…we've created a new EC2 pricing model, which we call Reserved Instances. After you purchase such an instance for a one-time fee, you have the option to launch an EC2 instance of a certain instance type, in a particular availability zone, for a period of either 1 of 3 years. Your launch is guaranteed to succeed; there's no chance of encountering any transient limitations in EC2 capacity. You have no obligation to run the instances full time, so you'll pay even less if you choose to turn them off when you are not using them.
If you are storing all of your data in a relational database, and the load on that database exceeds its capacity, there is no automatic solution that allows you to simply add more hardware and scale up. (One day, there will be, but that’s for another post). In the meantime, most websites are building their own scalable clusters using sharding.
Introducing Geode, an experimental add-on to explore geolocation in Firefox 3 ahead of the implementation of geolocation in a future product release. Geode provides an early implementation of the W3C Geolocation specification so that developers can begin experimenting with enabling location-aware experiences using Firefox 3 today, and users can tell us what they think of the experience it provides. It includes a single experimental geolocation service provider so that any computer with WiFi can get accurate positioning data.
Despite the rough translation you still get the point…
[Translated via Google Translate]
…but very often we use a disproportionately long time to get the pages to function properly in a browser that when a small minority of users. This time it would have been much better to use to make real good tool for users, rather than to correct errors that occur only in IE6. Therefore we encourage the Find the users who have the option to upgrade your IE6 to a newer version.
In the video below, Doron speaks about a new product launch coming from uTest next month. It's called “AppGrader” and will allow startups to get free reviews of their web applications using a select set of testers in the uTest service. The information on the example Doron showed included usability reviews, first impression reviews, etc. Looks like it could be a win for both startups and uTest as startups get a chance to test the service with limited functionality for free and as the startup grows, they will come back to uTest for more involved bug testing.
We made a commitment last year to increase transparency and communication with Google Apps customers in several ways. We heard your feedback around the need for better communication when issues like yesterday's Gmail outage occur.
Track your DHL, Fedex, UPS, or USPS packages via RSS. Simply input your tracking number and you are given your own RSS feed you can use to track that package. Each RSS item represents a tracking update. They also have a Firefox add-on and mobile version as well.
As part of the release of their upcoming book, Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions, Bill Scott and Theresa Neil have published a full set of principles and patterns for rich interaction design. The first set consists of 12 Standard Screen Patterns and 100 examples of them in action. Get your hands on this great resource at the book's site.
