dopiaza.org tag:www.dopiaza.org,2007://1 2007-01-25T16:17:17Z Random thoughts about random stuff Movable Type 3.33 Flickr Mashups Book tag:www.dopiaza.org,2007://1.70 2007-01-24T17:09:38Z 2007-01-25T16:17:17Z My book, Flickr Mashups, is now available from Amazon.com. To celebrate the launch, I've created a new Flickr Mashups section for this web site for both existing and potential readers.... Flickr Mashups book cover My book, Flickr Mashups, is now available from Amazon.com. To celebrate the launch, I've created a new Flickr Mashups section for this web site for both existing and potential readers. ]]>
  • How to use feeds to retrieve photo details
  • Methods for using the Flickr API to access items such as tags, sets, groups, and interestingness
  • How to use Flickr authentication to access private photos and update information
  • How to upload photos from your own applications
  • Ways to remix the Flickr web site with Firefox® and Greasemonkey
  • Different ways to display photos using ImageMagick
  • Techniques for building complex systems that use Flickr as a source of information
  • Tips for improving software performance and scalability Who this book is for This book is for web developers who have some prior experience with a language such as PHP, JavaScript, or Perl. Everything in the book is explained in detail along with source code, which makes this a useful resource regardless of your experience level. ]]> Greasemonkey script: Flickr Discussion Images tag:www.dopiaza.org,2007://1.68 2007-01-11T14:20:57Z 2007-01-12T12:19:34Z Joel Carranza has written a nice little Greasemonkey script, Flickr Discussion Images, that allows you to view all the images in a Flickr group discussion thread—it's perfect for browsing through threads in groups like Utata where the pictures often are the thread. It adds three links underneath the main post, which allow you to switch easily between the normal full view, images only, or image thumbnails only.
    Flickr Discussion Images (by dopiaza's archive)
    You can download and install his script from here.]]>     Farming Flickr tag:www.dopiaza.org,2006://1.59 2006-12-23T11:20:41Z 2006-12-23T12:08:58Z Earlier this week, Flickr made some changes to the way static URLs to images are constructed and introduced the idea of farms. For some time now, many of the API calls have been returning an extra farm attribute, but now... farms. For some time now, many of the API calls have been returning an extra farm attribute, but now we can finally see how this new information is used.]]> http://static.flickr.com/{server-id}/{photo-id}_{photo-secret}.jpg So long as you knew the server-id, the photo-id and the photo-secret, you could construct the URL to the photo on Flickr. Now, there's another parameter you need: the farm-id. Photo URLs now look like this: http://farm{farm-id}.static.flickr.com/{server-id}/{photo-id}_{photo-secret}.jpg At the moment, all photos appear to be served from farm1, but that will undoubtedly change in the future. According to Cal Henderson of Flickr, the use of the farm variant of the URL is technically optional—the old static form will continue to work, but for photos uploaded since the change there will be extra overhead incurred—a request to an old-style URL will cause a redirect to the correct farm-based URL to be issued.For all photos uploaded before this change, the old static URL will continue to work exactly as before with no redirect—redirection only happens for new photos. If you are caching photo details so that you can build the URLs as needed, you now need to start storing the farm id along with the server, photo id and secret. For photo information you already have cached, you don't need to re-request it just to get the farm details. All photos already uploaded are guaranteed to be in farm1—it's only for new photos that you'll need to explicitly check the farm. And just to see what those URLs look like in practice, here's Wellington. Using the old form of the URL, he looks like this http://static.flickr.com/70/160244291_bd2ff55b61.jpg Wellington (by dopiaza) which, as you can see, still works fine. Using the new form of the URL, he looks like this http://farm1.static.flickr.com/70/160244291_bd2ff55b61.jpg Wellington (by dopiaza) which is, of course, exactly the same photo—it's just the URL that has changed. All of this has a few consequences for my Flickr Mashups book. As farms were only introduced as the book was going to print, no mention of them is made in the book itself. This isn't really much of a problem as the use of farm id in the photo URL is optional—the examples in the book should continue to work as expected. I will, however, write up some notes on farms and how to use them and post them up here in the next few weeks. I'll also include details of how to update the examples in the book to make use of farm ids. ]]> Escape Entities Update tag:www.dopiaza.org,2006://1.58 2006-12-15T16:52:22Z 2006-12-15T16:56:19Z I've just fixed a minor bug in my Escape Entities Greasemonkey script that caused the page to jump back to the top of the document when used. You can get the updated version here.... Escape Entities Greasemonkey script that caused the page to jump back to the top of the document when used. You can get the updated version here.]]> Ho Ho Ho tag:www.dopiaza.org,2006://1.57 2006-12-13T21:27:19Z 2006-12-14T00:25:14Z Christmas is coming, the otter's got his hat... There's a new Easter Egg on Flickr (or should that be Christmas pudding...?). If you add a note to a photo with the text "ho ho ho hat", a red Santa... otter ho ho ho Christmas is coming, the otter's got his hat... There's a new Easter Egg on Flickr (or should that be Christmas pudding...?). If you add a note to a photo with the text "ho ho ho hat", a red Santa hat miraculously appears. If you use "ho ho ho beard", you get a fluffy white beard. The naysayers are already complaining about this in FlickrHelp, so try it out now whilst the fun lasts. But do remember folks, use your Santa hats and beards responsibly...]]> No Limits tag:www.dopiaza.org,2006://1.56 2006-12-12T23:40:16Z 2006-12-13T10:42:58Z Flickr have just removed their upload limit for Pro account holders. Previously, it was possible to upload up to 2 Gigabytes per month—now there is no limit. It's debatable just how much of a difference this will actually make to most people—I never managed to get anywhere near that 2Gb limit anyway. It's good news for free account holders too—their upload limit is increased from 20 Megabytes per month to a very respectable 100 Megabytes. The 200 photo and 3 photoset limits do, however, remain. You can see the new limits documented in the Flickr FAQ.]]> Nagging for Permission tag:www.dopiaza.org,2006://1.54 2006-12-08T11:29:44Z 2006-12-11T11:58:27Z permissions This means that third-party applications can no longer silently retrieve a token for you—although, they can still store a token away and keep using that until the user revokes it. Over on the Flick Developer's Mailing List, Stewart says that this is the result of fixing a security-related problem. Fixing potential security holes is, of course, a very good thing. On the other hand, the authentication process now becomes rather clunky from a user's point of view. Stewart goes on to say:
    "we are planning on improvements to the user experience of the auth flow soon, so […] it won't seem as jarring for users."
    I do hope those improvements aren't a long time in coming... Update: and a few days later, the changes are rolled back—apparently they're not necessary for web authentication.]]>     Group Id in flickr.photos.search tag:www.dopiaza.org,2006://1.53 2006-12-06T16:07:15Z 2006-12-06T16:35:49Z flickr.photos.search to restrict the search to a particular. In the past, we only had flickr.groups.pools.getPhotos available for the searching of group pools and that was rather restrictive—you could only filter by user, or by tag, and the tag filter only allowed one tag to be specified at a time. The addition of group id to flickr.photos.search is great news—it will provide a much more useful way of finding photos within group pools than we've had before. With it, we can now search pools and filter on multiple tags, date, geodata and licence type.]]> Escape Entities tag:www.dopiaza.org,2006://1.52 2006-12-04T18:50:24Z 2006-12-05T13:17:25Z When you post to groups such as Flickr, or to blogs using tools such as Movable Type, you are often free to use a selection of HTML tags. This is very handy for adding links, images and basic formatting, but... Flickr, or to blogs using tools such as Movable Type, you are often free to use a selection of HTML tags. This is very handy for adding links, images and basic formatting, but it comes with a downside—if you ever want to write an HTML snippet that someone can read, perhaps in order to allow them to cut and paste it, you have to manually escape the different HTML entities. < becomes &lt;, > becomes &gt;, & becomes &amp; and " becomes &quot; To make life easier, I've written a Greasemonkey script that attaches itself to any <textarea> elements on the page and provides a handy icon that when clicked on converts any special characters into their corresponding entities.
    screenshot
    Click here to read more and install the script.]]>     Happy Day tag:www.dopiaza.org,2006://1.43 2006-12-03T19:11:11Z 2006-12-06T14:57:45Z Happy Day, originally uploaded by dopiaza. I've just been setting up Flickr to allow me to post here. Of course, I need to a photo to try it out with, so here goes. Have a Happy Day.... Happy Day
    Happy Day, originally uploaded by dopiaza.
    I've just been setting up Flickr to allow me to post here. Of course, I need to a photo to try it out with, so here goes. Have a Happy Day.
    ]]>     How Interesting am I? tag:www.dopiaza.org,2006://1.40 2006-12-03T13:49:07Z 2006-12-05T13:18:30Z Have you ever wondered just how interesting your Flickr photos are relative to each other? I've written a new Greasemonkey script to tell you just that. When installed, you will see an additional link on your Flickr photo pages displayed... Flickr photos are relative to each other? I've written a new Greasemonkey script to tell you just that. When installed, you will see an additional link on your Flickr photo pages displayed in the Additional Information section.
    screenshot
    Read more and download the script here.]]>     Time For Change tag:www2.dopiaza.org,2006://1.1 2006-12-01T17:16:37Z 2006-12-23T12:11:20Z There's lots going on at the moment, so it seems a good time to give this site a bit of an overhaul. Things here have been fairly static for a while, so it's time to go round, dust things off...