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Showing posts from June, 2005

Grabbr 1.1

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More tinkering with Grabbr has resulted in a 1.1 release. I've added the ability to draw pretty red boxes for highlighting stuff (assuming you don't want to use flickr's notes), and also an obscuring button so you can blank out your confidential data before uploading. Also new is mult-level undo of said features. It's feeling quite slick now. If only Paul would come up with some nicer toolbar buttons.

With thanks to Jason Rhyley

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Been playing with Greasemonkey again. Phil showed me two scripts for Flickr by Jason Rhyley The first adds some text formatting buttons to Flickr text areas. The second adds some extremely nice extra features to Flickr photo pages (links to different sizes, HTML code for copy and paste, etc). So in, er "homage" to these scripts, I whipped up two of my own. The first adds text formatting to LiveJournal's posting form (so you don't have to use the painful rich text editor). The second adds an option to enter a photo to the current Camera Phone Competition by tagging the photo and then posting a thumbnail to the appropriate discussion. I realize this is quite a niche script 1 but I was quite pleased with its exotic mix of Flickr API calls, screenscraping and posting to other pages. [1] Unless of course you'd care to join us in the competition , it's only just started.

Screenshotting Flickr

My latest side project is Grabbr , a tool to capture screenshots and upload them automatically to Flickr. For all my bitching about C++, it was actually really easy to write. I don't think it would have been a whole heap quicker in .NET, and it would have used up a shed load more system resources. On a related note, rather than bake the Flickr API stuff directly into the app, it's in a seperate library. The cppFlickr library really only covers the functions I needed for Grabbr at the moment but it should grow in time. It's all standard C++ so although I only build for Windows, it shouldn't be hard to port to other platforms.

More UK Big Brotherisms

The latest wheeze to come out of the Government. Universal road tolls backed by satellite tracking. Every vehicle would have a black box to allow a satellite system to track their journey, with prices starting from as little as 2p per mile in rural areas. It looks like more and more government policy is informed by the twin beliefs that Privacy is not important Government can implement huge IT projects If either of them weren't true then there'd be a problem. Given that they both look suspect, heaven help us.

Usable Windows

Work just swapped out my machine and it came complete with all the software I need to do my job. God, what a nightmare! For the record, and my own future benefit, here's a list of all the tweaks and software I need to make Windows bearable. Tweak Windows Explorer - Stop hiding file extensions and system files Install Firefox Tweak Firefox Advanced Options - Open links from other applications in a new tab in the most recent window) Add AdBlock Add GreaseMonkey Get Power Toys Install Tweak UI Install Command Prompt Here Install Taskswitch Install WhoLockMe Install Startup Monitor Install Startup Control Panel Wipe out unneeded startup items Use Classic Search Install Clipomatic Install AppRocket Install Miranda Install Putty Install Filzip No doubt I'll find more annoyances as time goes on. Updated: See, 1 hour in and I've already found something missing: iTunes iPod Software

Odd spam.

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I just got a spam email that was basically a cut and paste of this article from The Register. No links, no exhortations to buy, just that. Unless it's an attempt to game the Google adwords on my GMail, I don't understand what it's for.