vox

Crazy Liquid Rules

I haven't been flying for a few months obviously. I was surprised to see that they still have the idiotic liquid rules for air travel. After this long I would have expected them to come up with a new non-sensical movie plot threat to protect us from.

New secret project

With a few friends I've been working on a new site, now called YellowBot.  Recently we removed the password protection from our beta, but it's not entirely ready for the world to use yet so we are doing a "quiet launch".

That's one of the reasons for this vox post rather than a post at my more widely read regular weblog.

Another reason, of course, is that we are HUGE Vox (and Flickr) fans.  It's funny how a few years ago you'd go to Amazon for design hints - now Cal, Mena and Nate is who we look to!

We love the sensibilities of Flickr and Vox!   Our site isn't anything like them - it's a yellow page / local search site for starters, but it's been interesting to observe where we've gone looking for patterns when we've needed them.   When we dream we dream of being the FlickrVox of local search (well, we dream a few other things too, but let's not have to mark this post "may be offensive").

Anyway, please try finding your local pizza place, read Vani's review of Sushi Ike (our local sushi joint) or see my profile page over there.  Yes, it's embarrassing that we don't even have a place for Vox, Flickr or even a weblog url there!  Hey, we had to make the basics like searching work first!  :-)

We also have grand plans for making APIs and such to make it easier to integrate our stuff (and more importantly your stuff if you write reviews or tag stuff on the site) elsewhere.   Get in touch if this is something you'd like to play with and I'll get you hooked up as soon as possible!

Composing in Safari

I was excited to notice that clicking "compose" in Safari (actually, a recent Webkit nightly build) doesn't give the "It's not going to work, even if we love you" warning anymore, but after trying it -- it should be there!

For starters, in Safari some of the formatting buttons aren't there (who cares) and more importantly the _link_ button isn't there (argh!).

Here's Firefox:

Picture 8

And here's Safari:

Picture 11

Ooops!  Makes it hard to make link-y vox-posts!

Second problem I noticed:  When I uploaded the pictures with Safari they ended up looking funny (they showed up next to each other).  I tried clicking between them so I could add a few lines between them - which took me to my Vox page.  Oops.  Clicking the back button took me back to a blank Compose window that now wasn't editable!

So, dear Vox-creating-friends: Please either add the "It's really not going to work, just give up now" warning back, make it work in Safari or ...  I forgot option 3, but option 3 would work too as long as it involves your awesome problem solving skills.

I try to use Firefox, but it just doesn't feel slick and pretty enough.   Safari/WebKit is slick and pretty.   Oh, and feels faster.  I know it's supposed to be the other way around.

Vox Mobile

Vani told me about Vox Mobile today. Very neat! It is a palm os (and symbian etc etc) application that lets you post weblog entries (like this one) and photos from the phone. Too bad my Treo has such a terrible picture taking device.

What would be really neat would be "Flickr Mobile" built into my camera. Click and upload next the camera is on a wireless network!  The camera would need wireless, but that's starting to happen.

(edited to add links - couldn't figure out to do that from the phone...)

Update: Oops - it made my phone (Treo 650) crash while I was in the Vox application.  Not cool. 

The Polite Dog

Ainsley, our dog, knows not to eat until we tell her to.   The spouse-unit got a rare photo where she's only drooling a little bit on her food while she waits.

Griffith Observatory

Having grown up in a country where the tallest point is only 147 meters above sea level I love living on our little hill with a bit of a view (even if the spouse-unit has a point when she says a lot on a hill isn't terribly practical).

In another direction our view includes the Griffith Observatory.  It's been closed for re-construction forever, but Curbed LA says they are reopening on November 3rd.  Neat!  Maybe they'll have lights, that'd be pretty.

Countries visited

create your own visited countries map

Lots and lots of gray - obviously need to get out more!   I'll see if I can talk Vani into visiting Canada, just because it'd make a big block of grey red.  

Aperture Flickr Plugin

I upgraded to Aperture 1.5 so I could try the Flickr Export plugin.  It works, it's great.

Since the workflow is much easier now I'll get more photos from Malaysia and Denmark uploaded soon...

Afternoon rain

Commonplace Madness

"The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive."

Quotes from Letters To A Christian Nation (also read the Author Q&A).  Via JWZ

Busy busy ...

We're back in Los Angeles since some time ago (we were in Denmark for a few weeks after Malaysia). Super busy busy with "various projects".  Some fun and non-paying, some interesting and paying, some exciting and secret.

I got a fancy filmscanner, but have only taken time to scan one photo!  Oops.