The Idea Dude

CONNECTING THE DOTS ONE AT A TIME

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

One hundred days

There's a lot of commentary about President Obama's first one hundred days in office. Janet Jackson's song, "What have you done for me lately" comes to mind. What people should keep in mind is not how many problems he has solved in that time period, but the tone that he sets to start his journey. To look for the President of the United States to solve all our problems is unrealistic. What he should show is his willingness to face and deal with tough issues and do the right thing regardless of public sentiment. As the most public and prominent figure, he sets the bar and the attitude for the entire country.

But most of all in these turbulent times, his job is to inspire all of us to be responsible for our actions. His legacy one day will be whether he can energize the nation to collectively address tough situations and turn the country around. His job as a leader is to lead, not become a solution provider. If that latter is what we expect, I think we will all be bitterly disappointed.

The power of nature




Took this picture this weekend up north. What it doesn't show is on the other side of the rapids just 15-20 feet away, the water seemed so calm and clear, you could see the bottom of the river.


I guess that's like life, sometimes it meanders quietly and in an instant, it can be frenetic and confusing. Yet if you stand 50 feet away, each is beautiful in its own way.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Facebook integration

Our KissStickies iPhone application version 1.5 just got approved. It's probably one of the first iPhone apps released that integrates Facebook right into the application. We're excited, I hope our iPhone users are too.

Facebook tells you it take just a couple of lines of code to integrate their Facebook connector. What they don't tell you, once you connect, you have to write code to handle searching fojavascript:void(0)r users, pushing up notifications etc. i.e. there is no free lunch. You still have to write application specific code (lots of it) that talks to Facebook users. Of course, you also have to write a Facebook app that resides on Facebook. All it all it probably took 2-3 weeks elapsed time to get it all working, not the 5 minutes they claim.

Send a Bunny is being approved as I write with the same Facebook integration.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Send a Bunny this Easter

Our bunny app made it into the Apple Appstore on time. Given that the time to approve is unpredictable, we worried all week long. Of course, you can send bunnies any time but it's definitely more topical this weekend. Holding thumbs.

Try it out at http://www.SendaBunny.com. There's a limited free web version if you don't have an iPhone. You generate a bunny like the one below.



Sidenote: We had some pretty good internal feedback from the folks at Apple for our KissStickies app. That's really encouraging. We're getting better at it with every app. The target is 50 apps in 2009! Can't fault me for thinking big!

KissStickies can be found at http://www.KissStickies.com. Again there is a limited free web version if you don't have an iPhone/iPod Touch.