Tiernan OTooles Programming Blog

Moving my Software blog elsewhere

tiernanotoole — Sun, 26 Sep 2004 00:01:00 GMT

Ok. due to the fact that it is a pain to be running many blogs all over the place, i have decided to move my software blog to my main site. So, from now on, check out my main site for posts.

Why .TEXT for my main Blog?

tiernanotoole — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 02:08:00 GMT

Why am i trying to move my main blog to .TEXT? Well, simplet. programmability. plus, i can play with it since its written in C# and see if i can break or make better .TEXT. just for the laff. watch this space, or my other blog for more.

Testign part 2

tiernanotoole — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 01:27:00 GMT

If this works, it means nothing really, but i have managed to build a .TEXT blog posting app. could be handy if i move my main blog to .TEXT, which i am thinking about... Ok. the last test failed because i had the text boxes mixed up and the content went into the title, and vice versa. anyway, hopefully this works...

thinking of a new app, but thinking problems are there...

tiernanotoole — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 22:51:00 GMT

Ok. I am thinking of a new blogging app, but i dont know what to do with it yet. it will be a desktop blogging application, and i dont know weather do use SQL Server Express or XML. SQL Server Express has some major advantages over XML, but XML has its advantages too. So, the advantages of SQL Server are:
Speed: Very fast for queries
Managability: Single file with the DB in it.
Support: Fully supported by the .NET Framework, and its SQL too.
Ease of programming: Because its SQL, its a lot easer to program for, and it ties directly in with the .NET frame work and IDE.

Disadvantages:
Size: Ok. my app could be up to a meg is size, maybe a little more, but i have to get the .NET framework 2.0 and SQL Server Express to the users machine. I know the .NET 2.0 boot strapper could help, but its still a hefty download for the users, and if its only a 1 or 2mb file, some are just not going to download!

I cant think of any other disadvantages to SQL Express, but if you have any tell me!

when it comes to XML, the only advantage of XML is the size of it. Its basicly the oppisite to SQL Server Express. i know i can write and read XML with the Dataset, but i still have to do some code to find stuff i want in there, and theres no real Query Language for data sets. So, its really a toss up between size and speed (etc). What would you choose?

URL Coralizing App

tiernanotoole — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 03:47:00 GMT

Ok. this is really a stupid little app i just wrote for the laugh, but i will post the code here becuase i can. First check out this post on my other site about coral. and now the code.

Try
   Dim split2 As Array
   split2 = Split(TextBox1.Text, "/")
   TextBox2.Text = split2(0) + ".nyud.net:8090/"
   For i As Integer = 0 To split2.Length - 1
      If i = 0 Then
      ElseIf i = 1 Then
         TextBox2.Text = TextBox2.Text & "" & split2(i)
      Else
         TextBox2.Text = TextBox2.Text & "/" & split2(i)
      End If
   Next
Catch ex As Exception
   MsgBox(ex)
End Try

So, the form is set out like this. 2 text boxes (TextBox1 and TextBox2) and a Button. code is for the button1_click event. You put a url into textbox 1, and the click the button and the Coralized URL comes out in Textbox2. you do not use a http:// infront of the URL as it will break the theory behind the code. This is a stupid little app, but i had to do it cause i havent posted here in a while!

NO MORE INVITES

tiernanotoole — Wed, 21 Jul 2004 13:47:00 GMT

I, and a lot of people, have not been given any more invites for quite some time now. people posting comments here and emailing me asking for invites are wasting their time! i dont have any, and as i said before, if i get them, they will go on freegmailinvites.com. Now, leave me alone!

my main blog could be moving to .TEXT

tiernanotoole — Mon, 05 Jul 2004 10:18:00 GMT

Ok. i have been using different weblog software over the last while now. First i used Movabletype, but it was too big and took up lots of resources. then i moved to Wordpress. this rocks and im still using it, but now im looking at .TEXT. Its written in C#, has a web service back end, and just rocks. im using it here on weblogs.ASP.NET but now im looking at running it at home. I'll be posting my progess here soon. I talked a bit about it on my other blog last night. Ohhh, and speaking of blogs, RSSAgg has died. not sure why. remote debugging is off, so i cant see from work. ill check it when i get home.

Code for RSSAgg

tiernanotoole — Sat, 03 Jul 2004 15:26:00 GMT

Ok. yesterday i said i would post some code for RSSAgg, and here it is. Im only going to post some little bits because im lazy, but they are the important parts so here it goes:

Firstly theres a function which does all the hard work. this gets data from the RSS Feeds and returns a dataset to the sub that called the functions:

Public Function getdata() As DataSet

Dim myDS As New DataSet ' the dataset

Dim rsstable As New DataTable ' datatable that gets imported into the dataset

Dim datecol As New DataColumn("Date") ' the date colum.

datecol.DataType = System.Type.GetType("System.DateTime") ' set the type of data in the date colum to datetime

rsstable.Columns.Add(datecol) ' add the date column to the table

rsstable.Columns.Add(New DataColumn("Title")) ' add a new title colum to the table

rsstable.Columns.Add(New DataColumn("description")) ' add a new title colum to the table

rsstable.Columns.Add(New DataColumn("link")) ' add a new title colum to the table

rsstable.Columns.Add(New DataColumn("channel")) ' add a new title colum to the table

rsstable.Columns.Add(New DataColumn("chanurl")) ' add a new title colum to the table

Dim array As New ArrayList 'array of sites your to connect to

array.Add("http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/hnKu") ' links blog

array.Add("http://blog.lotas-smartman.net/feed/") ' main blog

array.Add("http://weblogs.asp.net/tiernanotoole/Rss.aspx") ' dev blog

Dim x As Integer ' counter

For x = 0 To array.Count - 1

Dim feed As Rss.RssFeed = Rss.RssFeed.Read(array(x))

Dim channel As Rss.RssChannel = feed.Channels(0)

Dim i As Integer

For i = 0 To channel.Items.Count - 1

Dim myrow As DataRow

myrow = rsstable.NewRow

Dim item As New Rss.RssItem

item = channel.Items(i)

Dim mydate As Date

mydate = item.PubDate

myrow("Date") = mydate

myrow("Title") = item.Title

myrow("description") = item.Description

myrow("link") = item.Link

myrow("chanurl") = feed.Channels(0).Link

myrow("channel") = feed.Channels(0).Title

rsstable.Rows.Add(myrow)

rsstable.AcceptChanges()

myDS.Merge(rsstable)

Return myDS

End Function

As you can see, i kind of got board with the comments after a while. Now, then you have the page load sub:

Private Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

Dim cached As String = ""

Dim ds As DataSet = Cache("RSSds")

If Not ds Is Nothing Then

cached = "Dataset cached"

Else

Dim ws As New rssAgg.RSSAggWS

cached = "Dataset not cached"

ds = getdata()

Cache.Add("RSSds", ds, Nothing, DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(30), TimeSpan.Zero, Caching.CacheItemPriority.Normal, Nothing)

End If

ds.Tables(0).DefaultView.Sort = "date desc"

Repeater1.DataSource = ds.Tables(0).DefaultView

Repeater1.DataBind()

End Sub

the variable "cached" used to be written out to show you if it was cached or not. now. some important things that are needed. Firstly you need RSS.NET. Not only that but you need to modified the code because of a date time problem with it. the info is in Bug 927898. i put in the code and it works grand now. currently its only parsing RSS2.0, or mainly RSS2.0 feeds, but RSS.net will do other RSS Feeds too. i might work on atom support, but not for a while now. Next task: SQL server for the back. the plan is to query the feeds every 15 or 30min and put the data into a SQL Server. then when the page is loaded, the page queries the DB and recives only the last 10 or 20 results. we will see later though! That could be a 0.2 alpha release. i might have an RSS feed for RSSAgg in at 0.15? keep checking back!

RSSAgg 0.1 Alpha online!

tiernanotoole — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 20:17:00 GMT

check out the new release of RSSAgg! its back after some down time. hopefully all will go well. code some time tomorrow. not sure when though. stay tuned! :P

RSSAgg: An update

tiernanotoole — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 07:54:00 GMT

Ok. sorry for the lack of posts about RSSAgg over the last while. I have been quite busy with different things and havent gotten a chance to play with RSSAgg. I have to fix a machine on my network, which was hosting most of my sites, now is now dead, and my workstation si doing most of the hosting. Thats being explained more here. Anyway, i hope to have RSSAgg working again soon. Textamerica, the moblog people, are working on RSS Feeds again. once that is up, ill be posting a lot more photos on the blog! Anyway, sorry again. a new build and code may be up soon!!

NO More FREE gmail invites!

tiernanotoole — Fri, 25 Jun 2004 09:23:00 GMT

OK. Yesterday i got 6 more invites. I told people if they wanted one they would have to put a link on their site and then email me. a lot of people just posted comments, so your not getting any! the people who missed my last gmail account givaway, 2 of them, have gotten their accounts, which leaves me with 4. so what do i do with the 4 accouts. well i donated them to http://www.freegmailinvites.com/. Go there, sign up, login and play. Good luck! ohhh and a note for those of you who posted comments on my site and left email addresses in them, not smart! ever here of spam bots? thats why i was saying to email me and post a link on a blog. ahhh well, you cant blame me, and im not deleting them cause there are too many and im lazy.... I HAVE NO MORE INVITES! LEAVE ME ALONE!

Free GMail Invites!

tiernanotoole — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 11:51:00 GMT

I have gotten a futher 5 GMail Invites! so, heres a special offer for anyone who has a weblog I originally was giving these away for free, but now its going to cost you! If you have a weblog, all i want is a Link back to my main blog (http://blog.lotas-smartman.net) with the title "Tiernan's Blog" and thats about it! Email me at lsmartman [at] gmail [dot] com and once varified, I will send you an invite! I have 5 3 none left! Go on! you know you want one! :) I got emails from 2 people so far (SB Chatterjee and Demiliani Stefano). so im left with 3 in total! come on!! who wants the last of these great invites? Ok. you can stop your linking, unless you dont want to! :) unfortunitly im all out of Gmail invites for today. I have none LEFT! Leave me alone! i have gotten a load of comments asking for some, and i have none left. go to www.freegmailinvites.com and you could win one. i dont have any so dont ask!

getting a users full name from an active directory username

tiernanotoole — Wed, 16 Jun 2004 15:10:00 GMT

Not sure how handy this is for others, but i have found a very cool use for it! This code allows you to connect to an active directory and find out what the full name of a user is. I have been using this for customization on an intranet site im building. So now when you visit the front page, you can see your full name and not just your username. handy, or at least i though it was!

Free Developer edition of .NET Charting software

tiernanotoole — Thu, 10 Jun 2004 13:39:00 GMT

Check out http://www.freechartdownload.com/. they have a free developer edition of their charting software for you to download. i want to play with charting, just because i, well, want to, so this is a handy thing to play with. more then likly theres some limitations of what you can and cant do with the software (distrobution is out of the question i would say). great for learning and testing though! [update] I have been asked what is meant by "Developer Edition". On the download page of the product, the following is stated:

Thank you for your interest in .netCHARTING Enterprise Edition. We currently have a fully functional free developers version available for immediate download. Latest update 4/14/04.

So, thats what "Developer Edition" means. I have not tried this my self yet, but will. more info when i check it out.

Bug found in RSSAgg

tiernanotoole — Wed, 02 Jun 2004 15:35:00 GMT

I found a bug in RSSAgg today. For some reason when the first post is shown (which now is a mob blog post) it is shown before everything else and the date is set as now or when ever the dataset was created. so even if there are newer posts, the last post from the mob blog is shown first. I have to fix this soon, so 0.04 will be up tonight. BTW, the version numbers are slightly off since i just started calling it a number since, well, a few days ago!