Alex Schultz

Blog

  • Thoughts about JSON

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    JSON is a really interesting new trend in webservices it stands for JavaScript Object Notation. For those of you who use AJAX you should know that the key call XMLHttpRequest will only work within the same domain and so you have to have an interface hosted on your server to call the XML output.

    JSON is different since JSON returns a series of javascript arrays and elements in the same way as you would from a javascript include. This means a programmer doesn’t need to know the complicated XML Dom model processing in Javascript to do dynamic work but instead the programmer only needs to know how to handle variables.

    JSON also gives bandwidth savings in the majority of cases since the JSON code sent contains fewer characters than XML.

    So with this double upside a lot of companies are starting to offer JSON for example the excellent yahoo geocoding is now offering JSON. I feel however the strongest JSON offering is the eBay REST XSLT service which allows you to upload a stylesheet of your design to the eBay servers and have the response converted instantly into your favourite flavour using a stylesheet you design.

    I am really excited to see how JSON expands and am throwing together a few tests myself.

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  • Web browser Widget: Integrating Internet Explorer into C# Windows Application

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    Last night was a really interesting play around for me with C Sharp (C#). I decided a while back that it is a huge opportunity to be able to place widgets on users’ desktops in Windows but quite simply I did not know how. Off the back of that idea I bought Visual Studio .NET and decided to teach myself how to program in C#. The book I used to teach myself is called Microsoft Visual C#.NET Step by Step and is written by John Sharp and Jon Jagger. The two Jonnies have done a fantastic job in this book of helping you step by step work your way into C# and I am very grateful.

    There are a few simple steps for getting a browser integrated into a windows application using Visual Studio and Windows C# .NET. Initially you need to set yourself up a new project of the type “Windows Application”. Once you have created this new application you need to be able to insert the webbrowser into the C# form under the design option in the Visual Studio .net interface. The way you add the webbrowser is through Tools > Add/Remove Toolbox items > menu where you select the Microsoft Web Browser COM component.

    Now within the toolbox you will see the Microsoft Web Browser icon, you can drag and drop this to the windows form and you will have integrated the web browser into your form. Now you have your web browser in your form you are pretty much done but of course you will see nothing in this form unless you set a base referring URL within the code.

    Good luck and I will be sure to post anything fun I do with this technology.

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  • Working Around SELECT INTO for mySQL

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    mySQL does not support the “SELECT * FROM … INTO …” sybase SQL extension. That seemed a real bummer for me since I use that a lot in my work and wanted to use it while I was trying to repair my cocktail recipe database which was full of rubbish because I don’t check the input to the table.

    After a bit of searching around I found that you could replicate this in two simple ways:

    Using the CREATE … SELECT Method: This is a really simple way to fix the problem, if you have experience with the existing “SELECT” method you can use that to create a new table with exactly the same properties as the table you are selecting from.

    In fact this method is really flexible since you can insert any column you wish into the new table.

    This made my life a lot easier and I hope it makes your life easier too.

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  • Zeus mod rewrite Redirects

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    In my previous post I talked about how I was reading into what can be done with mod rewrite files. I was quite amazed at what it is possible to achieve with rewrite files. The output of the work I have done means that the URL http://www.cocktailmaking.co.uk/433-a-strawberry-with-milk.html is just redirecting to http://www.cocktailmaking.co.uk/showcocktail.php?CocktailID=433 on the server but any crawler or visitor can’t tell that.

    The methodology for doing this is really very simple with a .htaccess file but to truly do justice to the power of .htaccess will take a lot more than this short blog post. Unfortunately my host decided not to allow me to do this with .htaccess and doesn’t allow the RewriteEngine to run. I therefore had to use the mod rewrite functionality in Zeus.

    There was very little documentation for this on the web but over a couple of hours it became clear that the methodology was really similar. Unfortunately I didn’t nail it completely. I had to add a bit of script in the php file to recognize the URL used to call the file and then pull out the variable number (a bit of a hack I know) but it works really well.

    I am now planning to change the URL structure linked from the site and do some 301 redirects so that I can get the yahoo value from having the better URL structure without losing the existing Google benefits.

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  • 301 Redirects

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    I have been working towards making my sites fully active served. This allows me the flexibility to do lots of interesting things I have been wanting to do for some time. For example in paper airplanes I would like to serve people adverts from different advertisers depending on the number of pages they have seen on my site. In cocktail recipes I want to make amazon recommends style recommendations when someone visits an individual cocktail.

    A major limiting factor was the fact that although I had replaced all the links on my sites to point at the new active pages the old html pages were still drawing a lot of traffic from people linking to my site and legacy search engine results.

    For some time now I have been wondering how to do 301 redirects since I understood they could overcome just this kind of problem in a way meta redirects cannot. It turns out that when you have a linux server you can place a “.htaccess” file in your directory which will permanently redirect traffic arriving at an old URL to the new URL you want accessed.

    I worried of course that the new URLs would underperform in the search engines and I would lose all my traffic but today (less than a week after making this 301 redirect change) the entirely new URL www.paperairplanes.co.uk/planes.php is listed in Google Sitemaps as being the highest page rank page on my website and I have seen no reduction in search engine traffic to the site from any engine following the changes.

    Good encouraging news for anyone who wants to change the URL structure of their site but not lose existing traffic in doing so.

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  • API enabled tag cloud

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    Late last night I finished programming something I have been playing with for a the last week. It is a tag cloud using the “GetPopularResults” API call from the eBay API and forcing a curve for the word font sizes.

    The upshot of this little bit of programming is the image shown to the left of this post and you can see the live version at example eBay TagCloud. I will post in the near future a way that you can create your own version of this Tag Cloud and the code used to call the eBay API.

    The Tag Cloud displayed is for category “1” (Collectibles) on siteid 3 (the eBay.co.uk site) and shows the top 30 words searched for in this category and site combination using the GetPopularKeywords call on the eBay API.

    Of course due to the simplicity of calling internationally on the eBay API this cloud can easily be set up for any country and for any category which I am really proud about.

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  • New Attempt with Blogging

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    The idea in publishing this blog is primarily to work on typepad widget development and see how I can make APIs interface effectively with Typepad blogs.

    I intend to post code and suggestions and tips for what you can do with some of the more interesting APIs on the web today.

    Thanks for visiting.

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