dirtyBlog

Today I’ve made available a very basic (read-only) API. You can learn more about it on the about the API page. So far you can do basic interaction like searching:

http://api.dirtybeta.com/get/releases/search/dirtybeta

and then do lookups based on those results:

http://api.dirtybeta.com/get/release/id/1

Eventually the plan is to make the site completely functional without the GUI of the website, so that external applications like Widgets can benefit from the database completely without having to hit the website.

More to come!

So, it’s been a while eh? Since we had some problems with the old server, dirtyBeta is now hosted with slicehost! (Feel free to refer us if you like what you see).

This server seems pretty solid so far, and the sky’s the limit now. Look for new features soon!

If you’re seeing this, you’re seeing the new server. Sorry about the (very brief) outage!

So RSS dates have been broken since inception. They work now:

Oops!

(Also a new tag: shareware)

This is a pretty major release! And the halfway mark to version 1.0 has been crossed! YAR! Anyway here’s what’s new:

1. Per suggestion, increased the size of the tag cloud.
2. The tag page is now pretty icons instead of just boring ol’ text.
3. Fixed IE6 (boy I hate that browser) rendering bug created by tag icons.
4. Changed popularTags label in the sidebar to tagCloud, because, unlike releases, tags are not user-submitted. Makes more sense this way.
5. I noticed a while back that dates weren’t showing up in Netvibes. I really have no idea why that is, but I think I’ve fixed it. My guess is it was because the timestamp dates were defaulting to midnight (like they do), so all newly submitted releases should starting showing proper pubDates.

Now then, as usual with these sprint releases there are many small fixes and one major one. Here’s the biggee this time around: Added an RSS link to the top of each tag page. This has been in the software since inception, but hasn’t really been promoted or linked to (which is a good thing because version 0.4.5 broke it). This is a feature in a feed service that I’ve wanted for years and I’m really excited about it. Here are some typical examples that many folks will find useful:

• RSS feed of all open source software
• RSS feed of all new websites
• RSS feed of all Wii games
• RSS feed of all Xbox-360 games
• RSS feed of all Windows software

This is a pretty major release for dirtyBeta, and I’ve decided to finally start to promote the site a little more. Not really knowing many avenues to take to do this (which is embarassing because I have a minor in Marketing), I’ll be using some of the no-brainers like Digg and possibly Reddit (if I can retrieve my stinking password).

So if you’re here from one of those sites, welcome! If you’re wondering what this is all about, this is the companion blog for dirtyBeta, a software release syndication and feed service. dirtyBeta’s goal is to inform users about new software, video games and websites.

(Also, a quick note: If you’re here from a social bookmarking site and you’ve found one of my posts to be obnoxious or spammy, well then sorry, but that’s how those sites work. Some sites let you bury such stories, and they all certainly allow you to ignore entries. I sincerely think this service will be a valuable tool to many (or I wouldn’t try to promote it), and I’d love to have the word spread about it.)

Thanks, and I hope you enjoy this release.

In an effort to encourage folks to submit websites to the database, I’ve added the social tag. I’ve already added one site to get the ball rolling.

This was as very productive release! Here we go:

1. Release names are now highlighted along with summaries on the search page.
2. Speaking of search, there’s now a search form on every page like there should be on every page on all of the Interwebz!
3. Uh, searches and tag pages are now longer broken… cough…
4. Not that we’re there yet, but pagination now is intelligent enough to not shoot off into the hundreds (you should have seen the development box, it was nasty looking).
5. Fixed a bug in the tag cloud that was sizing tags with zero releases larger than those with just a few.

Now then! Those are the somewhat smaller updates. Here’s the big one that’s very obvious just by glancing at the release page: icons! Spiffy eh? Hope you enjoy:

Due to lack of use, the following tags have been removed:

1. adobe
2. apple (mac made more sense anyway)
3. bittorrent
4. driver
5. education
6. microsoft (ditto for windows)
7. nintendo
8. sony

… Not that anyone will miss them :) Also extension has been deprecated and moved to plugin.

This release is all about tabs! Releases can now by sorted by recently posted, recently released, highest traffic and most comments. This feature really should have made it in the first release…

Here’s a minor update…

Always on the lookout for ways to better organize releases, I’ve added three new tags: CMS, PS2 and PS3.

If you haven’t yet, check out Netvibes. They’re doing very cool things over there, including what I just used, their Universal Widget API.

I’ve been wanting to look into their technology a little more since they announced it a while back, and tonight I finally got to. Turns out it’s really simple to do! Tonight I got a functioning widget working.

This first widget I made is pretty weak though, to be honest. But I’m big on getting software out there and of course there’s always time to upgrade! Future versions will likely utilize basic tabs and paging.

So without further ado, here it is. You can add this widget directly to your Netvibes page using the below fancy-shmancy image, but be sure to check out the page and leave feedback if you’re already on Netvibes. Thanks!

(Man, testing these things is a bitch. I hope somebody finds this useful!)