XC1 Group

Fantastic winter games!

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:51:00 -0500

These days it feels good to be from Sweden! I’m of course talking about the fantastic performances in Vancouver! Just finished watching the mens relay, wow!

Updates on XCStorm development

We’ve been working on a new version of XCStorm (2.0!) for some time but it’s not until now we’ve got started “for real”.

Control the flow

One of the main issues with the existing XCStorm is that when the flow of news becomes large, the page is practically useless. It’s very hard to find relevant and interesting news on the front page. That has gotten many people to prefer using only the RSS-feed (including me) from XCStorm.

We’ve been peeking at Reddit and Worldofo for solutions to how they have solved this. So we are planning on doing our own flavour of a “voting-system” where you upvote news you find interesting. That way we can construct different pages for “featured” and “latest” news.

We’re probably removing or at least changing the “Most read in x days” (insert date into x) completly.

Filtering and other good stuff

In the new version everything will be filterable as well, we’re also adding Twitter-news for those interested in that. I’ve also begun creating an API for XCStorm so you can snatch the news you want from us. It will be accessable by JSON.

Cheers!

/ Anders & Pär
http://www.xc1.se

Exciting times for XC1!

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:10:53 -0500

XC1 Group is doing a lot of exciting stuff atm! This weekend I’m (Anders) going to Åre to visit Pär and to discuss some of our upcoming projects.

The upcoming olympics will completly destroy my freelancing and school, too… much… sports! Three of our clients are going to compete (Anna Haag, Emil Jönsson & Ida Ingemarsdotter) and we’ve got a good feeling they’ll “own” the games.

Pimp my feeds - XCStorm

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 07:32:27 -0500

We’ve just updated the layout of our feeds at http://www.xcstorm.com/rss/ and the country-feeds.

You can now see the source-image and a direct link to the source, imo much better. Too bad we did it with tables, we will change it so it uses XSLT later.

Conclusion of 2009 - XCStorm

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 06:06:00 -0500

2009

XCStorm has increased it’s visitors to about 400 unique/day. I think it’s about time to redesign and hopefully get better structure as the items increases (since we add more sources). We published more than 16 000 (16 401) items this year.

The majority of visitors are still from Sweden, but we’re getting more and more from Norway.

Later in 2009 we added a feedback-button, please people: use it! Tell us what we can do better, or why we’re so awesome. Look at the right (next to the scrollbar) for the button at XCStorm.

2010

The backend is doing some ~~stupid~~ heavy cache, my goal for January is to fix this. If I get what I want, it’ll be a lot easier to handle the view count on the items. This will result in a faster XCStorm for you folks.

Best of 2009 - XCStorm

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 05:57:12 -0500

Top 3 posts 2009:

170 clicks
Adam Steen - Tre timmar stakning.
http://www.adamsteen.se/2009/05/tre-timmar-staknin…

124 clicks
Maria Rydqvist - Det fanns en tid när man var ung och lovande..
http://www.mariarydqvist.se/nyheter/93

109 clicks
Mathias Fredriksson - Skidåkning på ÖSK
http://mathias1.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/skidaknin…

More to come…

Problem with XCStorm

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:54:50 -0500

There’s some trouble loading the static media files at XCStorm right now. We’re working on it!

XCStorm-feedback, now for english users

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:19:49 -0400

Thanks to Björn Lilja I’ve found the english version of Kundo as well.

So please, give us some feedback and we will try make XCStorm even better (although it’s kind of awesome today).

[Swedish users] Please help us improve XCStorm

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:50:40 -0400

Hello everyone!

I’ve just added a feature to help us improve XCStorm, it’s currently only available to swedish users. If you’re using the http://www.xcstorm.com/se/ site, take a look in the right for the “Tyck till”-button.

Thanks in advance!

/ Anders Hassis

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 05:00:00 -0400

It’s been quite some time since I my last post!

Here’s some updates on what’s going on:

Working on a new Feed-reader for XCStorm, I’m gonna use the new sparkling Zend_Feed_Reader. Hopefully that will solve my problems with doubleparsing some of the RDF-feeds.
Started working on a project that involved a webshop, the client also wanted a simple-to-use UI like the one I’ve already choosen for him at his other site, he digs Wordpress.
Tried and thrown away WP e-commerce, bought us a license of Shopp, Shopp rocks.
Joined the beta team and made a swedish translation of it.

Dive into Wordpress: Q&A

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 10:58:46 -0400

I’ve spent the last couple of days/weeks doing some work in Wordpress. Since I’ve had a lot of questions myself and spent quite some time Googling these, I could as well post them here.

How do I debug SQL-queries? Including listing all queries.

My first thought was to use the get_num_queries(), but that couldn’t be done. So I found the plugin Debug Queries

How do I make internal page links in Wordpress from one page to another?

Use the plugin RB Internal links

How do I rearrange the menu order without manipulating the #”!”## ‘priority’-field?!

Use the plugin pageMash

One of the problems with moving a page is that all the content-url:s goes to hell, so usually I make a search/replace in the db for the old url and replace to the new. There must be an easier way?

Yes, and I will most certainly use it in my next move, Velvet Blues Update URLS

Is the e-commerce plugin something worth trying? Is it easy to implement payment gateways.

Yes, it’s quite nice. Just remember it’s not very easy to customize if you still want the core intact. Haven’t tried upgrading it to a new release (since I’m up-to-date now) so I can’t say how easy that is.

I’ve made a few modifications to the core, and I’m certain I’ll have to do more of those…

How do I make an menu-object link to an external page?

Use the plugin Page Lists plus

If Operating Systems Ran The Airlines

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:54:00 -0400

Here’s part two of “airlines”!

UNIX Airways
Everyone brings one piece of the plane along when they come to the airport. They all go out on the runway and put the plane together piece by piece, arguing non-stop about what kind of plane they are supposed to be building.

Air DOS
Everybody pushes the airplane until it glides, then they jump on and let the plane coast until it hits the ground again. Then they push again, jump on again, and so on…

Mac Airlines
All the stewards, captains, baggage handlers, and ticket agents look and act exactly the same. Every time you ask questions about details, you are gently but firmly told that you don’t need to know, don’t want to know, and everything will be done for you without your ever having to know, so just shut up.

Windows Air
The terminal is pretty and colourful, with friendly stewards, easy baggage check and boarding, and a smooth take-off. After about 10 minutes in the air, the plane explodes with no warning whatsoever.

Windows NT Air
Just like Windows Air, but costs more, uses much bigger planes, and takes out all the other aircraft within a 40-mile radius when it explodes.

Windows XP Air
You turn up at the airport,which is under contract to only allow XP Air planes. All the aircraft are identical, brightly coloured and three times as big as they need to be. The signs are huge and all point the same way. Whichever way you go, someone pops up dressed in a cloak and pointed hat insisting you follow him. Your luggage and clothes are taken off you and replaced with an XP Air suit and suitcase identical to everyone around you as this is included in the exorbitant ticket cost. The aircraft will not take off until you have signed a contract. The inflight entertainment promised turns out to be the same Mickey Mouse cartoon repeated over and over again. You have to phone your travel agent before you can have a meal or drink. You are searched regularly throughout the flight. If you go to the toilet twice or more you get charged for a new ticket. No matter what destination you booked you will always end up crash landing at Whistler in Canada.

OSX Air:
You enter a white terminal, and all you can see is a woman sitting in the corner behind a white desk, you walk up to get your ticket. She smiles and says “Welcome to OS X Air, please allow us to take your picture”, at which point a camera in the wall you didn’t notice before takes your picture. “Thank you, here is your ticket” You are handed a minimalistic ticket with your picture at the top, it already has all of your information. A door opens to your right and you walk through. You enter a wide open space with one seat in the middle, you sit, listen to music and watch movies until the end of the flight. You never see any of the other passengers. You land, get off, and you say to yourself “wow, that was really nice, but I feel like something was missing”

Windows Vista Airlines:
You enter a good looking terminal with the largest planes you have ever seen. Every 10 feet a security officer appears and asks you if you are “sure” you want to continue walking to your plane and if you would like to cancel. Not sure what cancel would do, you continue walking and ask the agent at the desk why the planes are so big. After the security officer making sure you want to ask the question and you want to hear the answer, the agent replies that they are bigger because it makes customers feel better, but the planes are designed to fly twice as slow. Adding the size helped achieve the slow fly goal.

Once on the plane, every passenger has to be asked individually by the flight attendants if they are sure they want to take this flight. Then it is company policy that the captain asks the passengers collectively the same thing. After answering yes to so many questions, you are punched in the face by some stranger who when he asked “Are you sure you want me to punch you in the face? Cancel or Allow?” you instinctively say “Allow”.

After takeoff, the pilots realize that the landing gear driver wasn’t updated to work with the new plane. Therefore it is always stuck in the down position. This forces the plane to fly even slower, but the pilots are used to it and continue to fly the planes, hoping that soon the landing gear manufacturer will give out a landing gear driver update.

You arrive at your destination wishing you had used your reward miles with XP airlines rather than trying out this new carrier. A close friend, after hearing your story, mentions that Linux Air is a much better alternative and helps.

Linux Air
Disgruntled employees of all the other OS airlines decide to start their own airline. They build the planes, ticket counters, and pave the runways themselves. They charge a small fee to cover the cost of printing the ticket, but you can also download and print the ticket yourself.

When you board the plane, you are given a seat, four bolts, a wrench and a copy of the seat-HOWTO.html. Once settled, the fully adjustable seat is very comfortable, the plane leaves and arrives on time without a single problem, the in-flight meal is wonderful. You try to tell customers of the other airlines about the great trip, but all they can say is, “You had to do what with the seat?”

If Programming Languages ran the Airlines

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:10:00 -0500

PL/1 Mainframe Air:
You arrive at the airport. It’s not really an airport, but actually an old wooden building next to the river. You ask why there isn’t a real airport. A very old man answers you that they have been building with wood ever since the beginning of construction, so it must be good. You ask where you can check in and when your plane leaves, but you are answered that they really don’t have any planes, because they think planes are too modern. Instead, you must place your luggage and yourself into a rowing boat in the river. This is because people have been using rowing boats for centuries, so rowing boats have proven that they work very good. You argue that a rowing boat can’t possibly take you to your destination 2000 miles away, but the old man insists that you try. After all, the rowing boat has never let HIM down. The fact that he only ever went as far as 2 miles up the river can’t convince him. In the end, with no choice left, you decide to give it a try. At first, all goes quite well. The old man can steer the rowing boat very fast down the river, but when you finally arrive at sea, the old man has a heart-attack and dies. You are now in the middle of the ocean, with nothing but a pair of paddles. Good luck.

C++ Air:
When you enter the airport, there are 5 entrances. You walk towards one, but then someone warns you that, if you choose one, you can never switch back and everything, including the destination of your journey, will depend on it. After thourough consideration, you find the entrance that is best for you. You go to a checkin terminal to check in, and you receive a ticket with everything from you name and address to the name of your dog (which you left home) and the contents of your wardrobe. You ask why there is so much information that isn’t necessary for the flight and you are answered that this is good, because then, you are in complete control of what you are doing. When you sit down at a table at a restaurant, the waiter won’t bring you anything, because you have the wrong flight-ticket. If you ask what this has to do with getting food, you are told that you should have thought of this before you chose a ticket. A bit confused, you enter the airplane. You are given a meal with a couple of slices of bread and a samurai-sword to cut them. Around you, you see everyone try to slice the bread, while accidentally cutting of their own limbs and fingers. You ask the man next to you why they don’t just give you a normal knife to slice your bread and you tell him that swords are very dangerous, but the man says that only a samurai sword is sharp enough to slice bread and that you are stupid and a noob if you can’t do it. At least, the airplane is very very fast and you get to your destination in a very short time, but when you approach the destination airport, the pilot receives a message that the landing airstrip has changed. Because the airplane is unable to change the destination landing strip after take-off, the pilot returns to the airport where it left from and will have to start the flight all over again.

PHP Air:
When you arrive at the airport, you see a lot of people dragging parts of airplanes around. When you ask why this is, a man says that you need airplanes in order to fly, so that’s why they are building them. You ask if there aren’t any pre-made planes that have passed security tests, but the man has already dissappeared with a big wing under his arm. Once you board your airplane (the left wing is still not finished, but the stewardess promises that it will be before take-off), you meet a little kid. You ask him if this is his first flight, but it appears that he is actually the pilot of the plane. The kid tells you all about the fact that he has played with toy-airplanes when he was a baby and that he has a real pilot’s uniform, so he is more than qualified to fly the plane. When the plane takes off, there is a lot of turbulence, but after a while, it gets better and the plane is on it’s way. When you fly above the ocean, the plane is suddenly hit by a thunderstorm. The little kid gets a little frightened, but he tries his best to save the situation. When more and more people start to panic, the little kid begins to cry and gives up. You try to steer the plane yourself, but there is no usermanual anywhere to be found. When the plane heads towards crashing in the ocean, you look outside the window and you see a man screaming in a rowing boat. At least, you will not go down alone…

.NET Airlines:
You arrive at a very modern terminal. There is only one counter where you can check in, but you don’t have to wait and you are helped by a very friendly woman. After checking in, you decide to get something to eat. There is only one restaurant, and it’s pretty expensive, but the food is very good, so you don’t mind. You are guided to your plane by another very friendly stewardess. There is only one corridor through which you can walk, so you don’t really need the help, but on the other hand, it’s quite comfortable. Your plane is the only plane at the airport, but it’s a very nice one, with very nice chairs and a wonderful in-flight dinner. After about 20 minutes in the air, you land at exactly the same airport as where you left from, because it’s the only airport where .NET airplanes can land.

Java Air:
You arrive at the airport with all your luggage. It’s kinda heavy, so you sigh: “I wish I had someone to carry it for me…” Immediatly, out of all corners of the terminal, people start running towards you, offering you their services. Some ask a little money, but most of them do it for free, because they like hauling with luggage. At first, you are totally overwhelmed by this many people offering you stuff, but after a while, you get to know some of them and they are quite nice. When arriving at your airplane, there is not one, but five, all totally different, but they are all airplanes and they all bring you where you want to go. Some of them are even free. You see some people, especially people with suits and ties, who don’t trust all the free airplanes and are anxious to choose from so many options. They all walk into a big blue building. You hear that you can let the people inside the blue building do everything for you and make the choices for you, if you pay them enough, but since you’re a little short on cash and also because you never actually see anyone come OUT of the blue building again, you decide to fly with one of the free airplanes. After a pleasant flight, you arrive at your destination. You try to convince your friends to travel with Java Air too, but all they can say is: “Was it FREE??? Then it cannot be good…”

Tynellify!

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 11:10:45 -0500

Our most recent client, Daniel Tynell, won Vasaloppet today, congratulations!

Scouring the internet

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:53:00 -0500

Doesn’t have much to tell atm. because my studyperiod have just started. So most of the development stands still.

But since I’m always scouring the internet for “useful” stuff, so here’s some of my latest findings:

Oh, btw. You can follow me (Anders) on Twitter by the nick parse_

/ Anders

"Nuclear launch detected"

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:14:00 -0500

We just launched Daniel Tynells new homepage. It’s built with Wordpress, most commonly known for uses in blogs. Still, it’s great as CMS as well.

Yes, we are aware of the tagsoup in the markup. It’s on the TODO:list. We’re also making some minor adjustments to the layout soon.

Om livet

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 09:49:28 -0500

SOCIALISM
Du har två kor och ger den ena till din granne.

KOMMUNISM
Du har två kor, regeringen tar båda och ger dig mjölk

FASCISM
Du har två kor, regeringen tar båda och säljer mjölk till dig.

NAZISM
Du har två kor, regeringen tar båda och skjuter dig.

BYRÅKRATISM
Du har två kor, regeringen tar båda, skjuter den ena, mjölkar den andra och slänger mjölken.

TRADITIONELL KAPITALISM
Du har två kor, du säljer den ena och köper en tjur, din djurflock och ekonomin växer. Du säljer din djurflock och pensionerar dig för avkastningen.

ETT AMERIKANSKT FÖRETAG
Du har två kor. Du säljer den ena, tvingar den andra att producera mjölk som om den vore fyra kor. Senare hyr du en konsult för att analysera varför kon dog.

ETT FRANSK FÖRETAG
Du har två kor. Du strejkar eftersom du vill ha tre kor.

ETT JAPANSKT FÖRETAG
Du har två kor. Du re-designar dem så de är en tiondel så stora som vanliga kor men producerar tjugo gånger så mycket mjölk. Sedan skapar du en smart ko-serie med tecknade kor som heter Ko-kimon och marknadsför dem över hela världen.

ETT TYSKT FÖRETAG
Du har två kor. Du låter ett par ingenjörer bygga om dem så de lever i hundra år, äter en gång i månaden och mjölkar sig själva.

ETT ITALIENSKT FÖRETAG
Du har två kor men du vet inte var de är. Du tar lunch.

ETT RYSKT FÖRETAG
Du har två kor. Du räknar dem och kommer fram till att du har fem kor. Du räknar dem igen och kommer denna gången fram till att du har 42. Du slutar räkna kor och öppnar en ny flaska vodka istället.

ETT SCHWEIZISKT FÖRETAG
Du har 5000 kor. Ingen av dem tillhör dig. Du tjänar pengar på att ta hand om dem.

ETT KINESISKT FÖRETAG
Du har två kor. Du låter 300 personer mjölka dem och hävdar att du har full sysselsättning, hög boskapsproduktion och låter arrestera journalisten som avslöjar sanningen.

ETT INDISKT FÖRETAG
Du har två kor. Du tillber dem.

ETT BRITTISKT FÖRETAG
Du har två kor. Båda är galna.

ETT IRAKISKT FÖRETAG
Alla påstår att du har en massa kor. Du försöker säga att du inte har några. Ingen tror på dig och bombar dig tillbaka till stenåldern. Du har fortfarande inga kor, men nu är du i alla fall en del av ”den världsomspännande demokratin”.

SURREALISM
Du har två giraffer. Myndigheterna kräver att du tar dragspelslektioner.

HONG KONG KAPITALISM
Du har två kor. Du säljer 3 av dem till ditt dotterbolag på kredit från din egen bank, skapar en swap med rätt att få 4 kor tillbaka, med en skattereduktion för 5 kor. Mjölkrättigheterna för 6 kor transfereras via ett pan-amerikanskt företag till en bank på Cayman Island som ägs av marjoriteten i huvudföretaget, som säljer tillbaka mjölkrättigheterna till 7 kor till ett annat dotterbolag och inkomsterna från försäljningen finansierar det tidigare köpet. Kvartalsredovisningen visar att företaget har nästan 8 kor och optioner på två till. Under tiden dödar företaget de två korna eftersom de har dålig Feng-shui.

ETT FÖRETAG I NEW ZEELAND
Du har två kor. Den till höger är ganska söt.

ETT AUSTRALIENSKT FÖRETAG
Du har två kor. Affärerna verkar gå bra. Du stänger affären och går ner till puben för att fira det.

Här ovan ser ni en teaser av PHPSidan v7:s nya utvecklarforum....

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:19:00 -0500

Här ovan ser ni en teaser av PHPSidan v7:s nya utvecklarforum. Alltså vårt interna forum för utvecklargruppen. Över 25 trådar på <1 vecka och den första koden ligger ute på Subversion med Trac.

Denna gång säger min magkänsla att det kommer bli av.

http://www.phpsidan.nu

/ Anders
http://hassis.com

"The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking."

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 13:28:00 -0500

Yesterday I released the new version of http://hassis.com. Actually I’m quite happy with how this one turned out!

Riding Rails

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 07:31:03 -0500

Since my last post I’ve been digging into Ruby On Rails. I also mentioned that we’ve started using a system to keep track of our tasks/bugs. My first real project in RoR is going to build my own time management software. Wish me luck :)

Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 06:53:00 -0500

I’d just like to post some updates about what’s going on.

We’ve just “released” Forneman Sportpartner AB, it’s far from finished, but you can see what direction we’re taking.

I introduced a “Task management“-system for XC1, it was about time we got some structure. One of the best part is it’s function to keep track of time.

I choose Taskfreak instead of Basecamp or Trac and so on… because it’s tiny and does what I want. The other just have to much bloat. Of course we’re going to outgrow Timefreak, it’s just a matter of time. But it’s a good start.