Lewies Blog

So I’ve worked on my application a little more. First, I added an extra tab so that I could see a text-only version of the web page. This also gives me an idea of how search engines see page content.

One major change was behind the sceens. Rather then just returning a NameValueCollection of links, I decided to refector the code to return an array of HtmlAnchor controls instead. Since the .Net framework already has objects to represent links, I figure this should be better in case I need to add any other information later on. This closely comes in line with parsing forms.

Forms have a greater deal of information then just a name and a value. Rather then making my own objects from scratch, I turned to the HtmlForm object that comes in the System.Web.UI.HtmlControls namespace. Forms are very important with screen scraping. You must sometimes go through authentication before you are permitted access to the content.

At the moment, I got so far as to return an array of form elements. I even got the relative addresses translated correctly as well. The next step is to start parsing different input fields, text areas, and select boxes. Parsing alone is going to be a big problem. The toughest challenge that I see is to render a dynamic form for the end-user to modify data.

Tags: Programming, Programmers Browser, Web Browser, Browser, Http, Parsing, Links, Forms, Blogware, Progress

This little utility that I’m making with .Net is actually starting to become very useful. You could actually go so far as to say that it is a programmers browser. I’ve made some expressions to parse out the links on a page and list them. Even relative urls are properly converted.

The next big issue for me is to start parsing out those forms and all the fields that are available for them. That one is going to be tricky. Maybe I should use a tree-view control for it.

Tags: Programming, Programmers Browser, Web Browser, Browser, Http, Parsing, Links, Regular Expressions, Regex, Blogware, Progress

Logogle your name! Enter any text you want and Logogle will make a search page for you with a Google-Style name on it. Thanks to Da Taste for pointing this one out to me.

Tags: Logo, Google, Google Hacks, Logo Maker, Search, Text, Font, Style, Googled

I figured out the cookie part of my little web agent application. I’m also reading headers properly as well. I’m almost ready to take on Sprint PCS and download my pictures.

Tags: Sprint PCS, Automation, Web Agent, Http, Programming, Blogware, Progress

I was talking the other night to my brother about blogging software and related services. We got around to talking about Flickr and Sprint PCS. It is cumbersome to have to send one picture at a time from our cell phones to an email address.

The ideal situation would be that where we can upload pictures in bulk to our Sprint PCS Vision accounts and then a program can get access and download them for us. Once we have access to the files, we can then use the Flickr API to upload images to our Flickr accounts.

Sprint PCS does not offer any web services for its Vision customers. I am left with the option of screen scraping. This is where programmers such as myself programatically access the website and download content. It can be a complex process where you must visit one page before you visit another. Authentication measures send cookies to you and you need to make sure that cookies sent to you is sent back with the next request.

I’ve done a lot of screen scraping in the past, but this time I figure I’m going to do it with an application ment to help me out along the way. Enter my Http Application:

Ok, so it’s just a mockup, but this is where it all starts. I still need to build a regular expression application as well to help me pull out the results that I need. If all goes well, my brother and I will be pulling images from our Sprint PCS accounts and posting directly to Flickr in no time at all.

Tags: Flickr, Sprint PCS, Vision, Images, digiCAM, Cell Phone, Camera Phone, Moblog, Mobil Phone, Photographs, Automation, C#, Programming, Mockup

A few weeks ago, my wife noticed a bush growing on our property with green berries. She said that when she was young, she and her sisters would collect the berries when they became ripe.

Her older sister had taught them how to make leprechaun traps with them. They would burry the berries under the ground and wait. They had caught a leprechaun once in the trap, but let the older sister have him since it was her idea.

Kids are funny with how they think. Things don’t need to make sense in order to work. As an adult, I’m thinking of how impractical this is. Of course, I was missing the bigger point. Leprechauns are not real in the adult world, and this was having fun with a childs active imagination.

Growing up, I would have an active imagination myself. We had a long piece of plywood behind the garage that was never used for anything. I got a toilet paper roll and imagined building a vehicle to give people tours of our back yard. Wheels would go under the plywood. The kitchen chairs could be used as seats. Umbrellas could be used as shade. The toilet paper roll would be used to broadcast my voice.

There were so many things left out of the picture for my imaginary tour guide transporter. As a child, these didn’t concern me. I was having fun just thinking about it and looking for other junk that I could use for it.

Tags: Leprechaun, Trap, Leprechaun Trap, Berries, Imagination, Children, Active Imagination, Tour, Tour Guide, Childhood, Memories, Childhood Memories, Junk, Treasure

I found an article to help inform everyone about a growing epidemic known as “blog depression“. The article comes with a six page pamplet as a public service to help educate everyone about this problem. It’s so funny and yet so true.

Those of you who regularly read through this blog have seen me go through my depressional bloging mood swings. I’ve redesigned the blog a few times, and even thought about throwing in the towel a few times. This mood disorder can (and will) affect all bloggers regardless of age or type.

I like some of the actions that are suggested - especially the one about getting a grip. The whole thing just cracks me up.

If you know someone with blog depression, or a blogger who has not yet experienced it - send them a link to the pamplet. After all, it need not ruin lives or waste perfectly good Url’s.

Tags: Blog Depression, Public Service Announcement, Funny, Humor, Blogging, Blog, Depression, Get a Grip

So I have been working a little bit on seperating my charting logic into its own assembly. I’m “almost” starting from scratch on this one. I learned a few things about transforming points from one RectangleF object to another. This will let me eventually have multiple series so that I can display both a statistical representation along with active rolls.

It’s not much, but here is a screen shot:

Tags: Charting, C#, .Net, Graph, Dice, Rolling, Random, Statistics, Series

Rockstar has a cool video from last years uploads. It’s pretty funny. Check it out. I like the moral of the story.

Tags: Skid Marks, Rockstar Games, Rockstar, GTA, Grand Theft Auto, Grand Theft, Movies, Uploads, Tricycle

Recently I’ve been in a little bit of a high-pressure hell. We had a project developed a few months back and someone insisted that we should program in VB.Net. Our team is strictly a C# development team, but someone temporarily joined us from another organization that refused to learn it.

I just used Reflector for .Net on some DLL’s the last time and decompiled it into VB.Net files. I spent a good deal of time just trying to make everything compile. Now it has come back to haunt me once again.

Since our latest project was in VB.Net, there was a lot of additional code that was created into our “central code base collective”. I am in the position where I need to transform the newer code (VB.Net) into C#.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the two languages very well. My complaint is that it takes so long to copy, paste & transform. I can’t just copy one section at a time because it usually depends on another section that is not yet transformed. I could go ahead and start from scratch, but we are talking about methods that have already been tested and proven.

If I have to go through this one more time, I’m going to tell these guys that I need a seperate solution from all other development that everything else will depend on. I would rather reference a simple DLL with generic algorithms rather then recoding everything over and over again.

Tags: Programming, C#, VB.Net, VB, DLL, Reflection, Reflector, Codebase