For a long time now, many websites providing a service to Twitter users had to use those users' credentials to get access to their profile, messages or to post tweets in their name. For example, I've given my credentials to TwitPic, Twitterfeed, Remember the Milk and Skitch. Many people are quick to give away their username and password -- and as many learn the hard way why that's a bad idea. When Twply, a service emailing your "@name" replies, first promised "Your password is safe with us. No worries." and then sold on eBay for $1200 after one day, a lot of people that had given up their username and password there were left wondering what the new owner would do with those credentials. In software development, the underlying structures of best practices are called "patterns". Using one's username and password on a service to get access to another service has many bad implications and is therefore called an "antipattern", a practice that should be discouraged. Finally now, the Twitter crew has done its homework and is testing OAuth, a protocol to give one service access to another service in your name without revealing your password. I'm sure that this move will make even more Twitter support services appear, and now you don't have to do a multi-day due diligence period until you gather the courage to enter your credentials outside of Twitter any more.

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My birthday cake, made by Carolin with 39 candles and a hand-drawn Tauren.

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Since Rackspace Hosting is running out of floor space in their primary data center, they had to decide between building a new location and to buy or lease existing data center space. As Data Center Knowledge reports, they chose leasing: The company considered building additional data center space in its new headquarters facility in a former shopping center in San Antonio, but later indicated that it believed it could save money by buying or leasing instead. Finally, the company decided on expanding by leasing a data center in Auburn, Virginia, because this "will enable it to serve customer demand more quickly and cost effectively than if Rackspace built its own facility". Like after the first dot com bubble, there's unused data center space at many places because companies decided (and had to money) to build big. In the current economic situation, though, it seems wise to buy or lease that existing space instead of incurring huge new building costs.

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Hosting provider Liquid Web (Michigan, USA) has been building a new data center to provide 50,000 square feet of data center space and additional office space. Infrastructure director Chris Strandt and marketing director Travis Stoliker give a short look into the facilities: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwHzK6xxQ3I&hl=de&fs=1] Nothing shocking when you're used to our data center. I'm curious if my employer will let us do a short walk-through when we get a new one somedays. (via Data Center Knowledge)

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We are able to experience only the three spatial dimensions and often consider time as the fourth one, even if we can't imagine a fourth coordinate axis perpendicular to the other three. How we can use our grasp on those first four dimensions to extrapolate to up to ten dimensions is explained in this video: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvgwR9ERCBo&hl=de&fs=1] If you've still got some brain juice left on a sunday evening, enjoy! And if your head doesn't spin after watching it, visit the corresponding blog Imagining the Tenth Dimension.

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I tried so many email applications, but none could actually beat the productivity I operate my GMail account with the original web interface. My only gripe has been so far that I wasn't able to access my email when there was no internet connection. On the train to and from work, for example. It's not that Google didn't have the tools to solve that problem. Google Gears is available quite some time and I use it extensively with Mindmeister. Today I found on the official GMail blog that the Google engineers really are working on an offline mode for GMail. It's still work in progress and only available over the labs menu. This feature enables you to use GMail offline, and it also offers a "flaky connection mode" where it uses the local cache but tries to synchronize in the background. Who needs a desktop application with internet connection when you can get the internet on your desktop?

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I discovered I have a new superpower. I call it "parent vision" and it lets me see every sharp edge, wall socket and other dangers to a crawling toddler in a fraction of a second. What's not so super is that it's the fraction of a second before her hand or head touches it.

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In an official statement, the german "Gesellschaft für Informatik" (GI), Germany's biggest association of IT experts, states that the new "BSI law" probably is a progress from the draft of 2008, but still has deeply rooted flaws. (BSI is short for "Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationtechnik", the federal office for information technology security.) What troubles the IT experts most is the fact that each and every communication with federal authorities will be completely monitored, which they regard as the first step to a surveillance state. "GI demands free and uncontrolled communication of all citizens with federal authorities as warranted by the constitution", the paper announces. Personal information won't be sufficiently secured by the proposed law, so effective restrictions must be put in place, GI concludes. By criticising the "BSI law", GI joins other voices that fear an increase in stately surveillance and in the risk of unauthorized access to personal data, for example Peter Schaar, the german federal data privacy commissioner. I regard it as highly necessary that all parts of german society raise their voices against those attempts at collecting more personal data with neither valid reason nor the technical and legal means of protecting them. Join the protest! (via Heise Newsticker)

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You know Simon's Cat from the first two animations I published on my blog. Now it's time to introduce you to Simon's sister's dog! Recently, I got an email that, at first, looked like spam, but was clever PR for the RSPCA’s campaign to tackle pet obesity: I noticed that you have blogged about Simon’s Cat in the past, so I thought you would be really interested to hear that Simon Tofield, the maker of Simon’s cat, has finally released a new animation. The video, featuring Simon’s sister’s dog has been made especially for the RSPCA, and can be watched at www.giveanimalsavoice.org.uk. I'm amazed at this social media approach to get the RSPCA's message spread and more than glad to help the cause. Here's the clip:

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I found this picture in c't magazine 24/2008 on page 129. Now, what's the most interesting detail? Answer A: A woman! (0 points) Answer B: A brand new aluminum MacBook! (10 points) Answer C: A Commodore C64c with VC1541-II floppy disk drive and Competition Pro joystick! (10.000 points) Post your score in the comments!

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