the next version of eyetv3 may support XMLTV

I recently had the chance to get my hands on a beta version of elgato eyetv (v3.0.1b31). The cool thing about it? It will read TV listings from XMLTV files!

XMLTV is very important for users that live in areas for wich titanTV or tvtv has few or no information -like Greece, where I live.

I created an XMLTV file with the greek TV stations and their listings for the next couple of days. Then I drag’n'dropped it on eyetv, and… wow! For the first time in the last 3 years that I have been using eyetv, I was able to have a TV guide on it!

eyetv3 with XMLTV support

Once eyetv reads the XML file, you can go to the “Channels” listing and map your existing channels with the ones in the XML file. The “EPG” column will have one more option now, “xmltv”. Just click on it and eyetv it will try and match the TV station name you have set manually with the ones in XML. If it can’t you are presented with a list of all the channels in the XML file, and you pick the one you want.

eyetv3 with XMLTV support

I wish they added some more features in the final release, like the ability to subscribe to a remote XMLTV URL -in the same way you can manually subscribe to a podcast in iTunes by entering the feed URL. This would allow advanced users (it may require some hackery) to make their XMLTV files public for the less tech savvy.

The bottom line: I love it!

facebook photos not private?

I just noticed: If you know the URL of a photo in facebook, you don’t have to have permissions to see it! You don’t even have to log in to facebook!

Check out, one of mine.

Is this a privacy hole? Is it a feature? Should users be concerned?

urlBorg developers blog, prologue theme and twitter

I set up a separate blog, blog.urlborg.com where I will post news about urlBorg.

I chose the Prologue wordpress theme that resembles twitter a lot in look and feel. I also installed Twitter Tools and set it up to update twitter.com/urlborg. I like the way those too integrate together.

checking your web server logs for urlB.org links

If you are a site owner, you probably like knowing how your content is used, even if this is just an incoming link. One of the nice features of urlB.org is that you can easily tell which urls of your site have been “shortened” by it, just by looking at your server logs!

Here are a couple of entries from my logs: 

grep "urlBorg/1.0" < access_log | grep -v HEAD

69.73.152.127 - - [14/Feb/2008:16:48:03 +0200] "GET /weblog/ HTTP/1.1" 200 26385 "-" "urlBorg/1.0 (+http://www.urlb.org/) [lgfy]"
69.73.152.127 - - [14/Feb/2008:16:48:20 +0200] "GET /weblog/2007/12/08/3214/ HTTP/1.1" 200 19345 "-" "urlBorg/1.0 (+http://www.urlb.org/) [lggw]"

Not only I am able to see when a shortcut was created to one of my pages, but I can also see the “URL key” (ex. “lgfy”) -using the API I could get extra info about the short URL, like stats, etc.

eating my own dogfood

I’ve started rewriting the urlB.org front end using the public API. It works, and soon the API will give developers even more functionality.

I want developers to use urlB.org as a backend service for their apps.

urlBorg as OS X system-wide service

Download

using urlB.org API from PHP

If you are interested to use the urlB.org API from within PHP, here is a simple wrapper.

First download urlborg.php (and, of course, make sure you have your API key).

Now, creating short URLs and getting info about them is easy. Here is an example:

require_once 'urlborg.php' ;
$ub = new urlBorg('use your API key here') ;
$info = $ub->get_info('lgfy') ;
if ($ub->get_error()) { 
   echo '
ERROR! Code:' . $ub->get_error('n') . 
   ' desc:' . $ub->get_error('s') ; 
} else {
   print_r($info) ;
}
$short = $ub->create_new('http://vrypan.net/') ;
if ($ub->get_error()) { 
    echo '
ERROR! Code:' . $ub->get_error('n') . 
    ' desc:' . $ub->get_error('s') ; 
} else {
    print_r($short) ;
}

(the example is included in the class headers. Don’t copy-paste it from this post since WordPress seems to change the quotes in ways that PHP doesn’t like :-)

urlB.org updates (API, etc)

urlB.org updates for 2008-02-01:

  • API calls “create”, “info” will return target url mime type and size
  • urlkeys are unique for each url (and API key). If you are using the web interface, this means that next time someone submits the same URL they will get the same short URL. If you are using the API, you will get a unique short URL for each pair of (url,apikey)
  • the “send SMS” option has been removed since it was inactive anyway

More info on the API can be found here.

wikia social network

I’m testing wikia’s social network, here’s my profile.

It’s simple. I like it.

But what I found exceptionally interesting is the “trust level” field. No, if they do this right, they could build the largest Web of Trust. Are they after it? Or did they implement it just as a mechanism to value the autority of wikia authors?

what makes an app “feel warm”?

As posted on twitter…

asteris: Twitter crashes becoming really obnoxious of late; I wonder if outages are due to DDoS attacks. Reliable citizen journalism medium it’s not #

KCorax: @asteris Annoying indeed, but at least twitter feels warm. Jaiku had this kitchen/surgery feeling to it. #

KCorax is to the point. But what makes an app “feel warm”?