onfocus

Just for fun on a Sunday—I'll send a copy of Yahoo! Hacks to the first person who sends me the correct answer to the following question.

In what month/year did Yahoo! publicly launch their Search Web Services?

Be sure to include your name, mailing address, and site URL (if you have one)—and you'll need to be ok with me publishing your name/URL on this site. Employees of Onfocus Holdings, Ltd. are not eligible, this is for entertainment purposes only, void where prohibited.

Update: oops, I didn't realize this question would be so confusing. Here's a hint: try searching for the phrase yahoo search web services launch at Yahoo! Search, and check out the date on any of the announcements from Yahoo! sources in the results.

Another copy of Yahoo! Hacks has been spotted in the wild. This copy belongs to Premshree Pillai. He works at Yahoo! and contributed two Yahoo! Search API hacks to the book. One hack shows how to use the API with Ruby, and the other is a nifty little REBOL app for finding images with Yahoo! Image Search.

As you can tell things have been quiet around here. The ink is barely dry on Yahoo! Hacks and I'm already working on my next project: Flickr Hacks! (Note to parents: Flickr is a photo-sharing application on the surface, but it's much more than that.) I'm especially excited about this book because I'm going to be working with the amazingly talented Jim Bumgardner. Jim started the Flickr Hacks group, put together some beautiful collaborative posters with Flickr images, and generally knows Flickr and the Flickr API inside and out. Check out Jim's Photostream to get a sense of his work.

If you've written a Flickr extension or found a novel way to use Flickr, don't be surprised if Jim or I contact you about including it in the book. (But feel free to contact me as well!) The book is part of the Hacks series, and Flickr Hacks is meant to be a gallery featuring many voices and many different technologies that enhance or build upon Flickrspace. I already have my head down trying to meet writing deadlines, but part of my time will be devoted to finding what's out there—and I've been playing with a lot of fun Flickr toys over the past couple of weeks. I'd love to hear about your favorites.

So once again this weblog will probably be dormant while I'm working on the book, but I'll still be here working away behind the scenes. I've been a member of Flickr since it was a chat-based application, and it's been fun watching it grow. I'm continually amazed at the creativity Flickr has inspired in both photography and application design, and I'm excited to be able to work around and with the incredible Flickr community. I'm hoping I can help translate some of that energy into book form. See ya on Flickr!

ps. here are my photos at Flickr.

O'Reilly put up eight Beta Hacks from Yahoo! Hacks. Find out how you can use Yahoo! to translate pages, monitor your commute, visualize your music collection, search your web site, program with the Yahoo! API, and other fun hackery. And that's only eight hacks—imagine what you can do with 100. ;) The book isn't out yet, but you can pre-order from Amazon: Yahoo! Hacks. (I'll get a little kickback if you order through a link here on my site.)

Update: Matt McAlister tried out the Visualize Your Music Collection Hack and wrote about the results on his blog: Downloading podcasts with Yahoo! Music Engine.

cool, Yahoo! Hacks is available for pre-order at Amazon!

A friend gave me some great advice about sunburns. She said I should take a hot shower with the water as hot as I could stand it. I hadn't heard of this before, and it just sounded painful. And it was. But it worked! The hot shower took the constant sting out of the burn, and it's been much better since. Who knew? (I'm guessing you shouldn't try this for very serious burns, I'm not a doctor, YMMV, etc, etc.)

I set up a Yahoo! Group for Yahoo! Hacks. The funny part is, the word "hack" isn't allowed in group descriptions, so I had to disguise the word as "h4ck". I'm hoping this book will help change that. ;)



If you're interested in discussing potential Yahoo! h4cks or just want to follow along, tune into the Yahoo! Hacks Group.

Update (3/31): Unfortunately, I had to make the Yahoo! Hacks Group invite-only instead of open to the public. With this many years of working on the web, you'd think I would have learned some fundamental truths about it by now. ;) What can I say, I'd like to be optimistic.

Now that etech has come and gone, I can finally talk about my latest project: Yahoo! Hacks. I'm writing furiously now, and the book will be edited by Brian Sawyer at O'Reilly. (Here's a shot Brian took of me signing the contract at etech. And vice versa.) If you've been watching tech news at all lately, you know this is an exciting time to be focusing on Yahoo! Somewhere between the Flickr deal, their new weblog tool, web services, the buzz game, Yahoo! Music, their publisher network, My Yahoo! RSS, (and the list goes on) it seems that Yahoo! is morphing into something new. I'm looking forward to writing about what they're up to, and how you can use the rest of their domain in unique ways.

As with all of the books in the Hacks series, Yahoo! Hacks will be a group effort. You can think of me as a hacks curator, bringing together the best tips, tricks, and code I can find. That means I need help from you—the hack artisan—in bringing novel Yahoo! uses to a wider audience. Do you use Yahoo! in a way that Yahoo! may not have envisioned? I'd love to hear about it. (And if you'd like to share a hack publicly, feel free to post it at the Hacks site.) I contributed Google Smackdown to Google Hacks way back when, and as you can tell that led to more and more hacks-related writing for me. There's something satisfying about showing others you can do more with technology than what you'll find in the help docs. Plus it's fun to see your work in (what feels like) a more permanent and tactile medium like a book—I hope you'll consider contributing.

The schedule for the book is pretty fast, so I'd like to apologize to my friends and family up front—see ya in a few months! ;) In the meantime, I'll be one with Yahoo!

Check out the cover of the forthcoming Mapping Hacks—full color!

Somewhat related, a weblog about maps: The Map Room.

Amazon has changed the status of Amazon Hacks from "pre-order" to "Usually ships within 24 hours". If you order right now you could be reading all 100 Amazon tips & tools in just a few days. (You can read a few of the hacks earlier at the hacks site.) I think this means you should be able to pick up Amazon Hacks at your local bookstore later this week. I'm anxious to see the book in its final form!

In fact, I can't wait for my copy so I just ordered one from Amazon. That's probably the fastest way to get the book right now.

So the cat was let out of the bag today at the eTech Amazon Workshop. I'm working on a book for O'Reilly called Amazon Hacks. They distributed a confidential draft (actually printed in block letters across the top!) printing of a chapter from the book to everyone, and I attempted to talk to everyone about a couple of cool hacks that are in the book already. (I'm not so great at public speaking...but I hope I got something across beyond the fact that I was nervous.) They didn't have enough copies of the sample chapter to go around, and I even gave up my copy to someone who didn't get one the first time around.

Now that the project is public, I'm going to step up my efforts at finding code for the book. If you have a bit of cool Amazon hackery, let me know. It doesn't have to be anything formal, hence the word Hacks in the title. If you've written some unusual way to work with Amazon, let me know! (Or let me know if you just have a dream Amazon feature...maybe it could evolve into a code hack.) You can submit a hack at the O'Reilly site if you want to go the official route. Or just send me an email directly. Like the other Hacks books, contributors are fully credited and have a bio in the book.