Techn0tic

Social Media Data Mining with FriendFeed

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 00:01:02 -0800

FriendFeed have just launched an advanced search feature, Marshall Kirkpatrick

Win a BRAND NEW Dell Netbook and 3G Subscription

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 23:01:49 -0800

My good friend Paul Fabretti is giving away a Dell Netbook with a Vodafone 3G subscription.

Tagged by Fabretti

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 20:34:26 -0800

Paul Fabretti chose to tag me in one of these tag-the-blogger excercises so in the interests of not letting anybody down, I'll continue the chain.

If you are tagged you should:

(a) republish these rules

Link to your

A new idea to hasten the demise of IE6

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:38:58 -0800

Last year I was discussing the idea that as web designers and developers are the poeple who suffer most from IE6's continued usage, we are responsible for doing what we can to educate users into upgrading.

37 Signals also announced that they would no longer actively support IE6, a step in the right direction but it doesn't actively encourage users to change their browser unless a change is made which actually stops the software from working in the offending browser.

Today I was alerted to Web developer, Thom Shannon's latest website update. He has taken a new approach and one which I applaud.

If a user visits his blog with IE6, the page displays in black and white. The page also shows a message pointing out that the browser is outdated and suggesting some alternatives.

That's the genius part, and like all great ideas, it seems so obvious. If you want IE6 users to upgrade, simply ask them to and provide them with links to the alternatives. This surely will convert more users than a gradual dropping of support for the old browser.

Thom Shannon's Blog showing IE6 view compared with the normal view

Social Notworking?

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 01:30:27 -0800

The phrase "social notworking"

Google shutting down services

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 04:26:00 -0800

Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land writes:

Google's announced they're closing or ceasing development of a variety of products as part of analready continuing move

A chat about Basecamp

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:34:12 -0800

I had an interesting IM chat with my friend Jon Ward, a project manager with whom I recently worked. We were discussing the calendar functionality in Backpack and Jon brought up one of his pet bugbears - the lack of time-spanned events in Basecamp.

Jon likes Basecamp but as a project manager he wants to be able to set start and end dates for tasks or milestones, Basecamp however only allows a single date to be set.

Anyway the conversation went as follows:

Jon:
But would you use Backpack as a different tool to Basecamp?

Dave:
I think it more of a personal organiser thing, you could probably use it like basecamp but only for a single project which didn't require time recording

Jon:
yeah was thinking that. But why they can't put the calendar and journal in Basecamp is beyond me.

Dave:
It probably crosses purposes with the milestones calendar and the messages in basecamp

Jon:
I think they could be integrated and then you have a fully fledged project scheduler

Dave:
it's a possibility, I'm sure that there are other online PM apps which will do that, 37sigs need to be careful not to alienate existing customers by adding too much complexity
most people started using basecamp for it's simplicity

Jon:
Good point but a fundamental aspect to PMing is the ability to schedule work and resource plan

Dave:
It probably wasn't an issue when they built it for their team, It's an interesting point though, I wonder what other companies who use basecamp do for resource scheduling?

Jon:
None i'd say as it's too clumsy at the moment

Dave:
Or use an alternative tool (MS Project or similar) and just use basecamp for progress tracking and project communications

Jon:
That's how the majority would be working. If Basecamp had a stronger way of scheduling then they'd be onto a right winner

Dave:
I suppose it could be optional or only visible to users with PM permisions so as not to add complexity for non-PMs?

Jon:
Have it only editable. It needs to be visible for people to know what they are supposed to be working on
Editable only for PMs that is
Viewable for the resources

Dave:
OK, we should let Jason know that we're too big for Basecamp and demand resources scheduling or we boycott the service

Jon:
I've already emailed them along the similar lines

Dave:
I bet they're worried now, watch out for Web 2.0 hitmen, you can spot them easily, they have a glossy sheen and a badge that says "beta" on it.

Jon:
lmao Have they recruited Fabretti? With a name like that you'd think he would be their top hit man!

Dave:
I believe they've made him an offer he can't refuse

Jon:
Thing is though, would a beta hit actually work or would I have to stay alive to give feedback for phases 0.1,2,3,4

OK, I know it got a bit silly towards the end but I'm interested to know how resource scheduling is handled by companies using Basecamp as their project management software. If this applies to you, please take a moment to answer the poll.

type='text/javascript' language='javascript' src='http://s3.polldaddy.com/p/1270191.js'>> View Poll

MehWorld Expo

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:43:54 -0800

I just don't get all of the excitement over the MacWorld Expo Keynote, OK, so Apple does produce some great products but the fanboy hype around the event seems a little too much. Probably the most exciting thing was the speculation about Steve Jobs' health. He'll be okay though, "he's like a god who knows what we want".

Interesting to see that DRM is being removed from iTunes although Apple are going down fighting on this one offering us the chance to pay for upgrading (removing the restrictions on) the music which we've already paid to buy - ownership seems to be a woolly concept in digital media.

Much more fun than the actual keynote is this video from The Onion demonstrating the MacBook Wheel - it couldn't be simpler!

Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

The world is full of people like the guy who says "I'll buy almost anything if it's shiny and made by Apple". Excuse me if I'm not whooping and cheering about the latest updates.

Update

It seems like I'm not the only one finding Apple less than whoop-worthy at the moment,

What I learned from writing the "Web Advent" Series

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 05:54:26 -0800

When I set myself the challenge of posting every day for 24 days, it was a spur-of-the-moment idea without any real consideration of what was involved. Having successfully completed the entire run of 24 posts containing 300 web resources of one kind or another, There are a few things that I've learned.

Daily posting is not as easy as I thought it would be when I started the challenge.
If you commit to a set publishing schedule, make sure that you have at least half of the content written beforehand. I worked pretty hard to schedule the posts but the furthest in advance that I ever got was six days. I then made the mistake of feeling as though the pressure was off for a while and not writing anything for a few days.
Sticking to a formula (e.g. x things on day x) reduces the thinking required but can be something of a constraint, there were plenty of days where I was including items just to make up the numbers or having to leave things out because I'd already completed the list for a particular day.
Don't be afraid to have lots of draft posts. One thing that I intend to do from now on is to jot down any new post idea as a draft so that I can come back and work on it when inspiration strikes.

The results are yet to be comprehensively measured, but over the course of the series, my blog traffic almost doubled and I've picked up almost 100 new followers on Twitter. I've already thought of a similar idea for later in the year but I'm going to try and get the majority of it written before committing to a schedule (see above).

Web Advent Day 24 - Toys

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 05:29:52 -0800

I confess that I was going to list productivity applications today but then I realised that it's Christmas Eve and nobody should be thinking about work so instead, I'm listing a bunch of geeky toys and gifts that I'd love to find in my stocking on Christmas morning.

The "von Slatt Original" Keyboard
Nothing says evil genius like a bit of steampunk on the desktop.
B-Movie Victims - I don't know why I like these so much, other than the fact that - armed with these little bods - my Flickr account would start to fill up with shots from "Attack of the 50 foot coffee mug" and similar.

It's Chriiiistmaaaas!

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 05:29:51 -0800

Merry Christmas everybody, after 24 daily posts featuring 300 things I hope that in each post there was at least one thing of interest if not some value.

Thanks to everybody who got in touch to say they were enjoying my web advent series. If you missed them here's the full list:

Right then, I'm off for a mince pie and a lie down.

Web Advent Day 23 - Wordpress Plugins

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:18:19 -0800

One of the joys of using discovering WordPress is finding a good combination of plugins to enhance the site. This list reflects both the plugins that I'm currently using and some others which I've not yet implemented but feel are worth investigating.

Akismet - Spam catcher for blog comments, it does an excellent job.
All in One SEO Pack - This plugin takes care of ensuring that your posts have keyword and description meta-tags and includes loads of features for tweaking your site to be as serach engine friendly as possible.
Broken Link Checker - A handy little tool which regularly checks all of the links on your blog and warns you of any broken ones. Includes a handy interface to change or unlink broken links without editing the full post or page. It does struggle with some redirected links but that's not really the fault of the plugin.
Comment Approved Notifier - Very simply, if you are using comment moderation, this plugin will send an email to a commenter when you approve their comment.
Google XML Sitemaps - Since all of the major search engines agreed to support the XML sitemaps protocol, this plugin does everything you need to make sure that your content gets indexed as efficiently as possible.
Post-Plugin Library - This does nothing by itself but provides the common codebase for the following two plugins plus a couple of others.
Popular Posts - Using the Post-Plugin Library, this plugin will generate a list of popular posts on your blog, it features option such as matching the current post category and excluding the current post or excluding posts of a certain age.
Similar Posts - Displays a list of related posts for any post. Similarity can be based on any combination of word usage in the content, title, or tags. A useful way to let readers know about other content you have on the topic that they are reading.
ShareThis - Adds a discrete but highly functional sharing button to your posts allowing easy sharing and bookmarking for a large number of services.
Smart 404 - This plugin will attempt to find the best matching post if a requested page cannot be found. You can also use it to suggest a list of possible posts if no match is found. I use this to catch broken links which exist following the switch to WP.
Tagaroo - As you're writing, Tagaroo analyzes the text in your post and suggests intelligent tags and images for the things and events you're writing about. Powered by the Thompson Reuters Calais service
WordPress Database Backup - A useful tool to use just in case of technical failures. This will take a complete backup of your WordPress Database and either store it on the server or email it to you.
WordPress Reports - This is a great tool for monitoring blog performance, it provides a seven day overview of visitor stats and subscriber counts if you are using Google Analytics and Feedburner.
WP-Cumulus - A nice visualisation plugin which provides an alternative to traditional tag clouds, see the amazing tag-o-sphere on this site.
cforms - Use this to deploy contact forms on your wordpress site. Lots of options and features make this a flexible helper.
WP Super Cache - Speed up the site with this plugin which generates static pages to reduce the amount of database usage required.
NextGEN Gallery - An advanced plugin for organising and displaying image galleries.
UMapper - A plugin which provides a wealth of options for including maps in your blog posts, handy if you post on location specific things such as events.
podPress - tons of features for turning Wordpress into an ideal podcasting platform, iTunes optimisation, download stats and many others.
Wordpress Thread Comment - Make your comments sections threadable, individual comments can be replied to and the threads displayed accordingly.
WP-Gravatar - This plugin lets you use Gravatar, MyBlogLog, OpenAvatar, Wavatar, Identicon, monsterID or Favico.ico files with your comments. Also includes plenty of other features.
Category Icons - Assign icons to post categories for display next to post titles.
WP More Feeds - Generate RSS feeds for category and tag archive pages.

Web Advent Day 22 - The Twitterati

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 04:12:36 -0800

Twitter is rapidly gaining adoption beyond the early adopter set. Here are a list of people who I like following split into two groups - The Web experts and celebrities from other fields.

Web Expert Tweeters

Jeffrey Zeldman - Web standards champion
Paul Boag - Web design guru, award winning podcaster
Drew McLellan - Web designer, developer, entertaining twitterer
Molly Holzschlag -

Web Advent Day 20 - Online Image Editing

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 05:37:48 -0800

The continuing trend of web-based apps moving in on territory traditionally the domain of the desktop is not strictly limited to business applications. Thanks to advances in Technologies such as Adobe Flash, There are some very capable online image editors. Currently it's unlikely that designers will abandon Photoshop, but for home users, there are online editors which offer a reasonable amount of functionality for (if not free) a fraction of the price.

Full Featured Editors

Photoshop Express Adobe's online version of Photoshop is a little light on features but gradually improving.
Aviary

Web Advent Day 21 - Sources of Inspiration

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 05:37:48 -0800

It's a bit of a lazy post for today, but it is Sunday after all. These are all posts from my favourite design blog Smashing Magazine. Their Monday Inspiration posts are a superb way to get the brain working after the weekend, covering examples of great design from all manner of fields.

Web Advent Day 19 - Cheatsheets

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:40:28 -0800

I'm a big fan of cheatsheets, one of the main problems with working in web-development is that you are constantly switching between different languages and platforms. Inevitably I find that my mind goes blank at certain points when I'm trying to remember a syntax format or a function name for instance. This is where a cheatsheet makes a handy reminder rather than diving into a book or online reference. Here's a list that I've gathered from Cheat-Sheets.org

Web Advent Day 18 - iPhone Apps

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 10:32:37 -0800

I love my iPhone, ever since I took the plunge (having waited until the launch of the 3G) I finally feel that I have a mobile device which lets me use online systems without jumping through hoops, by which I refer to tiny screens and that godawful, annoying keypad text entry. The list today is of some of my favourite iPhone applications - including both installable apps and web apps.

Twinkle - A simple Twitter client, but as far as I know, this was the first client to use the iPhone's location service to update your Twitter location and display Tweets from near your current location.
Hahlo - An online app which still ranks amongst the best clients for Twitter on the iPhone.
Twitterific - The third Twitter client in my list is a Swiss-army-knife for Tweets.
Last.fm - this application is a mobile version of the Last.fm music player, it relies on a Wifi connection so only useful at home or in the office for me.
Flickup - A Flickr client for the iPhone which enables full resolution uploads and automatic Geotagging in addition to adding a title, description and tags to the pictures.
BBC iPlayer - since iPlayer became iPhone compatible, I now regularly use it to watch TV in bed. Like Last.fm, it requires a Wifi connection to work.
Eventful - This application makes it easy to find out events that are taking place near to you current location.
iTalk Recorder - A high quality sound recorder which allows you to append a new recording onto an existing one.
Shazam - The service which listens to a clip of music and then tells you what it is. No more wondering what the music on that TV program or advertisement is.
Google Mobile App - an optimised way to access not only Google's search services, but also, GMail, Google Reader, Google Docs and many others.
TimeTracker - A simple little application which tracks the time that you spend on any task. Cleverly doesn't need to be running all of the time to track time elapsed on a task.
Brightkite - Brightkite is a location-aware social network which was something of a pain to use until the iPhone app was released so that you no longer need to search for your location to tell Brightkite where you are.
Facebook - This app has pretty much killed my use of Facebook in a web browser. Unfortunately it doesn't let you use any of those fantastic Facebook apps. (Did you spot the sarcasm in that last sentence?)
LinkedIn - Facebook for professionals, another app that has nullified my need to visit the site with a web browser.
Galcon - This RTS game is amazing, especially when played with workmates over the local network. The great thing is, if you're not doing well, it doesn't matter - the games rarely last more than a couple of minutes.
Fieldrunners - A simple implementation of the desktop favourite Tower Defense, this game can soak up hours and it's terribly addictive.
MazeFinger - Fast paced, load and fun, Play this just for the joy of hearing a robotic voice chanting "Awesome" at you.
Thereminator - It's amazing how much fun you can have making weird noises with this, or in my case trying (unsuccessfully) to play the Doctor Who theme music.

Web Advent Day 17 - jQuery Plugins

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 02:30:39 -0800

I'm currently close to finishing a bunch of server side stuff for an application that I'm developing. The next phase will be to overhaul the UI in order to improve usability and expose some new features that have been built into the application base. To this end I've been browsing various jQuery plugin directories looking for useful tools. Here are a selection of the ones that I've found, however I've not tried many of them yet so I can't vouch for their reliability.

jQuery Multimedia Portfolio

Web Advent Day 16 - WordPress Themes

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 09:23:23 -0800

Today's list is for free WordPress Themes. Since my recent move from Blogger, I've become completely hooked on WP and it's endless combinations of Themes and Plugins. Interestingly* A Google search for "Blogger to WordPress" throws up

Web Advent Day 14 - Lightbox Clones

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 01:22:30 -0800

Have you ever been asked which Lightbox script is the best? I have, plenty of times. My answer is usually something like "It depends on what you're planning to do with it".

My personal favourite is Thickbox, because I generally use jQuery as my javascript framework and so-far, thickbox has always done whatever I needed to do. There are, however, loads of lightbox clones to choose from so here's a selection.

The list covers a number of different variations on the functionality and javascript frameworks (or lack thereof), sorry there's not more detail, hope to get back to form this week.