Richard Wooding: A Weblog

My thoughts on technology, software development, living in Cape Town, cats, coffee, and whatever else amuses

Commentary on tech-obsessed culture

Posted on | August 18, 2011 | No Comments

This video says it all.

Category: Social Media, Tech Culture

A suggestion to improve the handling of animated gifs on Google+

Posted on | August 2, 2011 | 2 Comments

Like many of you I have become a great fan of Google’s new social network implementation Google+. I’ve been cultivating my circles into tailored groups, so I only spam them with what they’re interested in.

My Google+ Profile

My Google+ Profile

Now I’ve had great fun following the likes of Robert Scoble (don’t circle him unless you are prepared to receive a lot of content, some suggest putting him in his own circle), Tom Anderson, Wil Wheaton, and Kevin Rose. Now one area of contention of Google+ is animated GIFs. They were a norm on MySpace, but flattened the first frame on  Facebook. Google+ has now brought them roaring back.

Tom Anderson, affectionately known as MySpace Tom, is one of the users who seems to be using them effectively.

On the flip-side, their has been a notable backlash of the intrusiveness/offensiveness of animated GIFs on this service. I have come up with a simple suggestion which I have submitted to Google+.

My suggestion is as follows:

  1. Animated gifs are flattened to first frame, by Google+
  2. A play button is overlayed
  3. On clicking the play button, the image is replaced with the animated version
To even more robust, perhaps this could be a setting in your profile?
Anyway, what do you all think of my suggestion, comment here or on Google+.

 

Category: Social Media
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Forefather

Posted on | April 24, 2011 | No Comments

Here is a photograph I clipped when at home. Stephen George Wooding, who resembles me and most men in my family. was a Chief-Constable of the Police in Ceres.

My great-great grandfather, Chief Constable of the Police in Ceres

What do you think? I’d love to hear some comments.

Category: History
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My last day at Moonlight42

Posted on | February 28, 2011 | 1 Comment

Today is my last day at Moonlight 42 (also known as Cavaletto 72), and I thoroughly enjoyed my time here.

Many thanks to current and former employees / colleagues: Jonathan Sendzul, Willie Prinsloo, Ayesha Yon, Riaan van der Walt, Innocentia Masemola, Jaco Thiart, Andries Spies, Salena De Goede, Caitlin Pringle, Charl Fourie, Matthew Slade, Abdul Rahim Allana, Collin Murray, Gideon Snyman, Cavan O’Connor, Nigel Espi and Shanti Aboobaker.

And thanks to my colleagues when were still joined with Playlogix: Mark Levitt, Thys De Wet, James McMillan, Michael Gaylord, Margaret Grobler, and Tracy B.

I enjoyed working with all of you, and maybe I will work or do business with you in the future.

Thanks to all our clients and their staff Chesscube, Metropolitan, Rogz, On The Dot, Kalahari.Net, Games24, Santam and many more.

However, I am not dropping off the face of this Earth, I will be in touch. Watch this blog to stay updated. :)

Category: Development, Work
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Ken Burns-style video mashup using Foodspotting, Flickr, and Processing

Posted on | February 18, 2011 | 3 Comments

I came across an interesting post on Make Magazine’s blog, which showed how to make Ken Burns-style movies of your Flickr photos using Processing.

I thought this was a perfect opportunity to learn a bit of Processing.

Processing is a C style language originally developed as a computer sketching tool to teach the fundamentals of computer programming visually. Since then it’s popularity has grown and has an active community of both developers and artists behind it. The results of my first foray (about 15 minutes) into Processing is below.

You can download the source code in processing for this application. You need to provide your own API keys and set id.

If you compare my code to that of Make Magazine you will see that I didn’t change much. The main difference is that I switched from a flickr.groups.pools.getPhotos API call to a flickr.photosets.getPhotos API call.

As I noted this is just the beginning, some upgrades I am thinking of are:

  • Upgrading the resolution from 360p to 720p
  • Moving the labels from bottom to top (so they are not obscured by adverts
  • Using different photos from Flickr
  • Learn more about Processing

If you have any suggestions, or ideas, please let me know.

Category: Development, Flickr, Foodspotting, Processing

Fond memories – Some cool tech I once loved

Posted on | January 23, 2011 | 6 Comments

I have always loved technology, and it has progressed a long way, to arrive at glitzy iOS and Android devices, and the wonders of Ubuntu and Mac OS X. Over the years I have come across many devices which shaped my view of technology today.

My first computer, the Sinclair ZX81 (actually I had the American one Timex Sinclair 1000). With 1KB of RAM, and a wobbly 16KB Ram Pack, this is the device I learnt to program on. My tape interface rarely worked properly, and I had to code a program until it overheated, turn it off and lose the program.

A Sinclair ZX81

A Sinclair ZX81

ZX81 with 16KB rampack and ZX Printer

ZX81 with 16KB rampack and ZX Printer

Although it’s specs might seem low by todays standards this ultra-light computer was an inspiration. I spent many hours plotting monochrome graphics on our TV. I also learnt trigonometry way before I did at school, because it was the *secret* to plotting circles and graphic attempts on this device. Once I even came across somebody who had the ZX Printer which printed on thermal paper. I devoured the Sinclair Basic manual, and become a pro on it’s wierd keyboard.

My primary school also had computers, they were BBC Micro Model Bs.

BBC Micro

BBC Micro

With BBC Basic, a powerful dialect, I also spent a lot of time fiddling with these in our schools library. I have fond memories of using VDU commands, playing the game Elite, and using Acornsoft‘s VIEW word processor.

My good friend and programmer Simon had a gem of a microcomputer (the spiritual descendant of a Sinclair ZX81 and Sinclair Spectrum) called a SAM Coupé originally manufactured by Miles Gordon Technology (MGT). Simon and I spent many hours programming on it, many times with a PC XT computer sitting next to it. At that time the SAM Coupé surpassed the XT in many aspects. It had one of the best dialects of BASIC I ever used.

SAM Coupé

SAM Coupé

A few years later at the Grey High School Hostel library, I also had great fun with (by then a bit old) Apple II Plus.

Apple II Plus

Apple II Plus

It had a particularly hilarious manual. Or at least I thought so. Wow! Apple has come a long way haven’t they.

What was special about these early Microcomputers was how close you where to the hardware, there were far fewer layers of abstraction to get to grips with, it is arguably easier to get to understand computers on these devices. Some of the spirit of this early close to the hardware computing lives on Arduino hacking, and the openness of the GNU/Linux family of operating systems.

I would love to hear comments from people who had similar microcomputers and their memories of them.

Category: Retrocomputing
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Watch this space!

Posted on | January 22, 2011 | 2 Comments

I have decided to move my web presence to the WordPress platform. I will be integrating more and more of my feeds into here over the next coming weeks. And I might make some blog posts to.

Category: General
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