Do you like to blog recipes but don't use Chrome? No problem! Now you can use my new web version of hRecipeHelper in any moder browser. I know it works with FireFox 3.6 and up as well as IE8, I can only assume it works with IE9 if IE8 works. I haven't tested on IE9 and Safari because I don't have them and can't even run IE9. If you trying it out and find bugs please post a comment here and I'll have it fixed asap.
Just like the Chrome Extension its free, Enjoy!
Showing posts with label projects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label projects. Show all posts
Friday, April 8, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
hRecipeHelper - new Chrome Extension
A little while back Google announced a new Recipe Search function that can search just recipes and then filter the results on various components in the recipe as well as cook time and calories. Now that's how you can rapidly dissolve the agonizing question of "What's for dinner?" into immediate action! To do this Google is relying on a nifty standard called microformats and specifically in this case the hRecipe format.
What hRecipe provides is a standard of coding HTML which reveals to bots or other programs the exact meaning of the web pages content, specifically the data values it contains. As a programmer who has written website scraping programs more then once in the past, this sort of formatting is a wonderful and accessible way to publish data. Unfortunately HTML is not exactly everyone's best skill, in fact I am willing to bet that most people don't know HTML and would very much like to avoid ever knowing HTML. Honestly, those people are perfectly reasonable, why should they?
I started thinking of people I know who are advanced computer users who simply don't have the time or interest in learning to write web pages and realized that while microformats are freaking awesome to a developer they are still a bit demanding to the cook that just wants to share her favorite recipes with the world. I saw this as a chance to give a little something back to the blogging world and perhaps selfishly get even more great recipes turning up in Google's search. I've written a nifty Chrome Extension called hRecipeHelper to help recipe bloggers easily post nice looking; hRecipe (and Google) compliant recipes by simply filling out a recipe card and copying the code into their favorite blogging site. All the site needs to do is support posting of basic HTML which Blogger, LiveJournal and most other blog platforms support.
Click to get it now!
I hope this will help get even more recipes on the web and further the microformats cause.
What hRecipe provides is a standard of coding HTML which reveals to bots or other programs the exact meaning of the web pages content, specifically the data values it contains. As a programmer who has written website scraping programs more then once in the past, this sort of formatting is a wonderful and accessible way to publish data. Unfortunately HTML is not exactly everyone's best skill, in fact I am willing to bet that most people don't know HTML and would very much like to avoid ever knowing HTML. Honestly, those people are perfectly reasonable, why should they?
I started thinking of people I know who are advanced computer users who simply don't have the time or interest in learning to write web pages and realized that while microformats are freaking awesome to a developer they are still a bit demanding to the cook that just wants to share her favorite recipes with the world. I saw this as a chance to give a little something back to the blogging world and perhaps selfishly get even more great recipes turning up in Google's search. I've written a nifty Chrome Extension called hRecipeHelper to help recipe bloggers easily post nice looking; hRecipe (and Google) compliant recipes by simply filling out a recipe card and copying the code into their favorite blogging site. All the site needs to do is support posting of basic HTML which Blogger, LiveJournal and most other blog platforms support.
Click to get it now!
I hope this will help get even more recipes on the web and further the microformats cause.
Labels:
Chrome Extension,
cooking,
hRecipe,
hREcipeHelper,
microformats,
projects,
recipes
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
The Garden Droid 1.0 Update
I started thinking that if anyone wanted to know more about how my Garden Droid was working out they would be left wanting because I'm not posting the updates to this blog. My logic is that this is my Tech blog for programming and Electronics and since this project leans towards my more green and leafy interested I have posted the updates on my other blog. If your interested click on over and check out my other blog.
Yes, much could be debated on the logic behind 2 blogs... I debate it often but, hey it makes some logical since none the less so I stick with it.
Labels:
Arduino,
projects,
TheGardenDroid
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
The Garden Droid 1.0
Well after many months in the lab toiling away with a soldering iron and C compiler I have finally gotten the first version of my Arduino project done! OK really It just took months to get the time to finish the project but that doesn't sound as impressive really.. This is my first Arduino project and first really large electronics project so mistakes were made but overall I'm really happy that it all works!
I really started the project way back in February of last year and a little over a week ago I planted the GardenDroids first crop, Spinach. I mostly chose spinach because I believe it will grow fairly well in the 75 degree room upstairs where the Droid has been parked as well as its ability to grow in partial sun which I am assuming is about what the LED lighting will produce.. tho I may be mistaking on that. We will see!
So what is a mini-greenhouse? Well in one sentence it's an electronically maintained greenhouse which can be maintained indoors and monitored from your web browser.
This is my mini-greenhouse which I am calling The Garden Droid (you know like garden gnome?)
What you see above is my Garden Droid which boasts a whopping 3 sq. ft. of well lit gardening space, soil moisture monitoring, temperature logging, LED grow lights and wireless transmission of data to my computer. Coming soon it will also be self watering, monitor humidity and ambient light as well as have an upgraded wireless protocol so it can transmit small pictures of the plant growth and support multiple Droids.
Has I mentioned the website where I can monitor everything going on? Below is a quick snap of the web application which is used to monitor not just the Garden Droid plants but, your whole garden.
The whole project is open source and built on free software with open hardware that anyone can buy and build. I will be trickling out technical details and how to's in the following weeks for anyone interested and heck if my plants grow well I might even sell kits but, first let's see if I can get spinach to grow.
Part of my motivation for this project was to be able to grow salads year round but here in FL most of the summer is not kind to regular spinach and other leafy greens, its just too darn hot and all my efforts have been a failure. I figured that since I am keeping my house artificially cool all summer and the temps would be great for growing greens, why not give it ago? I plan to eventually get this little box powered by a solar panel collecting dust int he garage as well then there will be a net gain of energy savings though just growing at home saves oil I would think.
Anyway I am really excited about version 1 coming together and I am looking forward to the next version with the enhanced capabilities. To check out the code jump over to my GitHub where you can see the code for the Arduino, the data logging deamon and the full web app. I will be posting the real technical details just as soon as I can throw together some schematics and I'll keep you posted on the plants progress as well.
Labels:
Arduino,
Java,
projects,
TheGardenDroid
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