dyl.anjon.es

Stream

Adding openid to site

Hello!

You may or may not know that I use dyl.anjon.es 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 a lot of to-ing the frowning 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:

$reply = curl_exec($ch); $xml = simplexml_load_string($reply);

This apparently won't work if the response is an array but I'll give it a bash in a bit in Leeds

Hooray!!!

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 enabled 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!!

OpenID Update

Hello!

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 dyl@anjon.es

Valid CSS

Hello, this site is now 100% valid CSS 2.1

Looking forward to CSS 3.0 with corners!

LastFM

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 details or of course you do not have LastFM then it just displays my information so do not worry about a blank page - dyl.anjon.es/music/listens

MEG Scheduler

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.

Big and Little Improvements

Merry Wednesday everyone!

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

API and New Blog

Howdy!

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 that's 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.

Keep Watching!

QR Code Generator

Merry Christmas to you!

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!

Linked Web

Linked Web Map

Hello!

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 New Look - Standards

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.

Blog Title

This is some example text that you can edit inside the TinyMCE editor.

iPhone Network Tip

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.

settings -> network -> automatic

iPlayer Statistics

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.

Nodes

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.

Ubuntu - New Laptop

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...

Signpost Website Update

Hello,

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 Facebook 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, script 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

Wiki or KB or something

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

From My Desktop

Hello to you from my desktop!

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.

J Query Fade Code

I have been looking for some jQuery that does just this simple fade between images: here

Wooooosh!

You may have noticed the reduced loading time on my homepage dyl.anjon.es -- 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!

Chat From Website

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!

New for May 2010

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

Facebook Graph - Creating a Social Web

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.

This is a fantastically easy way to get machine readable (JSON) real-time information from FB. An example:
http://graph.facebook.com/dylanjamesvernonjones

{ "id": "512982904", "name": "Dylan Jones", "first_name": "Dylan", "last_name": "Jones", "link": "http://www.facebook.com/dylanjamesvernonjones" }

You get some basic information on me. You can delve deeper into my life by getting my news feed by calling :
http://graph.facebook.com/dylanjamesvernonjones/feed

{ "data": [ { "id": "512982904_427382302904", "from": { "name": "Dylan Jones", "id": "512982904" }, "message": "And thats 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": "Whats 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.