A Couple of Donkeys

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Tech Tip: YouTube & Bebo

So, after getting into the social networking [wikipedia.org] thing, I've been thinking about the FAQ and help sections of these websites [facebook.com][bebo.com]. The FAQ/help sections of these websites often doesn't list details of how some of their technologies actually work. Point in case being bebo's 'flashbox' technology.

Instead of being like the rest of the 'beboers', why not add your own semi-unique flashbox by using YouTube [youtube.com].

Its pretty simple. Every video on YouTube [youtube.com] is identified by a unique bunch of letters and numbers. (eg ZRXLJp0BP9w). Bebo requires an internet url for the location of a beboer's flashbox. YouTube provides an interface to all of its video's by one player.swf file.

So, to get the video from YouTube onto your bebo profile, simply copy the random bunch of letters and numbers from the address bar of your browser and attach it to the end of this url:

http://www.youtube.com/p.swf?video_id=

For our earlier example, Dillinger Escape Plan's 'Panasonic Youth' (ZRXLJp0BP9w) the url would be:

http://www.youtube.com/p.swf?video_id=ZRXLJp0BP9w

Paste this into the bebo flashbox url and click 'save'. That's it, you're done. Enjoy the video you've just picked!

(For examples of two flashboxes done using this technique, check my bebo profile here [bebo.com] or my college class' bebo profile)

[Updated 29/Apr/2006 to reflect the change in swf file used by YouTube...]

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Tech Tip: Thunderbird Tip

To follow on from our previous post on Firefox keyboard shortcuts, we decided to show you this neat little trick in Thunderbird (the Mozilla mail client).

To 'Label' a message, you can just hit the appropriate number key.

0 - No label
1 - Important
2 - Work
3 - Personal
4 - To Do
5 - Later

The message will change colour once you hit the appropriate key.

And that's it for this tip. Watch this space for more!

Friday, July 29, 2005

Tech Tip: Firefox keyboard shortcuts

So I was reading this article, and I decided I'd post some keyboard shortcuts, you may or may not know about.

Anyway, giving the link to that article is enough to post about in itself.

So here it goes: hopefully others can add their shortcuts too...

Ctrl-T - New Tab

Ctrl-W - Close Tab

Ctrl-Tab - Switch between tabs sequentially

Ctrl-PgUp - Switch between tabs sequentially forwards (Same functionality as Ctrl-Tab)

Ctrl-PgDn - Switch between tabs sequentially backwards

Ctrl-J - Open the downloads progress dialog

Feel free to add your own shortcuts...