Yoted

MotorMutt launches on Octane Magazine

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 14:22:00 +0000

I've linked up with Dennis Publishing and together we've created a MotorMutt search engine for Octane Magazine.

Octane is focused on performance and classic cars worldwide giving the MotorMutt crawler plenty to chew on. In the process of creating the site, I've found some fantastic cars for sale all over the world. Not surprisingly the USA has plenty to offer, but I've been surprised at the variety of cars available in Holland particularly.

Searching for high end exotica such as Carrera GTs and SLSs reveals a healthy supply of them in mainland Europe and there are some really fascinating older exotics out there too.

Currently the site has around 6,000 cars (almost all performance or classic models) and that number is increasing week by week.

The MotorMutt search engine will be fully accessible from Octane's site later this week, but you can preview it here:

http://octane.motormutt.com

Private ads are available for free too!

MotorMutt.com is nearly off its leash

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 07:40:00 +0000

I've got a new car flavoured website. About time I hear you retort after four years devoid of petrol webness.

The new venture is a used car search engine. Before you exclaim that I lack imagination, please bear with me. You may well have encountered some car sites laying claim to the term "Search Engine", but as I've found they're all a bit 1998. In my view a web site thrusting a form full of drop down lists of make, model and budget doesn't constitute a search engine. Search should mean search, not selection.

Proper, sexy search

I've built a system that will (attempt to) understand more vexing interrogations such as "Manual E46 Coupe" or "Mark 2 escorts". I want easylust Zagato Astons, RS3100s and blagging Jaguars. For less petrolveined types, I'd like to be able to answer queries such as "diesel audi up to £10k", "red mini estates" or "hybrid hatchbacks".

Finding, Not Waiting

Secondly, to get the full inventory of exotica no 'search engine' should be sitting around waiting to be told what's for sale. The world's purveyors of car porn shouldn't have to work out how to do overnight XML uploads to your super aggregating FTP dropbox parsing aggregator. A search engine should search the web and find cars. Crazy huh?

Woof

The new site is called MotorMutt. Yep, it's a searching dog type thing. Maybe that's a bit 1999 too but rather than spend six months drinking coffee with a brand consultancy, I've concentrated on building the damn product. Crack on I say.

So where's it at? Well I've been at it since March and the Mutt's looking pretty well groomed. It'll spill onto the web like an overturned cappucino all too soon, but if you'd like to have a peek then please let me know your email address via my site at www.blatters.com and I'll whizz you an access code. Early adopters, forward thinkers and Mr Nosy welcome.

Please follow the Mutt's progress on Facebook too. I'm hoping he'll have an exciting life.

Amazon Simple Email Service

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 14:10:00 +0000

I've just started experimenting with this. The Amazon tool set is great, but it does sometimes lead you into scripting hell.

The Amazon documentation describes how to verify your email addresses using perl scripts. That took me an hour or so of downloading and updating my perl config to get the damn things to work.

Then I discovered this blog entry:

http://www.alexkorn.com/blog/2011/04/sending-email-aws-php-with-amazonses/

which shows you how to do it via a line of code in the PHP SDK library. So much easier...

Macbook Air Miles

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:38:00 +0000

My aged Dell D610 laptop is showing it's age and as I'm doing a bit of to-ing and fro-ing on the train at the moment I thought I'd get myself a new toy. A tidy little Macbook Air fits the bill, so an order was placed last week. I've been monitoring it's progress from China eagerly, but I've been somewhat perplexed about just how well travelled my laptop will be by the time it reaches me!

Gloucester, United Kingdom 06/17/2011 8:00 A.M. Out For Delivery
Castle Donnington, United Kingdom 06/17/2011 5:25 A.M. Departure Scan
Koeln, Germany 06/17/2011 2:50 A.M. Departure Scan
Koeln, Germany 06/16/2011 10:58 P.M. Arrival Scan
Warsaw, Poland 06/16/2011 9:09 P.M. Departure Scan
Almaty, Kazakhstan 06/16/2011 4:37 P.M. Departure Scan
Koeln, Germany 06/16/2011 8:47 A.M. Package data processed by brokerage....
Incheon, Korea, Republic of 06/16/2011 11:27 A.M. Departure Scan
Shanghai, China 06/16/2011 6:51 A.M. Departure Scan
Shanghai, China 06/15/2011 9:41 P.M. Export Scan
Koeln, Germany 06/15/2011 1:21 P.M. Package data processed by brokerage...
Shanghai, China 06/15/2011 5:30 P.M. Arrival Scan
China 06/15/2011 12:58 A.M. Order Processed: Ready for UPS

Loving Lotus Again

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 16:20:00 +0000

Production line changes are afoot

I've just spent a fantastic couple of days as a guest of the Lotus Group. As you're probably aware, Lotus is undergoing a huge regeneration programme. After nearly fifteen years as a loss making British car company (sounds familiar), it's benefiting from a £500m investment from investors.

It's a risky strategy involving the launch of a number of cars over the next few years to produce a more coherent and upmarket range. We were fortunate enough to see the full size models in the design studio and they're very credible. Importantly the interiors really are of the quality you'd expect of cars that will cost many, many tens of thousands. It's no longer a case of doing the best with limited resources - these are proper luxury car interiors.

Lotus's Managing Director Danny Bahar found time to speak to our group and an impressive character he was. He's slick - well presented and articulate despite English not being his first language. He expertly conveyed his vision for the company, taking it upmarket and into the luxury sportscar sector. He was at pains to emphasise that affordable sportscars such as the Elise would still form part of the range but I'm not convinced that price point is going to be a reality given the improvements in quality of product and quality of production that are being targeted.

Spending time with Bahar and his team did give a real sense of the credibility of their plan. The next five years will make or finally break the company but in this day and age there's no cheap way to bring a marque back to life. Expertise from around the world and within the Lotus Group (remember they have hundreds of engineers working on projects for other manufacturers) has been gathered and given new resources and focus like never before.

I'm excited for them and I really hope that the next few years will see them release products that will genuinely compete with the likes of Porsche and Ferrari. That teenage dream of a contemporary Esprit is still alive...

Many thanks to Bibs at The Lotus Forums for organising our visit.

PHPStorm

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 20:03:00 +0000

A friend pointed me in the direction of this. For anyone coding in PHP on Linux, this has a much more solid feel to it than Eclipse. It's not open-source, but worth the seventy quid they ask IMO.

And to all those people who told me years ago that I should have switched to PHP... you were right.

Beta Blatters

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 10:15:00 +0000

This year I'll be launching blatters.com - a new (online) hangout for those of us who like a hoon or just to ogle at cars.

I'd love it if some real enthusiasts could join me on the journey and help shape my next petroleum inspired project.

The full reveal will probably be during the summer, but I hope to get some rough previews up within the next couple of months.

Please sign up for an invite to the preview versions at www.blatters.com .

Together I hope we can build something really innovative and exciting.

One Small Step

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 11:49:00 +0000

I'm just finishing off the holding page for my new petro-project. It will provide a means of signing up to the preview site, once that's up and running.

That rather lumpy 'n' bumpy, half finished preview version should be online within the next couple of months, possibly even weeks depending how often I have to leave my desk to go play FIFA11 on Wii...

I'll post up the URL later.

Rapide Cheese

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 15:57:00 +0000

Superb. Marketing agencies are flogging the 'social web' to companies everywhere now in the belief that it's the route to cool. Sadly, dipping the company wick in the web without protection can result in a nasty rash.

This week, Aston Martin's Rapide in this hunk of cheddar on YouTube.

They've even created Twitter profiles for the participants - my favourite being "Weapons specialist and keen harpist" Simon Rapide. Perhaps he just likes Guinness...

Beta Blockers

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 09:20:00 +0000

I've read a lot recently about the merits of releasing early and often (here and here). Whilst it's likely to let bigger glitches through, it's a chance to get feedback before spending too much time on the wrong things. It's a process I'm familiar with as PistonHeads was eight years of incremental testing by the members :-)

I went down the opposite route with Tedvertiser - I tested it like I've never tested software before and I released a largely finished product. As a result it was one of the best pieces of software I've written, but it was too soulless.

So, whilst I have grand plans and dozens of ideas for my-next-thing-dot-com, I think this time round I'll start punting up some pretty crude versions as soon as I've got the basics in place. I suspect a journey shared will be more enlightening.

Service Please

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 23:37:00 +0000

Once a year, to the glass palace I am drawn.
In the hope of good service - a hope forlorn.
My annual mechanical is required right now,
And to the main dealer I must kowtow.

I persist with them in defence,
Of the warranty that I was fenced,
It protects against faults and flaws,
Of those complicated 4x4s.

An industrial estate does await,
Full of glass and shine and people called 'mate'.
I hope for interest, fun and joy,
Knowing full well it'll just annoy.
I find the sign proclaiming Land Rover,
Into the car park and then I pull over.

A courtesy car they have left,
But of unleaded fuel, it is bereft.
I purchase a gallon in mild despair,
And notice the tyres are missing large air.

That day drags by as I await promised news,
A process of waiting some more ensues.
Time ticks by and the day draws to a close,
Nobody has told me, how the mechanical stuff goes.

A new dawn arises.
I hope for pleasant surprises.
I call the man who said he'd call me,
to be informed, a text I should see.
No such message did arrive,
So in my Benz I shall drive.
Off to the dealer, to reclaim what is mine,
Hoping for an experience, of which I cannot whine.

With son in tow, in we go,
The nice man peers up and says hello.
All is in order, just give us your cash.
Here are your keys, off you can dash.

Where is my MOT I do request.
What MOT he doth protest?
The one I requested on phone and in here,
There's no MOT and I've a flea in my ear.

We waited an hour in KFC,
Enjoying customer service as it should be.
Upon my return I found my car,
Bonnet popped up, a little ajar.
Why is that, my good man?
I don't know sir, I'll give it a slam.

Into the dusk we did travel,
Me muttering and cursing and starting to unravel.
Another dealer crossed off my list,
Simple tasks failed and items missed.
Please Mr Dealer, how hard can it be
to service my car and give service to me?

Rackspace Cloud

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:08:00 +0000

The last few weeks been largely about moving my hosting to the Rackspace cloud. I needed a cost effective home for the few low traffic sites I've got and wanted to get a handle on how cloud solutions might provide that.

I looked at Amazon's Elastic Computing stuff but it seemed so clunky to set up an instance - lots of scripts to run and general jiggery-pokery.

In contrast the Rackspace servers are set up via a very neat admin console from which you select the type of virtual machine you'd like (memory, disk etc, O/S etc). The machine is created and is yours to log on to within about ten seconds. It looks, smells and tastes like a full on server that you can log into remotely via SSH etc.

Rackspace have just launched the same service in the UK (it's been USA only until now) in beta. I'll be trying that local offering too.

Oh NoSQL

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 16:51:00 +0000

A chance conversation with an old friend got me looking at 'NoSQL' databases again recently.

I've been so immersed in MySQL for the last few years that I've neglected to look at the alternatives. I've been experimenting with MongoDB recently and have liked what I've seen. It's dead easy to set up and get started and looks really promising.

It's certainly simpler to set up than MySQL but is obviously nowhere near as mature. There does seem to be a growing interest in it though with some big names using it. Another turning point maybe...

Lovely Logos

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 07:57:00 +0000

I do find logos fascinating. The skill of creating iconic, yet beautifully simple images that also tell you something about a brand is something I greatly admire.

There are few really great logos. Deconstructing or analysing the thousands out there reveal many to be severely lacking. Doing the same with many well known logos also reveals anomolies - many of the great logos give no clue whatsoever as to what they represent, but the power of the brand has overcome the logo's need to explain itself.

What brings me to divulge my passion for such imagery? This week MySpace unveiled their new logo. No doubt a team of 'creatives' were responsible and the cost was probably on a par with a tidy one owner 430 Scuderia. Draw your own conclusions about how iconic it will become...

Easy Fella

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 08:19:00 +0000

Tedvertiser was treated to better Facebook integration last week. The sign up mechanism on Tedvertiser is well tied down to police the use of free email addresses (to eliminate the scammers). Whilst it's effective, there's no doubt it also discourages people from joining - primarily those without easy access to an alternative non-free address.

From today you can now join Tedvertiser using your Facebook account. It allows Tedvertiser to maintain a useful record of where the membership originated (part of our anti-scammer regime) and makes joining as simple as logging into Facebook.

Spiggler now supports Facebook Places

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 08:16:00 +0000

I was hopping between project last week bringing both Spiggler and Tedvertiser up to date with the latest facilities from Facebook.

There's been a bit of a fanfare in the tech press about Facebook 'Places' which is Facebook's response to the geolocation wars being fought out between Foursquare, Gowalla and Twitter. Each of those sites offers the ability to 'check in' to a location or in Twitter's case it's more of a 'tweet from here'.

Now on Facebook you can check in to a location and have it listed in your newsfeed. The advantage of Facebook's solution is that - despite Facebook's dubious reputation on privacy - there's a greater range of privacy options available to you when you do share this information.

Spiggler has been updated to show these check ins from your friends on a map. I'll be watching the development by Facebook to see if we can drag a useful application out of this... iaminthispub.com ... ?

Embed Spiggler on Your Site

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 15:09:00 +0000

Spiggler continues to amuse me - both with the tweets I find and with the coding. Whilst I can see many uses for it, I'm some way from creating a killer app with it yet.

However, the idea of including spiggler maps on other sites will be pretty key to making it more useful. I've created an embeddable version which I'd be very happy for people to play with.

Instructions can be found at www.spiggler.com/embed

Drilling Deeper

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 18:39:00 +0000

A new release of spiggler went up this afternoon. No, I haven't been wasting a nice summer day in the office, just finishing yesterday's work.

Foursquare users can now be further interrogated. Find a Foursquare friend who's linked up their Twitter account and you can then drill down on their Twitter profile. All the Foursquare checkins that they've tweeted will be interrogated for location. Bizarrely Foursquare doesn't tag all checkins with GPS data so we have to indulge in some jiggery pokery to get the latitude and longitude of checkins.

Net result? Find a friend and see all their previous Foursquare checkins on a map. Nosey bones.

The Twitterbus

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 11:38:00 +0000

People I speak to are often very cynical about Twitter and understandably so. A quick glance at it will often show thousands of people tweeting stuff of little relevance or interest to passers by. It takes some work to get the best from it.

However, Twitter will become more significant in years to come, even with those that can't see a use for it now.

Currently it does serve a purpose as a crude broadcast mechanism and the most popular use is for staying up to date with various various topics via news organisations and blogs twittering their stories. Some people use it as a personal system to keep up to date with friends, in the knowledge that no one else is really going to be interested in what they've got to say. Yes, celebs and marketeers also use it in a spammy/ego enhancing way too which is probably why it's seen in a bad light by many.

However, the first step towards it becoming a more significant conduit of data is the addition of GPS data to tweets. Now people can target their tweets at particular locations. Why is that of any interest? Generally for tweets from individuals it's not, but when you get news stories tagged to a location, crime reports, traffic/train reports etc, it becomes more apparent that Twitter is a worldwide, reasonably resilient, open transport mechanism for data.

All manner of things can be fired into it in any format, and anyone can listen for it and use it as they wish. Spiggler is showing GPS tagged tweets and emerging from the personal tweet noise are some interesting applications of the medium. Local chat, local news etc all become a lot more engaging when visualised via a map rather than a list of text messages. Breaking news from an event has a lot more interest when it's uncensored and has a real sense of immediacy from the people on the ground.

Twitter is already talking of allowing systems to embed additional - non-visible - data with tweets. If a service can pack GPS data and further information into a tweet for broadcast then you'll see systems providers and websites using it as a means of talking to each other and sharing data in a very open format.
Imagine magazines publishing events to Twitter for other calendar aggregator sites to bundle up. Imagine event organisers operators publishing their own calendars via Twitter complete with prices etc - standards will emerge and a tweet will go from being a flat snippet of text into a rich packet of data that people can listen out for and do interesting things with.

Twitter will become a worldwide open data bus. I'll be on board with my spiggler.

spiggler on iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 17:32:00 +0000

It's been an interesting week. I've continued working on www.spiggler.com whilst Tedvertiser continues to tick over in the background.

I had to restructure spiggler behind the scenes as what started out as a bit of a lash up to prove the point turned into a spaghetti special. One model-view-controller design pattern later and things are nice and tidy under the covers.

A quick read up on 'Web Apps' for iPhones led me down a route of trying to optimise the site to appear on iPhones like an App. All was simple enough until it came to iPhone orientation issues. That created a few headaches but I've sussed them now and with a selectable stylesheet and some javascript tomfoolery it now renders sensible in both layouts.

I've also implemented the HTML5 specification geolocation code. It works with varying degrees of success depending how you're accessing the net at the time. It's better than starting off with a world view anyway.

Where's it all going? Still not sure yet. Some ideas are crystallising now and I'll start work on them next week.

Priorities being what they are, it'sime for a Blandford Fly now.

The Tweet on the Street

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 14:32:00 +0000

I got a bit distracted recently. I hooked up Tedvertiser to Twitter to autotweet new ads. Part of the tweet is GPS info about the approximate location of the tweet.

That got me thinking and one night I knocked up a mashup of geolocated Tweets and Google maps. It's intriguing stuff being able to watch people tweet around the corner from you. It gives a very different perspective on Twitter and what it might be used for.

I've tidied up my mashup into a decent site this week and you can find it at www.spiggler.com.

What's it for and where's it going? I'm not sure yet - it's been very thought provoking though.

The Critical Massive

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Wed, 19 May 2010 09:36:00 +0000

The one question I've been asked most whilst developing the Tedvertiser is, "How are you going to achieve critical mass?"

Now I won't deny that I hoped it would largely come from a viral enthusiasm for the site. I've not cracked that one though. The site needs to be more innovative and exciting before recommendations turn into registrations.

However, whilst I need to continue working on that aspect, it has become apparent that I don't need tens of thousands of members to make Tedvertiser effective.

The site is working for me personally in that Mrs Ted and I can find homes for a good number of the items that we no longer need. We've achieved what I guess we could call "Personal Critical Mass".

We've used Tedvertiser to create out own little networks achieving "PCM" in the process. What I need to do now is change the emphasis of Tedvertiser. Currently it looks like every other classifieds site, but with fewer items for sale.

I think Tedvertiser needs to convey itself more as a tool or service than just as a traditional listings site.

Evolution or just Fiddling?

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Tue, 18 May 2010 21:33:00 +0000

All too often these days I'm surfing about and see a lovely, clean and modern looking site and think to myself, "Tedvertiser should look like that." So am I right or have I just got itchy feet?

I'm no graphic designer by any stretch of the imagination so it took me a long time to come up with the Tedvertiser look and I'm largely pleased with it. I do have reservations about the header though - big, dark and a bit dated I think. The logo is also annoying me - it evolved out of another idea and I don't think it works for me.

So, whilst there are probably more pressing development tasks I should be cracking on with, I still find myself Photoshopping. I may succumb and give the current look a bit of a makeover soon.

Twitter - the new spam frontier

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:56:00 +0000

I've now eaten my words and fully engaged with Twitter. After lots of experimenting I've found some useful and interesting people to follow and now get a nice mix of news and more personal observations and tips.

I'm late on this bandwagon and have joined just as it's gone mainstream. One thing I'm sure of is that the spammers won't be far behind. Already a significant number of people trying to follow me are just trying to promote their own businesses. They follow me in the hope that I'll either click through their profile or follow them. If it's relevant to me then it's something I'll live with, but already I'm tiring of white haired 'business experts' plugging their "How to succeed in business" websites.

As it stands Twitter is too open. It really isn't going to be long before spammers either start abusing the API and automating the follow process and/or direct messages. I had a couple of curious followers last week with nonsense names and websites obscured via tiny URLs. They were spam and probably the first of many. I blocked them but what if they arrive by the dozen?

I hope Twitter are working on some tighter controls for profiles or what is currently a useful resource could be swamped with crap in no time.

Bunch o' links

noreply@blogger.com (Ted) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:29:00 +0000

Here's a few useful gems I've found in the last few days: