Category: Site Stuff

There are now two Pinterest links up on the Top Menu ↑: mPins shows my most recent pins while cPins shows the current most popular pins. Do you need an invite yet?

This is one of the Flickr discoveries I made yesterday. I pinned it to my Pinterest board Faces on Flickr and based on the pingbacks hitting my email, it just might make the Popular page eventually. You are signed up at Pinterest, right?

I use my own Flickr photo viewer, in Info mode, which allows full credit to be given the photographer. Just click the photo and then click Info to see the credits.

First off, let me say Thank you for being here! It means a lot to me that you would take the time to visit. This blog has really evolved into a unique entity consisting of content, and new code. There is nothing out there like this!

Today I reduced the spacing in the menu above to give me room for more stuff, and I’ve added more stuff, specifically popular Pinterest posts. (Click on Pins towards the right.)

I’m really enjoying Pinterest. My creativity needs to be stimulated constantly and this site does that. My most active board is called Faces On Flickr where I add new images daily, discovered with my FKScan program.

Here’s the latest incarnation of my Radio Player. It works good in Firefox and Chrome, Internet Explorer makes you stop the playback before selecting another station, and I have no idea how the Mac likes it.

Cool new stations will be added as I find them…

I’ve just developed a new app that uses an undocumented API from Pinterest. It grabs the most popular pins from Pinterest, twenty at a time, and presents them to you. The content is amazing and if this makes you a Pinterest fan, I’ll send you an invite!

Click on the image below to start your adventure!

This blog started back on June 6, 2011. That was 282 days (9 months and 8 days) ago.

I had just come back from hanging out with Riley and Jessica in Las Vegas and I realized there was a lot I had to say to the world!

So, busdriverjim.com, as of today, now contains:

• 353 Posts
• 15 Categories
• 1,454 Photos
• 148 Photosets
• 71 Videos
• 346 Comments
• … and a lot of love, code and soul.

If you’re going to blog, be serious about it! My thanks to everyone who has participated in this very fun internet adventure.

I’ve developed a huge amount of code to support and compliment this project. Please explore the menu options above and the links on the sidebar to your right.

If you put a WordPress template in the hands of a programmer, cool things happen :-)

I’ve been really frustrated by this app! The whole point was to give you directions between two cities along with the current weather for each stop.

The problem was, the directions API returned the Lat/Lng for each leg but the only API that would give up the data in this format was Weather Underground. They had a max-hit cap along with a per-minute cap… If I wanted more I had to pay them.

So, back to my old buddies at Yahoo! It required one extra step: I had to pass the Lat/Lng to the Yahoo! Woeid service to get the weather, but at least it’s free. :-)

I’m still working on it, but in the meantime: CityToCity

There’s a lot going on here… This is a photo I found on Flickr today, which I displayed in my Photo Viewer and then pinned it to my new Pinterest board called Faces On Flickr.

The Pin is now embedded in my blog so when you click the photo it goes to Pinterest, and when you click the Pinterest photo my Photo Viewer is launched in info mode.

Info mode allows you see the original creators content and sets…

 I’m having way too much fun! :-)

BTW: I’ve started up my Posterous Spaces account. If your looking for a free blog this could be your ticket!

And, here’s a great tip about my blog: Double click your left mouse button in the dark area, left or right side, to move to the top of the page. Anytime, anywhere… :-)

I’ve been working on getting the current weather into my CityToCity app…

Please give it a shot and let me know what you think!

City To City

Pinterest is very cool, once you get it. Think of it as a place to store website links that interest you. Create Boards to store Pins by category, and follow your friends boards.

Tip: Don’t specify an interest in anything when you sign-up, and if it gives you followers when it starts, click your name and un-follow them! You can find lots of people to follow on your own. Following just means viewing their boards!

And, Deselect / Ignore any Pinterest dialogs to post your additions to FaceBook. Trust me, no one want’s to know…

I have an account going on here: BusDriverJim.

Update: I’ve created a cool Pintrest link (next to Facebook & Twitter, see below…) that puts any of my blog posts onto your Pintrest account, using the first photo in the blog.

I was listening to NPR today and they had a story about a social media site I’d never heard of. It’s called Pinterest. The site is an online scrapbook / bulletin board, and it’s one of the fastest growing websites in history: 10 million unique visitors last month!

Here are two NPR stories about it: Story 1 and Story 2.

The sign-in is an invite, which attests to it’s popularity. I signed up and we’ll see how long it takes to get invited… :-)

There’s another one out there called Posterous Spaces. I was able to sign-up for this one. I’ll master these sites and incorporate them into the blog. Join! Get your username now.

Update: Pinterest sent the invite in one day!

I know you think I’ve been doing nothing but grabbing other peoples content lately. The truth is, I’ve been creating a new app which is now ready to deploy.

It’s a Directions app that takes a From and To City and shows you how to get there. My ultimate goal is to show the current weather from City to City…

So, introducing my new app: CityToCity.

Update: I’ve got the Lat/Lon of each point, and places to put good stuff. Weather next!

I’ve been playing around with one of my favorite javascript libraries today. Raphaël is the best vector graphics library out there. I just wanted to establish the fact that I can implement this code into my blog. Sure looks like it works! :-)

It’s fun to be a computer programmer! I’ve been one since 1969…

Two cool programs of mine have re-surfaced here as functions under Utilities.

TransPology (TransPology) and Death Watch (Death Watch).

I wrote a great little app today and inserted it into the blog as this days post. It’s function is to grab random Flickr images and present them in a 640×480 frame. This turned out to be too much action for a static blog post, so I’ve moved it.

The app itself is pretty trick. It grabs the twenty most recent Flickr uploads and then selects a random photo from that set. Thus, a piece of candy from the box of chocolates.

Look up at the menu, on the right side, and click on Life. Enjoy! :-)