HackU Dundee 2011: Tools to Hack With
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The document provides an overview of tools that can be used to hack with, including Yahoo Query Language (YQL) which allows users to query APIs and data sources across the web using SQL-like queries. Examples are given showing how to search Flickr, translate tweets from English to Spanish, and combine multiple queries. The document also lists hundreds of APIs accessible through YQL and describes several Yahoo location services including Placemaker, PlaceFinder, and Fire Eagle. It recommends building hacks using fake data if real APIs are unavailable and to focus on the core of the hack initially.
HackU Dundee 2011: Tools to Hack With
- 1. TOOLS TO HACK WITH @SteveMarshall Dundee HackU 2011
- 3. select * from internet YQL uses a SQL-like query language, allowing you to create simple queries from one API or really easily chain queries together so you only get the data you really want, and fast. All of this, using one language, against one endpoint that gives you everything on the Internet. But how do you build your queries? To the console!
- 4. This is the console. You can enter queries here…
- 5. We can do simple things like ‘Search flickr for 10 cat pictures’. http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=cat&w=all&m=&s=
- 6. By selecting from flickr.photos.search where the text is cat. But what if we want to do something more complex?
- 7. Let’s start by finding tweets about Egypt… (select * from twitter.search where q='egypt')
- 8. And now, let’s make them all Spanish… select * from google.translate where q in (select text from twitter.search where q='egypt') and target="es";) That’s pretty cool. What else can we do?
- 9. And now, let’s wrap a UI around that… And we have a hack! (http://isithackday.com/hacks/twitter-translate-form.php? search=egypt&amount=20&language=es)
- 10. select * from query.multi where queries in (‘query 1’, ‘query 2’, ‘query 3’) One of the most useful tables you can use, query.multi allows you to combine multiple parallel queries into one, saving you making separate calls to YQL for each!
- 11. social dopplr instapaper nmsi sparql amazon dostopsi intuit noaa spotify amee edu ip npr sunlight answers ericssonlabs kiva nyt tarpipe appdb esme lastfm openaustralia test apple etsy limewirestore opencalais text arxiv eyefi livedoor opencontext themoviedb auth facebook local openid thetvdb avatars fantasysports longurl opensocial timeout aws fcc maps paypal tinysong basecamp filemd5 mediawikiapi pidgets tumblr batlas finance meetup pikchur tvrage bbc fitbit meme plos twfy bible flickr mendeley pubsubhubbub twitter bit folderscrape microsoft query ukparliament bizrate foursquare misc recovery ukpostcode blackcountryhi friendfeed mixi rss upcoming story gdacs movies rtm urbanesia boston geo mozillalabs salesforce usgs brazil github museumoflond seafoodwatch victoriaandalbe britishmuseum google on search rt brooklyn gov music sears vimeo bungie gowalla mybloglog seomoz weather christies greader mynewsdesk shelfari wesabe comicvine greenbookings ncbi shipping whitepages couprecoup guardian nestoria shopping wordpress craigslist hackernews netflix shoppingcart worldbank darkhelmet hatena newegg simplegeo wufoo delicious ign nextbus slideshare wunderground digg imdb ngmoco socialgraph yahoo digitalnz infochimps nmm socialmention yahoojp Hundreds of APIs… all in one place. Accessible to your app… Make your own!
- 12. Yahoo has myriad location technologies open for use, from Yahoo! Maps’ ajax and Flash interface widgets through geocoders to services to allow users to control how they share their location. Here are some of my favourites:
- 13. Placemaker identifies places mentioned in text, disambiguating them and returning unique identifiers (WOEIDs).
- 16. PlaceFinder is a geocoding Web service that converts street addresses or place names into geographic coordinates (and vice versa).
- 17. Fire Eagle is a service to allow developers to access users’ location data in a safe, secure way.
- 18. YUI is a collection of CSS and JavaScript components to help people build richer, more robust web applications. It includes tools to help you build CSS and JS, along with a library of widgets you can drop into your app including things like autocomplete widgets, sliders, table sorting controls, and much, much more.
- 19. FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT (BUT DO MAKE IT EVENTUALLY) If you can’t find an API or library to do what you want (and it doesn’t have to be from Mozilla or Yahoo!), fake it until you absolutely must have real data. Work on the core of your hack, not on infrastructure for it.