All Housing Starts, a database of historical and predicted housing starts data, has been updated to reflect December 2011 forecasts.  The site’s layout and design have also been changed to improve readability.  The data is also presented in a way that allows instant searching and sorting.

• http://ofneal.com/housingstarts

While very useful, Speech Recognition software can cost hundreds of dollars for a license.  This solution is hardly cost-efficient when considering that most computer interaction is in the form of Google search queries of less than 20 words in length.

I built SpeechSearch and SpeechWolfram to take advantage of the HTML5 API, as well as Google’s robust voice recongition APIs and provide a simple website for searching Google, Wolfram|Alpha, Facebook, and Lifehacker (an example blog), all without touching your keyboard.  Try it now (requires Chrome 11 Beta or greater):

http://ofneal.com/speechsearch

http://ofneal.com/speechwolfram

Github is a great place to host your git repository.  However, sometimes you may find yourself at a computer without git installed, making it difficult to download the latest version of your code.  For this reason, I built Github Downloader, a simple Windows (x86) application that downloads the latest zipball of a Github repository.

Click here to download "Github Downloader"

A common gripe of internet users seems to be page readability.  Quite often, administrators choose to reformat their websites and change fonts, sometimes leading to poor readability.  This tool, in the form of a simple bookmarklet, replaces all page fonts to a sans-serif font of your choice. Made with the same idea in mind as Wikipedia Beautifier. [Lifehacker]

Drag this image to your bookmarks bar

I also made a userscript that changes the fonts on Lifehacker.com to a sans-serif font.

[Download userscript]

I compiled my Lifehacker font-fixing userscript into a Firefox addon for Firefox fans.

[Download Firefox Addon]

Here’s the userstyle version (for Stylish on Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari)

================================================================

@-moz-document domain("lifehacker.com.com"), domain("userstyles.org") {

body { font-family:ubuntu, ubuntubeta, "lucida grande",tahoma,verdana,arial,sans-serif !important }

}

================================================================

I built Instant Music to solve the problem of instant song previews.  While it’s possible to use iTunes or the Amazon mp3 store to preview a song,  sometimes you want to listen to entire songs before purchasing.  Use Instant Music to listen to entire songs or albums using a simple, fast interface.

Features

• Simple UI Navigation
• Returns Best-match songs and full albums as playlists
• Easy embed codes for your website or blog
• Voice Recognition (with next-best suggestion added)
• Three easy-to-use interfaces
  • Instant Song
  • Instant Playlist
  • Instant Music
  • Instant Music with Voice Recognition

Instant Books allows anyone with an internet connection to read a large collection of digital books.  To encourage adoption, I programmed the application for Windows, Mac, and Linux (32-bit and 64-bit).

In 10th grade I started PartUp, which categorizes salvage yard inventories and provides a searchable database for used auto parts. More information is available at http://partup.com.

Getting the word out is important.  Globally, marketing agencies spend billions of dollars to ensure that their clients’ products are well marketed through well-designed distribution channels.  As these agencies buy advertising space and television spots, a certain amount of risk is involved.  Without accurate metrics and analysis, this advertising spending could be misappropriated.

With our system, collecting metrics over a monthly or annual period is simple and extensible.  Instead of paying a third party viewer measurement agency, try our free, open source metrics application.

Use the contact form to request the source code (C++)

Example Result:

Example TargetMarket Output (Ubuntu, Suse)

After watching Joomla, WordPress, and Drupal grow, I noticed that while these platforms offer many features, their often staggering download sizes are too heavy for many bloggers.  For that reason, I coded Blagger, a flat-file blogging platform.  This is a simple program that runs on your desktop, uploading blog posts to a well-formatted file (Markdown or Textile will be implemented).  I also coded in Google-Calendar syncing, a feature that has not yet been implemented in WordPress plugins, Drupal modules, or Joomla extensions.  Please submit comments or suggestions using the contact form.

Click here to download Blagger