WebCards Extension For FireFox

Discovering Microformats
For viewing Microformats, and discovering them in a web page, I've blogged about Tails for Firefox in the past. But recently, I've been beta testing Andy Mitchell's excellent Webcards 0.3 extension for Firefox. So what does it do?

The first time you load a page containing Microformatted information, the green WebCards ribbon pops up at the bottom of the browser viewport to alert you. This also appears when you mouse over the bottom of the browser:

[WebCards ribbon tells you what sort of Microformats are in the page]

Playing Tag
Clicking the "Tags" link in the ribbon brings up the Tags panel:

[Default view of the "tags" panel is the Related option, allowing easy search of del.icio.us or Upcoming for the tags in question; "brian suda" in this example.]

Similarly, clicking the Feedback or Media icons gives alternative search options for that tag:













[Feedback offers to search Technorati, Media offers to search Flickr for the tag in question]

An alternate way to access the tags panel is to right click any tag on the page (which will be highlighted by the green icon):

[Right-click (configurable) the TAG icon to get a floating version of the Tags panel]

Making Contact
When displaying contact information, the extension will display the blue icon whenever it encounters any hCard info. Right click to get the floating panel for the hCard information:

[Default view for hCard is the Information icon. Shows multiple links if they are in the hCard]

The Application icon will allow export of the hCard info to Outlook or other address book application. The Related icon shows other search options for that person:

[Related search options are LinkedIn, Google or Wikipedia]

Getting Friendly
My blogroll is marked up with XFN and when you mouse over the relevant link, WebCards will let you see the orange icon. Right click and it shows relationship in the XFN panel:

[The XFN panel shows the page owner's relationship to the linked person]

Make A Date
The last major category of Microformat that I've been exploring with WebCards is of course, hCalendar. These are indicated by the little red icon:

[Upcoming occasions displayed in the Calendar panel]

As with the other format panels, the Application icon lets you export the event to Outlook or Google Calendar applications; Related will search Upcoming or Google for the event:

[Add an event to my GoogleCalendar with the Applications icon]

Summing Up
So far, I've seen several iterations of this extension, and Andy has always welcomed feedback on the app. I like it a lot better than Tails for Firefox, it just seems to do more and looks much nicer - don't accuse me of being shallow, it just adds up to a nicer user experience! Anyway, I'd recommend it to anyone who is looking to get the most out of Microformats in the wild.

BarCamp Day 1 - Evening Sessions

Mark Norman Francis on Don't Be Scared of Code Reviews

Norm explained that the purpose of a code review is not to criticise other people's code. The findings are not escalated, there is no formal output - just for folks involved. Except Security problems, which are tracked in Bugzilla. So why bother?

• Verification - adhere to internal standards.
• Training - informal education of expectations of new hires
• Collective wisdom - [you will be assimilated!] Experts pass on their knowledge.

They are looking for, in HTML - valid, semantic, accessible.
CSS - valid (hacks separated out), modular (hung off ONE id - means you can reuse code on another part of site without relying on cascade), cross-browser (graded browser support)
Javascript - unobtrusive (pull it out into separate files, still get to the content with JS off), optimised, cross-browser.

Don't care too much about programmed page weight - ads multiply page weight hugely anyway. Page weight is not very relevent to each user but is to Yahoo!, since so many hits could mean server overload.

Perl/PHP must be documented (in the code, externally), understandable, standardised

[Olé Norm!]

How do they work? Time taken doing them is minimised. Quiet time is set aside beforehand for people doing the reviewing, away from email, IM etc.
During review, items are explained by reviewer, while the coder keeps quiet. A mooderator takes notes for them both, which are tabled for later. Then follow-up - the lead developer confirms that the problems identified have been rectified before code goes live.

Me on Taking Better Pictures
I'll post the main contents of my presentation in later posts, but it seemed to be fairly well received, with about a dozen folks coming to listen.

Andy Mitchell & James McCarthy on "Free Schmee"
Andy and James were talking about APIs and using them in a modular fashion - why invent the wheel again when you could reuse another API to do certain tasks, such as user verification. They freely admitted they'd been penning their presentation hastily when they'd rather have been attending mine. But never mind, it was still an interesting few minutes!

[James and Andy argue about who's going to work the slides...]

Next was dinner: geeks + pizza + beer = culinary carnage. At least there was no washing up!

[Colin Schlüter surveys the carnage]

I stayed chat with Andy Mitchell and John Wilson for quite a while after dinner, but made it to the main auditorium , back end of Ask Us Anything panel. Someone rashly asked to see the panel dance!

[Norm! shakes his booty, watched by Simon, Steve, James and Aral]

Of course, it wasn't long before someone asked "when can we play Werewolf!" So, most reconvened to the restaurant area and three groups started. Not sure how many games were played altogether, but I think it was at least nine, with various permutations of people flitting from one circle to anther.

[a wolf in gnome's clothing, perhaps? Tom Coates ponders who he's going to bite next; James Wheare (Wolf??) and Cristiano Betta don't seem worried by his proximity!]

And so to bed, perchance to sleep, at 4am... fat chance - wished the floor wasn't so hard. Got up again 4 hours later to find most still comatose:

[geek dorm, aka conference room]

Tagged By Sheila

Sheila The Sheila has tagged me with a little blog ditty, and in the spirit of New Year I thought I would carry it on. The idea is this:

"For those of you going "huh?", I have been blog tagged, a game started by Jeff Pulver which seems to be spreading quite quickly. The object of the game is to reveal 5 things about you, which most readers probably don't know, then nominate 5 friends to do the same."

So, here are my five "surprises":

• I had my first photograph published when I was 8 years old.
  It was taken when I was seven, at Darnholm, on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. I used my father's manual camera (he had set the exposure for me) and managed to pan the shot when the steam train came round a curve under the bridge. Dad regularly submits pictures for publication in preserved railway magazines, and so he sent it along with some of his, and it was published in Modern Railways. So I'm a bit of a closet steam-head as well as nethead.
• I mushed a team of six huskies for a week in the arctic circle.
  We toured northern Sweden and Norway. It was the best trip I've ever done, but totally knackering. We ate for England, but expended so much energy, I'd lost 4lbs by the time I came home. My experiences during that week have taught me that teamwork is invaluable, and that plastic is not as good as polystyrene for making loo seats for use in sub-zero temperatures!
• I started learning to play Bass Guitar in 2002.
  I'd wanted to play bass since I was a teenager. Then one day I woke up and thought, "why don't I just go and buy one, rather than dithering all this time?" Not sure the neighbours were pleased. But my amp doesn't go up to 11! I started out with a cheap 4-string model, but now have a custom 5-string Iceni Funkmeister, with a purple paint job. I guess I'm a late starter when it comes to rebellion and rock-goddess pretentions, ha ha.
• I'm a PAGB-accredited judge, and regularly visit photographic clubs in East Anglia and North London, to judge their competitions. For some reason, they like my opinions and keep inviting me back.
• Danny Grewcock (England and Bath Lock) once signed my rugby shirt. I was still wearing it at the time. 'Nuff said.

And I'm going to tag these good folks to reveal themselves: Litlove, Andy Mitchell, Bobble, Prof. John Flood and his RATS, FakeBob.