Utata's Guru

Daily Ink

Stored in: Profiles

Posted On: July 28 2006

By: Catherine Jamieson

When I first encountered David Wilkinson it wasn't as the amazingly talented code guru, but rather as the photographer and human being. When he joined Utata, I knew right away he was a "keeper" and when he offered to help out with some things I wanted to do on Utata, I very happily dropped it all into his lap. Just ask him - he'd likely tell you a similar story ... " this crazy little Canadian woman just dropped this whole thing right in my lap!"

A few months later, David isn't the guy in the backroom making some code now and again, he's the tailor behind Utata's rather amazing and wonderful systems which allow us to step so confidently into this new world of "user generated content" and third party publishing of open source content. It's big stuff. He's not a fellow who slings some bits and bytes, he's the guy who decides how it will work and then makes it do so. And brilliantly, I might add. He's part of Utata and it would not work without him.

Naturally. I am not the only person who recognizes a good thing when they see it and David has been asked (and has agreed and is in the middle of doing it) to author a book on using the flickr API. Called flickr Mashups it will be published by Wiley under their WROX imprint in January of 2007.

Early promo material includes this blurb about the book:

Flickr Mashups shows the reader, in simple, easy to understand steps, how they can build tools and applications that interface with Flickr. Starting with the simple task of displaying a few of their recent photographs on a web page, the book walks the reader step-by-step through a series of projects, each one introducing new ideas and concepts, culminating with the book's most ambitious project - integrating data from both Flickr and Google Maps to create a fully functional geotagging application."

But you know - what do publishers know about fun, anyway?

Let me tell you - if you have *any* interest at all in being able to use photographs from flickr and do things with them on your own site - this is going to be a FUN book. Never mind all those braces and brackets and lines of code, think of them like necessary evils, this is about doing things beyond the normal with the data available from flickr.

Let me give you an example. This morning I asked David if he had any images I could use in this column - something about or from the book. But you know - he's British and self promotion is a little uncomfortable for him so naturally he didn't have a collection of either 8X10 glossies or promotional images on hand.

Now, ONLY a real guru would do what came next. Actually, only a real guru COULD do what came next. Keep in mind the top bit about me "dropping it in his lap" and so understand that I am a lot like most of you people ... it's all a little *magical* to me. Well, David had this very cool badge he was working on for the Utata site and I said "hey, what about that badge?" (instead of a 8X10 glossy or a promo shot).

"It's not very pretty," he said - meaning he hadn't had time to do any designing of it, it was just the basic code.

"I can make it pretty," I said.

It took about 2 minutes to explain what he needed and my response was ... "Oh cool! That's fun stuff!"

Well, making it pretty turns out to be making any sort of cool background space you like (including shadows and frames and ... well, whatever!) and then putting the images where they belong on the background space.

The usual questions followed ... "can we overlap images?" ... "do they have to be the same size?" ... "do they have to be in a pattern?"

The reponses were "yes", "no" and "no". Honestly, I'm all grown up and by most accounts an adult and this was as fun as being in high school art class!

"And people can just use this and make their own?"

"Yep."

"Cool!"

":)"

Of couse, Karl (our designer) would have made a MUCH spiffier and cooler background - but for 5 minutes of work from me, I must say, I was mighty impressed with the result - and it's actually sort of hard to impress me.

 

And THIS is the sort of stuff that David walks you through in his book. This is the sort of thing you can learn to build and use on your own site. This is just a glimpse of the powerful options available through the use of the flickr API and some clever coding. This little badge not only grabs the images from the place you specify (in this case the latest images in the Utata pool on flickr) but updates itself on whatever schedule you set it to. You see why I dropped this all in his lap? He's very good at this stuff.

But here's the rub. Ask anyone. ANYONE who has ever worked with me. I can be a tough nut to "teach" - pretty set in my ways and all that - but David has this way of being able to explain things to me so I *get* them in the ways I need to *get* them to make the decisions I need to make. Of all the things I can tell you about David and all the reasons I can offer why people should buy his book - it's this: the man is a good teacher and a good communicator. Knowing your stuff is only half the battle - you have to be able to explain it to other people. David Wilkinson can do that.

So, when it hits a bookstore near you, if you are into this whole flickr business at all ... if you wonder how it works and might like to try making it work for you - this is the book to buy.

2 comments on this Ink

On May 21, 2007, Jens Paulsen said ...

On May 21, 2007, Jens Paulsen said ...

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