Double U Blog

Unlike the vast majority of computer viruses (virii?), this one would actually be a good thing.

Brought to you by the brilliant xkcd.

There have been some problems with the database server hosting this site in the last couple of days.

I logged in to my mail today and found a dozen notifications of new user registrations — I have things set up so that I get an email whenever anybody registers an account on this site. While its exciting to see so many subscribers actually taking the time to register on my site, I was suspicious from the get-go. Call me paranoid, but read on.
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I logged in to my mail today and found a dozen notifications of new user registrations — I have things set up so that I get an email whenever anybody registers an account on this site. While its exciting to see so many subscribers actually taking the time to register on my site, I was suspicious from the get-go. Call me paranoid, but read on.

Please note: I am no longer actively developing this command. To the best of my knowledge it still works, but that may change any time, so please use at your own discretion. [Feb 2011]

I’ve been playing around with Ubiquity since the day it came out, and I’ve been working on making some routine tasks easier with it.

This time, its a currency conversion command that will get the current approximate value of one currency in terms of the other that you enter. An example command that will convert, say, 10 USD (American dollars) to PKR (Pakistani rupees) is:

currency 10 USD PKR

This will then give you the result right in the Ubiquity window, with no need to open a new tab.

I wanted to use XE’s Universal Currency Converter (UCC) but their terms of use, as I understood they do not allow for automatic extraction of data from their site.

This command currently uses Google’s currency converter from iGoogle; be sure to read the disclaimer, as well. If you have a suggestion for a better alternative, I’d be glad to hear it!

To be able to use this command, you need Ubiquity installed and also have to ‘subscribe’ to this feed. Click here, and Ubiquity will present you with an information bar across the top of the window; clicking on the “Subscribe” button will add this command to your subscriptions and you can then start using it right away.

Here’s a screenshot of the Ubiquity command window using this command (old version);

As with all other Ubiquity commands, typing in just part of the command is sufficient for it to understand what you mean — but this, of course, depends on what other commands you have that start with the letters “curr”. You can also take a look at the source code. Let me know what you think!

Updates

• July 11, 2009
  • Added support for Ubiquity 0.5 (and its new parser). This command feed will continue to support both the old parser (Ubiquity 0.1.9) and the new one (version 0.5) until the developers decide to push out the automatic update to Ubiquity version 0.5.
  • The currency converter can now also be used with the command converter.
  • Planned feature: detection of currency symbols such as $, €, £, etc.

Wishing a very happy and blessed Ramadan to everyone all over the World!

It’s a time meant for inward thought and reflection — a time to teach yourself self-restraint and learn to last a (large part of the) day fasting, which is much more than just not eating anything.

The card you see on the right was sent to me by Shahzad Khan (of dehog fame). Click to see the bigger version.

Please note: I am no longer actively developing this command. To the best of my knowledge it still works, but that may change any time, so please use at your own discretion. [Feb 2011]

Like this Ubiquity to Ping.fm command? You might also like my currency converter for Ubiquity – check it out!

I often use Ping.fm to update my status across Twitter and Facebook at the same time instead of logging in to each of them and doing it one after the other — it’s the simple things in life that make it better!

And with the Mozilla Labs Ubiquity project (which I will write more about later), a combination of the two was bound to happen! Presenting, Ping Ubiquity which allows you to post to Ping.fm with just a few keystrokes using the Ubiquity add-on (for Firefox) by Aza Raskin.

Installation

To use it you need to have Ubiquity installed (get it here). To install the Ping.fm commands, go to this page, and Ubiquity should recognize that there are some commands for it on there. You will see a bar across the top that will allow you to ‘subscribe’ to the commands by clicking the “Subscribe…” button that appears. Ubiquity will then present you with a confirmation page with a warning that this is an untrusted source. I give you my word that these commands do nothing to violate your privacy, and only work to allow you to post to Ping.fm via Ubiquity. You can look at the source code, too!

You will have to set-up your Ping.fm API key in order to be able to use this application with your account. See the command examples below for how to do this.

Commands

To setup your API key, you can either select the key in the browser and type (in Ubiquity) the following:

pingfm-key this

OR — Copy your key and use the command:

pingfm-key <paste your key here>

You can also clear your saved API key by using the following command and hitting Enter:

pingfm-key-clear

To post to your Ping.fm account, use the following command

pingfm (trigger) <your post here>

For example, to post to Twitter, you would use

pingfm @tt This is an update via Ubiquity and Ping.fm!

Or, to post to Facebook, use

pingfm @fb is amazed at how easy things are now!

Log & Updates

• July 11, 2009
  • Support for Ubiquity version 0.5 (and its Parser 2).
    
• September 2, 2008
  • You might get an error when setting your Ping.fm app key with this command. That’s means my API key has not yet been approved for userbase access by the guys over at Ping.fm, so please bear with me. If you can set you app key, then all is well and you can post all you want!
  • Planned feature: Ability to get list of last 5 (or 10?) posted updates from Ping.fm. Would love to get some input on this.
• August 29, 2008
  • Release. No planned features exist currently. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear about them!

If you’re not sure what Ubiquity is, check out the video below for some examples of what it can do.

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Leave a comment below if you have any questions or thoughts about it!

People complain honesty doesn’t exist anymore, but what would the World be like if we all really did speak our minds? “Honesty” is a series of shorts by Brit McAdams & Dave Steck depicting a World where everyone says exactly what they’re thinking.

Here’s one from an auto mechanic shop. The script, I think, is great — it’s one of those situations where people are very likely to be thinking one thing and saying something else.

These might not necessarily be funny – but then the cold hard truth seldom is. The thing that struck me is that it feels people really are like this sometimes. We rarely think of people other than ourselves, and many conversations–especially with people we don’t know very well–are so phony, everyone can feel it. The problem, I think, is that people are too caught up in their own World (and problems) to be much interested in what the person opposite is all about.

But I guess it’s human nature to feel “attached” to other people, and making a show of caring about others as much as we do satisfies that. Maybe I’m just cynical. But don’t you think the people around us deserve more attention than we really give them? I think so.

A sad day for the country. But thank you, Mr Musharraf, for all that you have done — we are forever grateful. Shame on us for not appreciating you.

This article aims to cover some basics on how to improve the security of your email address. Inside, I will try to cover some good ways with which to protect the most important part of your online presence, ie. your email address; following that will be some good password suggestions, advice on how to prepare for a disaster beforehand, and dealing with it after it has happened.