Technology and design in plain language.

Problem:

We have several different sites that are powered by one Movable Type install. These sites have common elements that need to be shared across all of the blogs—something like services, staff or course descriptions. Unlike global template modules, these shared items have lots of meta (like categories, tags, etc) and really need the framework a blog provides. Not every one of our sites have the same services, staff or courses, so they need to be able to specify which resources get pulled from the pool.

More importantly, perhaps, is the fact that each of these items in our shared library need to live within the chrome and the url structure of the individual sites. In other words, the course that Site A is offering is the same as Site B, but we need to make sure the course description lives at http://examplesite-a.com and http://examplesite-b.com respectively along and has each site’s correspondent branding and layout.

Solution:

Here’s the gist of our solution. We create a shared blog and then pull those shared pages or entries into each individual blog using private tags as a filter. They’re fed into a php switch statement that checks against a query string and serves up these shared resources based on which is identified in the url. The end result will look something like http://examplesite-a.com/courses/?course=microsoft_word. A little confusing at first, but it will make more sense as we start building it out.

Continue reading...

I’m really psyched to release the first public beta of Twitster into the wild today.

But first, let me tell you a story.

I work a lot with the Movable Type community. It’s a small community, but there are some really talented developers and designers doing some really cool stuff. One day I sat back and realized that the community actually felt smaller than it was. The cool stuff that everyone was doing was happening in all different places, so it was hard to see the “bigger picture”—to get a finger on the pulse of the community.

Then I noticed that there was one common denominator for almost every community member: everyone was talking about their projects, questions and breakthroughs on Twitter. There was a greater conversation happening but no one was capturing it, no one was bringing these disparate pieces together to create something larger than the individual posts.

The obvious key was to track these conversations using hash tags. I checked out hashtag.org, but it doesn’t let you publish tagged tweets on your own site. The other problem was that if you follow a tag on hashtag.org, anyone can use a tag for any reason. If you’re following #mt you might get posts about Movable Type, Media Temple or Montana. I wanted the ability to pick a hash tag and then control who could contribute to my Twitter group.

You may also be thinking “Can’t this can be done with a Twitter app like TweetDeck or EventBox?” For the most part, yes. The problem is that those things aren’t being published on your site—they’re great for individual users to follow hash tags, but they make mass publication of these groups really difficult. I saw this first hand at SXSW ‘09 when presenters were running TweetDeck maximized on the big screen… not exactly ideal execution.

So I set out to build Twitster, an application that would let you publish the tweets of everyone you’re following on your own site and—perhaps more importantly—let you filter that feed for particular topics. I began work and built out much of the design and basic development, but I’m no codemonkey, so I asked my good friend Byrne Reese to help spearhead the technical development of Twitster.

And that’s what I’m happy to give you today: the first public beta of Twitster.

Here are some important links to help you get started with Twitster:

• Twitster Homepage
• Twitster Google Code Page
• Twitster Blog
• Twitster FAQS
• Report Issues
• Live Twitster Demo

Download Twitster v.1.0 beta 4

The Daily Mail just ran a thought-provoking article about the effect that social websites have on childhood development. In short, eminent neuroscientist Susan Greenfield claims that social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter shorten attention spans and contribute to an instant gratification, self-centered mindset.

From the article:

We know how small babies need constant reassurance that they exist. My fear is that these technologies are infantilising the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment.

I often wonder whether real conversation in real time may eventually give way to these sanitised and easier screen dialogues, in much the same way as killing, skinning and butchering an animal to eat has been replaced by the convenience of packages of meat on the supermarket shelf.

Let me first say that I am not a scientist, a psychologist or even a social networking guru; but I am a father and a member of the human race, so addressing these concerns—whether real or imagined—is significant to me.

Continue reading...

*Every time a person visits your Twitter page, they make a split second judgment call. “Should I follow this person?”

To help prospective Twitter followers make a more informed decision (and have some fun in the meantime), I put together a Nutritional Chart background image for my Twitter profile using info from TweetStats.

And since I love to share, here’s the PSD so you can roll your own (you’ll need Helvetica Neue for best results). Enjoy!

Download Twitter Nutrition Facts PSD

Necessity is the mother of invention, and with Ethan crying frequently, I needed a quick and easy way to switch between my headphones and desktop speakers. So I put together this simple AppleScript that toggles between two audio output sources and assigned it to a Quicksilver hotkey. Here it is in a nutshell.

Continue reading...

I often find myself so busy using a tool that I don’t usually have time to talk about how I use it. This seems to be the case with many of the developers in the Movable Type community: lots of awesome things being done, not a lot of time left to share their creations and good ideas.

That got me thinking: how can we give people a clear and up-to-date picture of all the great things happening in the community without burdening community contributors with yet another tool to install or another social network to join?

The answer was simple: Use what they’re already saying. So I design and built (with massive help from Byrne Reese) HashMT to pull in existing conversations from all over Twitter, here in one place.

Here’s how it works: @hashmt follows anyone who is an active contributor to the Movable Type community and displays any tweet they’ve marked with #mt. This makes it easy to contribute since most are twittering already; now their existing conversation can be a part of this community “microblog” just by adding a hash tag to something they were already saying.

Don’t get confused: HashMT isn’t retweeting. Anything you read over by @hashmt is just news about the service. HashMT is simply aggregating specific tweets identified with a hash tag from specified users a particular account is following. You can then read those tweets over at HashMT or subscribe to them via the HashMT RSS feed.

We had a blast putting together the original Simply Recipes site, so it’s been a real thrill developing and designing an iPhone web app for Simply Recipes. After all, what could be more exciting than developing a simple interface for a simple recipe website on the easiest-to-use phone out there?

There’s nothing like working on a project that comes in handy both in the kitchen and at the grocery store. What more can I say?

You can read more about the app’s launch in our portfolio or over at Elise’s announcement post on Simply Recipes.

We were also ecstatic to learn discover the Simply Recipes iPhone App was also featured as a staff pick on the front page of Apple’s app store just a day after its public launch.