I know it's only a tiny app, but I've had people ask me about how I created the Twitter apps to post the latest football scores (e.g. http://twitter.com/arsenal_scores) so having a bit of extra time (no pun intented) this week I decided to grab the latest copy and put in on Google Code. It serves another purpose as I hadn't backed it up, so now it's in source control and I can point people to it who are interested.
Tuck in - all 3kb of it.
http://code.google.com/p/latestscorestwitter/
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Databse Migrations using Rake without Rails
Database migrations can be a pain, it is for me anyway when I have to fire up an SQL window and execute commands (I'm lazy). Having used Ruby on Rails for a previous project I came across the command 'rake db:migrate' and loved how the creating of tables, columns and altering of those were reduced to Ruby code which is much easier to read and execute. I wanted to find a way to use that command on a project that wasn't using Rails. I found an excellent post on the subject, but I tweaked it slightly.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Open Source Call Control and Text to Speech Makes CallFlow Release
It's an exciting time at work, we've 'officially' released Aloha, our Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Application Server as an open source project. We also released text to speech as a feature of CallFlow into our sandbox environment. Why do I think this is exciting? Well, several months ago I blogged about 'is it good enough to consume open source without contributing?', and I think this shows where we stand on that discussion.
Now, SIP servers may not mean a lot to many people, but it really should be a comodoity piece of software and this goes back to a blog I mentioned in the link above from JP, Build vs Buy vs Open Source. I think it's great to share so here is out effort, I don't know if it will get any uptake, but it'll be fun finding out.
In other news, there was some cool new features added to CallFlow during the Web21C release today. It's been pretty fun working on such a novel voice application with text to speech the obvious highlight. In fact, I wrote about it on my work blog.
Finally, I've been putting together a paper based on experiences developing Aloha with Rags and Fab. If you're interested, you can read the submission.
Now, SIP servers may not mean a lot to many people, but it really should be a comodoity piece of software and this goes back to a blog I mentioned in the link above from JP, Build vs Buy vs Open Source. I think it's great to share so here is out effort, I don't know if it will get any uptake, but it'll be fun finding out.
In other news, there was some cool new features added to CallFlow during the Web21C release today. It's been pretty fun working on such a novel voice application with text to speech the obvious highlight. In fact, I wrote about it on my work blog.
Finally, I've been putting together a paper based on experiences developing Aloha with Rags and Fab. If you're interested, you can read the submission.
Monday, April 07, 2008
It's a Mac Mini Adventure
It certainly has been a mini adventure, but one that spans several years in a quest for home entertainment. I think I may even be finally happy with that. With my new home I've been able to do some things I've always wanted to do. Since I left school I started to build my collection of stereos, TVs and other goodies. Recently I added two pairs of Mordaunt Short Genies with a matching centre to add to my 32" Samsung LCD TV.
I had a dilemma where I'd moved my PC away from close proximity to the TV which I was using to view videos with the VGA port on my TV and amp for my MP3s from the PC.
I had tried streaming to my xBox 360 using the Media Centre Extender, and although this works quite nicely for audio it can't cope with DivX movies even though the xBox has been given DivX support. There were a few products on the market which might have done the job, but then I thought "what is the most configurable, most likely to work how I want it work solution?" - the answer. A computer.
It needed to be small, be able to handle videos and music which all computers can. Be able to support DivX and other formats and ideally have a Media Centre like application with remote. The Mac Mini was my answer to that question.
Having a computer as a media centre is both a great thing and a bad thing. It's great as it's flexible but it's bad because it needs input through keyboard and mouse. There may be a way to disable this from the Mac I'm unaware of, but I added a wireless keyboard and mouse that works really nicely. The mouse even works on the material of my sofa.
See, for the smallness of the remote, the small keyboard and mouse are more powerful and easily stashed under the sofa.
All in all, I'm very happy with the purchase, a small media centre hooked up to my TV and amp for £500 that can also be used as a full on computer from the sofa. Throw in a 750GB external hard disc and I'm laughing.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
URI as Contract
When working on Mojo, one of the first things we did was to come to an agreement on the API that the application would use. I think we went in this direction early as we had always intended for the Mojo to be used as an 'widget' platform to access the Web21C SDK Services. I think it was a great move, and I'd certainly recommend this, even if you don't intend your web app to have an API.
With modern REST based web apps, we tend to think about the URI a lot more along with what to POST or GET to that URI. There are no real rules, and as such - toolkits, to help the developer with building REST-friendly URIs, it's more of a mind set. I won't repeat those rules here, but it essentially boils down to cool URIs and being mindful of resources.
The part where can come stuck is thinking in terms of actions or methods, it's something we all have to get used to, but I truely believe that if you invest a little time to agree URI as contract, it'll save headaches later on.
With modern REST based web apps, we tend to think about the URI a lot more along with what to POST or GET to that URI. There are no real rules, and as such - toolkits, to help the developer with building REST-friendly URIs, it's more of a mind set. I won't repeat those rules here, but it essentially boils down to cool URIs and being mindful of resources.
The part where can come stuck is thinking in terms of actions or methods, it's something we all have to get used to, but I truely believe that if you invest a little time to agree URI as contract, it'll save headaches later on.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Enterprise computing for non-geeks
Hello, and welcome to your new laptop from your employer, Enterprise X. We know that you're old laptop didn't need replacing, but this way we'll be able to ensure that you're up to date with all of our corporate policies and the applications that support them.
Firstly, you'll notice that although you have a 'mobile' computer, if you do take it out of the office you'll have to use your secure token to VPN (or dial-in) to use the internet. It's a big bad world out there, and we like to look after you.
You'll also notice that we've kindly given you 'admin' access, although you have to request this through our control panel and explain why you need it. Although your new laptop is capable of using the latest 'mainstream' applications, we've decided to give you the old versions, after all, that's what you're familiar with.
We've also done some great work to enable automated syncronisation of your 'My Documents' folder to the tune of two whole gigabytes, how you'll use that, we'll never know! We also have this great way of saving email space, instead of giving you standardised email access through POP or IMAP, we've used a series of vendor products to safeguard your email by only showing you the subject and the sentence or two until you really need it. Neat huh? We've recently increased the email storage size to 40MB to take advantage of this space saving. Who really needs 6GB indexed and search-able web mail anyway?
Finally, we've added the ultra secure 802.1X network authentication to your offices, but don't worry, as you're using approved hardware this will all be taken care of...
*stops*
*installs ubuntu*
Firstly, you'll notice that although you have a 'mobile' computer, if you do take it out of the office you'll have to use your secure token to VPN (or dial-in) to use the internet. It's a big bad world out there, and we like to look after you.
You'll also notice that we've kindly given you 'admin' access, although you have to request this through our control panel and explain why you need it. Although your new laptop is capable of using the latest 'mainstream' applications, we've decided to give you the old versions, after all, that's what you're familiar with.
We've also done some great work to enable automated syncronisation of your 'My Documents' folder to the tune of two whole gigabytes, how you'll use that, we'll never know! We also have this great way of saving email space, instead of giving you standardised email access through POP or IMAP, we've used a series of vendor products to safeguard your email by only showing you the subject and the sentence or two until you really need it. Neat huh? We've recently increased the email storage size to 40MB to take advantage of this space saving. Who really needs 6GB indexed and search-able web mail anyway?
Finally, we've added the ultra secure 802.1X network authentication to your offices, but don't worry, as you're using approved hardware this will all be taken care of...
*stops*
*installs ubuntu*
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