Sid Sidberry Reads

People who like to run pre-release versions of browsers in order to access the latest features have a new choice: Google Chrome Canary.

Canary has all the bleeding-edge features found in the developer and beta releases of Google Chrome. But unlike the other channel releases, Chrome Canary allows you to run the pre-release browser without overwriting other installations of Chrome on the same system. So, you can now run a regular version of Chrome and a pre-release, auto-updating version of Chrome on the same computer at the same time.

You can download Chrome Canary today, but it is a Windows-only release for now. We expect Google to follow with canaries for other operating systems soon.

Early adopters — mostly curious geeks and developers working with the latest web standards — prefer to run beta versions of browsers. Beta testing allows them to gain intimate first-hand knowledge of the new capabilities that will be found in the next versions of each browser. But beta versions and regular versions of the same browsers both access the same file resources on your computer, a restriction that prevents you from running two different versions side-by-side. Try launching a Firefox 4 beta while Firefox 3.x is open. You’ll see an error: “Only one copy of Firefox can be open at a time.”

On the fence about running an unstable pre-release browser? Canary can help you take the plunge safely.

Chrome Canary side-steps this issue. As Google engineer Huan Ren explains on the Chromium-dev list, “the installer will install Google Chrome canary build to a separate directory with different default user profile, short cuts, and icons, i.e. everything should be separate from existing Google Chrome installation.”

With this release, there are now four versions of Chrome available. The others are “dev,” the least stable build intended for developers, “beta,” which is more stable than dev but not fully baked, and the regular Chrome release, the rigorously-tested version that’s the default option for the public.

On the same developer’s e-mail list, Google’s Mark Larson says Canary will be the most bleeding-edge of all Chrome builds. It will auto-update more frequently than any of the other versions available to developers.

“The canary usually updates more frequently than the Dev channel (higher risk of bustage), and we’re working on making it update as often as we have successful nightly builds. When something doesn’t work on the canary, I can just fall back to my Beta Google Chrome,” he writes.

Hence the name “Canary” — a reference to the canary in the coal mine. Google recently announced it would be speeding up the Chrome development cycle to push major milestone releases more often. This increased velocity means it will need to begin testing new features in the wild sooner and collecting feedback more quickly.

“The data we get back from canary users — especially crash statistics — helps us find and fix regressions faster,” Larson says.

Chrome Canary running on 64-bit Windows 7

Giving users the option to run a more advanced version of Chrome without having to fully commit to the dangerous lifestyle of an alpha tester should help increase the number of people willing to test the new browser.

Chrome Canary also has a different, all-yellow icon — instead of the multi-colored Chrome icon or the all-blue Chromium icon — so it’s easy to spot on your desktop. The beta, dev and stable channel builds of Chrome all use the same familiar rainbow icon. Also, the skin of the browser is blue, helping you tell it apart from other versions of Chrome, which use the same gray skin.

Canary photo: Haplochromis/Wikimedia/CC

See Also:

• Chrome Team Sets Six-Week Cadence for New Major Versions
• Chrome Shows Off Some Fancy HTML5 Tricks
• Chrome Gains More Converts, Edges Out Safari

Google announced via the Chromium Blog that it plans to release new stable versions of Chrome every six weeks. Though the team has managed to ship five major revisions in less than two years, the new accelerated pace means we could see Chrome 9.0 by the end of this year.

According to program manager Anthony Laforge, the increased pace is designed to address three main goals. One is to get new features out to users faster. The second is make the release schedule predictable and therefore easier to plan which features will be included and which features will be targeted for later releases. Third, and most counterintuitive, is to cut the level of stress for Chrome developers.

Laforge explains that the shorter, predictable time periods between releases are more like “trains leaving Grand Central Station.” New features that are ready don’t have to wait for others that are taking longer to complete—they can just hop on the current release “train.” This can in turn take the pressure off developers to rush to get other features done, since another release train will be coming in six weeks. And they can rest easy knowing their work isn’t holding the train from leaving the station.

Mass transit metaphors aside, Chrome will be revving the major version number with each stable release, with 6.0 expected pretty soon, and then shortly followed by 7.0. 8.0. and 9.0. However, warns Laforge, “please don’t read too much into the pace of version number changes—they just mean we are moving through release cycles and we are geared up to get fresher releases into your hands!”

This article originally appeared on Ars Technica, Wired’s sister site for in-depth technology news. For more from Ars Technica, follow the links below.

More from Ars Technica:

• Chrome 5 Released, Browser Exits Beta for Mac and Linux

The beta version of Google’s next browser is expected to ship soon, as the developer channel release of Chrome 6 has just seen a code freeze. This is the point at which new features stop being added, and everything that’s already in the browser gets inspected, tested and tightened. We should expect Chrome 6 Beta within a few weeks.

Google’s browser is in an enviable position right now. It recently passed Safari in user share (according to StatsCounter) and it’s gaining on Firefox and IE. Also, in a market where raw speed is the most important metric, Chrome is enjoying a solid reputation as the one of the fastest — if not the fastest — browser on the scene.

Let’s take a look at what’s coming in Google Chrome 6 Beta. We downloaded the most recent dev channel release of Chrome (6.0.466.4 on a Mac) to test all of these new features.

New checkboxes in the syncing panel

Syncing — Google Chrome already lets you sync bookmarks and themes across multiple installations, but it will soon also allow you to sync your browser history and form auto-fill data as well. So, you’ll have access to all the pages you visited at the office when you log in to your home machine, and vice versa (no, Incognito browsing session data doesn’t get synced).

Extension syncing — Likewise, you can set up two or more instances of Chrome to run the same extensions. Read our previous coverage of this new feature.

New menu button — Chrome has consolidated the menu button to the right of the URL bar. There used to be a “tool” button and a “page” button, but now it’s just a “tool” button, and it contains the browser’s most-used menu functions. It exhibits similarities — functionally, not visually — to Firefox 4’s new Firefox Button.

Native PDF integration — Chrome 5 added built-in support for Adobe Flash, and version 6 adds similar support for PDFs. An in-browser PDF viewer will ship with the next browser. PDFs can be viewed, searched and navigated in a tab, just like a web page. The PDF experience is also sandboxed like any other app, keeping things secure. Printing isn’t quite there yet. If you’re running the dev channel release, type about:plugins into the URL field to enable the Chrome PDF viewer.

UI changes — Aside from the new menu button, some additional polish has been applied to Chrome’s chrome. There’s a new green padlock icon in the URL bar to indicate a secure HTTPS connection, a slight changes to default skin, and a less cluttered new tab page.

New menu button

Some much-awaited features were left on the drawing board, such as full-screen HTML5 video playback and a tabs-on-the-side option.

The current dev channel release also shows no sign of Google’s Native Client technology, or its Web App Store — the mechanisms you’ll eventually be able to use to find and install popular apps, and those created by third parties, in your browser.

Install a web app? Google explains: “An installed web app could be separated visually from other tabs, could integrate better with the OS, and could be granted increased permissions.” Installed apps would be able to discern your location, store data on your local machine and use your camera, among other things. The installed apps would sit in your tab bar at the top of Chrome, where they’d look and behave like bookmarked web pages. Firefox has seen this coming, too — the next version of Mozilla’s browser will move the tabs to the top.

This app-friendly shift is a natural progression for the browser. App stores for our iPads and smartphones are leading us towards a more app-centric world, and advancements in HTML5 and JavaScript have led to web apps that look and behave more like single-serving native applications. As the internet becomes a full-blown operating system — flush with APIs, storage clouds, public databases, connected sensors and ubiquitous wi-fi access points– the web browser is in a position to become the desktop for that operating system.

To get an early peek at installable Google apps, you’ll have to jump through some hoops of fire. Google Operating System has some instructions for the brave.

[Hat tip to Stephen Shankland, who noted the version 6 code freeze on CNet's Deep Tech blog. There you'll also find a comprehensive list of what Google left out of this beta cycle].

See Also:

• Firefox 4 Beta 2, Due Next Week, Adds Tabs on Top for Macs
• Chrome Shows Off Some Fancy HTML5 Tricks
• Video: Google Chrome Extensions for Accessibility
• Chrome Gains More Converts, Edges Out Safari
• Google Chrome Working on Extension Syncing Feature

Google has added a feature to its Buzz API that publishes every activity as it happens in a single feed.

On the social web, this is commonly called a “Firehose” — a syndication feed that publishes all public activities as they happen in one big, fat stream. It’s a lot to sift through, but app developers consider a firehose essential for incorporating real-time search results and real-time “trending” lists from a particular social service into their creations.

Google Buzz, the company’s answer to Twitter and other real-time social sharing services, launched in February, and the API was opened up to the public in May. The firehose was made available late Monday, and it publishes everything Buzz users are sharing (except for Twitter tweets). Google says it’s Buzz developers’ most-requested feature. Previously, you could run searches on Google Buzz activity, but there was no way to subscribe to a feed that publishes what everyone on Buzz is talking about or sharing at any given moment with very low latency.

Some Google partners were involved in the launch, and they’ve prepped some apps to show off what the firehose can do. Have a look at Buzz Mood, an app (obviously inspired by our old Twitter favorite Twistori) that tracks emotional keywords like “love,” “hate,” “believe,” and “hope,” showing you the most recent posts containing those words in a constantly refreshing stream.

Also check out Gnip, the social aggregation service that collects user activities from Twitter, MySpace, Buzz, Facebook, Digg and over 100 social sites. Gnip republishes all these feeds in multiple formats and combinations, and it makes everything — now including the Buzz firehose — available to its customers via its own API.

All of the public activities in Google Buzz are published through the firehose using PubSubHubbub, a protocol that’s being widely adopted on the social web. PubSubHubbub, which was created inside Google and is now being developed into an open standard, pushes out updates to apps as they happen. It replaces the old model — one that’s been the standard for many years — where an application repeatedly asks the publishing server if there’s anything new.

PubSubHubbub is more efficient and provides the app with notifications the instant they happen. It’s not the only data format for real-time publishing: also have a look at RSSCloud.

Google is turning on some other API features as well, including a comments feed for comments left by each user, and a similar feed for “likes” made by each user.

Google is using Activity Streams, another emerging standard on the social web, to wrap all of the activity data. The AML-based Activity Streams format allows for notifications of things like comments, likes, and favorites. So, subscribe to the Google Buzz feed for so-and-so, and you’ll not only be notified that so-and-so posted a video, but also that his friend liked that video, or that an hour later, somebody else left a comment about it.

Everything is outlined in the Google Buzz API docs. You can also ask a question or search for answers in the Buzz developer forum.

See Also:

• Hands On With Google Buzz – It’s a Stream in Your Inbox
• Google Opens Up the Buzz API
• Google Buzz Gets a ‘Retweet’ Feature
• Twistori, A Microblogging Microscope

Google has added a feature to its Buzz API that publishes every activity as it happens in a single feed.

On the social web, this is commonly called a “Firehose” — a syndication feed that publishes all public activities as they happen in one big, fat stream. It’s a lot to sift through, but app developers consider a firehose essential for incorporating real-time search results and real-time “trending” lists from a particular social service into their creations.

Google Buzz, the company’s answer to Twitter and other real-time social sharing services, launched in February, and the API was opened up to the public in May. The firehose was made available late Monday, and it publishes everything Buzz users are sharing (except for Twitter tweets). Google says it’s Buzz developers’ most-requested feature. Previously, you could run searches on Google Buzz activity, but there was no way to subscribe to a feed that publishes what everyone on Buzz is talking about or sharing at any given moment with very low latency.

Some Google partners were involved in the launch, and they’ve prepped some apps to show off what the firehose can do. Have a look at Buzz Mood, an app (obviously inspired by our old Twitter favorite Twistori) that tracks emotional keywords like “love,” “hate,” “believe,” and “hope,” showing you the most recent posts containing those words in a constantly refreshing stream.

Also check out Gnip, the social aggregation service that collects user activities from Twitter, MySpace, Buzz, Facebook, Digg and over 100 social sites. Gnip republishes all these feeds in multiple formats and combinations, and it makes everything — now including the Buzz firehose — available to its customers via its own API.

All of the public activities in Google Buzz are published through the firehose using PubSubHubbub, a protocol that’s being widely adopted on the social web. PubSubHubbub, which was created inside Google and is now being developed into an open standard, pushes out updates to apps as they happen. It replaces the old model — one that’s been the standard for many years — where an application repeatedly asks the publishing server if there’s anything new.

PubSubHubbub is more efficient and provides the app with notifications the instant they happen. It’s not the only data format for real-time publishing: also have a look at RSSCloud.

Google is turning on some other API features as well, including a comments feed for comments left by each user, and a similar feed for “likes” made by each user.

Google is using Activity Streams, another emerging standard on the social web, to wrap all of the activity data. The AML-based Activity Streams format allows for notifications of things like comments, likes, and favorites. So, subscribe to the Google Buzz feed for so-and-so, and you’ll not only be notified that so-and-so posted a video, but also that his friend liked that video, or that an hour later, somebody else left a comment about it.

Everything is outlined in the Google Buzz API docs. You can also ask a question or search for answers in the Buzz developer forum.

See Also:

• Hands On With Google Buzz – It’s a Stream in Your Inbox
• Google Opens Up the Buzz API
• Google Buzz Gets a ‘Retweet’ Feature
• Twistori, A Microblogging Microscope

So for most of this year I’ve been trying out new things, mostly to better understand how google’s changed and the impact of social media. Today I’ll admit it’s turned into a cluster cuss.

The Mission

The mission was simple, create a few sites, see how google see’s them, then see what effect twitter, tumblr, and youtube has. For this I used 4 domains, 8 tumblr accounts, 1 youtube, 3 twitter accounts, 1 facebook page, and way to much free time. The goal was to see which combination yielded the best results.

The End Result

Before going into details, let me tell you what got the best results. 1 static site, 1 wordpress with 2 year old content, 1 tumblr with occasional fresh content, 1 current blog, and one actively used twitter. Everything else… Well everything else was simply everything else. While in theory the other setups should have worked, they actually effected seo negatively.

The Goal

My goal was simple: See which formats / channels (yes I class things as formats / channels for all you social media “experts” & seo “mavens”)  were indexed the quickest and got me to the front page of google first. My secondary goal was of course to get certain keywords added to google’s historical index. [Side Note] I strongly believe historical data plays a factor in future seo results.

My 3rd and favorite goal was getting google to see me as someone else. I’ve been moving my personal stuff from greg sidberry to sid sidberry due to me and my father now working together at halfGray Non Profit.

Things to know

1. If your doing real seo, focus on what people are looking for to find you. Showing up #1 for funyuns is pointless if your selling anything other than funyuns and porn
2. Piwik has been pretty much FUBAR, so stat data is null
3. This is something I did for my own purposes, please don’t consider any of this to count as anything other than scientific wild ass guesses.

The Keywords

Yes I know I seriously aged myself by saying keywords, but when I started that’s what we called them: Keywords. It’s kinda like how social marketing one day transformed into social media. I’m damn near 30, I don’t care what you call it, only how it’s done.

The keywords for the 7 months of google play were: San Diego Fighter, Hi my name is Sid, Sid Sidberry (more on that later), San Diego Sid, San Diego Cakes, geek sometime ninja, and san diego kohana php.

Keyword: San Diego Fighter

San Diego Fighter was  by far the most successfully and fun of the runs. I used 1 tumblr consisting of original blog posts, rants, and a lot of fighting related video. A wordpress site was added just to keep everything interesting, with a twitter account fed from both of the channels and active use. The results were pretty good for some so low level.

On the social front I made contact with a number of local promoters / fighters, the account hit 30 followers, and the tumblr made 3-4 followers. While not braggable results, I consider them solid considering.

On the Google / SEO front I made it to the top 3 on both google and whatever bing was called before they switched to bing.

Why I think this keyword did so well

I was honest and passionate in my posts. I’ve long believed that the energy you put into anything will guide the results gotten. This was probably the only run where I actually invested myself. After this, I got kinda bored and geeky.

Keyword: Hi my name is sid

Now this was a no brainer, I pretty much owned the first page in google with a static site, tumblr, twitter, and wordpress. The problem however came when I began branching out into other tests. Suddenly I nolonger owned the search results. Hell at the time of writing this I think google by be pissed at all the ip and content changes. That said give me a few months to get my google results page back lol.

For those wondering why hi my name is sid falls into the no brainer category, look at the domain your on. I had a few things going for me:

1. my name, the double sid’s helped
2. the .com, hi my name is sid is a given to show up in search results
3. I forwarded the site I used when building my Greg Sidberry results.
4. Historical data, google already has alot of data relating Sid to my sites.
5. It was too easy

Keyword: Sid Sidberry

Ok now we hit the fun part. For years my father and I have had an seo battle over our name. If you’ve never had an SEO battle with your father, it’s awesome. Everytime I’d start feeling comfortable, confining him to the second page of results… He’d come back. This game has been going on since 2000-2001, and I felt it was finally time for us to use that energy somewhere else. The solution? I finally changed my name. While I’ve been known as sid for close to 7 years, I’ve worked as Greg to keep everything separated.

The first step of course was to get google to forget my facebook. That took 4 months. The next step was to transition profiles and sites to the new Sid Sidberry focus. Overall the hardest part was getting google to forget my facebook profile. The last steps are of course finishing this blog, and releasing about 2 years worth of tuts I’ve been saving up for just that reason.

Another step I took recently, was to create a funnel.

Why I created a Sid funnel

Sid the Science kid, I have no idea who he is, but your messing with my google results son. While I’ll admit I lose much of my dominance playing mt SEO games, he’s still pissing me off. I hated looking at the first page of results seeing 80% me and then like a nagging ex girlfriend: Sid the science kid. Hey Sid the Science kid, why are you on my corner?

So I decided to do something drastic: I made a Sid Funnel. 8 sites that highlight the word Sid. Not enough to get front page mind you, but when combined into a lifestream, I’m hoping it’ll give me the tool needed to blow Sid the science kid of my first page or results. Will update in a few months once everythings finished.

Keyword: San Diego Sid

To save you a long winded explanation: I just reused the San Diego Fighter setup, added another site into the mix, and changed a few titles. displayed in top 8 results.

Keyword: San Diego Cakes

This one didn’t go so well. It was a test run for a friends new site (ETA: Soon brooke, soon). The next run will cast a bigger net and focus more on a mix os local / social with a much stronger SEO push.

Keyword: Geek, Sometime ninja

Geek, Sometime ninja is actually a historical term, but I wanted to see if my beliefs on historical data were sound. End result=yes. IT took no time at all to get relisted under this term. All i did was cange the title of the site with the keyword in googles historical data.

Keyword: San Diego Kohana Php

This keyword was a headache. Hands down my least favorite of all the runs. Why? because I did this test with 1 tumblr, 1 static site, 1 twitter, and even then i didn’t get ranked. I’ve figure out how to get the results I wanted, but by then it wasn’t worth wasting more time.

What I learned

I’m currently in the middle of wrapping up all my little experiments and turning my focus back to code, HA, and the cloud. In retrospect these experiements helped me better understand tumblr and gave me some additional wisdom on twiiter. However if there’s anything I’m taking from all this, it’s that content is still king. No matter how many tricks you pull (No I didn’t use black hat seo, but I may use some in a future test) your content will in the end determine your success.

Randomly cool stuff

I ran alot of tests. If you follow me on twitter, you probably noticed the 3 floods, etc. In my testing the best way to rapidly get followers is to flood your stream, and hash tag for no good damn reason. This however completely defeats the point of using social as the majority of your followers will not be the quality followers your searching for.

Also use quotes. Quotes are like twitter crack. For one test I simply fed in a rss of twitters search results to a wordpress blog, then had that blog feed back to twitter. I got 20 something followers and 12-16k click throughs in 48-72 hours. WTF! Yeap tweople love quotes.

I still have about 5-6 tests left before wrapping all this up and will most likely post an overview. The one I’m looking for however is whether beauty, nudity, or fashion gets the best results. 3 blogs, 3 categories of content, only 1 can win

Thanks for all the fish,

Sid Sidberry

I’ve been slowly working on moving all of my projects and tutorials to one site. Mainly because there treated like blog posts instead of projects. This of course lead me to start looking at which license to start looking at which license to release everything as.

After a few days pouring over everything on the web I decided to choose the mit license. Why? The mit license fits how I want to release my code. It releases my code openly to anyone, only asking that the copyright in my code remain.

This will probably lead to you ask why not gpl, apache, or bsd?

why I didn’t choose gpl

the gpl license [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License] is restrictive IMO, due to the fact that it forces a user to release anyone that uses what i create under gpl as well. This is not to say that the gpl is wrong, just that its restrictive to end users / developers in a way I choose not to me. If someone takes code that I am openly releasing, I don’t want to limit them in anyway other than to leave a portion giving me credit for my portion of code, that’s it.

If i was working on some huge next best thing (think wordpress) and planned to release it, then I would use a gpl license. why? something like wordpress could easily be exploited commercially. If I take the time to build something like that I would want anyone who decides to change it or build off of it to release it themselves, to also make sure it’s free under the same license. The biggest difference here is intent. If you were to create the next swfobject.js (which uses an mit license), why restrict your users? But if your creating the next wordpress you don’t want to restrict users, just ensure that your work continues to be free.

why i didn’t choose bsd

the bsd license is similar to the mit license, but with an advertising clause. So to prevent anyone from any legal issues (who knows what counts as advertising in the future), why restrict end users?

why I didn’t choose apache

the apache license is the default license for projects at google code (you can select others), so it’s gotta be good. But it feel slightly more restrictive. That said: I’m releasing anything that uses patents. If you are then an apache license might be for you if you’d like to not restrict users.

in a nutshell

I think the best quote I came across was from eagain.wordpress.com:

if you want software to be free GPL is better than BSD. If you want use of software to be free BSD is better.

I think mit/bsd licenses are better for developers when your creating random things that might help someone (think swfobject). gpl is better if your developing an application to help everyone (think wordpress).

sid

*update* – found another good article:

http://fosswire.com/2007/04/06/the-differences-between-the-gpl-lgpl-and-the-bsd/

From: http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2008/01/databases_are_hammers_mapreduc.php

A bunch of people have sent me links to an article about MapReduce. I’ve hesitated to write about it, because the currently hyped MapReduce stuff was developed, and extensively used by Google, my employer. But the article is really annoying, and deserves a response. So I’m going to be absolutely clear. I am not commenting on this in my capacity as a Google employee. (In fact, I’ve never actually used MapReduce at work!) This is strictly on my own time, and it’s purely my own opinion. If it’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever read, that’s my fault, not Google’s. If it’s the most brilliant thing you’ve ever read, that’s my credit, not Google’s. I wasn’t asked to write this by Google, and I didn’t ask their permission, either. This is just me, the annoying geek behind this blog, writing solely on my own behalf, speaking for no one but me. Got it?

Check It Out:
Good Math, Bad Math : Databases are hammers; MapReduce is a screwdriver.

From: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/googles-new-favicon.html

Back in June, we rolled out a new favicon

So after 3-4 days of research and study I’m compiling a list of links that helped me finally understand couchdb. Still bunches to learn, but hopefully it will save others from 4 days of googling.

Start

The very first thing you should read is the work in progress online couchdb book:
Relax with CouchDB [http://books.couchdb.org/relax/]

Now that your started

The following sections are grouped by what I left the article better understanding. They may cover other areas, but then again more knowledge leads to better understanding right?

JSON

Just in case you don’t understand json:

http://webt.wordpress.com/2007/10/01/json/

Couch MapReduce

fyi: hashes

Depending on what language your coming from you may know hashes as arrays or associative arrays. When they say reduce returns a single value, they are referring to the hash value it returns (scratched my head for a while)

If your coming from php an easy way to connect the dots is to think of how serialize creates a string that represents your object. Only in couchDb this is a json string

I had my eureka moment here:

http://www.ibuildings.com/blog/archives/1291-Some-thoughts-on-CouchDB.html

Just in case you didn’t eureka:

http://rrees.wordpress.com/2008/03/09/couchdb-querying-data/

Damien Katz explains more on couch’s mapreduce ( check the part 2 near the end as well ):

http://damienkatz.net/2008/02/incremental_map.html

MapReduce Method

In case you didn’t know mapreduce isn’t something couch invented, you can learn more about mapreduce below.

explains the mapreduce method in detail:

http://code.google.com/edu/parallel/mapreduce-tutorial.html#MapReduce

the mapreduce white paper:

http://labs.google.com/papers/mapreduce.html

mapreduce lecture (didn’t watch, but it was recommended by google, so why not):

http://www.youtube.com/v/-vD6PUdf3Js

using couchdb

blog db example / couchdb “joins”:

http://www.cmlenz.net/archives/2007/10/couchdb-joins

user permissions system example / offers rdbms comparison:

http://kore-nordmann.de/blog/couchdb_a_use_case.html

aimee’s 8+ couchdb on rails series (links to part 1, but your good from there):

http://aimee.mychores.co.uk/2008/09/07/post/320/

couchdb internals

Ricy ho’s overview:

http://horicky.blogspot.com/2008/10/couchdb-implementation.html

Related discussion where btrees are further discussed (as well as some decent bantering):

http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/792hf/couchdb_implementation/

Ayende Rahien has an indepth series on couch db called: reading erlang

http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2008/09/24/reading-erlang-inspecting-couchdb.aspx

http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2008/09/24/more-couchdb-reading-btreelookup.aspx

http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2008/09/24/more-couchdb-reading-btreequery_modify.aspx

http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2008/10/04/reading-erlang-couchdb-from-rest-to-disk-in-a.aspx

http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2008/10/04/erlang-reading-couchdb-digging-down-to-disk.aspx

http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2008/10/06/reading-eralng-couchdb-streams.aspx

The most important part

Use it damn it! get planning, hacking, pop locking and start playing with couch

sources

Sources not referenced already:

http://damienkatz.net/2008/09/peek_into_couchdb.html

http://jan.prima.de/plok/