Hehpic

For a while now I’ve been working on an image-sharing site called hehpic.  It’s a work in progress & still has some fairly rough edges but it’s online & available for all to use.

Future development:

• Browser extensions for easy sharing
• Public API (there’s a private API now but it’s changing too frequently to be released)
• More search features
• Sex up the browsing interface
  • Tag combos (works now, just has to be done manually, use a comma)
  • Paging/Searching/Tag counts
• Dedicated hosting environment (I love my Dreamhost but it’s probably not going to scale well – I’ll deal with that when/if it happens)

Main issues:

• Feature poor
• IE rendering is awful

Check it out.  Upload something.  Make an account.  Subscribe to some feeds.  Comment here.

Link Shrink 0.2

Just a quick one this time, Link Shrink 0.2 is in the market.  Should hit the “100 downloads” mark soon, woo

Changelog:

• Links can now be shared out through the clipboard (i.e. copy & paste)
• App handles already shortened URLs gracefully
• Slightly more sensible logic around the API credential validation

Github. Market.

Link Shrink 0.1

I’ve just put together a 0.000000001 version of my bit.ly URL shortening tool for Android, called “Link Shrink”.

It integrates into the Android OS fairly tightly, at the moment only through the “Share Page” actions (technically speaking, android.intent.action.SEND + android.intent.category.DEFAULT + text/plain, copied straight from the Android browser) so when browsing (or doing anything else that supports URL sharing) you can hit share, hit Link Shrink & it will generate a bit.ly URL and send it back through the Share Page “intent” again so you can pass it on to SMS, email, delicious or whatever tickles your fancy.

Since it’s only a 0.1, it only supports the basics.

• URL shortening using bit.ly (and only bit.ly)
• Users can optionally provide their own bit.ly login & API key to add URLs to their account
• The only option for what to do with the shortened URL is re-sharing

There are plans for the future though and I’m kinda sweet on this tiny little app so it’ll probably be sooner rather than later.

• UI improvements
• Better error handling (e.g. detect when attempting to shorten an already shortened URL)
• More shortening services (if anyone has preferences please let me know, I only use bit.ly)
• More things to do with shortened URLs, such as:
  • Provide text boxes with long & short URLs for copy & paste
  • Send directly to the clipboard
  • Open bit.ly stats page
  • Prompt user every time for one of the above
• Better configuration screen to support the above
• Your idea here!

Ultimately though, the most important feature (URL shortening) is done & working fairly solidly on the emulator & my phone so I think I’ll let it loose on the market.  Please whack a comment in or email me if you have any feedback, problems, ideas or suggestions.

As always, the source is on Github, plus you can get the latest APK from my Dropbox, plus it’s on the market (scan the barcode below or click here if you’re on an Android phone).

Meat in a Park + Layar Integration

BBQs are awesome.  Augmented reality is awesome.  Imagine (if you will, nay, can) the awesomeness unleashed by combining the two.  Well brace yourself, it’s been done.  Combining the oh-so-great Meat in a Park API with the augmented reality browser Layar for Android (and yes, iPhone too), I present “the meat in a park layar” (thanks, I know it’s a great name). Use it to find a BBQ near you (although the MiaP service only has data for Australia – if this changes then I’ll lift the country restrictions).

It’s been approved, so first get Layar from the Android Market or the iPhone App Store and you can find it listed under ‘Eating and Dining’. As always the code is on github.

Awesome Algerian

Wow… my first blog post.  I never thought the day would come where I had reason to tell the world something in ink as  I’ve always had trouble finding “content” worthy of publishing, despite the constant stream of rubbish I spill out on twitter & other social forums.  My new years resolution for 2009 was to get writing code & put something out there and in my typical style, I’ve left it to the very last minute.  My day job these days is particularly mundane & repetetive so I’ve been finding mental stimulation elsewhere, this week I spent my evenings learning Ruby & Rails, building the “Hello World” of web development – a single-serve site.

Announcing: Awesome Algerian, the world’s smallest in-joke & a showcase of the finest use of the Algerian font across the globe.  I built the functionality of the site including a posting model & user management using this YouTube tutorial and the guide for Authlogic.  My good friend dos4gw provided the hilarious foundation, designed the layout and some content.  User registration is currently open while those privvy to the joke sign up & posting is restricted to these users.

Things I’ve learnt:

• Ruby looks and feels so much more elegant than Perl
• Ruby on Rails is super-easy to pull together a quick, functional website
• Typeface.js is so much nicer than sIFR

What’s next:

• Syndicate the content (RSS) – done!
• Write tests
• Clean up the routes
• Try and break it