Archive for February, 2006

The Googleplex

Posted February 24, 2006 * Comments(0)

Life in the Googleplex, a Time magazine photo essay of life inside Google. An inspiration.

[via fosfor.se]

Roller recent entries and comments

Posted February 16, 2006 * Comments(1)

According to Marcel’s request in a recent comment - here’s how I hacked the list of recent entries and comments on my blog.
It is based on someone else’s work (I forgot who).

Create two new Recent Entries and Comments template pages.

Recent Entries template:


<ul>

#set( $tamerMap = $pageModel.getRecentWeblogEntries(100, null) )

#foreach( $tamerDay in $tamerMap.keySet() )

#set( $tamerEntries = $tamerMap.get($tamerDay) )

#foreach( $tamerEntry in $tamerEntries )

#set( $tamerLink = "$ctxPath/page/$userName/$page.link/$tamerEntry.anchor" )

<li><a href="$tamerLink" title="$tamerEntry.title">$tamerEntry.title</a></li>

#end

#end

</ul>

Recent Comments template:


#if($website.allowComments)

<ul>

#set( $tamerMap = $pageModel.getRecentWeblogEntries(25, nil) )

#foreach( $tamerDay in $tamerMap.keySet() )

#set( $tamerEntries = $tamerMap.get($tamerDay) )

#foreach( $tamerEntry in $tamerEntries )

#set( $sideCommentCount = $pageModel.getCommentCount($tamerEntry.Id))

#if( $sideCommentCount>0)

#set( $tamerLink = "$ctxPath/comments/$userName/$page.link/$tamerEntry.anchor" )

<li>[$sideCommentCount] <a href=”$tamerLink”>$tamerEntry.title</a>

</li>

#end

#end

#end

</ul>

#end

Include these pages in their respective locations in the main weblog template through #includePage(”<_templateName>”)

It’s just a quick hack, there are better ways to do it (macros), and the pervious method will limit the number of entries according to the page you’re on (try clicking any of the old entries and check the new list) - but these will work for most of the cases. Also, there’s this showRecentEntries macro definition that can be used - but I haven’t tried it. HTH.

Google Buys Measure Map

Posted February 15, 2006 * Comments(1)

It's not only Yahoo! It's Google as well. Shopping never stops. The news is out that Google has bought Measure Map, a nice analytics services for bloggers that was developed by Adaptive Path. It wasn't clear in the mail I've received as alpha user how this goes.

Things are clearer at Adaptive path website: Google bought Measure Map the service, and “Jeffrey Veen, an Adaptive Path founder and Product Director for Measure Map, will make the journey to Google along with several other members of the development team. Jeff will retain ties with Adaptive Path as a friend and colleague.”

Now, Measure Map footer reads: “Measure Map is a production of Google.” - Good job Adaptive Path and Thanks.

Google Modified Homepage

Posted February 11, 2006 * Comments(0)

Google has modified its homepage making it more usable and neater (as if it wasn't so already).

Before:




Now:




A selection box is now placed to the right of the search box, giving user a one click search to any of the search options (Web, images, news, blogs, groups, groogle, local, scholar, books, video).
Previously it was a two-click way, where user have to first click the desired search option (Images, news, etc…) then type in the search keywords.

Now, I could swear I've seen such modification somewhere else before. Someone has suggested this modification to the homepage, but I don't remember where I've seen it. If you do, please point it out.




UPDATE:

Didn't I tell you I've seen it somewhere? It was on the Redesigning Google post on Google Blogoscoped blog by “Philipp Lenssen”.

Here it is:




UPDATE II:

Google redesigned homepage is nowhere to be found. I wonder what happened? Was it a prototype? Was it a figment of my imagination?

Keeping Busy (2/3) - Schoolata school reviews

Posted February 10, 2006 * Comments(2)

I started a while back to gather info about different schools as I'll be applying to my 3 year-old for school this year. After the numerous opinions I've received, I decided to put up a website to collect reviews of Egyptian schools. Introducing Schoolata with 100% Ruby on Rails. It's still in its infancy (pre-alpha that's to say), and I have yet to see whether it will grow and If I'll be spending more time on implementing features. I'm using the free hosting service donated by Pratik at typo.in to host the website for the time being.

The local market lack such implementations (customer reviews of anything) which can be attributed to the dominant internet culture that doesn't foster using the internet as a collaboration media (I'd probably dedicate a separate post to the issue).

For such local applications to succeed (assuming good capabilities, features, interface) I guess few things have to occurr:

  • Marketing the service - heavily - “way outside” the internet (brochures, hardcopy banners, word of mouth)
  • Adding features according to user requirements (who doesn't do that), but would encourage the sense of ownership, creating passionate users (I can already see that in the inital phase)
  • Changing the prevailing internet culture of using the internet for leisure and news (I always wanted to do something that would change the world, I guess it would be easier to change the world)

I was able to convince (force? :-)) some friends into writing their reviews into Schoolata (talk about driving traffic). So, if you're reading this, and know someone who'd be interested or want to share your opinion about Egyptian schools, Schoolata is the place.

Web 2.0 and Open Source

Posted February 9, 2006 * Comments(0)

From David Johnson


Web 2.0 is not about having cool software to install on your own personal web server, it's about getting locked into services provided by and trusting your data to Web sites that you do not control

I don't know, may be because now it's too easy to roll out your own Web 2.0 application in a weekend using smaller components and frameworks (a.k.a Rails)?

The Open Source / Free web (1.0?) applications were mostly about a huge code base that you can download and setup at some premises no one can argue. But, how about having the full control over the code. Not modify the ones that you download, but rather build from scratch whatever you see serve the business requirements. After all, there is a “configuration” learning curve for most of these Web 1.0 applications.

I agree that it's hard to come up with a large set of features within a short period of time (did I say weekend), but, most of the quoted/neviewed/available Web 2.0 services are very easy to implement. The success of these services is all in the idea and the usability rather than the set of features it contains. I guess Rails and such are promoting a smaller code base (with no tyring setup configurations) vs. a large feature set with a code base that becomes more of a green monster.

Web 2.0 is the era of “start-building-something”. It's the delivery of ideas rather than the delivery of code.

Style Update

Posted February 6, 2006 * Comments(0)

After trying to figure out why the Recent Entries and Recent Comments (right side column) were not playing nicely with my new template, I've managed to update the style. The new theme is as you can read from the footer is “Based on WordPress Theme by Vladimir Simovic”. The problem during the update was due to some variables scoping (should've guessed it earlier, but, I'm resisting a shutdown for the past couple of hours). I (think) I've managed to setup the required MeasureMap scripts, but still have some minor CSS tweaks along with Google analytics script setup. Anyways, hope you enjoy it.

JRoller/Roller Upgrade

Posted February 2, 2006 * Comments(2)

JRoller (or is it Roller?) is becoming a real mess (from a user perspective).

After accepting the fact that it is real slow (take away the javascript), it's now more and more unstable.

First; My Referrers are gone. I can take the fact that no one is interested in my postings, but, I can't imagines I'm “that” unpopular.

Second; permalinks have this
$ entry.website.user.userName in the middle which does not allow to linking. Now I have to add this entry.website.user.userName myself if I want to link to postings

Third; I thought it was because of my “customized” template. I picked another one, saved, … nothing. My template is still the same with no error being reported.

The upgrade in progress post is up since January 06. Is it logic to take a month to upgrade an ONLINE SERVICE?!! Couldn't this be done somewhere else.

I wonder how long it would take before I won't be able to post to my blog.
I'm not whining by the way, I'm just comparing services. I wonder when/if it would be possible to migrate my posts to another engine (say; typo). Does anyone know of ways to migrate?

Keeping Busy (1/3) - Google Maps Mashup

Posted February 1, 2006 * Comments(0)

The first of three posts of what was keeping me busy in the past few weeks.

After being fascinated with Egypte D'antane with its loads of period images of my homecity of Alexandria, I thought of a Mash up that would put these images on their respective Google Maps locations (as I said before, it's as close as I could get to the time camera). I implemented the idea using Ruby on Rails with the aid of Cartographer plugin.

Unfortunately, it is not moving beyond just being a proof of concept. Reasons:

  • Google Maps low resolution imagery of my homecity of Alexandria (despite the fact that Google Earth has a much higher resolution images of the same city). Of course, with the availability of period images, there are some other places where this can be implemented, but I won't be able to accurately map the images to the locations.
  • I haven't received a reply from images-website owners to use their images off of their website directly. I can copy and upload those images to, say, flickr, or keep them on my server, but I still feel I need their approval. As for the copyright concerns, I think these images are in the public domain for a long time. Can anyone comment on that?

Some of the features that I'd get into the mash up:

  • Images of the same buildings/places today alongside the old ones (for the sake of comparison).
  • Putting up layers on the map representing various periods in time (say a decade each)
  • Ability to search images according to Year, Type, etc…

Hisham at work has conveyed the idea to the Friends of the Environment Association, Alexandria and they are interested. I might talk about it in their next meeting this month, so, I'll see how things go.