This weekend I decided to solve a problem that only existed in my head, namely that of no official (or unofficial) Stackoverflow iPhone App.

There have been some questions raised about the possibilities of an API to allow such an App but, alas no noticeable development effort.

Stack Overflow is a programming Q & A site that’s free. Free to ask questions, free to answer questions, free to read, free to index, built with plain old HTML, no fake rot13 text on the home page, no scammy google-cloaking tactics, no salespeople, no JavaScript windows dropping down in front of the answer asking for $12.95 to go away. You can register if you want to collect karma and win valuable flair that will appear next to your name, but otherwise, it’s just free. And fast. Very, very fast. — Stackoverflow

Alpha Launch

This is simply a heads-up on what I achieved in about 6 hours of design, programming and testing. I’d like top get some feedback from the community before I launch head-long into a project that’ll make me no money.

My questions are:

1. Is there a demand for this?
2. Is anyone willing to help with testing?

Testing

If you want to help with the testing, send me your iPhone/iPod Touch UDID using the form below.

Open Source? App Store?

I’ll be blogging more in the coming weeks about how (and why) I solved some of the problems with the lack of API. If the initial feedback is positive I’ll submit to the App Store early next week fore a (hopefully) early November availability – it’ll be a FREE App — ALWAYS and I’ll probably open source it at some point.

Logo Help

As you can see the logo is not great.

If anyone has a better idea of can produce a better version of this logo please contact me.

Feedback

Please post questions and feedback in the comments section — good or bad. Also feature requests will be seriously considered.

If you want to help fund this and other projects you could always buy my 59p ($0.99) Profanity App (iTunes link).

Video

Here is a short video showing the use of the Stackoverflow iPhone App.

Below is the definitive list of sites within the Matters Network. Launched 12 months ago we’ve have mixed success and learn a lot about community building.

Although the core concepts of the Matters Network have not changed, localised sites for; groups, charities, clubs, events etc. The execution had a radical rethink. The entire team will be blogging, speaking and evangelising much more over the next few months, but I wanted to open the network to a public beta.

Please get involved, the community needs you to grow and evolve, the concept is simple; useful, well presented and relevant information is voted up by the community allowing quick and simple access to events and organisations in your area.

Aberdeenshire — http://www.aberdeenshire-matters.co.uk

Barking and Dagenham — http://www.barkinganddagenham-matters.co.uk

Barnet — http://www.barnet-matters.co.uk

Bedfordshire — http://www.bedfordshire-matters.co.uk

Belfast — http://www.belfast-matters.co.uk

Berkshire — http://www.berkshire-matters.co.uk

Bexley — http://www.bexley-matters.co.uk

Birmingham — http://www.birmingham-matters.co.uk

Bradford — http://www.bradford-matters.co.uk

Brent — http://www.brent-matters.co.uk

Brighton — http://www.brighton-matters.co.uk

Bristol — http://www.bristol-matters.co.uk

Bromley — http://www.bromley-matters.co.uk

Buckinghamshire — http://www.buckinghamshire-matters.co.uk

Caerphilly — http://www.caerphilly-matters.co.uk

Cambridgeshire — http://www.cambridgeshire-matters.co.uk

Camden — http://www.camden-matters.co.uk

Cardiff — http://www.cardiff-matters.co.uk

Carmarthenshire — http://www.carmarthenshire-matters.co.uk

Cheshire — http://www.cheshire-matters.co.uk

Cleveland — http://www.cleveland-matters.co.uk

Cornwall — http://www.cornwall-matters.co.uk

County Durham — http://www.countydurham-matters.co.uk

Croydon — http://www.croydon-matters.co.uk

Cumbria — http://www.cumbria-matters.co.uk

Derbyshire — http://www.derbyshire-matters.co.uk

Derry — http://www.derry-matters.co.uk

Devon — http://www.devon-matters.co.uk

Dorset — http://www.dorset-matters.co.uk

Ealing — http://www.ealing-matters.co.uk

East Midlands — http://www.eastmidlands-matters.co.uk

East Sussex — http://www.eastsussex-matters.co.uk

Edinburgh — http://www.edinburgh-matters.co.uk

Enfield — http://www.enfield-matters.co.uk

Essex — http://www.essex-matters.co.uk

Fife — http://www.fife-matters.co.uk

Flintshire — http://www.flintshire-matters.co.uk

Fulham — http://www.fulham-matters.co.uk

Gateshead — http://www.gateshead-matters.co.uk

Glasgow — http://www.glasgow-matters.co.uk

Gloucestershire — http://www.gloucestershire-matters.co.uk

Greenwich — http://www.greenwich-matters.co.uk

Hackney — http://www.hackney-matters.co.uk

Hammersmith — http://www.hammersmith-matters.co.uk

Hampshire — http://www.hampshire-matters.co.uk

Haringay — http://www.haringay-matters.co.uk

Harrow — http://www.harrow-matters.co.uk

Havering — http://www.havering-matters.co.uk

Herefordshire — http://www.herefordshire-matters.co.uk

Hertfordshire — http://www.hertfordshire-matters.co.uk

Highland — http://www.highland-matters.co.uk

Hillingdon — http://www.hillingdon-matters.co.uk

Hounslow — http://www.hounslow-matters.co.uk

Humberside — http://www.humberside-matters.co.uk

Isle of Man — http://www.isleofman-matters.co.uk

Isle of Wight — http://www.isleofwight-matters.co.uk

Islington — http://www.islington-matters.co.uk

Jersey — http://www.jersey-matters.co.uk

Kensington and Chelsea — http://www.kensingtonandchelsea-matters.co.uk

Kent — http://www.kent-matters.co.uk

Kingston upon Thames — http://www.kingstonuponthames-matters.co.uk

Kirklees — http://www.kirklees-matters.co.uk

Lambeth — http://www.lambeth-matters.co.uk

Lancashire — http://www.lancashire-matters.co.uk

Leeds — http://www.leeds-matters.co.uk

Leicestershire — http://www.leicestershire-matters.co.uk

Lewisham — http://www.lewisham-matters.co.uk

Lincolnshire — http://www.lincolnshire-matters.co.uk

Lisburn — http://www.lisburn-matters.co.uk

Liverpool — http://www.liverpool-matters.co.uk

London — http://www.london-matters.co.uk

Manchester — http://www.manchester-matters.co.uk

Merseyside — http://www.merseyside-matters.co.uk

Merton — http://www.merton-matters.co.uk

Newcastle — http://www.newcastle-matters.co.uk

Newham — http://www.newham-matters.co.uk

Newport — http://www.newport-matters.co.uk

Norfolk — http://www.norfolk-matters.co.uk

North Lanarkshire — http://www.northlanarkshire-matters.co.uk

North Yorkshire — http://www.northyorkshire-matters.co.uk

Northamptonshire — http://www.northamptonshire-matters.co.uk

Northumberland — http://www.northumberland-matters.co.uk

Nottinghamshire — http://www.nottinghamshire-matters.co.uk

Oxfordshire — http://www.oxfordshire-matters.co.uk

Port Talbot — http://www.porttalbot-matters.co.uk

Redbridge — http://www.redbridge-matters.co.uk

Rhondda Cynon Taff — http://www.rhonddacynontaff-matters.co.uk

Richmond — http://www.richmond-matters.co.uk

Sheffield — http://www.sheffield-matters.co.uk

Shropshire — http://www.shropshire-matters.co.uk

Somerset — http://www.somerset-matters.co.uk

South Lanarkshire — http://www.southlanarkshire-matters.co.uk

South Yorkshire — http://www.southyorkshire-matters.co.uk

Southwark — http://www.southwark-matters.co.uk

Staffordshire — http://www.staffordshire-matters.co.uk

Suffolk — http://www.suffolk-matters.co.uk

Sunderland — http://www.sunderland-matters.co.uk

Surrey — http://www.surrey-matters.co.uk

Sussex — http://www.sussex-matters.co.uk

Sutton — http://www.sutton-matters.co.uk

Swansea — http://www.swansea-matters.co.uk

Tower Hamlets — http://www.towerhamlets-matters.co.uk

Tyne and Wear — http://www.tyneandwear-matters.co.uk

Waltham Forest — http://www.walthamforest-matters.co.uk

Wandsworth — http://www.wandsworth-matters.co.uk

Warwickshire — http://www.warwickshire-matters.co.uk

West Midlands — http://www.westmidlands-matters.co.uk

West Sussex — http://www.westsussex-matters.co.uk

West Yorkshire — http://www.westyorkshire-matters.co.uk

Westminster — http://www.westminster-matters.co.uk

Wiltshire — http://www.wiltshire-matters.co.uk

Worcestershire — http://www.worcestershire-matters.co.uk

Yorkshire — http://www.yorkshire-matters.co.uk

I’ve cloned this blog and started a bastard-child-hybrid.

Richard Stelling is a confirmed Atheist and Skeptard, optimistic about his pessimistic outlook on life. Richard is a writer, technologist and Entrepreneur.

Why? Because I wanted to keep my personal opinions about pseudo-science, quackery and celebrity physics out of my professional life.

Where? Over at my personal site RichardStelling.com, you can also find all my contact details and links to other projects.

What? It’s called The Skeptic Healer, I encourage to drop by and debate the topics because unlike this blog at The Skeptic Healer I may sometimes be wrong.

Ever since we set up The Matters Network, we’ve been trying to find new ways to bring local content to out thousands of users. So at the end of 2008 we set up the Matters News Network, the aim was to distill the gigabytes of local data we produce each day and distribute it in the most convenient way (for us and our users).

We decided on Twitter, the whole gang are big fans and we could see it was about to explode into the mainstream in the UK.

You can find your local Twitter feed at the Matters News Network blog post form last month.

Matters News Network 2.0

Since that post we have had a massive response with many accounts seeing a 10 fold increase in followers, some however are still empty; Herefordshire and Berkshire to name and shame a few.

Never deterred we pressed on with a survey to find out peoples attitudes to social news sites, here are some of the responses:

“Digg unearths things that I wouldn’t find any other.”

“[...] too much emphasis on content democracy and ‘digging up’ which is usually a publicity ploy”

“[...] easier to build networks, like tags for searchability of items”

“Fast moving, varied, able to focus on smaller subjects [...]“

“Simplicity, I use it more for my own references rather than giving an article support.”

By far the most important aspect to users was, ease of use. Well over 10% of respondent complained that sites such ad Digg required too much time and effort to participate in, but they liked the ability to find new and relevant information.

We wanted to keep the ease of use but simultaneously order, rate and rank the stories, this then allowed us to process more sources and increase the quality of our twitter feeds.

Secret Sauce

We believe in openness, and our ranking algorithm is no exception. We have plenty security measures in place plus all the stories come form trusted sources so we have less problems with spam.

Activity

More viewed articles will float to the top

If a story is re-tweeted is gets a boot

Freshness

Newer stories are given higher priority

Keywords

A dynamically changing list of keywords ensures we reflect current trends and public opinion

3 point OH!

We are looking to expand the range of blogs, local news papers, podcasts etc. IF you run a locally focused blog or online news source contact us or leave a comment

I’ve had this idea for a few weeks and I finally want to move it forward or forget it.

In a nut shell Prior Art will be a podcast (weekly or bi-monthly to start) that will discuss ideas and inventions sent in by listeners. The stated invention is to enter into the public domain ideas and systems before large corporations and patent trolls can patent them.

By discussing them “on air” with technology experts and providing a forum to discuss these ideas I hope to speed up the dissemination of great ideas ultimately leading to real world and practical applications.

The show will be 30-40 minutes, consisting of 3 or 4 segments with technology experts, commentators, bloggers, developers etc. Interviews will be conducted over Skype, interviewees will be encouraged to constructively comment on the ideas of that weeks show. A range of experts will discuss the technological and business aspects of the idea.

Listeners will be encouraged to comment on the ideas and also create examples, hopefully leading to some interesting collaborations and great new technology.

A tentative tag line is, “Open Source Ideas” and the show its self will be licensed under creative commons.

What I need is, firstly you thoughts on the idea and show format. Secondly ideas to discuss in the show and thirdly experts, commentators bloggers, enthusiasts willing to give up 30 minutes to recored their segment. I won’t be paying anyone, but you can shamelessly plug your blog, book, web site etc…

How can you help?

1. Send me ideas

2. Sign Up to record a segment (send me an email or get me on Twitter)

3. Tweet about it (don’t forget a link to this blog post)

4. Leave a comment bellow about ideas etc

5. Digg this blog post

6. Blog about the idea.

As part of my Prior Art project I am publishing these Twitter syntax ideas I would like to see implemented.

We all know the standard Twitter syntax elements (#, @, d), these are documented below. Please leave comments and your own ideas (and correct my mistakes).

Current Syntax

(please leave undocumented syntax in the comments)
 

Future Syntax

(please leave undocumented syntax in the comments)

Local news just got that little easier to find on Twitter. The micro-blogging site has exploded over the last 2 months and with it a seemingly inexhaustible supply of information.

Below is a list of local news services on Twitter… enjoy.

There are going to be a lot of out of work developers in 2009, all these idle man-months could be put to good use if companies opened up a little. Some of these developments could help drive the economy out of the downturn.

Apple, overall grade B+

Look what happened when Apple listened to developers and opened up the iPhone, the App Store. It has made quite a few developers rich and provided Apple with a valuable ecosystem for its products. 

iPhone/iPod Touch, grade A-

The second release of the iPhone software was a huge step forward, but there is still much room for improvement. All the ‘hidden’ APIs if properly documented will provide developers the tools to create some amazing applications.  

AppleTV, grade F

There were high hopes for AppleTV when it was first released. But it has largely failed to live up to expectations. This would all change if an API were created, imagine if you could play all your iPhone games on your Apple TV with your iPhone acting as the controller.

A hint at the viability of an AppleTV API is Boxee. But this maybe short lived if these predictions come true.

Un-announced tablet Mac

If in 2009 Apple finally release a tablet Mac or netbook, the iPhone APIs could provide new and innovative methods of interactions as-well-as providing next generation power saving facilities and processing with OpenCL.

Sony, overall grade E

Sony could of ruled the living-room in 2008, and all they needed was a FireFox port instead of the god-offal browser implementation they cooked up at Sony HQ. And why haven’t Facebook released a FREE download for the PS3? Profile integration anyone? People will still buy a PS3 and a laptop, “for the internet”. When all they need is a decent browser to check their Hotmail and place a bet or two.

Home (beta), grade D

Home beta will boast 3rd party features but not on the grand scale of the Apple App Store. And that a shame. We’ll get some nice game add-ons. spaces and eye candy. Demos will appear in the arcade but nothing independent, I can’t sell my Twitter app for 59p and make £10,000. They have to get a D for lack of vision. 

Twitter, grade A-

Twitter are the golden boys, no business model but a rapidly increasing user base and all fueled by their simple and open API (take note Sony). 

REST

Not much to say, simply send and receive XML, simple and well documented. top of the class.

Search

Search in Twitter is a powerful tool and is already the backbone of some notable web apps.

Google Friend Connect / Facebook Connect, grade C+

Although new (just out of private beta), GFC and FC are shaping up to simplify your social networking experience. It is beyond the scope of this post to debate the pros and cons of each but one thing is for sure, they need to work together! Must try harder!

Giftcast was created to help people pass on the gift of entertainment to their friends, family and colleagues.

Visit: http://giftcast.exceptionalsolutions.co.uk

Giftcast was launched over the weekend of 13th ad 14th December 2008. It is the cumulation of almost 2 days work. Please leave comments so we can implement improvements and make Giftcast a valuable tool for years to come.

Future Developments

We have no firm plans for the future direction of Giftcast and would love to hear your suggestions.

Feedback

If you would like to contact us regarding any aspect of Giftcast please send us an email to support@echo-data.co.uk.

Problems and Confusion

If you are new to Podcasts you can find maore information here: 
Apple Podcast Tips - http://www.apple.com/itunes/whatson/podcasts/tips.html
Apple Podcasts FAQs - http://www.apple.com/itunes/whatson/podcasts/fanfaq.html

Passwords are the necessary evil of modern day computing. Just try and think how many passwords your have; Hotmail, Facebook, Amazon, Blackberry PIN, ATM PIN… the list goes on and on. 

Our online worlds would cease to function if Firefox or Keychain or whatever windows uses forgot all our passwords. Thats why so many people use the same password, for everything! And online bad guys know this, once they’ve hod-winked you into handing over your Hotmail password they can get into your Amazon, your Facebook gathering mothers maiden names, pet names, towns and cities of birth. All the info they need to steal your identity. 

Luckily the banks are hip to this and don’t let you choose your own password, a series of codes, tests and randomly generated numbers are required to log in. But this is all rendered useless if the thief walks into your local branch armed with a copy of your birth certificate and 3 months of utility bills.

What’s wrong with my password you ask? Well as my Mum recently discovered using a dictionary word for her Hotmail, it was just a matter of time. And a random string of letters isn’t much good either, with networks and processors getting fast enough to make brute force attacks feasible.

Lets do some Maths! Take your normal 8 letter password, all in lower case and no numbers that gives:

n(r) = 26(8) = 208,827,064,576

Now if we add in upper case:

52(8) = 53,459,728,531,456

And now the gold standard, numbers and punctuation , . – _ ( ) [ ] \ / ? < > ! @ $ % ^ & * an extra 20 possible characters:

(52 + 10 + 20)(8) = 2,044,140,858,654,980

Now this is getting close, even Roadrunner would have trouble cracking this, but it’s still not enough. It wont be long before we have this type of processing power on our desks and on our laps and eventually in our pockets, so we better come up with a solution.

The Dynamic password, a cypher with an algorithmic portion.

The user would pick a the normal password, mixed case, numbers etc. but also a function, these functions would take values such as, time, date, weekday etc and produce an output that would be appended or prepended to the password. This would make passwords only valid for a few hours or days at most. And vastly decrease the odds of a brute force attack.

Examples

<Cypher><Yesterday’s date * your birthday> 

<Tomorrows Date><Cypher><The hour * today’s date + 1)

This ‘new’ passwords have the advantage of automatically changing every day, week, hour or even minute. This means if a hacker does crack your password, it’s no good in 60 seconds. Or if it only changes every day, he’d have to have a computer fast enough to check all possibilities in 24 hours other wise start again.

Don’t forget to express yourself in the comments.