TinyURL bookmarklet in action

If you just want to try this out, drag the link below to your bookmarks toolbar, then click the new bookmark. I’ve only tested in Firefox 3.04 so far so your mileage may vary if you use another browser. Let me know in the comments if you find this useful or have any problems.

Tiny

Read on for a description of how it works…

What it does
Inspired by the WTFramework bookmarklet I decided to create a TinyURL bookmarklet that would generate a shortened url without opening a new browser window and without navigating the user away from the current page. It took me a little while to figure out how to define a callback function within a bookmarklet (thanks to Dion Almaer for a useful tutorial) but I got it working in a couple of hours and I quite like it. Thanks also to Oskar Krawczyk for the CSS which I “borrowed” from the aforementioned WTFramework.

How it works
When you click the bookmarklet, I first check whether the UI element is visible and if it is, remove it:

var el=document.getElementById('__tiny');
if (el){
  document.body.removeChild(el);
}

This makes the bookmarklet act as a toggle: Click once to show the UI, click again to remove it. The WTFramework bookmarklet also removes the UI when the user clicks on the UI element itself  but I removed that functionality from this bookmarklet as the user is likely to want to click and select the tinyurl to copy it which would be difficut if the UI disappears on mouse click.

If the UI is not present, I generate a URL which is called via script injection to circumvent the browser’s same origin policy (i.e. I generate as script tag, set its src attribute and add the tag to the DOM):

var scriptTag = document.createElement('script');
scriptTag.type='text/javascript';
scriptTag.src='http://json-tinyurl.appspot.com/?callback=window.tinyCallback&url=' + document.location;
scriptTag.id='__tinyURL_script';
document.body.appendChild(scriptTag);

The response is a JSONP formatted string. TinyURL provides a very simple API (e.g. http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=http://www.droza.net/blog) but doesn’t offer a JSONP interface - I was going to create one with Yahoo Pipes, but found that a suitable JSONP wrapper for TinyURL already exists, hosted in Google’s AppEngine (e.g. http://json-tinyurl.appspot.com/?callback=window.tinyCallback&url=http://www.droza.net/blog) so I use that instead (thanks Simon!).

After the script tag is added to the page, the browser will call the API and the response will invoke the tinyCallback function (I check to see whether the function already exists before declaring it to prevent declaring it twice if the bookmarklet is used multiple times on the same page). The callback constructs a semi-transparent UI element positioned in the top-right of the browser page and sets its content to be the generated tiny url. The bulk of the code is CSS:

window.tinyCallback = function(data) {
  var c=document.createElement('span');
  c.id='__tiny';
  c.style.opacity='0.7';
  c.style.filter='alpha(opacity=70)';
  c.style.border='solid 2px %23fff';
  c.style.textDecoration='none';
  c.style.textAlign='left';
  c.style.position='fixed';
  c.style.zIndex='9000';
  c.style.top='15px';
  c.style.right='20px';
  c.style.background='#000';
  c.style.styleFloat='right';
  c.style.padding='7px 10px';
  c.style.color='%23fff';
  c.style.font='12px Lucida Grande,Helvetica,Tahoma';
  c.style.MozBorderRadius='5px';
  c.style.WebkitBorderRadius='5px';
  c.style.WebkitBoxShadow='0px 0px 20px %23000';
  c.style.MozBoxShadow='0px 0px 20px %23000';
  document.body.appendChild(c);
  c.innerHTML=data.tinyurl;

It then removes the script tag that it added to the DOM, just to keep things tidy:

var x=document.getElementById('__tinyURL_script');
if (x){
  document.body.removeChild(x);
}

After creating the script I used Dean Edward’s packer to minify the code to a single line sans-whitespace suitable for using in the href attribute of an a tag.

The full code
For reference, the listing below is the full non-minified sourcecode

var el=document.getElementById('__tiny');
if (el){
  document.body.removeChild(el);
} else {
  var scriptTag = document.createElement('script');
  scriptTag.type='text/javascript';
  scriptTag.src='http://json-tinyurl.appspot.com/?callback=window.tinyCallback&url=' + document.location;
  scriptTag.id='__tinyURL_script';
  document.body.appendChild(scriptTag);
}
if (!window['tinyCallback']) {
  window.tinyCallback = function(data) {
    var c=document.createElement('span');
    c.id='__tiny';
    c.style.opacity='0.7';
    c.style.filter='alpha(opacity=70)';
    c.style.border='solid 2px %23fff';
    c.style.textDecoration='none';
    c.style.textAlign='left';
    c.style.position='fixed';
    c.style.zIndex='9000';
    c.style.top='15px';
    c.style.right='20px';
    c.style.background='#000';
    c.style.styleFloat='right';
    c.style.padding='7px 10px';
    c.style.color='%23fff';
    c.style.font='12px Lucida Grande,Helvetica,Tahoma';
    c.style.MozBorderRadius='5px';
    c.style.WebkitBorderRadius='5px';
    c.style.WebkitBoxShadow='0px 0px 20px %23000';
    c.style.MozBoxShadow='0px 0px 20px %23000';
    document.body.appendChild(c);
    c.innerHTML=data.tinyurl;
    var x=document.getElementById('__tinyURL_script');
    if (x){
      document.body.removeChild(x);
    }
  }
}
void(0);

The sourceforge project page is: https://sourceforge.net/projects/xbmchumby/

…or you can point your CVS client at xbmchumby.cvs.sourceforge.net

I mentioned these issues on Twitter and @robb1e replied to suggest I try Ubuntu instead of Xandros. I’d read good things about Ubuntu but also read that it needed some manual tweaks to get some features of the 901 (wifi, bluetooth, webcam) to work. Then I found the Ubuntu Eee project - a version of Ubuntu customised with software and drivers specifically for the EeePC. It can be installed on a USB flash drive using a windows installer so that you can give it a try completely risk free as it wont touch your existing OS. I gave it a try and after just 15 minutes testing was convinced enough that I installed it permanently (from the same flash drive) and said goodbye to Xandros forever.

Here’s why I believe that Ubuntu Eee is streets ahead of Xandros:

• Much slicker, crisper user interface (the NetbookRemix interface is a simplified application launcher similar to that provided by Xandros, but it’s still possible to go back to the standard Ubuntu desktop although I think NetbookRemix is perfect for this form-factor).
• Great set of bundled applications (OpenOffice, Firefox 3 (including full flash support), Skype)
• Full support for the multitouch touchpad
• Fully functioning update manager
• Far more responsive when switching between applications
• Almost all of the hardware works without any extra configuration (see below for the exceptions)
• Shutdown really does shutdown and power off!

There are still a couple of things I think could be improved with Ubuntu Eee but I have more confidence in the community being able to resolve these quickly than Asus being able to fix the Xandros issues. In fact, there’s a new version based around Ubuntu 8.10 due at the end of which should have even better support for the 901. Here’s a quick roundup of the issues I had:

• Lack of bluetooth software - bluetooth drivers are installed but the only way to send or receive files (as far as I could tell) is via the command line until you install addiitional software to enable right-click > Send-to…
• SD card reader support - my card wasn’t mounted properly because of a conflict caused by Ubuntu expecting the presence of a CD-ROM drive. Easily fixed by a one-line change in a config file, but should work by default as none of the EeePCs have a CD-ROM
• Shortcut keys weren’t configured (home key and the row of 4 buttons above the function keys)
• MAME - one of the first things I installed. Surely Space Invaders and Pacman should come as standard, no?

I’m so impressed that I’m even considering scrapping WinXP from my main laptop and installing Ubuntu. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that Asus are underselling their EeePC by shipping it with Xandros - it should come with Ubuntu Eee by default.

Six months ago a friend bought an Asus EeePC 701. He soon returned it becuase he found the keyboard too cramped and the 7″ screen too small, but I was sold on the concept. Asus have since saturated the market with a plethora of devices and model numbers which  serve only to confuse the consumer but the latest model, the EeePC 901, is significantly improved from that first model and I think has the potential to be just what I’m looking for. The important features for me are:

• 9″ screen
• 1024 pixels wide so almost all webpages will fit without horizontal scrolling.
• Intel Atom mobile CPU running at 1.6GHz - low powered and cool running.
• 802.11b/g and n WiFi and bluetooth built-in
• 1.3megapixel webcam,
• 20GB solid state disk (SSD) if you go for the Linux option, otherwise 12GB so no moving parts and better battery life than a conventional hard disk.

In fact, it’s claimed that with some clever CPU performance management it’s possible to eek out 8 hours from a single charge.

So, just over a week ago I bought one, and put the N800 on eBay. I’ve been playing with the Eee901 for a while now, I’ve used it on the train, taken it when I went away for the weekend and shown it to several friends and colleagues. So far I’ve been very impressed with the hardware, design and build quality but disappointed with the Xandros Linux operating system. However, I made one big change yesteerday which has completely transformend the Eee901 and resolved almost all of my concerns. More on that in my next EeePC post…

As with many OU courses there is no instructor led face-to-face training, after enrolling for the course students receive a couple of DVDs with course notes, video tutorials and a copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements.  All of the content can also be accessed on the OU website, although the videos are necessarily of lower quality which make the Photoshop tutorials difficult to follow. The course currently uses Elements version 5, which is not the latest version (version 7 will be released shortly) but is more than adequate.

Each week students must read the notes for that week and watch the video tutorials which are generally a narrated recording of an instructor demonstrating a Photoshop technique - for the first couple of weeks one of the instructors had a slow monotonous voice that made the videos difficult to follow but this improved greatly with the instructors in later weeks. There’s then a practical exercise each week where students must submit a minimum of two but up to ten photos electronically using “Open Studio” (an online photo sharing site similar to flickr or picasa) for fellow students to critique. There’s no formal feedback from instructors, although there are experienced moderators who may also comment on students’ work.

The OU say that any camera may be used for the course (2 Megapixel or above if it’s digital) and that an SLR is not required. However, I would say that a digital rather than film camera is essential as it would be too difficult to take a whole film of photographs each week in order to have it developed and digitised in order to submit pictures for that week’s task. I’d agree that an SLR is not essential (lots of my course mates were using compact digital cameras) but a camera with some level of manual settings is a must.

There were a couple of things that I thought could be improved with the course: one subject that I expected to be covered but wasn’t was flash photography (diffusers, slow sync, front/rear curtain).  I also felt that the topics were a little weak in the last couple of weeks - almost as though they had struggled to find enough material to fill the full 10 weeks, although I think the OU would argue that this was to allow students that may have missed earlier topics to catch up before the final assessment. Finally, although the Open Studio website was very well designed, the accompanying forum was non-intuitive and amongst the worst I have ever used. In fact I suspect that many students (myself included) didn’t use the forum because it was so poor choosing instead to have conversations using the commenting system in Open Studio or moving on to the T189 group on flickr. However, I know that this was only the second time that the course had been run and that improvements are being made to the online systems.

Overall I found T189 to be a very rewarding course and my fellow students provided encouragement and useful tips. I know understand concepts like depth-of-field and could even tell you what (most of) the abbreviations and funny little symbols on my camera all do! The weekly tasks are great because they give you a reason to go out and take photos each week My confidence and the quality of my photos has certainly improved as a result. - I might have found this more difficult if I had done the course in October: there are only so many pictures you can take in a grey and rainy Suffolk! Before I completed the course I would take photos save them to my computer and tag them, now I find myself cropping, straightening, tweaking the levels, adjusting the colour balance, cloning out distractions, sharpening, dodging, burning…

There’s a mid-course assessment (multiple choice Q&A) and at the end of the course, students must submit a panel of 10 photographs and submit a written piece to answer a selection of questions about the photos they submit. I believe that students then get a pass or fail along with a score (I’ll find out at the end of the week when I get my result!) and those students getting the higher results are encouraged to work toward Licentiateship Distinction at the Royal Photographic Society.

The second utility by the same developer - QTAddressBar - is a new address bar that provides breadcrumb functionality so that each folder in a patch can be clicked to jump straight to that level in the path. You can also traverse the folder tree by clicking the arrow between folder names and using the popup folder tree rather than navigating up the tree and then back down a different branch. This is really a clone of the Vista address bar but is really handy to have in XP.

Both of these utilities play nicely together to provide a much friendlier more productive file explorer.

[via lifehacker]

I plan to post more feedback on the S710, Windows Mobile 6 and any useful software/hints/tips over the coming weeks. If you’re interested, you can view all S710 posts or subscribe to a feed.

Disclosure: Yes, I happen to work for BT, but I’m not directly involved in the Total Broadband Anywhere project and the opinions expressed here are entirely my own. 

The methods by which tracks were hidden on vinyl records is also more interesting than I realised: I knew about the method of hiding tracks at the end of an album often separated from the “final” track by an extended period of silence (on vinyl this is sometimes visible by a different density of the groove). I wasn’t aware of the “double-groove” method though, which to me is a more genuinely “hidden” track and quite ingenious.

So in the days when everyone bought their music on pressed vinyl I can almost, maybe, just about see the point of including hidden tracks (by the way, I’m drawing a distinction between a hidden track an a “bonus” track - the latter being an additional track added in later releases of a record or for certain territories as a special edition). But these days when most of us buy music on CD or as digital downloads is there really a place for hidden tracks? For a start most CD players will tell you the total number of tracks as soon as you insert the disc so adding additional tracks not listed on the sleeve seems pointless. If you buy music downloads or rip your CDs you then you have the added problem of how to tag the track. A quick search of my music library (3281 tracks) shows 5 “untitled”, 1 “hidden”, 1 “untitled hidden” - there were probably others that were untitled when I ripped the disc but I’m somewhat “obsessive” about correctly tagging my music. No doubt there are also several others tacked on to the end of the final track after a period of silence (you could argue that these last ones are genuinely hidden because I haven’t managed to find a way of searching my library to find them!). But it’s this last category that I find the most annoying - when listening to an album I want to listen to the whole thing. I don’t want to sit through ten minutes of silence - or even worse than a nice round 10 minutes is something random like 11 minutes and 43 seconds. If I’m driving or listening on my phone’s MP3 player it isn’t convenient to fast-forward through all that silence.

Just as the double-groove was a genuine way of hiding tracks on vinyl, the “pre-gap” in the Red Book audio CD standard allows tracks to be hidden but this time in a way that may never be detected by the casual listener. The pre-gap allows tracks to be hidden before the first track of the disc. Such tracks are almost always inaccessible on a computer’s CD player but some standalone players will playback the track if you go to the start of the first track and then rewind past the start. Pre-gap tracks are too-well hidden for all but the most dedicated listeners though.  I have an album by David Ford which apparently has a track hidden in the pre-gap - I say “apparently” because I’ve still never managed to play it in any CD player I’ve tried! While reading the wikipedia page for pre-gap I discovered that I also have several other CD’s with tracks hidden in this way (Bloc Party, Blur, David Gray, Damien Rice). So really, if you can’t see the track, it’s not listed on the sleeve, and most players won’t play it: what’s the point?

So there’s my case against hidden tracks on CDs. Artists, please take note!

The autostitch software is the result of a research project at the University of British Columbia and the technology has been licenced to other companies for use in commercial products - it’s even been licensed to George Lucas’ ILM for production of panoramic images for films. The free version has a quite a clunky interface with a bit of a “proof-of-concept” feel about and although it provides a ton of options for customisation the only think I ever change is the amount of memory that the app can consume (I usually allocate all the physical RAM in my PC), and the size of the output image (larger images take considerably longer to produce). The app itself is only 0.75MB to download, requires no installation and when the trial period expires just download a new copy!

The example images here are my own very basic efforts. For some really impressive images checkout flickr for images tagged with autostitch: flickr.com/photos/tags/autostitch

I have no association with autostitch other than as a user of the software.

www.autostitch.net