Mii’s are everywhere

Those Mii’s, they’re so funny and they seem to be raising in popularity from day to day, there’s even some online Mii creators in Flash, have you tried making your own Mii? or maybe your friends, it’s sure to give you a laugh.

This week

It seems some people just realized we “discovered” ( or bumped ) Australia along time ago.

OpenID 101

OpenID has been generating a lot of talk in the blogosphere lately, mainly among “web 2.0″ related sites. Don’t know what OpenId is? well, according to the official site:

“OpenID is an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric digital identity.
OpenID starts with the concept that anyone can identify themselves on the Internet the same way websites do-with a URI (also called a URL or web address). Since URIs are at the very core of Web architecture, they provide a solid foundation for user-centric identity.”

Well, that’s dandy and all, I won’t have to memorize 200 combinations of e-mails and passwords each time I join up a newly created website or service by an unknown startup (wink wink).
But for that we need moremore developers to get around to implement OpenId in their apps, right now some major websites have recently expressed their wish to do so, so why won’t we do that in Rails too? :)

It’s simple, so I gathered a bunch of resources, from simple explanations to videos to help take away any doubts.

What is OpenID and why should you care?

David talks about OpenID

OpenID Rails plugin

Rails, OpenID, and Acts as Authenticated - Ben Curtis

The OpenID Protocol for a Rails Consumer - Screencast

7 OpenID Resources for Rails Developers - RubyInside

Happy reading.

Advice from Mr. Miyamoto

In a recent interview to MTV, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto spoke a bit about the Wii, the Nintendo DS and ended the interview with an important advice for newer generations about life:

“I’d always been told growing up as a young child that America is a country that always is taking on new challenges, and that is something Nintendo has been doing.

My feeling is that the more you take on a new challenge and the more you sacrifice in trying to accomplish that new challenge and the more hardship you experience trying to overcome that challenge, the more that you grow as a person. Really, I like the idea of trying to do things differently from other people.

My advice to the MTV audience would be, don’t just continue to pursue the same fads that everyone else is doing. See what you personally can create and what you personally can bring to the world instead of following down the path that everyone else seems to be following. The more you can step off that path and be your own person, the more you’re going to grow and the more that you can experience in the world.”

You can catch the whole article at MTV , there’s also a partial video of the interview.

You want to build a startup?

Lately I’ve been real busy and hadn’t enough time to dedicate to this blog all the attention it deserves, so I decided to share some of the stuff I’ve been reading in the last few days about entrepreneurship and building a startup.

I’ve gathered a bunch of topics which cover most of the essential stuff you need to know when you’re thinking about dismissing your ’steady’ job and starting your own company focused on products or consulting. One of the great things about the internet is that you can take advantage of all the information lying around and learn something from other people’s point of view or mistakes.

5 reasons to create your first startup - Particle Tree

Small Biz 101: How to Get Started - 37Signals blog

Small Biz 101: Cash Flow -37Signals blog

Small Biz 101: No one starts with a masterpiece - 37Signals blog

How to start a Startup - Paul Graham

Ideas for startup - Paul Graham

Six Interesting Stats About Startup Success - onStartups

Roadmapping: How Your Product Finds Its Way - onStartups

Startup Suicide: Five Ways To Kill Your Startup, Which Will You Pick?

Do you know any useful resources to add to this list? Any advice worth sharing?

Naide Gomes wins another medal

Congratulations to Naide Gomes for winning the Gold Medal on the Long Jump competition, last Saturday on Birmingham’s National Arena, the second day on the on-going European Indoor Championships.
It’s another fantastic victory for Naide Gomes and portuguese sports but the award was left almost unnouticed in Portugal’s most sold sports newspapers (with the attention going to national soccer instead).
It’s a shame since Gomes’ winning leap was also a national record.

You can find more information on the the official website of the BEIJING 2008 Olympic Games.