More tutorial goodness for those of you who are getting started writing Facebook apps, and especially if you’re attending next Tuesday’s Facebook Developer Garage [here’s the wiki page | here’s the Facebook event]: I’ve got another Facebook developer tutorial up on the Tucows Developer Blog. This one covers the “Friends” methods of the FacebookRestClient class.
Take a look at this article from China View, the English-language site run by China’s official Xinhua News Agency and pay particular attention to the accompanying photo:
Click the screenshot to see it at full size.
What’s happening here? I’ll let Computerworld explain:
The article, which appeared on China’s official Xinhua News Agency’s English news site on Monday, displays text about a new genetic discovery relating to MS, attributed to “agencies.” Alongside is an x-ray rendering of the diminutive brain of the cartoon character Homer Simpson, attributed as a “file photo.”
This isn’t the first time Chinese media has fallen prey to satire presented to an English-language audience. In 2002, the Beijing Evening News (Beijing Wan Bao) picked up an article from humor site The Onion, stating that the U.S. Congress had threatened to move out of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., unless the building were upgraded to include a retractable dome. The newspaper also ran a drawing The Onion had published of the fictional new roof design.
Both online and print media in China routinely use photos downloaded or scanned from other sources without proper attribution or copyright permission.
I can understand how it’s possible that someone at China View might not known enough North American cultural folderol under their belt to recognize Homer Simpson, but wouldn’t whoever incuded the x-ray image have thought that it looked a little odd? I suppose it’s possible that he or she thought it was a diagram in the style of Asian electronics instruction manuals, which are full of cartoony characters.
It may be a small addition, but it’s a useful one. You know how Google Maps directions give you an estimate of how long your trip will take? They now include an additional estimate: how long your trip will take in traffic.
Hey, budding Facebook developers! I’ve got another installment of my series of articles on Facebook development: Using the FacebookRestClient Class’ “Event” Methods, Part 2.
Categories
Seven Lessons from Intuit
Patrick “Fitzblog” Fitzsimmons has been reading Inside Intuit and has come up with Seven Startup Lessons from Intuit (which could be applied to any business, not just startups):
- Business skills and technical skills are equally important.
- Learn from non-technology businesses.
- Your competitor is not other companies, but the way that things are done now.
- Talk to as many potential customers as you can, from the very beginning.
- Focus your product on the absolute essential user needs.
- Even future billion dollar companies will teeter on the brink of defeat.
- Do right by your customers.
The article has this list, with each point explained in more detail.
Over at the Tucows Developer Blog, I’ve posted another Facebook development article: Using the FacebookRestClient Class’ “Event” Methods, Part 1, in which I look at the events_get method of the PHP FacebookRestClient class.
“I felt a great disturbance in the force,” goes Obi-Wan Kenobi’s line from Star Wars: A New Hope, “As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror. Then were suddenly silenced.”
If you just heard those voices, here’s why: as of this writing, Facebook is “temporarily unavailable”. And just when I’m testing out the code for part two of the tutorial article series I’m working on…
