Take Outs: The Digital Doggy Bag of Blog Bits for 6,7 and 8 February 2004
I've not fallen off the planet, nor have Donny and Scott's latest upgrades given me any problems. Nope, I've been sucked into a problem that I've spend the better part of two and half days of programming on, after I spent an hour to just fix it by hand. I know that's stupid, but sometimes when I get ahold of something, I just can't let go. Basically, I wanted to re-organzie my RSS Bandit feedlist programmatically. I knew I had some duplicate feeds, and I wanted to categorize the feeds by the feed name. Not an easy task when your working with 1,143 feeds. My first attempts to just do it with XSLT failed miserably, so I fired Whidbey and Yukon where I was able to make some headway.
The first thing that struck me is number of duplicate feeds I had. Now, I know that RSS would let you add a duplicate feed -- unless you just happen to import one in somebody else's OPML. What was freaky here, though, is just what I thought a duplicate would be. I had 54 duplicated feeds but 53 repeated names with different RSS URLs. I'm still looking at many of these, but it would appear to be any when folks move their blog around, they keep the same name. I'm guilty of that too.
Here's another set of statistics I found kind of interesting: I've got about 12,032 postings in a net feedlist of 1,037 feeds. Of all of those feeds, however, only 824 of them had any stories. The average postings-per-feed is about 13 with a mode and median of 10, with a standard deviation almost 20.
So, true believers, here's some of the most interesting of those postings. Where appropriate, I've added some commentary.
- "expensive install tools" vs. "less expensive install tools" Source: (Source Feed)
- ;-) Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Funny!]
- A new app for people who want to (...) Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Knock on wood, I don't think this has ever been a problem on SQLJunkies, but I did sign-up for it anyway.]
- Applying the Rule of Least Surprise to Projects Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Emailed this to my Boss]
- Attack of the Comments Source: (Source Feed)
- Brews News #46 Source: (Source Feed)
- Bryce is growing up too fast... Source: (Source Feed)
- C# Language Features beyond Whidbey Source: (Source Feed)
- Calling All Authors! Source: (Source Feed)
- Can I store my XSL in a stored procedure? Source: (Source Feed)
- Can SOA survive the average aptitude? Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Leave it to Philip to ask the best question. My answer is no, but maybe I'm jaded]
- Code Access Security in SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Think of Reporting as being like Whidbey's Partial Classes and this makes sense.]
- Code reviews are a Good Thing Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Another one off to the boss]
- Collaborative Editing for Text Editors Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: This would be a really cool plugin for VS.NET]
- Concurrent Sessions in Windows XP SP2 Source: (Source Feed)
- Consuming the MSDN RSS Feeds with the DataGrid and Xml Web Controls. Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Ok, its a good intro... but DataGrid... jeeze...]
- Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Bug in ASP.NET 1.1 Source: (Source Feed)
- Defining XML Views over Relational Data Source: (Source Feed)
- Developing for multiple platforms at the same time... Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: It'll be nice to have both my WebServices and CF projects in one solution.]
- Dina on the importance of location Source: (Source Feed)
- Don't use ApplicationClass (unless you have to) Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Good pointers for those of you invoking Office Products via Inter-op.]
- Efficient Evaluation of Multiple Queries on Streaming XML Data Source: (Source Feed)
- Factories and ADO.NET in Whidbey Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: We've sort have needed this feature, but the XMLAdapter, isn't it sort of moot <VBG>.]
- First Crack - Reporting Services Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Another RS convert. Cool!]
- First day on the job at CodeProject Source: (Source Feed)
- From SOAP 1.1 to SOAP 1.2 in 9 points Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Need to read this in more depth someday.]
- GUID Vs. IDENTITY Source: (Source Feed)
- He weighed 450 lbs., too Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: No, that's not my brother.]
- How to AutoSize column(s) in the DataGrid. Source: (Source Feed)
- How to detect .Net Framework installed in a web client? Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Of course, UA string can be forged...]
- How to detect .Net framework installed or not. Source: (Source Feed)
- How to find a place for a given Lat/Long using MapPoing 2004 Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Finally some sample C# for using MapPoint... too bad it's using Application.]
- htmlArea - Turn any text area into a WYSIWYG editor Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Now this I gots to get me some of!]
- InfoPath How To: Change the Script Language of your Form Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Now, how do I get it to work with C#?... <VBG>]
- InfoPath Viewer Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: It would be of great value, but then, so would XForms... Grrrrr]
- Interesting Google Tool: SearchGrid Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Pivot table madess, but very cool]
- Interogate Sprocs Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Yet another for the Boss. We used to have a product for doing just that.]
- Is there a runtime version of InfoPath? Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Q: Is there a runtime version of InfoPath? A: Yes, it's InfoPath, duh!]
- Large File Upload in ASP.NET Source: (Source Feed)
- Laugh While You Can, Monkey Boy! Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: I like it.]
- Lessons From Bill Gates Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Didn't BillG also say that he couldn't imagine a computer needing more than 640K of RAM? Or that DOS was dead?]
- Link to "Interviewing a Programmer" Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: The “what books are you reading“ is one of my long-time favorites.]
- Longhorn Tiles Source: (Source Feed)
- Make SQL Queries over HTTP with XML with VS.Net Source: (Source Feed)
- Mastering IIS FTP - Part 1 - Redirecting Users Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Now that useful!]
- Men inflict greater pain than women Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: That said, its not the quantity -- it's quality -- that counts <Grin>]
- Microsoft and developer support...... Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Go tell 'em what you think of the MVP programs and the newsgroups. The resource you save may be your own.]
- Microsoft purportedly working on Windows XP Light Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Read: Humm, maybe BillG is take Asianix seriously? But will SCO sue Kim Il Jong or are they really one in the same?]
- Microsoft's IIS Serves More High-Traffic Sites than Apache Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Ugh. It doesn't matter who serves the most. You'll never get me to say that McDonald's is better than Sushi Japan because McD's does about a million times the business.]
- Mortal coding sin: programming in your mother tongue Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Interesting point, but I really have to wonder if there are non-English-based Programming Languages out there? Visual Basic.NET written in Japanesse would be... interesting...]
- Ms Manners for Managers Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Isn't the Duh! factor high on this one? Isn't it amazing how many people wind up as managers that should? And equally, those that should that don't?]
- MSSQL Server 2000 Reporting Services: A New Paradigm for Enterprise Reporting Source: (Source Feed)
- MySQL costs Source: (Source Feed)
- Newer Whidbey at DevDays? Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: The answer is No. And if it turns out to be Yes, I'm going be real unhappy...]
- OpenNETCF.org at MDC 2004 Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Cool, you can bridge the gap between CFx and WinCE with this]
- Oracle and .NET Source: (Source Feed)
- Outlook.exe /cleanreminders versus /resetfolders Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: This went to our helpdesk folks]
- Ow! My Foot! Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Simply brillant. Now if everybody would just take this to heart, I wouldn't have to rant on about it so much]
- PayPal SDK for ASP.NET Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Cool, we've needed this for a while, I think.]
- PREfast for driver developers Source: (Source Feed)
- Problems with the latest Internet Explorer Critical Updates Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: This is still the only report I'm hearing of problems, and I'm wondering if its because of the embedded creditials removal]
- QueryCommander.QCTextEditor Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Something like this would make developing an Ad-Hoc front end for RS much easier]
- Read a Good Construction Safety Book Lately? Source: (Source Feed)
- RegExMatcher - Tests regular expressions Source: (Source Feed)
- Requesting Feedback: 10 Things Developers Currently Do w/ SQL That They Shouldn't Source: (Source Feed)
- Resizing JPEG images using System.Imaging Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Rick, your JPG to JPG Converter is here...]
- RSS Generator Component Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Or save yourself the time and use RSS.NET]
- RSS Publishing By Email - From iUpload Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: For those who can't run RSS Bandit, I guess... <Grin>]
- rssbandit-users Mailing List Launched Source: (Source Feed)
- RssFeed 1.3 Available Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Or save yourself the time and use RSS.NET x2]
- running with InfoPath runtime Source: (Source Feed)
- Sample: WinFS for CRM Source: (Source Feed)
- Should there be VB6+? Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: VB1 was a mistake, really, why keep paving the cowpath?]
- Siesta Mailing List Manager Source: (Source Feed)
- Six Tips to write better RSS Source: (Source Feed)
- Snapshot Replication for the Beginner Source: (Source Feed)
- SQL 2003 Standard Support in Oracle Database 10g Source: (Source Feed)
- The Longhorn Team is Listening Source: (Source Feed)
- The value of XML 1.1 Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Agreed, it seems like a kludge that we could have done without.]
- Thinking outside the box Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Ouch, that hurts, considering what I've been trying to do all weekend...]
- To SP or not to SP? Source: (Source Feed)
- TreeMap.Net Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Now that's cool]
- Using Feedster to produce RSS feeds from an OPML URL Source: (Source Feed)
- Wolfram's New Kind of Science Now Online Source: (Source Feed)
- XML 1.1: The W3C Gets It Wrong Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: And the pile-on begins!]
- XML 2003 Conference Diary Source: (Source Feed)
- XML critical patches Source: (Source Feed)
- XML Data in SQL Server Source: (Source Feed)
- XML Database Products [a Review] Source: (Source Feed)
- You know COM is dead when... Source: (Source Feed)
- Yukon for Developers Source: (Source Feed)
- Yukon PDC bits and XQuery ... Source: (Source Feed)
[ED: Good little kick at the tires]
- Yukon Talk Source: (Source Feed)
Gad, I've got 1,316 posts to read from being off-line for a couple of days.