Technology
Entries related to technology.
Random Drupal Updates
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 09/15/2009 - 21:38Over the past few days, I’ve been busy updating a lot of Drupal based websites that I’ve helped set up and host. In doing so, I thought it might be helpful to review some of the modules and themes that I’ve been working with.
One site interesting site is www.tjntiy.com. I used a slightly modified version of the chameleon theme for the overall look and feel. What made this site interesting is some of the modules and other tweaks done.
One of the first modifications was to add a few other different ‘content types’. Each content type is pretty much the same, but using different content types allowed the content to be grouped nicely for other functions like voting and views.
For voting, I installed the Voting API. Then, I added the Fivestar module. This module allows people to vote on pages on a scale of one to five. You can change the scale if you want. However, the website owner felt this didn’t really do what she wanted, so we changed over to the Vote Up/Down module, which worked nicely for the application.
Then, we added the views module. This allows pages to be created viewing the content in different ways. So, we set up a view of the content based on the most popular as well as randomly selected content. This was also one of the first sites that I added the Facebook Connect module which allows people to log into a Drupal site using their Facebook account and share information from Facebook into Drupal.
One decision of the website owner was to allow anonymous people to post content. This is a recipe for spam, and after a while we started getting a lot of spam. With other sites I’ve used CAPTCHA, but I haven’t always been happy with the results. So for this site, I used the AntiSpam module which worked quite nicely.
I was hoping to go into more details about these modules, but I ended up spending quite a while helping another person set up a Drupal based website. They are using the litejazz theme which I’ve really enjoyed starting to play with. Litejazz includes nice dropdown menus. It is similar to the nice_menus module, but you can use them on the menu bar using “suckerfish”. They also want to control access to nodes by users’ roles. Previously, I had used the node_privacy_by_role module. However, that module seemed cumbersome, and especially messy when upgrading from one major version of Drupal to the next. For this site, I ended up using the content_access module which I’ve been very pleased with so far.
Now, the long day is drawing to a close. Other interruptions are coming in via email, so I’ll post this now. If you’re a Drupal user, let me know with themes and modules you like best.
Update: No sooner did I update to the latest version of Drupal than they came up with another core update. I also discovered that update to the Facebook Connect module caused all the parameters to get lost, so I've got plenty of additional updating to do now.
A Geeks approach to the Puzzler
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 09/13/2009 - 08:41On the NPR Show, Weekend Edition every Sunday, they have a puzzle. Usually, I don’t bother trying to figure them out, but last week’s puzzler seemed like a great programming puzzle. Take a letter from each of the first nine elements, in order, to form a common word in arithmetic.
A quick calculation revealed that there were approximately 18 million possible words. A script could easily be written that would generate all the possibilities and then put those words through a spell checker.
I decided to write this as a Bash script. The one problem is that the spell command in Linux returns everything that is misspelled, instead of everything that is spelled correctly. I could have gone out, checked the source for the spell program and written a new version that would give me only those words that were spelled properly, but that seemed like more of a project than I wanted to take on.
So, I wrote a script that called spell and checked the results and would return properly spelled words.
The combination of scripts were not very efficient and took three and a half days on a beat up old computer in the corner to run all the way. In addition, as I was reviewing this to write my blog post, I found that I had put in the wrong characters for Carbon.
Nonetheless, I came up with two different common words related to arithmetic. The first to pop up was ‘determine’. I can easily imagine a teacher asking her students to “Determine the numerator”. Yet this brings us to the second word that popped up, which was ‘numerator’.
I submitted ‘determine’ but didn’t hear anything back. I suspect they were looking for numerator and that many people solved it using a pencil and paper instead of a quick computer program. Yet it was a fun programming exercise.
Do you play the Puzzler on Sunday Weekend Edition? Have you ever attempted to solve the puzzles through computer programs? Let me know your experiences.
Performing an SQL Style “Group By” in Matlab
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 09/11/2009 - 20:21On a recent project, I found that I needed to group data in one matrix by values in another matrix, but I could not find a nice way of doing this. So, I wrote a simple Matlab function to do this sort of grouping. I am describing it here in case others run into a similar need.
The Kindle: A Viable Platform for Local News Organizations? Not Likely.
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 09/01/2009 - 10:58Since the advent of electronic paper, analysts have written about the potential of this technology to save local newspapers. Amazon’s introduction of the Kindle added to these discussions. However, it is worth taking a closer look.
Back in May, Engadget reported that “Amazon takes 70 percent of Kindle newspaper revenues”. Yet still, you can find the larger papers, like the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe on Kindle. The question is, even with the excessive cut that Amazon takes, can it be a viable platform for smaller local papers. A quick search for Connecticut papers did not turn up any.
Yet Amazon has introduced a new product that has potential to bring smaller news sites online. Kindle Publishing for Blogs is currently available in beta. Just about any blogger can go to the website and get their blog listed. Amazon will charge 99 cents for a monthly subscription to the blog and like with newspapers, keep 70%. I know quite a few bloggers that have set their blog up on Kindle this way, but know of none that have received any revenues yet.
I discussed this with a group of journalists focusing on emerging trends in journalism. The group is made up of professors, journalists at online sites as well as journalists working for traditional organizations. None had used Kindle publishing. One editor who runs a very successful online news site published in blog format expressed a concern about using Kindle Publisher for Blogs. She did not want her site “to be sequestered off in ‘blogland’”. She asked if there was some way to get the folks at Amazon to consider sites like hers for the Kindle.
I sent a request to Kindle Blog Publishing Team, which was one of the few addresses I could find for people working with the Kindle at Amazon asking about this. The response I received was that there was “a different team who work for news content on Kindle”. This was no surprise, and I had hoped that I would be given the contact information for that team, or had my request forwarded to that team.
Instead, they asked for a specific query from the editor which they would then forward to the news content team. I sent a follow-up asking if they could send me the contact information since I am dealing with several online news sites. They responded that they are not able to share contact information for the news team. I sent yet another follow-up urging them to reconsider their request and perhaps forward my response onward. I have not yet heard back from them.
Today, the Examiner has an article stating Ereader sales set to explode, but the Kindle may not reign supreme. It notes research by iSuppli claiming that currently Kindle has 45% market share and Sony has 30% of the market.
As the market grows people will look closely at what is available for their ereaders. Amazon, as an online bookstore, is well positioned to provide content. However, their approach towards news organizations may drive more and more content providers to other platforms, which in turn will drive ereader buyers to other platforms.
Ereaders may yet provide a viable platform for local news organizations, however, unless Amazon changes its tune, those ereaders are likely to be provided by someone else.
(Originally published at Digiday:Daily.)
Progressive Blogs and Citizen Journalists on Kindle
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 08/30/2009 - 11:50Recently, I've been getting into some discussions about monetizing blogs and specifically about Kindle Publishing. Kindle Publishing allows a blogger to publish their blog on Kindle. It costs 99 cents a month to subscribe to a blog on Kindle, and Amazon returns 30% of that to the blogger.
I've set up Orient Lodge on Kindle but don't have any Kindle subscribers yet. So far, I've found a few other good progressive blogs on Kindle. They include Burnt Orange Nation and Capitol Annex.
In addition, the Center for Independent Media has a strong presence on Kindle, including the Colorado Independent, the Iowa Independent, the Minnesota Independent, the Michigan Messenger, the New Mexico Independent, and the Washington Independent.
So, are you on Kindle? If so, let me know where.
