Our Stage in Life

These just hit the nail on the head (or nails on the heads, in our case) too well not to re-post:

(For Better or For Worse, FBorFW, Yahoo)

Lottie is definitely entering the ‘2s…

And Erik has trouble sleeping…

Sigh (with a smile)…

More complicated JavaScript string tokenizer – and Twitter Conversations

(I'm not sure when I started using the term tokenizer - "formatter" may be more common...)

I’ve experimented in the past with a C# string.Format() alternative that would allow property names as tokens rather than the numeric index based tokens that string.Format() uses.  Hardly a unique approach, and many others did it better.

Here’s another first-draft ‘tokenizer’, this time in JavaScript:

String.prototype.format = function(tokens) {
///<summary>
///This is an extension method for strings, using string or numeric tokens (e.g. {foo} or {0}) to format the string.
///<summary>
///<param name="tokens">One or more replacement values
///if a single object is passed, expects to match tokens with object property names, 
///if a single string, number or boolean, replaces any and all tokens with the string
///if multiple arguments are passed, replaces numeric tokens with the arguments, in the order passed
///</param>
///<returns>the string with matched tokens replaced</returns>
  var text = this;
  try  {
    switch (arguments.length) {
      case 0: {
        return this;
      };
      case 1: 
      {
        switch (typeof tokens) {
          case "object":
          {
            //loop through all the properties in the object and replace tokens matching the names
            var token;
            for (token in tokens) {
              if (!tokens.hasOwnProperty(token) || typeof tokens[token] === 'function') {
                break;
              }
              //else
              text = text.replace(new RegExp("\\{" + token + "\\}", "gi"), tokens[token])
            }
            return text;
          };
        case "string":
        case "number":
        case "boolean":
          {
            return text.replace(/{[a-z0-9]*}/gi, tokens.toString());
          };
        default:
            return text;
        };
      };
      default:
      {
        //if multiple parameters, assume numeric tokens, where each number matches the argument position
        for (var i = 0; i < arguments.length; i++) {
          text = text.replace(new RegExp("\\{" + i + "\\}", "gi"), arguments[i].toString());
        }
        return text;
      };
    };
  } catch (e) {
    return text;
  }
};

The comment (in VS Intellisense format) is pretty self-explanatory, note that it doesn’t allow any special formatting as String.Format does, nor does it even support escaping {}‘s – in general it is quite crude.

That said, when used within it’s limitations it works - below are a couple of actual usage scenarios, both from my ongoing Twitter Conversations experiment:

var url = "http://search.twitter.com/search.json?q=from:{p1}+to:{p2}+OR+from:{p2}+to:{p1}&since={d1}&until={d2}&rpp=50".format({ 
  p1: $("#p1").attr("value"), 
  p2: $("#p2").attr("value"),
  d1: $("#d1alt").attr("value"), 
  d2: $("#d2alt").attr("value")
});

and

$.getJSON(url + "&callback=?", function(data) {
  $.each(data.results, function(i, result) {
    content = ' \
<p> \
	<a href="http://twitter.com/{from_user}"><img src="{profile_image_url}" />{from_user}</a> \
	(<a href="http://twitter.com/{from_user}/statuses/{id}">{created_at}</a>): \
	{text} \
</p>'.format(result);

The working Twitter Conversations sample is here, as you can tell it’s really just a wrapper around the Twitter Search API.

Twitter Conversations: More fun with Yahoo Pipes

<Preface>
Lets imagine that you can’t actually do all of this directly in Twitter Search like this:
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=from:jaketapper+to:senjohnmccain+OR+from:senjohnmccain+to:jaketapper&since=2009-06-16&until=2009-06-16&rpp=50
</Preface>

(Now contrived) How To follows:

I stumbled upon an impromptu (or so they claim) twitter interview between Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) of ABC and Sen. John McCain (@senjohnmccain).  Unfortunately, short of following both of them, it was hard to get a gist of the actual conversation – I tried the Conversation view on Twitter Search, and a couple of other services, like Tweader (appears broken) and Quotably (dead).

Twitter Search has an advanced search/allows parameters to specify searching for tweets from one person to another, but that only gives you half a conversation.  And as far as I can tell, Twitter search doesn’t allow multiple from:/to: pairs.  Enter Yahoo Pipes’ union module:

This module merges up to five separate sources of items into a single list of items.

Since Twitter Search results can be had in both Atom and RSS flavor, this means we’re good to go:

<interlude> 
…and this is where I discovered that you could indeed do duplex conversation searches in twitter search, so the rest of this will be short…
</interlude>

See http://pipes.yahoo.com/austegard/twitterconversations; click View Source or Clone to play with it (requires Yahoo id).

Simple JavaScript string tokenizer

A crude String.Format equivalent in JavaScript -blatantly copied from frogsbrain

//from http://frogsbrain.wordpress.com/2007/04/28/javascript-stringformat-method/ 
String.format = function(text) { 
    if (arguments.length > 1) { 
        for (var i = 0; i < arguments.length - 1; i++) { 
            text = text.replace(new RegExp("\\{" + i + "\\}", "gi"), arguments[i + 1]); 
        } 
    } 
    return text; 
}; 

#twitcode version (130 characters!)

strf=function(t){a=arguments;if(a.length>1)for(i=0;i<a.length-1;i++)t=t.replace(new RegExp("\\{"+i+"\\}","gi"),a[i+1]);return t}; 

3 steps to a better Tech Crunch (feed)

I know I’m not alone in having a lack of confidence in the journalistic ability of Michael Arrington’s employees over at TechCrunch – MG Siegler’s outrage over Microsoft’s latest (rather sad) marketing efforts is just the latest to draw annoyed comments.  With 20-30 posts per day, it gets pretty time-consuming just trying to filter the good stories from the bad, since all that Google Reader gives you is the headline and the start of the body:

Wouldn’t it be nice to also know who wrote that headline so that you knew better how to interpret it?  Well, you can do so quite easily, in three simple steps.

Step 1: Create a Yahoo Pipe

Go to http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.edit

 

Step 2: Configure your Pipe

Add the following modules:

• Sources – FetchFeed
• Operators – Loop
• String – StringBuilder (drag onto the Loop module)

Configure and connect as below, then save.

 

Step 3: Subscribe to your new feed:

 

Or, if all that’s too complicated, you can just subscribe to the Pipe I created:

http://pipes.yahoo.com/austegard/tcwa

PS! Here’s a filtered feed for Michael Arrington posts only:

http://pipes.yahoo.com/austegard/tcma

Outlook's dumbest feature?

and the corresponding

Why? Why? Why?

It seems 9 out of 10 times the line breaks are significant and SHOULDN’T be removed.

The feature has persisted for about a decade (if not longer – I don’t recall if it was part of 97 and 98); if you don’t know by now, this is how you remove it:

Tools – Options – Preferences – Email Options, Uncheck the Remove… checkbox.

My contributions to SPExLib

I just discovered Wictor Wilen (et al)’s excellent CodePlex project: SharePoint Extensions Lib, which aims to simplify SharePoint development on .NET 3.5 SP1 and up.

Since I never took the time to figure out how exactly to contribute directly to a CodePlex project, I instead first did an ad-hoc contribution of my (or rather Rob Garrett’s really) SPlist.AddItemOptimized() method.  I then quickly went through the methods that are there so far in SPExLib, and culled from my own library those that overlapped.  Below is the filtered result: these are extension methods not currently in the SPExlib project (as of June 04 2009).

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using Microsoft.SharePoint;

namespace SPExLib.SharePoint
{
  #region Site Extensions
  /// <summary>
  /// SPSite Extension Methods
  /// </summary>
  public static class SiteExtensions
  {

    /// <summary>
    /// Gets a built in site field (column).
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="site">The site.</param>
    /// <param name="builtInFieldId">The built in field id.</param>
    /// <returns>The Built In <see cref="SPField"/>.</returns>
    public static SPField GetBuiltInField(this SPSite site, Guid builtInFieldId)
    {

      return site.RootWeb.Fields[builtInFieldId];
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Gets a <see cref="List{SPList}"/> of all lists contained within the site collection, including those in the root web and all the sub sites.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="site">The site.</param>
    /// <returns>A <see cref="List{SPList}"/> containing all the lists.</returns>
    public static List<SPList> GetAllLists(this SPSite site)
    {
      List<SPList> allLists = new List<SPList>();
      for (int i = 0; i < site.AllWebs.Count; i++)
      {
        using (SPWeb web = site.AllWebs[i])
        {
          allLists.AddRange(web.Lists.Cast<SPList>());
        }
      }
      return allLists;
    }
  }
  #endregion

  #region Web Extensions
  /// <summary>
  /// Extensions to the SPWeb class
  /// </summary>
  public static class WebExtensions
  {
    /// <summary>
    /// Gets the relative URL of the web.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="web">The web.</param>
    /// <returns>The Url of the web, relative to the site.</returns>
    public static string GetRelativeUrl(this SPWeb web)
    {
      string siteUrl = web.Site.Url;
      string webUrl = web.Url;
      if (webUrl.Contains(siteUrl))
        return webUrl.Replace(siteUrl, "");
      return null;

    }


    /// <summary>
    /// Gets the list from the list's URL, relative to the Web (which is the url used to create the list).
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="web">The web.</param>
    /// <param name="listUrl">The list URL, relative to the web (equals the url used to create the list).</param>
    /// <returns>A <see cref="SPList"/> instance, or null, if the list was not found.</returns>
    public static SPList GetListFromListUrl(this SPWeb web, string listUrl)
    {
      SPList result = null;
      listUrl = string.Format("{0}/{1}", web.Url, listUrl);
      try
      {
        result = web.GetList(listUrl);
      }
      catch { }
      return result;
    }
  }
  #endregion

  #region SPList Extensions
  /// <summary>
  /// SPList Extension Methods
  /// </summary>
  public static class ListExtensions
  {
    /// <summary>
    /// Adds a content type to the list, optionally adding the content type fields to the default view for the list.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="list">The list.</param>
    /// <param name="contentType">The content type.</param>
    /// <param name="addColumnsToDefaultView">if set to <c>true</c> add columns to the list's default view.</param>
    /// <returns>The <see cref="SPContentType"/> instance.</returns>
    public static SPContentType AddContentType(this SPList list, SPContentType contentType, bool addColumnsToDefaultView)
    {
      if (contentType == null || list.ContentTypes.ContainsContentType(contentType.Id))
        return contentType;

      contentType = list.ContentTypes.Add(contentType);
      if (addColumnsToDefaultView)
      {
        bool viewUpdated = false;
        SPView defaultView = list.DefaultView;
        //SPViewFieldCollection viewFields = list.DefaultView.ViewFields;
        //Add content type fields (but only those not hidden, and also not ContentType and Title)
        foreach (SPField field in contentType.Fields)
        {
          if (!defaultView.ViewFields.Contains(field.InternalName)
            && !field.Hidden && !contentType.FieldLinks[field.Id].Hidden
            && !"|Title|ContentType|Name|".Contains(field.InternalName)
            )
          {
            defaultView.ViewFields.Add(field);
            viewUpdated = true;
          }
        }
        if (viewUpdated)
        {
          defaultView.DefaultView = true;
          defaultView.Update();
        }
      }
      list.Update();
      return contentType;
    }
  #endregion
    #region SPDocumentLibrary

    /// <summary>
    /// Adds the content type to the document library, optionally adding the content type fields to the default view for the list.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="documentLibrary">The document library.</param>
    /// <param name="contentType">The content type.</param>
    /// <param name="addColumnsToDefaultView">if set to <c>true</c> [add columns to default view].</param>
    /// <returns>The <see cref="SPContentType"/> instance.</returns>
    public static SPContentType AddContentType(this SPDocumentLibrary documentLibrary, SPContentType contentType, bool addColumnsToDefaultView)
    {
      return ((SPList)documentLibrary).AddContentType(contentType, addColumnsToDefaultView);
    }
    #endregion
    #region SPListCollection
    /// <summary>
    /// Creates a list based on the specified title, description, URL, Feature ID, template type, document template type, and options for displaying a link to the list in Quick Launch.
    /// Overloads and corrects the parameter types of the default Add method
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="listCollection">The list collection.</param>
    /// <param name="title">The title.</param>
    /// <param name="description">The description.</param>
    /// <param name="url">The URL.</param>
    /// <param name="featureId">The feature id.</param>
    /// <param name="templateType">The template type.</param>
    /// <param name="docTemplateType">The doc template type.</param>
    /// <param name="quickLaunchOptions">The quick launch options.</param>
    /// <returns>A GUID that identifies the new list.</returns>
    public static Guid Add(this SPListCollection listCollection, string title, string description, string url, Guid featureId,
      SPListTemplateType templateType, int docTemplateType, SPListTemplate.QuickLaunchOptions quickLaunchOptions)
    {
      return listCollection.Add(title, description, url, featureId.ToString("B").ToUpper(),
        (int)templateType, docTemplateType.ToString(), quickLaunchOptions);
    }
    #endregion
    #region SPViewFieldCollection
    /// <summary>
    /// Determines whether the view field collection contains a field of the specified internal name.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="viewFieldCollection">The view field collection.</param>
    /// <param name="internalFieldName">Internal name of the  field.</param>
    /// <returns>
    ///   <c>true</c> if the view field collection contains the field; otherwise, <c>false</c>.
    /// </returns>
    public static bool Contains(this SPViewFieldCollection viewFieldCollection, string internalFieldName)
    {
      return viewFieldCollection.Cast<string>().Any(f => f == internalFieldName);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Adds a specified field to the collection.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="col">The collection.</param>
    /// <param name="fieldGuid">The field's Guid.</param>
    public static void Add(this SPViewFieldCollection col, Guid fieldGuid)
    {
      col.Add(col.View.ParentList.Fields[fieldGuid]);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Deletes the specified field from the collection.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="col">The collection.</param>
    /// <param name="fieldGuid">The field's Guid.</param>
    public static void Delete(this SPViewFieldCollection col, Guid fieldGuid)
    {
      col.Delete(col.View.ParentList.Fields[fieldGuid]);
    }

  }
    #endregion

  #region SPContentType (and related classes) extensions
  /// <summary>
  /// SPContentType and related class extensions
  /// </summary>
  public static class ContentTypeExtensions
  {
    #region SPFieldLinkCollection Extensions
    /// <summary>
    /// Adds a field to the <see cref="SPFieldLinkCollection"/>.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="fieldLinkCollection">The field link collection.</param>
    /// <param name="field">The field.</param>
    public static void AddField(this SPFieldLinkCollection fieldLinkCollection, SPField field)
    {
      fieldLinkCollection.Add(new SPFieldLink(field));
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Clears the fields in a <see cref="SPFieldLinkCollection"/>.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="fieldLinkCollection">The field link collection.</param>
    public static void ClearFields(this SPFieldLinkCollection fieldLinkCollection)
    {
      for (int i = fieldLinkCollection.Count - 1; i >= 0; i--)
      {
        fieldLinkCollection.Delete(fieldLinkCollection[i].Id);
      }

    }
    #endregion

    #region SPContentType Extensions
    /// <summary>
    /// Adds a field link to the <see cref="SPContentType"/>.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="contentType">The content type.</param>
    /// <param name="field">The field.</param>
    public static void AddFieldLink(this SPContentType contentType, SPField field)
    {
      contentType.FieldLinks.Add(new SPFieldLink(field));
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// First clears the field links collection from the content type, then re-adds all Parent content type field links.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="contentType">The content type.</param>
    public static void ResetFieldLinks(this SPContentType contentType)
    {
      contentType.FieldLinks.ClearFields();
      foreach (SPFieldLink fl in contentType.Parent.FieldLinks)
      {
        contentType.FieldLinks.Add(fl);
      }
    }


    /// <summary>
    /// Clears the event receivers from the content type.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="contentType">The content type.</param>
    public static void ResetEventReceivers(this SPContentType contentType)
    {
      for (int i = contentType.EventReceivers.Count - 1; i >= 0; i--)
      {
        contentType.EventReceivers[i].Delete();
      }
      //TODO: Does a content type inherit it's parent content type receiver?
      //contentType.EventReceivers = contentType.Parent.EventReceivers;
    }

    #endregion

    #region SPContentTypeCollection Extensions
    /// <summary>
    /// Determines whether the <see cref="SPContentTypeCollection"/> contains a content type with the specified name.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="contentTypeCollection">The content type collection.</param>
    /// <param name="name">The name.</param>
    /// <returns>
    ///   <c>true</c> if the content type collection contains a content type with the specified name; otherwise, <c>false</c>.
    /// </returns>
    public static bool Contains(this SPContentTypeCollection contentTypeCollection, string name)
    {
      //return contentTypeCollection.Cast<SPContentType>().Any(ct => ct.Name == name);
      return (contentTypeCollection[name] != null);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Determines whether the content type collection contains a content type with the specified <see cref="SPContentTypeId"/>.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="contentTypeCollection">The content type collection.</param>
    /// <param name="contentTypeID">The content type ID.</param>
    /// <returns>
    ///   <c>true</c> if the content type collection contains a content type with the specified <see cref="SPContentTypeId"/>; otherwise, <c>false</c>.
    /// </returns>
    public static bool ContainsContentType(this SPContentTypeCollection contentTypeCollection, SPContentTypeId contentTypeID)
    {
      //old way
      //for (int i=0; i < contentTypeCollection.Count; i++)
      //{
      //  if (contentTypeCollection[i].Id == contentTypeID)
      //    return true;
      //}
      //return false;

      //new cool way:
      //return contentTypeCollection.Cast<SPContentType>().Any(ct => ct.Id == contentTypeID);

      //simple way
      return (contentTypeCollection[contentTypeID] != null);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Deletes a sealed content type by unsealing and un-readonly-ing the content type before attempting to delete it.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="contentTypeCollection">The content type collection.</param>
    /// <param name="name">The name.</param>
    /// <returns></returns>
    public static bool DeleteSealedContentType(this SPContentTypeCollection contentTypeCollection, string name)
    {
      bool success = false;
      try
      {
        SPContentType contentType = contentTypeCollection[name];
        contentType.Sealed = false;
        contentType.ReadOnly = false;
        contentTypeCollection.Delete(contentType.Id);
        success = !contentTypeCollection.ContainsContentType(contentType.Id);
      }
      catch { }
      return success;
    }

    #endregion
  }
  #endregion

  /// <summary>
  /// Extension methods for SPFile
  /// </summary>
  public static class SPFileExtensions
  {

    /// <summary>
    /// Gets the file size as string.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="file">The file.</param>
    /// <returns></returns>
    public static string GetFileSizeAsString(this SPFile file)
    {
      double s = file.Length;
      string[] format = new string[] { "{0} bytes", "{0} KB", "{0} MB", "{0} GB", "{0} TB", "{0} PB", "{0} EB", "{0} ZB", "{0} YB" };
      int i = 0;
      while (i < format.Length - 1 && s >= 1024)
      {
        s = (int)(100 * s / 1024) / 100.0;
        i++;
      }
      return string.Format(format[i], s.ToString("###,###,###.##"));
    }
  }
}

Amazon Payment Woes Not Quite Over

Uhm, this ain’t right (clik to see full-size pic):

Basically, AmazonPayments/JungleDisk decided to charge me 8 (EIGHT!) times for the same service.

Gmail Voicemail coming soon?

I just started using Vonage, and get my voicemails delivered to my gmail account.  So I tried setting up a filter:

It certainly makes sense that Google Voice and Gmail would be integrated one of these days…