Mapless

3 days ago

Well it’s still there actually, but I’ve headed back in the direction I set out on a while ago, to use Google Maps itself, instead of an embedded map. In fact, the whole site has been simplified. I’m revitalising ArtFlock and I’m going to make more use of Picasa and Flickr

Also, with the updated iPhone mapping program, the co-ordinates for map linking now just have to be in basic -30.452299279539456,152.89823055267334 form and it’s finally dawned on me that I only need a Map Custom Field for the string, not separate lat and long fields – doh! I’ll get around to alter the GeoBlogging post and TextBook with this simplification in due course.

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Bellingen

31 days ago

When I paid a visit to Australia, after a night with some friend’s parents in Sydney, I travelled north to near Bellingen and spent most of the night in a phone box trying to ring my friends – whilst they slumbered not 200m away in their combi.

This is really just a test for a Street View of Bellingen – which was flooding when I was there.

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Google Earth comes to spt

33 days ago

Thanks to an alert from Bruce that the GE plugin was now in the wild for Mac – I installed it – and it works fine in iCab

Therefore, I’ve updated my Map script (see GE Developer’s Guide) and there is a new Earth button, however, there is a positional error in my markers:


 

I’ll figure it out when I’ve got a bit more time… which I’ve now had and in the light of a New Year – I’ve simplified my site somewhat – map links now go out to Google Maps.

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iCabYouTube

206 days ago

As it was about the only thing (at the moment) I could think of realistically using the Stand-Alone Web Application from iCab for is YouTube – I made a little Application icon for it (click on it to download):

When downloaded, rename it AppIcon.icns and put it in the YouTube application Resources folder (remember, right-click on the YouTube app and select Show Package Contents to navigate to the Resources folder).

Edit: Screen-shot of Stand-alone Preferences – re comments.

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iCab 53

208 days ago

Alexander Clauss has done it again with ß53 and brought Fluid (amongst other improvements) to iCab.

When saving a web page it’s now also possible to save the web page as “stand-alone WebApplication“. This creates a real Universal Binary application for this web page. Technically the new application is an iCab browser where many features and GUI elements are removed, which will only display this web site.

I’ve found this type of thing useful for YouTube and Gmail etc., Alexander suggests it would be useful for all the Web Applications like “Google Documents” or the new “me.com” Web Application from Apple which look like normal Desktop applications.

These “stand-alone WebApplication” sites can be used like ordinary desktop applications, they have their own icon, they can be placed in the Dock, and they have their own private preferences, cookies, history etc. The problem I’ve found is that the generated icon is not the quality of a usual desktop icon, in this screen-shot you can see the .Mac and YouTube icons I made next the one automatically generated for Google Documents:

It seems to be a common trend that these WebApplications like “google documents” and as we have seen previewd “me.com” use their own buttons, Drag&Drop and self-contained AJAX, instead of following normal links. Therefore, the URL field, the forward/back buttons often aren’t of much use anymore, so by default the iCab browser toolbar is switched off.

In the process of saving a site as “stand-alone WebApplication”, you can enter the start page and filter which URL the application is allowed to access. Both these settings are automatically filled out by iCab, so usually these don’t need to be changed. This just leaves you to select your GUI language for the “stand-alone WebApplication”. One language must be activated and selecting more than one just uses more disc space.

As I said, there are other improvements with this release, but the only other one I will mention here is the Cache Browser.

Now available in the “Tools” menu, the Cache Browser (only available under MacOSX 10.5 and later) window displays a list of all files that are stored in the web cache. It is possible to filter out certain items by activating/deactivating the file type buttons or by entering some text. There is a preview available for all files, but this is a bit flakey and sometimes produced a crash before an image appeared. However, it is possible though, to use the contextual menu to save the files to disk/open it in a new window etc. Good stuff

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iCab beta 49

229 days ago

Little report about the latest iCab ß49 release.

It now supports GeoTags in a bigger way, extract from the release notes:

Exif data for images:

Also iCab now seems happier when run on webkit nightlies, in fact so much so that it achieved a perfect score in the Acid3 Test (see the Running on Webkit page) and actually beat the webkit it was running-on in the Sunspider javascript speed test.

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Martins

602 days ago

Sand Martins appeared last week at the beck, there were 8 of them last time I visited. We nearly have a full compliment of bird live back now, but still miss the Dipper – which I haven’t seen for a long time – something must have changed over the last few years.

One factor that I know has changed around here is the number of Mink and consequently the Moorhen is another bird that isn’t around any more.

I’m a big fan of Google Earth and WWF have just posted a lot of information through this medium. This is a fantastic method of highlighting their work, by providing a new dimension which is fun and (for me) a picture/map locks it better in the mind – click on the screenshot to see their news article.

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