Author: Barry Carlyon

LinkDAQ

Photo credit - petrick : http://www.flickr.com/photos/petrick/70924598/sizes/z/in/photostream/

From the Desk of Dom “The Hodge” Hodgson comes something he built in a day, LinkDAQ.

Like the old BBC Celebdaq, its a “Stock” Trading Game, but instead of trading stocks and shares, you are trading links.

In this case the Cost to invest in a link is linked to the number of other sites that link to that site.
So a site such as Facebook.com and Twitter.com, which are linked to from lots of other sites, rank highly and cost more, in comparison to other sites, such as my own.

It’s using data provided by Majestic SEO. To quote the site:

We use the top 50,000 websites from the MajesticSEO Million dataset, this lists the top sites as ordered by links from unique i.p. addresses, we take this information and use a simple formula to give each domain a daily price.

Going to play it for a couple of days to see where it goes, and how things pan out, come and join me if you fancy it! So far I’m down about $600 on my initial investments, but we shall see what happens tomorrow!

For something built in a mere 24 hours its rather good, and it uses Twitter Bootstrap for it’s Framework, and it has a legitimate use of the good old HTML Marquee tag! And Dom should be pushing out updates and things to the site, and tweaking the algorithm.

You can also follow the developments on Twitter @linkDAQ and @TheHodge

There is also a TimeLapse video of the code being written:

My CV and some other Updates

Just a quick post to say hello.

I’ve updated my CV and tidied it up a little.
So any feedback on it would be useful! (Drop Me a Line rather than a Comment please)
Link in the SideBar on the right!

I should really write on my blog some more, but not a lot to write about of late.
JetPack Extras is doing OK, but JetPack core decided to implement the main feature I added, that being Pinterest but, Extras has evolved, it still of course has the ability to control button placement and has the extra Twitter Via/Related options, and the ability to share the WP.me shortened URL, makes a nice Twitter Card, embedding a short Preview of the Post with the Tweet, (check this Meta Tweet for an example) works with any wp.me url you share on Twitter by the way!

Most useful, mainly updated to keep up with JetPack core and use the new shiny hooks they have.
You can check it out on extend. Feedback/request are always Welcome!

Made a couple of tweaks and updates to the Blog in the background, added a better 404 page and updated the .htaccess rules, I have all subdomains pointing to the here, (unless their is a separate to show), so its a good idea to redirect non sites to here, rather than duplicating the content.
Also tweaked the Root .htaccess to have a Error Document (404) since it was just standard Apache Error, bit nasty, but now better, LOLCATS TO THE RESCUE! 😀

Heres a extract of the rules, if you find it useful/handy:

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^barrycarlyon.co.uk  
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://barrycarlyon.co.uk/%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
ErrorDocument 404 http://barrycarlyon.co.uk/wordpress/404-2/
ErrorDocument 403 http://barrycarlyon.co.uk/wordpress/404-2/

Next thing to do, is probably update and replace the MineCraft Server Site probably using Twitter Bootstrap as a new basis. It’s now a whitelisted server for Armchair Heroes or on Facebook, but of late I’ve been getting my MineCraft fix playing over at PhantomCraft, like a lot of open Servers I tend to get robbed/cleaned out and griefed a lot, but then again I am a little close to spawn. It’s a fun server to play on and the regulars are quite nice.

Hopefully moving further away when I get a chance to play some more, thinks are pretty busy at the moment between Magento fun at Day Job and Freshers Fun at the Union.

Then I really should get the Portfolio page on the Blog fixed up to showcase what I’ve done before, since I am a Freelance Web Developer (you got any work going or want a quote for? (Drop me a line)

So a couple more weeks and we’ll be back to the usual grind.
Hopefully I will have more to write about soon!

Extra Jetpack!

So recently I’ve been mucking about with JetPack, for various bits and pieces.

Mainly the first thing done is just to make the sharing buttons appear above and below a post.

But from browsing the JetPack Support Forum over on extend I thought I’d make my changes available.

So, attached to this post, is my modified version of JetPack 1.4.2.

Which includes the following additions:

  • Ability to control button placement, above, below, or both of the post content
  • A Pinterest PinIt Button as requested on the forum, it will attempt to use the Post/Page Featured Image as the Image to Pin
  • Additional Twitter button elements/arguments, for recommended Twitter account following (via and related)
  • Ability to turn on/off the DNT Twitter button mode: see the docs, about what this is and does

    • Hope you find it useful.

    If using JetPack 1.6.1 use the Extend Version
    [download#4] Pre JetPack 1.6
    [download#3]

    Feedback and requests in the comments please 😀 or hit me up on Twitter: @BarryCarlyon

    (On a side note, I need to fix some theme glitches on here, hence a double featured image on the home page….)

    Update: Make sure your theme is using a recent version of jQuery. As otherwise the [+ Share] won’t pop up (for extra hidden sharing buttons)

    Update: Created a new Plugin, that doesn’t replace JetPack, it extends and runs as a separate plugin.
    So more Core JetPack update friendly. Upload and activate like a normal plugin.
    Includes a suggestion from @SkipTweets Option to use the WP.me link instead of the permalink for Twitter Sharing

    Update: The plugin is now available on extend!

    Update: JetPack Core has now updated to 1.6.1 which adds a Pinterest Button to Core. They also updated the entire ShareDaddy plugin. It looks like they are adding Twitter Via Support to.
    I’ve just released a Maintenance Fix as if you Update JetPack, it WhitePages, due to conflicting Pinterest Buttons.

    Update: Check out the Special Plugin Page

Applications I Use 2: gfxCardStatus

Heres a little handy app that works quite well. Specific to Macs with Dual Graphics cards, normally the only way to change cards is to log out and log in again, after changing the preference under Power Settings. You have one for Power Saving and one for High Performance graphics.

Cody Krieger (@codykrieger) wrote a handy little App that will let you change Graphic Cards without having to logout, quite handy if you want to just muck about for a bit and then open up Team Fortress 2, or do some Video work.

So I present today gfxCardStatus.

As the Author writes:

gfxCardStatus is a menu bar application for OS X that allows users of dual-GPU 15” and 17” MacBook Pros to view which GPU is in use at a glance, and switch between them on-demand.

Most of the time it spends all its time just in my Task Bar sleeping showing which card I have enabled (i for the power saving low powered card, and d for the high-powered card).

It works quite well, sometimes you request a change and your machine won’t honour it straight away, normally this is down to another application doing something graphics heavy, so locking the control out.

One useful feature built-in is the ability to auto switch the graphics card in use based on the current power source.
Which I don’t personally use, but then I tend to hot swap between on/off PSU far too often.

I’ve a couple of options missing and some different settings available, but it depends on what model of Mac you have and the Graphics Card present in your machine.

All in all its quite a handy little app, and its Free. You can download it from http://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus and start using it straight away.

Kerbal Space Program

Randomly follow a @Notch Tweet on Twitter about a game he was being shown, called Kerbal Space Program. I followed the link, downloaded the demo, and about 10 minutes later my money was sent on its way….

It’s rather good fun. The general aim of the game is to build a space rocket and launch it.
Heres an introductory video:

[SWF]http://www.youtube.com/v/l5OhFnq_iKw, 560, 315[/SWF]

And with just a few stock parts you can build some clever, silly and just explosive rockets.

Fun times have been had, my best so far was one that the moment it was placed on the Launch pad and launched, decided to fall apart leaving just a single engine attached to my rocket. (And a small explosion). My Kerbanauts survived to launch the next time.

Anywho, this morning I decided to restart my entire Space Center (after successfully retrieving all my Kerbanauts from their epic intrepid 29 day mission), so nuked and redownloaded KSP, and so far I’ve accidentally launched into a Sun Orbit, and crashed into the Mun. All from sunny Kerbol. Took some screenshots this time around.

This time around I was trying for a Mun shot, but I wasn’t paying attention to how the orbit was changing, and ended up sending them out and away into a Escape Trajectory for Sun Orbit (they are also out of Fuel).
Pretty much the same deal with the second group, but instead of attaining a useful Mun orbit. ended up have to wait 9 days for the Mun to come into alignment with their orbit.

The Mun’s gravity then dutifully caught them and I didn’t have enough fuel to slow down. And Boom Crashed 🙁
This means adding another stage to my rocket so more fuel in orbit/space me thinks.

Anyway onwards and upwards. Hopefully will make a successful Mun landing and return my Kerbanauts, more likely more explosions…. and very very silly rockets….

You can check out more about Kerbal Space Program, over at their Website their Twitter: @KerbalSpaceP or Tumblr, its in active development so expect more features soon! (Including docking YAY SPACE STATIONS) checkout the KSP Forums too, as KSP fully supports Plugins and Mods.

Its available both on Mac and PC, and you can download the Free Demo, locked at Version 13.3 current release is Version 14 (which includes persistence, the ability to have multiple craft up at once HURRAH!)