Links from 2010

An in-depth exploration of the art of shell scripting

New London walking route.

This looks great (if initially a little complex).

Starting in 2004 I have been working on design projects which revolve around the collections of objects. The objects are normally collected in large quantities categorized and assembled in a way that transforms their meaning. My work is about giving banal and overlooked objects a new significance. The finished piece of work takes various forms such as chandeliers, installations, functional and sculptural objects.

Google gradually dropping support for IE6. "Many other companies have already stopped supporting older browsers like Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers. We’re also going to begin phasing out our support, starting with Google Docs and Google Sites."

"Authoring your first song requires a deep skill set and 60-80 hours of focused effort." Oh. Well. In that case, maybe not.

A basic CodeIgniter library for using the Twig template language.

"A little web app for aggregating galleries from your Flickr contacts, and keeping you up to date on new additions." Very nice.

Ooh, an svn plugin for Photoshop...

Not entirely buying all the arguments in this one but raises some very worthwhile points.

A specialized remote screen viewing application intended as a tool to help designers create graphics for mobile applications, it has also proven to be useful for creating quick and dirty simulations, demos, and experience prototypes.

With Love, we’ve got a pristine world with its own complex set of rules, ripe for discovery. One of the downsides of playing a game like World of Warcraft is that everything’s been done, every problem solved, every nook explored. In Love, nearly everything needs to be worked out. If you play Love now, you’re doing the work of a pioneer.

I sort of hate the fact that I'm saving this. It is useful, though.

SEOMoz's new link popularity checker and backlink analysis tool.

API and FBML test consoles plus Facebook Connect playground.

The general rule of thumb is – if you don’t actually need to use any scripted languages like PHP or ASP, and you don’t need to access the API to get the user’s information for any reason, you probably don’t actually need an application.

Writing music for games also requires a number of specialist skills compared with conventional film scoring, such as non-linear and multi-layered composition.

A non-profit music industry organization campaigning to give artists back the choice to release more dynamic records.

A review. "Goodman [aka Kode9] explores the power of sound as a tactic of irritation, intimidation, or even permanent harm. Goodman analyzes "environments, or ecologies, in which sound contributes to an immersive atmosphere or ambience of fear and dread--where sound helps produce a bad vibe."

Knit a Neuron is a collaborative, knitting, art project. We want you to pick up your needles and hooks to creates hundreds of woolly brain cells. We'll sew them all together to create a fabulous brainy artwork. Once it's done, the woolly brain will go on tour to raise funds for the Head Injury Therapy Endowment Fund and will have a permanent home in the University of Bristol's Brain Imaging department.

The Legible London project began in 2003 as an initial study working with the central London boroughs and business fora, aiming not just to improve signs, but to offer far better guidance for walkers. The project was to run a prototype, a measurable trial to prove the concept. They set about developing a taxonomy of walkers, but when they had discovered sixty different types and were still counting they gave up, and instead measured walking activity along two axes, the walkers' knowledge of the area and their speed, defined on a continuum from strolling to striding.

Very nice.

Fleshmap: Music

“What do we sing about, when we sing about the body? The chart below, based on a sample of thousands songs, tells the story. The size of a circle corresponds to how often that part is mentioned in each genre.”

The place to record those command-line gems that you return to again and again. Delete that bloated snippets file you've been using and share your personal repository with the world.

An independent publisher of contemporary British music.

This looks like it could be most handy. "If you’re building a multi-language website or app, you probably use language files. When you change content in one language file, you need to remember to update the other language files. Even with source control, this can get messy pretty quickly if you have many languages, many translators or a large site. We encountered these problems ourselves and needed a tool to keep things organized - so we built String."

A fine looking round-up.

Insanely obsessive htaccess gubbins.

Example bash script for configuring svn/trac.

A Python script that uses [the Webfaction] API to create all of the DNS overrides you need to use Google Apps for your email.

Heroes are damaging to a team because they become a crutch. As soon as you have someone who’s always willing to work at all hours, the motivation from the rest of the team to produce reliable, trouble-free software drops. The hero is a human patch.

A member of the xUnit family of testing frameworks and provides both a framework that makes the writing of tests easy as well as the functionality to easily run the tests and analyse their results.

The prototype Datastore for London. This is where we’ll be releasing all of the Greater London Authority’s data for all Londoners to see and use free of charge.

Apple touch home icon info, including instructions on removing the shiny-shiny.

A tool to copy messages from one IMAP server to another quickly and safely. It’s smart enough not to copy messages that already exist on the destination and robust enough to deal with interruptions caused by flaky connections or misbehaving servers.

Is there a way to block a given change based on the user role? For example, I don't want any developer to be able to change a ticket status from 'development' to 'closed'. I want it to go through 'test', and allow 'test' to 'closed' only to users with the test role.

Capistrano’s power is in its remoting features. You tell it what to do on that other server, and it does it. Beauty. So, if your PHP deployment process requires an svn export combined with a few other repetitive steps you have to do every time, Capistrano is here to help you too.

New label from Milk & Beef and friends.