The state of being collected into a mass, assemblage, or sum

In web terms, this means the sum of data, as a group, taken from various feeds and be useful for later output to provide a wholesome outlook of the participant particulars.

An example of using aggregated data is taking output from a particular subject from Twitter and Sky News and grouping the data to output the latest information of what’s occurin’

Here are five tips towards creating a decent aggregated feed based on various sources. Although they may not be perfect or useful in all situations, they should provide a basic outline on what you should be doing when setting up your feed.

Tip #1

Make sure your sources are reliable! Although in some cases; i.e. taking data from social reports such as Twitter, where information given may not be 100% truthful – it may be hard/impossible to filter out the useless “WHAT’S #MAJORHAPPENING ABOUT TWEEPS?” tweets, they’d still provide an increment to how important the event may be.

Collecting your data from notably reliable sources such as:

• News websites such as BBC, Sky, ITV, Guardian etc
• Citizen reporters who have a reputation for providing reliable reports.
• Social media websites which are known for reporting true facts.

Should provide you a higher chance of providing your users with true and up to date information.

Tip #2

Stay ahead of others! Try to collect data from realtime sources such as:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Website feeds

Tip #3

Prioritize your sources! Although I could go into how you should have algorithms setup to categorize and prioritize the information the site that it’s currently processing, people shouldn’t expect normal people to be able to come up with something like that on their own in the time of a potential crisis or several worldwide catastrophes.

Tip #4

Use feedback from your visitors! If your site is providing your users with out of date or incorrect data, then it could cause problems and confusions down the line. When this happens, you’ll start to lose visitors and potential revenue. Provide a way for your users to send you feedback on the data you’re displaying and make appropriate changes when something isn’t working as it should.

Tip #5

Know your facts! Back when China had a massive earthquake in 2008, Twitter was the first notable source to the incidents happening, but what tops the triumph off even more is the fact that the users beat the USGS with releasing the news by a pretty staggering 3 minutes. – Source and stuff.

This proves how much trusting your sources can help and knowing that Twitter was the first to release the news, means that you can pretty much guarantee that it’ll happen again and again, the more the user base grows.

Since it’s original release for the iPhone and iPod devices back in December 2009, Angry Birds has been downloaded over a whopping 6.5 million times. That’s a lot of revenue for Rovio!

The game play is, at best extremely basic and common to most tower defense games. The player slings birds into structures that the pigs are hiding in. The idea is that the birds are trying to win back the eggs that the pigs stole from them. The user may attack the pigs either directly or by using the structure around them to inflict damage.

There are seven kinds of birds that the user is provided throughout various levels:

• Red birds use their momentum to attack.
• Blue birds will separate into three smaller birds
• Yellow birds will speed up and dash into their targets
• Black birds will explode on command or shortly after coming into contact with an object
• White birds will drop egg-shaped bombs (after deployment, their direction changes and airspeed increases)
• Green birds will go back and fly into the opposite direction like a boomerang
• Giant purple birds behave like the standard red birds, but are bigger and cause more damage

Since the birds and the order in which they get into the sling is pre-determined the player must use both logic and strategy to defeat the pigs.

There are also various sized pigs throughout the levels which may require more damage to be inflicted to them via falling structures. Some even wear armoured helmets!

Points can also be scored by damaging the structures in each level. The materials used for the structures range from; wood, glass and stone. Bonus points are also rewarded for any unused birds.

Android!

Since the release of Android and it’s recent burst of success to many devices, users have been waiting for Rovio to release a port to the platform. There is a port for Symbian devices, so why did it take so long to even start making a port for Android?

Although Android is a popular platform, when it was first released many developers were unsure whether the extra time spent porting their application/game would generate enough revenue to cover the time spent on it. This is probably the biggest reason Rovio held off from the port.

However, Rovio must have been following Androids coverage to finally decide to make a port of it!

Currently in beta, Angry Birds for Android has began “hatching” and is available via the Market. Note that the game will only run on second generation devices and upwards. Read the blog post by Rovio here.

My very quick review!

The game doesn’t lag on my HTC Desire running FroYo 2.2 however a few comments left on the games comment page in the market have said that they experience some lag on certain devices. For me, the game responds well, interacts nicely with the pinch to zoom feature my Desire is packed with.

The sounds work well with the game and occur in the right times, i.e. as soon as the bird hits a glass structure pane or a pig. I haven’t played the game with the sound up to the maximum so I’m not sure if they are high quality files or not.

The graphics look awesome on the AMOLED screen the Desire has. Crystal clear and smooth!

Although, from the looks of it, the game is just a port, it would be nice in the final release to see some differences between the Android and iOS versions to make them more unique to the kind of devices they play on. Perhaps a couple of unique levels or special birds (Android figure?) to fling at the pigs?

Either way I’m extremely excited to see that Rovio have delved into Android development and I’m eagerly anticipating the game coming out of beta and being released for sale! I’m certainly looking forward to buying it!

Most of the time, I end up writing a lot of custom functions to take specific data and perform the operations needed for the specific output I need. These functions are also supported by more generic functions that, although perform specific tasks, do not rely on any of the other functions, and as such these are the functions you need to take care of.

Although I don’t specifically take a copy of these functions and put them into unique files (although I should), I do keep a copy of the files they’re used in. This way I can see how the function should take parameters, data etc for reference later on.

Here are 5, short but sweet reasons why writing those pointless functions/projects will one day return the favour and help you.

Reason #1

Some times projects/functions can change the way you see the project in hand. This new “insight” to what your code should be doing can vastly improve the efficiency of almost every new bit of code you write.

Reason #2

When I start writing a new project, it’s generally because I want to know how other websites do it or how it would be done. By doing so I’m able to teach myself new methods to complete the problem in hand.

In many cases, the functions that I write for this project help me understand the process the data travels through.

Reason #3

Practise. Even if you write the same function for 10 of your different projects, in most cases, you’ll find that you will improve your code to a point in which the process your data takes becomes minimial, effective and to the point.

Some times, the original debugging statements you started with will disappear because you know you’ve covered all of your bases.

Reason #4

It’s a part of your portfolio. Whether it’s a really awesome project you’re working on or just something to handle some data, it all adds up to showing your potential employers how capable and flexible you are.

I tend to add a lot of other side projects to my actual CV so that employers can see that I’m able to control different types of data and get the output that I need. One of my past clients was extremely impressed by some of the other work that I’ve done, that he wanted me to recreate some of the things that I’ve produced for myself.

Reason #5

Share it. Seriously, the open source movement has grown in heaps and bounds recently and I believe that people should share at least snippets or generic versions of ther functions.

Closed source is, although sometimes nessacary, extremely boring. I think developers should release some of their code  every now and again. In my previous blog, I used to release functions that perform data manipulation every once in a while. I felt better for giving the open source community back what they gave to me at least.

Sure private data such as passwords should always be encrypted or hashed so that they are secure, however documents such as TODOs or memos, I believe should be kept in plain text.

Here is a list of five reasons as to why you should store data in plain text.

Reason #1

Plain text will never ever change. Due to its simplicity and compatibility across almost every system world wide, there really is no reason for plain text to become some sort of illegal format.

Reason #2

Plain text doesn’t have older or newer versions of itself, e.g. it’s compatible with Notepad in Windows 95, as it is with Ubuntu 10.04 – two completely different systems yet both of them can read the same data, even though Windows 95 was circa 15 years ago.

Reason #3

In most circumstances it’s easier to process plain text data than it is to first re-process already processed data and then perform the processes you need to make to get your desired output.

Reason #4

Plain text is still literally plain text even once it’s been printed or stored else where. It can be sent in emails without the recipient needing to have specialized software to open it.

Reason #5

Why break what’s not broken? Plain text is so widely used there is no reason for someone to create a new safetext format – that’s what we have hashing for.

Although you may not agree with my five reasons, they’re all true and will all remain the same in another 15 years time.

Perhaps this will soon become part of the new real time Google? Time will tell.

It’s a nice feature since I don’t actually have to load the whole Google page to see the result I’m after.

So I’ve had my HTC Desire for a couple of months now. I love it. It’s elegant, it’s beautiful and it’s pretty much perfect. I have a couple dislikes with the phone on a whole but it wouldn’t stop me getting another one – ever.

One of my main hates isn’t specific to the phone but the vendor; HTC and their stupid time delays in releasing Froyo for their phones. Sense is cool and all, but how about an option without it?

Now I come on to rooting it. I’ve been trying to stay away from it and waiting for the official OTA update, but alas! I got bored, so today I went ahead and rooted. It was a very simple process thanks to a guide from Root My Droid. In 12 steps I had rooted my phone and had access to everything I wanted to have from my phone – except the new sexy theme from Froyo (which will be shortly ruined ny Sense )

The guide is so easy to follow, I was able to root my phone whilst at work, during one of our busiest moments – of course I only spent time I had in between things. Since the whole thing is a 1 click process and then selecting a choice in the devices recovery state, rooting the phone is a breeze. I was always scared I’d break it some how.

Some of the benefits of rooting my phone:

• Wifi tethering is already available thanks to a cool developer
• CPU control! I can control how many cycles the CPU etc does
• Better battery control

There are heaps of reasons to root your Android phone, just do a quick Google and you’ll be amazed!

Move over T9, here comes Swype… – CNET

I love this. – Wired

Swype finger-tracing text entry seems fast, hypnotic, and magical. – Engadget

When you have these three companies saying such magnificent stuff, you know the product is bound to be good. Swype is no different, it truly is amazing.

Swype is currently featured on the Samsung Galaxy TAB advert!

What is Swype?

Their website says the following:

Swype provides a faster and easier way to input text on any screen. With one continuous finger or stylus motion across the screen keyboard, the patented technology enables users to input words faster and easier than other data input methods—at over 40 words per minute. The application is designed to work across a variety of devices such as phones, tablets, game consoles, kiosks, televisions, virtual screens and more.

I made four words bold above. “faster”, “easier”, “one continuous” these three quotes describe the exact basis of what Swype is.

Get to the point!

Ok, ok… The following 5 reasons are why I believe you should use Swype on your Android enabled phone.

Reason #1

It works wonders even on some of the smaller Android enabled screens. Because of the layout of the keyboard, designed by Swype Inc. you can be sure that the word you’re looking to spell, will be typed.

If you take a look at some of the videos they provide on their website, you can see the layout of the keyboard in both portrait and landscape mode. Both layouts keep their consistent and easy to use interface.

Reason #2

It greatly improves typing speed! Since the average speed for touchscreen typing is 24.5WPM (http://www.informaworld.com/index/777769671.pdf), Swype claims you can get on average, 40WPM using their technology.

Reason #3

It feels natural. Ok, sure the first couple of times you use Swype it doesn’t feel right, but keep in mind you’ve probably been using normal touch button typing for over half a decade?

After a few texts/emails using Swype, you should become pretty comfortable with it. It’s really easy to get to grips with it!

Reason #4

It’s extremely clever! If Swype doesn’t know a word, simply type it out like normal, it then promptly learns the word and you can Swype it out the next time you need it!

If you need capitals in the middle of a word or even the beginning for a name or something, simply move your finger out of the keyboard (whilst still swyping) and it will capitalize the next letter.

Swype generally knows when to add punctuation to words! If it doesn’t, the touch between a word seems to be a lot more accurate than the HTC_IME keyboard that shipped with my HTC Desire.

Special characters are neatly kept behind the normal letters. To access one of these, hold down the letter and it will give you haptic feedback and display what character you’ll use.

Reason #5

The best one so far. The iPhone is yet to get the almighty Swype!

Yeah, it’s a really stupid reason but it’s so true. iPhone has a lot on Android at the moment, but this technology is so immense it really does have the iPhone beaten.

Although the native iPhone keyboard is pretty awesome (I admit it) giving it some Swype love would make it the perfect mobile keyboard around.

Sure…

Well they are my five reasons, and I believe a lot of users will agree with me!

Check out Swype action here.

I was able to get a screenshot of the update becoming available, being a developer (no matter how little I actually develop) has it’s uses!

Download available

One thing I did notice was that the version number doesn’t match that of Android build number. I guess this means that HTC work off of a different sub-version scheme.

In regards to the actual update, not a lot has changed. I’ve managed to empty out most of my apps on to my SD card which is awesome! The wireless tethering is so useful, I’m actually connected to it now whilst my internet is down.

Wireless tethering welcome screen

Once you’ve setup your network; SSID, security key and users, you’ll be able to manage the connected users through this screen.

Configuring the network and managing connected users

A new application/widget that caught my eye is AppShare, which looks like Bump but generic to the device. As the name suggests, it allows you to share applications via the same sharing options seen across other applications.

I always find that it’s the smaller applications that I find the most use for. In 2.1 I was disappointed to see no Flashlight application, nadda. The one that comes bundled with 2.2 is awesome! It has three levels of lighting:

1. Off
2. Dim
3. Bright

The application can also signal SOS through the menu screen.

Simple things are always the best!

So with the 720p video recording (which is awesome) and the 400% speed increase overall (so much more responsive), the new update has made up for the extra day we had to wait – sorry Twitter followers for my constant stream of impatience.

“The Android 2.2 (FroYo) update for HTC Desire will start rolling out across Europe this weekend. As well as including the complete set of Android 2.2 features, the update will contain a few special additions of our own through the latest iteration of HTC Sense. The update will provide 720p video capture, HTC’s App Share widget, as well as our enhanced HTC Caller ID, and improved multi-language keyboard. Also, though the update, HTC Sync will allow HTC Desire users to sync their music with iTunes.

HTC Desire users will be notified that the over-the-air update is available to download when their phone automatically checks for software updates. The update won’t delete any of the phone’s content. However, due to the size of the update, we would advise using a WiFi connection to download it wherever possible to avoid additional data charges.

This update will initially roll-out to unlocked HTC Desire handsets. Operator specific versions of the update are undergoing testing and we expect to make them available in several weeks’ time.”

I seriously cannot wait for this update I recently put OpenDesire on my handset to see what Froyo would run like, and oh em gee, it’s awesome! Full 720p video capture will make for some really cool footage from mobile phones! The 400% speed increase will definitely make this update worth the wait! Along with the 1GHz SnapDragon processor that is shipped with the phone, the increase will make the Desire one of the fastest and most powerful phones on the market.

Image courtesy of Hans Petter Eide

The ideas that I write about may or may not become a part of the stable release of iTunesTweet. This could be due to various reasons:

1. It’s not stable, i.e. it doesn’t work in the way that it was intended to or it has too many bugs for me to take care of at one time.
2. There is no need for the feature. Some times I may come up with an idea that I think would be useful, however in real world testing, the majority of users would think otherwise.
3. It changes a big part of the code. I don’t have time to re-write the main system again, so features will be currently limited to the size and time they’ll take to integrate.

So now that I’ve covered my ass from people who may get annoyed that a feature they really like isn’t in the application, I can begin writing ideas!

Now playing feed

This would be a global feature available on the website (once the re-design is finished). With a few modifications to the log sequence it would be possible for me to see how many songs are currently playing (ignoring the fact the user may press pause) and display them in a feed on the website.

This shouldn’t be too hard to integrate since I’d only have to work out when the song will stop playing (TTL for the song).

Random maths jibber

Current time – (song length + length played for) : something like that anyway

I think this feature would open up many new possibilities for the application. A feed of currently playing songs across the world would be a brilliant way to promote music. The more people playing the song, the more it stands out.

We could even take into consideration the rating the song has, and use this to promote it further.

Share playlist

I promise this has nothing to do with the recent movements by Spotify which now allow you to share playlists to friends at Twitter and Facebook!

Technically it should be possible for me to find out the playlist in which the currently playing song resides in. Through this it would then be possible for the user to share that playlist on their Twitter account. The website would also be able to group playlists by Twitter user (which could cause problems if the user changed their username, but it’s a risk).

It’s not a big idea nor particularly complicated but it’s a nice way to share music with the world.

Better error handling

This is a given, something that I should have implemented a while ago. Due to Twitters recent surge in problems, iTunesTweet needs to be equipped with enough decisions in its code to handle as many problems as I find.

Thanks to Cohen I was able to fix one problem this morning. And since Twitter fails so much at the moment, now is a brilliant time for me to teach iTunesTweet to handle all kinds of errors.

Eventually the error log file will consist of a deeper analysis of the problems including:

• Epoch/unix time stamps
• All data that iTunesTweet was sending
• Twitter status code
• And whatever else I deem useful to further investigation

The resulting file will automatically be sent to the server when it reaches a preset amount of errors, or you can choose to send it if the error level is bugging you.

Song correction tool

We all have songs in our libraries which have imported names such as “03 David Guetta – Memories” or with spelling mistakes “Dvd Guetta – Memorys” – maybe it’s just me, but I find them annoying and I hate correcting them as I find them.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if iTunesTweet could analyze every song in your library and automatically correct or suggest the real spellings?

I’ve applied for an API key at Song.ly in the hope to integrate this feature into the code! To reduce the amount of API calls iTunesTweet makes, it would be a good idea for my server to cache all of the original and correct strings and then run the files against the server. Once I have a base library of a few thousand songs, I could further the development of the tool to check my server before song.ly – see I play nice with API developers.

Album art for those which iTunes Store can’t find

Some times iTunes Store can’t find album art to a song because it’s based on both the artist and the song title or because iTunes just fails at these kinds of things.

It should be possible for me to write a custom album artwork handler for all of the songs that iTunes can’t handle.

Keep in mind that this feature would still be limited to how accurate the song information is, although a mix of this and the song correction tool should give you good results most of the time!

More to come

Some more ideas will probably arise because of these, or betas will come out with me testing them, so keep an eye out