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iBegin Labs Releases WP Lifestream Plugin

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iBegin Labs has announced the release of its WP Lifestream plugin for WordPress, which enables bloggers to consolidate all their “life streams” into one handy page on their sites.

The Lifesteram Plugin is simple – used with WordPress, it lets you create one single feed for all your activities online. One feed that can collate what you are listening to, what you are buying, and what you are doing. Twitter, Facebook, iTunes, Hulu, YouTube, your blog, Flickr, Steam, and a lot more – all in one easy to read place.

The Lifestream plugin includes the following features:

  • Unlimited number of feeds.
  • Stores entire feed history, not just the last week or two.
  • Extendable via a base PHP class. Easily add your own feed types with very little PHP code.
  • Customizable display using stylesheets.
  • Allows grouping of events to cutback on the daily feed spam.
  • Localization ready
  • Daily digest available to summarize your activities.
  • Efficient! Built on scalable database structures so it won’t bog down your website.

A sample lifestream using the plugin can be found at davidcramer.net.

I think this is a good way to consolidate one’s feeds from outside of a blog, rather than, say, publish your tweet summaries in a daily digest (which I have done before, but decided it’s a bit tacky). Having all of these in one dedicated page gives readers who are interested in your lifestreams the opportunity to follow your tweets, photos, and whatnot, but doesn’t necessarily clutter the main areas of your site.

The Lifestream plugin is scalable, and iBegin is considering creating a WordPress theme that already incorporates the plugin and a dedicated lifestream page.

Originally posted on December 16, 2008 @ 11:08 pm

gridNavigation – An Out of the Box Solution for Grid Based Interfaces

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Grid-type interfaces are almost an omnipresent navigation tool in most websites nowadays. It provides a clean and structured layout to effectively present visual data to the user. Unfortunately, its inherent structure is also one of grid’s pitfalls. As a consequence of the way data is laid out on a grid, there is this unwanted feeling of rigidness, inflexibility, and at certain extremes makes it feel boring.

Aware of the weakness of the grid, web designers have over the years tried to revitalize it. One of the more effective approaches to do this was usually through animation of grid-type interfaces through the use of flash. This works out fine for some who can easily adapt to the nuances of motion design. But to the many designers who don’t have the time to study and learn flash while keeping their heads above water, handling several projects and delivering deadlines – this is definitely not an option.

The lack of options has brought me to try several flash components to ease the pain of creating a professional looking animated grid interface. This is when I was able to try gridNavigation. It’s simply an easy-to-use and robust grid interface you can install and use as a flash component. gridNavigation displays thumbnails in a grid or pyramid like layout while allowing you to specify the exact number of rows and colums (for grid) or the position of the layout (for pyramid). Here are some of the main features of the gridNavigation component:

  • Display thumbnails of images, SWFs or movie clips in a grid or pyramid like layout
  • Built-in blur effect for smooth transitions from low res to high res content
  • Layout options: top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right
  • Number of columns and rows can be manually or automatically set when using the grid layout
  • Content, menu items and settings may be defined through XML, Component Inspector or ActionScript
  • Automatically resizes thumbnails and content to desired size
  • Option to use the same or different files for thumbnails and large content
  • Customizable zoom and easing speeds
  • Built-in skinnable preloader for thumbnails and main content
  • Supports all Flash image formats
  • ActionScript events for: onOpen, onOpenComplete, onClose, onCloseComplete
  • Comprehensive ActionScript API
  • Light weight: AS2=20Kb, AS3=32kb

Despite it being a purely grid-type interface, it allows a fairly impressive degree of customization. You can change the easing and zooming speed of the animation, specify thumbnails, external SWFs or movie clips as both thumbnail or full sized view. You can add images, SWFs or movie clips through the component inspector, or by XML or ActionScript for more dynamic data.

gridNavigation is perfect for those planning to create a photo gallery, video gallery or even as a cool interface to navigate through a whole site. With gridNavigation allowing you to create highly customizable and professional looking grid interfaces – this is definitely a must for a web designer’s arsenal of tricks.

gridNavigation costs $44.95 for the ActionScript 2 or ActionScript 3 versions, or $54.95 for AS2+AS3, with an option for a $10 upgrade from the AS2 to the AS3 edition.

Disclosure: The above article is a sponsored review published upon request by Flashloaded

Originally posted on January 13, 2008 @ 5:26 pm

GigaTribe launches third version with unlimited secure file transfers

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GigaTribe-v3GigaTribe, which boasts over one million members, has announced the third version of its secure file sharing software.

This version offers unlimited size and number of files, which are still encrypted for secure transfer.

Additionally, recently shared files are displayed in a different colour, shared files can be customised with a photo or comment, there’s a revamped “chat” interface and a private blog which can be seen only by private network members.

GigaTribe version 3 is free. Alternatively, for $4.99 per month or $29.95 per year offers additional features such as faster downloads and remote Internet access.

GigaTribe

Originally posted on October 21, 2009 @ 5:19 pm

Opera 10 with Turbo Coming Tuesday

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Opera has always touted itself as the world’s fastest browser, so it comes as no surprise that Opera 10’s biggest new feature will be a Turbo mode for slow connections. Turbo mode works by connecting to Opera Software’s servers, which compress Web pages before sending them to the browser.

If nothing else, it’s a better use of Opera Software’s servers than that silly Unite feature. Expect Opera 10 to come out Tuesday.

Originally posted on August 31, 2009 @ 7:46 pm

Samsung jumping on mobile application store bandwagon

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Yes, the “application store” is the latest must have accessory for every mobile phone manufacturer or OS maker.

samsung-logoNot-quite-so-hot-on-the-heels of Apple’s App Store, Android Market, Windows Marketplace and Nokia’s Ovi is Samsung’s attempt at a mobile application store for users of its cellphones.

With a beta version already available in the UK and the expectation to roll out to Europe in late summer, there’ll be a web portal from which developers’ software can be touted.

As Samsung’s handset run either the Windows Mobile or Symbian operating systems, that’s what will be available. As per everyone else, apps will have to be approved, and may be made available for free or a fee. [Read more…]

Originally posted on July 30, 2009 @ 7:28 am