Make the web your own

Making Pipes
Let’s begin by creating a very simple Pipe that grabs a selection of photos from Flickr. Under Sources in Library click and drag Flickr onto the Canvas. In the ‘Images of’ field, enter the word ‘dogs’.

Click on the bottom of the Flickr module and drag the Pipe down to Pipe Output. Click on Refresh in the Debugger pane to see the results. Click on Save, then give your Pipe a name.

At the top of the program window click on Run Pipe to see how the finished article looks. In this instance, a map automatically displays the location of the photos’ origin. Switch to the image tab to see the photos ­ lots of dogs, obviously.

Now we’ll try something more complicated. Return to the Pipes home page and click the Create a Pipe link once more. Under the Sources heading, click and drag the ‘Fetch Site Feed’ module onto the Canvas. This will attempt to auto-retrieve any news feeds embedded within a supplied website address. We’re going to use www.clubcall.com, a football news site. Alternatively, try any site that might have a news feed, such as www.guardian.co.uk, http://news.bbc.co.uk, or even our own www.computeractive.co.uk. Click on Refresh in the Debugger pane to see details of anything it has found.

Having seen the results it’s clear that not all the information displayed is relevant, so it needs to be sorted out. Under Operators in the Library pane, click and drag over Filter. We’ll use this to pick out what we need from the items displayed. In the dropdown box select ‘Permit’ items that match ‘any’ of the following. Then, under the Rules heading, choose ‘Item.title’ and enter ‘middlesbrough’ in the blank field. Click on the ‘+’ symbol to add another rule. Use the same ‘Item.title’ filter and this time enter ‘wigan’. Click on Save and enter a name for the Pipe.

If you want other people to be able to access the Pipe it can be published online. To do this, click on Properties and enter a description along with any tags that will make it easier to find during a search. Click on Publish and confirm by clicking Publish again. Click on Run Pipe and you’ll be able to see how it looks online. To make changes, choose Edit Source to alter settings.

Creative mashing
There are plenty of places to create mash-ups on the internet. Even Intel, better known for hardware than software, is getting in on the act. You’ll find the Intel Mash Maker at http://mashmaker.intel.com. Sign up with your email address: a login and password will be sent through immediately. Choose which version of the program you want ­ there’s one for use with Internet Explorer and one for Mozilla Firefox. Launch your browser and Mash Maker should appear as a new toolbar. If it doesn’t, go to the Toolbars option in your browser to activate it. Sign in and you’re ready to start using the program.

Mash Maker works by enhancing existing web pages with ‘widgets’. These are mini programs that contain additional information relevant to the web page you are viewing. Control these widgets from the Mash Maker toolbar. Unlike other mash-up services it doesn’t enable you to create a mash-up site. Instead, you’ll continue to see an original web page, but with the option to view this with widgets as well.

Fidget with widgets
As you visit different sites you’ll see the range of widgets on the Mash Maker toolbar change. Alternatively, click on the button to open the Mash Maker sidebar and access a selection of ready-made widgets.

You can also create a mash-up by capturing content from one page and making it available while you view another. To do this click on the Copy button on the Mash Maker toolbar. Go to another website and click on the Paste button. Your copied page will now appear in a mini window, with both sites visible at the same time.