“Shit people post on twitter” is a 10h experiment I wrote that uses the twitpic api and twitter api to pull all the photos that are posted on twitter LIVE.
It’s very entertaining and often NSFW, always fun. In fact I do sit in front of it for a while without really noticing time flying by.
Enjoy watching twitter photos posted live
Here is a great concept for a CAPTCHA.
The ROTCAPTCHA (PDF, 1.4MB).
It’s a CAPTCHA based on image orientation.
The ROTCAPTCHA system requires users to adjust randomly rotated images to their upright position. This is a task most people will be familiar with given the state of early digital cameras, etc.
This system has many advantages, such as being language independent and support many input sources.
Techcrunch has a very good article about Twitter and its new position on the market of search engines.
Essentially when a news breaks out or a product is being launched, Google will take several days to aggregate the information said about it, while Twitter Search can reveal nearly instant opinions.
The barriers is also lower as a Twitter account takes a lot less maintenance than a blog account. Writing a post on Twitter can be done while on the phone and virtually takes no time.
However, because it is instant feedback, it also implies that the ‘review’ of the news, product or subject in the tweet is obviously right off the bat, and might not be polished / thought about. People could change their opinion and post again in 10 mins.
Twitter, which I used to hate, is starting to take a very important place on the net and I’m mature enough to admit it and embrace it. That said, it is still a gezillion of idiots fantasizing about their life, writing about their pets or the latest battlestar.
UPDATE: turns out that doesn’t always work. the autoSize property is not reliable at all…
This, should do!
var ta_height:uint = 25;
field.validateNow();
for(var i:int=0; i < field .mx_internal::getTextField().numLines; i++) {
ta_height += field.mx_internal::getTextField().getLineMetrics(i).height;
}
derivedHeight = ta_height;
Thanks Vaan.
Original post:
Adobe’s dodgy textHeight sure doesn’t do the trick. I end up getting a textfield of 2000px height while it clearly looks like 300 tops.
This, however, works.
the code
private function resizeMe(field:TextArea) :void
{
field.validateNow();
field.mx_internal::getTextField().autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT;
field.height = field.mx_internal::getTextField().height;
}
Just use that on your TextArea or Text component:
creationComplete="resizeMe(this.myTextAreaInstance)"
Thanks to Vaan for some insight about the mx_internal::getTextField().
This works:
@font-face
{
src: url("assets/FontReg.ttf");
fontFamily: FontReg;
fontWeight: normal;
fontStyle: normal;
}
@font-face
{
src: url("assets/FontMed.ttf");
fontFamily: FontMed;
fontWeight: normal;
fontStyle: normal;
}
This won’t work properly (all ends BOLD):
@font-face {
src: url("assets/FontReg.ttf");
fontFamily: FontReg;
fontWeight: normal;
fontStyle: normal;
}
@font-face {
src: url("assets/FontMed.ttf");
fontFamily: FontMed;
fontWeight: normal;
fontStyle: normal;
}
Yeah. Not much to add. I believe it has to do with the way the flex compiler parses the style code.
Well, before Leopard I used this app called Menufela. It was good, but it died with Leopard and that’s that.
Since then it’s been frustrating. I like to program fullscreen, with textmate, coda, flex builder etc. So anything that takes screen real estate has to go. I love the approach of Writeroom for writers and Developers need a solution like this.
Googling I ended up found this trick on MacOsxHints. It seems to work but it’s quite hard to implement.
Eventually, this donationware (free) application called Present Your Apps allows you to do just that, very easily.
The only down side is that it will ask you for a password and restart your application.
Please note: DO NOT USE the app MENUFELA (see ‘problem’, mentioned at the top of this post). I tried it again, it did say ‘does not play nice with leopard’, but it turned out to be a lot worse than expected.
Indeed, my computer wouldn’t boot anymore and I had to do a hell of a lot to get it back to normal.
IE6 is 7 years old!, and Wisdump has a campaign to kill the web browser that just won’t die.
Few facts about IE6:
I say let’s do it. Let’s do whatever it takes to bury that piece of c… nightmare.
Developer to pull Tris from App Store tomorrow
This is ridiculous. Tris is one of the best app for free on the iphone store. It doesn’t even have the name TETRIS and it is better than the Tetris that you have to pay for on Itunes.
They could just buy it instead of canning it. EA is really being a bully.
Another great use of the useless Twitter is My Tiny Jesus. No explanation as to what it does besides pumping recent Twitts.
That said, anybody using Twitter data is either looking for art or fun. So having no explanation sure fits the bill.
Twitter is not my favourite application as you must know by now, but I am often amazed by the things people come up with using their api. It’s filled with tons and tons of useless information. Brilliant for a weirdo mashup.
I will definitely have a play with the Twitter API myself once I’m done with Digg Mob Talk.
Twittearth was brilliant.
And so was Twistori.
Now be sure to check out My Tiny Jesus.
Take an unknown japanese company and suppose it comes on the market with a product that is supposed to kill the ipod. The press is all over it, Digg’s homepage screams “the Ipod killer is here” and your fingers become numb.
They’ve thrown millions at it, the blogoshpere is buzzing, even Michael Arrignton wants to publish it the minute it’s live. On top, you add the words such as stealth startup, known investors, ex-sony employees and the word secret.
The result, a less than working player, which tends to skip tracks in a playlist, mixes up metadata and looks radically different than the ipod, yet based on the same exact idea. It’s black instead of white.
That’s cuil. Except it doesn’t play music, it searches the web.
It’s quite a debacle and it’s indeed all over the web. Searching for “Bill Clinton” returns his biography but a photo of another politician, “Boris Becker” returns the photo of Andre Agassi and finally looking up “Missionary” returns the right definition but not quite the right picture!
Let’s look at the bright side. You don’t have to fiddle with your browser settings, you’re not even tempted to give it a go and they won’t complain about scaling issues like Twitter has.
So let’s look at the facts and let me present to you:
- don’t even try
- I ran out.
I shall now get back to my work on glimpsr.com, a search engine that will make Google insignificant.
Good night.
Twittearth is pretty cool and a great use of 3D!
Finally something that gives Twitter some sense of usefulness. It’s like a mood chart for the world at present time. I also like how day/night time are represented.
Pretty cool graphic representation. I actually thought there were more.
Sometimes technology helps people. It’s reassuring that smart people can sometimes rule the world. It is of course illegal but that doesn’t stop me from thinking that it is brilliant.
An arty party project, featuring scanners, pockets and dodgy russians.
Their DNS is as weird as their idea, so if it doesn’t work give it an hour or two.
Wordle is a pretty slick concept. Silly and art mix well together.
We’ve got to look at the forces around the world sometimes. Google was primarily built on Python code. They happen to acquire the guy who started Python, Guido van Rossum, and now a very important project of Google, Google App Engine, is allowing people to build web apps using Python.
I used Python for a couple of projects myself and I agree, it’s a wonderful language. The semantic and the design of it make it really enjoyable to write from scratch, manage and expand from. It is however not as spread as PHP when it comes to web.
The fact that Google has chosen Python from the start and publishes a beta of such an important project (App Engine) using Python is a very interesting turn of events. The primary position of Google and its strategic position for the future of web developers (think google code) is going to be a huge boost for Python as a web development language.
Seeing the speed at which google sets up their own WIFI network around the world and their dominating position on the web (regardless of their not being evil motto), this is clearly making a statement.
Before it was: “we trust Python to be the answer to our problems”,
now it is: “we trust Python to be the new universal answer to your problems”.
I understand that Google App Engine will eventually support a multitude of languages but the launch of a beta with only Python available demonstrates their will to push Python as the new reference for web development. See more here. When you throw a long awaited beta to a gezillion thirsty nerds, it will push them to use Python and sets the momentum in a clear direction.
Is this the push Python needed to make it compete with PHP when it comes to web application development?
Is this a change in history, Google telling us what to use?
Check out the Automatic screen cleaner. Awesome app.
To be able to focus on other projects, Adobe has announced that it will discontinue its stock photo service (on April 1st).
The fact that sites such as istockphoto are so cheap makes it a very difficult market to compete into. Better spend the dollars in others area of expertise. Maybe a new IDE* for Flash?
*: One can dream, yeah?
You want to reduce cost and staff? You want to fire those lazy developers? You want to do it all on your own and turn your idea into millions? Iceberg on demand is for you!
It’s this time of the year when we get, yet another amazing application, to build other applications (made for dummies). Is this a framework? No silly, you don’t even have to code!
It is quite unclear what they are selling, and it is quite unclear what you can make out of it. They surely make it sound like everything is possible though.
The link to the “KillerStartups” review of their product is a missing page… that’s never a good sign.
Also don’t look at their website source, you might get a heart attack.
In the Applications tabs, the first in the list is a Human Resources application: Manage all aspects of your hiring and firing using this application.
Wow, so cool. Does it include an email confirmation “YOU ARE FIRED” too?
Pros
Cons
The last con might actually be a pro. My bad.
One thing is sure: like every iceberg, they will be melting soon, revealing clear water.
