PayPal will be opening its API to third party developers starting November 3 and 4, at the PayPal X Innovate 2009 conference.

Better late than never.

In Japan phones have been used to pay for everything for years, so its not like PayPal is coming up with a new idea, just a plan to finally allow people to use their service like they do other banks already.

Starbucks recently announced an App that allows customers to pay for drinks with their iPhone. PayPal should make their own app rather than waiting for third party developers.

Patrick Moberg came up with a workout plan to help himself stay healthy while he indulges himself at some very popular social networking sites like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Google reader, Flickr, and Digg. Here’s his plan:

THE PROBLEM
I’ve recently found myself checking the following websites an unhealthy amount.

THE IDEA
Every time you open a new tab to check out one of the following websites, stop. Get up from your computer and do the exercise associated with the site you were going to visit. After you complete the exercise, reward yourself by going to the website.

IN ESSENCE
Burn some fat, not yo’ brain.

Add a treadmill, or a few walks around the block, to this plan and you’ll be a lot healthier. Here’s a challenge, only visit one of these sites if you can complete the exercise for each one before visiting the site again. Don’t forget to eat your protein to build muscle not lose it.

Jon Skeet has received the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award since 2003 for his work and contributions to the C# programming language. Skeet joined Google about a year ago, and recently asked his Google bosses if he could renew his award, which is only given out to around 1,500 developers worldwide, and his Google bosses said no. Skeet wrote on his blog:

It’s with some sadness that I have to announce that as of the start of October, I’m no longer a Microsoft MVP.

As renewal time came round again, I asked my employer whether it was okay for me to renew, and was advised not to do so. As a result, while I enjoyed being awarded as an MVP, I’ve asked not to be considered for renewal this year.

This doesn’t mean I’m turning my back on that side of software development, of course. I’m still going to be an active member of the C# community. I’m still writing the second edition of C# in Depth. I’m still going to post on Stack Overflow. I’m still going to blog here about whatever interesting and wacky topics crop up.

I just won’t be doing so as an MVP.

Thanks to all the friends I’ve made in the MVP community and Microsoft over the last 6 years, and I wish you all the best.

Keep in touch.

Published Thu, Oct 1 2009 6:21 by skeet

Skeet works on Google Sync, and during his 20% other projects time, his bosses are okay with him continuing his C# work, but he just can’t accept the MVP award for it.

Since Skeet works on Google Sync, I have to wonder if that project is written, at least in part, in the C# programming language.

I was reading today about an update to the new Google Documents API on Google groups, and I noticed they have a bit of a spam problem that relies solely on individuals reporting spam. With all the brain power at Google they still can’t easily stamp out spam in comments. Here at NG we eliminated spam from our comments several years ago, but we haven’t yet shared how we did it yet. Stay tuned for that article.

Google Wave was launched on Tuesday, but only 100,000 people were invited to use the service during a limited roll-out. Some of the lucky people who did get a wave invitation can invite others, just like when Gmail began its beta period.

A web site has also been launched as a free marketplace to distribute Google Wave invites, just like happened with Gmail. If you really want a Wave invite, you still have a chance.

The similarities between Gmail and Wave exist because Wave is intended to be a sort of replacement for Email and text messaging, and a whole lot more. One complaint that already surfaced was from blog owners concerned that Wave users can comment on their blog without ever seeing ads, or even visiting their blog. Those same blog owners complain that Google will eventually put ads into the Wave screen to make up for the lost revenue they may experience from Wave users not visiting blogs with Google ads. We’ll see where this goes from here.

Over at Lifehacker they were able to put together some great screen shots of Wave we thought were worth taking a look at. Below we’ve included a short video from the Wave team explaining what Wave is in 10 minutes, and the much longer explanation below that for those who want more detail.

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