RasterWeb!

Back when Google Maps showed up, the cool thing about it (from the hacker’s perspective) was that the URL‘s were simple and elegant, and you could use something like this:

  http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=43.116%2C-88.491

Where you stick in your latitute and longitude and get a map. Nice eh? It’s not exactly a standard, but it’s sort of how everyone does it (more or less) and makes it easy to write a plugin to use that data.

In contrast Yahoo! Maps didn’t seem to be able to do this. Their URLs were long and scary and obfuscated. Or so it seemed… I managed to figure out that this will work:

  http://maps.yahoo.com/maps_result?lat=43.116&lon=-88.491

Am I the last one to know this? I mean, it will redirect you to one of those long and scary and obfuscated URLs, but it will actually work, and you’ll get a map. (Add the parameter mag=4, or some other number, to affect the magnification.)

So I once again hacked at the Geo Plugin and added Yahoo! Maps. It should be working now on this site. I may switch back to Google Maps in the future. I’ll leave that option open. You never know who will have the better API. ;)

Oh yeah, just can’t get enough of Flickr! Can you? Of course not!

See A day in your life…:

21st March, 2005 is being documented in front of our eyes. A group of Flickrites have formed a group called a day in the life of…, where members can contribute 5 photos to the group’s pool to show the world what they’re up to.

Of course you could just use my Flickr Search and search for “life” with a start and end date of 2005-03-21.

Besides, it’s quite shortsighted to use the tag dilomar05 because when March 2105 rolls around, well, what are they gonna do then? Hmmm? Have we learned nothing from Y2K?

I’ve changed the name of RasterWeb! to RastrWeb! (note that I’ve had the ! for many years already.) I mean, Flickr is just over a year old, and Yahoo! buys them for a zillion dollars, right? (note that RasterWeb! is 7.5 year old!)

Ok, now since RasterWeb! has been around more than 7 times longer than Flickr, you would think I’d ask 7 times as much for it, but since we probably don’t have quite as many users, and our API isn’t done yet, we’re willing to cut a deal.

Come one man! I’m down with the Flickr API and the Yahoo! API…

Yahoo! are you listening? Buy me now before those fools at Google make me an offer… You think I wanna be the next Blogger?

(Crap! Do you think I should have went with RastrWb? Note: I would be willing to change the name again if needed.)

Oh wait, I meant to say Yahoo! buys Flickr, and you know what? I think that’s ok…

Yahoo! has been doing the right things lately, I’ve mentioned the Yahoo! API and what fun that is, and how Yahoo! seems to be listening to suggestions, and heck, with someone like Jeremy having an influence on things, I think we’re doing ok.

As for the Flickrization of Yahoo! I’m all for it. I hope the Flickr folks can give Yahoo! that extra kick it needs to really be the prime example of next-gen web-think.

Is it a weird concidence that right after I toyed with the Yahoo! API, I started toying with the Flickr API?

So with all that, I present to you, my Flickr Search, using a bit of Perl and the Flickr API. Let me know what you think.

Sigh, poor US Cellular. I had to stop by their store yesterday to handle a billing issue (whereby they had credited an old account, but didn’t really make that clear except by putting CR next to the amount it said I owed) and while Britt was quite helpful in the matter, when she was done she asked if she could do anything else for me. I asked if US Cellular used GSM phones at all. She said no, though it seemed as though she really felt bad about it. I said I was looking to get a Series 60 phone, possibly something like a Nokia 7610… Then is seemed like she was just bummed out that she had nothing to offer me, knowing that US Cellular only deals in CDMA phones, which I’m not interested in. As I left, Britt said something along the lines of “Ok, well, if you ever need a CDMA phone, keep us in mind.” Sure, Britt, will do…