Andy Young's Blog: Archive

Problems with Twitter's new Retweet - and a...

“If someone retweets you (new-style), you won’t see it (it’s not in your @-replies or main feed) - even if you follow them!” Update (3 Mar): I was just chatting with my mate Sol from Tweetdeck and we realised the fix I described here doesn’t work any more. Ah well, it was nice while it lasted.. My twitter feed is a bit of a mess right now after I discovered a...

Nov 19th

2 tags

PHP Trick: Catching fatal errors (E_ERROR) with a...

Implementing a custom error handler using set_error_handler() in PHP can be a useful technique (Google search for more info/examples) Unfortunately, set_error_handler() doesn’t catch fatal errors - as the PHP docs say: The following error types cannot be handled with a user defined function: E_ERROR, E_PARSE, E_CORE_ERROR, E_CORE_WARNING, E_COMPILE_ERROR, E_COMPILE_WARNING, and most of...

Nov 1st

3 tags

Stickyness and success: Techcrunch has it...

Just read the guest post How to measure the true stickiness (and success) of a Facebook app by Nabeel Hyatt from Conduit Labs over at Techcrunch. Interesting data, but the conclusion is backwards. “You would expect stickiness to go down as you get huge”. yes, the table he gives shows this to be TRUE: An increase in MAUs between 9/22 and 10/22 (col 4 > col 5) corresponds...

Oct 29th

1st month as a Spotify premium user

Spotify founder Daniel Ek has just written a very interesting blog post to mark the first anniversary of Spotify, giving his views on Spotify’s progress, the music industry, where they’re heading and what the journey will be like. It’s now a month since I took the plunge and gave Spotify my credit card details. The tipping point for me was the release of their iPhone app...

Oct 10th

The Alpha Course "Does God exist?" and online poll...

The Alpha Course in the UK are running a marketing campaign at the moment with posters asking the question “Does God exist?” followed by empty tick boxes for Yes/No/Probably. They’ve got the same thing on their homepage at http://uk.alpha.org/ set up as an online poll, complete with “see results so far” link. Problem is.. Clicking yes always returns...

Oct 6th

1 tag

PHP htmlspecialchars()/htmlentities() invalid...

Here’s a seemingly nonsensical gotcha I just discovered with error handling for htmlspecialchars() and htmlentities() in PHP. Since PHP 5.2.5, if either of those functions are passed invalid multibyte strings (invalid UTF-8, perhaps containing a truncated multi-byte character after improper use of substr() intead of mb_substr()) then PHP triggers the following error and returns an empty...

Sep 18th

1 tag

Design by Contract - for efficient coding

Yesterday I picked up this tweet from Joel: Getting into PHP Exceptions. Very useful :) Example - userExists() function should raise exception when no user passed, not return false! Hang on, should it? While exceptions in programming languages are without doubt a useful tool, his example reminded me of a problematic style of coding I’ve experienced - something I consider an...

Sep 5th

2 tags

Reliability Bug in Facebook PHP API Batching...

I recently discovered a bug in the current Facebook API PHP Client library that affects the support for batching calls which I’ve used for the Selective Twitter Status application. The bottom line is, sometimes the call to batch.run within execute_server_side_batch() as called by end_batch() returns an empty string instead of the expected array of results from each of the batched calls....

Sep 1st

1 tag

If you can't find yourself in Twitter Search..

I just came across a recent help page from Twitter (from June) about what to do if your tweets are not showing up in the twitter search. As it already says on the Selective Twitter Status help page, your tweets not showing in Twitter search is one of the most common reasons for the app not working for you, particularly if it used to work but suddenly stopped. To check if your tweets are coming...

Sep 1st

1 tag

New website..Tumblr it is

So, I finally got around to setting up a personal website that I’m not ashamed to show people.. I don’t really blog, but I wanted a home to stick links to my Twitter, FB, LinkedIn profiles etc for people that discover me online, collect links to show off when my projects receive press coverage etc as well as post interesting links and other notes from time to time. Features I...

Aug 29th

1 tag

new FB iPhone app fixes Selective Twitter Status...

The new 3.0 version of the Facebook iPhone app now displays all posts by Selective Twitter Status correctly, even if you have the “show follow link” option turned on in the settings :)

Aug 29th

1 tag

European Entrepreneurs Come to Life with their... →

Features an interview with David about GroupSpaces

Jul 31st

1 tag

Warwick Young Entrepreneurs Forum Talk on... →

Thanks to Sam Fianu for a write-up of the talk I gave at the Young Entrepreneurs Forum organised by Warwick Entrepreneurs this weekend.

Mar 8th

1 tag

Q&A: TechCrunch UK's Editor Mike Butcher talks... →

Mike mentions GroupSpaces as one of the startups really standing out in the UK. Cheers Mike!

Dec 22nd

Where are they now: Ones to Watch 2007 →

Cheers to Charlie from Freshminds Talent for a write-up of the Spectator piece.

Dec 9th

2020 Vision: Tomorrow's Stars →

Featured in Spectator Business Magazine by Edie along with Langer, Victoria, Raj and Hermione

Dec 8th

1 tag

Sep 9th

1 tag

Three to watch in the student space: GroupSpaces... →

Sep 4th

1 tag

GroupSpaces featured in the Oxford Times' In... →

Andrew Young, the 23-year-old co-founder of Internet company GroupSpaces.com, has a bit of a dilemma. Entertaining article. Average number of factual errors per paragraph: 2..

Jun 21st

1 tag

Entrepreneurship is in Rude Health →

Richard Tyler (Daily Telegraph’s Enterprise Editor) blogs about Oxford Entrepreneurs’ 100 influential meal last night..

Jun 6th

1 tag

WebMission: Brits go to Silicon Valley →

Edie G. Lush joins a party of young British Internet talent on a pilgrimage to meet Californian role models

Jun 6th

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Jun 5th

Oxford Entrepreneurs companies - Where they are... →

May 30th

1 tag

Oxford start-up raises six-figure funding →

May 29th

Watching the cops roll up after some guy broke into our office and disturbed a 4am planning session

May 21st

1 tag

Web entrepreneurs seek their fortune in San... →

Coverage of GroupSpaces on the Web Mission trip..mostly accurate..

May 8th

life’s a pitch.

May 2nd

1 tag

Glad to welcome Dave I. to the GroupSpaces team →

Apr 27th

1 tag

GroupSpaces included in TC WebMission companies... →

Apr 26th

Startup School 2008 Rocked →

Thanks to Jessica

Apr 26th

Glad I left WebMission a day early.. →

..when I could have ended up in this photo..

Apr 26th

Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco.. “How to innovate on Time”

Apr 22nd

at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. Building an app for social platforms with Jia Shen.

Apr 22nd

1 tag

UK software stars conduct mission to woo Silicon... →

GroupSpaces mentioned in the Telegraph

Apr 22nd

1 tag

Britain’s best and brightest startups hit Silicon... →

VentureBeat article on Web Mission.

Apr 20th

pushing latest site updates live over SSH from GnDs ice cream cafe. “Silicon Valley is just a state of mind”

Apr 12th

pushing latest site updates live over SSH from GnDs ice cream cafe. “Silicon Valley is just a state of mind”

Apr 12th

The European Ecosystem is Entering Puberty →

Langer makes some awesome points in his latest controversial essay..

Apr 12th

Paul Buchheit: Ideas vs Judgment and Execution:... →

Great analogy that fits perfectly.

Mar 31st

How do you stop the iPhone bluescreening winxp on connection?

Mar 28th

New office! Not so big but more funky.. Anyone want 20,000 beermats currently blocking the corridor?

Mar 27th

In Business.

Mar 25th

“starting a business is like jumping out of an airplane with the materials needed...”

– :D As seen on News.YC

Mar 25th

1 tag

Mar 25th

“Ho hum..”

Mar 25th

Watch

When we visited SF a couple of weeks ago Michael Birch (Bebo Founder) was good enough to give us some time, show us around Bebo HQ and talk about what it’s been like to start internet companies. This video gives a good idea of what it was like… (via Mashable)

Aug 27th

reCAPTCHA: Stop Spam, Read Books →

Just found this via the Facebook signup page and thought “wow” Awesome idea…

Aug 27th

New site for WearFair →

Steve, Eoin and Sara have just launched a new look for the WearFair website. Lookin’ sexy..! Also check out Steve’s blog

Aug 9th

Watch

So we met this guy Eddie in San Francisco and he interviewed us about ClickUni. Cheers, Eddie! See the video on Podtech here

Aug 9th