The document provides an overview of tools that can be used to hack with, including Yahoo Query Language (YQL) which allows users to query APIs and data sources across the web using SQL-like queries. Examples are given showing how to search Flickr, translate tweets from English to Spanish, and combine multiple queries. The document also lists hundreds of APIs accessible through YQL and describes several Yahoo location services including Placemaker, PlaceFinder, and Fire Eagle. It recommends building hacks using fake data if real APIs are unavailable and to focus on the core of the hack initially.

1. TOOLS TO HACK WITH
@SteveMarshall
Dundee HackU 2011

3. select
*
from
internet
YQL uses a SQL-like query language, allowing you to create simple
queries from one API or really easily chain queries together so you only
get the data you really want, and fast.
All of this, using one language, against one endpoint that gives you
everything on the Internet.
But how do you build your queries? To the console!

4. This is the console. You can enter queries here…

5. We can do simple things like ‘Search flickr for 10 cat pictures’.
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=cat&w=all&m=&s=

6. By selecting from flickr.photos.search where the text is cat.
But what if we want to do something more complex?

7. Let’s start by finding tweets about Egypt…
(select * from twitter.search where q='egypt')

8. And now, let’s make them all Spanish…
select * from google.translate where q in (select text from twitter.search
where q='egypt') and target="es";)
That’s pretty cool. What else can we do?

9. And now, let’s wrap a UI around that…
And we have a hack!
(http://isithackday.com/hacks/twitter-translate-form.php?
search=egypt&amount=20&language=es)

10. select
*
from
query.multi
where
queries
in
(‘query
1’,
‘query
2’,
‘query
3’)
One of the most useful tables you can use, query.multi allows you to
combine multiple parallel queries into one, saving you making separate
calls to YQL for each!

11. social dopplr instapaper nmsi sparql
amazon dostopsi intuit noaa spotify
amee edu ip npr sunlight
answers ericssonlabs kiva nyt tarpipe
appdb esme lastfm openaustralia test
apple etsy limewirestore opencalais text
arxiv eyefi livedoor opencontext themoviedb
auth facebook local openid thetvdb
avatars fantasysports longurl opensocial timeout
aws fcc maps paypal tinysong
basecamp filemd5 mediawikiapi pidgets tumblr
batlas finance meetup pikchur tvrage
bbc fitbit meme plos twfy
bible flickr mendeley pubsubhubbub twitter
bit folderscrape microsoft query ukparliament
bizrate foursquare misc recovery ukpostcode
blackcountryhi friendfeed mixi rss upcoming
story gdacs movies rtm urbanesia
boston geo mozillalabs salesforce usgs
brazil github museumoflond seafoodwatch victoriaandalbe
britishmuseum google on search rt
brooklyn gov music sears vimeo
bungie gowalla mybloglog seomoz weather
christies greader mynewsdesk shelfari wesabe
comicvine greenbookings ncbi shipping whitepages
couprecoup guardian nestoria shopping wordpress
craigslist hackernews netflix shoppingcart worldbank
darkhelmet hatena newegg simplegeo wufoo
delicious ign nextbus slideshare wunderground
digg imdb ngmoco socialgraph yahoo
digitalnz infochimps nmm socialmention yahoojp
Hundreds of APIs… all in one place. Accessible to your app…
Make your own!

12. Yahoo has myriad location technologies open for use, from Yahoo!
Maps’ ajax and Flash interface widgets through geocoders to services to
allow users to control how they share their location. Here are some of
my favourites:

13. Placemaker identifies places mentioned in text, disambiguating them
and returning unique identifiers (WOEIDs).

16. PlaceFinder is a geocoding Web service that converts street addresses or
place names into geographic coordinates (and vice versa).

17. Fire Eagle is a service to allow developers to access users’ location data
in a safe, secure way.

18. YUI is a collection of CSS and JavaScript components to help people build
richer, more robust web applications.
It includes tools to help you build CSS and JS, along with a library of
widgets you can drop into your app including things like autocomplete
widgets, sliders, table sorting controls, and much, much more.

19. FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT
(BUT DO MAKE IT EVENTUALLY)
If you can’t find an API or library to do what you want (and it doesn’t
have to be from Mozilla or Yahoo!), fake it until you absolutely must
have real data.
Work on the core of your hack, not on infrastructure for it.

20. developer.yahoo.com/everything.html