It is the beginning of hurricane season and it is time to dream of perfect scenarios where the storm spins offshore, not making landfall,  and creates perfect waves.  To start it all off, the eastern pacific already has its first storm. http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/   Doesn't look like it will do much. I know that there won't be a storm on the east coast worth talking about until August/September, but that is only three months away!

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I've been working for a startup the last few months and they just release their app!  Read about it here, http://blog.talkto.com/.  It's a cool way to talk to businesses.  I use it to find out what beer is on tap at bars in the area and to ask what the surf report is from local surf shops.  If anyone not in the boston area wants an invite code, contact me.

App store link:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/talkto-boston/id498473863?ls=1&mt=8

More press:

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/innoeco/2012/04/talkto_raises_3_mil...

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/startups/2012/04/cambridges-talkto-rai...

http://venturefizz.com/deals/talkto-raises-3m-funding#.T4WL7ogPM2o.twitter

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This one looks like a wave generator with no landfall.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at2.shtml?5-daynl#contents

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This storm is far away, but the projected tracks look like it will be headed towards the east coast.  I just want to be in shape if this thing generates waves!

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gtwo/gtwo_atl_sub.shtml?area1#contents

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Thanks for the get well wishes from everyone!

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In my attempts to make http://speeqe.com an all javascript application, minus the django, I have been looking for ways to get rid of the avatar service speeqe provides. The avatar service simply takes the result from an XMPP vcard request and stores the image so that you can access it via a URL.  This can now be done all in the browser.  This post will give an example of how to use the StropheJS Vcard plugin and draw the result to an HTML canvas element.

You will need to download StropheJS and the StropheJS plugins.

https://github.com/metajack/strophejs

https://github.com/thepug/strophejs-plugins

First the HTML for our simple example:

https://github.com/thepug/strophejs-plugins/blob/master/vcard/examples/index....

The Javascript:

After asking for the vcard with the plugin, the result will be returned. This example uses jQuery to find the BINVAL element and the TYPE element. These elements contain the information needed to build your Image object with a data:url. After building the data url, the Image object is built. A callback for the onload event will use drawImage to display the resulting avatar.

https://github.com/thepug/strophejs-plugins/blob/master/vcard/examples/stroph...

// The important part. See the above url for the entire javascript bit.
$(function() {//StropheVcard defined above.
    StropheVcard.init();
    StropheVcard.connect(function() {
        StropheVcard.get(function(stanza) {
           //stanza is an xml element and jQuery can be used to find needed elements.
            var $vCard = $(stanza).find("vCard");
            var img = $vCard.find('BINVAL').text();
            var type = $vCard.find('TYPE').text();
            // Build the data:url
            var img_src = 'data:'+type+';base64,'+img;
            // find our canvas
            var ctx = $('#example').get(0).getContext('2d');
            var img = new Image();   // Create new Image object
            img.onload = function(){
                // execute drawImage statements here
                ctx.drawImage(img,0,0)
            }
            img.src = img_src;
        },
                         "thepug@speeqe.com");
    });
    StropheVcard.disconnect();
});

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See the full gallery on Posterous

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See the full gallery on Posterous

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A while back I found this cool jquery plugin that plays both ogg and mp3 files, http://www.happyworm.com/jquery/jplayer. Speeqe already had the ability to play mp3 files in the chat room, but I thought it would be cool to add a playlist for all music files in a chat room.  Speeqe now uses the jplayer plugin to manage such a playlist. To try it out simply go to a speeqe room, http://ogg.speeqe.com, and post a url of the music you want to share.

I am currently in the middle of a rewrite of the Speeqe javascript client.  It will use backbone.js and should be a lot easier to add features like this jplayer.  The next feature is to allow github.com links to be expanded and viewed nicely in a chat room.

If you are interested in contributing to Speeqe, the code is on github.

http://github.com/thepug/Speeqe

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As the hurricane season ends, I long for the back to back storms we had in September.  None of the storms made landfall and they created awesome surf. I had many days where I was out for five+ hours!  Odds are we won't have a similar situation in the coming seasons. This is the sixth season in a row where there hasn't been landfall.  It will be difficult to forget the surf that Earl and Nicole created.

More on this hurricane season. http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2010/nov/30/quirky-hurricane-season-ends-t...

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20101129_hurricaneseason.html

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See the full gallery on Posterous

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This post will dissappoint those looking for a detailed review of barcampchs. I just wanted to say that I had a great time and it seemed like people liked it.  Thanks to Dr. Starr and Mike Cole for bringing barcamp to the College of Charleston. Also, if it wasn't for Chrys Rynearson, barcamp wouldn't have been nearly as successful.  Of course all the sponsors and awesome volunteers helped considerably.  I only had a chance to go to three talks: the high frequency trading talk, jquery BoF, and the social graph. Next time I'll go to more talks than give two talks.

There is a barcampchs group on flickr. http://www.flickr.com/groups/barcampchs/

People are still talking about it too, http://collecta.com/s/barcampchs 

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Kally aka Tropikally Punch (my gf) skates for the lowcountry highrollers, http://lowcountryhighrollers.com/.  Here are pictures from the last bout.

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Igor is looking like more than an assistant to an evil doer.  The reports are looking good!

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Some hurricane Earl waves shot by Thomas Brothers Productions.

http://www.thomasbrothersblog.com/2010/09/hurricane-earl-video.html

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Earl generated some nice waves for SC yesterday!

Best pics found so far. http://follysurf.blogspot.com/2010/09/back-to-reality-but-fiona-could-deliver...

Put in a full days worth of surfing. 6:30am to 3pm (small break in between)

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