Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with develop

Heckuva Brownie!

gc — Sat, 30 May 2009 11:57:18 -0800

Hey, Seattle-area photographers! I was just gifted a Baby Brownie Special for helping a family member find a good computer. I'm really excited and I want to start using it. Just a few things... First, and most importantly, where can I find 127 film in Seattle? I've found some online sources, like B&H, who sell cheap black and white, but I'd really like some color film.

Second, where can I get the film developed in Seattle? I've found a place in Portland, but I'd prefer local.

Third, the shutter is a little gummy. It can take the shutter anywhere from less than half a second to three or four seconds to "open and close" (it moves on a wheel, rather than an aperture). CameraTechs up in Ballard look promising. Anyone have a good camera repair guy or lady they'd recommend?

How can I improve my ability to explain things better?

razzman — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:55:08 -0800

How can I improve my ability to explain things better? This could be anything from describing a film I watched yesterday to a friend...to explaining technological solutions such as GPS, or 'RSS feeds' to non-technical managers at a business. Are there any basic rules with explanations which could help improve general explanation skills? Were you crap at explaining things but have now improved? How did you do it?

Where to develop underwater camera film?

roxie110 — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 09:46:28 -0800

Where should I get my underwater camera film developed in San Francisco (or by mail, if there's a good option)? I bought one of those cheap underwater cameras for a trip to Mexico, but don't really want to get it developed at a drug store like Walgreens or Rite Aid. But because it's a cheap camera, there are probably only a few good photos on there, and I don't want to spend a fortune for 20 blurry fishlike photos. Any suggestions for a happy medium? Thanks!

Anyway to develop iPhone/iTouch apps without investing in a Mac?

nmaster64 — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:16:25 -0800

I'm interested in developing iPhone/iPod Touch applications, however my understanding is the SDK only works in OSX. I have a XP desktop and a Vista notebook with an AMD Athlon and Turion (both dual core) respectively, both pretty good machines. Is there any way to avoid spending serious cash buying a Mac just to get into iPhone development?

Anonymous development?

Anonymous — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 15:27:13 -0800

I need to get some film developed, and I don't want it to be seen by anyone. I have some 35mm film that got mixed up during a move. There are pictures of an important family event mixed with very compromising pictures of an ex-girlfriend that I am still on good terms with. Nothing has been developed because I do not, under any circumstances, want the explicit pictures to get out.

Is there a way to get these developed and not have them seen (even index prints)? I used to develop my own B&W, but I no longer have the equipment, and I have no experience with color.

Bonus points for coming up with a method that has no human involvement whatsoever, as I would rather not have them developed then have the possibility of incriminating pictures of this person ending up online somewhere.

How to make an updatable CD-Rom

Pericles — Tue, 14 Dec 2004 08:30:16 -0800

Making an "updatable" CD-Rom (lots of linked, searchable pdfs/ docs) that needs to check the web for updated documents and download them to user's hard-drive, subsequently seamlessly showing data from HD/ CD as necessary. Any resources on coding said beast? Google-fu fails me. I'm envisaging a PC-based solution; perhaps browser-based, downloading .docs/ .pdfs./ .swfs that are on ftp://updates.website.com with a later create date than their corrollaries on the cd.

I'm agnostic as to programming languages.

Microsoft Script Debugger

mmascolino — Tue, 10 Aug 2004 14:02:26 -0800

Microsoft Script Debugger - Has anyone actually gotten this thing to work properly? I've got some JavaScript (that I didn't write) that is completely bisbehaving in IE (although it produces no errors...it works fine in FireFox, so my usual line of attack doesn't work). I've used the View | Script Debugger | Break at Next Statement and then refreshed the page. It opens the debugger app but doesn't open any source files and it most certainly doesn't break. Has anyone seen this behavior and overcome it?

Content cataloging script recommendations?

jca — Thu, 22 Apr 2004 12:13:36 -0800

Content cataloging script recommendations? I need to find a (PHP?) script to catalog content in a MySQL database for a website. Basically, it will be a website cataloging information about an item (like a CD, DVD, Book, and so on...). A few fields per entry. (Category, Title, Author/Artist, url, and other custom fields, such as an associated image, etc.) The database needs to be searchable/sortable by any field. And the user/surfer needs to be able to suggest/input entries (through forms), not just admin-side access. Ability to pull data in from sources such as IMDB, Amazon, etc. would be a bonus also.

Writing the script myself isn't an option at the moment.

Most CMS scripts seem overkill and not quite right - am I wrong about this? The few CD/DVD/Music/Media cataloging scripts I've seen aren't very customizable, and are usually geared towards one specific use or type of item.

Can anyone recommend any software/scripts?

Appreciate any help/info/suggestions.

Simulated stock market games.

Flat Feet Pete — Sun, 28 Mar 2004 19:34:50 -0800

I've been fascinated for a while with stiff like tradesports.com and the ill-fated DARPA terrorism futures market, and got to thinking about building a fake, toy futures market. There are systems out there that simulate markets, but they're either simple portfolio charters or they have randomly wobbling shares. I'm much more interested in valuations created by groups of users gaming on the outcome of real events.

Ideally, as I'm very lazy, someone will have written one of these already, but I've googled away and had no joy. It could be me not knowing the lingo used to describe these things.

Failing this can anybody recommend a framework to work within? I'm thinking of something (probably the usual php/mysql) with e-mail/users/password recovery etc. built in for me to start from. Maybe the toy market would be best developed as a plug in to something? I've been thinking about a pen and paper version, but I'm not sure how to merge the fact that pen and paper lets you have cool tokens with the liquidity you need for a market.

As for a code version I'm happy drawing charts etc. but if there was a way to have more work done for me, that would definitely be good. Also if it gets to a give-awayable state, people could be referred to the help for the existing system when fighting mysql / php issues.

Thanks in advance mighty meta brain.