Blog
February 6th, 2006
Here are the results from yesterday's poll:
Should I aggregate my other web logs into eJohn.org?
Add in posts from the jQuery Blog:
Add in posts from the ideaShrub Blog:
Add in posts from my del.icio.us account:
So, I'm probably going to start bringing in posts from jQuery and ideaShrub (tastefully done, of course) and just leave my del.icio.us links where they are (I mean, even I voted against the delicious links).
Tags: poll, aggergation, ejohn, rss
1 Comment on 'Aggregation Poll Results'
February 5th, 2006
The eJohn web log has been rather quiet lately - but that doesn't mean that I haven't been working! I'm currently, actively, working on my two projects: jQuery and ideaShrub. I've also been making blog posts to both of their respective web logs (ideashrub is quiet right now, but I'll be posting more, soon) instead of eJohn, proper. So, my question is:
This would mean that the eJohn RSS feed (and main page) would include posts from the jQuery Blog and the ideaShrub Blog - definitely increasing the posting volume. Would you, as a reader, be interested in this? Or should I keep my various projects completely separate? Thanks in advance!
Tags: rss, aggregation, blogs, poll
1 Comment on 'eJohn Aggregation'
January 16th, 2006
As I mentioned previously, I attended BarCampNYC this weekend and had a great time. I did two full presentations - both of which were quite successful.
Presentation 1: Hot Demo Session (11am, Sunday)
I started out with a quick overview of my company, Juniper Bay, what I do (programming, entrepreneur) and where I'm looking to go (have my own company running by the time I graduate).
I then did a quick overview and demo of
ideaShrub: Real-time Idea Collaboration. The web site managed to die while I was doing the demo, so that kind of fell through (unfortunately). ideaShrub is still in a closed beta, and I am still actively developing on it. I'm planning on making a public release 'soon'.
I then announced a brand new product:
Feed Pile: Feed Sharing for Everyone. The premise for the site is very similar to
SuprGlu, but is targeted more towards aggregating for your friends/clubs/family and sharing with them. It supports a bunch of neat features: No accounts, OPML, and Autodiscovery. It's super-simple to use - give it a try!
Finally, I announced my second new release of the evening:
jQuery: New Wave Javascript. In a nutshell, this code revolutionizes the way you can get Javascript to interact with HTML - it really is an amazing set of code, and I've dumped a lot of time and effort into getting it right. I'm working on the documentation for the site, right now - which should be ready within the next couple days.
Presentation 2: Subverting Social Networks (4:45pm, Sunday)
I gave this particular presentation with Eric Skiff - we were planning on giving similar presentations and decided to merge our efforts, to save time and effort. The reception to the talk seemed to be overwelmingly positive - and really opened the eyes of a lot of people.
Eric released the source code to his MySpace Friends Adder, so if you're interested in checking out some of the code, head on over there.
Additionally, I've posted the slides that we used for the presentation. They may seem rather sparten - but that's because we talked a lot more then we read. If you're interested in the subject matter, feel free to comment or send us an email.
Some people have posted photos of this particular presentation to Flickr, here's one and another.
People/Companies
Finally, I'd like to thank all the great people/companies that I got to know there: GlitchCast, SuprGlu, Simpy, Squidoo, Peter Nofelt, Good Experience, Bitty Browser, Joyent, Jolt, and HorsePigCow.
Update: A basic outline for the presentation can be found on the BarCamp Wiki.
Tags: barcamp, javascript, barcampnyc, rss, web2.0
16 Comments on 'BarCampNYC Wrap-up'
December 17th, 2005
I've been bit by the JSON bug. For a long time now, I've simply shrugged it off as 'Why not just use XML, it's parsable by most languages anyway.' However, once I started playing around with the del.icio.us JSON interface, then the Google Homepage API, and finally with the new Yahoo! JSON API - I realized that they were really on to something. The major benefits are immediately apparent:
- It's incredibly lightweight - there's almost no extra markup, which keeps the data transfers nice and small.
- There's very little overhead needed to parse it, since it's pure Javascript to begin with (and a number of other languages can either handle it as-is, or have a module to parse it).
- and, probably most importantly, you can use it in a cross-domain environment. This exists due to the fact that you can execute remote Javascript (aka a JSON object), no matter what domain you're coming from. You can now completely skip the previously necessary (for XML) proxies.
So, this brings me to my first project using JSON - a fast RSS to JSON Convertor. You simply plug in the URL of the RSS (or Atom) feed that you wish to convert - and you'll have a nice, plyable JSON object to work with. I cache all retreived files every hour, to save on bandwidth, so please be aware of that. It also supports the addition of callbacks, making it easy to use in your program, right out of the box. If you're interested in seeing a demo, along with some sample code (and the code of the convertor), feel free to visit the project page.
The nice thing about having a RSS to JSON Convertor is that you can now convert any RSS source and play with it instantly - for example, your Google Search History, the Latest TV Listings, or even your POP Email Account. The possibilities are endless. I can't wait to play with this some more.
Tags: json, rss, javascript, programming, xml
5 Comments on 'JSON and RSS'
December 14th, 2005
Yesterday, I sat down and played around with the new Google Homepage API, which is interesting, in and of itself. I found the development to be most like developing a widget (for Dashboard or Konfabulator).
A couple observations:
- By default, your module is contained within a fixed height IFrame, but it's possible to actually embed your widget straight into the Google Homepage itself.
- My first worry was over the possibility of XSS attacks, but all modules run on a different domain, gmodules.com. (I'm not sure what happens if you embed it in the page, my guess is that they're far more restrictive, if you want your module to run free like that)
- The have a server-side proxy that's on the same domain as the modules - which means that you can do cross-domain XMLHttpRequests - a very smart move (at least from a developers perspective, not sure about security, though).
My first test module is rather simple, it's just the current list of links from del.icio.us popular, auto-updating every hour. To run it for yourself, go to your Google Homepage, click the 'Add Content' link and enter the following URL into the 'Create A Section' textfield:
http://ejohn.org/apps/igdel/
If you're worried about running foreign modules on your homepage, you can feel free to look at the source code - it's completely harmless.
The majority of the code, for the frontend of the module, was borrowed from two places:
The final bit, that made this module work, I'll discuss tomorrow - it's a dynamic RSS to JSON convertor, that's incredibly cool. (If you're feeling adventurous, you can look at the module source code and find it hidden in there.)
Tags: javascript, json, programming, api, homepage, google, rss
11 Comments on 'Google Homepage API'
October 18th, 2005
I could give a thousand excuses, but I'm not entirely sure if they'd mean anything. September and October have been an incredibly busy time for me, school, moving, sickness, work - it's just piled on top of each other. Although, this doesn't mean that I've been slacking - I just haven't had time to make blog posts. Amusingly, according to my stats, there are now over 900 of you reading this weblog via RSS - which is pretty slick.
Here's a quick recap of some of the things that happened these past two months:
Today I won the Quirksmode addEvent re-coding contest. This particular contest was to write an implementation of addEvent and removeEvent that was completely cross-browser and usable. I like my submission, simply due to its brevity, and so did the judges.
Some of my past research, into Instant Messaging, was mentioned in the RIT Reporter (my school newspaper). It's kind of light and 'fluffy', but a good starter piece. If you're interested in this sort of thing, contact me, or check out the project page.
I was mentioned, in passing, in The Economist, concerning the recent trend in mash-up applications, specificially concerning the Yahoo Traffic RSS feed. I think the article is no longer accessible - but may be if you get a login.
Finally, one of my Google Maps projects went live - it was for a newspaper in Florida, the Herald Tribune, concerning the Save Our Homes initiative. My particular application allowed users to browse through their homes and see how their tax rates compared to their neighbors. From everything that I've heard, it's been quite successful. It makes me happy to bring cool technology (Google Maps) to people who wouldn't have used/seen it otherwise.
I'm going to be releasing a full-blown product within the next week, or so - it's very simple, but exciting, nonetheless. I hope people will get a kick out of it.
Tags: maps, google, news, im, javascript, rss, magazine
Comment on 'Fall Recap'
August 6th, 2005
(Originally from a comment that I made to this Makezine post)
If you're looking to read your mailing lists in your newsreader, I'd recommend looking no further then Gmail. Gmail has a hidden feature: Atom feeds for Labels! The technique is simple:
- Setup a filter to catch all email from a specific mailing list.
- Apply a label to all of that mail (e.g. 'list').
- Access the Atom feed via this URL: https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom/list/ (changing 'list' to be the name of the label.
It really is that simple - and there's no need to create extra Gmail accounts, setup fake Blogger accounts, or anything silly like that.
Tags: gmail, mail, google, syndication, feeds, atom, rss
4 Comments on 'Mailing List Atom Feeds'
July 21st, 2005
In your newsreader, subscribe to your favorite programming module RSS feed:
Unfortunately, those are really the only languages with any sort of repository, which is a shame. Regardless, I'm finding that being subscribed to both the Perl and Javascript RSS feeds is really helping me to catch the latest developments/advancements and include them in my projects.
Update: Added PHP, thanks to Brendyn!
Tags: raa, cpan, jsan, rss, ruby, perl, javascript, module
2 Comments on 'Programming News via RSS'
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