Slashdot Mirror

is to vote for your candidate online.

His new company is called Ning.

Loudcloud was a managed hosting provider, that also made software that allowed servers/network devices to be monitored, deployed and controled with a small number of highly technical staff. The benefit to the customer is/was that they don't have to pay for the high priced technical staff that is needed to host their site. Loudcloud had some of the best people I have ever worked with. It was a great place to work at. Sadly, because of some mistakes, Loudcloud ended up running very low on cash and management decided to sell the hosting part of the company to EDS (which already had a hosting division).

If you have the chance to look at Opsware's newest products (NAS & SAS), you should. I recently saw a demo of the NAS product (Network Automation tool), and it is super slick. The product flat out rocks. You can manage all of your switches, firewalls, routers, and load balancers, through a very slick web interface. A very nice product.

I've been on the lookout for a mobile data card in the UK ever since using a Verizon EVDO card in the US; it saved our arses at ETech when the network went down on the last day, and we had to demo our web service.

Up until now all the pricing for mobile data's been around 70 quid/month for 200MB, which is far enough from flat rate to make me worried about using it repeatedly. However, this is 20 quid for 2 gig, and that's fantastic. 20 quid is more than worthwhile insurance if I have to give even one demo a month - the fact that I can setup and get going with no futzing with local networks is a major boon.

When I bought it they said I could use it for anything. I may pop over the road at lunchtime and give the T-Mobsters a grilling about these restrictions. Mind you, I really can't see how they'll enforce this; so many people have their IM client set to start automatically on boot and sign-on on network connection that it's going to be a major pain, and T-Mob deserve all the problems they get if they think they can enforce it.

Social platform Ning has marca as cofounder and supports PHP as its first language.

So I create a Ning developer beta account and sign in, and happen to scroll the page down to the bottom just to see what's there. Lo and behold, in big orange-brown letters in the Featured Apps section, I see "Got MILF?" as a featured site.

I didn't realize Liv Tyler had a kid. Don't worry, other than the name it appears worksafe.

I checked it out yesterday and finally got one of theor limited developer accounts. So far it's kind of neat. I was able to clone a "this or that" type app and set it up to answer the age old question:

Which is the coolest? Robots, Aliens, Pirates or Ninjas?

Check it out.

There is a very comprehensive FAQ section on the Ning Homepage. Ning appears to be a social app framework written in PHP, hoping to do for social apps much what PHPNuke did for online magazines. It uses its own template language XNHTML, but it's not like developers aren't expected to learn a new one each week these days. It makes it easy to click-and-clone apps, much like Blogger makes it easy to set up your own blog. The business plan is to try and offer a premium service and make money off the back of that. They are clear that you own and code and content that you write, but don't have any license I can see of the framework itself. This is something I'd like to see be made clear. I'd be wary developing something where the rug could be pulled out from under me.

Phillip.

Create an account. Apply for beta developer status. Click "Clone This" button on dating.ning.com. Type in that title, add a few extra fields ("What programming langugages do you know?" "Who is your ideal BOFH?")

It's that easy.

That's the power of cloning, and the primary force behind Ning.

Want Proof? I just did it: SlashDot Dating.

How about nerd dating?
http://slashdotdating.ning.com/edit.php

Why does it ask you for your gender?

Apparently, here. I didn't do it!

Interested in Meeting People for: Dating Men

Is somebody having a little fun with CmdrTaco?