VolumeLogic, my favorite iTunes DSP audio enhancement plugin, long broken on iTunes 7, finally works again with iTunes 7.1 after a long beta period.
As a beta tester, I received a coupon code that I thought I’d share, since VolumeLogic is so worth owning. Anyway, to get your $5 off, use TUNE54U when checking out.
Enjoy!
Alex King has released a WordPress plugin that links your WordPress blog to your Twitter account, allowing you to pull your “tweets” into your blog or post directly to Twitter from WordPress. Among other features is a sidebar widget for latest tweets and a forthcoming digest mode.
I’ve decided that, in the interest of the sneaky unobtrusive mode for the wpopenid plugin, I’m going to start using simply factoryjoe.com as my web address instead of factoryjoe.com/blog… this is a pretty big change, but I think it’s both time to simplify and get with the delegation I set up of my root.
Hmmm. Of course this means I now need to put something more interesting on factoryjoe.com… damn.
Hot on the news that BarCampAustin co-organizer Whurley has joined BMC Software as Chief Evil Genius, we’re kicking off the start of BarCamp/Refresh/Dorkbot at Bourbon Rocks in Austin alongside the start of SXSW.
A couple notes… BarCampAustin starts started today and continues into tomorrow (yes, this overlaps with the first day of SXSWi). Highlights include $10 screenprinting of your own custom BarCamp tshirt and Austin favorite SoulHat will be playing Saturday Night — along with other surprises throughout. As co-organizer Erica O’Grady says, This is definitely going to be a BarCamp you won’t want to miss 😉
Now, as for agendas… just want to point out that we’ll probably be doing both a session and a coordinating meeting of some kind related to coworking tomorrow. This is the meeting that we previously discussed but didn’t set a definite time on. I think it’d be best if we planned to take this on tomorrow from 3:30 to 4:30 — trying hard not to conflict with too many panels… so that Tara can join in, since she’ll be jetting off to Vegas to perform reconnaissance at Community Two Point Oh Con.
Otherwise, the rest of the week is pretty well covered by Jeremy Keith’s microformats mashup until we arrive at the BarCampPlannersSummit on Thursday.
So, while I’m at it, I want to pimp out Twitter (not like it needs it — but you can follow what’s going on by sending the command join sxsw — though unfortunately there’s no “unjoin” if you want to tune us all out) and Conferenceer — both will prove indispensable tools throughout the week and beyond.
Two more announcements for OpenID adoption — but this time on the consuming side (as opposed to my originally incorrect report about WordPress.com — for now, they’re only serving as an identity provider).
The first is Shopify, a great Rails-based custom store application. As Alex points out, these guys really get it right — and make it super easy to create compelling marketplaces. And now, it’s super easy to log in with OpenID.
Meanwhile, IconBuffet has gone through a major overhaul, becoming something of a social network for … icon enthusiasts! (Sweet!) One of the more existing aspects of the relaunch (at least for me) is their use of OpenID: you can either create a new account with an existing OpenID (say, your WordPress.com blog URL) or you associate your existing account with an OpenID. Either way, they too’ve made it really easy to get going with OpenID.
I imagine that these won’t be the last of the increasing deployments of OpenID in the medium- to long-tail (read: not Google or IBM, but small business community). What’s so existing about these recent additions is their proximity to commerce — and how folks like Shopify could eventually weave a web service that allows you to check out — entirely by way of logging in to your OpenID provider. If you choose a good OpenID provider, you can start to see how the CardSpace metaphor makes sense — just like when you go out to eat and depending on whether it’s a business meal or a personal expense, you’ll use a different credit card to pay.
The same thing is true for OpenID — where you can have as many OpenIDs as you like and you can pick among them for different uses or purposes. It’s only a matter of time before I go to check out at IconBuffet, I login with my WordPress.com OpenID and I’m able to use credits that I’ve purchased on WordPress.com to pay for my icons — with no need to reach for the credit card, to fill in my address info or any of that ever again!
Now, if that doesn’t sound exciting, you might want to check your pulse. 😉
I got an email today from 37 Signals today about their forthcoming CRM tool called Highrise (formerly known as Sunrise). Curious to see where the project was at, I went and snooped around, trying out some common beta URLs to see if I could get a sneak peak… (naughty naughty) and, finding nothing, it dawned on me that Jason Fried was probably using his standard domain prefix for his account… just as he’s done with the Backpack reviews.
Sure enough, there was a welcome page at jf.highrisehq.com but what else did I discover? None other than a link to “Login with OpenID”. I tried logging in and it went through all the proper steps — so it does look like this is a functioning feature.
So it appears that the 37 Signals guys have finally drunk the Koolaid and will be supporting OpenID… I asked for this awhile ago but now, with DHH on the case and writing code, it seems that it’s actually going to happen.
And I couldn’t be more excited about it. Finally, one login for all my Basecamps, Backpacks, Campfires, Tada Lists… and now, Highrise. This is exactly the way it’s supposed to work.
In talking to Matt last Friday at the Adaptive Path party, I asked him when OpenID was coming to WordPress.com — the hosted blogging service — and he replied “Monday”.
Well, a day late but hardly a dollar short, WordPress.com has added bi-directional support for OpenID.
What this means is that you can both sign in to WordPress.com using your existing OpenIDs (making WordPress.com a “consumer”) as well as use your WordPress.com URL (for example, https://factoryjoe.wordpress.com) as an OpenID elsewhere, making WordPress.com an iDP or “identity provider”.
The FAQ entry is pretty descriptive and I’d recommend you take a look at it. WordPress.com now joins a growing array of service providers offering support for this grassroots-driven authentication protocol.
No word on when OpenID will hit core of the WordPress project, but there are already two great efforts driven first by Alan Castonguay and more recently Will Norris — which point to a positive future between the two open source initiatives.
Update: Oops! I wasn’t very specific about that .nib file. I’ve updated the instructions to make it more clear now. As for HEX colors in the Color Picker, try the HexColorPicker. Thanks Frank!
There was a trend awhile back to tout your custom QuickSilver interface. At the time I resisted doing anything hardcore, content to enjoy other people’s works.
Well, without any QuickSilver updates lately, I finally gave in and copied a style I found in the forums created by Axlin by following the instructions provided by Hawk Wings.
To save folks the hassle, I’ll make this really easy for you.
First, make sure you’re running the latest version of QuickSilver (β51). Next, install the Cube interface if you don’t have it already. Third, launch the Cube customization interface.
Ok, once there, make your settings look like this:
Now, here’s where it gets a little dicey. You’ll need to first download the replacement QSCubeInterface.nib from my server. Navigate to ~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/Plugins in the Finder and make a backup of the existing QSCubeInterface.nib file in that directory. Now, right click on QSCubeInterface.nib and select “Show Package Contents”. Drill into Contents/Resources and unzip the QSCubeInterface.nib.zip file in this directory, overwriting the existing .nib (you should have already made a backup).
Now, quit and restart QuickSilver and you should be good to go. Lemme know if it works for you and if you come up with any other interesting examples of customization, post them to the QuickSilver Flickr group.
Was thinking… wouldn’t it be kind of interesting if there were an attention aggregator for your friending behavior? I mean, being able to see who you’ve friended at many social networks and then inferring other folks you might want to meet would be pretty useful — and as we tend to say — would accelerate serendipity.
And this would go beyond simple XFNing someone — this would actual include identifying and measuring your behavior with and towards each friend over time… for example, do you message them often? Do you recommend links? Who do you always invite or add first?
Anyway, I think I’d like to be able to get friend recommendations and make new connections — kind of like an accelerated LinkedIn… oh well, maybe that’s just me.
Dan Cederholm proposed the idea of a figure microformat some time ago and I followed up with a post the microformats discuss list. I’ve continued thinking about it and after throwing down with Tantek over IM, realized that K2‘s presentational approach of using alignleft, alignright and center classnames on images just didn’t hold up over time and, as Tantek asserted, was worse than being semanticly neutral.
Therefore, I decided and have been using the following approach to laying out images in my blog posts:
.code { border: 1px solid #eee; list-style-type: decimal-leading-zero; padding: 5px; margin: 0; }
.code code { display: block; padding: 3px; margin-bottom: 0; }
.code li { background: #fff; border: 1px solid #ccc; margin: 0 0 2px 2.2em; }
a img {border:0;}img.figure {max-width:460px;border:2px solid #f7f7f7;}img.figure-a {margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;display:block;}img.figure-b {float:right;border:0;margin:0 0 6px 6px;}img.figure-c {float:left;border:0;margin:0 6px 6px 0;}Thus, if you apply the figure class to an image on its own line, it can’t be larger than a setting of your choosing (i.e. to not overlap columns, at least in Firefox) and will have a nice border outlining it. Adding figure-a will center it on the line, figure-b will align it to the right and figure-c will align it to the left.
I chose these names after consulting with Tantek, reading Dan’s piece and thinking about the multiple uses these classes might have beyond images (i.e. for formatting tables or graphs). Figures are often cited in textbooks and newspapers and currently don’t conflict with any other microformat.
I’d like to see the next versions of Sandbox and K2 support this and deprecate the alignleft, alignright and center image classes in subsequent versions. I’d also like NetNewsWire, Bloglines and other feed readers to support these basic alignment styles. But until then, feel free to use this markup in your own projects and spread the pattern!
Factory Joe 