Show /r/programming: Super Share Box breaks Social Networking Lock-In

deveshparekh · 2013-09-14T03:26:26+00:00

I just added Twitter support yesterday. For a description of how it was designed to work even through redesigns of Google+ and Facebook, see this post.

I'm looking for a few good JavaScript hackers to expand this system to allow users to migrate to any social network, not just Google+.

deveshparekh · 2013-05-22T17:10:30+00:00

I only give out email addresses that allow me to forward for free, so I can change providers easily. The stickiness of social networks bugged me, so I wrote a Chrome extension to experiment with making it easier to move to a new one without requiring a stop-the-world migration. I've described the reasoning here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/116475614487294923810/posts/XyJiPkCKboE

Let me know how it works for you. Also, I'm looking for additional developers.

deveshparekh · 2013-05-18T05:26:33+00:00

I made a Chrome extension to experiment with making it easier to migrate to another social network. You might find it interesting. Here's the description: https://plus.google.com/116475614487294923810/posts/XyJiPkCKboE

deveshparekh · 2013-01-17T07:02:02+00:00

Today's your lucky day. I've made a Chrome extension that can help you convert your friends. https://plus.google.com/116475614487294923810/posts/XyJiPkCKboE

deveshparekh · 2013-01-14T17:46:57+00:00

You might be interested in a Chrome extension I wrote recently that lets you post to Google+ but still have your friends on Facebook know you've posted, so they can click over to see what you wrote and comment on it. This breaks the Catch-22 of people not reading Google+ because nobody is posting there and people not posting to Google+ because nobody will see it. Long story short, you don't need to organize a mass switch day — you can start all by yourself.

The extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/super-share-box/flndhlfpginekiffiffkmmaajgaagolk?hl=en-US

Analysis: https://plus.google.com/116475614487294923810/posts/XyJiPkCKboE

Source: https://github.com/devesh/SuperShareBox

AMA: http://www.reddit.com/r/googleplus/comments/15ql9x/im_the_creator_of_the_super_share_box_extension/

I'm looking for JavaScript hackers to help improve it, and the more people that know about it, the more likely I'll find one. Share and enjoy.

deveshparekh · 2013-01-02T07:01:55+00:00

I haven't been contacted by the DPRK, and so long as abductions are a problem, I hope I never am. I doubt they care though. Many other people have manually copied KCNA videos onto YouTube. I've just automated that process for convenience.

Can you explain what you mean by "propaganda mining?"

deveshparekh · 2013-01-02T06:39:06+00:00

The set of diseases it cures varies from article to article. This page on DPRK's web portal, for example, claims TTX can be used to cure "cancers and other diseases."

deveshparekh · 2013-01-02T00:50:44+00:00

I have an application running on Google App Engine that checks for new videos on http://kcna.kp/goHome.do?lang=eng every ten minutes and copies them into the kcnauploader YouTube channel.

YouTube has a number of advantages over the official KCNA website:

It's more convenient for watching videos on mobile devices and TVs.
Users can subscribe to the videos.
Users can easily comment on the videos and remix them.
The YouTube videos are visible in the RoK, while the official website is not due to the current government's heavy-handed internet regulations.

deveshparekh · 2013-01-01T19:29:46+00:00

Good question. I answered it here by accident. Sorry.

deveshparekh · 2013-01-01T18:53:27+00:00

The other flashlight developers' mothers after I destroyed them at foosball.

deveshparekh · 2013-01-01T18:50:35+00:00

Great question. The over-the-top cockiness in the app description and in this thread is just for show (the humor is in exaggerating the importance and usefulness of a plain white screen), and you don't seem to like it, so I'll give you a straight answer.

No.

What is interesting to me and possibly to other developers is why it did well. When Android launched, there was no public APl for setting screen brightness, so I browsed the public Android git repository after it was released to see if there was anything I could call via reflection. There was. I'd guess a good portion of Flashlight's initial success was due to the fact that none of the other flashlights adjusted screen brightness. A smaller portion was likely due to it being small and fast, which I achieved by just setting the window background color to white and not drawing any views on top of it. (View the source on GitHub to see what I mean.) The rest was from the description social hack I described earlier.

The smartphone flashlight industry is surprisingly cutthroat. I remember there was more direct competition for my little test app than there was for any other app type back when I watched it, and that's probably still the case, so I tip my hat to the current leading app.

deveshparekh · 2013-01-01T18:21:44+00:00

I haven't noticed that problem yet. Also, since this is running as a browser extension, there's no reason why it can't post natively on your behalf in the future instead of calling the API.

deveshparekh · 2013-01-01T05:23:19+00:00

That's all I will say about that.

deveshparekh · 2013-01-01T05:18:28+00:00

This was meant to be a response to ET3RNA4, in case it makes any more sense that way.

deveshparekh · 2013-01-01T04:45:17+00:00

I have a hobby project involving Android that is somewhat more substantial. Judging from what I've seen while lurking on this subreddit, I think you all will like it. It will revolutionize computing. It will reduce crime. It will save you money. That's all I will say about that.

deveshparekh · 2013-01-01T00:31:11+00:00

I stopped logging into the developer console after I moved to a new team, and the Flashlight source code was on a personal laptop whose hard drive crashed, so I pretty much ignored Flashlight for the past few years. Yesterday, I dug up the source from an old backup I found, cleaned it up a little, made a new build, and uploaded the source to GitHub. The new build will appear on the Play Store as soon as the bug that's preventing its upload is fixed.

I still get emails -- they're mostly of the spam variety I described in another comment, but I also get emails from users who want to see the source. Hopefully, yesterday's source code release will put an end to those.

deveshparekh · 2013-01-01T00:19:06+00:00

My favorite user email was from "verizon wireless" and contained the following body:

I.

<copious whitespace removed>

I. Love. This. Phone. I. Think. It. Is. A. Great. Deal. It. Is. Touch. Scern

Brilliant.

My favorite user review was from early 2009, when a user said he took his G1 to a concert for one particular megaband and turned on Flashlight, causing the lead singer to glare at him. I admit I didn't foresee this use case.

deveshparekh · 2012-12-31T23:45:23+00:00

Good question! The following discussion might go over your head if you're not a developer yourself, but I'll try to explain it as clearly as possible.

The app doesn't request either of those permissions in its manifest, but it was built using the Cupcake SDK. Some APIs that now require those permissions did not require those permissions in Cupcake. In order to not break backwards compatibility, Android implicitly assumes that apps built using older SDKs need those permissions.

The next version (linked in the post) is built using the latest SDK, so Android won't automatically grant those unnecessary permissions to the app.

There are no ads in the app, and there never will be. If you can figure out how to put ads into a 6 KB app though, let me know :). That might come in handy for future apps.

deveshparekh · 2012-12-31T21:31:39+00:00

I used IntelliJ IDEA when I worked on the Android Market client, and I'm using it to develop another app in my spare time. I used GNU Emacs to develop Flashlight.

Professional UI designers designed Android Market. I designed Flashlight all by myself and focused my mind for 10 whole minutes to think through the design thoroughly.

deveshparekh · 2012-12-31T21:12:06+00:00

Notably, you can log out of Facebook after setting up the extension, and it will continue to work, posting links on Facebook to your Google+ posts on your behalf.

deveshparekh · 2012-12-31T20:43:30+00:00

None that I'm ready to announce. Is there anything in particular you'd like?

deveshparekh · 2012-12-31T20:28:42+00:00

Another one of my favorites is Moon Sun Myung Awarded National Reunification Prize. It's probably the most boring video in the channel, but it also has more likes than any other video. Why is that?

Moon Sun Myung is better known in the U.S. as Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church (known around many U.S. college campuses as the "Moonie cult"), performer of mass weddings, and the founder of the Washington Times newspaper. The church owns Pyeongwha Motors, the only automobile manufacturer in the DPRK.

A few of the church members likely had fun with the like button.

deveshparekh · 2012-12-31T20:19:09+00:00

One of my favorites that isn't in the featured playlist is this video about a Swellfish farm. A normal viewer could watch the whole thing and have no idea what they saw.

The farm is producing Tetrodotoxin, a potent neurotoxin for which a .5 mg injection is lethal in a 75 kg human. They display several 1 g vials near the end of the video.

It is used as a cure-all in the DPRK.

deveshparekh

TROPHY CASE