Patrick's Blog

Coming back from a huge tech conference with thousands of people it was interesting to see how tech has come a long way.  It is interesting to see both the number of iPhones and also the number of people on their phones during the break times and during the times that have traditionally been networking times.

I probably saw only a handful of non smart phones and those with smart phones, probably 60%-70% were probably iPhones.  I’m thinking I only saw one other person with a Motorola Droid.  During lunch and during all the breaks, a good majority of people were on the phone checking back with the office or on their phone checking their twitter feeds, Facebook accounts, rss feeds, etc.  These times have been traditionally to network with other people, pitch their company to new people.

I think the biggest change that I saw at this conference was the amount of laptops.  It wasn’t too long ago that only a hand full of people had laptops because they were so expensive.  I remember getting my first laptop…  a Pentium 200 Mhz generic brand.  It probably had 30-45 min of battery power.  Even in the last few years, the advancement in laptops has change dramatically as well.  People with laptops that were only bought a year or two ago were searching for plugs because their batteries couldn’t last that long.  I even heard someone say, “Can I plug this in for a second while I swap out my battery?”  Those with newer Macs or Netbooks were good for the conference.

As I mentioned before, I only saw a handful of people with iPads.  I imagine, next f8 conference, there will be a whole lot more.

So I’m at a Facebook conference.  Yes, a Facebook conference.  When I told why I was in San Francisco to some friends, some reacted by saying, “A Facebook conference?”.  Whether we like it or not, Facebook and the social media things are a big part of the web and if you have some kind of presence on the web, you need to integrate your site or branding with these social media platforms.

Facebook is announcing and showing off some new tools  that will make it easier for websites to integrate Facebook into their site.  You can find out all the information at on the F8 site.

I’ll do write another post on the technology I’ve seen at this conference.  I haven’t been to many of these conferences but it’s interesting to see how things have changed in general.  Everyone with a smart phone (mostly iPhones), laptop (a lot of Macs), etc.  I’ve only seen like 3 iPads. 

I’m in San Francisco and I went to a great restaurant called Chez Maman.  Thanks to Ty and Ben for driving up to hang out.  San Francisco is full of these cool little restaurants all over the city.  I got a burger with bacon and cheddar.  Yes, I got a burger and it was delicious.  This is a definite thumbs up from me.

I’m out of town again.  It seems like I’ve been traveling a lot lately… at least in the past two years.  As always the case, I have a lot of work to do when I go, so it requires me to take a lot of tech with me.  Because I am traveling and I may potentially see a lot of things, I have to take my camera with me.  So, between the Macbook Pro, the DSLR, the phone, the iPod, and all the accessories and chargers that go with it, traveling is no small matter.

Continue reading “Traveling light, with little tech” »

I’ve been working on this site for the past half a year. It’s called Baduku. What is Baduku? Baduku is an opinion engine that helps people make informed decisions or gauge public opinions about anything. You can find out more on the website. We’ve just added Google Friend Connect to the site. We added Facebook connect not too long ago. What this means now is that you can login with your Google, Twitter, Yahoo, or Facebook account. I think it’s interesting that as more and more services like Baduku come along, the hassle of remembering another login here and there is less and less. I was talking to a friend the other day about Baduku and her response was, “Do I have to signup for another account?” The answer is no. We’ll see what the future holds for social networks.