Juice

Juice Beta 1.5

Sun, 29 May 2005 15:22:01 GMT

Yet another new version of Juice uploaded.

http://www.kbcafe.com/juice/juice.setup.1.5.msi

New Features

New Search sources; Blogpulse, Blogdigger and MSN News.
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As predicted: .NET Hell

Thu, 26 May 2005 19:23:35 GMT

Robert Scoble: Mary Jo Foley, in another article had a headline that said: Ouch! .Net Framework 2.0 Breaks Apps.

Randy: As predicted more than two years ago.

Juice Beta 1.4

Thu, 26 May 2005 18:26:40 GMT

I uploaded a new version of Juice. The usual new features and bug fixes. Feedback (juice@kbcafe.com) would be welcomed.

http://www.kbcafe.com/juice/juice.setup.1.4.msi

Fixes

OPML import bug caused feeds to be dropped
Upgrading to .NET 1.1 SP1 could cause a feed to become stuck

Features

new icons

Not much of an upgrade, so I'll have a 1.5 out shortly too! I hope :)

Ajax Spellchecker

Thu, 26 May 2005 03:48:24 GMT

Ajax spellchecker, with code.

http://www.broken-notebook.com/spell.php

Ajax Mistakes

Wed, 25 May 2005 21:08:07 GMT

Not giving immediate visual cues for clicking widgets.
Breaking the back button
Changing state with links (GET requests)
Blinking and changing parts of the page unexpectedly
Not using links I can pass to friends or bookmark
Too much code makes the browser slow
Inventing new UI conventions
Not cascading local changes to other parts of the page
Asynchronously performing batch operations
Scrolling the page and making me lose my place

http://sourcelabs.com/ajb/archives/2005/05/ajax_mistakes.html

How to be a Programmer

Tue, 24 May 2005 17:11:22 GMT

Robert L. Read: To be a good programmer is difficult and noble. The hardest part of making real a collective vision of a software project is dealing with one's coworkers and customers. Writing computer programs is important and takes great intelligence and skill. But it is really child's play compared to everything else that a good programmer must do to make a software system that succeeds for both the customer and myriad colleagues for whom she is partially responsible. In this essay I attempt to summarize as concisely as possible those things that I wish someone had explained to me when I was twenty-one.

http://samizdat.mines.edu/howto/HowToBeAProgrammer.html

Javascript Obfuscation

Fri, 20 May 2005 03:58:58 GMT

HowTo XMLHttpRequest

Tue, 17 May 2005 17:25:26 GMT

MHO, best tutorial on XMLHttpRequest.

http://developer.apple.com/internet/webcontent/xmlhttpreq.html

DotMSN

Mon, 16 May 2005 14:08:39 GMT

DotMSN is an open-source stand-alone class library to provide connectivity with the MSN Messenger service.

http://www.xihsolutions.net/dotmsn/

Metadata

Fri, 13 May 2005 19:38:35 GMT

and other XMLs.

http://www.iptc.org/

Add Google Maps’ Directions to Your Site

Thu, 12 May 2005 14:31:13 GMT

Matt Round: Using a simple form on your site you can also offer users a personalised map and directions courtesy of Google Maps. Just modify the appropriate code snippet below to include the destination and any extra formatting markup needed.

<form action="http://maps.google.com/maps" method="get">
<p><label for="saddr">Your ZIP code</label>
<input type="text" name="saddr" id="saddr" value="" />
<input type="submit" value="Go" />
<input type="hidden" name="daddr" value="[destination]" />
<input type="hidden" name="hl" value="en" /></p>
</form>

Amazon Simple Queue Service

Wed, 11 May 2005 12:34:50 GMT

Amazon: The Amazon Simple Queue Service offers a reliable, highly scalable hosted queue for buffering messages between distributed application components. Registered developers have free access to the Simple Queue Service during the Beta, but storage is limited to 4,000 queue entries per developer.

www.amazon.com.

Randy: This is very cool!

Cross-site request forgery

Sun, 08 May 2005 04:13:42 GMT

SquareFree: A Cross-site request forgery hole is when a malicious site causes the user to load a URL from your server (possible with form POST data) that causes a change on the server.

iPod in C#

Sat, 07 May 2005 14:20:47 GMT

I was trying to figure out how to program my new iPod via C#. My first thought was to Google up some sample code, but to my surprise, I found nothing. So, trial and error and here's a starting point for anybody else interested in this endeavor.

public iTunesLib.iTunesAppClass app;
public iTunesLib.IITIPodSource ipod;

public iTunesLib.IITIPodSource IPodSource()
{
   foreach(iTunesLib.IITSource source in this.app.Sources)
   {
      if (source.Kind == iTunesLib.ITSourceKind.ITSourceKindIPod)
     {
         return (iTunesLib.IITIPodSource)source;
      }
   }
   return null;
}

public iTunesLib.IITPlaylist Playlist(string name)
{
   foreach(iTunesLib.IITPlaylist pl in this.ipod.Playlists)
   {
      if (pl.Name == name)
      {
         return pl;
      }
   }
   object obj = this.ipod;
   return this.app.CreatePlaylistInSource("kbJuice", ref obj);
}

public static void Main(string[] args)
{
   MainClass o = new MainClass();
   o.app = new iTunesLib.iTunesAppClass();
   o.ipod = o.IPodSource();
   iTunesLib.IITUserPlaylist upl = (iTunesLib.IITUserPlaylist)o.Playlist("kbJuice");
   iTunesLib.IITOperationStatus status = upl.AddFile(@"filename");
   while (status.InProgress)
   {
      System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(1000);
   }
   o.ipod.UpdateIPod();
   o.ipod.EjectIPod();
}

WITW: NSDL

Tue, 03 May 2005 23:36:18 GMT

Norman Walsh: Back when WSDL defeated me, I realized even in my defeat that some sort of description language was necessary.

Randy: This looks like just another WSDL. I'll take WSDL. Not that it couldn't be simpler. Let me introduce you to VSDL.

VSDL = View Source Definition Language.

An instance of this definition.

<request>
   <person>
      <fname>Norman</fname>
      <lname>Walsh</lname>
   </person>
   <person>
      <fname>Randy</fname>
      <lname>Morin</lname>
   </person>
</request>

It's not fully defined yet, but hopefully others can help me make that happen. Norman?

Bad Day in Windows-land

Mon, 02 May 2005 05:04:59 GMT

Today was a bad day for me in Windows-land. I installed a new agent (written by me in C#) on my basement server. I ran the agent and she blew up real good. Strange, didn't blow up on my laptop (where I wrote, compiled, tested her). I tried figuring it out without a debugger or a special debug build. I changed a handful of different settings, but nothing seemed to work. Well, I guess it was time to install the CLR debugger on my basement server. I've been without the need since I first brought her online about 18 months ago.

I downloaded the .NET 1.1 SDK and ran the setup. The setup told me that I had to uninstall .NET. Hmmm! You can probably see where this is leading. I gambled and uninstalled .NET 1.1, re-ran the installer and it asked me to reboot manually first and re-run it again (a third time?). Reboot, re-run and this time it told me it needed to install .NET 1.1 first, then I could install the SDK. Ok whatever! It installs .NET 1.1 again and I re-run the installer (a fourth time). This time it installs. Finally? NOT! I tried running a few .NET application and they all blew up real good. So, I uninstalled the SDK and re-installed it (this required three more setup runs, totalling seven now). This didn't help (same error). I then installed the SDK again and ran the .NET redistribuble installing. This actually worked and re-enabled all my .NET applications, but still no SDK. I ran the SDK setup an eighth time and it finally installed properly.

The debugger told me I was missing a DLL, I hit myself in the head and said "Stupid, how did I miss that?" I loaded the DLL and my agent runs just fine now.

Thanks Microsoft!