For those not familiar with micro-blogging, it’s pretty much like blogging, but smaller — hence the micro prefix. Micro-blogging posts are very short, 140-160 characters that is. The most popular platform is Twitter, but new platforms are appearing, such as Pownce, Jaiku and Identica. Also, this year’s TechCrunch50 winner is the project oriented micro-blogging platform Yammer (which I didn’t get to try yet).

Back to MicroBlogBuzz, I started this little project part time while testing various APIs, and when stumbled on TwitterBuzz, which presents the most popular links on Twitter. However, TwitterBuzz only present the domain name, which isn’t really meaningful since most micro-bloggers use TinyURL or similar services to shorten their URL. TinyURL was presented as the Top Twitter link. And I thought it was kind of stupid. So I decided to do the same thing, but to follow the HTTP redirections to get to the final URL.

I got surprised by the quantity of data that I would collect. Around 1200 links every 15 minutes, and over 330,000 links and 400,000 comments in five days. I quickly ran into problems, as I built my database on InnoDB and foreign keys to keep things clean, and with this amount of data and the small server it runs on, well it can’t be clean and fast at the same time.

So I switched to MyISAM. But still, it wasn’t enough. And I added caching and smart HTTP headers. But still, it wasn’t enough. And I added preprocessing. And it was ok. At least for now, with my small 500 visitors per day.

Feel free to send me your comments and suggestions, by email, or even better, on Twitter

Well, no gems found this morning, only a little single-handed pleasure Flash game called Bunker. Free advice: don’t buy the shitty 400$ shot gun, it really sucks.

The first gem I found is candy. It’s a little puzzle game named Shift I found on Le techno-blogue à Steph! (the game’s in english, but this excellent blog’s in french). It reminds me the Prince of Persia days on my old i8086 with my CGA 4 color screen. Nostalgia! Nonetheless, the reverting action is kind of hard on the brain.

Also, yesterday, something incredible happened to me. Really amazing, and it was about time. Not, not an haircut, but I’m working hard on that one. My cell phone service provider, Fido, now offers unlimited traffic, that is. Now, I only need a YouTube client and I can kiss Videotron’s traffic limit good bye! Just kidding.

Which brings me to a pretty cool application I’ve found a while back on Product Review: WidSets. This is basically a widget platform built on Java MidP2, thus compatible with most smart phones running Symbian, Windows Mobile etc. It runs great on my Nokia E61, but I didn’t have to chance to try it on other phones (nope, I’m part of the iPhone sect yet).

How it works : you open the widget (let’s say TechCrunch), read the actual article (some only contains the abstract), and send an email or add a bookmark if you like it. When you get home, or at the office, you login to your WidSets on a computer, then you can review your bookmark.

Many cool widgets are available:

• TechCrunch
• Digg
• Wikipedia
• AccuWeather
• Many YouTube lists (but they suck, as you can’t see any video)
• News York Times
• BBC News
• ABC News
• Technorati
• Twitter
• Flickr

… and much more.

So that’s all for now folks. I now need to finish this coffee in a few gulps and do some AJAX prototyping. Enjoy your week end!

Network neutrality basically states that your internet service provider shouldn’t control what you have and don’t have access to on the internet.

The Comcast affair

Recently, Comcast decided to block the BitTorrent traffic. BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file-sharing program that can be used for many things, and that is widely used for exchanging pirate copies of movies, applications and music album.

What Comcast does is: when your computer connects to a BitTorrent service, it sends a message to the remote computer on your behalf, telling him: “I now want to stop this conversation”. That is clearly against Net neutrality.

Comcast advocates that BitTorrent clients cost them too much bandwidth, and that they do it for the sake of its user and of the internet. They probably do it for their shareholders too. And maybe for the RIAA/MPAA.

There currently are FCC hearings about it, and apparently Comcast uses unethical tactics, such as paying people to block seats and prevent net neutrality advocates to be heard.

The Pandora box

Now, only blocking BitTorrent isn’t so bad in itself. What is bad is that it opens the door to the corporations deciding what you can see and not see on the Web, for what ever reason. This the “weapons of mass destruction”-type excuse, applied to their cause: the “it slows down the network” excuse. Bear with me.

Without net neutrality, the corporations will be allowed to block content based on any corporate policies and interests that can be justified by the excuse. You can imagine major ISPs pressuring YouTube to remove an anti-McCain or anti-Obama video, or they’ll get blocked. Because the political video is seen by millions of persons, we can scientifically say that it slows down the network in some way.

This could also allow ISPs to selectively block or slow down content will allow them to charge more for specialized content (see image below).

YouTube, Facebook and your favorite news hub slow down the internet because million of people access them. So you should pay more to access those, because your are contributing to the slowdown. The Comcast video portal, news site and personal pages however will probably be free.

You want the Comcast subscribers to be able to see your company’s web site? You might need to pay them to unblock it. Because your site will slow down the network if people access it. Very slightly, but still.

Indeed, this is the internet apocalypse, and we are probably years or decades away from it. Yet, the first step toward this SciFi scenario is opening the net neutrality Pandora box.

In the end, killing net neutrality is permitting the internet service providers to censor the internet. Internet access is about access to information. And just like China, there is a lot of information corporations would benefit you not having access to.

Further reading

• Net Neutrality, at Wikipedia
• The Net Effect of Neutrality, at Technology Review
• Thanks to BitTorrrent, Net neutrality debate reignites, at News.com
• Net Neutrality Canada

Above, Apocalyptic SciFi scenario image found on Digg

Also, there will be a total lunar eclipse tonight around 8:43PM EST. The next one is due in 2010, as is Rambo 14, and when I’ll be even closer to my thirthies. So you might not want to miss it – the eclipse that is, not Rambo. Credits for the little image does to Geeks Are Sexy.

Speaking of which, that new Rambo movie sucks: lots of killing and flying body parts, too much of drama, but not enough Rambo-the-one-man-army. Yet, a must see if you grew up with the first 3, in a time where violence on TV didn’t make you a serial killer. 6/10.

http://museumofmodernfiction.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/adams-apple/

I actually found one already, and applied for it. Applied, that’s funny. Renting an appartment looks almost more complicated than obtaining a loan. Anyway, a nice 4 1/2 in a concrete building in the Vieux Longueuil, 10 minutes away from where my brother lives. I hope it works, I’ll know in a few days.