Blog

Today I had to use some Ruby code to create an RSS Reader to import our Typepad blog into our Rails Template.
Check it out below. It’s crazy simple:

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<%
require 'rubygems'
require 'simple-rss'
require 'open-uri'
rss = SimpleRSS.parse open('http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/15248843.rss')
%>
 
<% rss.items.each do |i| %>
   <h3><%= i.title %></a></h3>
   <p><%= i.summary %></p>
   <a href="<%= i.link %>" target="_blank">Link to Post »</a>
<% end %>

Let me know if you’ve ran across any you like better.

I’m messing with a custom layout. So things might get messy up in hurr

A couple of my friends don’t quite understand the value of Twitter so I thought I’d write a short blog to go over how to use Twitter as an informational resource.

What the #$@! is Twitter

Twitter is a blog that allots the same amount of characters as a text message, so the posts are short and sweet. It resembles the same functionality as the Facebook status update, except with Twitter you can get information outside of your friend group, which if done properly, can be a huge resource.

But I don’t care about celebrities and random people

A lot of people use Twitter to give updates on what they are doing and thinking every moment. Which might be good for them but I could care less knowing when people are finding a parking spot, at the free clinic, or rediscovering their love for pickles (taken from twouble with twitter video). Most of the celebrity Twitter accounts don’t really have anything useful unless you’re a stalker and trying to capture them for ransom. There are other uses for Twitter!

Then what the deuce is it for?

You can use Twitter as a resource for staying up to date with information you find valuable. You can follow your local newspapers to get the news, your favorite sports team to get team updates, designers for mid-day inspiration, smart tech nerds to see what they are working on, or stay on top of whatever field you work in by following the people who are the best at it.

Twitter also can rival Google search in some ways also. Searching for “Ruby on Rails” will give you results based on what users have posted rather than on what a computer crawled for. That’s pretty awesome and means with Twitter you can get real time search results. For example, Did Facebook go down? Search Twitter for “Facebook” and see if 500 other people are complaining that they can’t log in.

How do people follow hundreds of people though?

Use a desktop client! Seesmic Desktop is my favorite but TweetDeck is a good rival. With Seesmic I can set lists up to delegate how I track people. I have a list for: Tech, Design, News, Posts-a-lot, Real Friends, BizPeeps, and Others. I can also keep track of my account (@newparadigm) and our clothing company (@137clothing) without having to switch accounts back and forth.

Seesmic Desktop

The new iPhone 3.0 is set to come out in June but if you have a developer account and give Apple a lot of money they will let you download the 3.0 beta to test your apps against for the 3. software. Rather than say all the boring stuff here are some features they added I like thus far with it.

The ability to Cut/Copy/Paste is finally out. It’s slightly annoying to deal with but it works.

If you have a MobileMe account there is a “Find my iPhone” function which should be fun when you’ve had a few too many at the bar.

MMS is finally a reality. It’s blocked in the 3.0 beta but its very easy to send pictures and memos.

Landscape keyboard. This is one of the reasons why I had previously jailbroken my phone. Makes typing much easier.

Spotlight. I guess I should have searched for something when taking this screenshot but when I searched it went through all my iPhone to look.

I really didn’t know much about microformats before Thomas gave me CSS Artistry by Andy Clarke. I couldn’t figure out why the author dedicated SO much attention to Microformats. I’ve learned they are great for CSS styling and for their main purpose, reusing HTML elements to convey metadata.

For example, the most common of microformats would probably be hCard. hCard is used for representing people or organizations and there are extensions or web services that can read an hCard and use the information for an Address book or something similar. There is also a rubygem called mofo which can parse the information of several microformats which you can do whatever with. The new microformat that I’m using with work is hProduct which should end up awesome. The resume page I put up also uses the hResume microformat.

They are also dead simple to use. You just add CSS classes to HTML elements like this:

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<div class="hResume">
<div class="contact vcard">
<div class="fn n" id="j">
<span class="given-name">Jesse</span> <span class="family-name">Frye</span>
</div>
<ul>
<li>Email: <a class="email" href="mailto:johnny@appleseed.com">#</a></li>
<li>Personal: <a class="url" href="http://jessefrye.com">http://jessefrye.com</a></li>
<li>Latest Project: <a class="url" href="http://137clothing.com">http://137clothing.com</a></li>
</ul>

So since I live in Tempe and hardly leave Tempe I thought I should get a scooter so i found a Vespa on craigslist and began the process. First I replaced the engine, transmission, clutch, brakes, and tires.

So I started with this.

The top of the vespa (above the light) had a crack so i replaced that and tried to replace the speedo.

Only to realize the speedometer was in fact broken, at least I got my new mirrors though.
After the changes I am left with this:

I am currently waiting on a new seat, floor rails, and a front fender. Then the cosmetics will begin!

So I couldn’t sleep and decided I’d put together a blog since jessefrye.com has really never been used for more than storing random data and testing stuff I am working on. I still have to finish up the pages, but the layout is pretty much done EXCEPT for the left side of the posts on the main page. That should be an uploaded thumbnail not text!