There are some postings here and there that indicates: the advertising companies (e.g. feedburner.com) now have also an eye to RSS feeds. There are some serious people who like to measure the requests of each single feed post and/or produce some income to lower their hosting costs. Others don't like to see such ads in their subscriptions. So I experimented today a bit to provide a channel processing infrastructure enabling assemblies to plug into the processing chain of RSS Bandit. Now it works all together and my first plug-in is...

You are right: an ads blocker:

RSS Bandit Ads-Blocking via NewsChannelServices" height=522 alt="RSS Bandit Ads-Blocking via NewsChannelServices" src="http://www.rendelmann.info/blog/content/binary/Ads-Blocking%20via%20NewsChannelServices.gif" width=664 border=0>

It is still a simple example but easy to extend with a blacklist loaded from a file or other things. The major improvement is the new channel plug-in infrastructure. Some things I have to discuss with Dare Obasanjo and Phil but if we get an agreement, it will maybe included in the next release of RSS Bandit (Wolverine). So what can you do with it? Examples:

• Saves feed content in a MySQL database as it arrives
• Monitors one or more URL's and notifies you when the web page(s) have changed
• Content manipulation like the ads blocker above
• ...

Stay tuned!

Yes, we will get it done for the next month! As Dare Obasanjo mentioned: we are still looking for language contributors and proof readers. For the available and planned languages please have a look to our supported language matrix. If your preferred or native language isn't listed there or a proof reader is not yet mentioned, feel free to contact us or comment here.

Today I wrote a little tool to keep the various language resource files of VS7 projects synchronized: you know usually you have to add a new resource string to all the language files as you need a new one. But I think I'm not the only one: I'm lazy to maintain them all the time I need a new entry :-( Especially if you have more than a hand full of language specific .resx files. So here it is:

http://www.rendelmann.info/packages/DiffPatchResources.zip

From the readme:

A small console application to keep VS7 .resx files in sync. with the main resource.

It expect the path and filename to the main text resource file (.resx, no language LCID) as a command line parameter, so you can simply drag/drop the main resource file to the executable file, e.g.:

 DiffPatchResources.exe "C:\MyProjects\MyApp\Resources\mainText.resx"

It will iterate the "/root/data" entries in the main file (e.g. main.resx) and
patch each dependent language file (mainText.[LCID].resx) to contain any missing entry. Further, if the source data contains a comment element and the content of that starts with "CHANGED" text, it will replace the yet existing target entry with the changed entry of the source.

It writes a .bak file on each modified resource and reports success/failures and some statistics to the console.

========= ATTENTION! =============

Currently it does NOT work on .resx files related to Forms! You should not try to get it run on such files! I will not guarantee for any success and will not be responsible for any damage resulting of the any usage of this tool!

For any improvements or comments leave a comment here, please. Have fun!

The formerly geourl.org relaunched/renamed to geourl.info! And needs to re-register the site :-( Sounds like a database cleanup. But now the GeoURL link button works again...
[Thiemo Mättig]

Yes: now it is back - my old layout from the brinkster days is transformed to a dasBlog theme named 'segertGreen' (a modified web design based on a free version published by segert.net). It rumors (by mail) there may be a dasBlog theme contest the next time, so here are my two cent.

Nachdem brinkster von uns ja nix mehr wissen wollte, geht es jetzt also unter WH4L weiter im Text. Innerhalb von dasBlog musste ich dazu nur eine neue Kategorie "Personal" und in den Theme-Verzeichnissen ein entsprechendes Unterverzeichnis "Personal" mit den .templates Dateien anlegen. Die Haupt-Domain www.rendelmann.info wird einfach auf http://www.rendelmann.info/blog/CategoryView.aspx?category=Personal (German) umgeleitet und schon ist wieder (fast) alles beim alten...

A few days ago I googled around for trust centers offering personal e-mail certificates. Giving up after searching a half hour, because all of them (VeriSign, trustcenter.de, ...) require a fee.

Today I found my account information coincidental in my registration documents with Thawte: I already was in the possession of certificates! However these were already run off and only for no longer valid email addresses. So I renewed my certs and I'm really able to send signed mails: Outlook 2003 handles all that nicely while the older versions had some problems there. And best of the story: nothing to pay for! Now I only need some notaries to get my identity trusted.

Dunno if anyone else ever noticed that small resizable dialog form issue of the "Replace" dialog within Visual Studio 7.1 (.NET):

At least the form widgets does not resize as the form resize. But please keep it resizable if it gets fixed! Or is it already done...?

PS: the missnig picture is now there.

Yesterday the "fool jump" took place here in Weissensberg. Below are some impressions.

   

PS: and not to forgot - happy birthday to Phil...

Movies.com offers now some interesting RSS feeds at http://movies.go.com/moviesdynamic/rss:

A choice of six different feeds based on users’ interests are currently available, including:

• In Theaters – New movie releases, theater listings, synopses, ratings, and more.
• Upcoming – Up to date information on what's coming to theaters soon.
• Reviews – Movie reviews and the average critical score of the movies that have just opened in theaters.
• Buzz/News -- The latest news and buzz on what's going on in the world of movies.
• New on DVD – Information on new video and DVD releases.
• Box Office – Data on what movies topped the charts at the box office each weekend. 

[via e-mail]

Small issue I detected yesterday in the current .NET 1.1 compiler. Try to compile the following code:

        public string MyProperty {
            get { return null; }
            set { ; }
        }

It results in messages like this:

D:\Visual Studio Projects\test\ThreadedListView\ThreadedListView.cs: 
Internal Compiler Error: stage 'BEGIN' 
D:\Visual Studio Projects\test\ThreadedListView\ThreadedListView.cs(1): 
Internal Compiler Error: stage 'BEGIN' symbol '' 
D:\Visual Studio Projects\test\ThreadedListView\ThreadedListView.cs(11): 
Internal Compiler Error: stage 'BEGIN' symbol 'ThreadedListView'
Internal Compiler Error (0xc0000005 at address 53630902): 
likely culprit is 'BEGIN'. An internal error has occurred in the compiler. 
To work around this problem, try simplifying or changing the program near the 
locations listed below. Locations at the top of the list are closer to the point at 
which the internal error occurred.

I just removed the semicolon in the set, and it compiles fine. Today I wanted to repro that: but now no problems occured... So sorry, I cannot post a bug to MS for it.

Today I mentioned a post at ApfelWiki (german) and decided to test it with RSS Bandit's Remote Storage feature (used to sync. your feedlist/flagged items/search folders with other machines running RSS Bandit). It just works and also supports https: to keep your password a secret. Here is how to setup if you already a member/user of the free services at GMX:

1. Open Tools-Options dialog
2. Select the "Remote Storage" tab
3. Check the "Use remote storage" checkbox
4. Select "WebDAV" from the Protocol dropdown
5. Type https://mediacenter.gmx.net/ within the WebDAV folder url input box (important: it is gmx.net, not gmx.de!)
6. Provide your user name and password you use to login at gmx: e.g. <your account>@gmx.de
7. Press OK

[thanks to schockwellenreiter.de]

This night at around 3:00 AM we had a modarate earthquake: 5,4 Richter magnitudes. But it felt heavier as we woke up at night. Best of all: no damages or personal injuries, we got off all the fright.