via blog.netflix.com

Friday, March 12, 2010

Netflix Prize Update

This is Neil Hunt, Chief Product Officer for Netflix.

About five months ago we announced that Netflix would sponsor a sequel to the Netflix Prize. We’ve given a lot thought to how to sponsor a contest that discovers more about the predictability of Netflix members’ movie watching behavior while always ensuring we protect Netflix members’ privacy.

In the past few months, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asked us how a Netflix Prize sequel might affect Netflix members’ privacy, and a lawsuit was filed by KamberLaw LLC pertaining to the sequel. With both the FTC and the plaintiffs’ lawyers, we’ve had very productive discussions centered on our commitment to protecting our members’ privacy.

We have reached an understanding with the FTC and have settled the lawsuit with plaintiffs. The resolution to both matters involves certain parameters for how we use Netflix data in any future research programs.

In light of all this, we have decided to not pursue the Netflix Prize sequel that we announced on August 6, 2009.

We will continue to explore ways to collaborate with the research community and improve our recommendations system so we can constantly improve the movie recommendations we make for you. So stay tuned.

Posted by NDH at 9:30 AM

so frustrating!

Posted via web from imzaid

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/* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Password Policy requires
– at least 8 characters
– at least 1 lower case
– at least 1 upper case
– at least 1 digit
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * /
function pwdPolicy($pwd){
   $policy = “/^.*(?=.{8,})(?=.*\d)(?=.*[a-z])(?=.*[A-Z]).*$/”;
   if(preg_match($policy, $pwd, $matches)){
      return true;
   } else return false;
}

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I used to use a Firefox extension called Vimperator that basically allowed me to control and navigate through websites using the keyboard with Vim like commands. It was a good tool, actually a great tool, but I got frustrated when I didn’t have this same functionality on Safari, or any Fluid apps (making web apps into a distinct desktop application).

I had planned initially on making jsVim work with websites I developed, but then I realized not too many people would be happy with Vim control on those pages, unless I had a unique activation key event that enabled the rest of the key commands. But anyway, I digress. So it occured to me that making it cross browser specific would be ideal, and the use of Grease[monkey,kit] would allow me to do that.

So long story short, I developed jsVim in javascript form and then created an accompanying Grease[monkey,kit] script to utilize jsVim. There’s still much work to be done (incorporating keyboard events for links/hrefs/onlicks, search/find, colon[:] console commands, etc), but I think what is available is a pretty good start to get this out into the wild.

You can use svn to check out the code, or you can just install the greasemonkey script and get to work using it right away (if you have grease[monkey,kit] already installed).

Greasemonkey script

SVN
svn co http://svn.jadecell.org/jsvim/

Here are some useful commands that should get you started working around in your browser:

• ‘j’ – scroll down on the page (like using the down arrow)
• ‘k’ – scroll up on the page (like using the up arrow)
• ‘Shift+j’ – scroll down a full page (like using the Page Down button)
• ‘Shift+k’ – scroll up a full page (like using the Page Up button)
• ‘h’ – scroll left on the page (like using the left arrow)
• ‘l’ – scoll right on the page (like using the right arrow)
• ‘Shift+h’ – Go Back in history (like the browser back button)
• ‘Shift+l’ – Go Forward in history (like the browser forward button)
• ‘Shift+g’ – goto the bottom of the page
• ‘gg’ or ‘U’ – goto the top of the page
• ‘Alt+Shift+?’ – disable jsVim keyboard shortcuts
• ‘Esc’ – re-enable keyboard shortcuts, remove cursor in a form field from view, remove bottom console window

The next big TODO, is to get link navigation working and a full out help menu when you press the ‘?’ in the window.

Any other ideas and comments are always welcome.

===================

UPDATE:
This script will not work with Firefox’s quick search. Be sure to uncheck “Search for text when I start typing” in the Preferences >> Advanced >> General settings. I’m sure there is a workaround for this, but in the meantime, to get quicksearch up is to type ‘/’, i’ll have my quicksearch disabled until I can get this to work well.

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myPyTunes has been recoded and I’m planning to classify (OOP) it for the next update. Another step will be to make it a fully integrated web application with server so it’s completely portable. In due time I guess, but until then, here is the link to the Main Website and SVN

http://www.assembla.com/wiki/show/mypytunes 

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I’ve been to a few conferences, AjaxWorld being one of them (which in a way could have been a complete waste of time if it weren’t for the networking aspect of it). Don’t get me wrong, a few of the panels at AjaxWorld were very good, but not $1500 worth. Not to mention, I saw alot of the same panels weeks before online. The best way I like to look at it is, if you’re a developer….don’t go to AjaxWorld! You live and you learn I guess.

But I digress, back to SxSWi. So the entry fee was very reasonable in comparison to what I’ve been paying before for other conferences, but it made sense as I walked amongst many of the attendants. Everybody was in a startup, or had been in a startup. I’ve never had the pleasure of being where most of these people were, and I envy that. Big adventure, struggles, working together on something new….its exciting stuff. And here’s little old me trying to find out about the latest and greatest in web tech so I can jazz up our company site, while everybody else is trying to understand the pitfalls and bottlenecks of a starving company. I don’t think I’m ready for that (plus I don’t think I can survive financially at this point in my life), but it’s a dream to be there sometime in the future.

The conference touched on everything imaginable related to the web tech industry: developers, designers, bloggers, artists, venture capitalists…you name it, they were there. And to see big names like Adobe, Sun Microsystems, and Microsoft amongst all these little guys, and the way they were there to help the community, rather than take over, made it that much better. I had just learned that AOL finally decided to make AIM open source….which is just great! I knew they had API’s available to the public, but to actually go out and release the code, finally gave me the nerve to respect them (just a little bit at least). [I haven't actually gone out and looked at the code yet, so this statement could change, fyi].

Onto the parties. The parties were great (except for the Facebook parties, don’t go to them unless you like boozhee, shiny shirt, and god-wannabe door people). Yeah, sure, BT was there, but it just seemed too much like a commercial party. Which brings me to how the 16-bit party was….lame!! Too many dam people, no free drinks (apparently the check didn’t clear?), a line from hell (luckily we got there early), aggravated people (as my friend Andy likes to say: it’s like the many components packed into a notebook with a crappy heatsink). If there were a 32-bit party, no possible way am I recommending that to anybody.

Anyway, the Pure Volume Ranch parties were awesome! The Gametap party was even better (the food they had was amazing!). The Frog Design venue was nuttz. The 16-bit party should have used that venue instead of the Scoot Inn. The Digg party (at pure volume ranch) was pretty good as well, apparently Mark Cuban was there (cool I guess, but the Rockets are winning the championship this year). Midway through, I got a text from a friend about Moby being at the Mohawk, so we headed out there. That venue is AMAZING! Not just because I know some people, that know people, who know people that are affiliated with the place (yeah, I’m practically just a normal citizen at that point huh?), but from what it looked like a year ago in comparison to today….all I have to say is WOW.

Anyway, I’m not the biggest fan of Moby, but he did rock it that night, and the crowd responded very well which is always good to see. He did make an appearance at the Digg party afterward as well, so I’m sure they were thrilled to see him (better than just Mark Cuban….Ha, just kidding).

-

You can find out about the adventure in Eugene Hsu’s post on Ungerground Online’s website. More pics of the Moby event are available there as well.

So now that the Interactive conference is done, the music portion of SxSW has started, and I’m attending a few events here and there for that. I’ve got a few videos, and photos up, but I’ll save that for another post (maybe).

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I found this useful to have installed on the Mac Mini sitting on a desk while i was across the room on my Powerbook. Very handy since I didn’t want to have to get up every time I wanted to change the song, or pause it when the phone rang, etc.

So far its a pretty clean traslation over with a few modified functions, and a few functions I’ve thrown in from other posts I had seen, or functions I feel would be cool to be added.

I’ve only tested this on OSX 10.4.11 – iTunes 7.6, so even though I believe it should work on other versions of iTunes/OSX, don’t take my word for it, but please let me know if you do run into any problems with it.

Right now i’ll upload the file along with this blog, but i’ll be sure to use a versioning tool as i make updates.

Download myPyTunes here – Right click the link and choose “Save As..”

Here is the basic help menu when you type in “itunes -h”:

———————————————————-
iTunes Command Line Interface
———————————————————-
Usage: /usr/bin/itunes <option>
Options:
status = Shows iTunes’ status, current artist, and track.
play = Start playing iTunes.
stop = Stop iTunes
pause = Pause iTunes.
playpause = Play/Pause iTunes.
next = Go to the next track.
prev = Go to the previous track.
mute = Mute iTunes’ volume.
unmute = Unmute iTunes’ volume.
vol up = Increase iTunes’ volume by 10%
vol down = Increase iTunes’ volume by 10%
vol # = Set iTunes’ volume to # [0-100]
quit = Quit iTunes
launch = Launch iTunes
playlist @ = Play iTunes’ playlist named @”
list = list playlists.
shuf = turn on shuffle playlist
noshuf = turn off shuffle playlist
ostream = open stream
help = what’s showing now
———————————————————-

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i found several ways of solving the issue, which seem to be rather interesting. many people thought that the if/else was probably the best way to go…of course we can’t have that, and continued to find some people stating to use the dict like command to determine your call. for example:

def performAction1():
   print “some crap”
def performAction2():
   print “some more crap”
{
   ”action1″: performAction1,
   ”action2″: performAction2,
   …etc…
}[actionToPerformString]()

this seemed to be a good way to do it, but something about the actionToPerformString trailing like that bothered me, so there was also this method which seemed to be more visually pleasing to me:

def defaultActionToPerform():
   print “default crap”
action = {
   ”action1″: performAction1,
   ”action2″: performAction2,
   …etc…
}
action.get(actionToPerformString, defaultActionToPerform)()

as you can see, it also allowed for a default function to be called, plus it reall just does look cleaner. if anybody has a more elegant solution, please feel free to comment.

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There are several times where i’m just oblivious to alot of what they’re talking about…mostly because this group has advanced so far into the development of the project, its a bit hard to catch up for a noob. i’m sure some can, but i havent been so lucky, i think mostly because i’m just not familiar with javascript completely anyway. i’ve dabbled alot and restructured js code to work the way i want…but that doesn’t mean i know javascript.

So i’ve decided to do my own toolkit, framework, library or whatever you want to call it. I’m in no way trying to compete with other toolkits, so please don’t bash on what i’m doing…although constructive criticism is always welcome. This is totally for learning purposes, and i’m just making it available to anybody else who could find it useful.

It’s still a work in progress, and all i’ve got so far is a set of tools for divElements, ie innerHTML, border, background, etc.

grab the source using svn:

svn co http://dev.jadecell.org/jadecellScript

or directly here

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

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The initial remedy was to check the values and then add and insert accordingly. This did the trick, only if the value and text matched. Sometimes the option value was substitued for an id number (useful with a SQL table), so if the id’s and text’s didn’t sync accordingly by number and alphabetical order, then you’d have a mismatch. So I developed two functions that would take the place according to which the programmer defines. One for Value and one for Text (moveModuleByValue & moveModuleByText).

In the example html file, if you view the source you’ll notice that i’ve mismatched option ‘ad’ to accurately see the differences in the two move methods. Try to move that option back and forth between the two move functions to see it work effectively.

I would have tried to make this just one function, but i was not able to figure out how to interchange the DOM of .text and .value flawlessly. If I have time to hack at it more i’ll figure it out, but this seems to do the job just fine for me.

Comments and suggestions are always welcome.

movemodule.html
movemodule.js

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$ vi ~/.bash_profile

copy and paste the code below if you like. it includes an explanation of each line
.bash_profile

#enables color in the terminal bash shell export
CLICOLOR=1
#sets up the color scheme for list export
LSCOLORS=gxfxcxdxbxegedabagacad
#sets up the prompt color (currently a green similar to linux terminal)
export PS1='\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;36m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '
#enables color for iTerm
export TERM=xterm-color
#sets up proper alias commands when called
alias ls='ls -G'
alias ll='ls -hl'

C/P’d from MacOsXHints.com:

The colors can be set with the LSCOLORS variable. The color designators are as follows:

a black
b red
c green
d brown
e blue
f magenta
g cyan
h light grey
A bold black, usually shows up as dark grey
B bold red
C bold green
D bold brown, usually shows up as yellow
E bold blue
F bold magenta
G bold cyan
H bold light grey; looks like bright white
x default foreground or background

Note that the above are standard ANSI colors. The actual display may differ depending on the color capabilities of the terminal in use. The order of the attributes in the LSCOLORS variable is as follows:

1. directory
2. symbolic link
3. socket
4. pipe
5. executable
6. block special
7. character special
8. executable with setuid bit set
9. executable with setgid bit set
10. directory writable to others, with sticky bit
11. directory writable to others, without sticky bit

They are set in pairs, foreground (f) then background (b), i.e. fbfbfbfbfbfbfbfbfbfbfb for all 11 settings. The default is exfxcxdxbxegedabagacad, i.e. blue foreground and default background for regular directories, black foreground and red background for setuid executables, etc.

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