Hello, I am Sean Murphy » Community

LongURL—Restoring Order to the Universe

Sean Murphy — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:41:22 +0000

It’s been two weeks since I conceptualized LongURL, and a productive two weeks at that! Last Monday I officially launched the service (which provides a handy REST API) with support for a dozen or so shortening services like TinyURL.com. Once I stepped away from the problem for a little while I realized there was a better way to go about solving it. Thankfully the way I designed the service didn’t make it very difficult to swap out that bit of business logic, so this week I rolled-out an update that adds support for all shortening services.

After getting feedback from some helpful beta testers (thanks Marjolein and Børge!) and making a few tweaks I was happy yesterday to release the LongURL Mobile Expander Greasemokey script and Firefox extension which use the LongURL API to expand shortened URLs on any web page. I haven’t had much feedback from others yet, but for me personally, the extension tremendously improves my user experience. Sorry guys, no more rickrolling me!

Also, with the release of the incredibly awesome Ubiquity extension from Mozilla Labs, I started work on a LongURL command which ~~I hope to finish/release in the next day or so~~ I just released. You can subscribe to the command from the LongURL Tools page. Does that sound like something that would be of interest to you? Have any ideas on how you’d like it to work? If so, leave a comment.

I would like to mention too that this has been the first time I’ve really used the launchpad.net platform for managing my project. It’s been a super experience; I don’t know why I didn’t start using it sooner, especially since I’ve been so close to it. And bazaar? Well, let me just say that I’ll no longer be using Subversion as my VCS of choice. Bazaar rocks, and if you haven’t given it a try, I strongly suggest you do so. You won’t regret it.

A final note: as you can tell, I don’t always get around to blogging about cool stuff I’m working on right away (if at all), so if you’d like to get updates as soon as possible I suggest following me on Twitter (iamseanmurphy) and/or identi.ca (seanmurphy). 140 characters just seems so much more digestible to me.

FOWA & BarCamp Miami

Sean Murphy — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 14:06:53 +0000

Future of Web Apps (FOWA) Miami & BarCamp Miami are quickly approaching. I’m really looking forward to picking up tips on building better web apps, and meeting some smart people. I’m planning on giving a presentation at Barcamp, but I haven’t decided on what to talk about. I’m considering either “An Intro to Comet” or “Improving User Experience With JS Form Validation”, and I’m leaning more towards the former. Any suggestions?

I still have a lot to get done before the month’s end, including: launching the new and improved Statiksoft website, designing and printing affordable business cards, and, of course, writing my presentation. Add those things to the laundry list of other projects I’m trying to work on and it’s gonna be a busy month.

Also, BarCamp Orlando is slotted for early April, with two focused days! Kevin and I are gonna give a killer presentation on ExpressionEngine on the developer day. Be there.

Supporting the Community

Sean Murphy — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 14:14:53 +0000

The Orlando IT community has done a great job of promoting the upcoming BarCamp. The word is out, and over 170 people have registered for the event already. Like any community, though, to be successful some financial backing is needed. For this reason, we at both MindComet and Statiksoft have pledged our support and have signed on as sponsors. We’re excited to have BarCamp come to our home town, and we’re confident everyone’s going to take something useful away from it. You can too if you go, but you’ll have to register—space is limited. I look forward to seeing you there!

BarCamp Orlando 2007

Sean Murphy — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 14:16:22 +0000

BarCamp is coming to Orlando! I’ve been interested in attending some technical conferences for a while now, so BarCamp is coming just in time. I’m looking forward to some interesting presentations and meeting cool locals in the tech industry. I’ll be representing two companies I’m a part of, MindComet and Statiksoft. Others from both local businesses will be there. Also, brother plans to woo with a presentation of I don’t know what.