Book Review - Flickr Mashups by David Wilkinson
Category Book Reviews
It's hard not to get inundated with all the talk of "Web 2.0" these days... Everything is "Ajax this, mashup that". But what exactly *is* a mashup, and how do you build one? Wrox has started a Mashup series of books, and I got a chance to take a look at Flickr Mashups by David Wilkinson. This is an excellent intro to the concept, focused on the Flickr website for content manipulation.
Contents: Rewriting the Web; Flickr - A Short Tour; Getting Ready to Mash; The Flickr API; Flickr Feeds; Remixing Flickr Using the API; Authenticating with Flickr; Uploading Photos; Remixing Flickr Using Greasemonkey; Working with ImageMagick, Visualizing the News; Searching the Blogosphere; Displaying Your Photos with Google Maps; Caching Your Data; Answers to Exercises; Flickr API Methods; Response Data Structures; Useful Resources; Index
To start with, you shouldn't have the expectation that you'll be able to (or even want to) run every mashup that's here. Rather than confine his examples to a single small set of technology tools, Wilkinson uses a wide array of software, such as PHP, Perl, JavaScript, Java, Greasemonkey, ImageMagick, and others. When he first talks about a technology like Greasemonkey, he gives some basic information to get the software and install it. From there, he builds the mashup with some pretty detailed explanations on the code and results. He states in the forward that the examples *should* be easy enough to follow even if you're not terribly familiar with the language, like PHP. Overall that seems to be the case. But to be honest, you'll probably get a lot more out of the book if you're already conversant with PHP, as a lot of the examples use that. But even if the particular language of the example isn't your forte, you should be able to take the general idea and apply the concepts to your tool of choice.
Another thing that is done very well done in this book is an explanation of the Flickr API. A solid, accessible API is critical to successful mashup use, and his explanation of how the Flickr API works is excellent. From getting your own API key to creating SQL feeds of Flickr data, he covers a number of possibilities that should have any photo-happy mashup artist coding in short order. The Flickr site and API are a constant work in progress, so you can't view this as a definitive guide to the package. The only way you can get that is to visit the website. But you'll receive a grounding in the fundamentals here, so you'll be well-equipped to handle the new stuff as it comes out.
Overall, I think this is a great series, and I'm looking forward to reading other Mashup titles. Flickr Mashups got the brain moving in areas I had never thought of, and I can see how this would be a must-read for any coder who can't live without their Flickr subscription...
It's hard not to get inundated with all the talk of "Web 2.0" these days... Everything is "Ajax this, mashup that". But what exactly *is* a mashup, and how do you build one? Wrox has started a Mashup series of books, and I got a chance to take a look at Flickr Mashups by David Wilkinson. This is an excellent intro to the concept, focused on the Flickr website for content manipulation.
Contents: Rewriting the Web; Flickr - A Short Tour; Getting Ready to Mash; The Flickr API; Flickr Feeds; Remixing Flickr Using the API; Authenticating with Flickr; Uploading Photos; Remixing Flickr Using Greasemonkey; Working with ImageMagick, Visualizing the News; Searching the Blogosphere; Displaying Your Photos with Google Maps; Caching Your Data; Answers to Exercises; Flickr API Methods; Response Data Structures; Useful Resources; Index
To start with, you shouldn't have the expectation that you'll be able to (or even want to) run every mashup that's here. Rather than confine his examples to a single small set of technology tools, Wilkinson uses a wide array of software, such as PHP, Perl, JavaScript, Java, Greasemonkey, ImageMagick, and others. When he first talks about a technology like Greasemonkey, he gives some basic information to get the software and install it. From there, he builds the mashup with some pretty detailed explanations on the code and results. He states in the forward that the examples *should* be easy enough to follow even if you're not terribly familiar with the language, like PHP. Overall that seems to be the case. But to be honest, you'll probably get a lot more out of the book if you're already conversant with PHP, as a lot of the examples use that. But even if the particular language of the example isn't your forte, you should be able to take the general idea and apply the concepts to your tool of choice.
Another thing that is done very well done in this book is an explanation of the Flickr API. A solid, accessible API is critical to successful mashup use, and his explanation of how the Flickr API works is excellent. From getting your own API key to creating SQL feeds of Flickr data, he covers a number of possibilities that should have any photo-happy mashup artist coding in short order. The Flickr site and API are a constant work in progress, so you can't view this as a definitive guide to the package. The only way you can get that is to visit the website. But you'll receive a grounding in the fundamentals here, so you'll be well-equipped to handle the new stuff as it comes out.
Overall, I think this is a great series, and I'm looking forward to reading other Mashup titles. Flickr Mashups got the brain moving in areas I had never thought of, and I can see how this would be a must-read for any coder who can't live without their Flickr subscription...
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Comments
I got my custom gallery up and running in only a couple of days.
Posted by Elan At 22:48:47 On 09/04/2007 | - Website - |