Contact info on a QR Code

Bar codes containing any kind of information seem to pop up everywhere these days. They get a big boost from mobile devices which support bar code scanner applications like zxing. The format most commonly used is QR Code.

The future of this idea seems promising (quoting):

For example, Wikipedia displays their QR code on the Wikipedia site. I could also see QR codes as a potential business card replacement. You are at a business meeting, you whip out your mobile and the other party does as well. You "scan" her barcode displayed on the mobile and now you have all of her contact information and not only is it stored in your mobile, but it’s now on your desktop in your contact manager. Imagine the possibilities for dating!

 A QR Code containing my personal mail address and this blog's URL appear on the sidebar. Also, I have created different versions containing my business contact information. To generate the images I used the QR Code Generator from the ZXing Project.

Blogger Tag Cloud Widget

I wanted to have a Tab Cloud in my blog. However, blogger provides only the Label widget which gives only a list of the blog's labels.

I found this blog entry , which produced something very similar to what I wanted. I modified it so that:

• it is more to my taste
• allows for further development and easier modifications.

You can see the resulting Tag Cloud on this blog (collumn on the right) and also in http://www.papitsa.gr/

The installation instructions can be found in the original post.

<b:widget id='Label1' locked='false' title='Tags' type='Label'>
<b:includable id='main'>
<b:if cond='data:title'>
<h2><data:title/></h2>
</b:if>
<div class='widget-content' style='text-align: center;'>
<script type='text/javascript'>
/*
Simple Blogger Tag Cloud Widget
by Raymond May Jr.
http://www.compender.com
Released to the Public Domain
Modified by Michalis Giannakidis :
  o) tune parameters to my likes
  o) modifications to allow more flexibility in formatting of tags and 
     allow further development.
*/
//Variables:
var max = 130; //max css size (in percent)
var min = 70; //min css size (...)
var showCount = 1;  // show counts? 1 for yes
var minCount = 1;  // what is the minimum count for a Tag to be shown? 1 for all.

//Begin code:
var range = max - min;

function labelObj() {}

//Build label Array
var lb = new Array();

var most = 1;
<b:loop values='data:labels' var='label'>
var item = new labelObj();
item.label = (&quot;<data:label.name/>&quot;);
item.url = (&quot;<data:label.url/>&quot;);
item.count = (&quot;<data:label.count/>&quot;);
lb.push(item);

if ( most &lt; &quot;<data:label.count/>&quot; ) {
   most = (&quot;<data:label.count/>&quot;);
}
</b:loop>


//Labels sort, ignore case
function sortLabels(a, b) {

    aa = a.label.toLowerCase();
    bb = b.label.toLowerCase();
    if ( aa &lt; bb ) {
        return -1;
    } else if ( aa &gt; bb )  {
        return 1;
    } else {
        return 0;
    }
}
lb.sort(sortLabels);


//Begin HTML output
for (x in lb) {
    if(x != &quot;peek&quot; &amp;&amp; x != &quot;forEach&quot;
 &amp;&amp; lb[x].count &gt;= minCount){

        //Calculate textSize
        var textSize = min + Math.floor((lb[x].count/most) * range);
        //Show counts?
        if(showCount == 1) {
            var count = &quot;(&quot; + lb[x].count + &quot;)&quot;;
        }else{
            var count = &quot;&quot;;
        }
        //Output
        document.write(&quot;<span style='font-size:&quot; + textSize + 
&quot;%'><a href='&quot; + lb[x].url + &quot;'>&quot; + lb[x].label + 
count + &quot;</a></span> &quot; );
    }

}
</script>
<b:include name='quickedit'/>
</div>
</b:includable>
</b:widget>