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Links for 2011-5-18 through 2011-5-21

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Links for 2011-5-18 through 2011-5-21:

  • Google Prediction API – Google Code The Prediction API enables you to make your smart apps even smarter. The API accesses Google's machine learning algorithms to analyze your historic data and predict likely future outcomes.
  • Birtherism, the debt ceiling, climate change, evolution: Are Republicans losing their grip on reality? – By Jacob Weisberg – Slate Magazine Christie is not part of the natural constituency for Darwin-denial. He's an intelligent man, a lawyer, a fiscal rather than a social conservative. But Christie is also someone who might want to run for president someday, or be selected as someone's running mate. For those purposes, he must constantly ask himself the question: Am I about to say something to which a white, evangelical, socially conservative, gun-owning, Obama-despising, pro-Tea Party, GOP primary voter in rural South Carolina might object? By this standard, simple acceptance of the theory of evolution becomes a risky stance. To lie or to duck? Christie chose the option of ducking while signaling his annoyance at being put in this ridiculous predicament.
  • How to send messages safely to your server This post describes a general method of sending messages to a server in a way that prevents hackers from acting like your app. Specifically, I’ll tell you exactly how to add HMAC authentication to your app’s network messages.
  • Top 20+ MySQL Best Practices | Nettuts+ Database operations often tend to be the main bottleneck for most web applications today. It’s not only the DBA’s (database administrators) that have to worry about these performance issues. We as programmers need to do our part by structuring tables properly, writing optimized queries and better code. Here are some MySQL optimization techniques for programmers.
  • Use Daylight White Balance for Outdoor Shooting, Not AWB | Digital Photography insights Auto white balance sounds like it solves every issue regarding colors in your pictures, but it doesn't. For example, when you shoot at sunset or sunrise, AWB wants to 'correct' the golden tones that we love so much when the sun is close to the horizon. It desaturates the yellow and red portion of the spectrum, and the colors look weak and disappointing. By contrast, if you shoot with daylight white balance, you will capture the colors you see. The yellows, reds, and oranges will be saturated and dramatic.

Posted by Postilicious

Posting to Google Reader from NetNewsWire

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One reason I use Google Reader is to share interesting articles in my shared items page. However, I find that I’m more productive when I use NetNewsWire, since I’m in control of how & when it fetches new items, so I spend less time reading news.

I’ve been looking for a way to share items in Google Reader from NetNewsWire. One way I did it was by subscribing to my NetNewsWire clippings feed, which I make publicly visible in Reader. It doesn’t appear in my shared items, though.

I’ve found a better solution, although it still isn’t perfect. This AppleScript is based on Google’s “Note in Reader” bookmarklet. It should be placed in NetNewsWire’s script folder. You can then choose ‘Post to reader’ in NetNewsWire’s script menu to open the selected news item in Safari and open a box to post it to your shared items.

tell application "NetNewsWire"
	set u to URL of selectedHeadline
end tell
tell application "Safari"
	make new document with properties {URL:u}
	delay 2
	do JavaScript "var  b = document.body;
var  GR________bookmarklet_domain = 'http://www.google.com';
if (b && !document.xmlVersion) {
    void(z = document.createElement('script'));
    void(z.src = 'http://www.google.com/reader/ui/link-bookmarklet.js');
    void(b.appendChild(z));
} else {}" in document 1
end tell

Mac OS X 10.5.3 syncs with Google

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I installed the Mac OS X 10.5.3 update a few hours ago, so far with no problems. One feature Apple didn’t mention in the release notes is that Address Book can now sync with Google contacts. The sync happens automatically with a .Mac sync, as well as when syncing with an iPhone. It worked very nicely for me, although I had a few duplicate entries to clean up.

Address Book Sync with Google
Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

Google App Engine

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I signed up for Google’s new App Engine beta and I’ve already started looking at the APIs. It looks very clean and well-designed. I’m not too familiar with Python, but it looks like it’s fairly simple to pick up. The language itself is easy and has some nice Lisp-like features that I really like. The hard part is getting familiar with the huge library of extension modules.

I’m thinking of possibly rewriting my2unz.com with App Engine, since Drupal can be really ugly when trying to integrate several third party modules with my own code.

Click Fraud

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A lot of people have been posting referrals to a new site called bux.to on Twitter & elsewhere. It works by having you click ads and stay at the site for 30 seconds. This is click fraud, and it’s against the terms of service for Google AdSense and every other ad service.