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Make Your Site An iPhone App

By Adam DuVander November 19, 2008 Categories: Mobile

Webmonkey in an iPhoneYou can get most of the benefits of an iPhone application without writing a single line of Objective C. An open source project called PhoneGap lets your wrap your website in iPhone App goodness. And you can even charge for your creation.

Even more exciting than being able to easily create an app is getting access to some native iPhone APIs. Currently PhoneGap supports JavaScript access to the user’s location and the device accelerometer. Camera and vibration are still in the works.

There’s talk of being able to use a web form to create your app by submitting only the URL of your website. Currently, it’s a little more work, but easier than creating an app from scratch. You’ll still need to download the SDK and write your app in Apple’s XCode. The PhoneGap wiki has a hello world tutorial that should get you started.

One really cool aspect of the PhoneGap project is that it also supports Android and Blackberry. A write-once approach to mobile development is within grasp of the ordinary web developer.

[via John Resig]

See also:


Tags: android, iPhone
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Let My Maps Be Your Geo Database

By Adam DuVander November 19, 2008 Categories: Platforms & APIs

Toss out that MySQL book. The only thing you need to store location data is Google Maps.

My Maps is a feature that lets you create your own mashup on a map. Once a map is created, it can be shared with a link, or in Google Earth with a KML file. And now, it is also available via RSS–GeoRSS, to be more specific.

My Maps UI for GeoRSS

GeoRSS from MyMapsWhile viewing any My Map, click the RSS link to see the GeoRSS version of the map. In addition to all the other information about points on the map, such as business name and address, you get latitude and longitude coordinates.

This RSS feed can then be read in by any script you write instead of making a database call. The Google Maps API can even call GeoRSS files directly, loading all your locations in a single line.

[via Tony Hirst]

See also:


Tags: georss, maps
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Revamped CitySearch Makes Facebook Connect Look Useful

By Scott Gilbertson November 19, 2008 Categories: Software & Tools

citysearch betaCitySearch probably isn’t your go-to site for local searches. While the site can be useful, its current interface is more likely to start you reminiscing about the old Geocities network, than inspire a return visit.

But CitySearch is hoping to change that perception with a new beta version that brings the site up to web 2.0 speed with Facebook Connect integration, a coming iPhone app and much expanded local coverage.

The most noticeable change on the beta site is that CitySearch has re-organized itself by neighborhoods rather than just cities. In other words, you can now drill down all the way into, say, Chelsea, rather than just Manhattan. In short, CitySearch has taken a tip from our favorite local site EveryBlock.

Naturally the quality of the neighborhood-specific listings will vary by city and smaller towns rarely have neighborhood listings, but to give you some idea of the scale this change brings, consider that CitySearch previously listed 140 cities; the new beta site will cover 75,000 neighborhoods when it officially launches.

The other big news is the Facebook Connect integration. The most obvious use here is that you can write reviews on CitySearch using your Facebook username and password (and, if you allow it, Connect will put those reviews in your Facebook feed).

But a far cooler feature is that when you’re logged into CitySearch via Facebook Connect, your Facebook friends’ reviews will show up at the top of the list. Prioritizing your friends’ reviews over those of random strangers is by far the most useful thing we’ve seen anyone do with Facebook Connect.

CitySearch is also working to solve a problem quite common on the site (and perhaps even more common on competitor Yelp) — balancing reviews. With just about everyone gaming reviews to some end, it’s nearly impossible to know who to trust. The Facebook Connect features help, but your friends aren’t always going to have reviews of everywhere you’re interested in.

To help make it clear who is writing what in the reviews section, CitySearch has cordoned reviews off into specific categories — user reviews, business owner reviews and CitySearch’s editorial reviews.

It’s not going to completely stop people from gaming reviews, but it does make it considerably easier for business owners to combat widespread attacks and reply too bad reviews.

The last part of the revamped CitySearch is a collection of mobile apps. At the moment CitySearch has Gears-powered mobile app for Windows Mobile 5+ and plans to add support for the iPhone, Android and Blackberry when the new version of CitySearch is officially launched.

So do the new features make CitySearch a worthwhile stop on the “local” web? The answer is it depends what you’re looking for. The Facebook Connect aspect is very cool, but it’s only really useful if you have a lot of Facebook friends living near you. In terms of data, EveryBlock has much more to offer, but the new CitySearch stacks up pretty well against Yelp.

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Xobni Puts the Social Web in Your Outlook Inbox

By Scott Gilbertson November 19, 2008 Categories: Software & Tools

xobni sidebarThose of you stuck using Microsoft Outlook for e-mail will be happy to know that the Xobni Outlook extension has been revamped with new integration tools for Yahoo Mail, Facebook, Skype and Hoovers.

Xobni (that’s “inbox” backwards and it’s pronounced “zob-nee”) already integrated with the LinkedIn social network and the new options bring the add-on closer to what Bill Gates himself has called “the next generation of social networking.”

All of the new tools will be available in your Xobni sidebar, though what’s available depends on which service you’re using. Yahoo Mail fans will be able see and search their mail, contacts and attachments. Unfortunately sending and receiving mail will still require a trip to the browser (Yahoo Mail’s API is somewhat limited).

The Facebook tools are the most interesting and they work much like the LinkedIn options. Whenever you receive e-mail from someone who has a Facebook account the sidebar will show their current status message, profile info and picture. Naturally there are links to the person’s actual Facebook page.

Perhaps more useful is the Skype toolbar, which offers one-slick access to send instant messages, SMS messages or make Skype calls.

Back when Xobni first came out of beta a number of users complained that the add-on drastically slowed down Outlook. From our limited testing of the new version (we’re not regular Outlook users so comparing speed is difficult) that appears to have been fixed. While Xobni still obviously increases Outlook’s memory usage, performance wasn’t drastically affected.

Xobni is a free add-on and requires Microsoft Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007. You can grab the latest version from the Xobni site.

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Why Adobe ‘Configurator’ Will Revolutionize The Way You Use Photoshop

By Scott Gilbertson November 19, 2008 Categories: Multimedia, Software & Tools

configuratorFor newcomers, Photoshop can seem like a labyrinth. The photo editing app is very powerful, but with great power comes great complexity — figuring out how to do what you want can take longer than actually doing it.

To help make Photoshop more flexible and bit easier to work with, Adobe has just released Configurator — an add-on that makes it easy to customize Photoshop panels to suit your needs.

The customization options mean that you can take your favorite menu items, actions, palettes and other tools and create your own easy-to-access panel. All the menu items and tools in Photoshop are available within the Configurator panel builder, and adding then to your custom panel is as simple as dragging them into your creation.

While the customization features are very nice, the real power of Configurator lies in the ability to swap your creations and download tools from other Photoshop users. The packaged files work much like Flash extensions — just download the panel and double click the file so that Extension Manager can install it. Restart Photoshop and the new panel will be available at Windows >> Extensions >> (Panel Name).

Take the sharing idea a bit further and Configurator might make the web-based Photoshop tutorial obsolete.

Rather than simply spelling out the steps necessary to get a certain look for your images, Configurator allows Photoshop gurus to package their entire workflow as a script, create a panel to run the script and make the whole thing a one-click download.

For example, Photoshop maven Russell Brown has put together a panel that walks you through the process of of creating lenticular images — Brown’s panel includes instructions and then simple one-click buttons to execute the actual steps (screenshot, download panel).

Configurator panels can even have embedded live video files, which allows you to watch video tutorials in Photoshop and follow along using your own images — no more flipping between the browser and Photoshop.

To see Configurator in action, check out Nack’s video demo, which shows some of the possibilities. At the moment there aren’t any available, but keep an eye on this Adobe Exchange page to find out what others are doing with Configurator.

Configurator is a free download and you can grab it from Adobe Labs. Configurator requires Photoshop CS4.

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Microsoft to Offer Free Virus Protection Software for Windows

By Scott Gilbertson November 19, 2008 Categories: Software & Tools

windows logoMicrosoft plans to offer Windows users a new antivirus package designed to protect the OS from viruses, spyware, rootkits and trojans. The new software is tentatively code-named Morro, and will be available for free to Windows XP, Vista and 7 users sometime in the second half of 2009.

The new software will reportedly use very minimal resources, which means it should work well with older PCs. If fact, Microsoft says Morro has been specially designed for older PCs and low-spec machines popular in developing nations. In addition to its minimal processor demands, Morro has been developed to use very little bandwidth, making it ideal for those without broadband connections.

Morro will replace Microsoft’s current, paid service, Windows Live OneCare, which has been available on a subscription basis for $50 per year.

While a free, antivirus solution that ships with Windows would be a boon for the average user, it could also mean trouble for third-party software solutions. Given that a bundled solution could raise antitrust concerns — and would no doubt see competitors like McAfee and Grisoft reaching for the lawyers — Microsoft will be offering Morro as a separate download.

Assuming Morro can deliver decent security it should be a welcome free addition to Windows, but we don’t suggest throwing away your third-party software just yet. Antivirus software suites will likely continue to hold an edge over Morro by offering additional handy tools — like password managers, identity theft protection and browser-based phishing protection.

Still, if you’ve been running Windows with no antivirus software at all, Morro will no doubt be better than nothing, and it’s hard to argue with free.

[via Slashdot]

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Google Makes Life Magazine Photo Archives Searchable

By Scott Gilbertson November 18, 2008 Categories: Software & Tools

Google Life Mag PhotosLooking for a time suck? Google has put the entire catalog of Life magazine photographs online and (of course) made it fully searchable. More than a million historic Life images are hosted on a special section of the Google Images site, which you can browse by year, place, people, events and more.

The vast majority of the images are pulled from Life’s extensive archives and have never been published, though naturally many of the iconic images from Life’s covers are also in the mix.

Beware, you could lose hours, probably even days, in there.

[Via Waxy]

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Side Project to Startup: Shizzow Q&A

By Adam DuVander November 18, 2008 Categories: Software & Tools

Shizzow is a new location-based social service, most similar to BrightKite. The bootstrapped startup is also a side project. The four team members have full-time jobs outside of Shizzow.

Ryan SnyderWebmonkey got together with Shizzow CEO-by-night Ryan Snyder. Read on to find out why he won’t make an iPhone app, Shizzow’s relation to Google Calendar, and that the original name rhymed with “kazoo.”

Webmonkey: How does Shizzow compare to other location-based social networking sites like BrightKite, or a platform like FireEagle?

Ryan Snyder: We think of Shizzow as much more of a social service than a location-based service.  The primary action on Shizzow is to “shout out” your location, but to us declaring your location means nothing unless doing so enables you to get together with people for a face-to-face conversation.  While other services have added photo sharing or restaurant reviews to their service, we’re maintaining a philosophy of simplicity - if a certain feature doesn’t help you meet new people or get together with friends, we won’t implement that feature.
 
Webmonkey: Many successful web applications start with developers scratching their own itch. How was Shizzow born?

Snyder: Shizzow is definitely one of those projects that came out of us developers scratching our own itch.  In September 2007, a number of developers here in Portland were using a shared Google calendar to coordinate meetups for coding sessions, and we found it too cumbersome to notify each of the group members when we’d arrived at that place.  Mark Wallaert approached me and said, “So… Ryan, I’ve got this idea…”, then sketched out the Shizzow concept on my markerboard.  When he told me how it would solve our communication problems, I was sold.

Webmonkey: Why are you opening in only a few cities?

Snyder: One of the difficulties of unveiling a new site or service is that of building community.  Rather than inviting random people from all over the world, we felt it would be better to invite people to use Shizzow city-by-city so that when we roll out to your city, all of your friends will hopefully be Shizzow users within the first day or two instead of straggling in over the coming weeks or months.

Webmonkey: How have the four of you balanced this large side project with day jobs?

Snyder: Whew, this has not been easy!  I’d probably call it “burnout prevention” before I’d call it anything resembling balance!  Each of us has our own methods of meeting Shizzow’s needs on top of our day jobs.  I personally dedicate the first 2-3 hours of my day to Shizzow before heading into cubicleville for my 9 to 5′er, as well as dedicating one or both weekend days to whatever tasks may be at hand.  But the real reason we’ve been able to persevere over the last year has been the patience and understanding of our friends and loved ones.  We simply could not have done this without their support.
 
Webmonkey: BrightKite got a lot of attention for its iPhone app. When can I expect to see a beta version of Shizzow’s?

Snyder: Since we’re a small team, we’re trying to remain as focused as possible on Shizzow’s core functionality.  We feel that developing  platform-specific applications will actually scatter our attention by having to support multiple UIs and platforms.  We’re currently working on an API to allow other developers to build applications for Shizzow.  Besides, there are some rockstar mobile developers that will probably build something cooler than we’d imagined possible using our API. 
 
Webmonkey: My projects always have a list of alternate names. Can you share anything Shizzow was almost called?

Snyder: All of our original names for the project were either taken or they were just lame!  Our first interface for Shizzow actually had a spelling variation, where we ended Shizzow with “ou” instead of “ow”.  People kept calling it “Shizzoo” so we quickly realized that we needed to grab the “ow” domain name before that name stuck!

[Photo by Aaron Hockley]


Tags: brightkite, fireeagle, location, QandA, shizzow
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Shout Out Your Whereabouts With Shizzow

By Adam DuVander November 18, 2008 Categories: Software & Tools

Shouting from ShizzowAfter months of private beta testing in Portland, location-based social network Shizzow has launched in the tech-friendly Bay Area. Now the coffee-shop working laptoperati can easily let their friends know whose WiFi they’re soaking up today. Like the location granddaddy Dodgeball, Shizzow is focused on connecting people in real life.

To “shout” from a place, you first search for it by name. Shizzow does not let users broadcast an address or city as a location, in contrast to other services, like BrightKite. Your dashboard shows recent shouts from your friends — the users you’ve chosen to “listen” to, a feature similar to following on Twitter.

Shizzow Dashboard

Privacy on Shizzow is an on/off setting. If in private mode, you must manually accept any listeners. There is only a single level of granularity. BrightKite has trusted friends who get your exact location. Normal friends may only have access to your city, which makes for some useless messages. Shizzow suggests that you only shout when you want someone to know where you are.

One cool feature unique to Shizzow is the ability to edit a listing, or add a new one to the database. While much of the site is built off of local APIs, Shizzow stores a local copy that can be edited Wiki-style by the community. It also means users can creatively name their homes, offices and other locations.

In addition to BrightKite, other Shizzow competitors include Plazes, Loopt and Whrrl. Each service lets you declare your location and see where your friends are. Yahoo’s Fire Eagle, a central platform for storing and sharing location, is also similar. Fire Eagle does not have any social features. Instead, it is more likely to be built upon by Shizzow and similar services. Shizzow does not yet support Fire Eagle, while BrightKite does.

Some will no doubt see Shizzow’s limited feature set as a liability. For example, BrightKite has a beautiful iPhone app, while Shizzow has no plans to create one. The Shizzow team, made up of four Portlanders with full-time jobs, see their focus on core features as a strength. They’re hard at work on an API now, and apparently counting on you to create their iPhone app and additional features.

That’s not to say Shizzow isn’t adding new stuff. It recently incorporated Geode to guess at a user’s location, unleashed SMS shouting and pays close attention to its Get Satisfaction community, implementing many ideas suggested by its users.

If you live in Portland or the Bay Area, let Shizzow know on its invite request form. Then let Webmonkey know how it works for you. All other cities will have to be patient: A public beta is scheduled for March 2009.

See also:


Tags: brightkite, fireeagle, location, shizzow
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Zoetrope Project Aims to Archive the Web

By Scott Gilbertson November 18, 2008 Categories: Software & Tools, Web Basics

The web changes fast, what you see today will be gone tomorrow. That ephemeral nature means that looking at information over time can be very difficult. Google’s new visualization API attempts offer novel ways of looking at data over time, but for the average user, it remains a difficult task.

However, there’s an interesting new tool on the horizon — Zoetrope. Zoetrope is a joint project between Adobe and researchers at the University of Washington and it hopes to make the task of find archived Web information or looking for patterns over time much easier.

The core idea is that, like the Internet Archive, pages are stored in the Zoetrope database and you can then isolate an element in a webpage and see how it looked two years ago, five years ago or more, as well as interacting with it in real time.

For instance, you might isolate a price of an item on Amazon and see how it has changed over time to figure out if the current price is a good deal. Or perhaps you want to see what the top news stories were a year ago — just isolate an element of the New York Times and Zoetrope will offer a slider to travel back in time.

Much of the information Zoetrope appears to offer is accessible through other means, but the Zoetrope interface looks very slick and the ease with which it works moves the idea out of the realm of researchers and into an application that anyone can figure out.

“There are so many ways of finding and manipulating and visualizing data on what we call ‘the today Web’ that it’s kind of amazing that there’s no way to do anything similar to the ephemeral Web,” says Dan Weld, a UW computer science and engineering professor who helped develop Zoetrope.

And unlike Google’s visualization APIs, Weld says Zoetrope is aimed at the casual researcher, “it’s really for anyone who has a question.”

The main stumbling block to Zoetrope is that it currently only archives roughly 1000 sites. Hardly an internet archive, but the engineers behind the project say they’re working on ways to scale the system to encompass the whole web.

So far there doesn’t seem to be an actual download available to play with, but the video above certainly makes Zoetrope look interesting. In addition to the video there’s an announcement on the University of Washington site and a paper from a recent symposium on user interface software and technology, which offer some more technical details.

[via The Register]

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