Flickr Mashups (Programmer to Programmer) [Paperback]

David A. Wilkinson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0470097744 | ISBN-13: 978-0470097748 | Publication Date: January 30, 2007 | Edition: 1

Expert Flickr developer David Wilkinson guides you through a series of software projects that show you how to build mashups using the popular photo service Flickr. He explains the process of remixing Flickr on your own web site and then mashing it up. Along the way, you’ll learn how to take advantage of mashup technologies such as REST, Ajax, RSS, and JSON. Plus, hands-on examples will help you gain the skills to design a variety of remixes and mashups that take advantage of Flickr’s core services.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Why wait for Flickr to offer the features and functionality that you need when you can create them on your own Expert Flickr developer David Wilkinson guides you step-by-step through a series of software projects that show you how to build mashups using this popular photo service. He clearly explains the process of remixing Flickr on your own web site and then mashing it up. Along the way, you'll learn how to take advantage of mashup technologies such as REST, Ajax, RSS, and JSON.

From finding photographs and illustrating news feeds to displaying your photos on Google® Maps, you'll discover how to develop a wide range of projects using content from both Flickr and other sources. You'll also gain the skills to design a variety of remixes and mashups that take advantage of Flickr's core services. With the help of numerous hands-on examples integrated throughout the pages, you'll understand how things work so you can quickly produce your own innovative applications.

What you will learn from this book:

• How to use feeds to retrieve photo details
• Methods for using the Flickr API to access items such as tags, sets, groups, and interestingness
• How to use Flickr authentication to access private photos and update information
• How to upload photos from your own applications
• Ways to remix the Flickr web site with Firefox® and Greasemonkey
• Different ways to display photos using ImageMagick
• Techniques for building complex systems that use Flickr as a source of information
• Tips for improving software performance and scalability

Who this book is for

This book is for web developers who have some prior experience with a language such as PHP, JavaScript, or Perl. Everything in the book is explained in detail along with source code, which makes this a useful resource regardless of your experience level.

About the Author

David Wilkinson is a highly skilled freelance technical consultant and programmer with more than 20 years’ experience in the IT industry, delivering business-critical systems to many blue-chip companies, including BP, Jaguar, Land Rover, Tesco, and Lloyds TSB. He also acts as operations manager at Utata, a community web site supporting photographers all over the world, and is responsible for the operation of the Utata site and its integration with Flickr. A keen amateur photographer, he discovered Flickr in its very early days and been a staunch advocate of it ever since.

Product Details

• Paperback: 419 pages
• Publisher: Wrox; 1 edition (January 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470097744
• ISBN-13: 978-0470097748
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,817,704 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learn how to use flickr to the fullest!, February 4, 2007

By 

Frank Stepanski (PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Flickr Mashups (Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback)

Flickr is the photo sharing web application that started making people like taking photos again, Of course since flickr came on the scene many others have come up such as Zoomr and Yahoo Photos but neither allow developers to truly make use of its data with the flick api which allows sharing and manipulation of its photo data.

This is the first book covering this topic of creating a mashup with flickr so it has the pressure of covering the right material to help newbies like me to understand how to use an api. Although a background in web scripting and or JavaScript is not required since the material is not too technical and the author explains it well enough that the reader does not need to know too much.

The first chapter covers what are mashups and what technologies are used such as client technologies like HTML, XML, CSS, JavaScript and DOM, JSON and Ajax. Then the author briefly explains the server-side technologies that are involved like PHP, Perl, REST, SOAP, and databases. A nice introduction on the many pieces of web mashups.

The next chapter gives a quick introduction on using flickr aw a user on how to use some of the tools of flickr like the organizr (to organize your photos into sets), tagging, geo-tagging interface, joining groups, and linking your photos.

The third chapter gets started with getting the flickr API key. Once you get the key the author goes into showing you how to setup your development environment. The author goes though setting up an environment with ASP using IIS (Internet Information Server) and PHP with Apache as well as using Perl in a Windows or Unix environment. Since mashups can use any server-side technology, it is great that the author explains three of the most popular ones for broad range of server-side technologies.

The next chapter focuses in detail about the flickr API itself. Flickr accepts API calls in three different formats such as REST, SOAP, and XML-RPC. The author gives of each even though in my opinion using REST is the easiest and most common. Then flickr methods and objects are dicussed in showing the reader how to retrieve flickr images in any variation by invoking the specific methods and send the right parameters. The author gives some good examples of creating photostreams and putting specific images on your web page.

Chapter 5 goes though the client-side version of manipulating a flickr badge and putting the requests on the server as well. Chapter 6 goes through showing an image gallery using sever-side script in PHP and mixing in a little Ajax for good measure. Chapter 7 shows you how to authenticate using an API kit with some open source PHP tools to create some more robust applications. Chapter 8 shows you how to create an upload page using the flickr api.

The rest of the book goes into more examples of flickr mashups using other open source tools like ImageMagick, GoogleMaps, GreaseMonkey, RSS, Technorati, and others. Too much to cover but this book has it all. A great book on learning more about mashups and api ans using the flickr api to create some new and exciting web applications.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learning to mesh Flickr content with other site content..., April 9, 2007

By 

Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Flickr Mashups (Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback)

It's hard not to get inundated with all the talk of "Web 2.0" these days... Everything is "Ajax this, mashup that". But what exactly *is* a mashup, and how do you build one? Wrox has started a Mashup series of books, and I got a chance to take a look at Flickr Mashups by David Wilkinson. This is an excellent intro to the concept, focused on the Flickr website for content manipulation.

Contents: Rewriting the Web; Flickr - A Short Tour; Getting Ready to Mash; The Flickr API; Flickr Feeds; Remixing Flickr Using the API; Authenticating with Flickr; Uploading Photos; Remixing Flickr Using Greasemonkey; Working with ImageMagick, Visualizing the News; Searching the Blogosphere; Displaying Your Photos with Google Maps; Caching Your Data; Answers to Exercises; Flickr API Methods; Response Data Structures; Useful Resources; Index

To start with, you shouldn't have the expectation that you'll be able to (or even want to) run every mashup that's here. Rather than confine his examples to a single small set of technology tools, Wilkinson uses a wide array of software, such as PHP, Perl, JavaScript, Java, Greasemonkey, ImageMagick, and others. When he first talks about a technology like Greasemonkey, he gives some basic information to get the software and install it. From there, he builds the mashup with some pretty detailed explanations on the code and results. He states in the forward that the examples *should* be easy enough to follow even if you're not terribly familiar with the language, like PHP. Overall that seems to be the case. But to be honest, you'll probably get a lot more out of the book if you're already conversant with PHP, as a lot of the examples use that. But even if the particular language of the example isn't your forte, you should be able to take the general idea and apply the concepts to your tool of choice.

Another thing that is done very well done in this book is an explanation of the Flickr API. A solid, accessible API is critical to successful mashup use, and his explanation of how the Flickr API works is excellent. From getting your own API key to creating SQL feeds of Flickr data, he covers a number of possibilities that should have any photo-happy mashup artist coding in short order. The Flickr site and API are a constant work in progress, so you can't view this as a definitive guide to the package. The only way you can get that is to visit the website. But you'll receive a grounding in the fundamentals here, so you'll be well-equipped to handle the new stuff as it comes out.

Overall, I think this is a great series, and I'm looking forward to reading other Mashup titles. Flickr Mashups got the brain moving in areas I had never thought of, and I can see how this would be a must-read for any coder who can't live without their Flickr subscription...

0 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Conflict of interests., October 26, 2009

By 

Shepherd Johnson (Virginia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Flickr Mashups (Programmer to Programmer) (Paperback)

If there was a way to give negative stars, I would give it to this book. This "author" moderates the Flickr Ideas forum yet you has written a book about Flickr. I have skimmed the book and found it lacking in many areas. Flickr as a photo sharing site is a horrible website which engages in censorship, the author of this book also engages in censorship as they locked a comment I posted in the Flikcr Ideas forum. I suggest you do not buy a book from a censor. Clearly this guy has conflict of interests issues.

-Shepherd Johnson