Tag Archives: technology

Release: WPhone 1.0.0

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See, I told you I wasn’t all there today…

I guess it takes a nasty fever for me to have forgotten to mention that Doug Stewart, Viper007Bond and I have jointly released the first version of WPhone last night, a plugin to bring the WordPress Administration to the world of mobile and accessibility devices.

The project was, originally, in response to a challenge sent to the wp-hackers mailing list, but our take on it actually goes beyond the original parameters by trying to support full universal access instead.

We’re now in the debug phase, since we’ve never actually had the chance to preview the souped up iPhone/iPod mode of our interface, but we’re hoping to be in a much better place on this front by the end of the weekend. The lightweight version of the interface, used for all non-WebKit browsers, is a lot more stable and seems to work like a charm on even my feature-deficient Motorola v551 (pre-RAZR, less RAM, about the same browser).

Goodbye McGill. Hello Plank! And thank you both.

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Hot on the heels of another match made in heaven, I too feel I have found a soul mate. The professional kind (I was lucky to find the romantic one early).

I am ecstatic to announce that I will be joining Plank Design‘s wonderful team, as technology director, on October 29th 2007.

Co-founded in 1998 by Warren Wilansky, Plank Multimedia Inc. is an advanced website & digital creation company that focuses on developing websites, with one guiding principle – to do things differently.

Plank has been in a torrid love affair with all things digital for quite some time now, and helped clients such as Michael Moore blossom in their online endeavors. But more than a company, I am honoured and very much looking forward to work with some of the best professionals I have been given to meet.

Talking about great teams, it is not without a bit of sadness that I will bid farewell to McGill University, and most particularly its Web Service Group, another truly fantastic group of people. If you are in the academic sector, you can quote me on this one: watch them, they know what they’re doing.

So on this, 28 days to go (I’m not the 2-weeks-notice type), trying to complete as many McGill projects to try handing over the keys to a clean house, and I’ll be on my way to what promises to be professional bliss. Joy! :o)

Google Street View Car, Downtown Montreal?

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Hum… I was on my way back from work on Montreal’s Sherbrooke Street tonight when I spotted something in the oncoming traffic that most definitely looked like a multi-lens, 3D capture camera mounted on a standard black car.

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Difficult to miss it, perched 4 feet above the car’s roof and right at eye level for me in the bus.

Knowing that Immersive Media, the company handling most (but not all) of Google’s Sreet View image capture, is from Calgary, I wasn’t exactly surprised. But it definitely got me curious.

Well, it turns out that the bolts of controversy coming from the States have been duly noted by our government and its privacy watchdog. See also: Canada to Google Street View: “Car!”.

Ms. Stoddart’s letters to Google and Immersive are available online.

On my end, I’m equally interested in both parties’ perspectives.

  • As an individual and a Canadian, I do enjoy my privacy.
  • As a geek and having lived in many places, I do want the technology.

Finding an appropriate compromise is the name of the game.

Update: I guessed I had somehow missed the buzz on the always excellent Montreal Tech Watch. That’s definitely the car (see picture). I hadn’t seen the side logo from the bus. Oooooh. Aaaah.

Release: Moostick 1.0

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Moostick is my take on a Mootools-powered, unobtrusive, Javascript news ticker library.

Moostick will take in any type of <li> container (<ul>, <ol>…) and turn it into an animated news ticker, fading between each entry at a set interval.

This project is an experiment in mootoology. Quite arguably over-engineered for its core purpose, I use it to hone my MooTools skills while trying to still provide a fun and stable tool for others to use.

The unobtrusiveness aspect of the project is key in keeping the content accessible when pages are loaded without Javascript and/or CSS, whether by users or machines, and is one of Moostick’s top goals.

See the project page for more information.