It's not what you know...

...it's who you know. Never is this more true than when running a tranny website.

Actually it might be more true when running for President of the United States, but I digress...

One of my bestest friends, as you may know, is Jessica. As well as being impossibly tall and pioneering a new tranny fashion look which I've decided to call Bow Ho', she's also a red-hot web programmer. This is how a lot of the big ideas on my website come to fruition...

Me: Wouldn't it be cool if [idea]?
Jessica: Yeah that would be cool. You can do that with [programming technique].
Me: Great! I can learn that!

(Me goes away.)

A little while later...

Me: It's too hard. (Pout.)
Jess: Do you want some help?
Me: Please. (Puppy-dog look.)
Jess: What part can't you do?
Me: Er... all of it. (Really pathetic puppy dog look.)
Jess: (Sigh.) Do you want me to do it for you?
Me: NO! I can handle it!
Jess: Really?
Me: No. (Sob.) Can you do it for me? I can do the graphic bits... and make helpful suggestions.

Later still...

Jess: I've done it! I got really into it and it now also does [extra technical bits].
Me: Great! Wouldn't it be cool if it did [even more technical bits.]
Jess: Yes but...
Me: DO IT! DO IT NOW! How much am I paying you?
Jess: Nothing!
Me: That's not the point! Do you want the puppy to die?? (Brandishes a puppy and places her hands around it's tiny neck.)
Jess: No! Please don't hurt the puppy!! I'll do it! I'll do it!

Er, the stuff about the puppy. That didn't happen. Honest.

Anyway, our latest joint venture came about when I decided I wanted to make my Flickr feed on the blog fit a bit better with the style of the rest of the site. I knew that technically it was feasible to take the XML feed from Flickr and squirt it into a application which would re-shape the pictures into anything you wanted. I just didn't understand the nitty gritty. Enter Jessica with her l33t web skilz and the result:

A little pile of pictures that updates automatically when I stick a picture on Flickr. Neat!

But that's not the really cool bit. Take a look at my new home page. See the pile of small pictures behind the main one? They're nearly ALL fed from Flickr. In particular a Flickr group called beckysweb. What's more... anyone can post a picture to that Flickr group, and a little while later it will turn up as part of my home page graphic. The picture will live on the home page until enough other pictures are added to replace it. Jessica wrote the Flickr feed application in such a way that it will work with any base graphic and any feed, which gave me the idea to do the collage on my home page.

I'm probably setting myself up for a fall here, but I thought that was awesomely great! My home page is now a dynamic collage, that anyone can add to. And it's all thanks to me and Jessica feeding off each others ideas. Thanks Jess!

So, who's going to be the first to try and put something rude on my home page?