Numbers

After two more weeks we have come up with around 1,000 more views.

Our video views are up from 35,381 to 36,513, an increase of 1,132.

Our channel views are up from 1,534 to 1,566 an increase of 32.

The last two weeks were pretty good and we hope to see more great weeks in the future.

SproutCore

Two words have been in the lips of every major tech news site for the past week. Those words are Sprout and Core. Put them together and you get SproutCore, a javascript framework for easily creating rich internet applications. So what does all that mean? Well you could google it and find many blogs that have done an excellent job of explaining it but this is what it boils down to for me: Through command line and the use of special and clear classes one can build a web application in very few steps and use SproutCore's build tools to validate and build the code for deployment on your server. Now that probably didn't make much sense either. If you want to create a web application using the open language of Javascript (as opposed to flash or silverlight which requires a plug-in) then SproutCore makes this task easy. Apple has latched on to SproutCore and helped make it really great. The new Mobile Me service that will be offered next month was made using SproutCore and it sure looks great in the previews.

So how easy is this? Well I had to check it out, being constantly on the lookout for new ways to enrich the Mystic Teacup Project site, and see how it worked. So I started with the classic "Hello World" application tutorial. Of course I didn't follow the tutorial exactly. I replaced "World" with "There" wherever it appeared.

On OS X it requires the Terminal which scared me at first. After a few bumps in the Terminal road I had everything going well. The tags used were fairly self explanatory and as long as you know javascript that part should go smoothly as well. In the end you end up with a very sleek page with the "Hello World!" in big letters with a check box that says "Show Clock" above it. When checked the text will change from "Hello World!" to a clock showing the time in hh:mm:ss. It was easy and fast.

But I couldn't stop yet. I had to try somethings for myself to see if I could change things up a bit. I went through the tutorial again, but making some steps of my own. Instead of replacing things for example, I would add things and try to make it work. To my discouragement parts of it did and parts of it didn't. In the end I had failed at my task but there is major potential for those far better with javascript than I am.

See for yourself at SproutCore.com

Numbers

We had a great two weeks so less see how the numbers stack up.
Video views are up from 34,002 to 35,381 an increase of 1,379. I hope this trend of more and more views each week continues. I have no doubt that we will reach 50,000 total views by the two year anniversary of the site.
Channel views are up from 1,505 to 1,534 an increase of 29, another good week for our channel.
Genghis Khan continues to "lead the charge" taking almost 60% of the views we get, followed by A Separate Peace: Part 1 with 20%. The other videos come in at almost negligible percentages.

iPhone Ready

In preparation for the upcoming release of the iPhone's 2.0 firmware I have just completed and uploaded the iPhone compatible version of http://www.mysticteacupproject.com . By visiting the site on an iPhone or iPod Touch you will be redirected to a leaner and faster version of the site. It has almost all of the features of the standard version of the website including: Movies (which will open the youtube application on the phone or iPod), About Us, Contact information, Movie info ( most viewed videos and newest videos), a Thanks page, and of course a link to our blog. It looks good and works well so I hope you enjoy it. If, however you encounter any problems or bugs please contact us here. Enjoy!