the labs @ laan thoughts and other ramblings

Parsing Apple’s plist xml format in AS3

This is just a random thing I needed to make so I thought I would post it.

This class lets you parse the plist xml format into a more as3 style xml object. The plist format is not heirarchical for its key/value pairs, it has them in the same level. This will just make a more heirarchical representation. It’s not perfect and only supports array,dict,string, and integer, but it’s very easy to add other things.

here is a usage:

 
var plist : XML = 
	<plist version="1.0">
	    <array>
	        <dict>
	            <key>title</key>
	            <string>Angry Cat</string>
	            <key>fileName</key>
	            <string>cat_angry1.caf</string>
	            <key>fileArray</key>
	            <array>
	                <dict>
	                    <key>fileName</key>
	                    <string>cat_angry1.caf</string>
	                </dict>
	            </array>
	            <key>icon</key>
	            <string>icon1.png</string>
	            <key>buttonIndex</key>
	            <integer>0</integer>
	        </dict>
	    </array>
	</plist>;
 
   var parsed : XML = PlistParser.parsePlist( plist );
   trace( parsed.item.title );

Download the file: PlistParser.as

Android Update

So just finshed our first test android app and published it to the market place and it was approved in (well i dont know, but am going to go with instantly). Its called “sun moon dial” and it does not do much expect show off the compass functionality with a bit of a sun and moon wheel action.

I made another graphic that didnt make the cut, but put it up because think it deserves a caption contest. But back to the andriod. Its amazingly full-featured and having used it for a few days i like it a lot more, but its basically like my mac and pc — there is nothing (and i mean nothing) sexy about it.

Google has done a good job with api demos, but we still need some more good sites out there and lot of question on the groups go unanswered. A good resource site btw.

Lastly why google hasnt made a web interface for their market is beyond me.

Mobile Wars

So I picked up an android developer phone this week to test it out against the iphone (something that I have become addicted too since I learned to stop hating the idouche’s this summer and got one myself).

First off, the android G1 just feels wrong. Like those bad generic windows mobile devices and all the little things add up to a bad taste. (i.e. the usb headphone, awkward keyboard on flip out, the trackball, etc, etc). Now other manufacturers are making android phones and this will improve, but then we get to the os itself. It just feels and acts klunky – nothing about it is pretty and in a day when we prize our identity by the mobile device we wear its like saying I got this because it was on sale a payless. The android reminds me of the swiss army knife I had when I was a kid; The one with way to many things. They all seemed cool, but did you ever try to use the scissors with any success.

But when you really get into the device you find there are some really interesting things – basically the fact that the camera can do macro focus allows it actually take a picture of a barcode or business card and do something useful with it (savyshopper is amazing). The compass aligned with all the other sensors makes for some real potential.

I think android will eat the Microsoft mobile market for lunch, but its not an iPhone killer by any stretch. People that buy apple products do so for a reason and none them are in the android (well as it is now, but I don’t see a decent overall of the ui/ux anytime soon).

For you developers out there – here is a cheatsheet of getting up and running and getting an app onto a phone.

1. Get the android sdk and put the android/tools dir in PATH varibable

2. Get elclipse (you probably have it)
- add wdt
- update android tools
- put the android sdk location in preferences

3. make sure you have java sdk java and have the JAVA_HOME variable set

4. Make or use a sample app from sdk – use tools to export project as apk

5. Sign your apk

make keystore:
keytool -genkey -alias anddev.keystore -keyalg RSA -validity 20000 -keystore keys/anddev.keystore

actually sign your apk
jarsigner -verbose -keystore anddev.keystore -signedjar LunarLanderSigned.apk LunarLander.apk anddev.keystore

6. Put your apk on your device
adb install LunarLanderSigned.apk

(the lunar lander app really sucks btw — in case you were wondering)

Obama (video) media bias confirmed

So just implemented a little backend feature to look for the most common index words (sorry no phrases) minus the stopwords.

And what are the most popular terms (drum roll please) – well a five year-old could have guessed – Obama then McCain then stuff like Olympics and so forth. But the proof is there – or at least in the videos we collected Obama was mentioned in basically a 3:2 margin over McCain. Funny stuff.

So, the middle of 2010 … Hmmm…..

I remember first hearing this term “capital overhang” – it was back in 2001 when I was running around like crazy trying to sell my company at the time or raise a round of venture backing. We all saw the writing on the wall. Our clients were drying up, out markets were disappearing. Big Web Giants were starting to fall everywhere like some well developed domino scheme. One CFO of a well-funded company that we had been talking to about acquisition (ours not theirs) told me not to worry. That all these funds had over collected and they needed to invest (mind you that two days later their board rejected our offer to be bought-out citing a lack of their own capital in a market downturn). Just stick it out we were told– hunker down and things will be good again in 18 months and we had one or two paying clients left so we should be good.

Well yesterday I heard it again – Josk Kopelman -  gave a really great presentation and in there was the the market should be good again some where in the middle of 2010. He had a really nice slide on stats of this venture overhang phenomena. (I will link to it when the slides are available online – for now just google it).
The reality is that the Venture or Capital tipping point didn’t come into fruition until late 2004/ early 2005 (I am no expert a deal flow so that’s just my take). Again the majority of the funds raised had been in 2000, but it two 3-4 years for that pressure to build in the system again. 

So to this 2010, I have to give a big hmmmm….. Again I think josh’s speech was very inspirational and I am definitely going to stay in this startup game. I think the recovery is a ways off as even this tech cruch is yet to really hit (we just turned down a job for NYC dev corp because they are building a Employment Portal for the tech sector because they expect so many layoffs).

analytics addict?

if you are an analytics addict like me and can’t seem to stop checking little tweeks in your marketing, etc — i have made this little bookmarklet that is set to pull up your trends defaulting to today (rather than yesterday - the google default). Get it here.

NOTE: this is the id of particular site — not your analytics account ID or one the begins with UA — you get it from your url when you viewing a particular site’s analystics - i.e. id=xxxxxx

Barcamp philly

So we did barcamp philly this weekend – was a very interesting experience as am a barcamp nub. Overall really great time (and a big round of applause to the organizers – its good to see this stuff in philly). Met some really interesting people and listened to a quite a few that just like to hear them selves talk (but I like to hear myself talk so we are probably even on the front). A couple of takeaways:

• Comcast is very interesting company for being a big evil monstrosity. Cimians is nice and one word for you out there that think internet tv might hurt cable companies - micropayments (maybe that is two words)
• Free beer and rockband are made for each other
• Open source cupcakes are tasty - http://www.opensourcecupcakes.com/

Google Trends Video Mashup.

We launched another feature yesterday in our toolbox of apps that help us catch the best videos and put them in our “snack” feed (and eventually your feed). This one is the google trends video mashup. It’s a simple concept; every hour google updates a list of the Top 100 Search Term Trends. So we take that trend data and search it across the thousands of video sources we index to give you a video list of the top 5 videos of the moment that correspond with that trend.

All of this is part of the bigger picture for us to create the ultimate timely feed of videos (that you can customize to your preferences of course). This along with our other social and trend indexes ( Twitter and FriendFeed ) plus and the crazy stuff going on under the hood (such pulling in you and your friends rating data from such places as youtube and Hulu) is really starting to come together nicely.

Of course we are still a long way off for where we ultimately want to be, but things are “trending” well.

5 things to help survive the downturn

First off the sky is not falling, but pieces definitely are and if you are not careful you will get blindsided by a falling chunk and may not survive. I am an old man of the internet (relatively speaking) and managed to make some good money in the downturn times of 2001-04 – enough to start a vodka brand and open a bar (some non-tech things I had always wanted to do). In 2001 everyone was going out of business, people panicked train wrecks were everywhere. I was one of them. I was fired from the business I started (rather asked to step down as CEO – same thing though) and my ‘company’ brought in a new executive with some grey hair, which turned out to be the right move as they are still in business today and a leader in their field.

So some key takeaways:

Don’t Panic (i.e. Be Certain of the Uncertainty) – Paulson (or mr chicken little as I like to call him) is sending panic waves through the public. He says one thing then does another. On top of that the market is a wild ride and is just getting started. Know that you (or really anyone) doesn’t have the answers. Know the dynamics of your business and position may change. Don’t fire 40% of your staff and especially not sales people just because your are looking at your runway. You eat with your mouth. The companies I saw that did massive layoffs started a death spiral because moral dropped and direction wandered.

Consult – Keep money coming in. Get you and your staff (if you still have one) paid for your and their time. This not only helps out with cash flow and your ability to potentially develop new models but it lets you know what the particular developments in your market are.

Un-focus – Get your fingers in pies. Know what is going on. A down turn means a lot of monies, consumer habits, etc are shifting from one place to another. Find that trend and find ways to leverage it. This sounds obvious, but maybe don’t put so much time into one project and test out another in a different industry.

Re-Position – Organizations and people will start looking at products and services with a familiar standby “will this save me money” – this goes for everything from clothes to business productivity software. It’s not how this software can make you money, its how this software can save money.

Productize – If you have product that has market value, get it out there. Companies are always doing build vs buy and knowing that don’t have to support a long-term development staff is very appealing right now. Also amortize your product price or sell it as a service. Everyone wants even cash-flows with no long term commitments.

Really my main point is that the internet is not going away. Yes VC/Stage firms will not be giving out money, but internet usage will continue to increase especially as people turn to it for ways to save money, affordable entertain themselves and stay in contact with less travel. All of these points relate to one two issues – cash and morale. Everything you do should be directed at keeping money coming in and motivation/spirits high. Everyone will be fine, and growth is possible, just not the way we thought.

apple phone home…

can’t say am an apple finatic, but i do love my macs (and my iphone) - and yes i do work on pc as well, but i do find it very odd that my macbook died on the same day that apple release the new macbook — very odd indeed.