RasterWeb!

Ok, it’s time… 2005 is the year I will actually learn Java. No. Really. I mean it this time. Of course I’m excited… No I’m not being sarcastic! Really.

In fact, I’ll be in Minneapolis for the No Fluff Just Stuff Java Symposium next month.

It’s been many years since I’ve been to Minneapolis, so that will be interesting. I’m not actually sure I will make it, but if the RasterMobile! can make the trip, I will be there.

I mainly need to learn a lot more about JSP, since I’ll be hacking at that this year. From my experience so far with JSP, it’s pretty much like PHP, or ASP, or (shudder!) ColdFusion, But with, you know, Java.

It’ll be nice to be forced to… I mean, able to learn something new. Heck, who knows? I might even release some JSP-based app? (Of course I won’t actually run it on my server, since I don’t run Tomcat…)

Ok, come on now, I’m serious, it will be cool to learn more Java. There, I’m done.

(If you’re going to be at the No Fluff Just Stuff Java Symposium in Minneapolis April 29th through May 1st, let me know…)

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.