the sirius cybernetics corporation

A simple PHP script to display twitter followers

I have seen quite a lot of people asking how to get the avatars of their Twitter followers displaying on their website. Well, as a break to custom coding an e-commerce site for a client, I have cooked up a little code that does just that.

In addition to the obvious, that it displays the avatars of your followers on your website, it has a few little extras.

• It displays the total number of Twitter followers above the list of avatars.
• If Twitter falls of it’s perch or decides to return an error, it doesn’t display anything, so no breakages there.
• You need only enter your Twitter username and password in order for it to do it’s thing.

The Twitters Followers avatar list is easy to style using the image class ‘twitter_followers’. Continue reading »

Fantastic News for on-line PC gamers!

As all UK on-line PC gamers know, we get ripped off for game server rental. Our cousins in the US have always had a far better deal when it comes to prices for clan and game servers. Until now, that is. Continue reading »

The inmates of the PETS house live in a surreal and bizarre world of their own creation..

Pets was first broadcast in 2001, and I can’t believe that I have been completely oblivious to it’s existence until last night! I own one of those video mp3 players from a manufacturer named after a piece of fruit. I have never really explored it’s possibilities until yesterday evening. Continue reading »

The much awaited and much hyped Halo 3 launched today – we talked to the survivors!

After the best part of two years build up and ever increasing hype the Halo 3 launch started at midnight last night. Many shops opened at the stroke of midnight to provide a FPS fix to the salivating, game playing masses.

Microsoft threw yet another party and even the BBC rallied to the cause with a special report. The worlds media resources of ‘exclusive footage’ have been exhausted overnight. As the dust clouds being to clear over the high street we talk to a Halo 3 launch day veteran and hear of their first hand experiences. Continue reading »

Are Facebook users laying themselves open to exploitation and even danger through their profile settings?

That is the question I found myself asking after receiving the very same ominous message for a third time, each from a different facebook friend.

” If somebody called bm_tnoo7@hotmail.com adds you to their Facebook account DON’T accept it because its a hacker.Tell everyone on your list because if someone on your list adds them you get them on your list he’ll figure out your ID co,puter address. So copy and paste this message to everyone even if you hate them and fast because if he hacks their mail he hacks yours. “

Is the person in question an extremely talented individual with vast amounts of time and resources to hand, that will systematically ‘farm’ facebook profiles harvesting private information for some nefarious master plan? Or, one cup of tea later, I found myself wondering if this could be the broadband – social networking equivalent of the chain letter?

My curiosity sufficiently aroused, I decide to fire up webfetch and do some investigating. Warning to all facebook profile owners, you are going to be a little upset from this point in! Continue reading »

Only in beta, but when serving up results WebFetch could be a google beater..

As you know I spend a lot of time wandering the internet trying to track down information, finding tasty morsels and researching applications. Well I stumbled across this little beauty and, my god, what a difference it makes.

…the controversy surrounding Google’s data retention policies…

WebFetch is a meta-search engine, which draws its results from Google, Yahoo, Ask.com and MSN, however it doesn’t allow any of these engines to collect your personal data. what’s more WebFetch does not collect any information about its users either.

If you really needed to find something or somebody you would send out a search party, not just go it alone.

I think the principle is a very good one, summed up quite nicely here. Continue reading »