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Friday, September 19, 2008

Yahoo! Pipes

Today I manage to take a break from the usual and try something new so I decided to take on Yahoo Pipes for the first time. I know its been existing for sometime now but I haven't heard anything great about it yet... so maybe it's time to make something GREAT out of it.

My first impression after trying it out for the first 2 minutes is... How do I hell do that? Clearly its not for a programmer persona, accomplishing simple task takes so much steps. Anyway I decided to push through knowing that using UI for programming may actually dull my brain X_X

I decided I wanted to make an automated related search for every blog post I make. For example after I post this article about Yahoo! Pipes, it will make a search regarding the Title then take the keyword related to the article and dynamically replace all the words of the search result preview that matches the keyword into a link back to this post.

Sounds complicated? We'll in simple terms I'm making a blog-to-search-splog-PR-poisoning! :D

So click-and-click I go while cursing how can a simple 3-level nested loops can take so much steps to Yahoo Tubes but in the end here is the result:

yahoopipes

I also found out Google Chrome is the best browser to create Yahoo Pipes (ironic) because when pipes starts to become complicated it takes a much more JavaScript processing to edit it.

If you want to take a look at the result then go to Related Links pipe page or subscribe to the Related Links RSS to see the keywords automatically gets replaced by a link to my blog posts.

So now what? Well I'm actually creating something more dangerous, a self-splogging splog by letting Yahoo Pipes post the related search result to a blog, automatically change keywords to links then letting the blog's RSS be taken-in as Yahoo Pipe's source and the cycle will never stop :D The key here is Yahoo Pipe's Term Extractor which tell's us what are the web-search keyword related to a phrase and the search engine's continuous change in search result even for the same keyword (coz the index gets updated continually).

Google said don't be evil but Yahoo Pipes like these will eventually poison the search results easily if abused... to the point that it could triple the amount of redundant web data in no time (aw, really?) X_X

Monday, September 15, 2008

Ubiquity from Mozilla Labs

Still copy pasting links to send via Email? Upgrade your Firefox with Ubiquity now and experience the full power of Web 2.0!


Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Some of my favorite features:

  • Post to Twitter. You can also post the URL of the current page you are browsing.
  • Send embedded Google Maps using Gmail.
  • Dictionary, spell check and thesaurus.
  • Search Wikipedia, IMDB, Google and Yahoo as you type the word.
  • Translate only portion of text on a foreign site without reloading (my must have when playing Korean based MMORPGs).

Learn more and try it out at http://labs.mozilla.com/2008/08/introducing-ubiquity/

Finally a word of caution this is a very alpha-release, sometimes it still breaks especially when interacting with 3rd-party APIs.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

I'm Godie, the Jack-Of-All-Trades

I seldom post my personal thoughts here these days but here goes...

When I was a child I use to watch MacGyver, a TV series that featured a laid back secret agent that uses ingenious solutions to get out of sticky-situations. The thing that fascinates me about the show is the scientific explanations behind those solutions and the protagonist carries a Swiss Army Knife that aids him in all situation. That's when I decided to be just like that.

No.No.. Not be MacGyver... be the Swiss Army Knife! :D

Since then I strived not be an expert at one thing but be the best on everything, a Jack-Of-All-Trades; after all most of time you wont need an in-depth understanding of how things work. Some times its more important how it affects other things that's what you're after. For example right now we don't really know how gravitational force is created. only theories, but we all know it's effects and how to use them to our advantage.

Which brings me to this in front of me:

1 Asterisk on CentOs, 1 Win2003 Servers, 6 SPA3102, 4 Trunklines, 1 Cisco Switch, 2 SonicWall Router, 1 LinkSys Wifi, 1 Juniper Firewall... Yup, I'm busy X_X

So for the past month I've been monkey-ing around every aspects of security, software and network designs. Then implementing it -- I did all the cables, racks, power load balancing, and writing new applications to automate and manage them. Now only if I did study carpentry then I could say I did it all. Well I guess that's what I must do to start my 3rd company. I think its doing everything from ground up that entices me to start-ups and knowing for years to come a lot of people will need to rely on things I've done now that if it goes well then I did a great today -- 3rd's a charm I guess. So watch out for us soon because were gonna be kicking asses :D

BTW, regarding the title; its complete form is "Jack of all trades, master of none, though often better than a master of one" which is used by us hackers to describe ourselves and mock those so-called experts :D

Saturday, September 13, 2008

TxtTayo! - A Facebook FREE SMS Messenger

First of all... It's been a long time since I announced a new service but it's not my fault! Blame it to my boss who wants to keep everything under wraps. Hehe. Anyway I have off the web-sphere for a long time for that matter and I want to celebrate my return with something new to offer, so here goes...

Introducing MegaMobile's TxtTayo FREE SMS Messenger for Facebook.

TxtTayo is is Facebook application on the web, it means you have to be a Facebook user to use this.

txttayo

So what makes it different from Chikka or Sun iMessenger? TxtTayo allow you to send free SMS messages to your Facebook friends even if you don't know their phone number! Just think of the benefits using TxtTayo:

  • Keep your number anonymous, never have to worry about stalkers again.
  • Connect with friends abroad, let them send you messages from Facebook for free and you can reply back to straight from your phone.
  • Share with friends, invite your friends on Facebook to use TxtTayo so they can send you SMS for free!
  • Keep in control, allow only your true friends to send you messages not some fakester.
  • No keywords to memorize, it works like your second phone number.
  • No downloads required, most IM clients needs Internet anyway then why do you need to download it? Or why do you need another web site different from what you already use? Just login to your Facebook account!
  • No connection problem, TxtTayo is powered by Facebook so we don't have connection problems and will work with firewalls with zero configuration.
  • It's FREE, you're free to send via Facebook and Php2.50 to reply optionally via mobile for Globe and Smart. Php2.00 for Sun.

There you have it! Of course those are for regular folks, there are other ways to use TxtTayo. For example, you can create a Company Profile and let customers send you inquiries for free or send all of them updates of your new products for free!

Now are you excited to try TxtTayo? Click here to visit the TxtTayo Facebook application page to add it in your Facebook profile and start texting friends from free!

What's in the future? TxtTayo is going to evolve from being just an SMS messenger, as a matter of fact were evolving it beyond text messages and beyond anything that has been offered before. So watch out because "The Big Bad Godie is Back to Rock Your World!".

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