Mo Kargas, Web and Mobile development — ReactionDynamics

An End to The Conversation

admin — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 05:49:44 +0000

A almost a week ago exactly, I stopped conversing directly on Friendfeed.

This was a difficult, but pre-meditated decision, one I had mulled over for months. Over the past two years, I had used the service almost exclusively for conversations, and by conversations, I mean anything at all. Not just tech, code, and other intellectual pursuits, I mean general and genuine down-to-earth conversation with other people from all walks of life around the world. I've chatted real-time with social media greats, discussed art, debated tech, religion, science and politics with incredibly talented and intellectual personalities and learned more than any mere exchange on the much vaunted Twitter.

Friendfeed is an exceedingly effective aggregation and conversation platform - if you're unfamiliar with it, it's basically a more advanced version of Facebook's primary news feed. However for me, far more immersive, uncluttered and easy to use. It's this ease of use and "immersiveness", not to mention the magnificent personalities and real-time flow of interesting information that makes the service so addictive.

It's for this reason I had to end my participation on it. The actual decision took months to eventuate. You see, despite what some social media elites have said, Friendfeed is the leader in addictive, rewarding conversation. It's real-time, it's interesting, it's personable, customisable and pleasant. Even after social media elites have panned the service, it remains the best possible platform to date in which to converse in real-time, explore content and sink time.

The amount of time I have sank into using Friendfeed for the purposes of content discovery and conversation is immense. My addiction to it has meant that for the past two plus years, I've let all my projects and interests slide. I have become a complete, total consumer of information. My creativity, personal interests, health, skills and creations were forfeited - not explicitly - and that's what worries me.

This revelation made me re-examine a bit about myself as a person. I'm not cut out to be a total consumer of information, and I felt I was poisoning my creativity by only consuming and not creating. Sure, there's plenty of inspirational things in my feeds I could use, but over time I'd absorb (I call it 'sponging'), but not create. I feel I have the capability to be a content creator, I definitely used to be and I have decided to become one again. In only a week, my personal projects have leaped forward, even with full-time employment. Even the fact that I'm writing this blog astounds me. Deeply immersed in feeds and conversations, I would rarely think of doing this, or on the off chance I did, I would not be able to complete what I had started.

Real conversation is indeed priceless. It's so much more than a mere tweet, status update or utterance, so much more rewarding and stimulating - but there's a penalty behind it, just like with all things worth doing. I just cannot pay it anymore without changing part of who I am.

Arm Cannon

admin — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:05:57 +0000

Now that the site and a large chunk of the year are complete, it's time to resume building WIP 289. I briefly began modeling an arm/grasper in 3Ds tonight and should have it rounded out by the weekend.

I'm also using this as a bit of an excuse to test my new Drupal based site ;)

WIP: Bot 289

admin — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:38:59 +0000

Work continues on my new 3Ds project which I've decided to call 'Bot 289'. Have high hopes for this one. Currently work is progressing very slowly on the chassis, next week I should get around to modeling the hands.

New 3D Projects

admin — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 01:29:05 +0000

A few test renders from some upcoming 3D projects I'm working on.

Low Light Photography Experiments

admin — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 02:34:25 +0000

Some recent shots taken with my ancient DX7950 compact in low light conditions

365 Project - Day 64 - Evil in Red II

admin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:08:46 +0000

March 6

Can't help myself, love this evil style. Considering some photomanips for this stuff.

365 Project - Day 63 - Evil in Red

admin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:03:42 +0000

Mar 5

I know I've missed a few weeks, but I have all those photos. Just getting round to post-processing them in the last few weeks. I present another post-processing and light experiment!

365 Project - Day 51 - Reflections

admin — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:08:14 +0000

Feb 20

Love this shot but wish my standard camera was recharged when I went to take it, I had to use my cameraphone. It's the street in front of my house reflected in a small surveillance camera :D

365 Project - Day 50 - Booster

admin — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:04:53 +0000

Feb 19

Cool booster unit. I played around a bit in post-processing to bring out the glorious orange that it was. PS: I did not add that text or a drop shadow, simply came out that way when adjusting the colour saturation

365 Project - Day 49 - The Parklands

admin — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:00:47 +0000

Feb 18

A quick cameraphone snap of the park lands near my sisters workplace :)

365 Project - Day 48 - White Building

admin — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:58:59 +0000

Feb 17

Nice clean building with some light cloud over head

365 Project - Day 47 - Smoky Hills

admin — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:26:31 +0000

Feb 16

Late afternoon phone cam shot of the the O'Halloran Hill hills, with light bushfire smoke in the area

365 Project - Day 43 - Yours Truly

admin — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:25:25 +0000

Feb 12

Guess who. Missed this one on the 12th so uploading now

365 Project - Day 46 - Good Things Come In Threes

admin — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 12:24:54 +0000

Feb 15

I didn't think I'd do this for the third night in a row, totally stoked. We return to normal programming tomorrow :)

365 Project - Day 45 - Now It's A Crusade

admin — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 13:23:39 +0000

Feb 14

I've really pushed myself these last two nights, bringing my total to 35.67KM and 6000calories. I will return to regular photos when this weekend crusade ends

365 Project - Day 44 - Push Past the Max

admin — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 12:06:30 +0000

Jan 13

Sometimes you gotta just hit your limit, and force yourself past it, with wild abandon. Anger at the weeks events, rage at those responsible helped create a fusion of determination. This is the result. Dedicated to the lost and suffering. PS. I know I've missed uploading a few days, will soon

365 Project - Day 42 - Cloud Cover II

admin — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:58:28 +0000

Feb 11

Quick shot of some nice clouds above my home, the sun was struggling to penetrate them. I'm on a bit of a cloud binge recently, but only because summer is providing some great shapes. I know I missed yesterday - I did actually take a pic, will upload later.

365 Project - Day 40 - Hudsons

admin — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:04:32 +0000

Feb 9

Quick shot of where I was in Adelaide Airport tonight, taken with my phone camera. I did have a great outside shot but it came out blurry

365 Project - Day 39 - Cloud Cover

admin — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 11:44:55 +0000

Feb 8

Sorry about the lateness, quick shot of the clouds on Sunday night. These beautiful clouds were illuminating the entire area with a nice orange-red glow. Wish I could save as RAW!

365 Project - Day 38 - Crystalline Light

admin — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 12:21:31 +0000

Feb 7

Fun with blue light and glass. Tried to capture the yummy caustics

365 Project - Day 37 - Trouble's Abrewin'

admin — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:27:19 +0000

Jan 6

Sorry for the lateness!

365 Project - Day 36 - Sunset

admin — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 11:47:57 +0000

Feb 5

Quick snap of a tree out front and the setting sun providing some great colours. Need a tripod in future, though it was a bit blustery

365 Project - Day 35 - Trail Experiments

admin — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:11:13 +0000

Feb 4

Decided to go try some more cool low exposure goodness. Unfortunately my cam only has a 16sec exposure max time. Uber lame.

365 Project - Day 34 - Machine Core

admin — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 12:19:40 +0000

Feb 3

Spin spin spin.

365 Project - Day 33 - Lakeside Dream

admin — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 12:17:17 +0000

Feb 2

Posting this one late, things getting busy around here. Yes this has been post-processed :) I've tried to bring out the central colours of Australia in summer in this, effectively blue and red.

365 Project - Day 32 - Evening Setting

admin — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:31:48 +0000

Feb 1

A shot of some of my backyard around 9pm. You can see street-lights across the valley, faintly. It's a bit of a surprise because I didn't expect the camera to pick them up at all with that spotlight.

365 Project - Day 31 - Sunset II

admin — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:28:10 +0000

Jan 31

Another sunset capture for a very hot day

365 Project - Day 30 - Cathode

admin — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:26:32 +0000

Jan 30

Sorry about the lateness. This an attempt to catch the cathodes electrical arc, very hard!

365 Project - Day 29 - Ending Silhouette

admin — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 11:59:59 +0000

Jan 29

Another hot day in Adelaide, tried my hand at taking a silhouette, my first ever! Not too bad I thought.

365 Project - Day 28 - Death of a Very Hot Day

admin — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 12:12:08 +0000

Jan 28

...And the birth of a very hot night. This is the Adelaide skies outside my home after a day which peaked at 45.5 degrees celcius.

365 Project - Day 27 - Jasmine Flowers

admin — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:36:38 +0000

Jan 27

Flowers from my garden

365 Project - Day 26 - Clock

admin — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 12:23:30 +0000

Jan 26

A clock in my kitchen. Sorry, I'm a bit late with this one!

365 Project - Day 25 - Old Clock

admin — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 10:43:59 +0000

Jan 25

An old clock, needs a new a battery, and is a bit battered itself :)

365 Project - Day 24 - More Low Light

admin — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 11:47:02 +0000

Jan 24

I'm having a ball with this stuff, if you can't tell :) I have plenty of odd lights around my home.

365 Project - Day 23 - Low Light Experiment II

admin — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 12:41:47 +0000

Jan 23

Another play with low light effects, this time with another ornate-ish lamp at home

365 Project - Day 22 - Low Light Experiment

admin — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 11:50:32 +0000

Jan 22

A low light experiment with ceiling lamp in my home

Bonus: Plasma Cathode

admin — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 10:54:10 +0000

Actually took this a few days ago, extremely noisy. It's me holding a plasma cathode which pulses with an electricity effect. It looks a lot better at small sizes.

365 Project - Day 21 - Wispy

admin — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 10:24:14 +0000

Jan 21

Unfortunately I had the ISO set too high for this, and hence it's a tad noisy. ISO100 would have done, by the time I realized it was too dark to take another.

365 Project - Day 20 - Machine Organ

admin — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 12:15:09 +0000

Jan 20

Have a guess what this part is :)

365 Project - Day 19 - Old Skool Cool

admin — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 11:57:14 +0000

Jan 19

A shot of one of my very dusty, but working, Atari-ST wrist crusher joysticks

365 Project - Day 18 - End of the Day

admin — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 12:04:13 +0000

Jan 18

This is a shot down my street at around 8pm this evening. Love the long shadows.

365 Project - Day 17 - Beep, Beep It's the BOAC!

admin — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 14:10:13 +0000

Jan 17

No idea where this comes from.

How I Lost My Writers Block

admin — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 11:03:53 +0000

By taking pictures. Yes you heard right. My new participation in a classic 365 photography project has started the creative juices going. I'm not particularly sure why, but continually trying to restart blogging for a little over 4 years has been a chore, and therein lies the solution.

What to do when stuck

Do something different, something new, and something you enjoy. Do something that's not a chore, and make that your blog. Photography is new to me, but where I had lost my will to blog, I hadn't lost the creativity that I would have invested in blogging. It was still there looking for another outlet. With the photography, I'm given a chance to be unique and creative in bite-sized, manageable and relatively brief chunks, every day. Don't be afraid to leave it As strange as it sounds, trying to force blogging to come means finishing the night, week, or month with nothing. It's better to let the writing come as you feel like it than end up with something forced out, or nothing at all for months on end. Relax, enjoy your favorite beverage, and write the posts if and when you feel inspired. You just can't put creativity on a conveyor belt.

365 Project - Day 16 - Let the Show Begin

admin — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:34:22 +0000

Jan 16

I decided to get a bit creative this time round, and actually wear a shirt. I decided to rock it a bit differently though.

365 Project - Day 15 - Me + New Toy

admin — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 09:32:04 +0000

Jan 15

I was trying to get myself in focus and the rest slightly blurred but ended up with my towel in focus and me slightly out, then my battery went. Anyway...

365 Project - Day 14 - My New Toy

admin — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:10:29 +0000

Jan 14

Not much effort put in today because my new toy has finally arrived after 5 long weeks, so it becomes today's subject. I've got a lot to do. My first night back and my performance is down a frightening 80% and I've gained 5.3kg or around 11.6lbs. However I know it's only a minor setback and I'll be right on it with a new program, twice a day to work back into it. The first shot is a general shot. The second a still of the new 'race mode' which pits little computer men against you and you have to beat them! I'm going to have tonnes of fun with that new feature. The new tred also records monthly and yearly totals, has an iPod music dock, a built in fan, internet connectivity and automatic programs with voice over trainers. Invaluable.

365 Project - Day 13 - Lamp

admin — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 11:09:10 +0000

Jan 13

A doctored photo of a lamp at home. There's a lot more noise than I expected courtesy of my camera saving in JPEG only

365 Project - Day 12 - Computer Case & Me

admin — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 11:38:12 +0000

Jan 12

I couldn't get this shot more sharper for the life of me. SLR time soon methinks. My case is a burnished stainless look thing. NZXT Lexa.

365 Project - Day 11 - You Can't See Me

admin — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 08:37:13 +0000

Jan 11

It's so hard to capture these guys with this old cam, but I gave it my best shot. These lorikeets seem to know what you're doing, they constantly shift to ensure some leaves and branches are between you and them at all times. They try to ensure there's no direct line of sight. Smart little fellows

365 Project - Day 10 - Wagon

admin — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 06:58:37 +0000

Jan 10

An interesting rickety old wagon outside a nearby entertainment venue. Quite a relic. My only regret is not getting in closer

365 Project - Day 9 - Catch Me

admin — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 09:44:21 +0000

Jan 9

Some apricots caught by protective netting in my backyard :)

365 Project - Day 8 - Computer Light II

admin — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 12:13:10 +0000

Jan 8

Decided to take another shot of a part of the interior of my computer. Removed a few fans and bits first, as there were too many fan colours flooding the scene.

365 Project - Day 7 - Work Office

admin — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 11:14:57 +0000

Jan 7

Quick snap of my work office. Well part of it anyway. Usually all screens are filled with garbage from me testing web development on PC and Mac, but it's early morning. Out of the image on the far right is another large LCD, and the far left is a coffee machine and fridge :)

365 Project - Day 6 - Fallen and Forgotten

admin — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:50:48 +0000

Jan 6

A lone apple fallen from one of my trees :(

365 Project - Day 5 - Computer Light

admin — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:36:54 +0000

Jan 5

A long exposure experiment with nothing but my mouse and computer lights

365 Project: Day 4 - Odd Temperature Device

admin — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 05:34:24 +0000

Jan 4

Not quite sure how to read this, something to do with the buoyancy of those globes fluctuating with temperature.

365 Project: Day 2 and 3

admin — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 12:25:59 +0000

Jan 3

A quick shot of my new runners

Jan 2

Introducing my 365 project!

admin — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 08:02:12 +0000

I've decided to take a photo of something around my neck of the woods every single day for a year. By doing this I hope to learn a bit more about digital photography, and scene composition. The idea was inspired by the awesome John Worthington. My Camera is a hopelessly dated Kodak DX7590 5.0MP, but this should get an upgrade sometime this year.

5 Social Media Dont's

admin — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 12:42:31 +0000

My social media experience has been (is being) formed by interaction on several popular social networks. It changes daily, but there's a few things I've noticed that one should probably avoid doing. Of course, I don't wish to sound preachy, so take this with a pinch of salt. Social Media is what you make of it, after all. 1. Don't Use Your Service as a Megaphone Only This is a big one for me. The first word in Social Media is social, meaning creating and maintaining relationships and discussion around various content, users, friends, etc. If you don't reciprocate, how can you expect to keep those relationships, or stimulate discussion? Unless you're strictly breaking news, megaphoning will distance you from the people who actually like you. 2. Don't Lie With today's internet, people can access information about you with suprising ease, therefore it can sometimes be trivial to fact check people against their claims. Especially if you're looking for work, don't ever lie online, it may cost you that cushy new job. 3. Don't Be Intolerant People from all walks of life frequent social media networks. If you harbor any hateful or resentful feelings against people of any race, religion (or lack thereof) or sexual persuasion, it's best to leave it at home. There's nothing wrong with polite debate, but outright slander is an easy way to ensure your message is ignored, and your audience is thoroughly reduced. 4. Don't Spam Your Feeds Some companies and marketing individuals often request that you add them to your feed, appearing like they wish to be genuine contacts, then proceed to fill your feed with ad after ad. Others simply tweet link after link to their blog posts or content without break. In the case of Twitter at least, it's extremely hard as a follower to hide this activity without blocking. Spamming will almost always lead to a blocking / un-following and a bad reputation. 5. Don't Leave Your Profile/Bio Empty Believe it or not, people do wish to know a bit about you, and even visit your site. Make sure you fill in your profiles and bios with clear, concise information about who you are and what you do. If job-seeking, ensure you add a bit about your skills.

Maths and the Humble Morning Coffee

admin — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:19:18 +0000

The Humble Morning Coffee

Earlier tonight I have been examining my food intakes in my current diet, and trying to figure out why for the last 12 months I haven't been able to make a significant dent in the 8-10kg of midriff fat I have remaining. At the end of it, something interesting emerged from crunching the approximate caloric numbers and may serve to explain the discrepancy - coffee. The coffee machine I use in work actually outputs two serves per (massive) cup, at around 500ml. With the milk we use, standard milk, not full cream, it's around 200 calories per shot which means per cup is around 400 calories simply in milk calories. If I have 2-3 of these cups every day, I've added around 2-3 standard meals to my diet simply by drinking these, or 800-1200 calories. With other foods consumed throughout the day, 3 days out of 7, I consume a bit more than I am burning. It means I'm not losing, I'm very slowly gaining. I guess the lesson is, if you're trying to lose weight, the cardinal rule is to output more than you consume and create a nutritional track record. Hence, if you do let yourself go, without realizing, the maths can show you the holes.

Dedicated Friendfeed Podcast 'FFundercats' begins!

admin — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:14:22 +0000

A brand new dedicated (non-official) Friendfeed podcast has begun, hosted by Friendfeed users John Worthington, Mark Wilson and Josh Haley. FFundercats promises to bring the best of the madcap chaos that is the Mona-era Friendfeed, and they've just completed their first 'cast. Check it out over at FFundercats: A FriendFeedic Convergence Of FFunderous Proportions

Friendfeed releases real-time updating, unleashes deluge

admin — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 03:19:12 +0000

Friendfeed has just released a new feature called "Real-Time", a feature that enables you to browse your subscriptions posts live as they happen. This can be done either in the main window as standard, or by popping up a second 'mini-window', leaving you free to browse Friendfeed as you would normally. The benefits of the new feature are exciting. If so inclined, you can "real-time" any list or room you're in, instantly giving it a kind of chat functionality within that container (though replies to comments are not yet threaded in real-time mode), so rooms are now multimedia chat rooms. Unlike a chat room however, each item doesn't just consist of text, but items such as video, pictures, links and feeds. Additionally, communication happens instantly, but is also pushed to the top of the regular FriendFeed page making updates accessible to all "static" users, not just the "Real-Time" users. It's even possible to see the real time updates of a particular user and their friends! There are a few problems with this basic version of the new feature. Firstly is the classic problem of networks like Friendfeed, which is having many subscriptions. Although this can be managed in many ways on Friendfeed, with "Real-Time" it becomes worse if you've neglected lists and leave all your subscribers inside the "home feed", you will get rapidly flooded with updates. I wasn't actually able to like or comment on many updates because they scrolled by too fast, pushed ever downward by the flood. Lists do help with this problem, but also are a detriment if you don't want to isolate subscribers into secondary or tertiary lists. Secondly, there's no way to drill down or filter comments from standard posts, so updates are just a deluge of mixed content. This makes it difficult to follow the thread of conversation and comment on comments themselves, leading to confusion. Several features I'd like to see added to the Real-Time standard/mini-window:

Keyword filtering, e.g show only updates containing the word 'lego' and so on
Service filtering, eg. show me only Twitter updates, Last.fm updates
Stickies, eg. dock a thread of interest to the top of the window, so it's not just pushed down as new updates occur, and also show a count of comments/likes as they occur on that stickied thread
Threaded comments, allowing me to reply to a commenter directly.
Noise control, say, show me only a certain amount of live updates per given time. Let me control this with a slider, AKA Socialmedian style.

All in all, it's a great new feature. I can forsee Friendfeed rooms for TV shows, debates, and events finding this feature particularly useful. Give it a whirl over here.

Lines

admin — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 14:02:59 +0000

As I reach my 25th year of life, certain things have become apparent to me. I wouldn't call them truths, but lessons learned. I've learned that things take time. Gaining skills takes time, earning things takes time. Even learning about yourself is something done over a great deal of time. Sure, you can say, 'Ahh, but Mo, this is self-evident', but I disagree. I have been brought up in the now classic, money-centric, Western culture. An instant-gratification society, where everything is expected to happen 'now', as we want it; where battles to earn love, character and material objects are removed in the name of convenience, and hence are diminished in value. However, life has not been so rigid, the natural world doesn't support it. I used to think in straight lines, from A to B, courtesy of my upbringing. But like driving a car, the path is never from one goal to another is littered with detours, hazards, traffic. Leap-frogging these challenges, these personal battles, enforces a detrimental frame of mind - I'd call it 'unwarranted expectation'. When my innate expectations weren't met, I'd be depressed, confused, rejected and angry. Time after time, this led to missed opportunities, bad moods and even self loathing, but looking back I've learned my lesson. Dropping ridiculous expectations, learning the value of earning and enjoying the journey is far more fulfilling.

Sweetcron Lifestreaming Blog Software Released

admin — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:56:15 +0000

Sweetcron, an open source lifestreaming blog software package developed by Yong Fook, has been released.

Sweetcron is a simple package you can use to aggregate your socical networking and blog services together, such as Twitter and Plurk. Prominent features include a neat default theme, a basic blog function, easily customized php/css themes, tagging, and a simple to use administration interface.

Sweetcron is simple enough to leave alone. It will happily aggregate your feeds together in a neat visual fashion and is tidy enough to be used as a simple blog.

View my 30 minutes of Sweetcron customization here at RD Download Sweetcron (Currently version 1.02 beta) Installation instructions Further Support

Manga Avatar Fad Sweeps SocNets

admin — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 01:17:44 +0000

And I just couldn't help myself:

Go on, conform. You know you want to. Faceyourmanga.com

Drupal Tips: Expose Available Drupal Variables

admin — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 13:37:50 +0000

Ever wanted more than just dumping the content of the node you're in, or it's additional variables? In Drupal you can still do this using a basic PHP command, get_defined_vars() . Open up any of your template files and paste the following code in (generally just page.tpl.php). [sourcecode language='php'] print '

';
print_r(get_defined_vars());
print '

'; [/sourcecode] The result is a dump of all variables available to you in your theming work!

20 Twitter Services and Applications

admin — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 10:01:07 +0000

The number of Twitter services and applications continues to increase as more individual developers, software houses and businesses come online. Here's a few interesting ones:

Services

Twitterfeed - Twitterfeed brings RSS to Twitter. Used to notify twitter of updates to your sites feed.
Summize - Search twitter conversations of points of interest
Twittergram - Twittergram enables sending a small mp3 via twitter. Also includes an API.
TwitsLikeMe - TwitsLikeMe claims to be able to find people based on similarities in tweet history
TwitterMail - Enables posting to Twitter via a special email address. Has neat functions like scheduling.
TwitterStats - Keep an eye on your Twitter use here
Twittervision - Connecting tweets to a physical location with Google maps
Twist - Examine trends on Twitter
TwitterCal - Send events to Google Calendar via twitter.
Remember the Milk - A great Twitter enabled reminder service! Build entire to-do lists, update them from Twitter, and recieve them anywhere!

Applications

Twhirl - A popular Twitter client for your computer. Uses Adobe Air.
Twitterfox - A Firefox addon that notifies of tweets, replies and messages. Formerly TwitterNotifier.
Power Twitter - Another addon plugin that enhances Twitter with video, flickr embedding, Tinyurl unwinding and more.
Twitterbar - A Firefox addon that enables tweets right from the address bar of Firefox.
Twitterlicious - A Windows Twitter client. x86 and x64 versions available.
Twadget - A Windows Vista Twitter client that enables posting from the Vista Sidebar
Twitterific - A Mac OSX Twitter client, also available for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
TwitterPod - A Mac OSX Twitter client with the ability to store messages.
gTwitter - A simple GTK+ based Linux Twitter client
Pwytter - A multi-OS Twitter client. Supports Mac OSX, Linux, and Windows with support for 14 languages.

Why I Can't Put Twitter Down

admin — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 06:49:05 +0000

In recent months, Twitter has got something of a beating from bloggers worldwide about frequent downtime, feature reductions and timeouts. Originally, I was dismayed and somewhat (perhaps irrationally) angry at the ongoing Twitter problems, but strangely, and unlike many bad services in the past, I didn't drop Twitter. It was only after a long think about why I'm still on Twitter. Then it hit me. I'm on Twitter still because of it's ease of use, the 3rd party tools around it, and the people I follow that encapsulate my interest. Identi.ca is conceptually just as good, being an open platform, but there's something not quite as interesting as Twitter about it, and I guess it boils down to the myriad following Twitter has. Twitter has gained a massive following, from bread and butter users, to businesses, government, and developers. Followers using the service remain closer to the individuals/activist groups/news outlets/brands/companies/bands or whatever else they enjoy. Useful services have been built on it's API, which although suffering from Twitter's problems, is robust enough to accommodate development, giving back far more than Twitter itself and adding value to the community. Think of all the services that revolve around or add to Twitter. There's Summize (recently acquired by Twitter), Tweetstats, Twitterfeed, amongst many, many others. Through clever use of these tools, businesses can use Twitter to analyze trends online, position themselves appropriately, and hear what people are saying about them. These points are why people remain on Twitter, not just for the personal frippery, but for the relationships between individuals and business that can and are built on the system. It's not perfect, but it works. For now.

My Thoughts on Cuil

admin — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:12:53 +0000

There has been a lot of criticism dumped on new (formerly 'stealth') search engine 'Cuil' (pronounced 'Cool', meaning 'Knowledge' in Irish) with prolific bloggers, analysts and experts the world over giving it an overwhelmingly negative rap.

The Good

Cuil presents search results in a nice, neatly formatted way (perhaps falling short of truly intuitive), with a categorical breakdown of search results, called 'Drilldowns'. It's fast, for an index of a claimed 120 billion pages, and as yet is (as far as I can tell) free from ads and sponsored search results. The interface encompasses useful, modern navigation elements such as tabs, and neat AJAX auto-suggest that supplies permutations of common search terms. The in-line thumbnails are potentially a great feature, as they could enable users to find what they're looking for quicker being a visual aid rather than just text.

The Not So Good

However, where Cuil shines well on the arguably superficial interface standpoint, it falls pretty heavily on what should be (and what they state is) their most important feature. General relevancy. It may be that I'm simply too used to Google style results being close to what I'm searching for, not always exactly correct, but pretty close. However with Cuil, I'm often presented with a list of results that don't seem to come close to what I'm searching for, and even the thumbnails that could help me, are quite wrong. For example, if I enter the term 'Mount Gambier', a specific and unique place, the search results are quite well done, especially the "drilldowns" which ooze good relevancy. I'm given a list of South Australian regions, nearby South Australian towns, cities and wine related links for which the regions around Mount Gambier are known for. However, if I make my search term more general, lets say 'monkey' the results are very different to what I'd expect. I'm hit with pop-culture references, movies, and mostly strange "drilldowns". I would be expecting a Google-esque search, which provides me with a link to Wikipedia, telling me what a monkey is. Much better in this case.

My Issue With The Negativity

My problem with it all is the ultimate, and unavoidable comparison between Cuil and Google. Google began in an age where there wasn't the sort of instant web we have today. Word didn't get around as quickly for Google's problems till far, far later in the game. With Cuil, where scorn could be heaped on and seen by interested parties immediately - instantly and perhaps unfortunately damaging Cuil's reputation. I think Cuil's problems are intrinsically it's own, but also feel it doesn't deserve to be written off. It's specific results with unique-ish terms such as people and places aren't bad, I've definitely got worse from Google and even Yahoo.

Summary

Done right:

Interface is simple, modern and effective
Speed is very good
Large index, theoretically means more results.
Decent new take on the age old web search
No ads

Done wrong:

Search relevance needs work, both in results in general and images returned
Failure to take into account the effects of social media community rejection across the board
Failure to undergo extensive (and necessary) staged development (alpha, beta, and consultation with users and tech experts on expected search relevancy)
Branding is soft, slightly clichéd, Web 2.0 logo that is prone to misspelling
Perhaps should have purchased Cool.com

CSS Tips: Remove that outline on CSS Sprites

admin — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 07:49:41 +0000

One of the major techniques in CSS is the use of CSS sprites to replace list item link elements (such as RD's menu above) with images. However in Firefox, those link elements when clicked produce an ugly outline around the link element. This is also evident for embedded flash objects such as sIFR when selected. It's really simple to remove these, either apply the following code in your CSS file to all links, or apply to your specific set of CSS Sprites. All we're doing is forcing no outline for these elements.

[sourcecode language='css'] a, a:active, a:hover, a:visited{ outline:0; } [/sourcecode]

To remove the outline from flash objects such as sIFR, use the following variation:

[sourcecode language='css'] a, a:active, a:hover, a:visited, embed, object{ outline:0; } [/sourcecode]

A New Day. A New Beginning

admin — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:14:53 +0000

After years of dithering and hard introspection I've finally decided to begin a blog again with a different focus. Welcome to ReactionDynamics, a blog and portfolio site based around my life and work!

What Happened?

For those who don't know me, or those who asked me why I gave up blogging, I used to be a blogger on several sites years ago, when the blogosphere was all shiny and new. I was passionate about topics dear to me, and some readers took it so seriously that I had to shutter my doors for fear of IRL retaliation. Things got out of hand, but additionally my life took a huge turn and I couldn't devote huge amounts of time that I used to spend. I'd been studying. I was all over the place. Reactionary, and full of fire. In some ways, I still am, but it's been tempered with a little more wisdom.

Why the Blog?

In the intervening years, I've learned a lot about work, life, technology, and the web in general. I'm active in the new wave of 'social media', what I call 'share media'. The web is now what I design and write for a living, and is what I'm passionate about. I needed a new outlet, and a new beginning, for that creativity and passion I've held back, and this site will serve as the hub for that. I hope you stick around and become a regular reader, but even if you don't, I hope you take something away from the knowledge and discussion I will produce on here. Ohh, and excuse the emptiness, I'm just moving in and there's plenty to be done :)