Libby Hemphill research and posts on social media, collaboration, and related technologies

23Dec/070

From DTW with like

I wonder if I'm the only person at DTW blogging right now? I bet not. Given how many bloggers are on the move this week, and how prone we all are to complaining about travel (especially holiday travel), I'm sure someone else in the McNamara Terminal is venting his/her frustrations while I type.

You, dear reader, are lucky. I'm not writing to complain! Instead, I'm writing to catch up. I've experienced some personal and professional turmoil in the last few weeks, and my little blogging adventure had to get pushed down the priority stack. But here I am, on vacation, and I thought a little blogging might cheer me up.

You'll be interested to know that it takes a mere 46 minutes to get from the front door of the Sheraton Four Points in Ann Arbor to the down escalator just past security at Detroit's McNamara Terminal. I know you just shouted, "Liar!" or something even less nice, but it's true. I timed it. I took the 3:00pm Michigan Flyer shuttle from the Sheraton, sat in the very last row of the bus, and still made it through security by 3:46pm. Whatever security does (or does not do) at Detroit should be repeated in as many U.S. airports as possible. (Are you listening, Denver?!)

I hopped on the tram and landed here, near the Taco Bell, by the high number gates. I ran into some of the flight attendants who will be manning (or womanning as the case may be) Northwest flight 757 to Minneapolis. They're chatty and smiley and like their tacos crunchy. Why would I tell you this? Because I'm sure some horrible passenger is going to try to ruin one of their days by being a jerk, and I just wanted you to know that these flight attendants are just like the rest of us.

Oh, that reminds me of my favorite good sportsmanship commercial of the football season. I think it's by the Big 12. It has people yelling at some guy gardening and some other people doing other jobs, and the narrator says something like, "You don't do it anywhere else." That's right. Referees and flight attendants deserve respect too.

I'm off to compile a "what I learned in the last 2 weeks" post. I'll send it over from Iowa sometime this week. May your holiday travel be safe and enjoyable whether you're going across the living room or across the country.

Filed under: Leisure, Travel No Comments
13Dec/072

New (to me) and Useful: Mint.com

Ah, finances. What a pain. I just started using Mint.com to keep track of mine. I tried using Quicken, but that was too complicated for me. I really hated getting my bank account balances right - why won't Quicken make it easier to start using it in the middle of a month? Who starts at $0 anyway? Enough about Quicken. Mint automatically logs in to my bank accounts (including credit cards), categorizes my spending (I adjusted about 10 transactions), and then shows me where my money goes. It also shows me how much I owe relative to how much I make, where I might be able to save money, and how I'm doing according to my budget. Rock! Check it out.

I found out about Mint on the BusinessWeek.com 101 Best Web Freebies slideshow.

Filed under: Links, New to Me, Technology 2 Comments
10Dec/072

Using a BlackBerry as a Bluetooth Modem with my MacBook

It used to be much easier to find these instructions online, but it took me awhile yesterday. So, here they are where I can find them, and you might be able to use them too.

These instructions work for my Blackberry Pearl on TMobile using a MacBook running Leopard. It may work with other Bluetooth-enabled phones and existing TMobile data plans, or you may find parts of the instructions helpful.

1. Pair BlackBerry and MacBook
2. Open Network Preferences
3. Select "Bluetooth" in the list of connections
4. Choose "Add Configuration..." under "Configuration" on the right side
5. Telephone Number: wap.voicestream.com
6. Account Name: guest
7. Password: guestguest

You may have to click "Apply" before being able to click "Connect."

Filed under: BlackBerry, Cell Phones, MacBook, OS X, Technology, adSense 2 Comments
7Dec/0712

Google Calendar MediaWiki plugin

Ever find yourself needing to embed a Google Calendar in a MediaWiki page? Well, now you can.

Usage

<googlecalendar>umhappyhours@gmail.com</googlecalendar>

Code

<?php
# Google Calendar Extension
#
# Purpose:
#	Embed a Google Calendar in a MediaWiki page
# Tag/Wikitext :
#   <googlecalendar>docid</googlecalendar>
# Example :
#   from <iframe src="http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=umhappyhours%40gmail.com"
#   style="border: 0" width="800" height="600" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
# Instructions :
#	set $input to the Google Account that owns the calendar you want to embed
#	set $width & $height to the proportions appropriate for your wiki page
#
# Credits
# 	This code is adapted from Kasper Souren's original extension, sometimes available at
#	http://wiki.couchsurfing.com/wiki/index.php?title=Google_Calendar_MediaWiki_plugin
# License
# 	GNU Public

$wgExtensionFunctions[] = 'wfGoogleCalendar';
$wgExtensionCredits['parserhook'][] = array(
        'name' => 'Google Calendar',
        'description' => 'Display Google Calendar',
        'author' => 'Libby Hemphill',
        'url' => ''
);

function wfGoogleCalendar() {
        global $wgParser;
        $wgParser->setHook('googlecalendar', 'renderGoogleCalendar');
}

# The callback function for converting the input text to HTML output
function renderGoogleCalendar($input) {
        $input = htmlspecialchars($input);
        //$input = "umhappyhours@gmail.com"
        $width = 425;
        $height = 350;

		$output = '<iframe src="http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=' . $input;
		$output .= '" style="border: 0" width="' . $width;
		$output .= '" height="' . $height . '" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>';

        return $output;
}
?>

This page made possible by the Code Markup Wordpress plugin. Thank you!

Filed under: Code, Social Computing, Technology, Wikis, adSense 12 Comments
4Dec/070

A love letter to mashups

Seriously, I love mashups. I love that they're called "mashups". I love that people make so freakin' many of them. I love that they have such potential to make the world more interesting and usable.

If you're not familiar with mashups:
Mashups are web applications that combine data available from multiple sources into one view. They often rely on open APIs from the data sources (API = application programming interface - essentially a set of functions, rules, etc. that a computer program makes available so that other programs can talk to it).

If you are but haven't seen any good ones lately:

  • MashUpComing - Upcoming! and Yahoo! Maps
  • LivePlasma - Amazon's media products and the relationships among them, a recommender system on steroids (a descendent of musicplamsa, that rockin' music recommender system)
  • Flickr Sudoku - Sudoku + Flickr images of numbers (my mom says it's harder than "regular" sudoku because she got used to recognizing the patterns of her own handwriting and system font, and the Flickr photos don't present such patterns)

To find mashups you can love:
Programmable Web Mashup Directory - 2560 of 'em as of this writing

Filed under: Love Letter, Social Computing, Technology No Comments
   

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