Posted on the March 30th, 2009 under Internet by Tohir
Recently I came across this advert on the left, and it left be kind of shocked. How did they know i am 29? Is Facebook sharing my details with advertisers?
Knowing it could be too good to be true, I nonetheless clicked on the ad. Pity I’m not in Australia (the target audience), else I could have won the iPhone – yeah right!
Nonetheless, looking up on Facebook advertising, it does offer some really great targeting information. With people providing location, personal info, what they like (fans, etc.) it seems to be an advertiser’s paradise. All that needs to be done is really accurate profile of the target audience.
One just wonders where does the blur occur if it does at all?
Posted on the March 27th, 2009 under Internet by Tohir
DevHub claims it can help you build a money-making website in 10 minutes. I’m going to put that to the test [the building part at least ] and post the results on this blog. Keen to try it yourself?
Posted on the March 19th, 2009 under Twitter by Tohir
Sometimes I come across use of technology that really blasts me away. This is a really cool concept, instant translations via twitter, if only the service was up more often. Imagine if we hooked this into a text to speech synthesizer as well:
Twanslate, although it does sound like a Tweety bird styled mispronunciation, is, in reality, a Twitter mashup for on the fly translations. It works quite well for when you’re lost in a foreign land and have nothing but your mobile on hand. Simply send out a message (e.g. ‘d twanslate bg [for bulgarian] Where is the nearest toilet?’) to the @twanslate bot, and you’ll be able to get yourself out of sticky situations in a bucket load of languages. The bot remembers the last language code you used, so if you’re still keen on using it, you can skip the language code in your next message. If you need some extra pointers, send out the message ‘help’.
For the past few months, I’ve been working at a new company, and when people ask how it is, my response always tends be: “More tiring, but less stressful”.
Now this may sound like a contradiction, but in reality, it’s not. I am productive, exhausted, but since I’m also focused, there is little to stress about: How are we going to finish everything, Who’s work are we going to complete first, etc.
If you are in the IT/Multimedia industry, you’ve probably had your fair share of scope creep, last minute changes, lots of unfinished / uncommitted work, so much you wish you could have added.
Truth of the matter is, it doesn’t have to be like that. Team work can be focused, productive, fun and rewarding. If your team does not have a ‘methodology’ or that ‘methodology’ doesn’t work, you may want to consider the SCRUM approach.
Time and time again, it’s great to see how existing technology can be used in innovative ways, which is what makes the web an exciting place.
Microformats are simple sets of data formats that allows information in an article to be extracted and interpreted semantically. A blog entry may have information about an upcoming event, but is it shareable without the user having to retype or copy/paste the information? Is it automatically linkable to a map showing where the venue is? Can your organiser warn you that it clashes with an existing appointment.
These are the powers that the semantic web and microformats seek to bring.
Up till now, people who’ve implemented microformats have somewhat focussed on the way search engines especially Yahoo can present their website.
This morning, I’ve found another great way to use them: Populating forms with YQL, jQuery and Microformats. Every once in a while, we are required to complete a registration form. What this article presents, is an approach to autocomplete a form, by simply asking users to point to their hCard, a website page that contains the hCard, even if it has other content on the page as well.
There are exciting possibilities with this:
If many websites implement it, imagine the time savings that would occur
Popularity breeds familiarity, which means that microformats will finally start getting the attention it deserves
Business opportunity – which I’ll keep to myself for the time being
Will we start saving trees and ink by using an electronic version which allows much better use and purpose in case.
Even though there are things like business cards scanners, I think the day will come when someone will say: “Sorry I ran out of business cards, but here’s my hCard”.
I'm a Web Developer living in Cape Town, South Africa. Interests include: PHP, JQuery, ExtJS, Adobe AIR, Linux, Ubuntu, WordPress, Human Rights, Usability, Multimedia
Recently I came across this advert on the left, and it left be kind of shocked. How did they know i am 29? Is Facebook sharing my details with advertisers?
] and post the results on this blog. Keen to try it yourself?
I'm a Web Developer living in Cape Town, South Africa. Interests include: PHP, JQuery, ExtJS, Adobe AIR, Linux, Ubuntu, WordPress, Human Rights, Usability, Multimedia