Mike Cohen

WP-O-Matic FAIL

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If you follow me on twitter, you probably saw about 32 tweets spew from my blog, thanks to WP-O-Matic blowing chunks all over my blog, which Twitter Tools dutifully reported as new posts.

I’m attempting to set up automatic photo blogging from my Flickr photo stream. Flickr produces RSS feeds for each tag, so I’m using the tag photoblog to have those images posted here automatically by subscribing to the resulting feed. Unfortunately, Flickr’s tag feed URL has several characters such as ‘?’ or ‘&’ that WP-O-Matic choke on. As a result, instead of seeing my tag feed, WP-O-Matic saw my entire photo stream. Furthermore, although I limited it to post only 5 items, it decided to post each item multiple times.

A work-around for the URL problem is to use a URL shortener such as tinyurl to generate a clean URL for WP-O-Matic. I’ve made it create new items as drafts instead of publishing immediately, so it shouldn’t happen again.

links for 2009-02-22

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  • A Simple Way To Play MP3 Audio Files | iPhone Development Blog
    The iPhone media player is very easy to use, but it only works in landscape mode and it seems designed more for video than audio. If you wish to play an onboard MP3 or an MP3 file as it’s downloading (not really streaming, but progressive download) you have another option! Use the audio player embedded with Safari running in a UIWebView.
    (tags: iphone cocoa programming tips)

I Can Has Cheezburger App Redesign

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I have been working on implementing the new Cheezburger API in the ICHC app, but I’m starting to become unhappy with the user interface. In particular, the bottom toolbar is too cluttered and I don’t really like the action sheet I use for creating LOLs.

I’ve started redesigning it to use a navigation based user interface, where the top level lists the sites, and each site opens a view similar to the current app. Like the current version, you’ll be able to swipe back & forth or use arrow buttons to switch images and tap to toggle the toolbars on or off. When the application starts up, it will go directly to the last site viewed rather than the top level. Unlike the current version, it will save the last image viewed for each site.

Before I commit to this, I’d like some feedback.

This is the top level view, where you choose the site:

iPhone Simulator-3.jpg

This is the image view (still not complete):

iPhone Simulator-2.jpg

free polls Which user interface do you prefer?
Current – 1 screen & Action sheets
Navigation Controller


True openness in government

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Aaron Swartz notes that the stimulus bill requires that each government agency report the money they give out with Atom or RSS.

For each of the near term reporting requirements (major communications, formula block grant allocations, weekly reports) agencies are required to provide a feed (preferred: Atom 1.0, acceptable: RSS) of the information so that content can be delivered via subscription.

Furthermore, the recovery.gov website is based on Drupal.

My latest musical discovery

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When i guess i’m floating compared Fanfario to Arcade Fire, it caught my attention. I really like the two samples from their upcoming debut album, Reservoir, which still isn’t listed in iTunes or eMusic. I did find a few EPs and collections with their songs on eMusic, though. I’m definitely going to buy their album as soon as it’s released.

Google Friend Connect

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Last week I added Google Friend Connect to MacMegasite, with a member widget in the sidebar and rating/comment widgets for each article. Today I added Friend Connect to WorldBeatPlanet with a social bar at the top of the page.

WorldBeatPlanet Social Bar
Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

Unlike the sidebar widgets, the social bar won’t work when placed in a block. I had to paste the code into the page template.

Adobe Activation FAIL

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I’ve swapped the 4GB of RAM and 320G 7200 RPM drive from my MacBook into the new MacBook Pro. It feels a bit faster than the MacBook, even when using the GeForce 9400M video. I haven’t tried switching to the 9600M GT yet. The display is really gorgeous – much brighter and better contrast than the MacBook. On the other hand, the new MacBook Pro does feel very big & bulky.

After swapping the hard drive, you would expect all of the software to still work. However, Adobe Photoshop CS4 and a few other applications including Fluid Mask 3 seem to be tied to either the machine serial number or MAC address, so they were no longer activated when I tried running them on the new MacBook Pro. Furthermore, Photoshop told me that I had too many activations and refused to let me activate it.

I figured out how to regain one activation from my old MacBook Pro, which I never deactivated and is going to a new owner tomorrow. I was able to boot from a backup drive on that machine, and Photoshop then let me deactivate it.

I’m still waiting for a response from Virtus about Fluid Mask 3.

Both machines open