I am developing an internet enabled FM radio for my 3rd year Electronics project.
What does that mean?
Well, you take the standard FM radio and and connect it to the internet, this allows the radio to get extra content for the user including text and images. It also allows it to push information back to radio stations and other web services.
I will be implementing a new technology called RadioDNS.
RadioDNS is open technology that lets broadcast radio and the internet work together: enhancing the listener experience, and making radio better.
This new technology is based on the DNS system that holds the internet up, allowing you to resolve URIs pointing to online content to support radio listening.
By the end of the project, I want to create a usable product that will have some form of user input(s) and of course visual and audio outputs. It will try and be as portable as possible making use of Wi-Fi and/or 3G connectivity, while maintaining main functionalities even when offline.
We have 3 lectures next week to give us final details on how the projects run and then I have free reign over what I do then.
It has been a few years now and she has served me well, but it is time to say goodbye to dot info. My second personal domain name (first being djvj.eu back in my early teens) has been with us a few years and seen me through my web dev learning process well. It has pointed to some great stuff but now the time is here to say goodbye.
I was messing around one day looking for a better domain, I mean dylanjones.info is pretty good as it is a top-level domain with just my name, but then I thought how could I just have my name. I checked that the Spanish .es TLD was publically available outside of Spain. Before 2005, you could only get a .es domain if you held a trademark within Spain or some other naming exceptions.
dylanjon.es was already taken and is just a holding page to sell it to the Dylan Jones around the world. Screw that, I am not paying more than neccessary so I looked further into my name.
anjon.es was available so I thought, perfect - I can change my name to Ryan and use the sub-domain ry - only joking, dyl.anjon.es is my name.
The best bit now is that there are a few other names ending -an Jones so I am willing to give you a free sub-domain and e-mail address if you want it - Just get in touch.
So I have moved everything over and put in place 301 Redirects from dylanjones.info - I have even spruced up the CSS a bit and included a Google Web Font called Signika. There is still a couple of things that need to be moved over so some stuff still points to dylanjones.info
So there we go, a personal domain with just my name and if you Ryan Jones, Sian Jones, Brian Jones or Alan Jones etc would like a free sub-domain, drop us a message.
A while ago, Alice said something about how the younger generation of today do not wear watches. This may be due to technology we live with in the 21st century, there is an abundance of devices around us reminding us of the time from wall clocks, to microwaves, computers, our phones, music players and TVs; there is just no need to have time strapped to ourselves any more.
The concept of attaching a mechanical device to our wrists to keep us informed of how many hours we have left to do things is quite funny really. Why have we been doing this for so long? To know the time, you say, time is precious, we need to look after it. Fair point. But I have taken the plunge and have not been wearing my wristwatch for a couple of weeks and I feel great! At no point have I even looked at my wrist to find out the time. I think I have been on time to my appointments and lectures, for the most part. I feel free and like I have all the time in the world.
Looking at my Google Analytics, there was something starring me in the face.
I was aware that my BBC Now Playing application was a bulk of my total traffic, but it was surprising to see how many different ways people will search for what is the current song playing on BBC Radio 1?
The other interesting thing is that the most common browser searching for these related terms is Internet Explorer. So I am guessing that the majority of these people are listening to the radio using an Analogue FM radio, rather than via their browser. This is multi-platform radio, sort of working then. A listener is happy to be listening to an old analogue radio and then when wanting track information, will head to a search engine.
Great! I hope to add more functionality to the on radio application, including LastFM scrobbling and integration with on-line music stores soon enough.
I have had my Samsung Galaxy S2 for a few weeks now and I have really enjoyed having a smartphone back in my pocket, after the demise of my iPhone.
Joining the Android Developer Program only cost $25 and I have now been experimenting with what I can get my phone to do.
A good starting point was to port ybsolo over to the Android Market. At the moment all the application does is open a web view but with the service being advertised in the market place, we hopefully will see some people trying it out.
Is My Train Delayed? is a perfect service for the mobile platform so I have been moving it to a native application. It is currently on the Android Market at version 4.0 as I have been adding features over the past few days.
Currently at 146 downloads, it is doing quite well. It pulls the live data straight from National Rail and creates a nice scrollable table view. It also auto-completes station names. On the website, you can locate your nearest station, I am experimenting with this on the android application as well as detailed journey information in a popup window.
I have been working on a couple of quick projects recently that I thought I would like to share with you. The first one was inspired my my recent trip to India. Myself and Alice wanted to make contact everyday to the UK to either of our families by email or text. It worked out that we both ended up sending a message each so that both sets of parents knew where we were, what we had been up to and more importantly that we were safe.
Looking back at the bill from O2, this did not work out too expensive. I thought there might be a better way, be using some kind of relay service. There does not appear to be anything designed for travellers in this respect so I thought, that seems like a fun thing to make.
Keep in Touch Abroad lets users make posts via the site, SMS or email and then pushes them in real-time to the users subscribers who can decide to have notifications via the site, SMS or email. Users can attach location, photos, videos or audio to their posts too!
I have not officially launched it yet but am thinking a closed-beta release due to the limit of texts that can be sent via the O2 API (20 a day).
If you are interested in giving this product a go then hit me up on twitter @dylan8902 or email dylan@dylanjones.info
The second little project answers the question: Is My Train Delayed? - very simple use of the National Rail live departure board API but a lot easier to use than their website and at a cool domain.
Yesterday, I went down to London (on the 0505 train) for Rewired State's Hack day, held at the Guardian Offices. A busy day in London with the Boat Race (well done Oxford) and a protest.
Using open data from data.gov.uk, the theme was to create a tool for government, citizens or businesses. We had about 6 and a half hours to do it. Obviously I went along with no plan and no data ready so I began by going through some of the datasets to see what I could find.
There was a crime theme in the air so I decided on using prison population data.
Introducing: Where Should All the Convicts Go? A tool designed to help the government decide which countries to deport prisoners to. Coded primarily in Javascript, with a hint of PHP.
There were loads of fantastic hacks put together including games, crime mapping tools, complaint tools, weather, political and more.
This semester, I am working on the Arduino Platform to design and make an embedded system. We have been given free reign (as long as Dr Evans things it's do-able within the time limitations) to make whatever we like.
In the labs, we have been learning the basics of the platform, getting familiar with the IDE and code libraries.
My first idea was some kind of remote control doing various things, but then I remembered my Electronic Clothing idea I had last year! So, I am currently toying with this idea:
Introducing the MAC: Multimeda Access Coat
From the fantastic sketch, you can see I am hoping to have a screen and keypad in each sleeve, earphones, possible connected to an iPhone dock type thing, temperature and wind sensors, GSM receiver (so that you can text the coat), maybe GPS?
Although in the early stages of development, I have invested in an £8 coat from Primark.
I have almost completed the Mobile Applications module. Code is submitted, tutorial is written up and poster made. All that is now left to do is a presentation on Thursday.
As promised, I am sharing what I have done with you.
The tutorial is available as a PDF and explains what the application does and how. It guides you through the processes to make the application yourself.
You do need background knowledge of iOS development and a basic understanding of the key frameworks.
The full code is available as well to see. If you have a Mac with xCode then feel free to build and use the application. You will need to edit a couple of properties before, feel free to get in touch if you need help.
This is the poster that gives a brief outline of the application along with some screenshots.
As apart of the full API I have made available, there are now various RSS feeds across the site. From photos, to projects and of course blog entries. A full list of feeds are detailed in the API docs. As you can see they are all available in JSON format as well.
In other news, I have managed to retrieve every blog post (except for one image) and the blog is back in full - well, except for the tags and comments.
I have just downloaded this iPhone application and am very excited! You can set up services to send push notifications to the phone or even use their API to create a new instance of sending a notification.
There is a chrome extension I have just installed as well which allows with a touch of a button, to send the page to the phone!
I sadly lost all my previous blog entries when my host closed my account. There are some backed up however I am pondering whether to retrieve them or not
I have never got this far in my university career before!
Day three of my second year at the University of Leeds, very exciting. I moved up a couple of weeks ago and have been enjoying getting to know my new flatmates. The work however, has begun.
My modules are: Mobile Applications Project, Energy Systems and Control, Communications Theory, Transistors & Optoelectronics, High Frequency Circuits & Systems and Embedded Systems Project
For the Mobile Applications Project, we are learning the basics of Objective-C and making an iOS application (for iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad). YEY!
We have 10 weeks to familiarise with the syntax of object orientated programming and the APIs and structure of iOS applications before finally demonstrating our application in the last week before Christmas.
We'll be working in the school's Apple Mac suite as the SDK can only run on Mac OS X.
As part of our assessment, we have to keep a blog-book (pun on log-book) and publish a tutorial on how to make our final application. I will add it here, on my blog (as well as the VLE), using the Mobile Application Project tag.
Interestingly, the 4th most read article on BBC News yesterday was: University gives students text books on iPhones
More than 500 medical students at the University of Leeds are being issued with iPhones which can access online text books.
The IT person behind this project will be coming in to speak to us about specific medical applications that they would like developing. I may be interested to take up one of their ideas or perhaps do something music based. I am undecided as yet but look forward to playing around with the different APIs the iOS has to offer.
Last weekend I attend the Music Hackday at the Guardian offices, London. It was super. I travelled the Saturday morning from Hereford so was lacking in sleep even before starting the 24-hour hack session.
In the morning, there were presentations and workshops put on by the companies and organisations attending. Some interesting ideas were put forward, I especially was interested in O2 Litmus' hashblue service that I actually signed up to a couple of weeks ago. It allows you to access your text messages, almost in real-time.
On a mobile theme, I decided for my hack, I would take up my Cleversounds idea.
You are walking around between shops, pubs, clubs and your house - they usually have some music playing in the background. Wouldn't it be nice if they played your favourite music?
In a nutshell: you register you bluetooth MAC address, tell the site what music you like by linking your Last.fm/Facebook accounts (or by just typing in artists). When your device is detected by a Cleversounds Jukebox, you are played your favourite artists and recommendations. Back on the site, you get a feed of what tracks have been played for you, along with where and when.
The application is live at cleversounds.info where you can sign up and use a demo Jukebox that simulates Bluetooth devices detected. I do plan to package up all the software and local scripts into something that you can download and run on your machine allowing you to have your very own Jukebox, so long as you have a bluetooth dongle (or similar).
There were some fantastic hacks demoed on the Sunday, a full list is available on the wiki. Lots of photos of the event are available here and videos here.
Well done to all the organisers and everyone attending that made it so much fun. As a final note, the food/drink provided was amazing. Photo accreditation to Thomas Bonte.
On recently registering for the London Music Hack Day, I have been thinking of ideas for using web services such as Twitter, Facebook, LastFM and others, which come with beautifully wrapped APIs, to put together some fun music applications.
Introducing the Facebook Friend Artist Wall
This application gets your Facebook friends musical likes and displays a wall of artist images. Clicking on an artist fetches a related song from the Echo Nest API to play you.
It can also display a word cloud of popular artists amongst your friends.
I have a couple of other ideas that I am going to mess around with over the next few days including some geo-location stuff. Keep an eye out!
Facebook privacy has popped up again in the news, yawn.
The personal details of more than 100 million Facebook users have been published on the internet.
Yes and why is this news? Those 100 million Facebook users gave their 'personal details' (happens to be name, gender, profile picture and locality) to Facebook on the internet. So, I am pretty sure that they were expecting to see their names on the internet.
Story Background: A security consultant put the list of users together using the Facebook Graph API. The dataset has now been uploaded to torrent sites allowing people easy access to the names and URLs of Facebook users.
So what is all the fuss about?
The data that has been collected is freely available via a search on Facebook or by a search engine. If people do not want their names 'published' on the internet, then they either need to:
Oh yes, it is that time of year again for a quick up haul of the CSS again! Updates include:
Horizantal Navigation
More Images
Bigger Images
Full use of width, whatever screen resolution
Page Tools
Better Browser Support (mainly IE)
What are you opinions?
The big job over the refurbishment was stepping back from HTML 5 tags section and article - the reason behind this was rendering in Internet Explorer.
I use Google Analytics on my site and recently read a post on forrst about browser versions and got interested in what my statistics say on visitors' browsers.
As the stats show, around 9% of my visitors are having a go with IE but up to now, would have seen a mess. So I would like to apologise and welcome you to this design. The word on the street is that Microsoft will be taking up some html 5 tags in the next version of it's famous browser. I am looking forward to seeing that
I found a great web design tool from a Mashable article called MockFlow. The flash based app allows you to design and test web layouts from scratch or from existing templates. The drag and drop interface is very easy to use and there are all kinds of different content types available to add to your design. For example: buttons, text, bullet lists, charts and lines etc.
I am trying out a few box ideas for an updated design to my homepage. You can share your designs with others, collaborate and export it to a variety of different formats including powerpoint and PDF.
With the ability to upload your own images, link to other pages with seperate designs and use already made common components, it is really quick and easy to put together a mockup of a site.
5209 - is the number of signed-in searches I have done on Google since 22nd June 2009 up to just now - late on 5th July 2010
You can check to see your statistics, if you have a Google account, over at Google History. You can also check out trends including most searched for terms, top clicked sites and search activity over time (mine shown here).
Yes I know! Googling your name may be a bit vain but also perhaps a good idea!
Perspective employers etc are likely to do a quick search for your name and you want your best to come up top rather than some rubbish. My site appears 4th on Bing and 11th on Google when queried with Dylan Jones. However, searching Dylan James Vernon Jones my Facebook page is top of Bing and nothing of me can be seen on Google. This may be due to the fact I do not have my full name in an easy to read format. It is embedded, however in a hCard on the home page.
UK phone network O2 has scrapped unlimited data downloads for smartphone customers. All new and upgrading customers will have their usage capped at between 500 Megabytes (MB) and one gigabyte (GB) depending on their monthly tariff. Analysts said the move was 'inevitable' as more and more consumers switch to data-intensive smartphones that can surf the web and show video.
Oh no! - or that's what I first thought but when I headed over to my iPhone to see what my 'Cellular Network Data' usage was like, I was quite shocked! The figures shown here are my total use over the whole life of my phone, which currently stands at 8 months.
So it looks like I am not within the 3% that will need to be worrying about the data caps.
Thinking about when I am downloading 'big things', mainly podcasts and music, I am on Wi-Fi. When travelling to Leeds, I did use the 3G connection quite heavily but it seems that what I was doing, was not that data intensive - good to know for the future.
These caps make sure that everyone gets a fair chance to use the network without the data hoggers ruining it for everyone.
Inspired by the fitfinder site, I wanted to make use of HTML 5's Geo Location API to allow a fast way for posting a comment at your location.
I looked into how to find out the name of a place after been given GPS co-ordinates by the browser. Google has a good API called reverse geocoding which you can submit co-ordinates to and get returned a nicely formatted address.
You also may want to search for a different place or may not have a HTML 5 compatible browser (IE) so need to enter your location manually - to do this the geocoding API was used. The user starts typing a place name and a search is done, returning a place name along with it's co-ordinates.
The Maps API then displays the location along with comments posted near there, +/-0.02 of its co-ordinates. You can then submit your own comment and move the marker to exactly where you are talking about.
All that is then stored in a database is the exact co-ordinates of the comment, the text and the time.
I can make your next web application whether it be a complex database driven system, or a simple static Web Site.
I have experience in most common web languages: HTML, CSS, PHP and Javascript. I have worked with a number of CMS' including Wordpress and Blogger.
From setting up web hosting, your personal web address, DNS management, Email through to database set-up, backup, storage - delivering your complete web application - I will find a solution.
I have worked with past companies and organisations to design, develop and deliver web solutions including:
The Big 5 Restaurant
Signpost Youth Project
University Radio York
So if you need fast, friendly, valid and functioning service - get in touch.
A browser check (by a php function found here) is done when landing on the homepage - if you do not have a GET variable called nomobile set and you are listed as a mobile browser then you are forwarded to m.dylanjones.info where you are presented with a simple overview of most things on the main site.
Currently [31/05/2010], in beta - the page does not link anywhere except back to the full version. However, cool things will happen soon
My latest little web application (doesn't actually really do anything yet) now finds out, as close as possible, where you are!
The Location Page will get your browser to ask for your permission to tell it where abouts you are. The spec can be found here. The piece of code I use is quite simply:
<script> $(document).ready(function(){ var latlong; function error(msg) { alert(msg); } function success(position) { latlong = position.coords.latitude +","+ position.coords.longitude; $("#location").html("<p style='text-align:center;'>
<img src='http://maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?center="+latlong+"&zoom=15&size=600x600&maptype=roadmap&sensor=false&markers=color:blue|label:A|"+latlong+"' title='You are here' alt='Map' /></p>
<p>Found you at: " + latlong + "</p>"); } navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(success, error); }); </script>
This piece of javascript not only requests the location from the browser but then, on success, updates the page with a static map from Google with a marker of your returned latitude and longitude.
Examples of use for this API would be local data, weather, news etc that could all take precedence on a page
foebook.co.uk has been updated today to give people a chance to voice there opinions on whether or not Facebook is a good or bad thing
The site asks the basic question: Friend or Foe?
Users can then add any comments they wish to make which in turn, gets displayed on the site for other users to see.
Why? - I bought the domain name a while ago and put together an app that you log into, make friends, award each other points on friendly actions, take points away for un-friendly actions etc. It wasn't very good.
This small and simple device gives an open place for constructive critisism or just silly comments on what may be the biggest online threat we have ever seen.
I am not sure who invented drag-and-drop but it has been with us I guess since the creation of the mouse. It was something that has never really made it to the world wide web, even though it is done day to day on the desktop.
HTML 5 now adds the draggable attribute allowing a simple method of getting the browser to do something when content is moved around the page. For an example, a list of things that you could move and order in preference.
I have add a little application to the front page of dylanjones.info where you can drag items from my interest bubble into a box which then displays some extra information relating to that item. This particluar example is not the best method to display added content as a click would be just as efficient but I wanted to give it a go.
The HTML for the draggable items is simply:
<span id='drag-2' descr='HTML5: I am learning about HTML5 as it comes out - it is great fun and provides lots of opportunities' draggable='true' ondrag='pickup(this)'>HTML5</span> <span id='drag-5' descr='Baking: I am very found of Bakery goods, mainly cake, cookies and sweet things' draggable='true' ondrag='pickup(this)'>Baking</span> <span id='drag-6' descr='Welsh: I lived in Wales for a long time' draggable='true' ondrag='pickup(this)'>Welsh</span> <span id='drag-8' descr='Student: I am a student' draggable='true' ondrag='pickup(this)'>Student</span>
The "dropbox" is defined as:
<div id="dropbox" ondrop="drop(this)" ondragenter="return false" ondragover="return false"> <p>drag and drop stuff from the cloud above here</p> </div>
Then javascript and jQuery does the rest:
<script type='text/javascript'>
var text = 'Error: Oh Balls';
function pickup(target) {
text = $(target).attr('descr');
}
function drop() {
$('#dropbox').html('<p>' + text + '</p>');
}
</script>
Very simple indeed!
To summarise: you add draggable=true to elements you wish to drag, on drag you trigger an event, make a dropbox or use an image or something that then triggers an event ondrop - easy peasy
I have taken this journey twice each working day for this last academic year (2009/10). I wondered how many miles and hours I have spent on the big blue buses.
Distances
Distance per Journey
34 miles
Distance per Day
68 miles
Total Distance
68 miles x 5 days x 30 weeks = 10200
This total distance covered is equivalent to just under the distance between London, UK and Sydney, Australia
Cost
Cost per Bus Pass
£80
Total Cost
£80 x 7 = £560
Petrol Costs
10200mi x 35mpg x 105p = £1391.10
Taking the bus has cost 40% of what it would have cost for fuel alone if I had a car
Time
Time per Journey
70 minutes
Total Time
£70 x 2 x 30 x 5 = 14.58 days
Final percentage for you: the time I have spent on the bus is equilavent to 4% of my whole year!
URY are delighted to announce STORNOWAY as the headline act for our summer term music event.
2009 saw Stornoway win the 'Best Artist' award at BBC Radio One's Big Weekend, play alongside the likes of Dave Grohl and Jay Z on 'Later with Jool's Holland' and receive the honour of playing Glastonbury's famous Pyramid Stage. Towards the end of 2009, Stornoway were announced as entrants onto the long list of the BBC's Sound of 2010 competition having been selected by a panel of some 165 UK-based 'tastemakers'. So not a bad year by any means.
Visitors to DylanJones.info will have noticed colour! A long awaited feature to the site. Specifically #3399CC and yellow. As I only allow visits from compatible browsers (ie not IE), I have also added rounded borders to the two main sections of the page. This has been implemented by adding: -moz-border-radius: 5px; -webkit-border-radius: 5px;
A nav element has also been added into the top header, currently linking to the 3 main places on the site. I am debating whether to add a more specific A-Z or Sitemap for machines to read alongside humans.
An A-Z may be best suited to go down in the global footer of the site now, along with a search bar of some kind.
The new BBC Homepage has been released today aswell.
With my tastes changing frequently, I change the look and layout of my site quite often. I am going to look into a way of archiving the image of the homepage so I have a record of all the different variants.
http://corz.org/serv/tricks/htaccess2.php has a great walkthrough of loads of different tips and tricks of using the .htaccess files to make a better web application
I have managed to crack the OAuth thing that Facebook has taken up to authenticate web apps calling their new Graph API. I found it quite simple actually.
Before you can make restricted requests, you need to be first issued with an auth_token. To get one you need to send a request to: https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/authorize?client_id=YOUR_APP_ID&redirect_uri=YOUR_APP_URL&scope=LIST_OF_OBJECTS
LIST_OF_OBJECTS is where you comma delimit the list of things you will want to access (ie events,photos,email etc). The call returns a code which you then use along with your secret to retrieve the auth_token http://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token?client_id=YOUR_APP_ID&redirect_uri=YOUR_APP_URL&client_secret=YOUR_APP_SECRET&code=THE_CODE
The auth_token is then returned along with an expiry countdown in seconds. This can then be added to any API calls for which you need permission.
I have used just one PHP script to do everything. It just checks if its receiving instructions by the user to make a call as a GET variable else goes along through the authentication procedure until an auth_token is set
Last week, Facebook announced some interesting things at their F8 conference. Their BIG plan for the world is to make it a more social and personalized web. With this in mind they have released a few tools to help the world.
Starting first with their big initiative, the Graph API which is the foundation of the new API.
{
"data": [
{
"id": "512982904_427382302904",
"from": {
"name": "Dylan Jones",
"id": "512982904"
},
"message": "And that's the end of that chapter! (that chapter is maths by the way)",
"icon": "http://photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-sf2p/v43/53/146139331013/app_2_146139331013_1286.gif",
"attribution": "TweetDeck for iPhone",
"actions": [
{
"name": "Get TweetDeck",
"link": "http://www.tweetdeck.com"
}
],
"created_time": "2010-04-30T10:01:30+0000",
"updated_time": "2010-04-30T10:01:30+0000",
"likes": 2
},
{
"id": "512982904_119487514744084",
"from": {
"name": "Dylan Jones",
"id": "512982904"
},
"message": "What's that coming over the hill, is it a monster, is it a monster?",
"created_time": "2010-04-29T21:14:12+0000",
"updated_time": "2010-04-29T21:14:12+0000",
"likes": 2 . . . . . . . . . . . .
Using OAuth 2.0 as authentication, you can get more data, if not everything you could possibly want from events, friends, likes etc. More information is available from the documentation on Facebook's Developers site.
I have already put to use this graph API to cache my public facebook messages on my database for inclusion in my live feed on this site located at: me.dylanjones.info For this I just use the json_decode() function in PHP.
Facebook also announced other things such as social plugins inluding their plan to get a 'Like' button on every page online. Some extra metadata is required for web pages to describe content to facebook, rather than using existing protocols - I did try this on dylanjones.info but it is not valid html so I removed it hastily.
More thoughts and uses for the new Facebook Platform later today.
Welcome to May, it should be bringing lots of new and interesting things in the form of dylanjones.info
With the last blog post months ago, I begin with an apology, although I don't really mean it because I wasn't a serious blogger before. That's not to say I am now but I would like to take this particular medium more seriously.
With that in mind, I am putting together a series of posts that will be published this weekend. These will include the recent changes made to the website, the vision for the future and details on projects I have been working on recently.
So, with that in mind, keep an eye out for future posts soon
Hello - I have created 2 seperate nodes (node1 and node2) as subdomains on dylanjones.info where I shall be experimenting with different things slighty seperate from the main site. This is mainly to try and keep everything nice and tidy. I wrote a ruby application yesterday - It said "Hello" - very complicated stuff.
My laptop has been experiencing some difficulties recently. Not that unusual. However I do not want to loose any more work, photos, music etc so I have acquired a NEW pc from computer recycling at York University. It is running ubuntu 9,10 and is so quite well. The rescue operation of my stuff has begun - starting with my music collection. It is actually an upgrade as the PC has a bigger hard drive, faster processor, more RAM, an extra CD drive, more USB connections, a gigabit ethernet card and more...
Yesterday afternoon I moved the sgnpost website over to it's new home on 000webhost. This was basically moving where the domain was- previously it just pointed at the pages but now the URL is registered on 000webhosts nameservers.
In the process I made a few bug fixes, especially some in the admin section. And added php includes for prehtml, head, navigation and footer. They also got moved into a folder of their own too keep out of the way. The only regret is I have is including the end head tag within the head php file as now adding extra script to a page has become more difficult. Further plans include user based login incorporated with openid and hopefully fb connect. This is one of the main reasons for the prehtml file - to do cookies and login data etc.
Other quick fixes need to be done to css, scrpt and things and almost all the images on site need to be re-done. That's about it for now- oh new twitter feed for them: @signpostyouth and flickr photo account coming soon too
I am currently sharing all my projects on my site but I would like to open it up even more and show you how I did stuff. I know I comment here on my blog when I send stuff but it will be almost impossible to find out how stuff is done and add to it. I am going to research into hosting the code somewhere safe along with some clear documentation
That's correct, I'm coming to you today from not the internet, not my phone, nor some other crazy way but through a lone piece of software called "Blog Entry Poster" It's for Linux as that's what I'm on these days. It's OK - It's a box that you can write a post in. Just what I needed really.
Website Updates include a new little 'Dylan' on the left-hand side whom appears to be talking to you! He's saying my latest Tweet / Facebook status for you - lovely.
I got an invite for Google Wave (thanks Gareth!) - with minimal numbers of people - being collaboratively creative is hard but they have given me 8 invitations to send to people so if you want one then please do ask... Expect a re-hash on the old projects section soon - I'm going to make it a little more beautiful and easy and mainly add some University content too for your pleasure.... coming soon-ish. Haven't really thought of anything yet but I'll start! So let's see what this post looks like......
NOTE: I had to edit it because it put it into loads of paragraphs and didn't have a title - That piece of software has had a short life
You may have noticed the reduced loading time on my homepage dylanjones.info -- this is due to cache.php which runs every 10 minutes getting all the bits of info from flickr, twitter, lastfm etc instead of calling them on every page load. Nice One!
Have you ever wanted to talk to me from the website? No, well you can now anyway! In the top bar there is now a little speech bubble with the word 'chat' now available to everyone! Click on it and if I'm online - it will open a little web chat client and we can have real-time conversations!
So I have a couple of months of iPlayer use data, what to do with it?
There may be a few interesting trends starting to appear if I start to analyze them. Such as when, how often and for how long do I use the service; days of the week, times of day- that kind of thing . It should be interesting but, it would be really good if I could do some kind of mashup of the data.
I do know when I was in Wales over Christmas which I could include in a map or using the BBC Programmes data, look more into what I was actually watching. Which actors, directors do I watch the most? Which channel, radio station etc?
If the data is available- look into favourite genres, locales, and the rest of it.
Has anyone else done a similar project?
What interesting data can be pulled up here?
Talking of linked data, I intend to publish an interactive, more accurate 'My Linked Web' map soon, maybe, hopefully.
If you are a user of an iPhone then you may find this little tip quite helpful. if you keep getting an annoying popup whenever you loose network saying, "No Network" and have to keep dismissing then follow these steps to disable it.
Visitors of dylanjones.info will have noticed a change in the 'tone' - haha - good one! It's gone all grey (or gray in CSS terms)
With this week quite quiet except for revision, I have had some time to sort the pages out, tidy up some of the old stuff and bring in the new. The main reason for doing so is standards compliance. I have looked into my crystal ball to see what is up and coming and thought ahead so to keep this version of the framework lasting a long time. The answer was clear: HTML 5
I have converted all my output to the HTML 5 Spec (draft) so when it does come - I'm ready!
"But if it is not a here- why use it?"
The main reason is, most decent browsers have HTML 5 support. By decent I mean Firefox, Chrome, Safari. If you are using Internet Explorer then I'm not sure what you'll see when you load this website.
"What is new then?"
The doctype (not very interesting), the header and nav elements are being put to use; I am looking forward to experimenting with databse, location, audio, video and canvas tags in the coming future.
So with all this I went along and checked, re-checked and indeed validated all my pages. Obviously my lovely web hosting service (000 Webhost) have decided to add a script to the end of all my files outside of the end html tag so that throws up 2 errors but all my stuff is clean! I am now also WAI compliant - meaning that I am accessible to everyone (with a decent browser).
I will introduce a bit of colour (color in CSS) soon but for now I'm going to validate all my API output for standard RSS viewers to be able to display the information rather than having people to develop their own reader. I will document this when it arrives.
I have been working hard to try and get everything linked and talking together. I have got a copy of all my tweets and tracks I play, wether it be on iPhone, PC, internet, LastFM etc. This is all copied over to db1 now and thus will be accessible through the API. I havn't quite got all the way - still to do is to check for new tweets and the API bit - but it's a work in progress.
With this data I will be coming up with a syncronised stats page eventually that will update itself making calls from the API, very nice!
HTML 5
I have also completed transferring the whole website over to HTML 5 - obviously with it still in development, a lot more changes need to be made but I'm currently going through the syntax and getting rid on 'divs'.
The picture above shows how linked my stuff is so far - I'm sure it will be expanding as time goes on!
A little hint on what is going to be released in the next few days... more API....more music..... more interactivity!
Firstly- a have just released a little tool for you to use QR Code Generator is just a nice easy tool for you and me to make image shortcuts. I have been trying it out on my phone with the same software that I had on my old Sony Ericcson i-nigma.
Secondly- I have been very busy databasing my music library. As with the blog, I am copying things to a MySQL database for easy peasy access to my content. This will feature on the API soon so look out.
Also been watching some hak5 and done a load of revision!
You are reading my blog - hosted 100% on dylanjones.info with tags and comments gallore. Why?
I have been developing the API, I have so far completed track, photo, help, twitter, contact, password manager, user and just minutes ago blog.
If you visit api.dylanjones.info you can see exactly how you can access data through my API, everything is returned as xml as a result. You can make a query which has a method (the things mentioned above), an object and attribute. Not all methods have objects/attributes but all that can be seen from the help. The structure is easy peasy
api.dylanjones.info/method/object/attribute
and thats it!
One of the main features of the API is it's superfast as all it's returning is database entries. This is the main reason for the API - to access data outside of this website domain where you can't get into the database. I can now just make calls to the API from any domain and cache that for super speedy results.
The Blog - this is why I have had to recover all my blog posts from Google. I have taken the opportunity to put together a really fast and more superior blogging system that allows for tags and comments. With this now all posts are available straight from the address bar. Similar to the API, their is a very nice schematic way of accessing the blog.
dylanjones.info/blog takes you to the last 20 entries
dylanjones.info/blog/all gives you all posts
dylanjones.info/blog/tag/a tag gives you all posts relating to that tag
dylanjones/blog/id/34 is the unique url for each individual article
There may be even more ways of accessing posts in the future, we shall see. I shall see be posting to Google Blogger hopefully, this is a test post to see if it's possible - we'll have to see how all the html tags go down over on the other side.
As ever the code will be up and available eventually, I'm going to start editing and commenting code tomorrow with any luck after some revision.
Over the past couple of days there have been quite a few minor changes and some dig developments for dylanjones.info Firstly the little things:
i) The projects page now comes with a little description on each of the links via a little drop down (well, just appears at the moment) link. Try it out and suggest some improvements.
ii) Feedback - There is now a little feedback box on the right hand side, feel free to click it and see what it's all about
iii) Avatars - If you have one with gravatar then you will have it displayed next to your name. You must have the same e-mail address registered with me and gravatar
Secondly some of the major upgrades:
i) iPlayer - I use iPlayer to watch programmes. Previous attempts to record what I watch with cookies etc has been a hassle. So, I have added a new project - iPlayer Episodes (name to be changed soon). I have started recording the programme identifiers to my database and now use them to identify programmes that I have seen in a nice little (ever growing) table. Using PHP to read metadata from the BBC website, I have also got the title and description for each episode I watch and provide links back to iPlayer and /programmes on the BBC website. Further development to this will be coming soon, again suggestions welcome.
ii) The launch of the dylanjones.info API - Horray - more information will be along soon but for now just go have a play api.dylanjones.info
I have done a mini project involving a scheduler system for assigning times for people. The user adds a persons details, then get assigned an id; the user can then edit the times the person is available and a relationship is given to that persons id and the time id. A calender is then written to check each timeslot for an available user and draws a picture. Very nice and colourful.
On the site now you can log in with your OpenID, you will authenticate via your provider and then you are logged into my site until you press logout or you close your session (browser window). When logged in you are greeted by a currently ugly account page which shows you the data I hold against you from your OpenID. You can add to, edit, remove any of these from there. Any changes you make will only be specific to this website and not your OpenID. You can then use the network tool page to update your own social networking status, I'm going to add LastFM account field so that we can compare musical tastes; flickr account aswell to see some of your public photos too if you want.
I have started adding permission settings to pages that needed them: for example the network tool now only works if your logged in and have provided your social networking details; the podcast submission form is only accesible to what I'm calling level 9 permissions - which is currently me!
Any other ideas to share stuff for fun, let me know - drop me an e-mail dylan@dylanjones.info
So.... When you are logged in and have specified your LastFM username then my site works out our similar tastes in music providing a percentage to about 10 decimal places for some reason! If your not logged in our have not provided your LastFM dteails or ofcourse you do not have LastFM then it just displays my information so do not worry about a blank page - dylanjones.info/projects/LastFM.php
Well, I have got it to work - OpenID on my site, give it a go!
I used the library that was the original suggestion offa the openid enabbled site. It didn't take much editing, I have just used the example file. At the moment, when you initially log in you get given an id and your data is stored from sreg into my db, you the get a cookie which lets me know whom you are! If you sign in again, you have the same number and your details are stored.
A few things with this at the moment, your id will expire in 30mins; your data is not updated if it changes, some permissions need to be added and a db fetch function for name, birthday etc!!
You may or maynot know that I use dylanjones.info as an openid- well I have been thinking of having a login portal on my site so people can use my projects for their own accounts.
For example, the lastfm app can show your info, you can access your flickr photos and share them etc
So first thing to do was to get me able to authenticate someone via openid. Yesterday I was trying a few different php libraries to no real avail - there was always some include missing or in the wrong place.
Anywhom I decided on going to a 3rd party authenticator. This has meant there's alot of to-ing the frowing of tokens and keys and what not.
On the bus this morning, I hope I have found the solution I was looking for. I needed to get the XML result of a http post:
These are going very nicely! I have a working prototype in my projects area. It currently has 4 albums but not all the photos show I think. Im about to count them now!
With our BT Broadband package, we have access to Flickr pro so I have begun uploading all my pics there where they are stored in their high resolution. With this it means, they no longer have to be hosted here so we shall see a migration towards a more specific photo gallery looking pretty neat. I\'m either going to use a standard rss feed for each set or going to have a delve into their API
I'm sorry I've been away for so long but we are back to basics now.
Started at the University of Leeds and am still working on making
little web apps as a hobby.
Going to tidying up this site a bit so to perhaps get some more work
If you're interested in hiring me out- feel free to contact me
<- contact details
It's been a while but basically just moved house in York so it's taken a while to get everything back up and running now.
Here is the update. Artist Info on my website is coming along fabulously - if you go to dylanjones.info/radio/music (may put it up a level) and enter an artist name you will get, photo, bio, releases, reviews, videos, events - what more could you want!
Signpost has had a re-shuffle towards the 3 coloumn layout they were looking for. Havn't tested it out on a widescreen display but I am quietly confident! It looks good and now has an added site feedback form.
I have the intention of adding the requested contact page and also 'fun & games' which hopefully incorporate more web based activities.
Just been to the cinema to see The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
It was really good actually. Enough action to psycological thriller for my liking. The characters were pretty likeable.
Webwise - I have been starting and scrapping a few things:
'Now Playing on URY' has been having quite a bit of success. Working on vista production machine-ish. Needs a bit more intelligence. When a song overlaps another etc, shouldn't be to hard to do but a working process thats on pause for a few days as I have dedicated all of this weeks nights to it and have turned into an owl.
'Visual Radio' - I have played around with hosting my own flash server, worked a little but needs to much config, power etc so going with the java .tv hosting site which works well. Going to add some seperate controls for poll, images and texting to make it less complicated. The spirit pc is streaming 24 hours a day s1 webcam, hasnt really failed yet! Althoughm just checked now and it's down -oops!
Signpost - I have been trying out some upload scripts to see if we can create an admin interface to add photos. May have to use an external site such as picsa or whatever it's called. Would be better, more professional so that needs testing.
Last.fm - I have joined and have added a URY account, hope to try and tie in the Now Playing information so to keep it updated.
Thats about it from me, work tomorrow 9-5 (dont rob me)
So, still living it up in Llandrindod before I head back up North. While here I have made a lot of progress on Signpost. New content includes the 'Think Safe' section incorporating a drink unit calculator, drug of the month etc.
Visually some adjustments have been made too, the rounded corners have bit the dust until the official, compatible css comes out for IE. The stripped back background has gone and a yellow bigger background has appeared covering more of the page.
The only current problem seems to be content being fixed so that it doesn't get bigger with the page.
I have also re-tidyed the head - passing variables (title + description) by php did not work so titles + descriptions are set manually out on each page.
Would have liked to do some testing on the visual player but my laptop remains in safe-mode. Got it to boot up yesterday but then it over heated in the middle of torchwood and now we're back to basics :(
I have successfully moved out of 121 and into storage. It was a bit of a mammoth task with Big D and everything but I made it. Thursday was Little D - live OB from outside Heslington Hall. It was really good fun. Had to go to work that evening 'till finish. Last shift before 'holiday'.
After work, went on to DJ at the silent disco at Big D - sooo much fun. Kicked ass.
Stayed up all night packing, getting pretty tired by this stage. Had 2 hours sleep, started moving things to storage at 8.30 AM. Finished by 11.30am and the massive cleanup ensued.
Took Alice to train station for 3.30, getting pretty very tired. Made it home to relax a little, have a sleep.
Woke up, cleaned and cooked, moved rest of my stuff up to URY for the week Made it to Sinclair's to give the keys and paperwork back, ate some cake there.
Went to URY, met Gareth - took the station off air and then indeed apart! I fell asleep around 2am, he kept going. Got up at 5 for train, fell asleep missed Shrewsbury stop, had to get bus from Hereford but made it back just about alive!
Looking forward to my few days here in Llandrindod! Boom, there you go!
The past weekend has been crazy! - WOODSTOCK, Work and not sleeping have been the themes. I have just caught some sleep this past night.
Thursday work till late, go to ury to record show and set up for warm-up, locked out - fail.
Friday morning goto work, finish at 4 and head to ury to help with sessions. Success.
Finish sessions and start setting up for woodstock - success.
Sort out equipment for JCR stage 3 and then help put up gazebos outside - sleep on stage - semi-success!
Wake up ridiculously early and sort out wires, get all set up at station and in ob studio. Try and explain to presenters what everything does (not really listening - get a bit annoyed) go try and sort out multi-core for mixing - Fail!
But the day went very well, I had to go to work at 5pm so missed the evening party. Got locked in at work, broke out set the alarms off, got back in to silence them, had to stay until an engineer came out to fix it. Went to ury to pack up wires with Martynm home to bed for 4 hours and then went back to work!
A person asked me the other day if I had a blog, I said no. Now I can say for certain, yes!
Over the past months, I have been trying to put together a decent web presence where I can put my photos, my calender, documents, music, links, files and all that jazz. I have tried a few different things out - wordpress, dynamicDNS, 000webhost, google. They each have their merits and their annoyances so I really want to create something different!
My current project at the moment has a purpose! signpostyouthproject.info
I have had the opportunity to experiment with different things, PHP, jQuery, XHTML, Facebook Connect and all that kind of stuff. So farm it's looking pretty good, although still lacking quite a lot of content. The A-Z of Drugs is coming along slowly while the video and audio blogs have come to a stand still.
So, that doesn't really answer my question of why a blog?
I think it is somewhere I have decided on, hopefully will stay in one place! Expect a running comentry on all my web development, mainly so that later in a few months when I decide - ooh I liked that particular thing when I did that, I know what I did and have some basis to google off! So for know - tara!
