Gadgets/Services/Products I bought this year

Here are the gadgets/products/services I bought/sign-up for this year (personal or work):

• Nokia n95
• Flip Mino
• Motorola Q9h (my current cell phone)
• Ribbit Amphibian service
• Ribbit for Salesforce
• Macbook Pro
• Google Ad Words
• Google Analytics
• WordPress
• Flickr Pro service
• Tripit.com
• Kodak W1020 Wi-Fi Frame
• at&t u-verse
• meetup.com subscription
• YMCA Gym Membership
• Netflix
• Napster Mobile
• Constant Contact
• Vertical Response

What is on your list?

NPR Station Finder API is Released

Just released this week is an interesting API for those developers / mash-up artists out there.  Announcing the NPR Station Finder API – now you can pass in the zip code (and a few other values) and find the station to hear Car Talk or Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me (my two favorite shows on NPR on KQED in the SF Bay Area). This has great potential for a mobile widget (widget developers check out the MOTODEV Challenge and the VE66 and EM35) where if I am in Chicago for the first time and want to know what the NPR local station is, I just load up the widget on my phone, punch in my zip code I’m in (or if GPS capable phone select my current location) and then viola I have my radio station that I turn the dial too. 
 

Here is the api information that I pulled from the NPR site:

The following get passed to the Station Finder API, as query string parameters on the base URL (http://api.npr.org/stations.php):

apiKey
The apiKey parameter is required for all API requests. To get a key, you must register. Once registered, you can get and/or change your apiKey from your Account Manager.
Upon registration, your apiKey will be saved to a cookie that will enable the Query Generator to apply your apiKey to your queries. 

zip
Searches for stations that can be heard in the provided zip code.

city
Searches for stations that can be heard in the provided city/state. When using city, the state parameter must also be used.

state
Searches for stations that can be heard in the provided city/state. When using state, the city parameter must also be used.

callLetters
The call letters are the unique identifiers associated with the stations. This parameter searches for stations that have the provided call letters, or are related to the provided call letters. Can be used with the band parameter to refine the search.

band
The band indicates if the station is an FM or AM station. This parameter searches for stations that have the provided call letters AND band, or are related to the provided call letters AND band. This parameter must be used with the call letters parameter.

network
Searches for stations that belong to the provided network.

lat
Searches for stations that can be heard in the provided latitude/longitude. Both parameters are float values. This parameter must be used with the lon parameter. The system is always expecting the latitude to be a positive value.

lon
Searches for stations that can be heard in the provided latitude/longitude. Both parameters are float values. This parameter must be used with the lat parameter. The system is always expecting the longitude to be a positive value.

id
The unique ID associated with the organization.

 

-Randy

Brainstorming Mobile Widgets for MOTODEV Widget Developer Challenge

I was brainstorming on mobile widgets that developers could make using our new development tool called MOTODEV Studio for WebUI. We’re (Motorola, my employer btw) running a mobile widget contest where you can easily build a widget using our software development tool with no previous mobile experience. If you have a web development background in html, javascript, css this tool and contest is for you.

Here are some mobile widget ideas:

• Obvious is Twitter. Pull their data feed your favorite people to follow
• Showcase your friend’s photo on Flickr
• A baby feeding monitor widget which shows history of any activity and alerts you when the next time to feed is. Great for the husband at work wanting to know how his wife and baby are doing.
• How about one to pull in a data feed of the available conference rooms?
• Do u have any non-profit ideas? Widget that pulls data from the American Cancer Society? Location-based widget that pulls in the nearest homeless shelter that needs help? or a blood-bank that needs donations?
• Can you use Yahoo! Pipes to come with a funky mashup of data to pull?

If you build a mobile widget using MOTODEV Studio for WebUI and enter it into our contest by December 18, 2008 you win a $250 USD Amazon.com gift certificate.  Over $200,000 of prizes are available as well as great exposure from Motorola.  Contest ends in February but the $250 offer for the 1st 100 people submitting widgets expire on Dec. 18!!  Learn more, read the official rules and submit your widget now!

Here is a video interview with my co-worker Francois Goldfain from MOTODEV talking about WebUI and widgets:

-Randy

Questions  or comments?  LMK.