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sidepodcast

unread,
Mar 8, 2009, 2:37:22 PM3/8/09
to Drop.io API
bit of a shameless plug this, but i do have some technical questions
too. we've just released some drop.io api powered code here:
http://www.sidepodcast.com/realtime/

and a description of what it is and how it works here:
http://www.sidepodcast.com/2009/03/08/powered-by-dropio/

in building the solution a couple of points came up that might be
worth sharing...

firstly, because the api works so well, for both uploading and
previewing media files, it might be possible that end users remain
oblivious to the existence of drop.io. is there a requirement to
promote the name anywhere when using the api, and is there such a
thing as a "powered by drop.io" style logo that we can use?

secondly, we're implementing the api via google app engine. it's
probably not necessary, but the reasons for using it were:

a) super fast response time
b) detailed information relating to throughput and bandwidth

re: point a. we're using memcached on appengine to cache the first
request for asset information, this speeds up subsequent calls, but i
was wondering if the location of the server also has a bearing on the
response time? does drop.io use, or have any plans to use ec2
instances in europe, or even cloudfront?

re: point b. it wasn't clear to me as an api newbie, how many calls
could be made to the api in a small time period, and what happened
when we exceeded that number? i don't expect we'll ever hit the
limit, but the ability to track exactly what's going on with appengine
seems rather useful. are there any plans in the roadmap to provide a
dashboard-style front end to api developers?

anyhow, javascript -> python -> drop.io and back again is the solution
we're currently using. it works very well and drop.io is helping us
overcome a huge limitation within wordpress.

thank you
sidepodcast

Jake Good

unread,
Mar 9, 2009, 10:14:43 AM3/9/09
to sidepodcast, Drop.io API
Excellent post! Love the work!! Great job on creating a "live view"...

To answer your short questions:

Are there any requirements or restrictions? There are not any
restrictions or requirements for using our API in it's free mode. That
said, if you *do* like the Drop.io API and would like a "Powered by
Drop.io API" image to show support, I can get one made up. We have an
ugly one on our two demo apps (collab.io and usend.io) that includes
our old logo, so don't use that one. I'll post it to the group.

I'm not sure technically where our servers are, we'll have to pull our
systems guy into this conversation for that!

You can read all about our API Rate Limit here -> http://groups.google.com/group/dropio-api/web/rate-limits

When you log into your API account, you can change how your rate limit
is set and it will show you your rate limit *limit*.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask away!

Jake Good
http://api.drop.io

Lee Azzarello

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Mar 9, 2009, 11:15:23 AM3/9/09
to sidepodcast, Drop.io API
On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 2:37 PM, sidepodcast <sidep...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> re: point a.  we're using memcached on appengine to cache the first
> request for asset information, this speeds up subsequent calls, but i
> was wondering if the location of the server also has a bearing on the
> response time?  does drop.io use, or have any plans to use ec2
> instances in europe, or even cloudfront?

There aren't any plans to break out the EC2 account into multiple
availability zones. As for Cloudfront, at the moment caching assets
doesn't make much sense as we have a policy to not link directly to
assets and if they were dispersed geographicly across the globe there
would be some challenging cache expiration problems that invalidate
the usefulness of a CDN. There's some chatter about splitting off
static assets and thumbnails into the Cloudfront CDN. So the official
answer to both questions is "not right now" but expect some kind of
development with Cloudfront in the future.

Best,
Lee Azzarello
Drop.io Staff Hacker

David Schach

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Mar 9, 2009, 3:27:55 PM3/9/09
to Drop.io API
Sidepodcast, thank you for writing this.  I think it speaks volumes about the drop.io community that someone asked (repeat: ASKED) about requirements for displaying a Powered by drop.io graphic.  That's a selfless move, and one that goes beyond even the baseline collaborative mindset of the OSS groups I'm in.

As an ISV and OEM developer in the salesforce.com community, I see most companies asking if they can remove all references to Salesforce in the apps used by their clients, just so they can take credit for the CRM application.  This is only possible in very specific situations, which is not something that these companies want to hear.

Clearly, the loyalty in the drop.io community is so strong that we want to share the source (meaning drop.io as well as the code) of our fun, useful apps.

Cheers,

David

sidep...@googlemail.com

unread,
Mar 9, 2009, 6:52:45 PM3/9/09
to Drop.io API
On Mar 9, 2:14 pm, Jake Good <j...@dropio.com> wrote:
> When you log into your API account, you can change how your rate limit
> is set and it will show you your rate limit *limit*.

cheers, didn't spot that.

what it doesn't tell me though, is how close we've ever got to hitting
that limit? i'm guessing, never have, never will. but with google i
get a nice graph showing me.


On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 2:37 PM, sidepodcast
<sidepodc...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> There's some chatter about splitting off
> static assets and thumbnails into the Cloudfront CDN.

i think they're the bits we're interested in. essentially the preview
images and the encoded video.


On Mar 9, 7:27 pm, David Schach <dsch...@x2od.com> wrote:
> Sidepodcast, thank you for writing this. I think it speaks volumes about
> the drop.io community that someone asked (repeat: ASKED) about requirements
> for displaying a Powered by drop.io graphic.

hadn't really thought about it like that, david. to us it's the ideal
solution and if jake has time to produce a logo/button we'd wear it
with pride :)

sidepodcast
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