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Facebook Technology Tasting – HipHop for PHP

Michael Kamleitner — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 06:32:14 +0000

while you’re waiting for Facebook to release their HipHop for PHP over on github, you might wanna watch this video having engineer Haiping Zhao giving a detailled introduction about the way HipHop transforms PHP-code into C++.

iPeng – your iPhone is a Squeezebox remote-control

Michael Kamleitner — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 22:11:28 +0000

as an avid Squeezebox-user, I’ve no idea how I could have missed this gem for so long: iPeng lets you use our iPhone to control your Squeezbox (or boxes, if you’ve several spread across the house). hands down the best way to browse a large local music-library or subscription-services napster & rhapsody [which of course both are not available in austria ]. the app goes for EUR 8,-, compared to the EUR >1.000,- you’ld spend for a Sonos that’s a boon

Google Goggles: Test Drive

Michael Kamleitner — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:45:50 +0000

had some fun toying with Google Goggles this morning. Goggles uses your phone’s camera to do image-based search for products, landmarks, media, shops etc. the results I was getting for products & books are pretty accurate. most impressive: I snapped the artwork (no text, title at all) of a german, medical text-book – first result was the correct link to Amazon. looking forward to test this outdoors, where Goggles is also using GPS & compass to refine results.

ps: if you can’t find Googles in the Android Marketplace, make sure you’re running Android 1.6 Donat or higher! if you’re stuck with an G1 like me, you might want to take the chance and root your phone and upgrade to CyanogenMod…

Auto-Tune for the win, finally I can sing!

Michael Kamleitner — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:19:40 +0000

Sony has a fun little Facebook-app that lets you post auto-tuned audio-status-updates to your wall …the best thing to happen since the T-Pain iPhone app.

xbox zune marketplace screenshots

Michael Kamleitner — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:20:02 +0000

trying out the new Xbox Zune video-marketplace, which is only available within the Xbox Live Update Preview-program for now. there are only few select movies available for the preview, even fewer in 1080p HD & 5.1 audio (Matrix Revolutions, Watchmen). HD-movies come both as on-demand streaming & download for 490 microsoft points or EUR 5,70 (SD movies come at EUR 2,80) – not exactly cheap…

XBox Live Update Preview – screenshots

Michael Kamleitner — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:50:54 +0000

just a few screenshots from the pending Xbox LIVE Update, which will include access to Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm & Zune marketplace. I couldn’t find Last.fm in the preview, but Facebook & Twitter really works well… if you want to be considered for upcoming Xbox preview-programs (this one seems to be closed down), sign up here!

How-To integrate Google Wave on a Wordpress-Blog

Michael Kamleitner — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:41:28 +0000

1) download and install the wonderful Wavr-Plugin by Lucas Caro (thx!)

2) the plugin version 0.2 includes hardcoded URLs to the Wave-sandbox (wave.google.com/a/sandbox) – if you want to use it with Wave production (wave.google.com), edit wavr.php and replace “http://wave.google.com/a/sandbox/” with “http://wave.google.com/wave/” on line 109

3) create a new post or page and include a snippet like this: [ wave id="WAVE-ID" height="500" bgcolor="#000000" color="#FFFFFF" ]

4) while the sanbox included a handy debug-menu, on production you’ll have to look into the sourcecode to find out the Wave-ID (imho). in firefox, mark the wave-items in your inbox and right-click “view source”. look out for a token like googlewave.com!w+Gl6GGfYIC – that’s the ID.

if everything goes right, the integrated Wave will look something like this (only visible to users currently logged in to their Wave-account, obviously) – you’re welcome to reply or comment

AutoStitch – use your iPhone for panorama-shots!

Michael Kamleitner — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 18:03:41 +0000

AutoStitch is an absolute must-have-app for any iPhone-user who’s into panorama-shots:

AutoStitch iPhone is the first automatic image stitcher for the iPhone. This application unleashes the power of your iPhone’s camera to create wide-angle views and panoramas with any arrangment of photos.

it’s really easy: just shoot a series of photos using the normal camera-app (tip: to minimize spatial distortion, rotate around the phone’s axis, not your’s ), then in AutoStitch select the photos you’ld like to use – that’s it, after a few minutes of number-crunching, your panorama-shot is ready!

small downside: AutoStitch doesn’t automatically crop the black areas of the stitched image – you have to do that using your desktop image-editor (or use iRetouch on the phone).

AutoStitch is available at the price of EUR 2,-.

Wearehunted – social charts

Michael Kamleitner — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:33:55 +0000

no secret, I have a soft spot for websites advancing music-charts on the web. being based on sources like Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and even P2P-Networks current traffic, We are hunted gives charts a social twist. great site, but I keep forgetting its URL, hence this blog-post

ps: of course there’s also still charts.fm, where we’ve added Facebook Connect and a handy Facebook-sharing tool recently…

G1: the ultimate Android-app!

Michael Kamleitner — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:23:52 +0000

after handing back my evaluation SIM-card to T-Mobile earlier today, I’ve finally found G1’s real purpose: as a glorified alarm clock on my nightstand (Nightwatch is the name of the app and it even uses text2speech to tell the time).

11 more incredible useful Android-apps can be found at Lifehacker.

PS: got a better idea? comment below or come to Austria’s Android Developers Day (A2D2), on May 7th in Vienna.