Too Epic

Jun 27

Tumblr Dashboard Notifier Safari Extension -

This is my first attempt at a Safari Extension. It uses the new Dashboard API to poll for unread posts in the background while you browse the web.

The source code is on github.

Apr 12

Compatriot Theme v.4 -

The latest version of Compatriot has been pushed to the Theme Garden. I’m finally eating my own dog food with this release. What you see on this blog is identical to what you’ll get upon installing the theme. I’ve got some font-embedding action going on this time around. The header is set in League Gothic and the body text is in Gentium.

Tell me if you’d like any functionality added. I still have a few ideas in the works, but I figured I’d at least make this update available in the mean time.

Apparently someone at Tumblr HQ thinks the theme is an aberration, which is fine by me. I’ll make a pretty one someday, I promise.

Ugly

Apr 10

ashabi asked: Hi,
I use your Compatriot theme for my blog. I have a problem with it showing all the notes when i click "show trivial". It just goes back and forth. It also happens on an Is there a way to fix it?

Ashabi.

I’m actually in the process of revising the Compatriot theme. In the next version, there will be no “show trivial” button. Likes and reblogs will be placed in separate columns and always visible. Hopefully I’ll have it done by Sunday.

While I’m working on that, you can fix the problem by going to customize->theme and clicking the “Use custom HTML” button. Then scroll down to the bottom of all the ugly code to here:

<script src="http://static.tumblr.com/3jc4ci5/w2Yktl7ph/cofunctions.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

And replace the part that says http://static.tumblr.com/3jc4ci5/w2Yktl7ph/cofunctions.js with http://static.tumblr.com/3jc4ci5/xi7l0occs/cofunctions.js.

My apologies for the inconvenience.

Mar 05

The Wall Street Journal cripples its Print Page feature

And digs itself deeper into irrelevance.

Traditional publishers have resorted to perverting their online content with needless pagination and obnoxious advertisements.

So what does poor Jimmy Reader do when he has to print a physical copy of the article for whatever reason? Click the nice “Print Version” button, of course.

Oh, what’s that, Mr. Publisher? You can’t get ad revenue from a print page? Some readers are resorting to clicking “Print Preview” and then pressing their convenient little Read Later bookmarklet because they’re fed up with your shenanigans?

Ah, so rather than offer readers real incentives to pay for content or employing less obtrusive advertising techniques, you make your Print Previews completely worthless.

And if you think that’s funny, try requesting a WebReprint. The Wall Street Journal now charges $475 to link to one of its articles. For a month. And then the URL expires.

Feb 17

Tumblr Staff: Dashboard API: Part 1 -

Get it while it’s hot!

Dashboard posts are now accessible from the Tumblr API, and there’s a shit-ton more coming to the API over the next few weeks days.

While I’m sure you guys will concoct plenty of things we haven’t even begun to imagine, the things we’re super-excited to see are any

This calls for celebration.

Feb 09

Video Camera Glasses -

I’m so psyched that this is now a financially viable consumer good. I would love to show people what a day of school is like.

Jan 31

Tesla Motors Goes Public -

So this is exciting:

The IPO filing on Friday from the six-year-old start-up, best known for its $109,000 all-electric Roadster, marks the first public offering from a U.S. automaker since Henry Ford’s Ford Motor Co made its share debut in 1956.

Jan 27

Last time I checked, coffee did not look like that.

Last time I checked, coffee did not look like that.

Jan 20

Too Epic is Reborn -

Screenshot of the new Too Epic home page

The former iteration of my home page was underwhelming at best. It made abysmal use of Google App Engine’s offerings to the point that my GAE account had been reduced to a free, low-latency static file server (which is by no means a bad thing).

But alas, my bank account balance is running low: I figured I should have a nice place to refer potential freelance clients to. So I took a few days out of my winter break to come up with a new design and get to work creating it. Going into the project, I had a few explicit goals:

  1. It had to be purple.
  2. It would serve as a lightweight portfolio with screenshots of past work.
  3. The underlying content would come from tumblr (that link is not much of a sight to behold for the time being).

Initially, I tried just implementing the site as a tumblr template and loading the rest of the content (twitter, flickr, last.fm, AIM) through JavaScript with some simple $.getJSON calls. After a few days of private use, I decided this method was too unreliable:

So, with these observations in mind, I returned to my former mistress, App Engine, who welcomed me with outstretched arms. I am by no means a proficient Python programmer, but I was able to hack together a passable backend that stores incoming data at regular intervals.

The end result is something that hopefully looks decent and renders reliably. I’m using a ton of experimental CSS, some of which is webkit exclusive for the time being: custom scrollbars and -webkit-transitions come to mind. The redesign should, however, look half decent in most modern browsers. I have not even tried visiting in IE; I’m guessing it won’t be too colorful, seeing as most of the colors are in rgba.

I’m prone to borrow and experiment with ideas unapologetically, but I must give credit where credit is due:

I’m sure I’ve overlooked a few, but so it goes. Now, if you’ll humor me, here’s something I’m proud of that I haven’t really seen elsewhere. Despite having a Python-powered backend rendering the initial page, I’ve got my script checking for new content every 30 seconds, so if I happen to be listening to a song or posting a tweet or getting onto AIM when you visit, the page will dynamically update in (almost) real time. Feel free to poke around and critique the source code.

I have a few novel ideas for making good use of the tumblr-powered content. Stick around long enough and I might even get around to realizing them. In the meantime, please send comments, questions, amorous solicitations, and potential freelance website work my way via email.