Mpelembe Blog

Have a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

We are looking forward to even more collaboration in the new year.

Mpelembe Network

There has been a huge buzz about an article in the Wall Street Journal that reveals that Google may not be willing to compromise their purest net neutrality position that the company adheres to. In a nutshell, the WSJ article revealed that Google is attempting to broker agreements with ISPs to place its OpenEdge caching servers within ISP networks, allowing for the fastest delivery of Google content, like high definition YouTube videos.

Despite the fact that the idea sounds like it's good for Google, good for ISP's and good for consumers, does it mean that Google is not practicing what it preaches when it comes to net neutrality?

Google has reaffirmed it's position on Net neutrality and the benefits of caching.

Broadband providers -- the on-ramps to the Internet -- should not be allowed to prioritize traffic based on the source, ownership or destination of the content. As I noted in that post, broadband providers should have the flexibility to employ network upgrades, such as edge caching. However, they shouldn't be able to leverage their unilateral control over consumers' broadband connections to hamper user choice, competition, and innovation. Our commitment to that principle of net neutrality remains as strong as ever.


More on Net neutrality and the benefits of caching

Mpelembe Network has implemented Google's Friend Connect beta application. The beta application features more integrated profiles and new ways to add and share content, including YouTube videos.

Google uses open standards like OpenID and the OAuth data-portability standard, and Mpelembe Network is container for OpenSocial, which means that applications created by the community of OpenSocial developers can be run Mpelembe Network.

When signing in, users can use a Google, Yahoo, AIM or OpenID account. This allows other sites to utilize social data from a particular user, such as friend lists, ratings and profile information.

It is now possible to synchronize your calendars with a number of mobile devices and desktop applications. This way, you can choose whichever calendars you want to use and keep all of them up to date. Most of these options have been around for a while, Google Calendar now supports the CalDAV protocol -- an evolving, open standard for calendar synchronization.

Apple iCal and Mozilla Sunbird
You can now sync your calendar with applications that support CalDAV, such as Apple's iCal and Mozilla's Sunbird. Learn more about how to get started here.

Microsoft Outlook
Google Calendar Sync for Outlook lets you sync events between Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook Calendar. You determine the direction of information flow, as well as the sync frequency. It's compatible with Microsoft Outlook versions 2003 and 2007, and operating systems Windows XP and Windows Vista.

BlackBerry mobile devices
If you carry a BlackBerry smartphone, Google Sync for BlackBerry synchronizes your device's native calendar with Google. You can access your Google Calendar even when you don't have network coverage and get alerts for upcoming appointments with sound or vibration. It automatically runs in the background, so you can attend to other tasks and still be reminded of your appointments.

Android devices
It's easy to connect an Android-powered phone to Google Calendar using the phone's preloaded Calendar application. New events are pushed in real-time to your phone and any changes you make on-the-go are immediately available on the web.

Google London Open Source Jam will be on Thursday 27th November 2008

This time, the topic of interest is *Security*.

So please, come along and talk for 5 mins about something close to
your heart. Here are some suggestions for topics we'd love to hear
about:

* Anonymity.
* Phishing, or the one that got away.
* Sandboxing untrusted content.
* Usable security.
* Security in API design.
* Cryptography - does it help?
* Protecting against XSRF, XSS, INXS?
* Automated security analysis tools.
* Security in rounded corners?

-- Important Details ----------------

* If you want to come, please RSVP by signing up here:
http://osjam.appspot.com/

The YouTube development team has released a geolocation webapp that integrates Google Maps, YouTube, and Google Gears' geolocation features to show you YouTube videos uploaded by users near you.

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

Google Co-Founder and President of Products, Larry Page talks about Google's victory for broadband in the "white spaces"

By a vote of 5-0, the Federal Communications Commission formally agreed to open up the "white spaces" spectrum -- the unused airwaves between broadcast TV channels -- for wireless broadband service for the public. This is a clear victory for Internet users and anyone who wants good wireless communications.

The FCC has been looking at this issue carefully for the last six years. Google has worked hard on this matter with other tech companies and public interest groups because we think that this spectrum will help put better and faster Internet connections in the hands of the public. We also look forward to working with the FCC to finalize the method used to compute power levels of empty channels adjacent to TV channels (we have a number of public filings before the commission in this area and it is a vital issue in urban areas).

Here's video of Larry's talk with the New America Foundation's Michael Calabrese:

Mpelembe Network has added the Google Moderator tool that helps members determine which questions should be asked at all hands meetings, conferences, Q&A sessions, etc. The idea is that there are always lots of good questions to ask in a limited period of time, but it’s hard to know which questions the attendees are most interested in hearing discussed. Moderator lets users add questions and vote on the questions of others, so the cream rises to the top.

Google Moderator has now been adopted as the new, official
way to suggest and vote on features for Google Apps. Its available
via the “suggest a feature” link.

If you've thought of something in your daily use of Mpelembe Network, or are hearing things from otherss, this is
the place to submit those ideas - its quick and straightforward.

When we originally proposed the Gears Geolocation API the goal was to deliver location enabled web sites on mobile phones. Today Google Gears is adding WiFi signals to the Geolocation API so that laptop users can benefit from location enabled web sites for the first time and mobile users from the increased accuracy. The Geolocation API is the same for developers in both desktop and mobile browsers and therefore the same code on both platforms.

Source:Google Code Blog: Introducing the Gears Geolocation API for all laptop WiFi users

Alice Svensson's Profile

For every crisis there is opportunity and this is one such occasion. This recession will be good for innovation

Sounds Of Blackness - Optimisitc

Digg This

Official Bursting of Web 2.0 bubble video

Keep on keeping on.. We'll be back!

Digg This

FameBoost is a social networking application service provider who sources traffic (unique visitors) and at the same time measure and present individuals popularity. The major purpose is to create an ”Alexa-index” for the individuals and to deliver traffic to the individuals profile or blog.

You can checkout the most famous individual in your social network, and you can also add fameboost to your own app. The current supported social network platforms are Hi5, Myspace, friendster and sportnik.

Fameboost is an OpenSocial app so more platforms will be added in time. Here is an example on Hi5, http://smbale.hi5.com

Update

fameboost teams up with Pop Idol Sweden, http://tinyurl.com/3fr64e. The site is in beta, will be fully functional on monday 13th October 2008.

The Google Developer Day 2008 at Wembley Stadium, London.
I'll be providing updates during the day. The following are sessions I will attend;

Keynote Speech (10.00am - 11.00am GMT)
Developer advocate Mike Jennings demostrated the Android device. The handset manufacturer or operator name was not disclosed

A Deeper Look at Google App Engine(11.10am GMT -12.20pm GMT)
Build your web apps on the same scalable systemsthat power Google applications
This session was mostly about writing codes for App Engine, best practices and speculation at what is expected. Here are the main points raised;

-Service level Agreement
This has not yet been finalised, but there is documentation at the App Engine site

-Lock In
At the moment you can only upload data to App Engine. This has raised concerns about being locked into Google platform. I understand that App Engine will have a download function soon. This will enable developers to move there applications to other platforms if they want to do that. Nice!

-Quota Limits
google is still working out how to charge for usage of App Engine. The current tariff is on the App Engine site.

-What language is coming next?
Most developers wanted to know this, but the speaker was not in a posisition to comment. It appears that not many developers use Python that much, the only supported language on App Engine. My best guess is that the next language will be Javascript.

The rest of the session was Q&A and specific questions on code examples.

Youtube API:Build YOUR YouTube
Access the full range of YouTube for web pages, software, video games and other
devices
I missed this session, darn!

What's new in Geo
Embed Google Maps with Javascript or a simple HTTP request.
Display geographic data in an earth, Google Maps and Google maps for Mobile

Not much new information at this session. Google Earth Api demos and coding enhancements were quite entertaining.

Intro to the Android SDK
Introduction to the Android Software Development Toolkit (12.35pm GMT -1.45pm GMT)

Running out of time, I'll update this space later. Ate too much food.

Lightning talks (3.00pm - 4.10pm GMT)
free for for all short presentations. I'm still trying to come up with a topic.
I might talk about openSocial.
Not much is happening here. I think people are hesitating to talk about their projects. There is an atmosphere of secrecy around here. I guess this comes from Google culture of silence.

Codelab:Building an openSocial application in the cloud
This is a hands on session where we will attempt to design an application and host it using Google App Engine. Interesting.

I have skipped this session I will instead attend the following;

Best Practices and lessons learned for openSocial developers.

I'll update the rest tonight, that's if I'm sober. I'll be going to the after party later.

I'll update the information as we proceed.

Keynote Speech 10.00hrs

This one of the most interesting meetup I have been to so far, very informal. Discussed issues surrounding Google Earth, Google Maps and interestingly Education outreach.

I'll be brief, writing this up in a pub. I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

BarCamp Africa will be held in Mountain View, CA on Saturday, October 11, 2008 as a way of "opening up the conversation between Silicon Valley and people and opportunities in Africa."
Event Details

Who? Anyone who is interested in technology, mobility, art, social justice, sustainability, micro-finance - and all things Africa-esque

What? A good opportunity to share ideas, start conversations and build connections with people and organizations making a positive impact in Africa

When? Saturday, October 11th 9 am - 8 pm (end time to be confirmed)
Where? Google's Mountain View Campus

For FAQs on BarCamp Africa, visit the FAQ page, then wander around the blog

source link | digg story

Chances are that Google's Developer Day in Germany will coincide with the launch of T-Mobile's Android Launch on the 23rd of September 2008; the event which will be held in Munich will see engineers come and talk about a number of technologies including Android and Chrome.

read more | digg story

The Google Open Source Team will be hosting the London Open Source Jam, on Thursday 25th September 2008.

"This time, we're going to have a free-for-all. There is no topic.
Bring whatever you want, as long as its open source!

In the past we've had topics including Web, Java, Linux, Mobile, Productivity
and Distributed Systems. This time round we're opening the floor.

Off topic is the new on topic!"

If you want to come, please RSVP by signing up here: http://osjam.appspot.com/


-- FAQ ---------------------

* What is it?

In a nutshell, it's a pretty informal evening, we ask developers who
have ideas or are already working on them to come and engage others to
collaborate and code for your open source project. In a way, it will
be like what goes on in the corridors, between sessions at a
conference, except without the sessions. So you get to tell others
about your idea and get new interested folks to work on your projects.

* Who is it for?

Anyone who wants to work on a fun project. You may have an idea and
need more help or are already working on an open source project and
want to work with others, or you'd like to get involved in a new open
source project and meet like minded developers. Or perhaps you've got
nothing better to be doing on a Thursday night than hanging around
with a flock of opensourcerers and hack.

* What will be there?

Other interesting people to code with. A space to hang around in.
Computers and wifi. Oh, and lots of delicious food.

* What will happen?

Some people may choose to present a 5 minute lightning talk on what
they're doing. Then little groups will form and people will work
together on code! We'll encourage contributing good things back to
open source projects, or maybe the launch of new projects.

* What shall I bring?

The only thing you really need to bring is yourself. If you have a
laptop you like to develop on, please bring that too.

* Why is it in the evening?

It's intentionally on a school-night as that allows many people to
attend who would struggle during the day because of their job
commitments.

* What kind of talk should I give?

Five mins lightning talk. If you want to bring slides or a demo,
please do, but don't feel you need to - talking and/or whiteboards is
just as good. Remember your audience are techy open source geeks. If
you feel like giving a talk (and we'd love you if you did), please let
us know.

I'll be at the geo developers meetup on monday the 15th sept, taking place in the Google London office and at the Google Developer Day at wembley stadium on tuesday the 16th, sept . Follow me on Twitter or here at Mpelembe blog.

Google’s Chrome browser is now officially available here. I have had a week to test it out. It’s still rough around the edges, which is expected in early days.

Following is a video of the Chrome press event.

Developer Day London is coming up, and I'm pretty excited. Mano Marks from the Geo APIs Team is coming to London for it. There will be a meetup for geo developers on Monday, September 15th, at 4:00pm in the Google London office. There will be a couple of presentations and question and answers. Then spend some time getting to know each other at a local pub.
Space is limited, so if you're coming, please register here.

On October 10 2008 the Digg team is coming to Fox at ExCel Center, Warehouse K, 2 Western Gateway, London.

Come on out and say hi! Here is some footage from the last New York City Meetup in June.

Digg Meetup NYC - June 4, 2008 from Digg Meetups on Vimeo.

I attended the Drupal UK event, which was held at The Economist offices in London on Wednesday, 30th July.

Being a newbie to Drupal, I only scratched the surface of the topics on the agenda. I was particularly impressed with the presentation by Darren about "programmatically creating content" (nodes) including CCK fields, attachments, and images. He presented a case study from recent development that automatically creates content from iTunes Producer packages.

Incidentally, I have been trying to develop a site on a similar premise and for me this presentation was heaven sent. I'm now learning Drupal so that I can accomplish one of my dream projects that I have postponed for while. During my search on the subject I discovered that SonyBMG launched MyPlay on Drupal. This case study documents how the site is put together.

Mpelembe Network is a SonyBMG affiliate and I have an XML feed that has been waiting in my inbox for a long time. This will be my first crack at Drupal. See you on site!

I have been trying to sum up my understanding of issues that were flagged at The Wealth of Networks event. I think Margaret Gold has a great write-up on this event. You can read it here

Thanks again for sharing this Marge!

Mpelembe Network now has its own group on LinkedIn.

This will help to connect with others who are interested in collaborating with Mpelembe.net, get to know them better, and put a face next to the names you see daily in the mailing lists.

Mpelembe.net will be organising informal meetups for good conversation and tasty libations. We'll be sharing some updates so check back regulary or visit http://calendar.mpelembe.net as we'll be announcing dates and venue information for the meetups. It's free to attend so come enjoy drink specials and great music for a fun evening!

Joining is as easy as following this link (Note: LinkedIn asks that members be manually approved, I’ll try to process your joining requests as fast as possible):

http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/153025/5DA30D2DB593

Don’t forget to add your blog or personal website to your profile.

Looking forward to see you there.

Google engineers Lars Rasmussen, Ben Appleton, Tom Stocky engineers will present at Google Developer Day 2008, which will take place on 16 September at Wembley Stadium in London.

They will be discussing APIs and developer tools. Also topics around App Engine, OpenSocial, Android, and much more. This will be a chance meet with fellow developers and Google engineers.

Be who you want on the web pages you visit in a "a 3D virtual experience" - which is one of those 20% projects from Google Labs. Experience Lively here....

Mozilla today received confirmation from Guinness World Records that they’ve officially achieved the record for the “largest number of software downloads in 24 hours.” From 18:16 UTC on June 17, 2008 to 18:16 UTC on June 18, 2008, 8,002,530 people downloaded Firefox 3!

The Cabinet Office's Power of Information Task Force just launched a
competition for mash up ideas using public data. See www.ShowUsABetterway.com

Information sources to some new government APIs and data dumps can be found here;

http://www.showusabetterway.co.uk/call/data.html

data made available include;

Neighbourhood Statistics API from the ONS, Health care information API
from NHS Choices, a list of all UK schools from the DCSF and the zip
of Official Notices from the London Gazette.

Food+Beer+Coding = Hacking

The South African tourism office has released a tourism layer for Google Earth. This layer has points of interest all around the country including museums, beaches, safaris, surfing, hiking and more. With the 2010 FIFA World Cup approaching the layer includes placemarks showing the location of the venues including new stadiums in several cities. You can also enjoy virtual tours, create an itinerary, or take a flight along the proposed routes to plan your next vacation.

Read more about Google Earth.

I'm compiling a list of people that will go to Google Developer Day
2008 London, if you will go, just signup to this group to join some
people that will go too and talk about experiences and expectations
about the event.

This is a great chance to know people that are developing with
google apis and products.

This is a quick note from Alexandra Palace where Lonely Planet have officialy opened up their API to the developer community. Register http://developer.lonelyplanet.com/

Come let's get mashing!

Registration is now open for Google Code Jam 2008. Programmers ready to use their coding skills, creativity, and ingenuity to solve a series of challenges can register at http://code.google.com/codejam. The top 500 contestants will win an all expenses paid trip to the semifinals at regional Google offices, with the top 100 advancing to the grand final at Google's Mountain View headquarters.

New front in the browser war

All over the world, we'll be celebrating the launch of Firefox 3
Visit http://mozillaparty.com/en-US/events/view/183 for details.

 

Go to http://www.mpelembe.net/google-earth.html and enter Disney World in the searchbox. Check the navigation control option box and zoom in as far as possible. Enjoy the ride!

More options have been added to Mpelembe Google Earth Application including navigation control. To view and use the navigation controls check the Navigation Control option box. This tutorial describes the basics of navigating the globe within Google Earth.

Here's a quick overview of some products that enable you to access YouTube from your living room...or anywhere else you may have your television(s)!

* AppleTV: In June 2007 this became the first product to offer a way to watch YouTube on your TV.
* Sony Bravia Internet Video Link: Last week, Sony announced the general availability of YouTube content on their Bravia TVs via the Internet Video Link. Some clips from the YouTube team at the event are linked below. Nice tie, Brent!
* HP MediaSmart: HP announced availability of YouTube as part of the HP MediaSmart platform.
* Panasonic: At CES 2008, Panasonic announced VieraCast, which allows you to access YouTube directly from your TV. The device will be available later this month.
* Samsung: Samsung launched their IPTV device which supports YouTube (currently only available in South Korea) in early May.
* TiVo: Announced that YouTube would be available on their devices.
* Verismo: A startup in the IPTV space, has announced availability of a YouTube-enabled device.

jump to source

Along with the release of Google Health, Google announced the availability of the Google Health Data API.

This API gives developers programmatic access to view and update Health content via AtomPub feeds. Your client application can use the API to create new medical records, request a list of medical records, and query for medical records that match particular criteria.

Here are some of the things you can do:

* Upload patient medical records.
* Get patient medical data and provide personalized functionality based on that data.

The API supports a subset of the CCR. CCR ("Continuity of Care Record") is a format defined by the medical industry, designed to facilitate the transfer of a snapshot of a patient's medical history when that individual moves from one medical provider to another. In the case of Google Health, a partner site can send a patient's CCR to Google. Given the proper user permissions, another partner site can then download that person's CCR.

Mpelembe.net will be developing many applications and services that will integrate with Google Health and make health management even easier for people.

Google Earth, the 3-D view of the planet through which one can fly and zoom, has been available until now only as a downloadable separate application. Now, however, Google has made a plug-in available that lets you run Google Earth in your browser.

Mpelembe.net will be creating 3-D mashups and embedding them on Web pages -- the same step that led to a glorious profusion of Google Maps mashups. Nifty new navigation and viewing options will be added in due course. The goal, apart from opening up Google Earth, is to bring Earth to the user. You can't help but see Google maps when you surf; now you'll also see Google Earth.

So, if you have any ideas, suggestions or comments toss them by our way.

Let's fly away at http://www.mpelembe.net/google-earth.html

Mpelembe.net has ad networks feature which can use Google adsense to run code from other ad networks in competition with Google AdSense ads. Contact us should you wish to advertise or run a campaign.

At Mpelembe Network we believe in creating a life long link as our tagline shows. It is exciting to learn that Google will make it so much easier to create links with friends. Now, you'll be able to see, invite, and interact with new friends or, using secure authorization APIs, with existing friends from social sites on the web like Facebook, Google Talk, hi5, LinkedIn, orkut, Plaxo, and others. And quite simply, you'll be able to do things together.

Google Application Engine account for Mpelembe Network has been activated. Mpelembe.net account holders should now be able to access the apps engine. You can login by visiting http://appengine.google.com/a/mpelembe.net.

Happy coding

Google Developer Days are a chance to learn about Google developer products from the engineers who built them. These one-day events will include seminars and codelabs on web technologies including Google Maps, OpenSocial, Android, Gears, Google Web Toolkit and more.

You will learn how to best use Google developer products to build social applications, mobile applications, geo/maps applications, and AJAX/JavaScript applications. More detailes....

How to avoid getting hooked, the headlines says it all...

Google has launched 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.

Introducing Google App Engine, Google App Engine lets you run your web applications on Google's infrastructure. App Engine applications are easy to build, easy to maintain, and easy to scale as your traffic and data storage needs grow. With App Engine, there are no servers to maintain: You just upload your application, and it's ready to serve your users.

Want to learn how to program? Develop in mySQL? Enhance your skills as a developer or programmer or just learn the lingo. Tutorials, lecture slides, and problem sets for a variety of topic areas including AJAX, Distributed Systems, Web Security, Languages and a ton of other great classes - at no cost! Read more...

Mpelembe.net uses Google apps for email, sharing information, and collaboration. A lot of people, and rightly so,have concerns about Google services' security.... This is How Google keeps your information secure.

When enabled, "personal level indicators" put arrows next to messages in your inbox so you can tell if an email was addressed to you, a group, or a mailing list that you're on.

Arrow indicators reveal who actually sent you email. A single arrow ("›") is automatically placed next to emails sent to you and others, and double arrows ("»") next to emails that are sent just to you.

Google has just released a new product called Google Sites, and you can start using it today via Mpelembe.net!

What is Google Sites?
It's an online application that makes creating a team web site as easy as editing a document. You can quickly gather a variety of information in one place -- including videos, calendars, presentations, attachments, and gadgets -- and easily share it for viewing or editing with a small group, their entire organization, or the world.

* Anyone can do it -- Building a site is as simple as editing a document, and you don't need anyone's help to get started.
* Share from one place -- Create a single place to bring together all the information your team needs to share, including docs, videos, photos, calendars and attachments.
* Work together -- Invite co-workers, classmates, or your entire organization to edit your site with you to keep it fresh and up-to-date. And let as many or few people view your site as you want.

To start using Google Sites,login into your Mpelembe.net account or go to http://sites.google.com/a/mpelembe.net

Future of Web Apps conference, hosted by U.K.-based media and events firm Carsonified is being held in Miami, Florida this weekend. Featured topics are;

What makes the next great startup?

Open social: plug in to a new platform

The future of web apps is beyond the browser

Launch a web app in 40 minutes

The problem with social networks

Google acquired hosted wiki service Jotspot in October 2006. The service immediately stopped taking new users, although existing users were supported. Now, Jotspot has been relaunched under the Google Apps team, as Google Sites.

Google Sites will have social-networking capabilities baked in, using the OpenSocial APIs and the Social Graph API. A socially enabled Google Site would be more similar to what Ning is doing with its social Web platform, allowing users to build their own social networks.

Now you can indulge in your creative whim with iGoogle Themes API

"The Themes API lets you customize many portions of the iGoogle page. Your theme can also update the page's design based on variables, such as the time of day or location. This makes it easy to create a narrative that unfolds throughout the day, a landscape that changes as the sun rises and sets, or an abstract image that becomes more complex".

Here are popular gadgets we have developed. Remember, we are constantly thinking of how to make your Google homepage a better place.

The main 2008 Adsense resolutions is to place more of my ad units above the fold and on my homepage for increased visibility -- and advertiser appeal.

If you are mad about music here are a some playlists you can add to your iGoogle page;

African music videos

80's soul music

Popular Zambain music


Enjoy!

Web applications are hot--and either destined to be the next big thing on the Web or the next bubble.