Month of July, 2008

I almost pissed my pants seeing this picture , this is definitely the ugliest Facebook profile I have ever seen.

View the ugliest Facebook profile

I've been using Twitter for a couple of months now, it's a mostly pointless service that I keep going back to. Some days I can think of lots to write but most days I can't think of anything. I think I'm trying too hard to post something useful or interesting rather than just something random.

I'm following a number of people now, some of them post generally interesting stuff thats happening others post crap. 

I'm interested to know what other people use Twitter for and what they get from posting stuff on there? (The same can be said for Facebook status updates).

How would you react to being dropped out of a plane without a parachute, or buried alive? After crapping your pants, that is. These folks survived that and more, slapping Death in the face and telling it to go make them a sandwich.

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Wheelchair Sign
Originally uploaded by Renier & Rene Taken at the St Lucia Crocodile Park

Uploaded by Renier & Rene on 7 May 07, 8.51AM BST.

It's been a year in the coming but finally I have an iPhone. I managed to find one at a reasonable price and have unlocked it to use T-Mobile (so I don't need a new contract with O2).

I've been wary of smart phones since I had bad experiences with the MDA Vario, it wasn't that it was a bad phone hardware wise, it was the laggy software that let it down. I recently had the chance to play with a HTC Diamond whilst setting it up for a client, it has the stylish looks but again the Windows Mobile software let it down. The lag was still there when you tapped the screen (often twice or three times) and having to use the pen every time you wanted to use the phone was another annoyance.

Fortunately the iPhone makes up from where the other smart phones are let down. The phone itself looks great with a big scratch resistant screen. The software works well and when you press a button (with your finger) it works instantly.

Unlocking was very easy, much easier than with a Nokia or Sony Ericsson, you just download an application called ZiPhone and click 'Do it all', this upgrades/downgrades the firmware, activates and unlocks the phone.

It also installs Jailbreak which allows you to install third party applications and games. I installed a useful one that automatically uploads pictures to Flickr when you take them on the camera.I was expecting it to be slow to type on the iPhone but the speed is very similar to other phones.

If you can pick up a second hand iPhone then I would recommend unlocking it as its so easy to do!

Piclens is a plugin for Firefox that allows you to browse pictures in a fullscreen 3D envionment. It's 3D wall interface (pictured below) makes it effortless to browse thousands of photos quickly and easily.

Once you find a picture you like, a single click shows an enlarged version with any available description.

Sites have to be enabled to use Piclens however sites such as Flickr and some news sites have the ability to use it.

PicLens works on:

* YouTube
* Flickr
* Facebook
* MySpace
* Google Images
* Photobucket
* DeviantArt
* Picasa Web Albums
* Smugmug
* FotoTime
* Fotki
* Bebo Hi5
* Friendster
* Yahoo Image Search
* Ask Image Search
* Live Image Search
* AOL Image Search

 You can download the plugin from the Firefox Addons site.

I work with the open source content management system Drupal on a daily basis, I've designed sites for local and international organisations. Modules are essential for my work, these are the ones I work with everyday and use in some fashion on almost every website.

1. CCK - Content Construction Kit

Almost every website will need to define content fields in some way so that it is easy for the user to enter data and to report off, the CCK module gives you this flexibility to do this. These can be anything from simple number and text fields to select boxes, radio buttons and image upload fields. CCK is one of the main reasons Drupal is a flexible platform allowing for the quick development of website.

More:www.drupal.org/project/cck

2. Views

Being able to store all your data is great however what really matters is how you display this data to the end user. By being able to select what fields you want to display, pass arguments and setup filters, Views is incredibly powerful and goes hand in hand with CCK.

More: www.drupal.org/project/views

3. Panels

Panels is a great way to mix different views and blocks into the same page in different columns. The panels module comes with either two or three column layouts giving some great flexibiltiy to page design.

More: www.drupal.org/project/panels

4. Pathauto

Clean URL's are a great way to give a more descriptive URL, the path auto module allows you to automatically generate different urls for different types of content. For example on ImAFish it differentiates imafish.co.uk/blog/??? and imafish.co.uk/articles/??? .

More: www.drupal.org/project/pathauto

5. TinyMCE

TinyMCE integrates a Javascript WYSIWYG editor into Drupal providing an easy way to add formatting to pages. It doesn't matter about the type of site I'm building, the client always needs a way to easily edit a pages content. TinyMCE makes this goal possible, I don't think there has been a Drupal site to date where I haven't integrated TinyMCE in.

More: www.drupal.org/project/tinymce

6. IMCE

IMCE integrates an image upload box into TinyMCE and provides basic controls for resizing images. IMCE is here for a similar reason that TinyMCE is, people love to put pictures on web pages and usually these start out on a users computer. IMCE provides an easy way to upload these images so that they can be positioned on a page with TinyMCE.

More: www.drupal.org/project/imce

7.  Captcha

Spam submissions plague the Internet, and the captcha module nicely integrates with registration, login, commenting and a number of other fields to help stop spammers. The captcha comes in two forms, either letters or a simple mathmatical equation.

More: www.drupal.org/project/captcha

8. Token

Token makes a number of place holders available to other modules allowing you to easily build up strings to be used to buid arguments.

More: www.drupal.org/project/token

9. XMLSitemap

The XMLSitemap module automatically generates and submits sitemaps to a number of search engines including Google, Yahoo and MSN. A great module to help with search engine optimization. 

More: www.drupal.org/project/xmlsitemap

10. Google Analytics

The Analytics module is a simple one that just gives you the ability to add Googles visitor tracking software to your site.

More: www.drupal.org/project/google_analytics

I've just added a life feed to ImAFish, it syndicates everything I do on Digg, Flickr, Twitter and ImAFish.

To get your own Life Feed on ImAFish there are instructions on the forum.

Has anyone else played around with life feeds - does anyone use them?

"Thank you so much guys. I know it's been a tough weekend but we pulled it together when it mattered. Oh my god, we did it."
Lewis Hamilton on the team McLaren radio

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They walk among us! Some even fly among us! They may even take the bus among us from time to time! Homosapiens-Superior is here, and can do things that have scientists scratching their heads. We're carefully tracking their progress, so that one day soon we may gather them together and fight crime. Or maybe commit crimes. We haven't decided yet.

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