March 2007
March 20, 2007
Launch Late to Launch Often. “The bottom line being that you want to invest pre-launch such that you optimize for innovation post-launch.”
A Zoned Defense. Using JavaScript’s date.getTimezoneOffset() to detect the user’s timezone and stash it in a cookie.
DED|Chain JavaScript Library (via) Dustin’s new JavaScript library, which puts a JQuery style chained API on top of YUI.
Subversion Tips. To edit a Subversion log entry: svn propset --revprop -r XXX svn:log “New message here”
JavaScript/CSS Font Detector (via) Really clever trick: detects the fonts that you have installed by writing out some text and measuring its dimensions.
March 21, 2007
Iusethis now supports OpenID for authentication. A great example of a site I probably wouldn’t have tried out if it hadn’t supported OpenID.
applications used by simon. My profile on iusethis.
Highrise Forum: Cases for the Rest of Us. My biggest problem with Highrise: I could really do with cases, but I just can’t justify shelling out $50 a month for them when I only need one user.
March 23, 2007
A binary compatible wire call is still a binary compatible wire call, no matter how much XML you put on it.
KML and GeoRSS support added to the Google Maps API. Since Flickr can output GeoRSS, this means you can now plot your Flickr photos on a Google Map (if you’re so inclined).
Vitamin Interviews: Simon Willison. Bobbie Johnson pointed a camera at me after my Future of Web Apps talk and interviewed me for eight minutes on OpenID.
Highrise: Early stats, Cases for all, the new Solo plan, and more disk space! 9% of signups came in through OpenID, and they’ve opened up cases to everyone fixing my number one complaint about the service. Great job!
My photos tagged “cheese” on a Google Map. You can paste a Flickr GeoRSS feed directly in to the Google Maps query box.
How to code debuggers (via) Accessible discussion of debuggers, ptrace, ELF, dynamic libraries and /proc.
Modest Maps. Flash draggable maps library, BSD-licensed. Use it with tiles from OpenStreetMap / NASA / Google / Yahoo! etc or run it against your own tile set.
HP acquires Tabblo. The first high profile Django-powered acquisition? Very well deserved; Tabblo is an excellent application.
Rules For JavaScript Library Authors. The guiding principles behind Dean Edwards’ base2 library, entirely applicable to every JavaScript developer.
base2. Dean Edwards’ new JavaScript library which adds useful cross-browser features based on upcoming DOM standards (the Selectors API, DOMContentLoaded, addEventListener and more).
ANN: PHP OpenID 1.2.2 released. Includes a fix to a bug that was causing some consumers to be incompatible with the WordPress.com OpenID provider. If you’re using this in a PHP OpenID consumer you should upgrade now.
New Open Source Utility Library for the Google Maps API (via) Google are taking a hybrid approach to development on their Maps API—an open source utility library layered on top of their closed source, obfuscated core code.
Beginner’s guide to OpenID phishing (via) Excellent primer on the phishing problem, which concludes that phishing can only be solved by moving away from usernames and passwords entirely.
Django version 0.96 release notes. The two big improvements are the newforms library and the ability to use callables directly in your URLconfs, enabling a bunch of useful new tricks.
March 24, 2007
Dave Thomas on Writing a Book. A series of articles on writing a technical book, from Pragmatic Programmer Dave Thomas.
When I write a new book [...] I plan to throw away something like the first 30 or so pages. And, because I know I'm going to do it, it doesn't worry me. I no longer have writer's block.
TweetyPy. A Python-based CLI client for Twitter, by Stuart Colville
I just cut my thumb opening the clear plastic Fortress of Solitude in which you've packed the cordless presenter. [...] You forced me into stabbing your product with a carving knife. Is that really the sort of "initial user experience" you were hoping for?
Commodore 2.1-20070321 (via) Without a doubt the best WordPress theme ever.
Adobe Apollo: beyond the hype. Niall Kennedy explains Apollo.
Most Apollo applications will likely be repurposed web pages running inside a specialized environment. [...] Imagine your heavy, always-open web apps leaving your browser tab and creating an application-like presence in your taskbar.
March 25, 2007
JSON and JSON-RPC for Erlang. Nice example of using lists:reverse and an accumulator to efficiently build a string in reverse order.