Like many people, I can't be bothered using Facebook's mobile app. I live my life in the browser and don't need a battery-hungry, always listening, contact stealing app notifying me every five minutes. I check Facebook Messages when I want. If it's urgent, there are many better ways to contact me than Messenger. Until recently, all was well in the world. I happily used Facebook's mobile web…
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Parking in London is a pain in the arse. As I drive an electric car, I'm spared the cost of the Congestion Charge, but I still have to stalk the back-streets looking for an available parking bay - or pay through the nose for an NCP space and hope I can squeeze in between the concrete pillars. That's where London-based startup Vallie comes in. On-demand car parking in London for £5/hour - with a …
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2024 Update. Some of the Tweets in this post have been deleted. You can see them on the archived version of this page. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that any photograph which doesn't fit your political viewpoint must have been photoshopped. A few weeks ago, as I was driving down the M40, I saw a giant "Vote Leave" poster with a fairly repulsive message on it. Terence Eden is on…
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At this point, I think it is a certainty that the UK will vote to leave the EU. The people who are anti-EU are passionate about their cause - every single one of them will be out to vote. For the rest of us, the EU doesn't occupy our every waking thought, we're happy to benefit from it but if the weather is rainy, we might not vote. With all that said, I'd like to take a moment to point out…
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This is a curated list of APIs which do not require usernames, passwords, access tokens, signing, accept-headers, or anything more complicated than sticking a URL in a browser. (This is an update to my post from two years ago.) When I introduce people to the concept of using RESTful APIs, they immediately get how powerful it is to retrieve information from the Internet and then manipulate it in…
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Because I'm an idiot, I've decided that what my life needs is voice activated lightbulbs. But voice control is so 2015. Let's make these bulbs react to SINGING! Here's a demo - fair warning, my vocal prowess is "limited". https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Voice-Controlled-Lifx.mp4 OK, here's how to do this. I recently got a bunch of Lfix bulbs as part of a bug bounty. …
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The British intelligence service GCHQ has been on Twitter since January 2016 - however they only sent their first tweet today. GCHQ@GCHQHello, world. bit.ly/GCHQhello❤️ 1,612💬 453🔁 010:02 - Mon 16 May 2016 As I never tire of saying, Bitly is a terrible at keeping your data private. Simply add a + on to the URL and you can see some really interesting stats about the link and the user who created…
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I love my Lifx Bulbs. They're a quick and easy way to retrofit Internet connected goodies into a smart-home. One of the best things about them is their open API. Sure, you can use IFTTT if you want something easy - but us 1337 hax0rs want an API and Lifx provides it. The API is pretty secure - good use of OAuth and tokens to make sure whatever you're building is resistant to infiltration. I…
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I've been trying to find the perfect Linux laptop. I need something small, light, powerful, and with an ergonomic keyboard. Hmmm... Perhaps I don't need a laptop. I could use a tablet and my new Bluetooth keyboard... Enter BQ's Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition. It promises the Ubuntu experience in a convenient tablet package. I wanted to love this tablet. But it is so unbelievably bad that I'm…
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This weekend, I spotted that a person I know was running a Shakespeare themed GameJam - a sort of informal collection/competition arranged around a theme. The Shakespeare #BardJam ends midnight BST tonight, & works-in-progress are welcome. https://itch.io/jam/bard-jam #interactivefiction #textgame — Ash (@ggnewed) April 30, 2016 Given my previous experience developing Interactive Fiction, I f…
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I like to listen to music while I work. I find - especially in an open plan office - that it is an essential aid to concentration. That said, I find music with lyrics particularly problematic as my brain prefers to concentrate on the words rather than the task in hand. On long flights, I often use a white noise generator to drown out sound. I've recently started listening to random music. A…
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Here's a quick way to display how many times a WordPress post has been read. For this, you will need: A blog running WordPress. The JetPack plugin installed. The ability to edit your themes. Here's the snippet of code I'm using to add "This post has been read 12,345 times". I'll explain how it works in a bit more detail. if( function_exists( 'stats_get_csv' ) ) { …
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