Flying Thumbs Web Design

YouTube’s automated captioning falls on deaf ears

admin — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:50:53 +0000

Several months ago, Google implemented captioning into their video service, YouTube. All you needed was a transcript, formatted in timed text and that was it. The most difficult thing about this process was making the special timed text file. So Google did away with that…

All you need now, is a transcript and Google’s automatic speech recognition (ASR) software will create the timed text for you. Not only will this help with accessibility, but SEO as well.

Using Subversion for Revision History in Linux

admin — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:38:27 +0000

This article will cover using Subversion on your local machine to manage your project’s revision history. It will assume you have a basic understanding of Linux and root access. If you are looking for remote access to revisions, that is outside the scope of this article. See resources for remote access at the bottom of this article. Also, please understand that SVN is for revision history. It should not be thought of as a backup system and you should backup your repositories as you would any other file.

The first thing you need to do is install ’subversion’ using the synaptic package manager (and any dependencies). The next thing we’ll do is make a directory for our repository:

$ sudo mkdir /usr/local/svn/repos

Then, we need to make this directory owned by you and group ’svngroup’ and give read + write access to the group. Ownership of the files is very important and you will not be able to make commits to your repository without properly setting these first. You will not be directly editing any files in this folder. Doing so will break your repository.

$ sudo chown -R user:svngroup myproject

$ sudo chmod -R g+rws myproject

Next we need to import our files. You should setup a directory with the following structure:

myproject

| — branches

| — tags

| — trunk

| — all files go in here

It does not matter where you setup this directory as it may be deleted later. Now use the import command:

$ svn import myproject file:///usr/local/svn/repos/ -m “initial import”

This will import your files. You are now ready to checkout a “working copy” to edit. Do not work on any other directories we setup above. Only the working copy should be edited. You will need some sort of svn manager like RapidSVN or esvn to “checkout” your first working copy. Once changes are made, you will be able to “commit” the changes to the repository. You will be able to revert back to older copies, merge branches, etc.

Facebook, Twitter, FlyingThumbs attacked!

admin — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:14:13 +0000

I never thought sites so big could possibly get hacked until one day I checked my own site and saw this warning from my FF browser:

reported attack site warning

Obviously the headline is a joke and the recent threats to Facebook/Twitter and Flying Thumbs are not related. Regarding Flying Thumbs, I was able to determine that this was a popular iFrame injection attack that has been used recently. I presume my site was exploited by weak passwords or SQL injection. I thought my passwords were strong because I used a string 12 characters and numbers long with both uppercase and lowercase letters. No part of my passwords are in the dictionary so I’m really unsure of how the password was cracked. I will be sure to change my password every 60-90 days from now on.

New Open-Source Google OS Announced

admin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:10:50 +0000

Looks like we’ll have another player in the OS wars. Windows, Mac and to some degree, linux, have ruled the day until now. Today, Google has billed their new OS as light-weight with an emphasis on speed, simplicity and security. In a world when the interet applications are becoming more important than the client apps, I think they are right on point. As bandwidth and internet accessibility increase, so do services, making client-side applications trivial. I think 5-10 years down the road, anyone storing pictures and documents on their PC/Mac will be seen as a dinosaur.

Built on the ever trusty linux kernel, this OS is a browser that sits on top. It sounds like Google did their homework here. They must have heard me complaining eveytime I boot up my girlfriend’s old HP Windows XP (I think it takes 5 minutes before you can check your e-mail). So, if this OS is as slick and fast as they say it’s going to be, I may buy one.

High-Quality (HQ) Video on YouTube

admin — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:46:41 +0000

About six months ago YouTube gave their viewers the option to see videos in high-quality or as they call it, “HQ.” This is wonderful news for anyone who always liked YouTube but did not like the loss of quality of videos. Not to be confused with high-definition (HD) this new format can be switched from normal view with a click of a button.

high quality button in youtube allows users to switch between HQ and normal.

Colleagues have said they don’t notice much of a difference, but I can if I watch closely. It also seems to very depending on the video. Perhaps reflecting the quality of the original video? There is a subtle difference. Let’s examine a side by side comparison:

side by side comparison

Clearly in this example there is a difference in quality.