun setup.exe to add the needed lib.

I recently decided to jump on the NodeJS bandwagon. NodeJS requires a POSIX OS and as such wouldn’t run on my Win7 laptop. I first created a slim Ubuntu VM on virtualbox. Running in seamless mode, it was almost like NodeJS was running right in Windows. It was perfect, but it worked.

After awhile, I started to notice that the 100meg+ made my laptop fan work a bit too hard. I decided I’ll try Cygwin.

I used the instructions from Github and a bit of Googling to get it working. It was surprisingly easier than the last time I tried Cygwin a few years ago.

You’ll only need to download two files: Cygwin & mintty.

Open CMD and navigate to setup.exe:

setup.exe -q -s http://cygwin.osuosl.org --package gcc-g++,git,make,openssl,openssl-devel,pkg-config,zlib-devel,python,curl,wget,nano,rebase

(Note that this is all one line.)

Launch the Cygwin Bash Shell - you can close it once it loads and never look back.

Open c:\cygwin\bin\dash:

/bin/rebaseall -v

Now extract mintty and run “Create shortcut.” Launch mintty and follow the build steps:

mkdir src
cd src
git clone git://github.com/joyent/node.git
git fetch --all
git tag
git checkout v0.4.5
./configure
make #grab a beer and wait
make install
echo "nameserver 8.8.8.8" >> /etc/resolv.conf
echo "nameserver 8.8.4.4" >> /etc/resolv.conf
curl http://npmjs.org/install.sh | sh

I also create a symlink so all my files show up in Dropbox:

mklink /J C:\cygwin\home\{user}\projects C:\Users\{user}\Documents\Dropbox\projects

(note the space between the Cygwin folder and Dropbox folder)

I’ll try to put together a Screenr and run through the steps.

Anyone else playing with NodeJS on Windows or otherwise?