Refresh Events - Toronto Interactive Media Usergroup

State of the Twitter-sphere

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:24:38 GMT

The Twitter-sphere is quite literally exploding. Since it’s launch in July of 2006, the user community has grown to an estimated 3.5-4.5 million users. It has been used to provide citizen journalism during the Mumbai attacks, the recent presidential election in the US, as well as more localized events such as MacWorld and CES. Strangely enough, we were unable to find any definitive numbers on how many Twitter users there actually are.

To help you keep track of what is going on in the Twitter universe, rhere are a number of third party applications and websites that have been developed that you can use to keep track of conversations, view your personal usage statistics, or measure your influence. Here’s a laundry list of sites that we have used, as well as suggestions we’ve received from other Twitter users.

Twitter Clients

Twhirl

Twhirl is a freely available social software desktop client, built with Adobe AIR. It allows you to connect to multiple Twitter, Laconi.ca, Friendfeed and Seesmic accounts, search public timelines using Twitter Search and TweetScan, and much more.

Tweetdeck

Tweetdeck is another Twitter desktop client, again built with Adobe AIR. While it is still in beta, it is EXTREMELY stable and in the 2 months we’ve been using it, it has not crashed once. Tweetdeck is interesting, because it “breaks down” your Twitter universe into easy to digest pieces. By simply scanning across a few columns, you can see your public timeline (which is updated automatically for you, no need to hit “Refresh”), your @ replies, your direct messages, as well as trending topics. You can also add a search column where topics are displayed according to keyword or hashtag.

Twitter Web-based Tools

Commuter Feed

Commuter Feed is a free service that lets you post reports on traffic and transit delays in your local area using Twitter. Sending a message is simple:

Follow commuter on Twitter.
Get the city code of your local airport.
Send a public message to @commuter using the following format:

@commuter YYZ Accident on Queen Street at Spadina

And that’s all you need to do! Please note that replies to @commuter will be published in the Commuter Feed, even if your updates are marked as private.

Twittersheep

The concept here is pretty simple; enter your username and password (which is not stored), and you get back a tag cloud consisting of bios of your twitter flock. Fro an example of what one looks like, have a look. TwitterSheep was developed by Michael Young, Ted Roden and Nick Bilton.

Twitter Grader

Twitter Grader allows you to measure the influence that your Twitter profile has across the Twitter-sphere. By entering in your Twitter username, you can see how many followers you have, how many people you are following, along with a score. The higher the number, the more influential you are on Twitter. You can also see a list of Twitter Elite in your city (if you have entered on in your Twitter profile).

FollowCost

We thought this was one was very useful. If you’ve ever wondered how often someone updates in a one day period, but don’t want to “follow” them to find out, Followcost is a web application that you can use to find out that type of information. Enter that person’s Twitter name and you are returned with a number measured in milliscobles (a unit of measurement invented by Robert Scoble). This tool borders on novelty, but is “scientific” enough to warrant being useful.

Tweetstats

Tweetstats allows you to track your personal Twitter usage. It measures your timeline, tweet density, breaks down your hourly Twitter usage, and more.

We’ve tried to cover some of the more popular Twitter related tools, but unfortunately, we cannot get to them all. If you have one that you like that we didn’t mention here, please add them in the comments. We may do a redux in the near future, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Note: This blog post is not an endorsement of said products or services. The information in this article is only provided as a convenience. Refresh Events was, and will not be receiving remuneration, financial or otherwise for reviewing any products or services, paid or otherwise.

Stay Fresh - The jQuery Edition

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:00:03 GMT

Welcome to our first edition of Stay Fresh. Every day we will be posting content about a design or development topic. Sometimes, it will be about social media, creative strategy, or a product review. Either way, count on us to deliver something new and interesting everyday.

With that said, our first edition of Stay Fresh will cover jQuery. The latest version of this popular JavaScript framework is 1.3, which was just released on January 14th 2009. (Incidentally, the new version was released 3 years to the day of the first version of jQuery). The new version of jQuery has many new improvements, which we will cover today.

Sizzle

jQuery has a new CSS selector engine nicknamed “Sizzle”. According to the website: Sizzle is “a pure-JavaScript CSS selector engine designed to be easily dropped in to a host library.” Although there is no documentation available (yet), check out http://sizzlejs.com/ for more information. We’ll keep you posted on any Sizzle developments.

Live or Die… or in this case, both!

jQuery now supports “live events” – events that can be bound to all current – and future – elements. Using event delegation, and a seamless jQuery-style API, the result is both easy to use and very fast.

For example:


$("p").live("click", function(){
    $(this).after("<p>Another paragraph!</p>");
});

Live events are very similar to the .bind function, with a few small differences:

When you bind a live event, it is bound to all current and future elements. This is not the case with with the .bind function, as future elements will need to re-bound.
Live events do not bubble.
Live events currently only work when used against a selector, such as: $("li a").live(...)

Learn more about about live and die.

It’s time for a new Event

Ariel Flesler brought some serious refactoring of the jQuery event system to jQuery 1.3. The bulk of this change came down to the new jQuery.Event object. This object completely encapsulates all of the functionality normally found in a W3C-compliant event object implementation and makes it work smoothly across all browsers.

Injecting HTML into your HTML

All HTML code injection scripting has been revised.

Offset Revision

At press time, not much information was available about the recently re-written version of offset. However, the rewritten version is now 3x faster. Hat tip to Brandon Aaron for the rewrite.

Sniffing out the Culprits

As of version 1.3, jQuery no longer uses any form of browser/userAgent sniffing internally – and is the first major JavaScript library to do so. Instead, this new version of jQuery introduces a concept called “feature detection”. This is done by simulating a particular browser feature or bug to verify its existence, which is being performed by a new object: jQuery.support. Please note that jQuery.browser is still present in jQuery 1.3, but is in the process of being deprecated to encourage users to implement the new feature detection method.

We’ve spoken a bit about speed improvements, but don’t take it from us. John Resig has been kind enough to post up links to benchmark tests that you can run:

Selector Tests: http://ejohn.org/files/jquery1.3/slick/?type=selectors
Delegation Filtering Tests: http://ejohn.org/files/jquery1.3/slick/?type=delegation
DOM Manipulation Tests: http://ejohn.org/files/jquery1.3/slick/?type=dom
.offset() Tests: http://ejohn.org/files/jquery1.3/slick/?type=offset
.hide()/.show() Tests: http://ejohn.org/files/jquery1.3/slick/?type=hideshow

One last thing: With the new version of jQuery, comes a new API browser, courtesy of Remy Sharp Also available from the API browser, is an Adobe Air application that allows you to access the API right from a desktop application.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s “Stay Fresh”, where the topic will be a VERY cool GTD desktop/iPhone application.

"Us Now" - Mass Collaboration on Film

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 13:39:20 GMT

Us Now is a ground-breaking documentary project about the power of mass collaboration, the internet and its potential impact on society. Directed by Ivo Gormley, the film explores how the web is changing the ways we can organize ourselves. From a democratic football club where the fans pick the team to a lending service where everyone can be a bank manager, Us Now tells the story of new technology through human eyes, and for the first time brings together the leading thinkers in the field of participation and web culture to describe how mass collaboration could change society.

The film features Don Tapscott, co-author of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything.

Here’s a preview of the movie:

Volunteer Toronto, through generous partnerships with nGenera Insight and Bloor Cinema is pleased to offer a free screening of Us Now, a UK film about how the internet inspires participation and collaboration in communities.

After the screening, Don Tapscott will participate in a panel discussion and Q&A session. Don Tapscott is one of the world’s leading authorities on business strategy, with emphasis on how information technology changes business, government and society.

The screening will take place on Thursday, February 26th at Bloor Cinema

Schedule of Events:

6:00pm Doors Open
7:00pm Movie Start
8:10pm Panel and Q&A

Tickets can be reserved at http://volunteertorontocommunity.eventbrite.com/

Poll: What Kind of Workshop Are You Looking For?

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 17:21:44 GMT

We are currently planning the first in a series of hands-on workshops aimed at those in the interactive industry. Before announcing our first event, we’d like your input on the design and structure of our workshops. It will take about 5 minutes (promise!) and answering the poll questions will help us ensure you’ll enjoy a great session.

Your personal information is not required to complete the poll.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=p6zHJwDyGB3_KLyp9KWEPRQ

To sweeten the deal, we will be choosing at random one pollster to receive a free ticket to our first event, so make sure you fill out the poll today!

RSS Feeds Fixed

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 05:05:12 GMT

A quick note to let you know that we have resolved the issues we were experiencing earlier today with regards to the RSS feeds.

Refresh Meetup #5: Eugene Andruszczenko and Cameron Westland

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:04:55 GMT

Refresh Events is proud to present Cameron Westland (http://www.bigbangtechnology.com) and Eugene Andruszczenko (http://32teeth.org) to our first event of 2009. The topic of the evening will be an analysis of jQuery and Prototype, two increasingly popular JavaScript frameworks. Cameron and Eugene will perform deep-dives into Prototype and jQuery (respectively) and examine the benefits and drawbacks of using each language. The goal is not to see which one emerges as the “better language”, but instead to promote the concept of the right tool for the job.

Our next event will be held at 7pm on February 18th 2009.

UPDATE: Our next meetup will be held at the Centre for Social Innovation, 215 Spadina Avenue, Suite 400. Please visit the event page for more information and to register.

UPDATE: Help us promote this event! Download the PDF poster (750KB).

New Format: Pecha Kucha

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:04:02 GMT

For the month of March, we are slightly changing our meetup format. We will continue to feature monthly speakers, and in addition to this, we are opening up our presentation time to the community through a presentation format called Pecha Kucha (pronounced “peh-chak-cha”). The concept is to allow anyone to talk for 6 minutes and 40 seconds about a project they’ve worked on, an application they’ve created, or about any topic they are passionate about. Your presentation would consist of 20 slides, with 20 seconds to complete each slide.

If you would like the opportunity to show off something you are proud of, want to get feedback from the community, or help raise awareness about something you’ve done, our Pecha Kucha format is for you! To sign up, simply email the details of your presentation to [email protected]">[email protected] and we’ll get back to you with the agenda for the evening.

Refresh Events Mobile

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:53:56 GMT

In order to provide you with the latest event information and news, we have developed Refresh Events Mobile (http://m.refresh-events.ca/), an iPhone-optimized mobile site. With the press of a finger, you will have access to upcoming events, latest news, as well as our opt-in member directory.

The concept is simple: As our vision for Refresh Events is to nurture and grow a connected organization of like-minded peers and professionals, we have launched a directory within our mobile site. To have your own listing, please download the ZIP archive from our site. Within the archive, we have a sample file and instructions on how to edit the HTML file for your listing (don’t worry, it’s easy! If you get stuck, we can help you out), as well as tips and advice on how to get the most out of the member directory. The amount and type of personal information you add is entirely up to your discretion.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.

Refresh Events is now live!

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:06:00 GMT

8 weeks. 50 wireframes. 3 overhauls. Dozens of phone calls and emails, and thousands of lines of code.

All this has culminated in to this morning’s launch of the brand-new Refresh Events website at http://www.refresh-events.ca/.

It’s been only five months since we had our first event, but since that time, we have worked tirelessly on bringing you not only an informational site packed with content, but a portal that will connect you to Toronto’s vibrant interactive community.

We’d like to thank the following people for their assistance and dedication in helping us realize our vision:

Elaine Chen has been a sounding board, creative advisor and trusted partner since that warm day in July 2008 when we realized that a change was needed in our industry. A change that could bring about the revitalization of our community in ways that we have never seen before. A change that could empower people to be more creative, gain new skills and break out of the silos we work in and connect with those in the studios, agencies and corporations in this great city.

Nadine Lessio spent long hours integrating our design into Textpattern. At times it was a challenge, but Nadine stuck with it, and helped deliver an experience that we are truly proud of.

Noah Earle helped us integrate and make sense of the JavaScript and PHP that is helping us deliver our message to you.

But most of all, we have to thank you for helping us. This organization doesn’t belong to the few or the privileged. It belongs to you. You are the stakeholders in this organization. It belongs to those of you that work tirelessly in the trenches. It belongs to those that are new to this industry. It also belongs to those that have worked in this industry for a long time, and those that wish to renew their sense of belonging after a long period of separation. So on this day, let us summon a new era of creativity, a new era of connectedness, and a new era of community.

From all of us at Refresh Events, we thank you for your support over the past six months, and we look forward to meeting you and providing you with accessible and affordable digital media programming in the months and years to come.