Facebook Cookbook - Jay Goldman [58]
http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?entryID=1044
Hello World Facebook Application AMI (a very useful AMI to load as a starting point, including a demo app showing how to list objects from an Amazon S3 bucket)
http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?categoryID=116&externalID=964
If you’re going to be running a large number of instances, you might want to consider using RightScale (http://www.rightscale.com) or Service Cloud (http://www.servicecloud.com) third-party systems that make managing 20 or more concurrent servers a piece of cake.
Staying Up-to-Date
Problem
How can I stay up-to-date with changes in the world of Facebook?
Solution
Facebook publishes four RSS feeds, and you should definitely subscribe to them. If you already subscribe to a lot of feeds, you might want to use an RSS-to-email service to make sure that these feeds don’t get lost in the shuffle (or use a separate RSS reader just for them):
Facebook Developer Blog
Updates from Facebook’s team about upcoming changes to Platform.
Website: http://developers.facebook.com/news.php
RSS: http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&format=xml
Facebook Platform Status Feed
Updates on pushes, problems, etc.
Website: http://www.facebook.com/developers/message.php
RSS: http://www.facebook.com/feeds/api_messages.php
Facebook Blog
The general blog maintained by Facebook.
Website: http://blog.facebook.com/
RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/FacebookBlog
Facebook Pages Blog
The News Feed from the Facebook Pages Page, maintained by Facebook. This isn’t directly related to Platform, but it is still a useful source of information if your app is installed on Pages.
Website: http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=10381469571
RSS: You’ll have to visit the page to subscribe because it generates a unique RSS URL for each visitor.
There are at least two pages on the Facebook Developers Wiki that you’ll want to watch closely. Unfortunately, there’s no way to subscribe to them by RSS, but you can add them to your Watchlist within the Wiki:
Push Changes
This page documents the changes included in each push of new code that Facebook makes, organized by date. See http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Push_Changes.
Platform Changes
This page documents the bigger-picture changes that Facebook has released. See http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Platform_Changes.
Discussion
In addition to the news straight from the horse’s mouth, there are also a number of excellent third-party websites maintained by the community at large:
FaceReviews
Reviews of Facebook applications published by Gravitational Media, LLC. This is a great way to keep up-to-date on the competition and get some attention for your app when it’s ready to go live.
Website: http://www.facereviews.com
RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/facereviews
Inside Facebook
A wide and deep-reaching view into the world of Facebook, started by Justin Smith.
Website: http://www.insidefacebook.com
RSS: http://www.insidefacebook.com/feed/
AllFacebook
A similar mandate to Inside Facebook, started by Nick O’Neill.
Website: http://www.allfacebook.com
RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/allfacebook
Chapter 6. Facebook Markup Language (FBML)
In the world of Facebook Platform, Facebook Markup Language (FBML) is to Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) as Facebook JavaScript (FBJS) is to JavaScript (JS) and Facebook Query Language (FQL) is to Structured Query Language (SQL). This may seem strange at first—almost like some sort of parallel universe in which you have been given two left feet and must dance the tango in double-time—but it’s really not that bad. If you have any familiarity with HTML, you’ll discover pretty quickly that FBML is really just like having a bunch of new dance moves available, having a bunch of your old ones updated and changed from 10-step-long sequences into a graceful one-stepper, and occasionally having to learn a different way to do the familiar foxtrot.