The growth of Last.fm events is pretty impressing. Within 2 weeks they’ve created an amazing collection of local music events.
I wonder if it’s all user generated content or if they just pull out the information of some other event sites. Upcoming.org for instance is by 100% based on user data, exists much longer but never had so many events listed for Vienna as Last.fm has after only 2 weeks.
Besides the quantity, Last.fm recommends events based on their profiling engine. Meaning they tell you when bands you like are coming to town or if another concert matches your music taste.
Next step could be listing DJ events too. But therefore Last.fm would need the information about what music are DJs playing. They should probably have a look at the DJ database maintained by the Vienna based project PLAY.FM (or vice versa).
Working most of the time in a graphical user interface you tend to forget how easily things can be done by a simple shell command.
Today a colleague asked me about a way to merge a bunch of text files together (on a Windows machine). Considered solutions reached from a quick VB script to even importing the tab separated text files into a database and merging them by a SQL statement.
Yeah, why make things simple when you can make them complicated?
Executing copy in a DOS shell, with a few input and output parameters, was everything needed to get the job done:
<code>C:\>copy file_1.txt + file_2.txt file_merge.txt
Isn’t it a common practice here, that if you host a meeting you offer your guests at least some beverages like water or coffee?
It’s not just a question of hospitality. No, water for instance prevents you and your guests from headache caused by dehydration in a marathon meeting. That way, water contributes to a better meeting atmosphere and overall better meeting results too. Little effort, huge effect.
Next time I’ll bring my own small bottle of water, my own thermos flask full of boiling hot coffee and, if I’m in the right mood, even some cookies!
Today I had some time to have a closer look at Platial’s recently released MapKit.
Basically it’s a fantastic collaborative mapping tool for your website where you or your visitors can mark, describe, comment and share places. MapKit’s integration is pretty straight-forward: just provide some information about the map and the website where you plan to embed it and within a few minutes everything is up and running and your mapping tool is online. Great!
The map shown in MapKit is linked back to your Platial account. So you can control the map content out of your Platial account, or make it public in Platial and let other Platial users participate through Platial’s interface.
One drawback I noticed already at my MapKit registration was that localhost isn’t a valid MapKit domain name. So in order to get a quick view on MapKit I had to go through a edit-upload-test workflow, which is ok for a quick view, but impossible if you plan to do some more development. I usually work and test things on my local machine before putting them online, and I guess I’m not the only one who does so.
Another point is that you can only add places by addresses. Since my region isn’t covered by Google’s geocoder it’s impossible to create a single place through MapKit. So I have to login to Platial and add my places to the MapKit there, then they’ll show up. I wish I could pinpoint places in MapKit the same way I can in Platial.
Finally, some more design options would be nice. For instance if I set the map width to 100% I get a cinema scope map, which looks a bit strange. It’s clear, and proven by myspace, that too much design liberty for users isn’t recommendable either. But some more options like defining map-height or maybe title color and background would be appreciated.
Even web purists must admit that a few AJAX applications out there have certainly some good points.
Like pixer.us for example.
A nifty AJAX driven online photo editor and potential add-on for Flickr, Photobucket or whatsoever photo site.
When I got my new MacBook, one thing that took me quite some time to get used to, was the built-in iSight. It’s kind of strange knowing a camera is constantly directed towards yourself. You feel watched any time you sit in front of the computer. Even if it’s turned off, meaning the little green light is off, but who knows if the camera is off too. However, after some time I got used it and didn’t think about it anymore.
Until today.
This morning I came over this little Quicktime iSight hack.
If you own an iSight and it’s connected to your Mac, it’s being turned on and you can watch yourself in realtime by just entering the website.
Isn’t that scary?
Actually not. So far this hack only works local. The video feed goes from your iSight over the Quicktime plugin into your browser. Nobody else can watch, stream or record you.
As much as I appreciate the recently updated European roads in Yahoo! maps, and therefore also in the Flickr map, I hardly use the built-in geotagging feature of Flickr.
If you want to geotag an entire photo set it works great. Once you’ve opened up the map organizer you can easily drag & drop all photos onto the map. But if you upload just a single photo and want to geotag it, the loc.alize bookmarklet gets the job easier and faster done.
In Flickr you need to go through Organize > wait > Map > wait > select photo > drag to location. It’s one click too much and therefore takes too long. The usability of loc.alize is much more convenient, it allows you to access the map and assign the location directly in the photo page: loc.alize > wait > select location > save.
Considering the amount of geotagged photos in Flickr I’m maybe wrong and most user’s are happily geotagging with the help of Flickr’s map. On the other hand you read the default loc.alize link “See where this picture was taken.” quite a lot under Flickr photos…
Just a quick hint on how to create a valid Digg this link for your WordPress posts without the need of installing any additional plugins:
- Find The Loop in your WordPress theme’s index.php and the post-entry part in your single.php
- Find the place where you would like to put your Digg this link. Somewhere right after
<?php the_content(); ?>
is mostly a good idea.
- Copy & paste this code:
<a href="http://digg.com/submit?phase=2
&url=<?php the_permalink() ?>
&title=<?php the_title(); ?>
&bodytext=<?php the_excerpt() ?>"
title="Digg this story">
<img src="http://digg.com/img/badges/10x10-digg-thumb.png"
mce_src="http://digg.com/img/badges/10x10-digg-thumb.png"
width="10" height="10" alt="Digg!" /> Digg this</a>
- Done.
The code creates a small Digg this link like the one you see on the left side below this post.
Of course you can customize the link and use any image (e.g. other digg buttons) and text you want.
Update
Meanwhile I installed the Sociable WordPress plugin, which does a wonderful job adding all sorts of social bookmarking sites to your post.
Christmas is near and even thieves are becoming friendlier these days:
Someone opened the letter from my bank, but was kind enough, since it didn’t contain any PIN or TAN, to put everything carefully back in my mailbox. Thanks!
You know, probably one difference between here and there is that there a politician makes an offensive statement, somebody grabs it, the video finds its way on a platform like YouTube and the politician is in big trouble.
[youtube pL3Q9gUEvtA]
Here, a politician, in fact an elected parliamentarian, explains his admiration and the positive aspects the NAZI regime had for this country (btw, because he was born after 1945 the poor guy didn’t remind that about 6m people had to be robbed and murdered by his heroes to succeed), the interview is brought to every household in Austria over the Austrian public service broadcaster ORF and, basically, nothing happens. The man who still keeps words like “der Führer” (!!) in his vocabulary will happily continue working in the Austrian parliament.
Clearly, a certain percentage of our population is still thinking that way. No problem, a sound democracy can stand it. But it makes a difference if such people own a seat in our parliament and represent with their antiquated way of thinking this country.