Noise River - FriendFeed

“Hmmm, since @directeur's back, and before he gets his new job, maybe I can nudge him into adding some kind of settable CSS or just colour for NoiseRiver? I'm getting tired of tiny grey text on white ... It's bad enough it's becoming the "standard," it's borderline unreadable. [grump]”

Tuesday at 4:54 pm - via NoiseRiver - Link

Alexander Williams posted a message

“Hey, what happened to my ability to Like and Link and ... stuff?”

October 6 at 3:12 pm - via NoiseRiver - Link

Oh, there it is. Weird. - Alexander Williams via NoiseRiver

:) - directeur via NoiseRiver

Michael Fidler posted a link

By the Water

October 5 at 6:43 am - via Bookmarklet - Link

MiniMage LightBlueRanger, BeeLing, Kevin Johnson and xero liked this

Alexander Williams posted a message

“A great advantage of NoiseRiver: I can set both "McCain" and "Obama" as "Nope, never want to see that again" and be done with a good chunk of the whole mess. The only thing that'd be better is if I could set those filters on a room-specific basis.”

October 3 at 11:31 pm - via NoiseRiver - Link

Dread Pirate PJ posted a link

Bug? I have wordpress and developer in my interests, but this story title doesn't highlight

September 16 at 12:31 pm - Link

BTW, hi directeur. Sorry i've been away for 6 weeks. Great job with noiseriver, still rocks my world. - Dread Pirate PJ

I think it had to do with WordPress having that capital P in the middle, because THIS story does highlight correctly because it has wordpress <-- lowercase letters - in the title. - Dread Pirate PJ via NoiseRiver

@Dread Pirate PJ: Hi mate! Sorry for the delay, I was off friendfeed. Thanks for the report, I'll look at this issue and tell you :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

scott willeke posted a message

“Out of curiosity is there any information about the implementation detais of noisriver? i noticed t is hosted via GoogleAppEngine and am curious about things such as where/how data is stored, if you liked working with GAE, any details might be interesting, etc.”

July 24 at 4:19 am - Link

Bryan Landers and lonnie b hodge liked this

@scott willeke (scottwilleke): Well, the data is stored on appengine's datastore and right now it's using two "tables" (one for profiles and the new one for watched urls) - directeur via NoiseRiver

3 more comments

So, is the imported API data stored on App Engine's DB or does NoiseRiver hit the FF API each time a page is loaded? - Bryan Landers

Some pieces are in the memcache. I'm not storing entries actually - directeur via NoiseRiver

Very cool. Thanks, directeur. Great app - it's very fast/responsive. Keep up the good work! - Bryan Landers

Thank YOU Brian :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

It is very responsive indeed: Well done ! - Antoine Bertier

A Yule posted a message

“Whats with the masculine gender preference in the neighborhood adder? "I hate him"? Lame!!!!!!!!”

September 4 at 9:25 am - Link

Majento™ posted a message

“NR for non iPhone mobile? Any plans?”

August 12 at 8:34 pm - Link

Mark Kaplan liked this

Alexander Williams posted a message

“[Bug] Huh, weird, just realized the Share Something entry box never got modded to expand to multiple lines on long entries.”

August 5 at 3:27 pm - via NoiseRiver - Link

Yeah :( It needs to be treated as the comments boxes, you're right. Will be fixed ASAP :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

@directeur: Uber. Nice to know you're still in the game. ;) - Alexander Williams via NoiseRiver

Thanks Alexander, I'm actually on 3 other projects, plus my daily job... So you guess how overwhelmed I could be sometimes :( - directeur via NoiseRiver

@directeur: Just drop us a line once in a while, we'll be satisfied. ;) - Alexander Williams via NoiseRiver

Alexander Williams posted a link

@directeur, can we rip off the StumbleRead interface wholesale? Can we, can we, pleeeeeease? Or if not wholesale, in some way mark what I've read / seen already...

August 5 at 3:26 pm - via NoiseRiver - Link

ha ha. love it :). If we get more momentum individually we should join forces (I'm the StumbleRead developer) - Adam Loving

@Adam Loving (adaml): I'd be all about that happening, Adam. From a user flexibility option, I want all my best tools in one package. Do you have a FriendFeed Room for StumbleRead yet? (Incidently, I have cruel, frequent bug reports and suggestions ... Ask @directeur what a pain in the tookas I am.) ;) - Alexander Williams via NoiseRiver

Hey folks! :) Sorry for the delay, I'm off friendfeed (I need some time to code something) Alexander: What you mainly need is a "I've read this" feature, right? Adam: I'd be happy to exchange ideas and why not join forces and help anytime! :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

@directeur: Yeah. Not just "I've read this" but some way to mark that I'm done reading for the moment, mark this moment up to date and later, let me know when stuff has arrived / changed after. That and "I read this" have to go together to even begin to stem this tide ... And I subscribe to remarkably few! - Alexander Williams via NoiseRiver

Tim Hoeck posted a message

“How about enabling tweets when replying to twitter entries?”

August 5 at 6:31 am - via NoiseRiver - Link

Definitely Thinking of it Tim - directeur via NoiseRiver

Tim Hoeck posted a message

“Can a link be added somewhere (maybe in the mouseover) to a users FriendFeed page (as opposed to the NR user page), since we have to visit FF to subscribe/unsubscribe/block?”

August 5 at 6:33 am - via NoiseRiver - Link

Kol Tregaskes and Alexander Williams liked this

Yes, the Friendfeed's team doesn't seem to be interested in adding "users subscriptions" feature to the API :( So, yeah, this is our last option :( - directeur via NoiseRiver

Tim Hoeck posted a message

“NR is sexist!! Mouseovers say 'Your feelings about HIS entries'.”

August 3 at 5:09 pm - via NoiseRiver - Link

Kol Tregaskes liked this

;) - Tim Hoeck via NoiseRiver

Grrr! I was sure that someone will end up by noticing it! I swear I LOVE girls... hum... some of them at least, well, ok, ok, I admit it: a lot of them actually :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

Tim Hoeck posted a link

Directeur's Wordle!

August 3 at 10:23 am - via Bookmarklet - Link

marcantonio severgnini and directeur liked this

this is from your post topics. - Tim Hoeck via Bookmarklet

Grrr! :) Good catch! It looks gorgeous by the way! - directeur via NoiseRiver

Tim Hoeck posted a link

.gif image links attempt to download as .png? not sure if this one is NR issue or not.

August 2 at 11:17 pm - via NoiseRiver - Link

Thank you Tim! Actually it's a blogger.com's issue. The difference betweeb NR and FF right now is that some thumbnails link to full-view pics on NR while they're linking to the page's URL on FF. I'll try to memic the FF's behavior :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

Tim Hoeck posted a link

Smugmug shows all photos, instead of a few and allowing you to expand.

August 3 at 2:17 am - via NoiseRiver - Link

Fixed! Thanks for reporting it Tim! :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

Tim Hoeck posted a link

Individual links to images from Picasa web albums broken?

August 2 at 5:49 pm - via NoiseRiver - Link

Thanks Tim for reporting this! Yes it seems that the API data are somehow abscure for Picasa :( I'll fix it asap! :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

Aden Davies posted a message

“Brnad new to this service just stumbling around trying to find the APML services...can anyone help?”

July 30 at 8:57 am - Link

I am also 'Brand new' ;-) - Aden Davies

Aden, you're having an issue? Can I help? - directeur via NoiseRiver

Yes I was just wondering how you create/export an APML file using this service...I am sure I read somewhere that you can? I read it here http://groups.google.com/group... - Aden Davies

directeur posted a message

“NoiseRiver Live Dev' Update: Going to push an update to the server, with mainly some fixes and a better error reporting. If something goes wrong, please let me know so I can roll back :)”

July 30 at 5:51 am - via NoiseRiver - Link

directeur posted a message

“A test for my lil' sister تنها ترین :)”

July 27 at 7:40 am - via NoiseRiver - Link

marcantonio severgnini and Little Angel liked this

TX - Little Angel

14 more comments

@تنها ترین (gharibeh): You're welcome :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

@directeur: One of these days I'll have to learn to read ... ah ... whatever that is. Arabic? - Alexander Williams via NoiseRiver

It's Persian, aka Farsi or Parsi. @directeur: khosh amadid, dustem (I don't know how to type or read Farsi. In fact, that's the only phrase I know.) - Dread Pirate PJ

Dread : Yeah buddy, you are right, and if you want to know more about Persian (Farsi), {for example the phrase what you said}, the syntactic shape of that sentence is "Khosh amadid doust-e man" "خوش آمديد دوست من" That means : "Welcome my friend". - A.Diba

Dread :TX for explaining... WOW This is GREAT! and TX to Alberto for bringing this up :D It was lost between my other posts and never saw your comments. and by the way your welcome means " khahesh mikonam " خواهش میکنم In Farsi....:-) Best - Little Angel

I had a Persian friend in college in the USA about 15 years ago. He taught me a few phrases, but "welcome my friend" is the only one I remembered. Like I said, I only know the phrase, I don't know how to read or write Farsi. Thanks for teaching me some more. :-) - Dread Pirate PJ

Hey folks! :) I actually don't speak farsi, or even understand it. تنها ترین and other nice folks taught me some phrases. I do in the other hand speak, write and read arabic very well! It's the 2nd language I learned, and I wish I can speak Farsi too :) - directeur

directeur : if you can read arabic and know arabian words so you can learn Farsi without difficulty, Cuz there are many similarity bet this 2 languages as we know them. - A.Diba

Dread : This is awesome that you still remember these phrases! WOW I am amazed! We would be more than happy to teach more, if you like.. How about starting with Goodnight = " shab be kheir " شب به خیر " This is the first lesson for the start and conclusion of this conversation :) - Little Angel

directeur: Hey big bro.. what's up? Did you get a chance to look at the issue? any hope or news?! - Little Angel

@Alberto: In fact! I'm discovering thata arabic and Farsi share some words! Like sabah, chams, kheir, salam... and being able to read arabic characters, it's not rocket science for to understand some of them :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

@تنها ترین: Hey Lil' sister! :) I'm fine thanks, coding as usual... About the issue, I'm still struggling with the API limit we are experiencing today me, Ben, and Pat :( I'll let you know, I promise :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

THANKS a BUNCH! you are the best my bro . مرسی - Little Angel

:) You are more than welcome lil' sister! - directeur via NoiseRiver

directeur:so I invite you and everyone who likes to know more about Persian lang. join us in this amicable room : http://friendfeed.com/rooms/pe... - A.Diba

Uh, Alberto TX, I didn't think about this :) Nice of you! - Little Angel

directeur posted a message

“To NoiseRiver Users: We're having some problems due to an API limit. I just reported it to the FriendFeed's team. Sorry for the annoyance :(”

July 29 at 2:52 am - Link

Ontario Emperor liked this

Dread Pirate PJ posted a message

“Problems login in, again :-(”

July 28 at 8:49 pm - Link

Ontario Emperor liked this

same here :( first time I have had issues since launch pretty much.. - Tim Hoeck

Ditto. Finally got logged in, refreshed page and I was back out. Couldn't post a comment while in either. - Marvin Smith

Sorry folks, we're having some API limit errors. I just wrote to the FriendFeed's team about it. It seems that fftogo is experiencing the same problem. - directeur

Alexander Williams posted a message

“Well, that's annoying ... I can't seem to login to NoiseRiver.”

July 29 at 2:27 am - Link

Brian Sullivan posted a message

“Just tried Noise River for the first time -- can't get past the "visual" noise -- going back to ff web interface”

July 28 at 5:33 pm - Link

You mean the colors? Brian? What don't you like exactly? :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

5 more comments

Yes the colours, horizontal lines, font spacing and whole layout is just to much for me. Maybe I will try again but it just was not working for me. - Brian Sullivan

Hum... Font spacing? I haven't that issue... Actually, it's my fault. NoiseRiver just entered "beta phase", it's 1 month old. I concentrated my energy on features dev' during the alpha stage. But you're right: Design is definitely a thing to improve. Thanks for your feedback, and please give it another chance, I'm sure you'll like many of the features that the ff web doesn't still have :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

Maybe you would do better by copying exactly the FF interface and CSS and making small mods from there? (BTW by font spacing I meant line spacing/leading) - Brian Sullivan

Well, yes, the FF interface is great but I won't dare to copy it... They're nice enough to give me API access, I bet that they won't like if I make something similar. About the line height, is it too small/big? - directeur via NoiseRiver

line height seems to high for size of font - Brian Sullivan

I actually started working on a Greasemonkey script for NoiseRiver, kinda like the Cleaner FriendFeed script. I also don't like the big graphic and whitespace at the top. - Rah™

Ah! Thanks again for your input! This week will definitely be a design week for me :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

Little Angel posted a message

“I have a quick question about Noise River... I am trying to share an image and it deosn't work... Can anybody help me plz?”

July 27 at 7:10 am - Link

Of course Lil' Sister! What are you doing exactly? :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

6 more comments

Hi big Bro ! I thought you are not here :) well I am clicking on the share something , type a message and past and URL in Add an Image and when I click on share nothing happens :( - Little Angel

@تنها ترین: Hey Lil' Sister! :) Actually the input box below the one where you type your message is for a URL to a webpage. To add an image or a sound, click on the links inside the yellow box where you can read: "Want media? Add an Image or a Sound" :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

I'm sorry i didn't read you message well. Can you please paste the image's url you want to share here, so I can do a test myself and understand what happens? :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

Sure! here is the URL : http://www.thefrozenmemory.com... - Little Angel

Ah! It's the URL of the gallery page that contains the image. The image's URL is actually here: http://www.thefrozenmemory.com... - directeur via NoiseRiver

but still I can't share it myself :( could be something with my NoiseRiver settings? - Little Angel

@تنها ترین (gharibeh): Strange... I'm studying this issue! Can you share anything else, even without a picture? Say, a simple message? - directeur via NoiseRiver

Thanks a bunch Big Bro :) - Little Angel

Cathleen Rittereiser posted a message

“Login Problems: I am no longer having remote key login problems on NoiseRiver though I have been trying MioNews and it's still not working there. But that's not NoiseRiver's problem.”

July 15 at 6:34 pm - Link

Thanks Catheleen for letting me know about that! Finally that darn login problem vanished! :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

Cathleen - the login issues were because mioNews has been getting blocked from using the FriendFeed API, but I think we're mostly past those issues. Please try again if you have a moment :) - Patrick Lightbody

@Patrick Lightbody (plightbo): Thanks Pat for your asking for the "multi entries by IDs" feature! I'm currently using it in NoiseRiver's watch feature :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

Cool - I was thinking about adding a watch feature as well. - Patrick Lightbody

scott willeke posted a message

“Is there no reposting back to twitter when replying to tweets like FF does?”

July 24 at 8:38 pm - via NoiseRiver - Link

Not yet, It'll be nice if FriendFeed offers an API call for this and I'll implement it in the next 5 minutes when they'll do it. Of course, we still can implement it without a FriendFeed's special api call, but Ben Golub is apparently making some consulting for FriendFeed and he asked for this very feature in the past, so let's expect it soon ;-) - directeur via NoiseRiver

thanks for the response! - scott willeke

You're welcome Scott :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

Alexander Williams posted a message

“I'm not sure about the new Eye feature. Turning it ON puts a bar across the eye? It feels unintuitive at a UI level. Maybe a closed eye is the default state which opens when you're grouping by URL. And the ability to set it default ON would be nice.”

July 25 at 4:47 pm - via NoiseRiver - Link

Thanks for the feedback Alexander! Well, setting by default to watch every url will take so much resources that the page will take an eternity to load :( Too sad, the friendfeed's API though rich still lacks some cool things. About the eye, you're right! I actually was in a hurry to release it and have it tested, But I'd really like to find two eyes icons (one shut and one open) can you please help me? :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

2 more comments

@directeur: The eye you have works for open. Maybe Gimp in some eyelids. :) - Alexander Williams via NoiseRiver

@directeur: Possibly this for the eye open ... http://tinyurl.com/5zfjmr - Alexander Williams via NoiseRiver

@Alexander Williams (squidlord): Thanks for your help! :) And YES! viva GIMP, that's what I'm using along with InkScape :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

Ha! Eye of sauron. - possible248 via NoiseRiver

Rah™ posted a message

“I just realized why I stopped using NoiseRiver. It doesn't combine stuff. M. Saleem's Digg's, for instance, take up a lot of realestate”

July 23 at 11:29 am - Link

steplow is Steve liked this

@Rahsheen Porter (rahsheen): Blame the friendfeed's API :( I asked for it many weeks ago and still no answer - directeur via NoiseRiver

@directeur: Though, to be fair, TECHNICALLY you could do it on the back-end side parsing for group-by-service. Straight-up report-generation algorithm stuff there. "Detect changes from previous entry, nest, continue." - Alexander Williams via NoiseRiver

@Alexander Williams (squidlord): Well yes, but it's like implementing a personal "hide" when this should be given by the API... anyway, I'm not giving it up :) I WILL make it! - directeur via NoiseRiver

Michael W. May posted a message

“Anyone with mad (or workable) CSS skills feel like writing a UserStyle.org type of deal? I cannot use noiseriver for long with all the white background, eye problems.”

July 23 at 5:01 am - via NoiseRiver - Link

Evans sims seems to be working on this: http://noiseriver.com/entry/0c... :) - directeur via NoiseRiver

There needs to be something. I find it harder to read (or browse in my case) in NoiseRiver than I do in FF. - Mike Wills

@Mike Wills (mikewills): Details? Please? Because if it's a style problem that would be really easy to solve. The hardest is when people request things not yet offered by the API and that aren't doable without API calls - directeur via NoiseRiver

Maybe if you could block off each "article" in a light colored box. And of course I mentioned the automatic refresh previously. An option to open links a new window would be nice. - Mike Wills