Flickr API based desktop application

This is why company's needs to open there API's. I mean seriously would ludicorp build a desktop application for flickr this good? Maybe but they didnt need to because they simply opened there API's up over REST and Soap and someone built a application for them. This has to be a dream for companys, someone else building applications based on there services for free! I mean theres nothing stopping Ludicorp buying or bringing out there own version. But come on, why bother when someone else has? They just have to sit there improving there service and seeing more people converting to Flickr Pro. This is why google, ebay, amazon, etc are happy to expose there API's and let people build away. The web is indeed the platform… whens the windows version?

On the same vein, how to do a decent development weblog. Yahoo! Search blog, Flickr blog, Bitflux blog and of course Blojsom blog. Google your blog sucks, sorry to say. I've actually found myself liking Yahoo more, specially after there recent efforts with RSS. Its actually got me thinking about the rss feeds i generate. Maybe theres somethings I could do to make them more user friendly. Even if it includes putting a damm my yahoo button on my blog. Oh you can listen to the presentation here and the notes are here. Respect Y!

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Kerry has conceded but diebold questions are worrying

its over right now, but theres talk about the diebold machines being wrong. Did a search for news on it in google news and got this.

Google Error,
We're sorry…

… but we can't process your request right now. A computer virus or spyware application is sending us automated requests, and it appears that your computer or network has been infected.

We'll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your computer is free of viruses and other spurious software.

We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we'll see you again on Google

Looks like google is over run… All the web is fine and feedster loves me.

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Presentations the XHTML and CSS way with S5

S5 is a slide show format based entirely on XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript. With one file, you can run a complete slide show and have a printer-friendly version as well. The markup used for the slides is very simple, highly semantic, and completely accessible. Anyone with even a smidgen of familiarity with HTML or XHTML can look at the markup and figure out how to adapt it to their particular needs. Anyone familiar with CSS can create their own slide show theme. It's totally simple, and it's totally standards-driven.

At long last a way to do presentations without using powerpoint, keynote or openoffice formats. Meyers work is great and well thought out specially for a opera user like me. Its not that I dont like using open office (what i prefer out of the three), its just I usually have to outline it some application like Java outline editor then convert it into something open office will read. Then I end up creating a powerpoint version, pdf version and open office version. i never use the html convert because its usually really nasty and non standard based.

Anyway, i'm going to use it for a presentation to BBC Learning English about RSS and Enclosures. And at the same time write a xsl to convert opml to this xhtml S5. I thought about other transformations but I dont have the time no more, plus it would be alot easier to just do a opml to pdf rather than xhtml S5 to pdf or open office (wouldnt even attept to do keynote). If all goes well i will adopt it for all my presentations. As someone mentioned it would be great if this was the default option in open office or keynote.

More resources. The slashdot discussion, Opera's thoughts from a while ago, Opera's slideshow generator, Information about Citydesk software

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More thoughts on podcasting

I've been really trying to embrace the podcasting movement, i say trying because I obviously dont have a ipod and most of the software around syncs with itunes or windows media player. What I really want is a piece of software which syncs podcasts to my pocketpc or smartphone's storage card. Till then I check every morning before i go to work if theres any more pods from adam curry, it conversations, dave winer and a couple more. Then copy it to my SD card for use in my mobile devices.

If you dont know what podcasting is check out this nytimes story which adam curry and dave winer were talking about recently.

Ok things I would like to see done with podcasting sometime soon, please comment if you've already seen it.
Better podcasting client software, so I dont need to manually copy files on to my SD card. Even better – a way to put pods on to phones and mobile devices. Sync folders would be nice, and hey why not download to a public place like a webdav server? Imagine podcasts shared between multiple people. Hey and dont forget about other devices like the xbox

Smil used in podcasts. This one pushes against the podcasting concept, but I've also been thinking about relevent pod advertisements mixed in with podcasts. I'm a big fan of smil and started thinking if you could mix in smil inside of rss or atom or get the software to download the smil file. Once the smil file is downloaded, it then searches through and downloads the bits it needs. As I said it breaks the podcasting method but its a thought because then you could reference and quote other podcasts inline. It also adds a little more structure to podcasts. Adam curry for example plays creative commons music in his podcast, it would be kinda of cool to get different music depending on when you play the pod back. Maybe?

As talked about before the process of using creative commons and other non-copyright (as such) music inline is pretty cool and using other podcasts inside your own is great too. But I've been thinking an enclosure element can support almost any type of media. Why not podcast images? And you know what this fits perfectly with the new ipod which now supports photos. I already thought about including photos in as enclosures but seriously why not? Maybe the podcast is talking about a new product or service, why not include some detail shots of it? I remember a while ago on the gilmor gang they were talking at great length about the google desktop search and I'm sitting on a tram thinking god there has to be a decent screen shot somewhere. So I spent sometime searching for a image while on my GPRS connection. If I had it before it would have made a big difference to my listening pleasure.

I wont get started on authoring tools but I would like the authoring tools to reflect the structure of the show. Even simple things like putting in decent metadata and cc licencing would be a start. And please use decent file names, date formatted file names are not good enough – seriously. Hey and why is there only a few group based podcasts? I mean using the 4 way skype conference calling feature you could easily record a nice podcast for later. Actually I've been thinking about doing one with Dave, Harry and Miles at some point just for a test, maybe around a dinner table or something? Miles had the thought about embedding SMIL inside of RSS using namespaces.

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South London teenagers + Halloween = Big Trouble in little beckenham

My poor poor neighbours. There a family of 2 parents and 2 teenage daughters aged 15 and 17. Anyway there the sweetest family you can live next to. So it wasn't a problem when Sue (the mum) said to me and Sarah, Holli (15yr daughter) was allowed to have a halloween party with a load of friends we thought nothing much of it. I mean we were planning to be at another party anyway. Luckily Sarah was ill and we couldn't go and we convinced Sue to stay in our house as she wanted to be in ear shot distance if anything happened.

Around 8pm the music started, and it wasn't loud. I mean I could have turned my cinema amp on and blasted theres away. Anyhow, we were enjoying Daily shows when the first lot of guests started turning up. I'll stick to calling them guest at this moment.
By 2045 there were alot of people in our neighbours upstairs flat. Sue started turning some guys away if they didn't know whose party it was, which was a very good thing, as we could have had another 20 people upstairs who knew noone.

By 2100, it was in full swing and there people outside the back smoking and drinking, while others packed the flat and front garden wall. Things were getting busy. Anyway, I offered to pick up some other guests from the tram station about the same time. When I returned, Sarah was very upset because the guests had been throwing glass bottles out the top window into our garden. She told them to knock it off, but they started aiming it at her and our dog. So she went to tell Holli what she thought of her guests. I guess things got really heated as the guests got really cheeky and didn't respond well to be told off by an adult.

At the same time, Sue and Sarah called 999 as some of the uninvited guests wouldn't leave. Pat (the husband) had come back too, and was trying to eject people from the party. Only problem was that they wouldn't go. Actually the group of about 20-30 boys would try getting in around the back and through the front. Finally getting everyone to the front, they still wouldn't leave.

I swore it felt like ages the standoff, but finally the police came. First 2 cars, then 3 more then a unmarked SUV. At first I thought it was overkill, but even with 9 police officers, they were outnumbered 3 to 1. Luckily most of them choose to walk off when the 2nd lot came.

The damage was unbelievable. The guests had thrown everything and I seriously mean everything out of the windows. Toothbrushes, toothpaste, Hair products, the bathroom plug, reading glasses, photos, potted plants, Cans, Butter, Frozen Peas, Fruit, Jam, Milk, etc… Out the windows. They had burned hole through the carpet with fag ends, been sick on the older daughters A-level certificates and bed, ripped down pictures and curtains.The Carpets were black with mud and some idiots broke eggs behind appliances, put crisps in the kettle and fish where it was warm in the house.
Yes makes you think a few times before considering to have kids I bet.

There was something else which happened on the same night which I cant talk about because its still part of a police investigate. All I can say is a very angry dad came knocking around 0300 Sunday morning and me and my neighbours are glad the police were there to divert the anger. The party will be far from over for one teenage girl for the rest of her life. I just hope justice is served swiftly…

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Something comes along and flatterns your world…

Very much in a reflective mood. As the title suggests, something comes along or creeps up and flatterns your world. And I mean really flatterns it. You can help but feel tiny in the sea of change which just hit you. It wakes you from your dream like state and makes you realise that the world is not as you figured out in your own head.

My piorities have been missed placed and I thought everything was going to be fine, but its not. Now I'm swimming against the tide trying to play catch up. But this isnt a game, this is life its self. And I'm just learning that now.

As for the less abstract part of this entry. Well I've been thinking, I adore technology but what has it done for my life? Well this isnt the time to break out the tin foil hat and hide in the desert. For me personally its done alot of good things over the years, like equalise the playing ground for me, its made my voice and views transportable throught the internet, etc, etc. fine but what about other things like install linux on my workstation at home? When I was running windows XP all the applications I was running were pretty much open source or simular. And althought I do follow the ideas of the free software movement and others. I'm simply closing the door on other much more important things in my life. Its not just a matter of juggling things to do, its about getting your piroities right and decating attention to them. I've been spreading myself far too thinly and juggling too many things for far too long. Now its all colapsed and I'm left trying to pickup the pieces, except some of the pieces are unrepairable and even lost.

I always thought its just what i do, but its not what I do well. I always thought I was in control of the technology but maybe in some cases I'm being ruled by the technology? Now is the time to do some of the things I always wanted to do, but never dare admit to myself. I'm looking back, and wondering how I could make a construct so deep that it even fools myself, as well as others around me?

While grab at pieces around me, I'm so sure of which bits of my life I can and cannot afford to lose. Its quite amazing how clear it is now. I just wish it was as simple as I'm making it sound in this entry. Believe me, Its so clear now… but too late….

I know if it all goes as it looks right now, I'll be forever thinking why did I let block some things out while letting in others? Was I seduced by the digital lifestyle or something else? Is it even fair to blame technology when its all in my head and not the only thing to blame (myself)? I actually passed all the guilt and blame stage ages ago, and I am trying to building myself a better and true to myself lifestyle now. Just wish I did this years ago…

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Whats wired, tired and expired

In the wired magazine style, these are the things I'm using and things I'm not.

Wired

Social software like del.icio.us and flickr
Jabber bots and semi-ai type applications
Opera on mobile devices
Mp3, AAC and WMA ringtones
Xlink Kai 7 working on Linux and the actually Xbox (PC free gaming) – nice interview
Web 2.0
XML Schema and RelaxNG, co-existing
Some rights reserved
Xbox media centre

Tired

Social networks for the sake of soical networks
Abio's without wireless
Internet explorer on mobile devices
Standard mobile ringtones
Electronic programming guides
Xbox live
The term: semantic web (not the concept)
Document type Definitions
All rights reserved
Microsoft media centre

Expired

Instant messaging on only one network
Aibo hacking
Internet explorer
Polythonic ringtones
The Radio times
Single player games
Web 1.0
Bookmarks in a browser
No indication of rights
DVD players

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metadata raises its head again

Bite my shiny meta ass

I've been thinking long and hard about the issue of photos and metadata, since using Flickr and considering the ideas open source metadata. Theres a large article in this months wired by David Weinberger which focuses my thoughts on the topic.
I'm still using pixory which doesnt have great metadata support but at least it has permalink urls, dynamic image scaling, sharing support, upload and download features (wish it was webdav over ftp). Its just a shame I'm having problems installing it on the Mac using Tomcat 5.27 at this moment.

I kinda of hoped all these problems would go away with time because we would have metadata storing file systems like WinFS which got dropped from Longhorn a while ago, DBFS which is coming to the next KDE I heard and of course theres Apple Tiger one as well as ReiserFS (which was ment to have metadata or/and db like features).
Even the newly launched Google desktop would be a good step in the right direction, but its much deeper than all this and not even the largest corps with the largest pockets have it solved. I also have to ask if this the best way to go?

Adaptive's path's Metadata for the masses raises the open source type way, forward. But points out the confusion and chaos which can happen when people start using tags which are simular but not. Following Weinberger's blog, Udell's certainly on the right path in my mind. And refering back to Harry's idea of the web 2.0 needing a decent interface, maybe that might be the problem full stop. Humans are too lasy to put in decent metadata, computers do not put in decent human acceptable metadata. Why not trick humans into putting in decent metadata by there collective actions. Maybe google desktop isnt such a bad idea now….

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The Power of Nightmares

Currently watching BBC2, 1st part of interesting documentary, titled The power of nightmares.

In the past our politicians offered us dreams of a better world. Now they promise to protect us from nightmares. The most frightening of these is the threat of an international terror network. But just as the dreams weren't true, neither are these nightmares…

Enough said for now. Should be a torrent for you guys not in the UK soon.

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Jon Stewart on Crossfire

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

I've been meaning to blog this for ages now, but if you have not seen it. You need to find it! When I last checked suprnova had 1000+ seeders, I believe you can also get it through ifilm too. Theres also links on boingboing to Crossfire's response. I love the way Crossfire just blow it off, I just think he's a pompous ass. and Let me say something about Jon Stewart. I don't think he's funny. And I know he's uninformed. Jon Steward is a smart and capble man and played the whole thing pretty much perfect, others disagree. I mean come on, he did a excellent job with the content he was given. I would like to see him on the O'reilly factor sometime soon, feed some thoughts into bill o'reilly's head and the fox watching audience. Its also a real shame the daily show is only available though comedy central which is a subscriber only cable channel in a america. Thank goodness for the internet, I would say…

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Opera 7.60 Technical Preview on Smartphone 2003

I remember Fravia telling me in May of this year that Opera were bring out a version of there browser for the Microsoft PocketPC and Smartphone market. And I didnt believe him, till I saw the official announcement. Well through Scoblizer I found there is a technical preview available for Smartphones. Now I'm going to try it out and see how it performs next to IE. I'm hoping the PocketPC version is not far behind.

First day useage – Yes its a little bit of memory hog, but damm is it fast! Doesnt like Javascript much, but who does? Not test CSS yet. But it loaded my blog very quickly and remembers the last page even after a exit. Neat stuff for a technology preview.

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Blogging from inside

Robert Scoble posts some thoughts about getting the green light for blogging within a company. His arguments are very convincing and worth looking at if you feel the fear of webblogging. I keep reflecting back to the fact that I am a BBC employee and my views are not all shared by the BBC. I wonder how many people would care if I did not disclose who I worked for? Anyway theres a follow up by someone from Jupiter research here.

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Projectsyzygy is now complete

S.Marchant 148 AC City Archives

Looks like the Alternative reality game – project syzygy is now ready to be played? There is a link which goes on to http://www.perplexcity.com/. Which then has cgi to take email addresses. I shall sign up soon, but before I do I'll be checking out the new forum on unfiction.com. Oh by the way, did anyone else see there is a image map on the image which clicks through to this http://www.perplexcity.com/indexB.html and that leads to the first image.

Good to see theres a primer for newbies like me. And as someone else pointed out, its almost impossible keeping up with two ARGs, so I'm giving I love bees the boot now. Oh by the way theres a arcticle on Wired about the ending of i love bees, which I got from Slashdot. The general view is that i love bees sucked as a ARG but was a neat advertising campaign for Bungie. I think it also was good way to push ARG's out into the mainstream, not to say that it wasnt already.

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The mobile phone as an Mp3 player

Russell Beattie and many others have been talking about the mobile phone as a mp3player. To me this is nothing new at all. God since I first saw the Ericsson Mp3 attachment in early 2000, I always wanted one.

Ericsson T28 with Mp3 attachement

And I did end up buying one, I mean two. Now if you can get them on the market, they cost 25 pounds. It used MMC and came with 32 meg and a nasty card reader which would consume the mouse and keyboard ports for power. Thanks goodness for 8 in 1 card readers!

Anyway since the old ericsson days I've progressed onto the Microsoft Smartphone range. I wanted the Ericsson Bluetooth Mp3 Headset but there was no way I was going to get hoodwinked back into using Sony Memory stick, specially the Duo versions. I thought in advance that the SPV with large SD card could play not only music on the go but little movies if needed. And in that lies the issue.

The Bingo which Russell talks about is just that, with enough storage your mobile phone can be a great mp3 player. Maybe even better than the ipod? As Russell identified, why carry all your music with you when you can stream it on demand? Yes I know GPRS and 3G are expensive at the moment, but its getting cheaper plus there nothing stopping you from copying files over beforehand. Obviously there are those who disagree.

I wanted to go one step beyond Russell's argument. Most phones now have Bluetooth, hell some even have wifi now. How long have apple fans been screaming for Bluetooth or wifi in there ipods? Well I'm thinking Bluetooth with something simple like the file transfer stack or even some kind of mDNS (zero-conf) protocol on top of Bluetooth. Could open the door to p2p sharing or listening on the go… How interesting would that be. That regular train ride to work would be that more interesting. Think about toothing someones music collection while waiting for the train to Crystal Palace?

Oh by the way, Mark Eichin, makes a good comment about audioblogging. Don’t worry folks, there's no way I'm going audioblogging anytime soon…

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Autumn in the garden

leaves by Joshc

Sorry if you've been having problems with my blog over the last few days. I'm having to tidy up issues which include falling leaves in the garden. But seriously, I've upgraded my blojsom recently and not followed the instructions on upgrading. My own fault, should be solved by tonight.

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