Posted by Myles Eftos on February 22, 2008 at 11:37
Last month, 88 Miles added OpenID, allowing you to use a single sign in with out having to give us your password details. That is great unless you wanted to use our webservice API, which required a username and password.
This is no longer the case!
I have just pushed out an OAuth implementation, which allows 88 Miles user to grant access to 3rd party applications without providing a password! There are a number of pre-built libraries for a number of popular languages, which will make interfacing with 88 Miles easy.
If you are a developer, check out the development page for details
Finer grain user access
As part of this roll out, I also pushed a change which will allow you to select what users have access to particular projects and companies, so rather than an all-in (public) or all-out (private) company or project, you can select a subset of your staff members that will have access.
To do this, select the "Let me choose..." option for visibility when adding a Company or Project (You will need to select "More Details" first if you are on the projects page) and you will see all of you staff appear.
Posted by Myles Eftos on February 18, 2008 at 18:35
I just purchased an ASUS Eee PC and as I was setting up my desktop environment, I realised that after I set up my web browser, I was basically done — because I rely so heavily on SaaS for day-to-day tasks. Not only that, I don't have to worry about whether the tiny 900Mhz processor (under-clocked to 630Mhz) would be up to the task of running my apps. And best all all, because Firefox run in Linux, there is no compatibility issues.
I use (obviously) use 88 Miles for my time tracking, Saasu.com for accounts, Google Apps for office facilities (although, I do admit, I'm still not on Gmail yet). For my RSS, Newsgator has a web version, and I can still get my Twitter feed via their web interface.
This, I think is the best example of why SaaS rocks. In less than 15 minutes, all of the software that I use everyday was ready and waiting for me.
Rachel Cook regaled us with the story of her adventures to Silicon Valley as an angel investor. It would seem that some of the crazy stories that we hear are actually true, and it must have been amazing to be literally rubbing shoulders with the big names of the industry. Although I don't think the current level of VC and Angel investment is healthy for online applications, it is interesting to see how that side of the web works.
Next up was Lisa Herrod who once again gave a thought provoking presentation of what usability and accessibility should really mean and how it should be handled with in an organisation. As developers we often think that standard compliant code is enough to make a site accessible - where in reality, you can't predict how an alternative input user will react until you watch them use your site. If you want to view the slides, they are available on slideshare.
A big thankyou to AWIA for the opportunity to sponsor the night, along with the other sponsors. It was fantastic, and I can't wait for the next one!
PS. Jordan Brock videoed both presentations and has posted them to Vimeo. Which I have also embedded below:
