Miklb's Mindless Ramblings

I posted this to Twitter yesterday, but was quite pleased with how it turned out, and just wanted to post it up on this here blog. I used the “magazine” option in the iPhone app Camera Bag. It was just before sunset, when this huge flock of crows flew into the neighborhood and lighted in a big oak tree across the street. The neighbor was cleaning out his garage at the time, and every time he took stuff out of the garage and threw it into the garbage can, the tree would explode with cawing birds that would swirl around the trees. I just happened to be sitting on the porch with phone in hand as it was happening and snapped a few shots. I’m occasionally surprised by the quality of pics a mobile phone, and the iPhone in particular can take. I still remember my first digital camera only being 1.3 megapixel and the size of a small refrigerator.

As great a mobile device I think the iPhone is, there was one thing I couldn’t do with it that I wanted without fuss - easily upload a photo from the phone and post the picture to Twitter via my Flickr account. Prior to the 2.0 OS, you couldn’t even copy and paste a URL, but even after you could, it just wasn’t as quick and convenient as most tasks are on an iPhone. Sure, you can use one of the 3rd party services like yFrog or TwitPic, which might be fine for a throw away snapshot you don’t really care about, but if it’s something you’d like to reference in the future, or have control over how and where it’s used, they simply don’t seem like a good option. I merely wanted to snap a photo, enter a title, tap a button or two, and the photo upload to a Flickr set and automatically post to Twitter. Enter Flickit.

It wasn’t evident when I first starting using the app how to accomplish this. Even after I explored the app and found in the default metadata settings an option to post to Twitter or your blog, I didn’t see how to actually enter my Twitter credentials within the app. I then thought perhaps it was a Flickr setting, and looked into the settings for Flickr for the ability to connect to Twitter. Again, I didn’t see any obvious option.

Finally, I emailed the developer to inquire how exactly to accomplish this. Maybe it was just me, but the solution certainly didn’t seem intuitive, which isn’t usually the norm with Flickr. You have to go to your account->extending flickr->your blogs->edit. From the dropdown, you can then select Twitter as the type of weblog you have. Then within Flickit, in the aforementioned settings->default metadata, you can choose to autopost to Twitter, in addition to setting defaults for title, tags, description, sets and groups. You do have the choice within Flickit to not post to Twitter on individual uploads by altering the setting for that image, so you are not locked into tweeting every upload.

Now, you can easily snap a photo, even from within the app, quickly upload it to Flickr, and it will post the title and URL of the photo’s Flickr page to Twitter. Still not the same as a Twitter client harnessing the Flickr API and allowing you to write a full tweet, upload the image, and embed the URL like they do with the other 3rd party apps, but it sure beats using 3 apps and cutting and pasting a link, or compromising in choice of image hosting. Oh, and did I mention Flickit is free?

Watching MSNBC this evening, the Haitian Ambassador to the United States reminded me, and declared to the rest of the country it was Haiti who helped the United States make the Louisiana Purchase. The comments were in direct response to Pat Robertson’s despicable comments about Haiti’s “deal with the devil”.

Had Haiti not defeated Napoleon’s army in Saint-Domingue, the course of history would have changed dramatically. We often forget such events, and take our country for granted, not thinking such a small country could have had such a monumental effect on our history and success.

Anyway, this bit of history aside, I can’t believe there’s an American alive who would want to politicize and criticize the rush to help the people of Haiti (*cough*, Limbaugh, *cough*). I’ve tried to do my little part after seeing a tweet that Small Dog Electronics was matching donations to Doctors Without Borders. All I could think about is the families of all the people that I’ve worked with over the years in the restaurant business, and what if it was my family. I know they would do the same.

I will never be a javascript ninja, but that doesn’t stop me from voraciously collecting bookmarks to jQuery plugins and tutorlals. I’ve vowed to myself to become better acquainted with the library this year, and what better way than to follow 14 Days of jQuery? 14 Days of jQuery is launching on, wait, for it January 14^th, to celebrate the release of jQuery 1.4, which happens to also be the birthday of the incredibly useful, lightweight library.

What is particularly nice about this event is that it it’s being managed by the actual jQuery team, and not just some people looking to cash in on its popularity, so I look forward to the new releases, videos and tutorials that will be announced over the two weeks.

They are also doing a promotion where if you donate $20 or more to the project, you get your choice of one of several jquery/javascript e-books. Budget permitting, I may cash in on that, as donating to an open source project is always good karma, and a book would go far towards my goal of becoming more familiar with jQuery. I’ve got my eye on the jQuery for Designers, which probably would cover what I’m most interested in learning.

I’m always on the prowl for cheap (read FREE) iPhone apps, and finding a simple source for such is no easy task, at least in my searches. Unfortunately, all the sites I’ve found that cover this type of information are so full of ads and poorly designed, it’s impossible to actually find anything useful. I have however recently discovered at dealmac.com a RSS feed specifically for discounted iPhone/iPod Touch apps.. I can’t say that I’ve actually found any great deals yet through it, (I haven’t had a chance to play the recent “Let’s Golf!” game posted today), but it’s a start. And don’t get me wrong, I have no problem paying for a quality app, and do so with perhaps too regular of frequency, but still like finding a deal when I can, especially on games, which I know I’ll only play a few times, or very rarely.

Do you have any sites or feeds that you’d care to share? Tips on finding apps on sale?