« Read the Gospel of Judas, backstory online; 1000-layer lasagne; Photorealism: bugs | Main | Clay Osborne died Friday, but his voice is still out there »

April 10, 2006

Online egg toy; French protests succeed; John Lennon songwriting contest; Google Map Maker; Firefox memory leak hack

Timely toy: Porfolio :: My Special Easter Egg. Stamp or paint your brown egg. A little Flash toy, with no obvious way to save your creation. I grabbed this image -- and another, cropping it to just the egg -- with MWSnap, a little freeware screenshot utility.

Related: Emeril Lagasse's Deviled Eggs recipe, from Food Network. For your real Easter eggs.

Imagine: The John Lennon Songwriting Contest is accepting entries through June 15. Rules.

The anti-CPE demonstration is ending on Place de la Nation where people are gathering, when a group of clowns appeared in a well-humoured parody of the CRS (riot police). Unfortunately, it would soon turn sour...Hugo on Flickr

French President Jacques Chirac on Monday scrapped a youth job law that provoked weeks of angry protests, in a climbdown opponents celebrated as an unqualified victory.

The move was a personal blow to Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who had championed the First Job Contract (CPE) and seen his popularity slump with the mass opposition and unrest.

Villepin said in a television address he regretted that weeks of strikes and protests showed the CPE could not be applied but gave no hints about his own political future, on the line over his handling of the dispute.

"The necessary conditions of confidence and calm are not there, either among young people, or companies, to allow the application of the First Job Contract," Villepin said, adding he would open talks with unions on youth employment....

Related: CPE: Protests slideshow on Flickr

No coding required: Google Map Maker: "Make google maps the easy way. Use the map to find locations, activate the controls, click where you want a marker and add your information. Click 'Generate code' to get the source code to add to your website. More Instructions."

You'll need to get your own Google API key to put the resulting maps on your site. (Although this will generate code that works, the maker -- Richard Stephenson of Leeds -- asks that you download your own markers and he offers links; linking directly to his will cause him to pay the bandwidth bill for your visitors.)

Crash avoidance? This May Help Your Firefox Memory Leak: A simple hack from CyberNet Technology News. Comments from those who've tried it seem enthusiastic.

Times: This Boring Headline Is Written for Google.

Some news sites offer two headlines. One headline, often on the first Web page, is clever, meant to attract human readers. Then, one click to a second Web page, a more quotidian, factual headline appears with the article itself. The popular BBC News Web site does this routinely on longer articles.

Nic Newman, head of product development and technology at BBC News Interactive, pointed to a few examples from last Wednesday. The first headline a human reader sees: "Unsafe sex: Has Jacob Zuma's rape trial hit South Africa's war on AIDS?" One click down: "Zuma testimony sparks HIV fear." Another headline meant to lure the human reader: "Tulsa star: The life and career of much-loved 1960's singer." One click down: "Obituary: Gene Pitney."

"The search engine has to get a straightforward, factual headline, so it can understand it," Mr. Newman said. With a little programming sleight-of-hand, the search engine can be steered first to the straightforward, somewhat duller headline, according to some search optimizers.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 5:58 AM | Permalink