Archive for October, 2009
Arduino accelerometer clock in its lego case!
by posterous on Oct.31, 2009, under Arduino
Leave a Comment :Arduino more...
Arduino accelerometer clock wired up
by posterous on Oct.26, 2009, under Arduino
Leave a Comment :Arduino more...
A new deer visitor this morning. The bucks are finding their fall mates:
by posterous on Oct.18, 2009, under Photos
Leave a Comment more...
The local Taco Bell done up for Halloween
by posterous on Oct.15, 2009, under Uncategorized
Leave a Comment more...
It’s a little weird that the BBQ chef is a pig
by posterous on Oct.10, 2009, under Photos
Leave a Comment more...
YOURLS: Your Own URL Shortener
by posterous on Oct.10, 2009, under Web Tools
About YOURLS
What is YOURLS
YOURLS is a small set of PHP scripts that will allow you to run your own URL shortening service (a la TinyURL). You can make it private or public, you can pick custom keyword URLs, it comes with its own API. You will love it.
There’s a WordPress plugin available for YOURLS, making integration with your blog a snap: create short URLs and tweet them automagically as you publish blog posts.
YOURLS Features
- Public (everybody can create short links) or private (your links only)
- Sequential or custom URL keyword
- Handy bookmarklet to easily shorten and share links
- Awesome stats: historical click reports, referrers tracking, visitors geo-location
- Neat AJAXed interface
- Developer API
- Friendly installer
Note: some features are part of the upcoming version 1.4
Screenshots of the upcoming version 1.4
Main admin dashboard
Stats for each short URL
See a live example of YOURLS stats on http://yourls.org/download+
Download
Download YOURLS from Google Code
You can follow YOURLS’ development on the revision list and get current snapshot using SVN
Credits
YOURLS is made by:
- Lester Chan – @GamerZ on Twitter
- Ozh Richard – @Ozh on Twitter
And, the website for YOURLS, another way to put a URL shortener on your own site. This doesn’t require a Wordpress installation at all, this is a service to shorten URL’s. You can also link this to a blog if you like, using a Wordpress plugin. It does require the ability to create a MySQL database, and to edit a configuration file on the site as well.
eugene gordin » Blog Archive » How To Use Your Custom Yourls Shortener with Tweetie 2
by posterous on Oct.10, 2009, under Web Tools
How To Use Your Custom Yourls Shortener with Tweetie 2
October 9th, 2009
Just a quick little tip here for those of you who are using the brand new version of Tweetie for iPhone [iTunes link].
If you are using Yourls, a great custom URL shortener (that I use all the time for my egord.in domain name), you can actually have Tweetie shorten your twitter urls using your custom domain name. Using the Yourls API, the process is simple.
In Tweetie’s settings (accounts~~>settings~~>url shortening~~>custom…), type or paste the following URL, replacing the text in all caps with your domain name, yourls username, and password (note: for this to work, you cannot have any characters in your username and/or password that are not letters or numbers):
Then just click Save. You can also set your yourls installation to public (its in your yourls includes/config.php file), and then not include the &username and &password portions. As the yourls dev Ozh explained, you could also make a secret copy of yourls-api.php and make it public by removing the top line including the authorization information.
Hope that helps!
[update]: Added the portion about how special characters are not allowed in usernames & passwords (thanks @mirthlab).
There are no comments posted yet. Be the first one!
Logging you in…
Loading IntenseDebate Comments…A very cool feature of tweetie2 on the iPhone is the ability to specify a custom URL shortener. If you install YOURLS on your own website, you can use it! Note, this is different than my earlier post on how to roll your own URL shortener. That was really simple, it’s a little more complex to install YOURLS, but you get access to a web api if you do the work to get this up and running.
Arduino accelerometer (tiny board in the middle) calibration.
by posterous on Oct.08, 2009, under Arduino
Leave a Comment :Arduino more...
My Delightful Dell Mini netbook
by admin on Oct.06, 2009, under Gadgets, Mobile
I promised a post about my Dell Mini months ago, but didn’t write it up. OK, my bad, here you go!
Back in July I posted about my Asus netbook, and how great that had worked out on a roadtrip I took in March. Although the Asus was great, Windows XP wasn’t. I’ve used Windows machines for work, but occasionally, not on a day-to-day basis as my primary machine, having mostly used Macs and Linux machines. As a day-to-day OS, I found XP clunky, and frankly not very visually appealing.
I tried Windows 7 and I quite liked it. Between it’s visual and functional workover, and the free Virus protection from Microsoft, Windows 7 addressed all my day-to-day complaints, but although it worked great on my Asus, it wasn’t technically supported, and I had to decide if I was going to shell out 1/2 the price of the Netbook for a new OS. The Asus had a feature to restore back to a fresh version of XP, I didn’t want to loose that. So, I decided the Asus was best left an XP machine, if I wanted to keep it the cheap functional tool that it was.
But, I wasn’t going to use it daily if I had to use XP, and Windows 7 wasn’t shipping on any other netbooks yet. What to do. Well, I’d read an article on how to get MacOS running on a Dell Mini 9. Apparently, all the devices in the Mini were supported under MacOS, although Apple doesn’t really approve of installing MacOS onto non-Apple devices, but I was going to make sure everyone was paid for their work, and that I accepted I’d be on my own support-wise.
Dell had just stopped making the Mini 9, replacing it with very nice netbooks, but that used components MacOS didn’t support. I picked up a very reasonably priced refurb for $199, with wireless and bluetooth, bought a RunCore 64GB SSD which reviews said was very fast, and a new shrink-wrapped copy of MacOS Leopard.
I followed the easy online instructions (Note that this method has been replaced with a new, universal method of creating a bootable OSX for netbooks) and in short order had a Dell Mini 9 running MacOS. I quite understand why Apple isn’t making a netbook. They’re a big compromise in many ways, and Apple wants all their products to have a minimum amount of compromise vs. functionality. The Air was as much as they were willing to compromise. I had an air for a while at a prior job, and really did love it, but it was frankly too expensive to carry with me as a "rough and ready" personal device.
They Dell keyboard on the Mini 9 is a huge compromise. It’s not nearly as nice as the Asus. The biggest mistake, they not only squeezed a bunch of keys to be very, very small, they moved some. In a huge tactical error, they messed with the "home row" on they keyboard, and they did it by moving the apostrophe key down in a group of keys by the right of the space bar, and left the semi-colon. Think about this for a second. When did you last use an apostrophe or quote? OK, now when’s the last time you used a semi-colon? Yes, exactly. In the world of quick notes and 140 character micro-blogging, you use an apostrophe over and over and over again. Then, to make it worse, the return key is nice and big. And you hit it every single time you are going for an apostrophe. Toss touch typing out the window. I used Ukelele to remap the apostrophe/semicolon keys, and that helped a little, but you’re not going to be typing full speed on this keyboard, where I could get a pretty good clip going on the Asus.
The touchpad isn’t perfect either. Although the touchpad can handle multitouch, it just doesn’t work well with the Mini9 in my setup. No scrolling with the touchpad, which is a bit of a pain. I sometimes use a wireless mouse just to have a scroll wheel if I’m going to be doing a lot of browsing.
The verdict? This is a GREAT little machine! Even with the issues with touch typing, if you go in knowing you’ll have to type slowly, or use an external keyboard, its small and light, battery lasts for at least 3 hours with wireless on, has an SD card slot for importing photos/videos without cables. I use this as a portable blogging machine, a way to archive/post photos on the road, a great microblogging platform, and a great web browser and email machine, and a way to follow my recipes on kencooking in the kitchen without taking up all the counter space! It can also be used to play movies, and works passably there. With the SD card slot, you can load up movies on a card, and bring them with you, not sucking up precious SSD space. I also have a copy of my iTunes library on an external drive, so I can use this netbook, or my big MacBook to play anything in the library. And the 64GB SSD is a lot more space than I had on my 40GB 12" MacBook! Also, the SSD is FAST. Disk operations usually take much less time than on my big Intel MacBook Pro with its spinning rust.
The compromises aren’t for everyone. If you’re a power-blogger or a writer, the keyboard is a deal breaker. Carrying the netbook AND an external keyboard destroys any portability you gained. But, if you’re looking for a tiny, silent, rugged occasional use machine, especially if you’re out and about, it’s worth a look.
References:
