Google Developer Podcast Episode 15: Google App Engine

By Dion Almaer, Google Developer Programs

Using iTunes?

We had the pleasure to talk to some of the Google App Engine team to discuss the recent launch that Dick uses the tagline as "Your apps, our servers". We get to chat with tech lead on the project Kevin Gibbs, product manager Pete Koomen, and Guido van Rossum. I don't think we need to introduce Guido!

The podcast starts out answering why Google App Engine was created, and why Python was chosen as the first language. We then hear about the work that goes into making a language hardened for the platform itself.

Of all of the APIs that we expose in the App Engine back-end, we feel that the Database API is probably the most foreign for the majority of developers. Many are used to the relational model for datastores, and our datastore is different. Kevin talks about these differences, and the ramifications that come with a schema-less store. We then delve into the practicalities of having libraries such as SQL Alchemy support GQL which is a functional subset of SQL.

What about lock-in? This was one of the big questions that came out of the community when we launched App Engine. You can see how open the team is to other solutions, and how they like seeing work such as AppDrop that shows how you can do this. The choice to make the SDK itself fully open source says a lot.

Guido discussed how the Python runtime is indeed the full language, but how some libraries are not there. He talks about the reasons behind the choices, which are mainly related to security. As time goes on more libraries that developers really need will make it into the system, often with equivalent implementations. Although a traditional file system doesn't make sense in the cloud, we could very well see a virtual file system implemented.

We go on to discuss a lot more, including:

• What restrictions are there for serving your applications?
• What Web frameworks are available?
• Can you develop Web services as well as Web applications? How about gadget and widget?
• What kind of traffic can be expect with the free accounts?
• Can I run these applications on my domain, and integrate with Google Apps?

If you want to see more of the team and play with App Engine, come by a hackathon when it get to your neck of the woods, or hear more at Google I/O.

You can download the episode directly, or subscribe to the show (click here for iTunes one-click subscribe).

Express Checkout: Superbad, Hannah Montana with Dogs in Movies

• I was reading a couple of stories about J.J. Abrams getting involved with a "Superbad"-type comedy called Hot for Teacher, as a producer. And the quotation marks are not my idea when it comes to relaying this, but rather me using the same emphasis as the stories that reported it. But to me, when you describe the film you are making in terms of a movie that recently came out, well, to me that signals that the finished product is going to be less than stellar. And I know J.J. Abrams was the genius behind that cinematic classic Taking Care of Business with Jim Belushi and Charles Grodin, but somehow I don't think comedy is really his shtick, even as a producer. And yes, Jay Dyer was a writer-producer on Andy Richter Controls the Universe, but just the fact that it seems like these two are cynically pursuing Judd Apatow in this particular subgenre of comedy, well, it doesn't bode well for the project. Well, unless they are going for the ripped from the headlines feeling of student-teacher sexual relations... which we all know is just comedy gold.


• I am not going to talk about the Miley Cyrus photos, because frankly, that particular issue has been discussed to utter distraction. However, there is a piece of related news that I do think bears mentioning. Apparently the rumor mill has it that Disney wants to either literally or figuratively replace the Hannah Montana star because of the negative publicity regarding those very same pictures and replace her with Selena Gomez. Now, correct me if I am wrong, but considering that Hannah Montana represents one of Disney's biggest properties... just look at all those stories about ticket sales for her concerts last year, and even with the controversy, the show is still highly bankable, and those pesky though, in the long view of her career, useful photos may end up put a short term dent in the ratings and profit margin of the show and her concerts, but if Disney sticks with her, this whole thing work itself out. And there is always the Lindsay the Mouse built to compare these relatively minor incidents to. South Park really nailed this one. Yep... I got sucked into talking about this... please forgive me.


• Now I am all for animal welfare, I really am, but sometimes I hear about something that to me sounds so ridiculous, I feel that it deserves a little mild mocking. At the end of a story about the tragic death of an animal trainer after being bitten by one of his bears, PETA sent Will Ferrell a letter asking him not to work with wild animals again (the bear had appeared in Semi-Pro). Now, personally, I have made it my policy to not see another movie that features ape performers(gorillas, chimps and orangutans), so that is a surprisingly fair request in my eyes from PETA. However, the story then went on to mention that PETA supporter Pamela Anderson refused to do a scene with a trained Labrador. I know it was a stand on principles on her part, I understand that. But I don't think of a dog as a wild animal, I just don't. And a dog can be taught to do things like a human being can though positive reinforcement. Because of the ubiquity of dogs in American life their place in film to me seems like a given and a near requirement for accuracy's sake. If they are well treated, I have absolutely no quarrel with domesticated animals appearing in films, and while I do appreciate Ms. Anderson's commitment to the cause, deep down I wonder if the reason she didn't want to do the scene had more to do with the possibility that her canine counterpart would act her under the table rather than the thought that animals appearing in entertainment for humans was morally wrong.

Tags: will ferrell, j.j. abrams, pamela anderson, miley cyrus, south park, britney's new look, hannah montana, disney, selena gomez, bear attack, peta, semi-pro, superbad, judd apatow, hot for teacher, andy richter, taking care of business, jim belushi

Remembering The Crazies

Between George Romero's first movie in 1968, Night of the Living Dead, and arguably his magnus opus in 1978, Dawn of the Dead, he worked on quite a few projects that don't get the same kind of mainstream attention (like a television special called O.J. Simpson: Juice is on the Loose)

And sitting smack dab in the middle of this period is 1973's The Crazies, a movie which shares elements with other horror/suspense movies that would be made for decades to come. And it is pure Grindhouse in the best possible way.

The movie takes place in the sleepy town of Evans City, Pennsylvania, which soon finds itself being virtually invaded by the US Army, clad Hazmat suits and gas masks, in an attempt to quarantine the town. The citizens of the town naturally don't take to kindly to this kind of treatment. Of course, most of the citizens are also blissfully unaware that a plane crash on the outskirts of town also introduced a highly communicable biological weapon into the water supply which causes either death or permanent insanity. And since it is a semi-rural township, well, a lot of people in the infection zone have guns of their own, making gathering the townspeople a doubly deadly proposition for those working on pacifying and containing the town.

But soon, a small group of people, including two Vietnam veterans, the nurse at the local doctor's office who had dated both men, and a father and daughter try to escape from the town and the threat of infection, much to the consternation of Army brass who know that there is a bomber carrying nuclear weapons as a failsafe to prevent the contagion from spreading outside the quarantined zone.

So as you can see, there are a lot of good starting elements from the start of this movie, and I was totally sold by the DVD cover even before I saw that it was George Romero movie. I mean, I think any movie with NBC suits in it is worth a chance. And a quarantined town whose citizens are actively fighting their occupier, well, that is a good movie right there. However, like many grindhouse movies, these elements don't fully come together as well as I would have liked. It was good, but it didn't fully live up to its potential. There was room for so much more really.

That being said, off the top of my head, I can see connections between this movie and such films as David Cronenberg's Rabid, Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror and Outbreak to name a few, as well as a lot of video games like Resident Evil 4.

However, The Crazies does feature my new favorite, though not particularly prolific, character actor, Richard France, who also appeared as the doctor with the eye patch from the National Emergency Broadcast System telecasts in Dawn of the Dead.


Seriously, I think he is the best actor in the entire movie. And he is currently an Orson Welles scholar and accomplished playwright to boot.

Of course, when I was looking up some of the information for this little retrospective, I noticed that the insatiable maw of Hollywood has enveloped The Crazies and is remaking it for a 2010 release. Now normally, I am very reticent about remakes in general, but in this case, I am sort of looking forward to seeing what someone else does with this material, because as I said, there was potential that went unfulfilled in the original and a new set of eyes may be able to find a few new tricks in this grindhouse classic.

Tags: george a romero, the crazies, night of the living dead, dawn of the dead, remake, richard france, grindhouse, juice on the loose, quarantine, orson welles, rabid, 28 days later, resident evil 4

Cuzillion: Check your zillion web pages

By Dion Almaer, Google Developer Programs

Steve Souders, member of the performance group at Google, has released a new open source tool called Cuzillion. Steve was constantly creating sample test web pages that he used to test out theories on Web site performance. He realized that he was repeating a lot of the same steps, so why not create a tool that would enable him to build the samples quickly. Thus, Cuzillion was born.



If you take a look at the UI above, you will see that it is mimicking a Web page, with a <HEAD> and <BODY>. On the left hand side you select types of elements; such as images, scripts, CSS, and other resources. You add these elements to the mini page on the right, and then you can select that element to set more properties on it. For example, you can quickly set the domain that it is running on, which allows you to test splitting our content on domains.

We sat down with Steve and produced the video below in two parts. It starts off with him discussing the project, and then delves into a screencast of the product itself. He gives us an introduction, and then shows how he used it to solve an issue with Orkut.

Culture Kills is 2 years old

Can you believe that Culture Kills is two today? And it all started with a post about moving into these digs. And here we are over 850 posts later(which by my estimates puts my posting frequency at just under 8 per week). And what a journey it has been.

Pop Culture is a cruel mistress, and she has beaten my ass red over the past 104 weeks. But even though I've been bloodied in the battle, I've kept coming back and fighting back against her, and I've gotten in a few good shots at her as well, and I am committed to going the distance. I've got a good cutman, and she's got a great board certified plastic surgeon, so it will be a long fight.

And I think I stretched that metaphor a little too far, but it was fun just rolling through that.

But reaching one year is a statistical anomaly in many ways, but reaching two years, well, that is really something, and something worth celebrating. With so many blogs starting and ending over this same period, it almost feels like Culture Kills started out as a maple seedling 2 years ago and is now a sapling that has made a rugged foothold in the earth.

There have been some monumental moments over the past year, such as having my entry criticizing Jodie Foster about her admittedly ignorant stance on Sin City featured on the IMDB front page, or seeing a Transmundanity Award winner get rocketed through the stratosphere for a few weeks, and I can't forget the Blogger Burnout Advisory System. That is certainly a keeper.

And there was the redesign, which I am still getting accustomed to. I know it shouldn't have hit me so hard, but I miss the plaid... but it is better this way. Sometimes you have to change direction slightly to keep things interesting.

Last year around the first anniversary of Culture Kills, I wrote a post that analyzed my early predictions for this blog, so I won't really rehash what was said there. Suffice it to say, I've think that things have been proceeding quite well since last April, though they could always be better.

I guess this blog had to reach the terrible twos eventually, which means now I sort of have license to start being more of a little bastard. And perhaps things will start picking up around here again... I was shocked to see that I had 3 Transmundanity Awards amongst my last 10 posts, and that isn't right at all. I have a few ideas for posts brewin' on the back burner, so there should be more original content soon. (I know, I know... promises, promises.)

And once again, I have to thank you, my readers, for contributing to the overall community around here. Blogging is an interactive form of writing, and without you showing your support and providing your own unique point of view to the conversation, well, I'd largely be talking to myself. So thanks for your support.

Tags: culture kills, anniversary, terrible twos, transmundanity, sin city, jodie foster, blogger burnout, advisory system, sapling, celebration, kool and the gang

Sunday Night Video: Top Gun Recut

I think the popular set up for the following video is this scene from 1994's Sleep with Me.

Nothing I really need to comment on here.

Tags: quentin tarantino, top gun, love story, sleep with me, recut, gay subtext, f-14, tomcat, air combat, ace combat

Blogging through a child's eye

From Marginal Revolution, Alex Tabarrok writes:

Yesterday I went to a party at Robin Hanson's. Megan McArdle, Bryan Caplan, Will Wilkinson, Tyler and many others were in attendance, as was my 6-year old.

"How was the party?," my wife asked the 6-year old.

"It was like this," he answered, "Blah, blah, blog. My blog, blah, blah, blah. Blog, blah, blog."

Classic.

History of worrying

Emily Bazelon in Slate reacts to the child-subway story with a history of parental concern.

According to Peter Stearns' Anxious Parents: A History of Modern Childrearing in America, the idea that a bad parent stood behind every child accident—that there were no accidents, in fact—dates from about the 1920s. Nineteenth-century parenting manuals focused on health, not the risk of accidental calamity, Stearns writes. But, in 1922, people such as journalist and author Ida Tarbell were warning, "By analyzing some of the accidents to children, the mother's responsibility is clear enough. None but she could have prevented them." The timeline matches a small revelation I had when I read my kids the beloved All of a Kind Family books. The series, first published in 1951, is set on New York's Lower East Side in the 1910s. When the family's small son hurts his head badly after playing at a street construction site, his parents are naturally upset. But there's no self-flagellation. They don't berate themselves or even mention their own role, or lack thereof. The norm was so different that I had to stop myself from pointing it out to my kids, who don't really need me to reinforce the notion that it's parents who are at fault.

Sadly, the article then drops into what has to be the most spurious advocacy for parental leave I have ever seen: that having a parent at home will soothe anxiety and restore some sanity to worried parents.

Now I am not shy about recommending government intervention where there is some sort of market failure or an under-priced social good but come on. Payments to parents to help them get with it and stop worrying about their children. That is an incredible stretch and, moreover, no specific evidence is cited of the posited link.

Bazelon gives much airtime to Neil Gilbert, a professor of social welfare at Berkeley who has a new book on the rise of feminism and changing family life. I must say that linking the thoughtful material of Lenore Skenazy to this does not seem to be helping matters.

Week 50: Pageant of the Transmundane

This week's winner explores a little bit of new ground for the awards. We've had all manner of strange subjects, provocative poses and weird juxtapositions for the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award, but never have I rewarded an entry that showcases profound ignorance and stupidity.

I think this week's winner represents the first time that last set of facets was the deciding factor in determining who would be the victor.

You see, SamuraiFrog of Electronic Cerebrectomy discovered one of the stupidest picket signs I've ever seen. I mean, the ignorance involved in staggering, and it is that very quality that made it stick out for me this week.

And even though I can think of three episodes of the Simpsons that include the Olympics, I can't find a single good related image from them, so instead, I had to explore the theme of picket signs, and well, there was something specific that came to mind for that one, and so it became the representation of this week's winner.



Congrats Honorable Amphibian of the Japanese Warrior Class. *bow*



EDIT: it has come to my attention that in addition to winning the Transmundanity Award this week, SamuraiFrog has also won his third award in a calendar year(with wins in week 51 of last year and 26 of this year). Thus, he has also won the Transmundanity Triple Crown.



The rules of this little contest: Every week I will be selecting one blog post that I have seen from the vast reaches of the blogosphere to bestow with the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period. It doesn't necessarily have to have been written during the week, I just had to have encountered it. That means that if you find something interesting and repost it like a movie or whatever, if I saw it at your blog first, you get the prize. Of course, creating your own content is also a very good way to win.

Now, if you see a post that you think is worthy of this illustrious prize, just drop me a line at campybeaver@gmail.com and we'll see if we can't get your suggestion up and award-ready while giving you some credit and a link to your own blog.

Tags: homer simpson, pageant of the transmundane, samuraifrog, electronic cerebrectomy, picket sign, china, olympics, duh, triple crown

Parenting Idle

From the Daily Telegraph in the UK comes an advocate for 'idle parenting.' Tom Hodgkinson literally recommends that parents do 'bugger all.' They should abandon their children, lie in bed and not bother with planned activities. Go on, read it. Don't tell me you aren't tempted.

On idyllic idleness, one thing that we have discovered is the Sunday morning lie-in. We have made a deal with our children: do what you want so long as you get your 3 year old sister breakfast and we don't hear any of you. Of course, this means they have breakfast full of sugar and watch a couple of hours of television (which is pretty much their only viewing on a regular basis). But what is more, the fear of an argument bringing about noise, allows them to compromise on what would ordinarily be some disputes. Unlike the article, we aren't hung over, we just want some peace for a short time.

When it comes to activities on the other hand we are not doing so well. Let's look at our kids' 'out of school' activities:

• Child No.1 (9 years): swimming, music theory (don't ask), basketball and taekwondo (twice plus a monthly full contact session)
• Child No.2 (7 years): swimming, piano, gym, probability theory (again, don't ask) and taekwondo
• Child No.3 (3 years): swimming.

Now I have long thought that this was way too much but any attempt at reduction brings howls of complaint from the children themselves. Indeed, they would happily do more. Personally, I think that if we offered a bit more TV up in return for dropping an activity, we would have a deal. But, apparently, such deals are about as socially acceptable as selling a kidney.

Google App Engine Hack-a-thon coming to your coast!

By Amanda Surya, Google Developer Programs

In May, we'll be holding two Google App Engine Hack-a-thons at Google's offices. The first one will be in New York, May 7th, from 10am - 6pm, and the second one in San Francisco, May 16th, 10am - 10pm. This is a great opportunity to get started on Google App Engine. You can code along with us in building an app from start to finish or you can bring your existing apps and get some help and guidance from Google engineers.

Check out the full details of these events and RSVP for either the New York Hack-a-thon or the San Francisco Hack-a-thon. Or both, if you have the frequent flier miles to spare.

Alan Kaufman: Rock Star Accountant

Ah Tax season has come and gone for most people... but here is a little flashback for those of you who, like me, may be a little late in filing.

The world needs more accountants for Rock Stars... that's all I am saying.

And there is a longer post forthcoming, so don't think I am trying to rip you off or anything with the higher proportion of videos now... I post them on the same days generally, but I haven't been producing the content between them, so it just looks like more. ;)

Tags: meth minute, rock star, accountants, alan kaufman, neil young, cher, jimi hendrix, syd barrett, billy corgan, bono

Google AJAX APIs available from outside of the browser

By Dion Almaer, Google Developer Programs

The AJAX API team just posted about using Flash and the server side to access the AJAX APIs.

This is very exciting, as it now allows you the developer to access not only Google Web Search results, but also query video, images, news, local, and other search functions. Also, this covers the AJAX Feed API which means you can get access to feeds in a normalized manner, and the new AJAX Language API to do translations and language detection.

If you step back, you can see this as a Google REST API, and some of you have wondered how it compares to the SOAP API.

I got to go to the horses mouth, Mark Lucovsky (team lead for the AJAX APIs), to discuss what this new access point is all about, and you may be a little surprised with the content.

We discuss the fact that this has actually been running for quite some time, but we now have clarified it as an official end point for your usage. This also means that it has thorough documentation, which was important as Mark talks about how some people have been using the API incorrectly.

Mark clarifies the terms of use, and you come out of this in the knowledge that his team has been attacking very different problems to the original SOAP API team. He has been ruthlessly practical, as you will understand as he talks about the problems his team are solving, and the breadth of sites that are using these APIs, including some very big names.

Enough of me talking, let's listen to Mark:



Hear more from Mark on the AJAX APIs, Vadim on accessing the APIs outside of AJAX, and Derek on advanced development using AJAX Apis at Google I/O.

I knew it!

From The Onion:

Item! Have you ever noticed that you never see Miley Cyris and Hanna Montana in the same room at the same time? (She's kind of like Superman and Peter Parker in that way.) Well, that's because the hot Disney singer and the hot teen singer are one and the same person! I hope I haven't put her father, country superstar Billy Ray Cyris, in danger by revealing her secret identity, but it's news, and my job is to break big news.

Turns out that Miley is just wearing a wig and different clothes. Unbelievable. I'll have to keep this from the kids lest the magic be destroyed.

Star Wars then and Way back When

What do you get when you combine Star Wars action figures and overlay the Second World War on top of it?

The sheer awesomeness that is Star Wars 1942.



As you know, I don't have roots in the Star Wars fandom community, or in the action figure collecting one either, but wow... I love what they've done here. I mean, conceptually, it is almost pitch perfect, and the fact that both Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford were in World War II movies early in their careers also works with this set too.

I'd also recommend checking out Steampunk Star Wars as well.

Tags: star wars, world war ii, big red one, steampunk, nineteenth century, mark hamill, robots, action figures, harrison ford, battlefield 1942, george lucas, crossover, collectibles

Google Developer Days 2008: expanding to thirteen locations

By Elizabeth Yin, Google Developer Programs

Google Developer Days 2008, a set of one-day developer events, are back and will take place in locations around the world. We've designed these events for developers with strong coding backgrounds, so that we can discuss our APIs, developer tools and applications.

We'll host Google Developer Day in these locations:

• Yokohama, Japan (June 10)
• Beijing, China (June 12)
• Taipei, Taiwan (June 14)
• Sydney, Australia (June 18)
• Mexico City, Mexico (June 23)
• Sao Paulo, Brazil (June 27)
• London, UK (Sept 16)
• Paris, France (Sept 18)
• Munich, Germany (Sept 23)
• Madrid, Spain (Sept 25)
• Milan, Italy (Oct 21)
• Prague, Czech (Oct 23)
• Moscow, Russia (Oct 28)

If you're based in the US, we encourage you to come to Google I/O, on May 28-29 in San Francisco.

At Google Developer Day, our engineers will share their inside knowledge on our developer tools and APIs, including Android, OpenSocial, and AppEngine. In many locations we'll do deep dives into code and conduct hands-on codelabs.

We've posted detailed information for our early dates and will be adding more information for other locations soon. If you're a developer, we encourage you to sign-up for a Google Developer Day at a nearby location. Hope to see you there.

Update: Corrected the September 23rd event location from Hamburg, Germany to Munich, Germany.

Developer sandbox for iGoogle launches

By Saurabh Mathur, iGoogle Team

Today, we're excited to open up a developer sandbox for iGoogle. The sandbox includes support for OpenSocial, a common API designed to let you easily build social applications that run on a growing number of web containers. The iGoogle OpenSocial container also supports canvas view, allowing developers to build powerful and feature-rich full-page applications for iGoogle's tens of millions of users.

To get started, please begin with the documentation and examples on the iGoogle developer website. The site includes detailed information about iGoogle and a guide to incorporating the new social features.

Watch as Jake walks us through the sandbox and shows how to build a basic gadget.



Sign up for access to the developer sandbox and keep up-to-date with our new iGoogle Developer Blog.

Happy coding!

Sunday Night Video: Fan made Stereolab video

I was looking up Stereolab videos earlier this week, and I found this little gem created by some fans of the band.

The video is much in keeping with the band's earlier videos, which I think is the reason why I think it is such an excellent effort.

Tags: stereolab, vodiak, noise of carpet, billy basso, slinky, catie soldan, norvin ng, louis doulas, marty jayne, bill bacarella

Week 49: Pageant of the Transmundane

This week's winner was nominated by Hilly from the lovely blogging land of Snackie's World. I do love receiving nominations for this award, and her submission literally left me speechless, and it was something I would have missed otherwise.

You see, recently, Karl of Secondhand Trytophan had made some changes to his blog, and unbeknowst to me, I hadn't been receiving his feed.

And wow, I almost missed something stunning, something which truly represents what it means to be transmundane.

It was a post that sets up its own principality next to Fab country, and I have to tell you, that is some really weird real estate.

The post is titled "Now Get Women’s Erotic Juices in a Bottle" and really, that should indicate to everyone that really, this week's winner is not safe for work. And well, it was a post that showed a lot of courage on Karl's part... as well as a lot of other things that Karl has.

With those words in mind, here is this week's winning entry. Be prepared for TMI.

What I liked was Karl fully committed to the theme... so I applaud him for that.

And of course, I think I found the perfect picture for this week's Pageant of the Transmundane. Very fitting, wouldn't you say?



So congrats to Karl... though I do think this latest win will put an appearance on the View just out of reach now.



The rules of this little contest: Every week I will be selecting one blog post that I have seen from the vast reaches of the blogosphere to bestow with the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period. It doesn't necessarily have to have been written during the week, I just had to have encountered it. That means that if you find something interesting and repost it like a movie or whatever, if I saw it at your blog first, you get the prize. Of course, creating your own content is also a very good way to win.

Now, if you see a post that you think is worthy of this illustrious prize, just drop me a line at campybeaver@gmail.com and we'll see if we can't get your suggestion up and award-ready while giving you some credit and a link to your own blog.

Tags: karl erikson, secondhand trytophan, vulva, hilly, snackie's world, homer simpson, pageant of the transmundane, perfume, tasteful nudity

Code Review: Start your App Engine and run the cloud offline with your docs

By Dion Almaer, Google Developer Programs



The big buzz continues to revolve around our Google App Engine launch. We are seeing a host of applications being developed, and were even pleasantly surprised to see people port the APIs allowing you to run App Engine code elsewhere, such as appdrop.com.

One interesting feature to the App Engine which you may not have noticed, is the integration with Google Apps. Not only can you tie an application to your domain (allowing you to have myapp.mydomain.com instead of myapp.appspot.com) but you can restrict access to the given application to only members of your domain. If I ran a company on Google Apps, this would be a nice addition. I could see the small business apps that I need running there.

Jeff Scudder then released a new version of the Google data Python client library which has support for Google App Engine and the Contacts API. If you want to use this in your Google App Engine application you simply need to set gdata.service.http_request_handler = gdata.urlfetch to make sure your requests have a path out!

Google Docs offline, and Gears

I was on the road, speaking about Gears and the Open Web in Europe last week, and it was perfect timing to be mixing with the community as Google App Engine came out and I could talk to that too. We also had a few things to talk about with Gears.

We have been getting lots of questions surrounding our stance with the various standards out there, so Aaron Boodman put down our thoughts on the matter in a piece called Gears and Standards. It talks about how we are working with HTML5, and the direction that you will see Gears going. I think it is incredibly exciting to see people realise how Gears is a lot more than "offline", and is actually an open source way to teach browsers new tricks.

Brad Neuberg talked about just that as well as new features in Gears, and tools to help you get your work done, such as PubTools. He also discussed our first Google Gears for Mobile application, done by the Picasa Team. Now the blokes in London can show off pictures of their kids as they slow poke through the city down in the tube.

The biggest news of all though was the launch of Google Docs offline. If you have ever been in the situation where the internet goes flaky right when you just need that bit of info in document, no more. Now you have the option to save docs locally on your computer, so you can access them no matter where you are.

If you would like a refresher course on how to get started with Gears check out Ben Lisbakken's new screencast.

Fun with Maps

The Geo side of the house continued to output great content, including a series of Geo Developer content:

• Quick & Dirty KML Creation: With Mano Marks, Pamela Fox, and Christiaan Adams
  A demonstration of creating KML visually in Google Earth & Google Maps, and using Spreadsheet Mapper 2.0
• Creating Custom Maps: With John Coryat
  A comparison of various ways of overlaying data in the Maps API and an in-depth explanation of creating tile layers and custom map types
• GigaPan In-Depth: With Randy Sargent & Ted Morse
  A demo of the GigaPan panorama-browsing website and KML files, plus a technical explanation of PhotoOverlay
• Dynamic KML: With Mano Marks & Brian Hamlin
  An exploration of using dynamic queries from KML, using the NetworkLink, httpQuery, and viewFormat elements, plus a demo of a PostGIS-generated NetworkLink
• Mars, Moon, and Sky Map Types: With Noel Gorelick
  A talk introducing the non-Earth Maps API map types, plus cool demos of other types of projections used with planetary imagery
• Mapping the Votes: With Michael Geary
  A whirlwind tour of what it took to create the Elections 2008 Map/Mapplet/Gadget, including SHPfile conversion, Javascript optimization, centroid calculations, Twitter updates collection, Mapplet API tricks, and more.
• Google API Talks - Android, KML, Google Maps, Gadgets
  A series of 5-minute talks by various developers and Googlers given before Geary's presentation, including an intro to Gadgets/Mapplets.
  

They were also happy to announce that KML is now a standard, and owned by the Open Geospatial Consortium. We have seen a lot of other sites consume and produce KML, so this is a great step.

Finally, a great new feature was added to Google Maps. You can now check out traffic patterns in the future. If you have a commute the following morning, you can check out an estimate of how stuck you will be based on past experience. Obviously, it can't determine if there will be any crashes or anything like that :)

And there's more...

To finish up, a few other interesting items of the week:

• Amit Singh on the Google Mac team talked about how you can manipulate keyboard LEDs through software and receive Apple infrared remote control events
• I got to interview Bob Lee about his Twubble app, built using GWT
• Dave Astels talked about flakey tests on the toilet
• Google Code now speaks a lot of languages which apparently caused some students to fix their RSS feed parsers as they didn't grok Unicode

I hope you had a great week. Remember that our big developer event Google I/O is now just a few weeks away! We have a few posts from presenters who will be at the event to give you a little look at the content, but the best part will be having the community together to talk in the open.

Bob Lee is a lot of Twubble

By Dion Almaer, Google Developer Programs

Bob Lee is a Software Engineer at Google, currently leading up the charge on the core Android APIs. He is also one of the founders of the Google Guice project, and was the interviewee on the very first Google Developer Podcast on the topic.

He also just created a little fun application called Twubble that helps you find potential friends and followers on Twitter. The Twitterati are all over this application, and Biz Stone of Twitter even attributed it as one of a handful of reasons that have driven the rise in followers recently.

This is Bob's first GWT application, so I wanted to sit down and talk to him about why he built the application, his experience with GWT, how he integrated with Twitter, and any other nuggets of information that I could get out of him.

Please, listen in to our conversation, and let us know if you have any questions in the comments:

Top 10: My Favorite South Park Episodes

After seeing a few of the episodes from the current season of South Park, I began to ruminate on the entire run of the show. There have been a lot of great moments and a lot of great episodes over the past decade or so, and yet, my mind was almost instinctively drawn to a few key episodes from my memories, and that internal ranking seemed to be worth sharing with you all.

I have to note that this list is purely subjective, and I encourage discussion about this subject, both in terms of your disagreements with me and hearing about your favorite episodes as well.

Well, anyway, let's get on with the show.

10. Starvin' Marvin in Space - After a tragic first contact encounter with a lion for an alien from the planet Marklar, Starvin Marvin the Ethiopian take the alien's ship and uses it to try to find a new home for his fellow villagers, with the help of his friends from South Park. Only two thing can stop them from accomplishing this goal however: Christian Missionaries led by Pat Robertson, and a Jabba the Hutt-like Sally Struthers. I thought this brought a nice conclusion to the storyline of a character introduced in season 1, and I liked some of the shots at televangelists, and the inclusion of the song "I am Chewbacca" on the closing credits.

9. Lil' Crime Stoppers - The boys play detective and solve a few cases in their neighborhood, which gets them noticed by the Park County Police force where they are made Junior Detectives and sent to do real police work, like raiding a meth lab, despite the fact that they have no training and no weapons. Well, aside from pointing at criminals and saying "bang, bang". Police movie cliches- Check. Adults putting the children in inappropriate situations - Check. A lesson learned by all - double check.

8. Towelie - The Boys get a new game system called the Okama Gamesphere, and after they get addicted to playing it, it is stolen by a nebulous government organization who want their help finding a walking, talking towel that gets high all the time named Towelie. The boys want their game system back badly, so they grab Towelie and start getting drawn into a series of ever-complicating situations and betrayals which they don't care about at all, even though the situations are remarkably like action sequences and plot points in a game. The episode is a nice bit of self-deprecation on the part of Stone and Parker, and again, it is one of those totally over the top plotlines that just worked so well.

7. Raisins - Wendy dumps Stan for Token, and Stan falls into a deep depression, and the other guys try to improve his mood by taking him to Raisins, a preteen version of Hooters. Unfortunately, Stan is in such a funk that despite their best efforts, he ends up hanging around and becoming a Goth kid. Meanwhile, Butters falls in love with one of the waitresses at the restaurant, Lexus, and he learns some hard lessons about the nature of the service industry. I identified with both Stan and Butters in this episode much to my dismay, and I think it is that personal connection that makes it one of my favorites... well, that and the fact that Butters gets a really good burn in on someone too.

6. Quest for Ratings - The Boys, along with Token, Butters and Jimmy put together a news show for the school's closed circuit television station and compete with Craig's show, one which is comprised entirely of closeup videos of dogs. To try to win the ratings contest, they move away from substance and towards sensationalism, slick graphics and celebrity news. I just have to say one line of dialogue that made this a classic for me: Stupid News Hair!

5. The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers - This one is an easy choice. Stan's parents rent the Lord of the Rings and the most hard core pornographic film ever made, who accidentally switch them. The Boys, who enjoy playing Lord of the Rings, who don't know what they have, think the tape is evil, so they undertake a quest to return the tape to Two Towers video in the next town over. This one is just so geektastic, and it goes with the parody aspect just enough to be funny, and so elements are just so right.

4. Red Sleigh Down - Cartman discovers that his misdeeds for the previous year far outweigh the good things he has done, so to ensure that he gets a robotic dog toy, he convinces Santa Claus to bring Christmas to the people of Iraq. Unfortunately, his sleigh gets hits by a Stinger missile, and he is captured, and there is only one man who can save him: Jesus Christ! Best. Christmas. Episode. EVER! If this was a movie, I would watch it on a loop for all 12 days of Christmas, because Santa and Jesus kicking a whole lot of ass is something so rare and beautiful...

3. AWESOM-O Eric Cartman dresses in a homemade robot costume named Awesom-o in an attempt to gain embarrassing information about Butters. Eric soon discovers that Butters has an incriminating video tape that he plans to show everyone the next time Cartman pranks him, and so he is forced to continue playing the part in a series of humiliating and increasingly dangerous scenarios. Cartman got some mighty fine comeuppance here for all the crap that he has put Butters through over the years... his whole ordeal felt so right... he's been asking for this for YEARS!

2. Imaginationland - In this three part episode from last season, Kyle makes a bet that he will suck Cartman's balls if the latter can prove they are real... and one appears and Kyle refuses to pay up. Soon, a strange man comes looking for the leprechaun and invites Kyle, Stan and Butters on a magical hot air balloon ride to Imaginationland, where all the fictional characters ever created exist, but almost as soon as they arrive, Islamic extremists begin carrying out a series of devastating terrorist attacks on the good denizens of Imaginationland, including breaking down a barrier which was keeping the most evil characters(including Eric Cartman's Woodland Critters) from taking over. The storyline unfolds into three related but divergent threads following Cartman's quest to have his agreement with Kyle honored, Kyle and Stan's efforts trying to save Imaginationland with/from the US Government and Butters' quest to save the good characters from the evil from within Imaginationland. The fact that it was released as the selling point of a DVD with a couple of other bonus episodes speaks to the quality of the work in this extended narrative. It has so many good elements, from the plot and characters to even the design of our very imagination. It works on so many levels, and it is worthy of praise. I hope it gets nominated for an award or two for this year.

1. The Losing Edge - By far, this is my favorite episode. It isn't flashy... it is just a really solid execution of the premise. The South Park kids, despite the fact that they hate playing baseball, finish first in their local Little League division, and discover to their horror that their success means they may have to play the game for their entire summer. After deciding that they are going to try to take a dive in the Colorado State Championships, the boys find out that the other teams are just as committed as they are to losing. Meanwhile, Stan's father faces challenges of his own as a drunken brawler in the stands. I know that this may be a controversial choice for #1, but I've literally seen this episode 20 times since it originally aired, because it encapsulates everything I love about this show: pop cultural pastiches, self-deprecating humor, the idiocy of adults and like I said above, solid execution of the underlying premise. It truly is the best around. And I don't think the fact that I don't like baseball either hurts the episode either.

So, how wrong do you think I am? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Tags: south park, eric cartman, stan marsh, kyle, matt stone, trey parker, kenny, butters, raisins, losing edge, starvin marvin, imaginationland, red sleigh down, quest for ratings, towelie, lil crime stoppers, lord of the rings, awesom-o, animation, comedy central, baseball, pat robertson, sally struthers, hooters, stupid news hair

新增！Novo! Новинка! ¡Nuevo! 新しい!

By Naomi Bilodeau, Google Code Team

Developers speak lots of languages, not just English and C++. We know that you use Google Code from all over the world, and we understand that the love of a good API is universal.

We're excited to announce that developer content on Google Code is now available in five new languages: Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Many of our pages, such as the site directory and landing pages for the various APIs have already been translated. You will also find that some of the deeper technical documentation, such as the Chart API and Maps API, has also been translated where appropriate. Where we haven't translated the content yet, you will continue to see the English version of the site.

We'll be working to keeping this content up-to-date, and we're looking forward to adding more support for languages and APIs throughout the year.

Update: Corrected to read "in five new languages." The sixth language, of course, is English.

They Live Vs. Timmy and Jimmy

I found this video at Lazy Eye Theatre, and it is seven shades of awesome. And it is related to the next post I am going to put up (which will be my 10 favorite South Park episodes).

The mastermind behind this video has taken the epic fight between Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David from They Live and interspersed the homage scenes between Jimmy and Timmy from the South Park episode Cripple Fight.

I didn't know how closely the South Park scene followed the action from that movie, but after seeing the two together, I am heartily impressed by the accuracy that Parker and Stone were able to wring from that scene. It is stunning really.

Tags: they live, cripple fight, south park, lazy eye theatre, rowdy roddy piper, keith david, aliens, timmy, jimmy

Children yada yada yada happiness

Happiness has been in the news today and I have written about it over at CoreEcon. But it also appeared in a recent issue of The Economist in relation to whether children make you happy.

IN EVERY nursery there is one child known as the Biter. Who suffers the most from this child's delinquency? Not his classmates, whose bite marks quickly heal. It is the Biter's mum and dad, who endure sideways glances from other parents when dropping him off in the morning and fret constantly that their own poor parenting has produced a monster.

Arthur Brooks was once the father of a Biter. For a year, his son gnawed on boys, girls, siblings, friends and so many guests that he had to be removed from his own fourth birthday party. Mr Brooks worried, argued with his wife, lost sleep and sought professional help. So he speaks from experience when he says that having children does not make you happy.

Happily for the reader, his book, “Gross National Happiness”, is not a memoir. It is a subtle and engaging distillation of oceans of data. When researchers ask parents what they enjoy, it turns out that they prefer almost anything to looking after their children. Eating, shopping, exercising, cooking, praying and watching television were all rated more pleasurable than watching the brats, even if they don't bite. As Mr Brooks puts it: “There are many things in a parent's life that bring great joy. For example, spending time away from [one's] children.”

Despite this, American parents are much more likely to be happy than non-parents. This is for two reasons, argues Mr Brooks, an economist at Syracuse University. Even if children are irksome now, they lend meaning to life in the long term. And the kind of people who are happy are also more likely to have children.

I must admit, I can believe that there exist children out there, who in retrospect, don't make their parents happy. And Brooks is right, I'd rather have my kid bitten than having them bite. But, in day to day life, I must also admit that it is the conceptual "idea of a child" that makes me happy as opposed to what they happen to be doing at that moment. In any case, is happiness really the goal here? All these issues are too philosophical for a blog post but I thought I'd at least share the link.

Express Checkout: In sickness, health and death

• Does anyone care that Rosie O'Donnell's kids can't watch TV or use the computer? I mean, I would love it if Rosie herself was restricted from those activities, but really, that detail from her recent Today Show interview wasn't the thing that stood out for me. It was the fact that she wants all the attention about celebrity mental illness to be on her and not Britney Spears or Brooke Shields. I think if you removed "about celebrity mental illness" from the above statement, you'd be closer to her real motivations.


• Did you hear that Ashlee Simpson isn't Pregnant? Turns out she was just lip syncing. *rimshot*


• Farewell, New Line Cinema. You contribution to grindhouse cinema and midnight movies in the 1970's, nor your legacy in horror in the 1980's will not be forgotten. Oh, and I am sure someone somewhere will remember those movies with the barefooted little people carrying a piece of jewelry across a continent in the middle of a fantastic war for three films as well. I don't know who would remember such a trilogy, but I am sure that it had its fans.

Tags: rosie o'donnell, ashlee simpson, today show, brooke shields, britney spears, mental illness, new line cinema, grindhouse, midnight movies, horror, lord of the rings, nightmare on elm street, lip sync

Visualizing Your Data at Google I/O

By Nir Bar-Lev, Product Manager

This post is one in a series that previews Google I/O, our biggest developer event in San Francisco, May 28-29. Over the next two months, we'll be highlighting sessions and speakers to give Google Code blog readers a better sense of what's in store for you at the event. - Ed.

We recently launched the Google Visualization API, which lets you access multiple sources of structured data that you can display with a large number of different visualizations. The API also provides a platform that can be used to create, share, and reuse visualizations.

For structured data, a big part in making information useful is enabling the visualization and analysis of the data in various ways and manners so we can gather insights from it. From the novice user to the highly trained professional, a chart often provides more insight, faster than any table of data does. Yet the process for matching data to a visualization is still laden with barriers. Integration with specific visualizations is very often an arduous process and finding the right provider of the visual package you need is hard.

The Google Visualization API aims to solve many of these problems. The API is simple to use, making integration quick and painless. Its openness makes it appealing because once a visual component is written it can be used on any supported data source. That means both the visual developer and the data source owner benefit.

By involving the wider developer community we can create a huge inventory of visual applications that fit every need. Just a few weeks after launch, developers have already created interesting visualizations like the piles of money gadget, organizational chart and motion chart.

At Google I/O, our senior engineers will teach you how to quickly and easily write an application using the Google Visualization API. We will work together to build a simple gadget and we will go over the the fine issues and potential pitfalls so you can save yourself even more time when you start writing your own applications over the API.

We also highly recommend you attend the "Advanced Gadget and UI Development Using Google AJAX APIs" session. With the combination of the two, you will have the toolset to making world-class visual applications and gadgets.

We look forward to seeing you at Google I/O in May. In the meantime, come visit us and join the budding, yet growing community using the API.

Sunday Night Video: Something Good (08)

An inventive little remix from the good chaps at the Ministry of Sound of a Utah Saints track released in 1992. Now, generally I don't post music videos in this slot, but this one really caught my eye.

This is how old I am... I not only remember when Utah Saints released this song back in 1992, but I remember seeing the original Kate Bush video for Cloudbusting from 1985 that was sampled in both 1992 and in the new remix.

Another thing that struck me was the Welsh accents, which if you've seen the movie Hot Fuzz, should sound vaguely familiar. I guess that movie really does take place somewhere out in the far West Country, because I was reminded of both Jim Broadbent's Inspector Frank Butterman and Olivia Colman's Doris Thatcher during the interview section of the video. Maybe it is just me however.

Oh, I also found a higher resolution version that I couldn't embed for those who want to take a better gander at some of those sweet moves.

Tags: utah saints, something good, ministry of sound, kate bush, hot fuzz, cloudbusting, olivia colman, jim broadbent, doris thatcher, wales, west country, frank butterman

Caged children

Lenore Skenazy has walked herself into a media storm by letting her 9 year old ride the Subway in New York city. Here is the article and the follow-up. Suffice it to say, she has a point and now a blog; freerangekids. The basic argument being that parents are a bunch of 'worry warts' and that there is not a lot of difference between 'very very very extremely unlikely' and 'impossible' when it comes to statements such as:

If I let me kid go across the street to the park it is 'very very very extremely unlikely' that they will be abducted and beaten but if I let them play at home it is 'impossible' that they will be abducted and beaten.

Of course, the storm she encountered makes me wonder whether we caged our kids because we really think we are protecting them or if we caged them because we are protecting ourselves from what other people will think.

And, in any case, how sad it was that our daughter had to be 9 before we would let her ride her bike for an hour outside the front of the house without direct adult supervision let alone take public transport which she is entirely capable of doing.

Week 48: Pageant of the Transmundane

Hello from the island of Fiji. I was chasing down Carmen Sandiego when once again, my obligations to this award have taken precedence, and she got away. So let's get on with it.

Without further ado or gilding the lily, I shall announce this week's winner... but first, I felt it germane to mention that last week's winner has received over 7000 hits because of the previously unmentioned perk of this award, which is having said entry added to Stumbleupon if it isn't already there. So, winning sometimes does indeed have its benefits. I can't guarantee those kinds of results for every winner, but seeing a winner take off, well, it warms my heart really.

Now that being said, let's get on with the show. This week's winning entry comes from the inviting shores of the Bad Boys inspired layout of Mattress Police.

Diesel penned a brilliant piece in the style of an operating manual for his own brain, a manual which deals with a lot of different problems a beautiful mind like his own faces. It had wit, and well, I liked it.

And since this week's winner has to do with the brain, well, an image of Homer Simpson's undersized cognition organ seemed appropriate for the Transmundanity Award this time out. Wouldn't you agree?



Congrats Diesel on the win. Here is your badge.



The rules of this little contest: Every week I will be selecting one blog post that I have seen from the vast reaches of the blogosphere to bestow with the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period. It doesn't necessarily have to have been written during the week, I just had to have encountered it. That means that if you find something interesting and repost it like a movie or whatever, if I saw it at your blog first, you get the prize. Of course, creating your own content is also a very good way to win.

Now, if you see a post that you think is worthy of this illustrious prize, just drop me a line at campybeaver@gmail.com and we'll see if we can't get your suggestion up and award-ready while giving you some credit and a link to your own blog.

Tags: homer simpson, pageant of the transmundane, diesel, stumbleupon, mattress police, brain, operation manual, humor, psychology