Jason Gillyon's Latest Blog Posts

Major Project Finished!

Thu, 15 May 2008 10:20:01 +0000

I have finally handed in my finished major project today. For those that do not know, the basic idea is to help users keep track of their friends on other social web sites in one central place.

Features include:

Automatic updates from your friends
Support for many sources including Flickr, YouTube and Digg
Various interfaces including a visual lifestream and RSS feeds
Friends system
User profiles with avatars
Favourites

More information, including the proposal and evaluation documents can be found on the project page.

Feel free to sign up and use the web site by going to: http://www.trakr.co.uk/

Trakr Update: 13th May 2008

Tue, 13 May 2008 18:39:06 +0000

For the past week I have been working mostly on writing my documentation which is now almost complete. I have also been hard at on the web site itself fixing a few minor bugs that were found and continuing to work on the flash view of data which is now called the "Visual Lifestream". This is progressing well and user feedback has been positive. It will shortly be available on Trakr for other users to use and enjoy.

All is on track for the hand in on Thursday which I am looking forward to!

Trakr Update: 6th May 2008

Tue, 06 May 2008 02:26:46 +0000

This week I have made a lot of progress and have been working every spare moment I have on it. Here is what's been achieved this week:

Auto generated web site thumbnail previews for del.icio.us, StumbleUpon and RSS feeds
Album art for Last.fm loved tracks using the Amazon API
Filtering options so you can limit what sources appear in your dashboard lifestream
Normalized update times for sources as some were from different time zones, therefore not showing up in the correct order in lifestreams
Added web site field to profiles
Updates in lifestreams for profile edits and new friend approvals
Contact user form
Visual lifestream in Flash has been progressed and is now based on some code from Reflektions miniml which I plan to adapt further by adding more information to each slide, customizing the appearance and adding scroll wheel functionality

I have also discovered that there is no way to get data out of Facebook or MySpace with their current APIs which is disappointing. However, this is something that could be added in the future if they happen improve their APIs.

Trakr Update: 29th April 2008

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 02:33:51 +0000

This week I have transitioned the site from being a private beta to an open beta which anyone can now join. I have fixed many small bugs/annoyances as a result of user feedback and myself discovering them as I have been working on the web site.

The major update this week was the adding of new sources to which there are now a total of 13 available:

Although there are only 9 sources in the above list, the magic comes from the RSS option which allows you to add up to 5 different RSS feeds as sources. This is useful if you want to add your blog, or if you have an account on a web site which Trakr doesn't yet support, but offers an RSS feed.

By adding the above sources, It has increased the value of the web site to users as it is more likely to appeal to a wider range of users now.

Trakr Update: 22nd April 2008

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:55:19 +0000

Two weeks ago, I invited 10 friends and family to register on the web site and begin to use it. The web site was not in as polished state as would have been expected by normal users, so I decided not to open it up to everyone. The main feedback I received is that people didn't know what to do, so I added several context sensitive info and tips boxes to helps user's get started and help them accomplish things such as completing their profile, adding sources and uploading an avatar.

During this time, I have also achieved:

Google Analytics has been added to all pages - If I am logged in as a user, the code is not put on the page so my visists will not skew the statistics.
Search Engine Optimization
- Registered for Google Webmaster Tools - This will help identify problems with indexing and set indexing preferences.
- Added a META description tag
- Friendly URLs - Clean looking addresses which are better for search engines and easier to remember for users. E.g. view-user.php?id=1 became users/Jason
- Redirect non-www to www - This is to avoid duplicate content being listed on search engines which should help with rankings.
Favouties System - The favourites system is now fully working and utilises AJAX so a user can add and remove an item without having to refresh the page. All items a user adds are available to view on a separate page also.
Mobile Integration - The following types of content via mobile are now accepted:
- SMS - Text messages.
- MMS - Picture messages.
  - Text
  - Images
  - Video - This is automatically converted to Flash Video in near real time so a user can view it on the web site without having to have a plug-in installed which will play mobile content natively.
Flash - Work has been continuing on the Flash view of data. This has involved a partial rewrite of the XML handling code to make it more efficient. Users can now view larger images from Flickr and mobile within the application itself now. Video is next on the list.
Home Page - Work has started on making the home page more friendly.
Lot's of other small bugs fixed and user interface tweaks

After completing the Home Page in the next day or so, I plan to open the site to everybody in order to get more users and more feedback in order to improve the service and test it's stability under a more heavy load.

Trakr Update: 8th April 2008

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 03:04:13 +0000

I have been working mainly on the core site since the last update in order to build up an initial user base for user testing and feedback. Here is a list of what I've done:

Improvements to registration and edit profile
- E-mail confirmation - To make sure users are using a valid e-mail address.
- Added location and about fields
- Added option to make profile public/private (details below)
- Improved mobile entry - Automatically converts UK numbers into international format.
Privacy control - User's can now specify whether they want their profile to be public. If they decide to make it private, users who aren't their friends can't view their profiles and their profile page won't be crawlable by search engines.
RSS feeds - If a user's profile is public, an RSS feed is available showing their recent lifestream activity. For privacy reasons, RSS feeds for individual users are not available if their profile is set to private.
Improved sub navigation - Now appears on all pages if a user is logged in and has nice icons too!
Friends system
- Friend requests - Users have to approve new friend requests before they can see their activity and profile. A personal message can be attached to a friend request to make it easier for the friend been requested to identify them.
- Friend lists - Friend lists appear on the dashboard, friends page and profile page
Terms of Use
Privacy Policy

There are a couple of small things to finish off before it is in a suitable state to announce the web site, but all being well it should be ready tomorrow when I will start inviting users to register.

Trakr Update: 18th March 2008

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 03:40:18 +0000

Since my last update I have taken a break from the flash stuff and decided to work on getting the core site fully functioning, so I can get a good user base for user testing. The following items are now in place

Invite Friends - Users can now invite their friends to the web site with a personalized e-mail message.
Friends Search - Users can search for users on Trakr in order to add them to their friends list.
Automatic Updating - User's lifestreams are now automatically updated. This has probably taken up the most time of the recent additions due to the things I had to consider, e.g. API usage limitations and creating a scalable solutions for dealing with more users without sacrificing time between updates.

I plan to finish off the friends system over Easter and add a couple more sources whilst continuing to work on the Flash.

Trakr Update: 26th February 2008

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 02:17:23 +0000

I have been continuing to work on my interactive flash part of my project by experimenting with different interfaces and trying to figure out how to do what I want.

Ideally I would like to create something similar to the effect used by Apple's Time Machine (See video) with the ability to play YouTube content directly within the flash movie.

So far I have managed to get images from Flickr and YouTube thumbnails into Flash from a dynamically generated XML file produced by user data from Trakr. I have also done some work using Papervision3D, however it doesn't seem to work outside of Flash for some reason. My latest experiment is a simpler version with a horizontally scrolling movieclip which is controlled by the mouse position. See: http://www.trakr.co.uk/dev/swf/ for the demos.

I have concluded that I am going to use a star icon to represent adding a favorite because of the results of the poll on the New Media Forum, the use of it on other web sites such as Flickr and Digg and in Internet Explorer and Firefox 3. The majority of people who will use my web site will be using IE, so they should recognize the symbol. I may add a small plus icon in the bottom right hand corner to further reinforce the meaning.

Trakr Update: 19th February 2008

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 02:32:21 +0000

This week I have been concentrating on the Flash portion of my project, specifically being able to load external images from a dynamically generated xml file.

I have watched and followed the video tutorials: ActionScript 3.0 in Flash CS3 Professional Essential Training and ActionScript 3.0 in Flash CS3 Professional Beyond the Basics at Lynda.com and also started to experiment with PaperVision3D.

I have managed to get the above working locally within Flash, but haven't managed to get it to work online yet.

Trakr Update: 12th February 2008

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 03:12:39 +0000

This week I have been mostly working on my dissertation, so have not done as much as I would have liked on my major project.

Here are the things I've done:

Created a poll asking people what icon most represents adding an item to their favorites on a web site. See: http://www.newmedia.lincoln.ac.uk/nmforum07/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=424
Bigger user icon in lifestream so you can more easily see who an update is from