August 2005 Entries
Now that the dust has settled around Microsoft's surprise unveiling of Beta 1 of WinFS, we've had a chance to pore through the growing pool of new WinFS links. We found a few that piqued our interest.
[Via Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley]
A picture of two galaxies colliding 100 million light-years away gives an insight into the fate of our own planet.
[Ed. - What's the breaking distance of a galaxy at 100 million miles? :)]
[Via BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]
For the past year, Microsoft has declined to talk about its nex-generation Windows file system, WinFS, at all. But we hear the moratorium might soon end. And WinFS beta bits could debut as early as the upcoming Professional Developers Conference.
[Via Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley]
I'm training for the Dundee Marathon. Last night my training partner phoned me up and asked if I wanted to go out training. I did, but I only had half an hour to spare. In that time the only really worthwhile training we could do was a vo2 max run. Now, for me, that means keeping my heart rate between 172 and 186. The conversation at the end of the run, sums up nicely the difference between a software engineer who wants to do a marathon and a professional athlete. It went something like this...
Val: That was a good run thanks, I had to work quite hard.
Me: I'm gonna puke!
And she's a girl :)
I've written a small app that demonstrates how to consume an RSS feed using C# 2.0. The code that actually consumes the feed goes something like this...
private void BtnReadFeed_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
//GS - Get the feed
string returnXML = string.Empty;
try
{
WebClient wc = new WebClient();
Byte[] returnBytes =
wc.DownloadData(@"http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/
newsonline_uk_edition/front_page/rss.xml");
returnXML = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(returnBytes);
}
catch(WebException we)
{
MessageBox.Show(we.Message);
}
//GS - Parse the feed and populate the GUI
XPathDocument doc = new XPathDocument(new StringReader(returnXML));
XPathNavigator nav = doc.CreateNavigator();
//GS - Get the feed title
XPathNodeIterator nodes = nav.Select(@"/rss/channel/title");
nodes.MoveNext();
this.label1.Text = nodes.Current.Value;
//GS - Get the feed publication date
nodes = nav.Select(@"/rss/channel/lastBuildDate");
nodes.MoveNext();
this.label2.Text = nodes.Current.Value;
//GS - Populate the listbox with the headlines
XPathNavigator currentNav;
XPathNodeIterator currentNode;
string title;
string description;
string link;
this.listBox1.Items.Clear();
nodes = nav.Select(@"/rss/channel/item");
while (nodes.MoveNext())
{
//GS - Get the item title
currentNav = nodes.Current;
currentNode = currentNav.Select("title");
currentNode.MoveNext();
title = currentNode.Current.Value;
//GS - Get the item description
currentNode = currentNav.Select("description");
currentNode.MoveNext();
description = currentNode.Current.Value;
//GS - Get the item link
currentNode = currentNav.Select("link");
currentNode.MoveNext();
link = currentNode.Current.Value;
//GS - Instantiate a RssItem and add it to the listbox
RssItem ri = new RssItem(description, title, link);
this.listBox1.Items.Add(ri);
//GS - Select the first item
if (this.listBox1.Items.Count > 0)
{
this.listBox1.SelectedIndex = 0;
}
}
}
Having filled the listbox with news headlines we can get the news story by executing the following...
private void Listbox1_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
ListBox lb = sender as ListBox;
RssItem ri = lb.SelectedItem as RssItem;
this.textBox2.Text = ri.Description;
}
If you want to open a browser to view the acutal news item on line, you can do that via the following code...
private void Listbox1_DoubleClick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
ListBox lb = sender as ListBox;
RssItem ri = lb.SelectedItem as RssItem;
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(ri.Link);
}
Here is a picture of the application running
A zip file of the project is available for download here.
We are now about 77 days from the November 7, 2005 launch of Visual Studio 2005, one of the most significant releases in the history of the Developer Division. We have been releasing Community Technology Previews regularly since Beta 2 and will have one coming out in August as well. I wanted to take a moment and update you on our progress towards shipping the final product.
Check out the website for more details
[Via Somasegar's WebLog]
Well the competition winners have been decided and unfortunately I didn't win. Never mind, check out the great applications that did win their authors a trip to this year's PDC.
Overheard in our office today...
Anne: "Have you ever been to Niagara Falls?"
Michael: "No, but I've seen it on Google Earth"
Spoken like a true techie :)
Well my entry to the above competition is in, you can see it here. I don't have a public web server running the shareware starter kit stuff, so if you download the software ignore the errors that causes and don't press any of the shareware buttons on the toolbar and you'll still be able to use the software.
Oh, I almost forgot to say what it is. :) It's a search agreggator that allows you to type in one search criteria and have the search carried out at 5 web search, image search and blog search engines.
It looks like my Pipex upgrade to 1MB has been completed. My modem is reporting a 1MB connection speed and my connection is very fast thank you :) There's still a couple of dns and web cache issues to sort out, but in the main it's working very well.
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