I Can Haz Awesome

Posted on Tuesday, October 07, 2008 @ 16:55 CET

While in Brighton during Flash on the Beach I got to hang out with David Stone, aka @builtbydave as I knew him, who along with Josh Russell are the guys behind icanhaz.com. If you haven't used iCanHaz its like TinyURL or bit.ly on steroids.

So lets start at the top, TinyURL is great because it creates, ahem, tiny URLs from long ass ones. So the URL to your Google Maps search for Oslo may be http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=oslo&ie=UTF8&z=9&iwloc=addr, but if you were gonna post that to Twitter you'd run out of characters fast. Using TinyURL you can convert that same link to http://tinyurl.com/3r4wmy. Pretty cool and bit.ly does the same thing, except it accepts norwegian characters too while TinyURL seems to choke on these.

All well and good but the code after http://tinyurl.com/ is hardly memorable. Enter iCanHaz. If I want to make a tiny URL to http://paulofierro.com I can use http://tinyurl.com/4lx94j, but with iCanHaz I can have http://icanhaz.com/paulo. How cool is that? And easier to remember too.

The length of those is pretty close though so its not that much of a time saver. But this is where iCanHaz reveals its true power. Try http://icanhaz.com/google/kittens or http://icanhaz.com/w/Calculus. The first one searches Google for kittens and the second link searches Wikipedia for Calculus. Ok, you can already do this your browser's search bar but that's not the cool part, iCanHaz supports dynamic parameters!

This means you can set up your own custom dynamic URLs. For example, if you want to search this blog for posts on "flex" you have to do the following:

goto http://paulofierro.com
type "flex" into search box
hit search

Or simply goto http://icanhaz.com/paulo/flex. To search Seb's blog for "papervision" posts, simply goto http://icanhaz.com/seb/papervision. I think that's pretty sweet :)

Setting up your own is simple:

goto http://icanhaz.com
set up a link to your site first, just in case people don't want to do a search, so point http://icanhaz.com/yoursite to http://www.yoursite.com/
find out how the search works on your site. It might be yoursite.com/?q=XXX or yoursite.com/cgi-bin/search.pl?XXX, etc where XXX is the search term
now forward http://icanhaz.com/yoursite/%s to http://yoursite.com/?q=%s (if that's how your search works)

To test that I remembered this correctly I forwarded http://icanhaz.com/flashmag/%s to http://www.google.com/custom?domains=www.flashmagazine.com&q=%s&submit.x=0&submit.y=0&client=pub-1013303726815967&forid=1&sitesearch=www.flashmagazine.com&channel=5419954328&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&flav=0000&sig=-b0bDMPNCXP_y3ci&cof=.... etc, etc, etc

Phew. So to search FlashMagazine for Away3D posts, you can simply go to http://icanhaz.com/flashmag/away3d.

And this is only search.

As far as I know it only accepts one parameter at the moment and you need to drop your email address in case you want to edit the URL it points to at a later date since this is still a manual process but its still damn cool.

So here's a short list of iCanHaz tips Dave showed me:

/w/XXX - searches Wikipedia
/google/XXX - searches Google
/mp3/XXX - searches for MP3s
/nonreplies/XXX - searches for mentions of @XXX on Twitter that aren't direct replies
/skype-add/XXX - adds XXX as a Skype contact
/skype/XXX - calls XXX with Skype

Yup, Skype support. It does this by using the skype:// pseudo-protocol which works if you have Skype installed.

I was telling Dave how this was awesome because the link to Mike Chamber's Flash Platform Community Chat™ used a long XMPP URL (xmpp:flashplatform_chat@conference.mikechambers.com?join) which you could use to join via a chat app that supported XMPP like Adium. At the time there was no support for it but a few minutes later Dave set it up and now iCanHaz does XMPP so to join the chat simply goto http://icanhaz.com/flashchat.

I also made /file/XXX. That displays a simple page with a link to the file so you can right-click to save it. Its kinda useful from time to time.

Anyways, that's it for me. If you have more tips please drop them in the comments and if you like iCanHaz join the Facebook fan club.

- paulo

FUGN Talk - TubeTheVote.com case study

Posted on Tuesday, October 07, 2008 @ 13:41 CET

Yesterday at the monthly Flash User Group Norway meet-up I did a quick case study on TubeTheVote.com. Going through the reasoning behind the project and how it was put together, going a little more in-depth than my previous post on it.

I tried to cover the following:

architecture
RSL's and why they rock
Cairngorm and the reasoning why IMO it also rocks (no pun)
dynamic string-based instantiation (damn that sounds hardcore) using getDefinitionByName and ClassFactory
hijacking packets with Charles using breakpoints, and Charles in general
sharing classes using LoaderContext and ApplicationDomain

Sadly Perk was sick so he couldn't go through his Papervision3D renderer he built for it, but hopefully he'll be able to go through that at next month's meet-up.

Anyway, you can get the slides here (with notes so it makes sense) and the links I refer to in the slides are in the list above.

- paulo

FlexBuilder dialog fail

Posted on Tuesday, October 07, 2008 @ 13:15 CET

Yesterday I was trying to activate my copy Flex Builder 3 and came across even more dialog box fail. Spot the error for 10 points.

- paulo

iTunes dialog fun

Posted on Thursday, September 25, 2008 @ 02:46 CET

So I was trying to update some iPhone apps earlier seeing that I had 3 updates available in iTunes. Clicking the "Download all free udpates" didn't work - I kept getting some kind of error. Figuring it was some weird bug I just pressed the "Get Free Update" button for each app and managed to get the following dialog, showing that yes even Apple gets it wrong sometimes:

- paulo

Tube The Vote!

Posted on Friday, September 19, 2008 @ 15:48 CET

So the last project I was working on before I left my old job was soft-launched a couple weeks ago - well the user/password combo that was previously required was removed. In any case, my designer-turned-developer friend Per Kristian Stoveland wrote a post on his blog about it.

The project's goal was to combine user generated content found on the web using API's from YouTube, Twitter and Flickr alongside editorial content to create a one-stop election shop. We were sitting around trying to decide what to call this thing and I thought, well, since we were combining content from YouTube and talking politics like Rock The Vote!, how about Tube The Vote? Half-joking, but it stuck and I think kinda works. In any case, check it out!

So for the technical stuff. The MagWerk Engine itself was rewritten from scratch for AVM2. Its a Flex 3 app, built using Cairngorm that connects to an AMF-PHP back-end where the services reside. Using Cairngorm and therefore following a strict MVC pattern meant that the actual displaying of the magazine was completely separate from the rest of the engine. This means that the model could be represented however you wanted to and for this particular project they decided to go with a Cooliris (formerly PicLens) style look and feel using Papervision.

Fun fact: The rendering class is actually decided by the back-end, which sends over a fully qualified class name as a String which is instantiated at runtime, making it quite flexible. There's an internal API that allows the renderer to register with the controller and vice-versa. Now at the moment the rendering classes are compiled as part of the project, but they could always be externalized. In other words, compiled as separate modules and loaded in on-demand at runtime for uber-awesomeness.

Anyways, building that engine was one of the most interesting projects I've worked on so I think it would make an pretty good case study. In any case if you live in the Oslo area come by for the next FUGN meeting on October 6 where we will be going through the application, showing how it was put together and where to get the duct-tape :)

- paulo

Going back to Brighton - FOTB '08 sessions

Posted on Wednesday, September 17, 2008 @ 11:10 CET

Next Thursday I'm off to Brighton for Flash on the Beach '08. Last year was an absolute blast so I'm really looking forward to heading back to the pebble beach and kick back for a few days and get inspired. I tried once again to put together a plan for what sessions I want to catch, but like last year there are a few slots where I'm still undecided.

However I will be paying attention to the lessons learned from yesteryear and show up earlier to the Papervision 3D sessions since those filled up really quickly, as did Mario's. Anyways, here we are:

- paulo

Now co-managing FUGN

Posted on Friday, September 05, 2008 @ 11:09 CET

This past Monday Flash User Group Norway had the first post-summer get together where we put together a board to take over the finances of the old Macromedia User Group (was that really 2 years ago, oh how the time flies) and elected new managers. I was voted in as Co-Manager (after rigging the voting machines) and will be helping out Øystein Wika out with his duties, along with spreading the word and trying to improve our get togethers.

Flex Camp Oslo

I believe its also the first time we publicly announced details about the upcoming Flex Camp Oslo event we're organizing. Details are still being put together but we have a date and a venue - October 18 @ NITH in Oslo (map).

If you or someone you know is interested in speaking or sponsoring the event please send an email to info@flexcampnorway.com. We're looking for talks on Flex/Flash/AS3 both from a developer and a designer point of view. More info about Flex Camp Norway is coming soon so keep posted!

And yes, that was translated from the FUGN post for you non-Norwegian speakers :) A little more info can be found here.

Flash on the Beach

Lastly, only 20 days left until we fly off to Brighton for Flash on the Beach! Ticket sales end today so if you haven't got your ticket yet, what the hell are you waiting for :) If you or your boss needs a better understanding of why you have to be there, read up on Jensa's review of last year over on Flash Magazine.

- paulo

Return of the FUGN

Posted on Thursday, August 28, 2008 @ 10:30 CET

After a summer hiatus Flash User Group Norway is back next monday for, as Øystein put it, "season 2". Will Chris make it out of rehab? Will BG put everything on the line? Is skateboarding just a new hobby or is Jensa going through a midlife crisis? All these questions will be answered and more (unlike that POS Lost) along with some Flash/Flex/AIR/etc talk, all over a few beers and pizza. If you live in the general Oslo area (i.e Norway), come on down!

More info here, along with posts by Jensa here and Martin here.

And a classic:

- paulo

Time flies but I ain't dead!

Posted on Monday, August 25, 2008 @ 11:51 CET

Not sure how two months flew by since my last post but figured an "I'm not dead" post was in order. So lets see - I left my job at Blogform Digital Magazines, enjoyed a month of sunny vacation here in Oslo (with a little rain thrown in) and visited a childhood friend of mine over in Riga, Latvia.

On August 1 I joined the UX department of Tarantell where I'm doing Flash/Flex consulting. I'm lucky to work alongside some very smart and talented people which is exciting to say the least. Before I forget here comes the obvious disclaimer - any views or opinions posted here, past, present or in the future do not reflect those of my employer but you knew that because you're a smart cookie :)

Since my mom got married this week, we have family visiting from Chile and other friends from around the world. So that along with the new gig leaves very little time left over, so if anything check me on Twitter.

Not doing anything Friday? Come to the dOMi release gig @ John Dee. Get your tickets here!

Update: Fixed a broken link. Thanks to Magnar :)

- paulo