Entry Archive: June 16, 2005
Widget
My internet is down. I wonder why you don't get to deduct outages from your DSL bill? Seems like you should be able to.
So in lieu of spending a few hours surfing blogs and the latest entertainment news, I decided to take a break from work and play around with making widgets for MacOS X's Dashboard. For those of you not OS X savvy, Dashboard is a tool that holds useful little "widgets" that can be summoned instantly to your desktop. There are widgets for everything, and new ones are being released all the time. I've got widgets for converting measurement and currencies, viewing my Netflix queue, weather forecasts, Wikipedia lookups... even one to show the lyrics for the song I've got playing in iTunes. It's pretty slick.
Making your own widgets is not too difficult, because they're just mini web apps written in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The tricky bit is getting it all to look cool and function as intended. I've got two widgets I am currently working on:
Ask Dave. The "Ask Dave" widget is like a Magic 8-Ball. You ask a question, then click on the Dave Widget and he'll give you an answer. Sage advice at your fingertips! I'll probably release it over the weekend...
BloggerPeeps. The next project is quite a bit more complicated, because it's not just a Widget, it's an entire web site project that I've been working on called "BloggerPeeps" which is a visual blog directory based solely on photographs. When you visit the site, there will be a set of photo tiles with pictures of bloggers in them. When you click on a face, you are taken to their blog... it's as simple as that. New photos will be rotated in the set, and there will be a second set of "peeps" that will randomly pull from previous tiles. The widget for BloggerPeeps will show the current blogger, the previous blogger, plus a random "blogger of the day" - and will be updated Monday through Friday. The web site and the widget should both be going live by the end of the month...
The intent is to create a place where my favorite blogger peeps (people) are displayed in a way that's more interesting than a blogroll or links list. I've managed to dig up 100 photos, so I've got at least that many peeps to play around with. I'm sure others will pop up as I work on the site. I have no idea whether it will be of interest to anybody, but it will be a fun experiment.
Two Days Ago Answer: Stripes (1981) with Bill Murray and Harold Ramis.
Comments
Yaaaggghh!!!!
I go to your site and there is my ugly mug staring at me!
Warn me next time!
Seriously, COOL! I think it's a great idea.
And...awwww....I'm one a' yo' peeps? Swweeet! Thanks.
BloggerPeeps, the site that presents not only the faces of bloggers...but the worst face of every blogger.
Great idea, looks very cool too.
I guess that people are always self-critical about their own photos (I know I sure am!), because I really like the shots that are there for BOTH of you.
Might as well admit that you're one of "the beautiful people" so that truly hideous people (like Judge Judy and David Caruso) don't have to feel bad about themselves.
You do realise that someone will abuse the system and submit porn don't you? :P
Actually. No.
You can't submit anything to the site. It's MY directory. I list only what I want to, and will not be accepting any outside listings or photos.
Of course, that doesn't preclude me abusing my own site and uploading porn myself. :-)
Dave says: It's MY directory.
Just another cog in the world domination machine!
I love it!
Very cool idea. Did Gravatar inspire you, or are you just naturally visually-inclined? Wait, you're a graphic designer. Never mind.
Hmmm... good question.
I actually had the idea for BloggerPeeps before Gravatar ever came along... though it wasn't called "BloggerPeeps" at the time, it was called "BlogFaces".
Though, I did use the "BlogFaces" logo as my "missing Gravatar" icon, so there is some cross-polenization there. I kind of forgot about the idea, but when I was thinking of widgets, it popped into my mind again.
Gravatar is great and all, but so many people use things other than their actual photo that it's not really a replacement for associating a face with a comment or blog.
Dude, if you ever do a service like that, you could pick a better photo of me :) .
Et tu? :-)
It was the Hawaiian shirt that got me... I am a big fan (I own a dozen of them). I tried to find photos that had people doing something to make it a more compelling shot to click on. Drinking a pint in a Hawaiian shirt was perfect (and I like that photo!).
Cool idea. I wonder if I'm one of your peeps. Oh no, pressure! I'll not look for a response. That way you don't have to answer either way ;)
Are you sure you can't get a refund after a certain time of non-connectivity? I believe I have that in my agreement with my ISP...
I like the blogger peeps idea. We have a somewhat similar thing for Swedish blogs, where pinged blogs with pictures are displayed:
http://svensk.lemonad.org/bilder/
Can we submit porn shots of ourselves for consideration?
Wait... I don't mean that. Just a cheap ploy for attention....
Do you have to be a user of a certain type of Blogware for BloggerPeeps or is it just a "submit to Dave and pray he likes you" sort of situation?
Dude. I am so hot.
Stole your googlimage post. Full props of course. Hope you are doing well.
So I'm still waiting to see this one. I'm ALWAYS entertained by new Dave projects.
How much longer!!!
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