As I had lately to do more, let’s call it, web development as usual I really appreciated that I have found (and tried) Eclipse. Before I was just happy using a text editor with syntax coloring, sufficient for my projects, since they never went too big.
Once you’ve started using AJAX libraries like MochiKit (as I did) you’ll notice the efficiency boost when Eclipse and the fantastic JavaScript IDE Aptana enter the game and replace your beloved text editor. I simply can’t imagine how extensive JavaScript development is possible without an environment like Aptana.
Besides syntax coloring, code validation, HTML/CSS support, it finds all objects, functions, variables, methods etc. in your JavaScript libraries and provides you with overviews, documentations and auto-completion. Considering all the functionality a large library like MochiKit offers, it either takes you a week to go through the documentation or you let Aptana do the work for you and start coding right away. I never have been a big documentation reader, always preferred the trial-and-error method, so Aptana made my life a lot easier.
Everyone who ever had to debug JavaScript knows that this task can drive you mad. Firefox and its Web Developer Toolbar are very helpful in that case. But the extension Firebug is just priceless when it comes to tracking down errors in your JavaScript code.
Still the best of it: all open source software.
Some might regret that Flickr is English only. I’m glad.
Regarding German localizations, I dare to say that there is hardly nothing more boring on the web than a photo sharing site full of German comments. I certainly do enjoy the German-English kauderwelsch on Flickr. It’s fun!
Besides, an English site gives you access to photos and, still more important, people taking and sharing those photos worldwide, not limited to a particular region.
I never really got too much into YouTube, though it’s fun sometimes, you find all sorts of video clips and I often used it as resource to watch movie trailers, but never spent too much time on the site.
Liberarted films is somehow similar: film makers can publish and promote their work there, mostly shorts and indie features, while other registered users comment, tag and rate the films. As far as I understood each film is reviewed before it’s going to be published on the site. Sounds more sophisticated than YouTube. So you won’t find any Mentos-Coke light experiment, but therefore, as far as I’ve seen by now, a manageable selection of some good short films.
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).
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.
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.
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.
With the release of API version 2.67 Google introduced the so called GMarkerManager class. It seems to be an easy way to control the amount of displayed markers in your Google Map, depending on zoom level and scale.
Apparently some good old basic cartographic knowledge is essential, even for the fast living Web 2.0.
The music sharing site Last.fm got a few new features today: a Flash player, an event system and a so called taste-o-meter which gives you quick feedback on whether you like the music taste of the user profile you are viewing or not. It’s kind of scary when machines start matching people based on whatsoever profiling information.
However, well worth mentioning is the new event section. I guess this means some heavy competition for event sites like Upcoming.org. It’s quite clever to integrate music events in a music recommendation service like Last.fm. Needless to say that users can add event descriptions, pictures, videos and tell if they are attending.
Last.fm offers a great service, if you love music you’ll love Last.fm.