March 2009
26 posts
Introduction to Building Apps with OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap is an open source initiative that offers similar technology to Google Maps. To really get the most out of OSM you should start by running the server locally and checking out their code.
Running OpenStreetMap
The frontend for OpenStreetMap is a Ruby on Rails application. OSM refers to this as The Rails Port, and they have detailed documentation for installation.
It depends on...
Open Map Technology
Google Maps is an incredible piece of technology. The API are easy to learn and naturally enhance many kinds of projects. However, there are several reasons to use other technologies: special agreements are required for corporates, high traffic sites and private sites.
Google’s terms and conditions might not always pass your company’s legal department. In cases where you want full...
Quite Useful Weekly Roundup
This week we published a summary of all our features over the past few months. There’s everything from media centre tips to hacking websites with screen scraping. We also tracked the memory performance of several popular Twitter clients — useful information if you leave Twitter in the background all day!
We also reviewed Streamy, a new social networking site that brings together...
Review: Streamy
Streamy aims to bring your social networks together in one place, and give recommendations based on your “personal interest profile.”
There’s a video that summarises Streamy’s main features: About Streamy. The track in the video is Iz-Us by Aphex Twin — they’ve clearly got good taste, but I hope they’ve got permission to use that music!
Setup
...
Quite Useful Features
We’ve published several features since the start of Quite Useful, so I’ve added a sidebar on the blog to make it easier to find them. Here’s a guide in case you’ve missed any.
Backups
The backup series started off with tips on how to backup your social network content. We also featured guides on iPhone backups, online backups (with a mini Automator tutorial), time...
Screen Scraping: Cookies, Headers
This is a follow-up to yesterday’s article, An Introduction to Screen Scraping. I’m going to show you the basics behind reverse engineering headers and cookies.
Note: These posts might not display the examples in your feed reader, so try visiting Quite Useful in a browser to see them.
HTTP POST
Some sites only accept a POST for a particular form. The example I used yesterday used...
An Introduction to Screen Scraping
Screen scraping is a technique for using software to grab data from websites. Many websites we use everyday are poorly designed and difficult to use, just look at most Internet Banking sites. Fortunately, programatically accessing information on these sites can be relatively easy.
Toolkit
The essential elements of a screen scraper’s toolkit are:
Firebug, the Firefox plugin...
Twitter Client Memory Usage
I run a Twitter client in the background permanently, and I started to wonder how much memory it used. I heard TweetDeck uses a lot of memory, so I decided to compare the top Mac clients.
I set the clients up with the same account which has these stats: 140 following, 158 followers, 744 updates.
Each of the clients was running for 12 hours.
EventBox
EventBox currently costs $15 and is made...
Quite Useful Weekly Roundup
This week we featured articles on marketing software, powerline ethernet, outsourcing search for your hosted blog, watching podcasts on your TV, and the Japanese concept of Wabi-Sabi.
Twitter/Delicious Highlights
We publish useful tips on twitter.com/quiteuseful and delicious.com/quiteuseful.
Developer
Game Salad looks like a good way for iPhone developers to get into game development. It...
Weekend Inspiration: Wabi-Sabi
I recently saw In Search of Wabi Sabi with Marcel Theroux on BBC4. If you’re in the UK you can see it on iPlayer. It was a documentary about Theroux’s attempts at uncovering the meaning of Wabi-Sabi, an inherently Japanese concept relating to spiritualism and aesthetics.
The documentary tracked Theroux’s journey across Japan and through many aspects of Japanese culture, from...
Podcasts on Your TV
There’s a lot of high quality video podcasts now, probably because the iTunes store promoted them so well. My wife and I are into videogames, and whilst videogame-related TV is rubbish (in the UK), there’s loads of great podcasts.
The problem is, watching video podcasts on a computer sucks. Fortunately, there’s tonnes of ways of playing this content on a TV.
You could build a...
Outsource Search
If you’re using a hosted blog platform you might feel like you don’t have much control over built-in features. As I’ve shown repeatedly on Quite Useful, JavaScript hacking is the secret to serious blog extensions. For example, you can make Tumblr support comments with Disqus.
But what about search? Even though most sites have search built in, they don’t always provide a...
Review: Powerline Adapters
I live in an urban area — a large town in Greater London. Like many of you we have broadband, wireless, and a few devices around our home. The wireless networks in our neighbourhood started to increase, so we had to bridge the wireless connection upstairs because the signal got so unreliable. After much experimentation we got a strong network again. However, the network count has...
Guerrilla Software Marketing Strategies
This is republished and edited from my original article at Biznik.
I run a self-funded software company. When I started out I didn’t have any money for advertising, and finding customers was an uphill struggle. After many false starts I struck upon a few excellent ways to get free exposure, by investing my own time rather than money.
In this article I’m going to discuss the methods...
Quite Useful Weekly Roundup
This week we featured two articles on The London Underground: iPhone Tube Apps and Hack the Tube. Hack the Tube includes Ruby and JavaScript code for writing your own apps that process Tube data based on the Tube Updates API.
If you’re wondering why your computer is so short of disk space then check out our roundup of disk analysis tools: Where’s My Space Gone?
We also had an event...
Learn Something New Today
If you read about Neural Linguistic Programming (NLP) you’ll be told that regularly learning new things builds fresh neural pathways in your brain, thereby improving everything from your mood to intelligence. I don’t know what a neurologist would say about this advice, or if well-meaning NLP practitioners are actually peddling 21st Century snake oil, but I think we can all agree...
Where's My Space Gone?
I started to notice disk space getting short when I switched to using a laptop as my main computer. Naturally over time space gets used up by media files and applications, especially games, but it can be hard to figure out why.
Fortunately there are several tools designed to help visualise and identify space wasting files. This can make it easy to delete unwanted giants or move them off to...
Hack the Tube
Yesterday we featured a roundup of iPhone London Underground apps. Today I’m going to show you how to hack the Tube yourself.
Tube Updates API
Tube Updates is an API by Ben Dodson that provides access to TFL data on Tube updates. You can get data in either XML or JSON. Here’s the full documentation: API Documentation - Tube Updates.
Accessing the API is simple, just request the...
iPhone Tube Apps
There’s a growing collection of applications that help you survive the London Underground. Apps for everything from enhanced maps to APIs are being actively worked on, plugging the holes that Transport for London have left open for innovative developers.
There are currently over 20 Tube-related iPhone apps. It could be that the iPhone’s large screen and geo-location features...
Event: Rewired State
I went to Rewired State on Saturday, an event which aimed to bring hackers together to get creative with government data and APIs. The event took place in The Guardian’s plush offices near King’s Cross station in London. Connectivity was provided through ethernet, and there was free coffee all day long. We were well looked after!
Schedule
The schedule was as follows:
A short...
Quite Useful Weekly Roundup
This week we featured two productivity articles based on a freelancer’s experiences: Monday Morning Productivity Tips and Tuesday Morning Productivity Tips. We also posted reviews of Cc:Betty and Topify.
Finally, Getting Started With iPhone Development details everythiing you need to know about the process of starting iPhone development and getting an app onto the store.
If you’d...
Getting Started With iPhone Development
This article is an introduction to iPhone development. You can use it to:
Decide if iPhone development is right for you
Understand what skills are required
Learn about what Apple requires from you and how apps are deployed to phones for testing and the iTunes Store
Is iPhone Development Right For You?
Introductory material to iPhone development makes it look incredibly easy: you just pick...
Review: Topify
Topify aims to improve Twitter’s email interaction. It sends out enhanced follower notifications, and allows you to follow back by replying. It also allows you to send direct messages to followers through email. The service is currently in beta: if you apply using the form then message @ourielohayon he might let you use it early.
Notification Emails
The follower notification emails are...
Review: Cc:Betty
Cc:Betty is a web application designed to make dealing with group email more efficient. I’ve found that corporate types use email as a group discussion tool, which makes it difficult to track conversations and dig out useful attachments. Betty solves this by gathering emails together and indexing the attachments for easy browsing.
Usage is simple: sign up with your email address and a...
Tuesday Morning Productivity Tips
This post follows up yesterday’s article, Monday Morning Productivity Tips.
Don’t Be a Slave to Lists
My todo lists used to feature depressingly monolithic items. I stopped using them for a while because they created too much unwanted pressure.
I’ve found the key to working productively is atomic todo list items: 15 minute tasks rather than complex goals. Divide and...
Monday Morning Productivity Tips
It’s a sunny day today, and I woke up early, so I was inspired to write up a list of my productivity tips. I work as a freelance software developer, and also run several web applications, so I have to make the most of my time every day.
Working this way for 3 years has given me several insights into productivity, especially the motivational-side: it’s easy to get bogged down and...