I have seen quite a lot of people asking how to get the avatars of their Twitter followers displaying on their website. Well, as a break to custom coding an e-commerce site for a client, I have cooked up a little code that does just that.

In addition to the obvious, that it displays the avatars of your followers on your website, it has a few little extras.

• It displays the total number of Twitter followers above the list of avatars.
• If Twitter falls of it’s perch or decides to return an error, it doesn’t display anything, so no breakages there.
• You need only enter your Twitter username and password in order for it to do it’s thing.

The Twitters Followers avatar list is easy to style using the image class ‘twitter_followers’.

img.twitter_followers {
padding:2px;
display:inline;
height:30px;
width:30px;
}

Would give you something like this, look at the bottom of the page. The page is a work in progress, but you get the idea. If you don’t see anything, Twitter has fallen of it’s perch or decided to pull a ‘too many tweets’ error.

If you find this ‘Twitter_followers’ script useful or have any observations, leave a comment.

[download#2#image]

Fantastic News for on-line PC gamers!

As all UK on-line PC gamers know, we get ripped off for game server rental. Our cousins in the US have always had a far better deal when it comes to prices for clan and game servers. Until now, that is.

Hypernia, the industry leading hosting services company in the US now has facilities in a London based UK data centre and they are still charging those low US prices!

• $175 a month (less than £85.00) gets you a UK based dedicated box.
• 100+ slots means you could run 3 x 32 slot ranked servers
• Full remote access 24/7 allows you to set up new game servers or change on-line game.
• Any combination of on-line game servers. BF2, BF242, CSS and Quake Wars to name a few.
• Ranked and unranked game servers. With no charges for ranked game servers.

Essentially, you chose which on-line game servers you would like to run, do a one click install from the remote desktop and get your UK clan on-line in a matter of minutes.

As a UK based on-line PC gamer myself, I know you would pay £50+ for a single 32 player BF2 ranked server at the usual UK hosts! So for a little extra money you get full desktop control and unlimited game servers (up to the 100 recommended slots) with free voice comms. Imagine running Crysis + Quake Wars + Call of Duty 4 and BF2142 all on your own dedicated box with sweet UK pings for £85.00! For more information visit Hypernia.

The inmates of the PETS house live in a surreal and bizarre world of their own creation..

Pets was first broadcast in 2001, and I can’t believe that I have been completely oblivious to it’s existence until last night! I own one of those video mp3 players from a manufacturer named after a piece of fruit. I have never really explored it’s possibilities until yesterday evening. In the absence of my other half, who was away for the weekend, I got bored! Usually a fatal thing to happen, I found myself messing about with the device and was extremely surprised at the video quality.

A quick meta search later and I am downloading a comedy podcast, no video there. Another quick search later and I am reading about Pets – an adult puppet comedy with some extremely strong language. Here is a little taster, staring Hamish the red setter, Trevor the bulldog, JP the parrot and Davina the cat…

There are two series of 13 episodes in each, Enjoy. All now available as free downloads!

After the best part of two years build up and ever increasing hype the Halo 3 launch started at midnight last night. Many shops opened at the stroke of midnight to provide a FPS fix to the salivating, game playing masses.

Microsoft threw yet another party and even the BBC rallied to the cause with a special report. The worlds media resources of ‘exclusive footage’ have been exhausted overnight. As the dust clouds being to clear over the high street we talk to a Halo 3 launch day veteran and hear of their first hand experiences.

Personally I would save yourself a lot of hassle and buy it from play.com! This report was brought to you by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation with the Halo 3 launch day veterans.

Are Facebook users laying themselves open to exploitation and even danger through their profile settings?

That is the question I found myself asking after receiving the very same ominous message for a third time, each from a different facebook friend.

” If somebody called bm_tnoo7@hotmail.com adds you to their Facebook account DON’T accept it because its a hacker.Tell everyone on your list because if someone on your list adds them you get them on your list he’ll figure out your ID co,puter address. So copy and paste this message to everyone even if you hate them and fast because if he hacks their mail he hacks yours. “

Is the person in question an extremely talented individual with vast amounts of time and resources to hand, that will systematically ‘farm’ facebook profiles harvesting private information for some nefarious master plan? Or, one cup of tea later, I found myself wondering if this could be the broadband – social networking equivalent of the chain letter?

My curiosity sufficiently aroused, I decide to fire up webfetch and do some investigating. Warning to all facebook profile owners, you are going to be a little upset from this point in!

” at most, the name and profile picture of any Facebook member “

privacy settings

If you read the privacy settings in your facebook account it states “A public search listing provides, at most, the name and profile picture of any Facebook member that has their search privacy settings set to ‘Everyone’ It will show less information about a person than results of a search performed by someone logged in to Facebook”. Here is the truth!

security of data

The infamous bm_tnoo7@hotmail.com isn’t actually a hacker after all! However the ‘Compare People’ application is making your profile and that of every single member of your friends group available to buy for just $10 american!

” we all get random friends invites… “

Which would explain why we all get random friends invites from facebook members that have hundreds of friends with little or no connection. Often that member has only had a profile for a matter of weeks, and invites many random new friends each and every day!

Not everyone on facebook is your friend! Just because someone requests to be your ‘friend’ doesn’t mean that you should automatically agree. Read about ‘Freddi Staurâ‘ ( anagram of ‘ID Fraudster’) and his access to e-mail addresses, dates of birth, addresses and phone numbers, and school or work data.

Facebook and the American courts

Facebook has been asked questions by the Office of the Attorney General for New York State – Andrew Cuomo, regarding safety measures in place on its website. I am not going to comment however it makes interesting reading.

• The website of the Office of the Attorney General for New York State.
• The documentation sent to Facebook.

Imagine these potential scenarios…

• A local criminal makes friends with those in his area. Happy to learn that you’ll be on all week and your house is empty.
• Your child unknowingly adds a paedophile to their list of friends. Now he has photos, the school they attend and knows what after school clubs they attend.
• You add a hacker to your list of friends and they learn you love anything connected with the Simpsons. Then comes the invite from your new ‘friend’ to join a new Bart Simpson game you MUST download.

If you do decide to add “friends” you don’t know, make sure you’ve correctly configured your ‘limited’ profile!

other thoughts

While researching this article I found a thought provoking video, made before these more recent events. Have a look.

Only in beta, but when serving up results WebFetch could be a google beater..

As you know I spend a lot of time wandering the internet trying to track down information, finding tasty morsels and researching applications. Well I stumbled across this little beauty and, my god, what a difference it makes.

…the controversy surrounding Google’s data retention policies…

WebFetch is a meta-search engine, which draws its results from Google, Yahoo, Ask.com and MSN, however it doesn’t allow any of these engines to collect your personal data. what’s more WebFetch does not collect any information about its users either.

If you really needed to find something or somebody you would send out a search party, not just go it alone.

I think the principle is a very good one, summed up quite nicely here. “the most effective way to search because it combines results feeds from multiple search engines and is more secure because services like WebFetch do not gather personally identifiable information” – said Dominic Trigg, managing director at WebFetch.

Personally WebFetch, has made a big difference in the quality of results returned from my search queries. So much so in fact that I have written a plugin that adds the webfetch engine to my Google tool bar, you can download the xml below.

In summary, WebFetch’s meta-search technology offers a major step forward in online searching across Web, Video, News, Pictures and Audio. You heard it here first..

[download#1#image]

Alonso & Lewis Hamilton star in a humorous public relations exercise. Bet it cost less than £50 million though!

Relations between Hamilton & Alonso are becoming more publicly strained , there was that pit lane incident at the Hungarian Grand Prix which lead to

We’re extremely competitive. We can’t be best friends…
Lewis Hamilton

Alonso being removed from pole position and ultimately McLaren losing all constructors points for the race.

Of course the drivers views of the incident differed considerably, well some what less after Ron Dennis collared them.

After the holiday between races Ron Dennis arranged a meet and convenient press conference for the drivers to announce a truce.
During the press conference Lewis Hamilton summed it up by saying “We’re extremely competitive. We can’t be best friends…” Alonso however, was a lot less talkative and Ron Dennis rounded of the proceedings effectively by saying

Clearly they are very competitive individuals and we believe that for the balance of the season that competitiveness will stay on the circuit.

This weekend saw more drama between the pair on corner one of the opening lap. When, to the untrained eye, it appeared that Alonso lent on Hamilton to the degree that Alonso himself mowed the astroturf in his efforts to remove Hamilton from the track.Lewis was heared to say after the race “He really cut across and pushed me wide. It was quite deliberate. I could see it”.

But that’s a whole other can of worms. Which brings us to the most recent and truly incredulous turn of events.

The Hamilton & Alonso McLaren Mercedes TV Advert.

McLaren Mercedes marketing magic in full effect..

When I first saw the Hamilton & Alonso advert unfold before my eyes, I genuinely thought ‘my god what have they been up to now’? Then I began to smile which became a laugh and I was left thinking ‘Christ on a bike, what were they thinking’.

He really cut across and pushed me wide. It was quite deliberate. I could see it.Lewis Hamilton

Having now grown on me I smile every time I see it and the McLaren Mercedes marketing and PR department can sleep easy at night knowing they have assured me that Hamilton and Alonso are the best of buddies (albeit very competitive buddies).

My youngest lad has left a small grain of doubt in my mind by asking ‘how much would they have got paid to act in that , Dad?’. You don’t think they could smile and laugh together like that just because there is money involved do you?

Well do you? Your comments, on both the advert and the deal at McLaren Mercedes, are welcomed.

Having enjoyed a few beers, perhaps just one too many, whilst watching the game I had gone into stare mode in front of the television. Suddenly I am snapped back to ‘the here and now’ by some amazing imagery…

Completely taken aback by what I thought I had just witnessed I immediately did what any other human being would have done, with one hand I hit rewind on the Sky+ remote and with the other hand I entered Cadbury Gorilla into the Google search bar on the laptop sitting beside me.

I have, of course, joined the Cadburys Gorilla Advert Appreciation Society over at Facebook. Now it’s still early days but my current favourite is probably this one –

You got to love it, way too much time on their hands!

Over the years I have had some private smiles by making custom ‘404 file not found’ error pages, yes a bit odd I know. But look what I have just found… the unofficial appreciation society for 404 pages. Be sure to check these in particular –

• http://www.homestarrunner.com/systemisdown.html
• http://www.alphomega.co.uk/404

Got any more? post me a link please…

From a customer service point of view aria.co.uk have gone from hero to zero in the space of a month. Surely not, your thinking, they usually get the stuff to you next day and the prices are always good. And up until February the third this year you would be correct.

Then they upgrade their computer system over the weekend. You gotta love the irony of it, britains biggest pc component supplier updates its systems and the whole thing goes horribly wrong.

My recent experiences

I need a few things for some customers, who require repairs or upgrades –

• A heatsink and fan for an overheating machine with a faulty cpu fan.
• A graphics card for a customer wanting to try 3D gaming.
• A audio card for a customer who has aquired 5.1 speakers but has onboard sound.

All simple, bread and butter stuff. I place the order at 3pm on Wednesday 07.02.07, well before their cut off time for same day processing. Friday comes and still no delivery, however I now need a real beefy cooler for an Athlon 64 5200 x2 socket A processor so I ring sales and ask their advice and politely enquire were my previous order is.

I am recommended a scythe infinity and informed that orders had been running a day behind and all is well. I pay for a Saturday delivery in order to get the latest upgrade customer turned around in a reasonable time frame.

Saturday 12.15pm, no delivery so I ring citylink and ask where my parcel is. They tap on the keyboard and explain in a very matter of fact way that the parcel arrived with them over night but the driver couldn’t find it that morning and suggest I take it up with aria!

Monday morning, the super cooler arrives but still no sign of the original order. I ring aria but the linerings three times and goes dead, oh well another day won’t hur.

Tuesday 3pm and no delivery. To the bat phone! I listen to all the sales hype whilst on hold for two hours. At 5.07pm the line goes dead.

Wednesday and Thursday I send emails then ring and wait on hold for upto an hour and a half, but I am assured that my call is valued and will be answered. I discover via my online billing that I am paying 6p a minute (well you have to do something if your on hold don’t you). I decide to try again tommorrow.

Friday morning I hold for an hour and decide that the hold music and sales talk isn’t worth £3.60 an hour (my god, I must have spent £15.00 on hold so far). Friday afternoon I recieve calls from my customers as to where their machines are and ring aria out of desperation. After an hour and forty mins I get through! I told that their systems had gone haywire and their email server is broken so they are using google mail. I am advised to cancel the order and place a new order which will be processed as usual. I was still polite when I was told a refund takes upto ten days, mostly because I was to stunned at the explanation to respond.

I replace my order immediately and add on next day AM delivery at £9.00 + VAT (my failed Saturday delivery was £10.00 + VAT).

Saturday nothing, Monday nothing, Wednesday nothing. I flip out and do a rant on their forum and get told that they don’t like that sort of thing. I ring them and get through after about 50 minutes, the guy tells me that he has found my order and will take it down to the warehouse later.

Thursday nothing, Friday the frickin thing arrives! I email aria and tell them I want the next day AM delivery charge refunded as well. They tell me that the £9.00 only gets you an AM delivery, could be any day and no time limit on processing but that it would be a morning delivery, no you can’t have refund even if you do find the wording of the carriage option misleading!

Today 07.03.07

I have emailed aria.co.uk daily regarding my refund of the order and failed Saturday delivery, but still no response and more importantly no refund. I am ringing trading standards this afternoon to see if they can kick a response out of them.

Am I being unreasonable? Are my expectations too high? What are your thoughts and experiences of aria.co.uk? Come on people light my fire!