The Hide Tweets with Multiple Trending Topics script works for Firefox users with the Greasemonkey add-on who are browsing search.twitter.com (maybe I’ll get it working on twitter.com’s search as well, but I don’t use that as much). It suppresses all tweets that have more than x number of trending topics in them (2 is the default). You can choose to either throw them away or compress them at the bottom of the page:

After installing the script, you can customize the options mentioned above. Go to Tools > Greasemonkey > Manage User Scripts… and then select HideMultipleTrendingTopicTweets and then the Edit button. A .js file will open in your text editor, and you can change the values in the Customize section. I’ve only tried this with Firefox 3.5.

It’s kind of fun to look at Trending Topics over a little while. Lots of times people ask why something is a trending topic, thus perpetuating it as a trending topic. People also try to make a game of getting all the trending topics into a sentence.

Enjoy!

]]> http://annielausier.com/2009/07/15/get-rid-of-multiple-trending-topic-tweets/feed/ 1 http://annielausier.com/2009/04/18/visualizing-tax-freedom-day/ http://annielausier.com/2009/04/18/visualizing-tax-freedom-day/#comments Sat, 18 Apr 2009 20:11:18 +0000 annie http://annielausier.com/?p=84 Over at FlowingData is a Visualize This challenge to visualize Tax Freedom Day (the number of days that your taxes take out of your yearly income). The national average is 103 days out of the 365, or April 13th. The average varies from state to state and the task is to represent these state statistics.

My first inclination was to incorporate a map, with possibly a topographic-type extrusion of each state for the length of time. But in order to do that really well, it would take some interactive 3D navigation…and I haven’t touched Processing in a long time. Or Flash for that matter.

Next I thought about some kind of chart, so I played around with YUI charts. Nothing I came up with was very compelling though, so I decided to approach it from the calendar view. I ended up with this HTML/JS visualization: Tax Freedom Dates & States.

It seems to me that people will want to browse by state or browse chronologically, so here you can get the states from hovering over a (green) date in the calendar view or get the date by hovering over a state. The national average (April 13th) is represented by a brighter green date. I thought about incorporating color gradations, but I like the simplicity of one color for tax days. Also, I made it from scratch with the goal just to make it work, so it could probably be more efficient.

Here’s how to use these blue ratings stars in your blog:

1. Install the WP-PostRatings plugin and set it up in your blog (activate it, put the php in your posts, etc).

2. Download this zip file, extract it, and place the stars_blue folder in your blog’s wp-content/plugins/postratings/images directory.

3. Go to the Ratings tab and select the Ratings Options page. Then select the stars_blue radio button. Double-check how it will look by hitting “Update ‘Individual Rating Text/Value’ Display” and then hit Update Options to save.

The yellow is the color that will appear when a user is rating a post while the blue indicates the current cumulative rating of the post.

Love that they did some old songs too.

More songs here: http://new.music.yahoo.com/nissanlivesets/

Here are some examples in OmniGraffle:

Also – first time using the gallery and I didn’t upload in the right order…here’s a whole page overview.

1. Click Add an Image button
2. Upload Image
3. Fill out Title, Caption, Description
4. Click on “None” button for Link URL; realize the button doesn’t work.  Delete the URL from the Link URL input box to manually make it “None”.  Then remember that it won’t get saved anyways!
5. Press “Save All Changes”…or don’t.  It does nothing for you.
6. Go to the Gallery tab.
7. Click “Show” on your picture.
8. Change the Link URL field AGAIN (thank goodness the “None” button works now!)
9. Change Size to “Full size” (I went into Photoshop already to make this image the size I want…please don’t try to change it for me kthanks)
10. Click “Insert into Post”.  Finally.

Are you kidding me?  TEN steps to upload an image and add it to your post?  Why don’t you just give me all the posting options in the upload tab once I’ve uploaded the picture?

So, I’m not good enough to totally rework this disaster of a feature but I can at least change some of the default values so it’s a little less of a pain.  For me, I almost always want the image to link to “none” and the image to be full size.  So I changed these defaults in wp-admin/includes/media.php:

Move the radio button from ‘medium’ to ‘full’

lines 470-472:
" : '' ) . "<input type='radio' name='attachments[$post->ID][image-size]' id='image-size-medium-$post->ID' value='medium' />
<label for='image-size-medium-$post->ID'>" . __('Medium') . "</label>
<input type='radio' name='attachments[$post->ID][image-size]' id='image-size-full-$post->ID' value='full' checked='checked' />

Change the defaults from ‘medium’ to ‘full’ (for good measure)

line 51:
function get_image_send_to_editor($id, $alt, $title, $align, $url='', $rel = false, $size='full') {

line 512:
$size = 'full';

Change the Link URL default value from the file URL to none

line 552:
<input type='text' name='attachments[$post->ID][url]' value='' /><br />

I really wish I didn’t have to go to the Gallery tab at all. Maybe the option to add the image to your post (without going to the Gallery tab) is supposed to work, but it doesn’t. So at least these fixes cut down a couple of those steps for me. Wordpress, please fix this soon!

UPDATE: It looks like if I do upload 2+ images at once, the full options (including the “Insert into Post” button) show up right after uploading without having to go into the gallery tab.  I also see the “Crunching…” along with the progress bar, which I don’t usually see with a single upload.  Too bad I usually just want to upload one image.  

Also, my Firefox 3 (beta 5) shuts down whenever I try to use the upload media tool.

Update: Too much LOL on the mind.  This one popped into my head upon the return of The Office:

Look at all those sad exclamation points! :( Just click on “Make all compatible” and say OK to this message:

Then restart Firefox and it’ll bring you back to the Addons window where you can see your updated extensions:

Oh snap! Look at all those happy extensions! So of course, do this at your own risk, it could mess up Firefox, etc. etc. I’ve found it to be well worth it though! A word to the wise though: you should probably wait to make your old Themes compatible…trust me, it’s not pretty.

So, what extensions do I use, you ask? Let me list a few of my favorites…

• Adblock Plus – if you haven’t heard of this before, ouch.
• BugMeNot – puts a BugMeNot option in the menu when you right-click on a username/password field which populates them with any available u/p combinations
• del.icio.us – puts a button in the browser menu so you can quickly add a page to del.icio.us
• Download Statusbar – shows progress of your downloads
• Firebug – must have for web design!
• Greasemonkey – customize sites/pages with js scripts
• Link Alert – shows small icon on link hover to show the type of link it is (new window, pdf, js, ppt, etc)
• MeasureIt – lets you draw a rectangle overlay in the browser and says how many pixels wide/high it is (handy for web design)
• Stylish – customize sites/pages with css scripts
• View Source Chart – boxed, color-coded version of a page’s source code

What are you favorite addons? :

Update: I forgot about the awesome PicLens because I just have it on my work computer.  But it’ll change how you view pictures online!

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