Sat, 17 Sep 2005
PledgeBank Adds Comment RSS Feed
I like the PledgeBank site, it's a
great idea and it's promoting some good causes (UK Digital Rights is one of
them) but it was a pain to keep going back and reading the comments... If
only we had a way of subscribing to the comments... maybe using a form of
XML that has a number of specs... ;)
After sending in a single email asking for RSS feeds of the comments and waiting no more then seven of our earth days they've added them. This is how sites should work, good ideas, friendly people and a good service.
I spend a lot of time dealing with un-helpful people so it's always nice to have something like this to post. Thanks to everyone behind PledgeBank.
Like this post? - Digg Me! | Add to del.icio.us! | reddit this!
Posted: 2005/09/17 12:40 | /sites | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Sun, 14 Aug 2005
O'Reilly Advocating del.icio.us?
I'm a big del.icio.us fan, it's saved me storing my bookmarks in three
different formats and provides easy access from anywhere; all for free.
I was however surprised to see "Bookmark with del.icio.us" links in the
articles on both
O'Reilly's ONLamp and perl.com sites. Still anything that gets the
service more exposure can't be a bad thing.
Like this post? - Digg Me! | Add to del.icio.us! | reddit this!
Posted: 2005/08/14 20:49 | /sites | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Sun, 31 Jul 2005
Ruby on Rails Podcast and Perlcast
I'm a big fan of the "big three" scripting languages, Perl, Python and
Ruby, but I don't get a lot of time to keep up with all the relevant news.
Fortunately you can now download and listen to the official Ruby on Rails Podcast or the ever
growing Perlcast.
Like this post? - Digg Me! | Add to del.icio.us! | reddit this!
Posted: 2005/07/31 16:34 | /sites | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Fri, 29 Jul 2005
O'Reilly Want to Connect?
There's something up at connection.oreilly.com... will it
be another jobs site or do they have an ace up their collective, animal
decorated, sleeves?
Like this post? - Digg Me! | Add to del.icio.us! | reddit this!
Posted: 2005/07/29 00:16 | /sites | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Tue, 15 Mar 2005
The Fade Anything Technique
I've made a couple of posts about the yellow fade technique but now I've
got a script to one-up it. The people over at Axentric (Adam Michela) have put
together a Fade Anything
Technique that does pretty much what you expect from its name.
The Fade Anything Technique demo is pretty impressive and the code is both readable and clean. For now it's my winner in this little competition.
Like this post? - Digg Me! | Add to del.icio.us! | reddit this!
Posted: 2005/03/15 19:50 | /sites | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Sun, 30 Jan 2005
The Yellow Fade Technique
The very slick people over at Basecamp have a very neat UI trick that highlights any changes to
the site for a couple of seconds and then fades out. This allows simple
tracking of any changes on page-reload. The full (non-technical) details
can be found over at 37, the technique itself is called the Yellow Fade
Technique.
Now as you can see by looking at this site I'm more of a functional than aesthetic person but I wanted to integrate this functionality in to a couple of sites. Only problem is no one has an explanation of how to do it and my JavaScript (ECMAScript) sucks... So come on people! Show me how it's done!
Like this post? - Digg Me! | Add to del.icio.us! | reddit this!
Posted: 2005/01/30 23:18 | /sites | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Mon, 24 Jan 2005
Getting Freshmeat Comments by Email
I'm not very good at keeping track of my
Freshmeat Projects, I'm also insanely bad at replying to comments but
thanks to Stig Brautaset I no longer
need to worry about it.
Freshmeat has an a pair of options, tucked away under your preference page (which you obviously have to be logged in to see), with the following descriptions "Send comments to my projects by email:" and "Send replies to my comments by email:". By turning these on Freshmeat will forward comments to the email address you set up. I'd rather have an RSS feed but it'll do for now :)
Like this post? - Digg Me! | Add to del.icio.us! | reddit this!
Posted: 2005/01/24 23:25 | /sites | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Sat, 15 Jan 2005
Searching Sourcecode Across the 'Net
I've seen a couple of people mentioning the
Koders Source Code Search Engine
recently and I decided I should have a little play. The idea is pretty
simple, they spider source code from projects across the net and then allow
you to search through the gathered code.
While I've not played with it enough to know if it's going to be of any interest to me in smaller projects a couple of things did stick out when I tried the site.
- No meta-data reduces the value of the results.
- It requires you to escape :'s. Searching for Perl without realizing that isn't very productive ;)
- If the results span one or more pages then the page selector is both small and in an awkward place.
Will people use it? I don't know but it's worth keeping an eye on.
Like this post? - Digg Me! | Add to del.icio.us! | reddit this!
Posted: 2005/01/15 17:30 | /sites | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Review Pages -- Without the Hassle of Reviews
While googling for a book review google sent me to two sites (in the top
five hits) that contained ALL the details about the book but missed one
vital feature; the actual review
After rereading the page to see if my browser had done something strange, hey it can happen on badly designed sites, I noticed a small piece of text located near the bottom of the page and below the scroll line; Status: Not reviewed. ARGH!
Like this post? - Digg Me! | Add to del.icio.us! | reddit this!
Posted: 2005/01/15 12:31 | /sites | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Mon, 29 Nov 2004
SXIP Single Sign-on
I've heard the name SXIP (pronounced
'skip') mentioned on a couple of different privacy forums (and in the
Web2.0 coverage) and decided to have a closer look at what it provides. The
short version, I promise!, is that SXIP wants to be a single sign-on
provider and help with filling out forms based upon your chosen
persona.
For the longer version of the who, what and how I'd suggest first listening to the IT Conversations SXIP show and then spending five minutes with the SXIP Demo. After a whirlwind play I've decided that I like the 'Activity Log' page (and the SXIP In and SXIP This metaphors are just corny; but in a good way) but I'd also like to be able to click through and see what information I provided to a page using SXIP. On a more positive note the interface to autofill forms is both clean and intuitive.
My verdict? It is interesting but it has the chicken and the egg problem, I won't delve too far in until everyone else does. Oh and the page seems to redirect a lot in the background when you authenticate, considering all the phishing that goes on these days that may alarm people.
Like this post? - Digg Me! | Add to del.icio.us! | reddit this!
Posted: 2004/11/29 11:58 | /sites | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Mon, 01 Nov 2004
New NetBSD Logo
The NetBSD project
has recently adopted a new logo, the new NetBSD logos
are decent enough if a little uninspiring and 'safe'. I've always been a
fan of the old NetBSD logo.
Like this post? - Digg Me! | Add to del.icio.us! | reddit this!
Posted: 2004/11/01 19:03 | /sites | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Wed, 27 Oct 2004
Startup Skills Blog and AdGooroo eBook
I've been a subscriber to the
RSS feed over at Startup Skills
for quite a while now, the authors insights on creating a start up and
online advertising in general and Google Adwords in particular have
always made interesting reading; but one day they stopped.
Instead of just pontificating about what you could do he's been busy actually creating and running a company. AdGooroo, "an advertising intelligence service that tracks competitors' online advertising" and helps you get the most from your own Google Adwords certainly warrants a close eye if you use Google for ads and a perfect starting place to find out what it's all about if you don't.
For those interested you can currently download a free Adgooroo eBook that covers all the basics and the benefits you can expect along with some very interesting tactics on how to improve your lot in the Google adwords world.
Disclaimer: I have no dealings of any kind with Startup Skills beyond reading the content they put up. I would however seriously consider recommending the AdGooroo service at the next startup I work for.
Like this post? - Digg Me! | Add to del.icio.us! | reddit this!
Posted: 2004/10/27 19:29 | /sites | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Sun, 19 Sep 2004
IRC -- The Infinite Monkey Theory at Work
I've never been a huge IRC
person but I do like amusing quotes, if you get a bored five minutes it's
well worth having a sift through both Bash.org and QDB.us. The quality of the humour varies a lot
but some of it is good wholesome geek humour. And a lot of it isn't :)
Like this post? - Digg Me! | Add to del.icio.us! | reddit this!
Posted: 2004/09/19 09:51 | /sites | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Sun, 20 Jun 2004
BugMeNot.com
I stumbled across this site yesterday when looking for some FireFox
plugins and i have to admit i can see me getting a lot of use out of
it. The basic premise is pretty simple:
BugMeNot.com was created as a mechanism to quickly bypass the login of web sites that require compulsory registration and/or the collection of personal/demographic information (such as the New York Times).
The FireFox BugMeNot plugin provides nice and easy right click access to the site but while I'm at work i have to use IE so i decided to write my own version, imaginatively titled BugMeNot IE
Update: The people behind BugMeNot have included a link to my version of the plugin on the FAQ page. Very cool.
Like this post? - Digg Me! | Add to del.icio.us! | reddit this!
Posted: 2004/06/20 14:06 | /sites | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Copyright © 2000-2005 Dean Wilson
