Hello.

I often disagree with Jacob Neilson's views on usability, but his recent article on blog usability is spot on. I plan to implement several of his suggestions, especially adding a personal photo to my blog. Read More

I'm disappointed with Blogger BackLinks. I thought they'd automatically pull in links to my posts from Google Blog Search, but they don't. Users have to manually add them, which isn't ideal. I plan to create a version that automatically queries Google Blog Search and updates my page with backlinks from there. Read More

This blog post asks readers for their opinion on including event announcements related to blog post topics. For example, if a post is about Apple Macs, I wonder if readers would like to know about Mac Expos. Similarly, for a post about World War 2, it asks if announcing related events like commemoration days would be useful. Readers are invited to share their thoughts in the comments or via email. Read More

James Manning left a comment on my blog post about compression, pointing to a Microsoft article about built-in decompression support in .NET 2.0 for SOAP replies. While I appreciate the comment, Yahoo APIs don't use SOAP, so it won't be helpful in that context. However, this information could be useful for working with Amazon APIs, which do have a SOAP interface. Read More

The IE team has announced that some CSS hacks used to fix issues in IE5 and IE6 won't work in IE7. This means web developers targeting IE7 will need to update their sites to address these breaking changes. The IE team encourages developers to check for common CSS hacks and replace them with standards-compliant code or conditional comments. While a CSS-based solution would be ideal, there currently isn't a standard for this issue, prompting a call to action for developers to update their code and support the move towards better standards compliance. Read More

In a follow-up to my previous post about the scarcity of Bluetooth libraries for desktop PCs, Mark Arteaga brought 32feet.net to my attention. This site offers a managed Bluetooth library which I plan to investigate further. Initial impressions from the sample code suggest it's straightforward to use, with device discovery appearing as simple as calling a function and communication happening via streams. Read More

I just discovered that Latricia updated the XML::Feed CPAN module to merge RSS/ATOM feeds into one ATOM feed. This is awesome! I had a similar idea for AJAX Tagger 2.0, where I wanted to offer a combined feed of all tagged results. If this module works as advertised, I can use it directly instead of building my own tool. This might be a better solution than my initial plan of using OPML. Read More

This post discusses the security implications of cross-domain XMLHttpRequest access. While some argue that such access increases the risk of phishing attacks and unauthorized data access, others contend that these risks are minimal and that the benefits of cross-domain access, such as reduced bandwidth costs for "mash-up" applications, outweigh the potential downsides. The current security model, which requires proxying requests through the originating server, is seen as costly. I propose a server-side security model where third-party servers can control which clients can directly access their data, addressing the bandwidth theft concerns. Read More

I'm considering compressing Yahoo Search results from my proxy, as suggested in a Yahoo Developer Blog post. I'm unsure if it's easy, worthwhile, and where to implement it (client-side or proxy-side). I'll need to handle browsers without compression support. Any advice? Read More

My recent blog posts seem to be using trackback links automatically. Apologies to Blogger for the unintended behavior, however, I maintain my earlier criticism regarding the insufficient documentation provided for this newly launched feature. Read More

I'm developing a complex new version of the AJAX Tagger (2.0) with enhanced features for adding data to journal entries. However, I'm curious if there's still interest in a simpler version like the original AJAX Tagger. Please share your thoughts and comments! Read More

Blogger has a new Trackbacks feature, but enabling it with custom templates is tricky due to incomplete documentation. While new features are appreciated, completed documentation upon release is essential. Read More

I'm planning to transform my AJAX Tagger into a WinFX application to experiment with its potential and integrate various web services. Read More

My blog, Ping Goat, is having trouble getting indexed by Technorati, similar to the issues I've faced with Tagger.com. It seems Technorati might remove blogs from their index if their crawler encounters unresponsive parts of a site. I'm unsure how to resolve this besides raising the issue publicly, as their email support is very slow or non-existent. Read More

I found a cool tagging website, Tagyu, that suggests tags based on other people's discussions. I'm working on my own version, which I believe will be even better when it's finished! Read More

I've added Wikipedia document retrieval to my application, but there's a design flaw. Tags currently operate in isolation, unaware of each other's related Wikipedia articles. This can lead to duplicate content in the "related articles" section. To fix this, I need to implement a system that allows tags to share information and avoid redundancy, ultimately improving the user experience. Check out the current version here: http://www.kinlan.co.uk/AjaxExperiments/AjaxTag2 Read More

I just got Burnout Revenge for Xbox, and it's a huge step up from Burnout 3! The music, graphics, speed, and new levels are fantastic. The AI is good but a little predictable; I can foresee the first 30 seconds of one level perfectly. Minor variations aside, the other cars stick to very similar routes. Still, no game is perfect! Read More

The related Wikipedia articles feature in AjaxTagger v1 is temporarily broken due to an update in one of the Yahoo Perl Proxy Scripts for AjaxTagger v2. I plan to fix it soon. Read More

Quick update on the AJAX Tagger 2 development. Priority queues are working well, but might need some tweaking on queue numbers and polling intervals. Querying Technorati for tag counts is proving slow (around 2 seconds per query). Any tips on speeding this up, perhaps by limiting the number of blogs returned? Currently working on improving the related documents results, which now includes counts for all selected tags, not just the last search. Need to refine this area. More updates to come! Read More

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) website is one of the top referrers to my blog this month, and I can't figure out why. I jokingly speculate that maybe my fictional home nuclear power plant has triggered some alarms. Read More