Saturday, September 17, 2005
I can't belive I missed this About IE7 [OPML]
Directly from IE Teams Blog,
There will be a navtive XMLHTTPRequest object in IE7. It is definatly not in Beta 1, so lets hope it is in Beta 2! I would love this to be in ASAP because I keep running in to security issue having to always insure that browsers are set up correctly for ActiveX.
On a side note, it is also amazing to hear that they are producing a SELECT input box that can be layered properly!!! hopefully it will also be able to be styled better.
Weve also continued to add web developer platform features and fixes: weve continued to fix CSS and other web standards bugs, but weve also rebuilt the <select> element as a windowless control, so it can be visually layered under other elements. IE 7 implements a native XMLHTTPRequest object for Javascript applications, instead of requiring an ActiveXObject to be created. This also means XMLHTTPRequest will function on machines that have ActiveX disabled. Weve providing support for International Domain Names weve also done some thoughtful work to prevent spoofing of URLs by using similar characters from other languages.
There will be a navtive XMLHTTPRequest object in IE7. It is definatly not in Beta 1, so lets hope it is in Beta 2! I would love this to be in ASAP because I keep running in to security issue having to always insure that browsers are set up correctly for ActiveX.
On a side note, it is also amazing to hear that they are producing a SELECT input box that can be layered properly!!! hopefully it will also be able to be styled better.
C# 3.0. Ugh! [OPML]
I have just been reading some bits about [read: one or two posts] about some of the language features of C# 3.0. One of the new concepts is something called Lambda Expressions, while I am still trying to work out why they might be useful, I can tell you now I don't like the sytnax at all; It looks nothing like C#; It looks convoluted; It looks NASTY!!!
If someone knows better [most probably most of the world :)] then please leave a comment or email me: paul.kinlan@gmail.com
Abhinaba at Microsoft doesn't like it too much either, but for more well thought out reasons than I.
To Quote:
I do agree with him a little, as it stands now, at first glance I don't think I understand the point of it, nor do I want C# to change from an OO language into one that has seemingly convoluted Functional Programming constructs.
If someone knows better [most probably most of the world :)] then please leave a comment or email me: paul.kinlan@gmail.com
Abhinaba at Microsoft doesn't like it too much either, but for more well thought out reasons than I.
To Quote:
Why I don't like lambda expression in C#:
C# has originally developed from C++ /Java and is (was :^) ) a strongly typed object-oriented language. The new features being introduced like closure, continuation (yes, yes very limited continuation) in C#2.0 and now type inference, lambda expressions are de-generating the language. Even though there are people go gaga about continuation and lexical closures these are fundamentally functional language features and should be left to that. Introduction of bits and pieces of functional language features are not going to add value to C# and at the same time the surface area of C# is growing beyond what most developer can grasp.
Every language has a domain of application and an audience. Most people who work in C# developing web-services and web-based applications today are not necessary computer science grads. For them these concepts are a huge variation from the way C# used to behave. Functional programming is for the academia and not from the industry and should be left as such.
If I am asked, whether I'll use these language features, my answer will be maybe, and that is because the code written by me will be reviewed and maintained by people in MS who are fairly conversant with these. However, I think these features add burden to the learning curve of people who are not super interested in C# and should be avoided in favor of easier language constructs that might take couple of lines of code more, but would be more readable and maintainable.
These are just my opinions and I'm sure the designers of C# had given a lot of thought before adding them, but I strongly feel that these features are just adding more surface area to the language and will mostly go unused by the masses.
I do agree with him a little, as it stands now, at first glance I don't think I understand the point of it, nor do I want C# to change from an OO language into one that has seemingly convoluted Functional Programming constructs.
Developer Toolbar for IE announced at PDC [OPML]
There is now a developer toolbar made by Microsoft for Internet Explorer both IE7 and IE6. Just installing it throws up lots of warnings in the Microsoft Anti Spyware tool, and it requires a restart of the Computer!!! Why does it need to do that! [I found that it works without a restart]
Anyway I am about to start playing with it. I will let you know what it is like.
Here is the article taken from the blog entry.
[Via MSDN Blogs]
Anyway I am about to start playing with it. I will let you know what it is like.
Here is the article taken from the blog entry.
The developer community has asked for a long time: Where is the free developer toolbar for IE? We recognized the popularity of free IE tools like Fiddler and we listened to your feedback. I am glad to announce the next addition to our developer tool support: The IE dev toolbar. This tool will help developers to explore their HTML documents and understand everything about it.
With the IE Dev Toolbar you have several features at your fingertips to go deep into existing pages or pages that you are currently creating. You will be able to explore the DOM tree and find elements on the page, disable IE settings, view information, outline elements, control images, resize pages to common screen resolutions and have a powerful ruler that lets you measure pixel perfect content on your page. It also will help you to validate against existing standards and provides pointers to W3C specs.
At Chris's talk at the PDC on Tuesday, he announced that we would have a beta version available very soon. This is now ready and available for download. It is designed to work on IE6 as well as IE7.
I would like to thank our interns, Carl LeCompte, Mary Ann Jawili, Barbara Morales, Seth McLaughlin and Jeffrey Varga for doing a great job working on this project, and also a big thanks to David McKinnis, our developer.
I would love to hear in the comment section what you think and what additional features you would like to see added. Bugs can be reported at the Channel9 wiki.
- Markus
[Via MSDN Blogs]
| Technorati Tags |
| Microsoft Anti Spyware [feed], Microsoft Explorer [feed], Internet Explorer [feed], Developer Tool [feed], Ie7 [feed], Msdn [feed], Ie6 [feed] |
Just a test [
Minor Test with AJAX Tagger [
I have just been fiddling with the AJAX Tagger. Based on my previous entry about Wikipedia Integration I have now added support for generating links directly to related Wikipedia articles.
The results are shown below which are for this article if that makes sense. They were created in about a minute and I think they are all pretty relevant.
One of the things that I have noticed is that sometimes the URL isn't the direct url to wikipedia, sometimes it is the ClickUrl in the Yahoo search results. I am not too sure why this happens, but I will let you know if I make any progress on this.
I just need to think about ordering on them.
How would you like to see your tags and related documents ordered? Email me paul.kinlan@gmail.com or leave a comment.
The results are shown below which are for this article if that makes sense. They were created in about a minute and I think they are all pretty relevant.
One of the things that I have noticed is that sometimes the URL isn't the direct url to wikipedia, sometimes it is the ClickUrl in the Yahoo search results. I am not too sure why this happens, but I will let you know if I make any progress on this.
I just need to think about ordering on them.
How would you like to see your tags and related documents ordered? Email me paul.kinlan@gmail.com or leave a comment.
| Technorati Tags |
| Yahoo Search Results [feed], Wikipedia [feed], Tagger [feed], Ajax [feed], Search [feed], Yahoo Search [feed] |
Friday, September 16, 2005
AJAX Tagger Second Question [
I am just working on some requriements for the next version of the AJAX Tagger application. If any of you could get back to me then I would greatly appreciate your feedback.
The reason why I created the AJAX Tagger is that it allowed me to add value to my blog entries by linking readers of my blog with other blogs of a very similar topic. Would you like to be able to have it use different sources rather than Technorati. For instance would you like it to link to IceRocket etc? Or is linking to related blog lists not what you want, would you like it to link to a site such as Wikipedia?
What I am trying to get at is: Where would you like the application to create automatically tagged links too?
The reason why I created the AJAX Tagger is that it allowed me to add value to my blog entries by linking readers of my blog with other blogs of a very similar topic. Would you like to be able to have it use different sources rather than Technorati. For instance would you like it to link to IceRocket etc? Or is linking to related blog lists not what you want, would you like it to link to a site such as Wikipedia?
What I am trying to get at is: Where would you like the application to create automatically tagged links too?
| Technorati Tags |
| Icerocket [feed], Technorati [feed], Tagger [feed], Ajax [feed], Add Value [feed], Wikipedia [feed], Feedback [feed] |
AJAX Tagger Question [
I am just working on some requriements for the next version of the AJAX Tagger application. If any of you could get back to me then I would greatly appreciate your feedback. Would you as a user like to be able to have the posistion of the tags configurable? What I mean by this is would you like the option to include links to technorati tags inline with the blog entry or at the end of the article.
Currently it creates a list of related tags at the end of the post. Would it be good if they were inline with the post? This has a minor problem, because sometimes the Yahoo Term Extraction API doesn't uses phrases and related keywords that aren't in the blog itself.
Currently it creates a list of related tags at the end of the post. Would it be good if they were inline with the post? This has a minor problem, because sometimes the Yahoo Term Extraction API doesn't uses phrases and related keywords that aren't in the blog itself.
| Technorati Tags |
| Technorati [feed], Tagger [feed], Ajax [feed], Api [feed], Keywords [feed], Feedback [feed] |
Check out Channel 9.com [
Channel 9 has had a major influx of Video's. Way to go! These are really good videos and give an amazing about of information about Windows Vista.
Rob Franco and team - IE 7 Security
Steve Ball - Learning about Audio in Windows Vista
Abolade Gbadegesin and team - Networking in Windows Vista
There is a more complete list of videos here.
Rob Franco and team - IE 7 Security
Steve Ball - Learning about Audio in Windows Vista
Abolade Gbadegesin and team - Networking in Windows Vista
There is a more complete list of videos here.
| Technorati Tags |
| Msdn [feed], Vista [feed], Channel9 [feed], Channel 9 [feed], Networking [feed] |
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Follow up to Start.com entry [OPML]
After having a little moan [the only way I can describe it], two members of the MSN Start.com team got back to my email response. Basically the gist of what they said is that they are swamped with extra work that they have to do on this project but will be working on the section that handles mouse clicks from events like closing a panel down. They said that they will probably replace the mouse down event with a mouse up event.
That was a good reply from them and it made me very happy :) Way to go start.com.
Here are some of my entries about the subject
http://www.kinlan.co.uk/2005/09/msn-startcom.html
http://www.kinlan.co.uk/2005/09/startcom-still-that-minor-issue-exists.html
http://www.kinlan.co.uk/2005/09/startcom-please-listen.html
http://www.kinlan.co.uk/2005/07/startcom-little-annoyance.html
That was a good reply from them and it made me very happy :) Way to go start.com.
Here are some of my entries about the subject
http://www.kinlan.co.uk/2005/09/msn-startcom.html
http://www.kinlan.co.uk/2005/09/startcom-still-that-minor-issue-exists.html
http://www.kinlan.co.uk/2005/09/startcom-please-listen.html
http://www.kinlan.co.uk/2005/07/startcom-little-annoyance.html
| Technorati Tags |
| Msn [feed], Start [feed], Annoyance [feed], Moan [feed] |
First Public Comment and use of AJAX Tagger [OPML]
I just recieved a nice email from Gaby de Wilde, this is the first person who I don't know directly who has used my AJAX Tagger. He even gave me a link on his site.
Thanks!! I have taken the feedback and will add some of your suggestions to my requirements for the next version.
Anyway, take a trip over to his blog to see my tags in action.
If anyone has any suggestions I would greatly appreciate feedback.
Thanks!! I have taken the feedback and will add some of your suggestions to my requirements for the next version.
Anyway, take a trip over to his blog to see my tags in action.
If anyone has any suggestions I would greatly appreciate feedback.
| Technorati Tags |
| Blog [feed], Feedback [feed], Tagger [feed], Ajax [feed] |
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Note to self [OPML]
Don't get stuck in to ATLAS just yet.
Everyone, make sure I don't do this. I don't have the time for this project and also it is not done .Net [although that is my day job].
Everyone, make sure I don't do this. I don't have the time for this project and also it is not done .Net [although that is my day job].
| Technorati Tags |
| Asp Net [feed], Aspx [feed], Beta [feed] |
MSN Start.com [OPML]
I just recieved a reply from some of the people at MSN's Start.com about some feedback I sent to them, I will talk about it tomorrow when I get a couple of spare moments :)
Anyway thanks to Venkat and Hadi for their responses. I appreciate it.
More Tomorrow. I have a couple of posts that I want to get up! I have just been really busy at the moment.
Anyway thanks to Venkat and Hadi for their responses. I appreciate it.
More Tomorrow. I have a couple of posts that I want to get up! I have just been really busy at the moment.
| Technorati Tags |
| Msn [feed] |
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Start.com, Still that minor issue exists [
Even after start.com has been updated and Robert Scoble said the Start.com team respond quickly to feedback
I still haven't had a reply [or any sign of implementation] to my UI improvement suggestion. I don't think I am being silly, all I would like to hear is someone say, yeah it is good or yup kinlan you'r a fool :). I know you guys are busy, but everyone elses suggestions seemed to get taken on board.
Anyway, here is the email about feedback I sent.
I have just re-read my email... I sound like a nag :)
Here are my related entries:
http://www.kinlan.co.uk/2005/07/startcom-little-annoyance.html and http://www.kinlan.co.uk/2005/09/startcom-please-listen.html
They also posted Start.com/developer and are looking for feedback on all this stuff. They react fast and seem like they are adding new features every few days.
I still haven't had a reply [or any sign of implementation] to my UI improvement suggestion. I don't think I am being silly, all I would like to hear is someone say, yeah it is good or yup kinlan you'r a fool :). I know you guys are busy, but everyone elses suggestions seemed to get taken on board.
Anyway, here is the email about feedback I sent.
Hi,
I really love what you are doing on start.com, but I still have a minor greavance with the way the "x" button on the content panes work. It seems that every pane will close even if I don't confirm the click action by releasing the mouse. It is quite annoying because you can easily remove content panes by mistake.
http://www.kinlan.co.uk/2005/07/startcom-little-annoyance.html
http://www.kinlan.co.uk/2005/09/startcom-please-listen.html
It also seems that you respond to everyone elses critisms except this one, I don't think I am being silly and I do belive that if you fix this it will improve the useablity a bit more
Kind Regards, RSVP
Paul Kinlan
www.kinlan.co.uk
I have just re-read my email... I sound like a nag :)
Here are my related entries:
http://www.kinlan.co.uk/2005/07/startcom-little-annoyance.html and http://www.kinlan.co.uk/2005/09/startcom-please-listen.html
| Technorati Tags |
| Robert Scoble [feed], Feedback [feed], Weblogs [feed], Suggestion [feed], MSN [feed], Start [feed], |
Requirements Requirements everywhere [
I am starting to document things a little more at the moment. It is a slow process, I keep getting distracted by all the cool stuff I am missing that PDC. Most of my slowness it is revolving around MSN opening up there search to a public API. I don't really know whether it is worth me doing anything with it, it is a soap API and doesn't seem to offer anything that I can't already pull from their RSS Searching and RSS results. I will think a little more and I might see if I can offer some services in my next AJAX Appication (AJAXTagger v2), however I have to be really sure that I don't get bogged down by feature creep.
I have some resources all in one place on my main blog.
http://www.kinlan.co.uk/2005/09/msn-search-apis-are-up.html and http://www.kinlan.co.uk/2005/09/startcoms-developer-centre.html
I have some resources all in one place on my main blog.
http://www.kinlan.co.uk/2005/09/msn-search-apis-are-up.html and http://www.kinlan.co.uk/2005/09/startcoms-developer-centre.html
| Technorati Tags |
| Msn Search [feed], Search Api [feed], Public Api [feed], Search [feed], Apis [feed], Cool Stuff [feed], Rss [feed], Pdc [feed], Ajax [feed], Soap [feed] |
Start.com's Developer Centre [OPML]
As well as MSN releasing their Search API's, MSN's own start.com has also released an API, which I think is built with the ATLAS framework that Microsoft are trying to get ready for the release of ASP.net v2.
Why do I say ATLAS? because over on http://start.com/developer/default.htm, you will see a link to an ATLAS runtime overview http://start.com/developer/atlasruntime.aspx.
All of this requires a bit more investigating :) It is really interesting because it appears that it is all about creating components called Gadgets that Javascript RSS consumers.... I think. All of which have to be hosted on your own server. I don't know if it has to be IIS specific though.
One thing I have noticed from the "Getting Started" is that you need to enable cross domain data sources in Internet Explorer, whichI have already talked about in an earlier post [here].
I need to look in to this too :) I am going to have a busy weekend!
Why do I say ATLAS? because over on http://start.com/developer/default.htm, you will see a link to an ATLAS runtime overview http://start.com/developer/atlasruntime.aspx.
All of this requires a bit more investigating :) It is really interesting because it appears that it is all about creating components called Gadgets that Javascript RSS consumers.... I think. All of which have to be hosted on your own server. I don't know if it has to be IIS specific though.
One thing I have noticed from the "Getting Started" is that you need to enable cross domain data sources in Internet Explorer, whichI have already talked about in an earlier post [here].
I need to look in to this too :) I am going to have a busy weekend!
| Technorati Tags |
| Internet Explorer [feed], Search Api [feed], Atlas [feed], Cross Domain [feed], Asp Net [feed], Msn [feed], Aspx [feed], Iis [feed], Gadgets [feed], Javascript [feed], Rss [feed], Microsoft [feed] |
MSN Search API's Are up [
The MSN Search API's are up. Yay!
I have not had much time to look at it just yet, but I have some links for you.
Why MSN Search? http://msdn.microsoft.com/msn/msnsearch/whysearch/
MSN Search API Download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=C271309B-02DE-42A7-B23E-E19F68667197&displaylang=en
As far as I can tell the search API is a SOA0P service [http://soap.search.msn.com/webservices.asmx?wsdl], so no direct calls from IE it seems, and it looks like I will have to create a proxy forwarding kit :) ala My yahoo ones. :)
The download includes some documentation and some sample projects and you have to obtain an application ID which appears to be like the Yahoo Application ID. The forms can be found here: http://search.msn.com/developer and it looks like you need a .Net Passport.
If anyone knows how to consume SOAP in Javascript let me know. paul.kinlan@gmail.com
I have not had much time to look at it just yet, but I have some links for you.
Why MSN Search? http://msdn.microsoft.com/msn/msnsearch/whysearch/
MSN Search API Download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=C271309B-02DE-42A7-B23E-E19F68667197&displaylang=en
As far as I can tell the search API is a SOA0P service [http://soap.search.msn.com/webservices.asmx?wsdl], so no direct calls from IE it seems, and it looks like I will have to create a proxy forwarding kit :) ala My yahoo ones. :)
The download includes some documentation and some sample projects and you have to obtain an application ID which appears to be like the Yahoo Application ID. The forms can be found here: http://search.msn.com/developer and it looks like you need a .Net Passport.
If anyone knows how to consume SOAP in Javascript let me know. paul.kinlan@gmail.com
| Technorati Tags |
| Msn Search [feed], Search Api [feed], Msnsearch [feed], Microsoft [feed], Search [feed], Msdn [feed], Aspx [feed], Downloads [feed], Download [feed] |
Monday, September 12, 2005
Ad Targeting by Yahoo! Publisher Network [
I saw an interesting article about Yahoo's version of Google AdSense. over on Search Engine Roundtable, according to the article it allows you to target adverts directly againts a Yahoo Category. I think this would be really great if google had this in AdSense then I think the ads that I provide would be targeted better to my readers.
I like the idea of target ads. So come on GOOGLE! catch up! :) I could see that my next version of the AjaxTagger might be able to determine the best advert category to target a particular post too. Brilliant! :)
JenSense was the first I have seen to jump on the news that YPN added ad category targeting. What does Yahoo! Publisher Network Ad Targeting do? Simple, it allows you to define on a page, directory or site level the...
I like the idea of target ads. So come on GOOGLE! catch up! :) I could see that my next version of the AjaxTagger might be able to determine the best advert category to target a particular post too. Brilliant! :)
| Technorati Tags |
| Ajax [feed], Google Adsense [feed], Yahoo [feed], Google [feed], Ypn [feed], Search Engine [feed] |
Sunday, September 11, 2005
I am just testing to see if how well w.Bloggar works [
Just testing because I like the way that I can use RSS Bandit to automatically post a comment about a blog on my blog. If that makes sense :)
| Technorati Tags |
| Blog [feed], RSS Bandit [feed], Rss [feed] |
Technorati Blogger [OPML]
I have just discovered that to be listed in Technorati's Blog Search you have to configure your claim and then add 20 keywords that relate to tags. These tags don't even have to be on your blog.
Why on earth is it done this way. They have a list of all the tags that a blog uses and all the journals that cross reference each other, so why can't they use this information instead of stepping back 5 years in search technology.
Ah well.
Why on earth is it done this way. They have a list of all the tags that a blog uses and all the journals that cross reference each other, so why can't they use this information instead of stepping back 5 years in search technology.
Ah well.
| Technorati Tags |
| Blog [feed], Technorati [feed], Search Technology [feed], Search [feed], Keywords [feed], Journals [feed] |
OPML. Nope I still don't get it [
In an earlier post I talked about promising to include an OPML list of the blogs I read in the page. Seriously, is this all that it does? I just don't get what OPML is supposed to help me do or to how it helps anyone who reads my blog.
Here is a list of all the people ("Web Celebs") who like OPML and must know what to use it for; If anyone of them could tell me I would be very greatful. [I am trying to find more people]
Robert Scoble;
Dave Winner;
Hmm, I really do think I am missing something. Should I be using OPML to help me find people who are OPMLing and know what it is for?
All I am trying to say is that I don't know what I am supposed to do with it!
ps. I tried to use Technorati's Blog Finder to find OPML supporting Blogs, there where 4 I think. Way to go Technorati!
pps. If your like me. The best resource I found was over on Wikipedi [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPML].
Here is a list of all the people ("Web Celebs") who like OPML and must know what to use it for; If anyone of them could tell me I would be very greatful. [I am trying to find more people]
Robert Scoble;
Dave Winner;
Hmm, I really do think I am missing something. Should I be using OPML to help me find people who are OPMLing and know what it is for?
All I am trying to say is that I don't know what I am supposed to do with it!
ps. I tried to use Technorati's Blog Finder to find OPML supporting Blogs, there where 4 I think. Way to go Technorati!
pps. If your like me. The best resource I found was over on Wikipedi [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPML].
| Technorati Tags |
| Robert Scoble [feed], Web Celebs [feed], Technorati [feed], Blogs [feed], Blog [feed], Wikipedia [feed], Wiki [feed], Winner [feed], Opml [feed] |
Some Minor Changes to my HTML [
I just noticed that when I went to any of the pages on my site that have been linked from my main blog, then the title wasn't appearing at the top of the page, only the page URL.
Thanks to my AJAX Tagger for pointing this out :)
Thanks to my AJAX Tagger for pointing this out :)
More on MSN Search API's [OPML]
Robert Scoble links to some more information about the MSN Search API's. There is not an amazing amount of extra information in the linked article, however a figure is mentioned about how many queries that you can do with the API.
I have broken down some of the figures so that you know what they are in comparison to other Free (Not mentioning Ebay) API's
Google: 1000 queuries to the Search API per day
Yahoo: 5000 queries to each individual API per day
MSN: To be confirmed but it appears to be 10,000 per day [this could be per API or in total]
Amazon: 1 query per second = 60 * 60 * 24 = 3600 * 24 = 86,400 per day
I have broken down some of the figures so that you know what they are in comparison to other Free (Not mentioning Ebay) API's
Google: 1000 queuries to the Search API per day
Yahoo: 5000 queries to each individual API per day
MSN: To be confirmed but it appears to be 10,000 per day [this could be per API or in total]
Amazon: 1 query per second = 60 * 60 * 24 = 3600 * 24 = 86,400 per day
| Technorati Tags |
| Search Api [feed], Robert Scoble [feed], Google [feed], Msn Search [feed], Ebay [feed], Amazon [feed] |
