This is an older tutorial, but it works splendidly. I just used this approach with a Django 1.2 project I am working on to create a reCAPTCHA field for my custom forms. The automatic validation works like a charm.
reCAPTCHA Field for Django Forms
Bookmarked via Diigo on Thursday, May 20, 2010 @ 20:54 CDT by Daniel Andrlik
BankSimple
Bookmarked via Diigo on Tuesday, May 18, 2010 @ 07:56 CDT by Daniel Andrlik
I’m intrigued, but skeptical of BankSimple, a new bank start-up that aims to make banking easy and painless. I found out about it because Alex Payne has recently announced that he is leaving Twitter to join BankSimple as their CTO.
Their FAQ paints a pretty enticing picture of the planned service, but I’m curious if an implementation focused on simplicity will be able to maintain the level of flexibility that I associate with traditional multiple account banking. It’s definitely going to be a service worth looking into when they launch, although it is currently invite-only.
LESS - Leaner CSS
Bookmarked via Diigo on Friday, April 30, 2010 @ 07:20 CDT by Daniel Andrlik
LESS is an awesome project that extends CSS by adding variables, operations, nested rules and more. Since it supports exisiting CSS syntax, just rename your existing files from *.css to *.less to start using the advanced features in your existing stylesheets. When you are done, you can use the LESS Ruby gem to compile your code to standard CSS for use on your site.
Very cool stuff.
jQuery Masonry
Bookmarked via Diigo on Wednesday, April 28, 2010 @ 12:31 CDT by Daniel Andrlik
jQuery Masonry is a layout plugin for jQuery that produces some truly stunning web pages. Looks pretty easy to use too. Make sure to check out the examples, including those found in the wild for an idea of what you can do.
Pure concentrated awesome.
Merlin Mann - No. Let ME reach out to YOU.
Bookmarked via Diigo on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 @ 13:01 CDT by Daniel Andrlik
I love this autoresponse email sent to addresses on Merlin Mann’s PR blacklist. I’d love to see everyone start using a message like this in response to PR blasts.
Don’t talk to aliens, warns Stephen Hawking
Bookmarked via Diigo on Tuesday, April 27, 2010 @ 08:06 CDT by Daniel Andrlik
Stephen Hawking has completed a documentary in which he explores the possibility of alien life, concluding that it almost certainly exists, and that we should avoid contact with them at all costs.
[Hawking] suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.”
He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is “a little too risky”. He said: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”
I will most certainly seeking this documentary out when it is released.
How to Trick Users into Liking Facebook Pages They’re Not On
Bookmarked via Diigo on Thursday, April 22, 2010 @ 11:06 CDT by Daniel Andrlik
ReadWriteWeb has a great first example of some of the issues with Facebook’s Open Graph implementation. It’s trivial to create a “Like” button for any arbitrary url, and the user has no visual feedback to verify that the button will “Like” what they expect it to. Even worse, while the record of the erroneous “Like” can be deleted from your news feed, it remains connected to your account within the Open Graph API.
Not good.
Blowing up HTML5 video and mapping it into 3D space
Bookmarked via Diigo on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 @ 08:28 CDT by Daniel Andrlik
This is so cool. The HTML5 canvas element’s drawImage method can apparently take an HTML5VideoElement as its source, which opens up the possibility of creating tons of fun 3D visual effects upon the playing video.
This article has two great demos that implement effects like making the video explode, or rotating the video in 3D space. Amazing stuff.
Warren Ellis: On space travel
Bookmarked via Diigo on Tuesday, April 6, 2010 @ 08:08 CDT by Daniel Andrlik
This is a great Wired article by Warren Ellis on the current state of space travel and sums up my feelings as well. Some gems from the article:
The single simplest reason why human space flight is necessary is this, stated as plainly as possible: keeping all your breeding pairs in one place is a retarded way to run a species.
[snip]
Exploration has always been central to the human drive. Not because of population pressure, nor trade necessity, but because it’s in our essential nature to wonder what and where is next. We are unique in the biosphere as creatures of imagination.
However, the best bit in this article for me was the following observation, which hit me like a kick in the teeth:
In my life I’ve seen a species go from believing it will live in space to accepting, all too easily, that it will die on the same old dirt its ancestors rot in. Having a nice robot phone is not an acceptable substitute for a future.
Amen to that. Go read the whole article.
Dan Wells on Story Structure
Bookmarked via Diigo on Saturday, April 3, 2010 @ 13:46 CDT by Daniel Andrlik
This YouTube playlist covers a wonderful lecture on story structure from Dan Wells. Wells is the author of the fantastic novel I Am Not A Serial Killer, which I urge you to pick up and read. I will, of course, post a full review of the book later.
The lecture is about 50 minutes long in total, but it is well worth your time if you have any interest in writing. There is lots of useful information in this talk, and I know using the approach presented in these videos has certainly helped me in my own writing. If you enjoy the lecture, I would encourage you to also check out Writing Excuses, a weekly podcast on writing that Wells hosts along with author Brandon Sanderson and Howard Taylor.
