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2 October 2008
What's New in Python 2.6
There are some nice looking features in the latest Python. I like, too, that they are providing some of the backwards compatible features of Python 3.0 here, too. (Via Simon Willison.)
Tags: python, development, release
29 September 2008
Facebook Developers Wiki -- New Design Integration Guide
A guide to migrating Facebook apps to the new Facebook profile. Nothing new here for those who do Facebook app development and spend a lot of time on Facebook, but a useful resource nonetheless.
Tags: facebook, apps, development
22 September 2008
News and Documentary Emmy Awards Tonight!
That's right, call me Emmy-nominated Deryck Hodge. Okay, so you have to scroll down a bit to find my name, but still, I'm stoked about it. Who knows if we'll win, but it really is an honor to be nominated as they say. The News and Documentary awards are tonight (Monday, 9-22), obviously happening after the TV Emmy Awards last night.
Tags: tv, television, emmys, awards, washington post, washingtonpost.com
16 September 2008
Heroes Back on iTunes and First Season 2 Episiode is Free
The link requires iTunes, but... go now! :-) The first episode of Heroes Season 2 is currently free on iTunes. And it's in HD. Via the Tenth Wonder Podcast.
Tags: heroes, itunes, television
15 September 2008
YouTube - Dan Rather nails it
Dan Rather makes a clear and compelling case why corporate ownership of all the major TV media outlets is a problem for this country. This is not a case of calling corporations evil; rather, he does a nice job of explaining the problem with specific examples from todays top stories.
Tags: news, television, commentary, dan rather
20 August 2008
iPhone SSH review: iSSH v. pTerm v. TouchTerm v. SSH
A nice review of SSH clients for the iPhone. Based on the review, I don't think any are worth the small cost for me. I have to use keys everywhere and none of these support keys. But I'm interested in where these particular apps are going. (Via Kottke.org.)
6 August 2008
A New Blog From Me: Paperlate.org
This site, Devurandom, is my work/tech-related presence on the web. It is a site that came to life as I was getting into professional web development. It’s never been a very personal site and has always existed purely as a testing ground for my technical interests. I’ve always kept the topic loosely on web development and media because that’s what I do for living, though honestly, I’ve just not put much thought into it. This is just my little playground on the net.
I have started a new site that is a more personal site for me. It can be found at Paperlate.org. Let me tell you a bit about this new site. [...]
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31 July 2008
Comments Temporarily Disabled
I'm closing comments on blog entries and links to stop a spam problem. I will reopen comments once I have better spam prevention measures in place.
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25 July 2008
A Brief Update: Where I've Been and What's Happening
I know I've been quiet around here lately, but I'm still settling in at the Sun. I was also on vacation week before last. It might be odd [...]
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Alternate Reality Games: A Mini-Guide
I'm doing some reading and thinking on ARGs (though I still hate the name, sorry). This is a nice overview of several recent games (or should we call them stories?). It's not an exhaustive list, but it does include some interesting notes. There are also some links at the bottom of the article to some really nice related articles.
Tags: games, narrative, arg, alternate reality games, web, online story
7 July 2008
The Facebooker Who Friended Obama - NYTimes.com
A really nice article on how Chris Hughes, one of the founders of Facebook, left Facebook at the peak of its popularity to work for the Obama campaign. Most interesting to me is the point that at that time, Chris was finding his away around and the Obama campaign was not the force it is today. After winning Iowa, of course, that all changed. It's a nice point, too, about how social networks on the web serve a use to connect real people in their everyday lives. The point is made in the article that the Obama site drives local connections, rather than just connections for the sake of the site itself.
4 July 2008
New Job at the Las Vegas Sun
I've been trying to write something clever about this for weeks now. I mean with the blogging attention paid to Loudoun Extra and Rob Curley and members of our group leaving the Post, I almost fell compelled to write something clever [...]
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3 July 2008
Regator
Trying to find a new aggregator. Google Reader is just feeling clunky to me now, and I need something to make sifting the web noise easier for me. Anyone tried this and have good things to say? The reviews look pretty nice.
Strange square on Gmail - Google Blogoscoped Forum
Been wondering about this. And now we know. Hide your frameborders Gmail! :-) I've Greasemonnkey'ed it to make it go away for now. It's like a scratch on my glasses that I cannot ignore.
24 June 2008
YouTube - Perception is Reality
Cory Tolbert Haik's short movie, which she produced for the Seattle Times' Three Minute Masterpiece contest. I've been coordinating with Cory for a class I'm going to be doing at ONA on Facebook app development, and I discovered this short film of hers today. It's really funny. As a Southerner, the you're-not-from-here-you're-from-the-South line is all too familiar, and always with the wry look of self awareness the guy in the video has. I laughed several times, and thought this was worth sharing.
Google's Cutts: Good directions drive traffic to your website - USATODAY.com
Nice USA Today article with Google's Matt Cutts on some simple guidelines for improving your visibility in search results. Everyone expects SEO magic bullets, but it really is amazing how much the simple things can get you better placement. I think, too, that many people have unrealistic expectations. Just do a good site, write yourself about the site, and get people interested in what you are doing, and the rest will follow.
20 June 2008
Python's Makefile
I'm thinking about build tools and build systems for web sites lately. Especially being at a new job, with a few sites and a few developers. Reading something earlier today from Bicking made me discover this one, and I'm saving it mostly for the CSS/JS compression command via setup.py example code.
Part of me thinks a collection of commands in a single setup.py command might work for us in Vegas.
Tags: python, development, builds, deployment
22 May 2008
The Secret History of Star Wars
A compelling book, which tries to get at the truth of how the Stars Wars movies were made. Looks really fascinating, and from what I scanned, really well written. This was done by a camera man who had an interest in telling the story accurately of the history of Star Wars. He calls himself an amateur writer, but again, the writing is pretty good. (Via /.)
16 May 2008
Panda3D on Mac from p3dapp
I've been playing with Panda3D because of the awesome Python interface to learn more about game programming. Getting it installed on Ubuntu was nothing since the Panda3D site provides a .deb. But getting this up on my Mac was a pain. This forum thread, specifically the first post, made it super easy. Includes a download for Panda3D compiled for Mac as well as instructions for copy the parts around and updating your path.
Tags: 3D, games, programming
15 May 2008
doctype - Google Code
Google Doctype is, in Mark Pilgrim's own words, "an encyclopedia for web developers by web developers." Looks very cool. There are several parts to this.
The first is using the wiki component of Google code hosting to document the Web (document from the developer's perspective). It's like Wikipedia just for web development. The second part is a library of JavaScript, CSS, and HTML reference code, largely a set of tests. It does include "goog" which looks to be a JavaScript library akin to YUI or mootools. Also, I was struck by Mark Pilgrim calling himself a "technical writer" in the Doctype video I just watched.
There's a lot to use and understand here, and I'm only just beginning to read through all this. (Via Simon Willison.)
Tags: google, javascript, web, development, docs
13 May 2008
Google Friend Connect
I only looked at this briefly, but it looks to me like a lightweight way to implement open social on a site without having to be a full social gadget container. Or maybe better said it's one simple way into being a social gadget container site. I could very easily be misunderstanding this, since I only looked quickly at the pages. Will return to it later.... and comment more here when I do.
Social Graph API - Google Code
I have just gotten around to playing with this social query service from Google. It's pretty nice, I have to say. Basically, you query for a list of relationships against a certain URL, or group of URLs, and you get back the data in JSON. You can either parse the data directly in a callback function in JavaScript, or parse the structure in some server-side program. I'm quite sure I'll end up making use of this very soon.
6 May 2008
The GPL and Principles
I've been enjoying reading the last few pots from Ian Bicking. This is the most recent as of this linking, and he has some thoughtful and insightful comments on the principles that underpin the GPL. A couple posts earlier he talks about the GPL vs. the permissive licenses. He's very fair, avoiding the territory of flame wars, and though I generally prefer the GPL exactly for the principles it conveys, I do understand that there are pros and cons either way, and each license has strengths and weaknesses.
Tags: open source, freedom, free software, gpl, license
5 May 2008
Henry Jenkins Speaks at a Harry Potter Meeting in Teen SL
Henry Jenkins dressed as Dumbledore from the Harry Potter series speaks about Harry Potter and fan culture at a meeting in teen Second Life. Sometimes teens will complain on the SL blog that the teen grid doesn't get the same attention or love at the main grid, but Henry Jenkins is a pretty exciting guest. Nice to find this video of the meeting. There is also a linked clipped on this page of Henry's avatar dancing at the party. (Via New World Notes.)
Tags: second life, avatar, convergence, fan, culture
28 April 2008
An Illustration of the Cosmology of the Grid
Hilarious illustration of the inter-working of all the various parts of Second Life. Don't let the faux 19th century academia-inspired title fool you. Or rather, let the title tell you all you need to know. :-)
Tags: second life, art, funny
26 April 2008
What I've Learned: Vint Cerf
Incredible. Absolutely amazing quotes from Vint Cerf in this piece from Esquire. He plays WoW with his son, gives Al Gore props for the Internet, offers his thoughts on Second Life, and then offers up my favorite quote from the last several months of online reading:
"At the roots, people are still people."
In the context of a discussion about the Internet, this is a powerful statement, and one anyone who spends much time online can readily agree with. The Internet, in the end, is just a reflection of the people it connects.
25 April 2008
asleep on the job
Best photo taken of a Linden. I love that she titled it "asleep on the job" with no clue who M Linden was. :-) (Via New World Notes.)
Tags: second life, lindens, linden lab
24 April 2008
collapsing geography: apoc week 13 aka the future of virtual worlds
Cory Ondrejka has some really interesting slides up from his recent seminar lectures. The thing I like most is that this "future of" talk isn't really future predicting as much as trend spotting. I think he's got several excellent predictions and ideas in these slides.
Tags: virtual worlds, virtual world development, second life
23 April 2008
Archive for Mark Kingdon at ClickZ
Some old writing, but probably a good insight into the person who will be CEO of Linden Lab starting next month. (Via New World Notes.)
Tags: second life, writers, writing
Web space lounge -- ESC Portfolio
This screenshot of Electric Sheep's work on a virtual world in the browser is nice looking. They're using Ogoglio for the sever component and Papervision3D for the client. The look is nice certainly. When I was in Arlington this past week, Jesse demoed some Papervision stuff to me, and I was certainly impressed. This from ESC continues to impress. Of course, this is no where near what Second Life is -- a single night club in no way compares to an expansive and varied virtual world -- but it is impressive for a low barrier to entry alternative that runs in the browser.
Tags: second life, virtual worlds, esc, web
22 April 2008
Reuters/Second Life -- Linden Lab picks online marketing executive as CEO
Reuters breaks the story that marketing executive Mark Kingdon will become the CEO of Linden Lab. An interesting story, and though I don't know that side of the technology business well to know anything about Mark, what is mentioned here seems to hold promise for the future. It seems like a smart choice, and one that plays well to Rosedale's strengths, too. Seems like a good move, and a nice article from Reuters. For breaking SL news, Reuters seems to own that area for now.
Tags: second life, linden lab, news
21 April 2008
Out to Pasture -- White Paper on VW Platform Evaluations
I find myself agreeing with Giff, even though I've had some criticisms of the virtual-world-in-a-browser posts earlier. I do think the space between the Web and the virtual world is an interesting area in which to work, and I love to see someone develop in this area. Right now, it's an all or none proposition -- you either work on the Web or in a virtual worlds. I think sites could build in some of the social aspects of an immersive 3D experience and see positive results in the blend.
Tags: second life, virtual worlds, web, development
16 April 2008
New World Notes: Is WindLight Frustrating Some Second Life Educators? (Updated)
I commented on this post back when it first appeared, and I only just today returned to see the follow up comments. There is some fascinating stuff in the comments, most notably Qarl's statement that he has reached out to Nicholaz Beresford and that he and other developers in Linden Lab are beginning to do something to try to improve the open source program, I would imagine in an attempt to address some of Nicholaz's concerns.
While I think it's a good move to address the concerns, I always take these kind of things with a grain of salt -- i.e. Nicholaz's statement that he's done with Second Life development. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen this sort of thing on open source mailing lists, forums, Web sites, etc. There is always some valid concern in such criticisms but I could do without all the hand waving and drama, no offense meant to Nicholaz.
Tags: second life, open source
