A word of advice (plea for sanity) to those making a web-based slideshows, where users navigate images by clicking a "next" or "previous" link. If you can, either fix the height of the images at a standard height/width, or put the link above, rather than below (or to the side of) the image. When moving forward (ie. clicking "next - next - next"), it's annoying to have to hunt for the "next" button on each new page - when the image heights/widths vary (case in point, the excellent photos at nppa.org). This is a small complaint, but is Sooo easily remedied. Better practice here: kottke.org's RNC photos) Additionally, this keeps more of the navgation at the top, and the caption and related metadata below. I know it's a very small thing, but every bit helps.

Andre Torrez kicks butt - he just finished a very cool project called DropCash, that I wanted to do ages ago, but never could get the time/plans/energy together to do, and he knocked it out of the park. You can call it many things - a "thermometer", a "fundraising tool", "goal-tracker", what-have-you. It's a simple way to set up a goal dollar amount, give it a title, a description, and best, a URL that the whole world can see and use to donate or track the progress.

I prefer to think of it as a very useful tool to promote and simplify the concept of the "chip-in", or collective buying. Get your whole family to pitch in easily to buy that new TV for grandma, or collectively reward a friend or acquaintance by selecting an item from their Amazon Wishlist and raising the funds with dropcash - that way everyone can view the progress of the fundraising (and if someone pledged cash and is tardy with it, they can be tracked in public). At gomi no sensei, there are screenshots to show you the simple process. [Edit - now Dropcash has Badges, here's my test badge - Cool!]



Collective purchasing is something I know people at Amazon were interested in for a long time, but there was always a problem with the details of execution - who holds the money? If it's a corporation, then they end up acting like a bank and are subject to all sorts of restrictions. If it's a person, how do you trust the transactions? How do you track progress, how do you deal with refunds or goals that fall short? In the case of Dropcash, the one person who organizes the fundraiser (and sets up the campaign page) gets to set the rules and really is the one finally accountable - as it should be, liability becomes moot. Andre's handled this well by leaving the entire operation open, using PayPal as an established trustworthy API for transactions and TypeKey for identity.

As a more concrete example, I've set up a real-world campaign - A fine time for a Coolpix. If you've ever offered to donate to kokogiak.com before, (or thought about it), here's the place to do it. But not all pages have to be so self-serving - I definitely see charitable and community-based fundraising being able to use this.

Paypal should buy dropcash outright, or at least give Andre a consulting gig or something. This sort of cumulative micropayment tool could really mean a lot to them, considering they charge about 30 cents per transaction. Now I'm thinking of ways to tie in Amazon.com's API with dropcash hmm, many possibilities. Nice work Mr. Torrez.

Want to know what John Kerry's Plan for Africa is? How about the specific goals he has to explore and develop new energy sources? Interested in the details of their plans, not the impact of the latest epithet hurled by Dick Cheney or Teresa Heinz-Kerry? Well, in the ongoing spirit of guerilla conversions, I've just put together what I hope will be a helpful tool. The Kerry-Edwards campaign just released their book, "Our Plan For America". You can download it here - but only in PDF format. Or, now you can parse through the plan in a more web-friendly, linkable format here. Only the first Section (of two) is presented here - the last section is press photographs and the text of older speeches. If you really want to see those, you can always download the PDF, or find the book.

I wonder why A) The text of the book was released online in PDF format only, and B) I have heard so little in the media about the plans laid out in this document. I've learned a lot just by putting it together - like the fact that they promise to take action to "can spam". Now there's a plank in any platform that I can get behind.

Andy (Waxy) had a lovely idea earlier this month - pick a favorite book/dvd/album and see what the worst is that the world has to say about it (Amazon.com User Reviews sorted from lowest-to-highest). He called it the Amazon.com Knee-Jerk Contrarian game. It's illuminating, fun and now a little easier to do - I pulled a few pieces of Amazon Light and some page-scraper bits I had laying around to make it a two-step process now. Go here, and enter a search term, and click on one of the search results, and voila: the worst of the lot.

For instance, here's some hating on Doolittle, by the Pixes. My favorite quote, from a 1-star rater "I dont like the pixies at all, but this is definatly their crowning acheivement." Wha?

Hours of time-wasting fun. That's what the Web is all about, no?

Tomorrow (July 15th) is the Second Anniversary of Amazon Light. Two years ago, I made the site public, as part of a larger launch of proof-of-concept apps. The next day, Amazon announced their Webservices Platform. Over the course of the following week, traffic to the site grew exponentially, even attracting unwanted attention from Google's Legal department (I had to change the look - it was too Googly). For a while it was at the top of DayPop and Blogdex, but the part that always made me proudest was when people pointed to it as a concrete example, saying "that's what you can do with webservices".

I've never really shared the performance stats for Amazon Light before, in part because it's considered rude by some, in part because I discovered that a number of people were convinced I was making tens of thousands of dollars a month with this (I'm not) - why would I want to burst their bubble ;) From what I can tell, Amazon Light is a "high-average" site. Not in the same league as the top earners, but somewhere in the top 80% - but that's really educated guesswork. Also, at this stage, I'm more comfortable with sharing some numbers, so here you go.

Some basic stats on Amazon Light, based on numbers provided by Amazon (cumulative, over the past two years):

Total recorded click-thrus: 87,832
Total number of orders placed: 8,975
Total Revenue (for Amazon): $124,620.00

No - I did not earn $124,620.00 - that's what Amazon grossed based on my traffic (over the past 2 years). I earned a percentage of that, varying depending on item, in my case, averaging about 8%. And No, this does not take into account earnings made through Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, nor Amazon.co.jp. It is a very nice sum, which I whole-heartedly appreciate, but certainly not enough to retire on.

Most expensive item purchased (earlier this year): A Sharp LC-37HV4U 37" AQUOS LCD Flat-Panel HDTV-Ready TV at $4,199.94

Largest quantity order: 245 copies of Worth the Fighting for: A Memoir, the John McCain memoir, in late 2002.

Amazon Light (the site) is a little creaky (nonstandard, ugly HTML, un-scalable), and I've made a few new versions (v2, v3, uk, de, jp), but nothing performs like the original, not even close.

I have a few ideas for some further projects, and am tinkering with some new Amazon Webservices beta program projects, please drop a comment if you have any ideas/ suggestions/ critiques.

And lastly, a heartfelt thank-you to everyone who has ever used, linked to, or visited Amazon Light.

Wondering if there was an RSS feed for the excellent Astronomy Picture of the Day, I googled, and found that jwz had created just such a feed a while back.

It also occurred to me that the latest images and press releases coming from Saturn (and Mars) would make excellent candidates for RSS feeds - the data is interesting and comes in unpredictable bursts. Well, NASA doesn't seem to have any (that I could find), so I threw together a few scrapers to get what I'm after. Feel free to use them as well, but be warned that they are based on pagescrapers - so they might go down at any moment.

For Saturn: Cassini-Huygens Probe - Latest Press Images Feed, the Planetary Photojournal, and the raw feed of Cassini Images (this last one could be wobbly due to aggressive caching on JPL's side).

For other Planets (and the Sun):

- Sun [last updated 3.13.2004]
- Mercury [last updated 1.18.2001]
- Venus [last updated 6.27.2003]
- Earth [last updated 7.7.2004]
- Mars [last updated 7.8.2004]
- Jupiter [last updated 11.13.2003]
- Uranus [last updated 8.24.2000]
- Neptune [last updated 4.01.2000]
- Pluto [last updated 3.28.1998]
or, just get 'em all with the All Planets (and Sun) feed [last updated 7.9.2004].

As for the Mars Rovers images, I'm still trying to figure out the best method to do generate an RSS feed for that - they don't have a good scrapable press-images page, and their raw image feeds are scattered and noisy - five cameras on two robots with sporadic updating. Seems like the Hubble telescope deserves an RSS feed too. Lemme know if there's any problems with these feeds or if there are other better ones out there.

A person does many things in a day. These things are captured on film and transmitted via my favorite source of news photos, Yahoo News.

On any given day, a person:

Eats, drinks, bites, feeds, and (hopefully) cleans.

Speaks, addresses, shouts, yells, gestures, points, and, quite possibly listens.

Lifts, raises, flies, or clenches a fist, leaps, tackles, pushes, possibly shoves, throws, hurls, or tosses.

Frowns, cries, grimaces, weeps, or mourns (lots of this in the Middle East.)

Touches, scratches, and wipes. Holds, or clutches.

Sings, performs, and poses, or is captured in silhouette.

Smiles, consoles, laughs, celebrates, kisses, embraces, hugs, and dances.

Then of course, looks, yawns, and sleeps.