Mpelembe Blog

OpenSocial is a set of common application programming interfaces (APIs) for building social applications across the web -- for developers of social applications and for websites that want to add social features. OpenSocial provides more powerful and pervasive social capabilities for the web, empowering developers to build far-reaching applications that users can enjoy regardless of the websites, web applications, or social networks they use.

The OpenSocial APIs give developers (with users' permission) access to the data needed to build social applications: access to an application user's profile information, their list of friends, and the ability to share their activities with friends. OpenSocial resources for developers and websites are now available at http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial.

Kevin Marks talks about OpenSocial and Social Applications

Kevin Marks, Developer Advocate at Google, talks about OpenSocial on the first anniversary of OpenSocial's launch. Kevin discusses the history of social applications on the web, the evolution of social networks and where OpenSocial plays a part.

Imagine how valuable it would be if your entire organization — employees, customers and suppliers - could share information and ideas more easily. Google Apps brings together essential services to help your business communicate and collaborate more effectively.

Google Apps Quick Tour

Google Apps is a popular solution for small businesses looking for better ways to operate, communicate, and collaborate. This is an exciting time as advances in technology are providing new and affordable ways for businesses to become more efficient in how they operate and improve the way employees and teams interact.

Mpelembe.net aims to provide solutions to small businesses using Google business Applications that help in operating and growing a business. Services range from basic setup, data migration, and training services to custom business applications development and Google Data integration work.

Visit enterprise.mpelembe.net for more information.

Today Google introduced Gmail voice and video chat, which lets you have free voice and video conversations right from within Gmail.

Video chatting from Gmail is as easy as sending an instant message. Just click on the new "Video & more" menu in a Gmail chat window and select "Start video chat" or "Start voice chat." You can switch to a full screen view or pop out the chat window and change the size and positioning as you wish. Even if you don't have a webcam, you can still have voice conversations alongside your email and regular chat. Take a look at this short video to see more:

Google held another London Google Open Source Jam at the UK HQ. This time the format couldn't have been simpler: Come to Google. Have some beer, have some pizza. Talk about whatever you like.

Here's the lightning talk roundup. 5 minutes apiece:

Simon Stewart - Stinky Code Project - How to ruin an open source project.

Sam Mbale - Open Source Social Networking.

John Ripley - Writing Vorbis from scratch. John's rewriting Vorbis. From scratch. It sounds great.

Douglas Squirrel - A day in the life of a check-in. What should happen when someone checks in code. Another energetic superlist from Squirrel (with pictures!).

Chris Read - Build tools - Good vs Bad. Chris wants to build a new build tool. We helped him, sorta.

DJ Walker-Morgan - Talking to the press about your open source project. Some eye-opening advice from DJ about publicising your project.

Nicolas Roard - Gears - Extending the browser!

Ade Oshineye - NBL - Ade thinks it's server-side Javascript.

William Fulton - Using OpenOffice Spreadsheets for C-style macro processing - Hacking for code generation.

Joe Walnes - Lightspeed talk - AJAX web apps. Do it properly: Bookmarkable URLs and MVC design.

Simon Stewart. Again - Super lightspeed talk - The roadmap for integrating Selenium and Webdriver.

Steev - Minerva home automation.

Neil Dunn - Lightspeed talk - The framework chase. Is that new framework really going to simplify your project?

Rob Tweed - Mumps. The Swiss Army Knife of databases.

Source: Google Open Source Blog