chris[live]

Ji Long Road, Taipei: Crossing the chasm of Ji Long Road. This...

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:35:28 +1100

Ji Long Road, Taipei:

Crossing the chasm of Ji Long Road. This intersection with Xin Yi Road in downtown Taipei is mesmerising during peak hour.

Mono Lake, California: Mono Lake is believed to have formed at...

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:54:53 +1100

Mono Lake, California:

Mono Lake is believed to have formed at least 760,000 years ago, dating back to the Long Valley eruption. Sediments located below the ash layer hint that Mono Lake could be a remnant of a larger and older lake that once covered a large part of Nevada and Utah, making it among the oldest lakes in North America.

3xp HDR

Moon Jellyfish (Osaka Aquarium): The moon jellyfish can be...

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:23:50 +1100

Moon Jellyfish (Osaka Aquarium):

The moon jellyfish can be found in the Atlantic Ocean, the Arctic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, and are common to the waters off California, Japan, the East Coast of the United States as well as Europe. The animal is translucent, can be 25-40 cm across, and has characteristic patterns of color within its body. (Wikipedia)

This was taken at the incredible Osaka Aquarium.

See also the whale shark and the sea nettle jellyfish at the same aquarium.

Fever Review

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:39:00 +1100

Fever is a new self-hosted RSS web application developed by Shaun Inman, creator of the popular Mint web analytics application. I have been a long time user of Netvibes but I find that it’s been pretty slow of late, so this gave me an opportunity to give Fever a go. Unfortunately no trial version is provided by Shaun but a quick check on Google turned up quite positive reviews of this application.

Setting up Fever on my host was very easy. I think Shaun has established a best practice in terms of PHP application installation. Shaun provides a small server compatibility application that you install and run to determine if your hosting provider has all the necessary supporting applications to run Fever. This is important since Fever costs USD30 and being a PHP application, the source code is completely exposed, hence no refunds are offered once purchased. By providing a compatibility check, it is a good move on Shaun’s part to stop any disgruntled customers complaining about the application not working.

Once you pass the compatibility check, you are taken back to the Fever site to obtain an activation key. The Fever application is up and running pretty much immediately after entering the activation key and MySQL database information.

Fever handled an OPML file import without any issues which I generated out of Netvibes. All the categories that I had created in Netvibes were retained in Fever. After getting all my feeds set up in Fever, I went through a process of classifying certain feeds as “Kindle” and “Sparks”. Herein lies one difference in approach that Fever brings to the RSS game.

Fever uses a temperature metaphor to identify “hot” topics in my collection of feeds. It does this by looking for common topics that multiple feeds are referencing. “Sparks” are feeds which I don’t necessarily want to read on a regular basis but they provide additional context or reinforcement to my “Kindle” feeds. This approach is very similar to how Google Pagerank works, the more feeds that mention a certain topic, the hotter that topic becomes.

In the week or so that I’ve been using Fever, I’ve found that this “Hot” feature of Fever to be quite a hit and miss affair. In the screenshot above, it has done a good job of identify the hot topics but I’ve noticed many other instances where it hasn’t been as successful. On those occasions, the topics appear to be just common phrases or words used in different feeds eg “announcement”, or “wikipedia”. The screenshot below is a good example. In this case, the topic was actually correctly identified but mislabelled as just “Gizmodo”. In other cases, it can be a random collection of unrelated articles.

Given it’s unreliability, I’ve found that I’m not using this feature as much as I would like. I still am going through my feeds manually so that I don’t miss anything. I think the concept is a good one but definitely needs refinement and polish.

Another nuisance that I’ve found is that Fever doesn’t seem to update the unread count in each feed properly. It works sometimes but not always. It does have a very fluid Ajax interface that feels quite responsive. Articles in the feed can be toggled between full and excerpt view by clicking on the article body.

There is also some rudimentary integration with social media services such as Facebook and Twitter, allowing you to post articles directly into those services. It would be nicer though if the Twitter integration was tighter including URL shortening. Currently, it is posting the entire URL into Twitter which is not very practical.

Overall, I’d give Fever a 6.5 out of 10. Being a new product, I’m expecting a lot rapid enhancements to this application. It has promise but it’s not there yet.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-6-7)

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:27:27 +1000

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-6-7):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

Balmoral Beach Panorama, Sydney: Balmoral is an urban locality...

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:44:08 +1000

Balmoral Beach Panorama, Sydney:

Balmoral is an urban locality in the suburb of Mosman in Sydney, Australia. (Wikipedia)

4 x 3xp HDR panorama

Sydney Dust Storm - The Day After: What a difference a day...

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:38:45 +1000

Sydney Dust Storm - The Day After:

What a difference a day makes. The two photos were taken 24 hours apart. Or I used a very effective noise filter in Photoshop. :)

Sydney Morning Herald : Sydney turns red: dust storm blankets city.

Martian Sydney: Sydney encased in a red dust storm. View from...

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:06:01 +1000

Martian Sydney:

Sydney encased in a red dust storm. View from my balcony this morning.

No post-processing other than stitching, adjusting curves and sharpening.

4xp panorama

Sydney Morning Herald : Sydney turns red: dust storm blankets city.

Sydney Tower: Sydney Tower is Sydney’s tallest...

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 01:16:47 +1000

Sydney Tower:

Sydney Tower is Sydney’s tallest free-standing structure. The tower stands 305 m (1,001 ft) above the Sydney CBD. (Wikipedia)

3xp HDR

Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles: The Walt Disney Concert...

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 03:07:40 +1000

Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles:

The Walt Disney Concert Hall seats 2,265 people and serves as the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. The Frank Gehry–designed building opened on October 23, 2003. (Wikipedia)

Getty Villa, Los Angeles: The Getty Villa in Pacific...

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 06:14:53 +1000

Getty Villa, Los Angeles:

The Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California, USA, is one of two locations of the J. Paul Getty Museum. (Wikipedia)

2 x 3xp HDR vertorama

Glacier Point, Yosemite National Park: Glacier Point is a...

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 04:16:23 +1000

Glacier Point, Yosemite National Park:

Glacier Point is a viewpoint above Yosemite Valley. It is located on the south wall of Yosemite Valley at an elevation of 7,214 feet (2,199 m), 3,200 feet (980 m) above Curry Village. (Wikipedia)

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Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles: Griffith Observatory is...

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 06:44:46 +1000

Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles:

Griffith Observatory is located in Los Angeles, California, United States. Sitting on the south-facing slope of Mount Hollywood in L.A.’s Griffith Park, it commands a view of the Los Angeles Basin, including downtown Los Angeles to the southeast, Hollywood to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. (Wikipedia)

Mono Lake, California: Mono Lake is believed to have formed at...

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:42:11 +1000

Mono Lake, California:

Getty Villa, Los Angeles: The Getty Villa in Pacific...

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 22:18:06 +1000

Getty Villa, Los Angeles:

The Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California, USA, is one of two locations of the J. Paul Getty Museum.

3xp HDR

Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles: The Walt Disney Concert...

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 23:07:08 +1000

Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles:

Disneyland Fireworks: This is not the best angle for capturing...

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 23:25:21 +1000

Disneyland Fireworks:

This is not the best angle for capturing the fireworks but it was the best that I could manage as there were so many people there.

Downtown LA Panorama: 4 shot panorama of the Los Angeles...

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 21:06:19 +1000

Downtown LA Panorama:

4 shot panorama of the Los Angeles skyline with the Harbor Freeway in the foreground.

Tioga Lake Panorama, Inyo National Forest: Tioga Lake is a...

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 09:17:41 +1000

Tioga Lake Panorama, Inyo National Forest:

Tioga Lake is a small glacial lake in the Inyo National Forest of Mono County, California, about two miles (3 km) north of the Tioga Pass entrance to Yosemite National Park.

4xp HDR panorama

Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park: Olmsted Point, along...

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 06:07:57 +1000

Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park:

Olmsted Point, along Tioga Road in the Yosemite National Park.

3xp HDR