Hello.

I've moved my blog from Blogger to my own domain, kinlan.co.uk. I'm still using Blogger's software, but hosting it myself will give me better tracking. I'm very impressed with Blogger! Read More

I successfully implemented a fish eye effect! I peeked at Jason Waltman's code for inspiration and adapted it to C# using the Tiger Image Processing Library. Now I even understand polar coordinates better. It involves converting Cartesian (x,y) coordinates to angles and distances from the center of a circle. The effect itself figures out which pixels need distorting and then calculates their new positions. Read More

In this first part of my image processing series, I'm sharing how I used the Yahoo Search API to find images and load them into a C# application. I was excited to discover how straightforward it is to query for images and then seamlessly integrate the results into my project. The process involves constructing a REST query with search parameters, sending the request to Yahoo, receiving the XML response, and deserializing it into a custom data type. Then, I iterate through each image result in the response, create another query to download the image, and finally, convert the downloaded stream into a Bitmap and load it into an ImageList. Stay tuned for more in this series! Read More

In this second part of my series on image processing, I'm exploring the Tiger Imaging Library for C#, a cool resource with complete source code and various image manipulation filters. I'm considering expanding its capabilities by creating new filters like the fish eye effect described by Jason Waltman. I'm also planning further research and experimentation with Tiger Imaging. Read More

Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 doesn't load PATH environment variables during build, causing tools like GACUtil and RegAsm.exe to fail. A simple fix is to add 'CALL "%VS80COMNTOOLS%\vsvars32.bat" > NULL' to your build script before calling these tools. This sets the necessary environment variables, allowing the build to succeed. Read More

This blog post presents the results of my initial experiment with Amazon Web Service. I've compiled a list of various products, including books and a DVD, with links to their respective pages on Amazon.co.uk. This appears to be an early exploration of the possibilities of integrating Amazon's product data. Read More

Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 is now available for download to MSDN Universal subscribers. I'm excited about this release and will be posting examples soon. Check out the product page and the uninstallation instructions for previous versions if you plan to upgrade. Read More

I'm exploring different web services, particularly for UK retailers like Tesco, Asda, or Virgin. I've tried Amazon's, which is decent, and Yahoo's, which I like. Ebay's looks interesting, but I'd rather not pay. I'm also looking at Alexa's and Google's. It's tough finding good resources on this, especially for UK retailers. I'd love to see APIs from companies like Tescos, Asda, Dixons, and others. If you know of any good web services, especially in the UK retail space, please share! Read More

This post explores how to access and iterate through a user's Internet Explorer Favorites in C#. I've included C# code that retrieves the Favorites directory and recursively iterates through its folders and files. The code also parses the .URL files to extract the actual URLs. Currently, the code doesn't retrieve the friendly name displayed in the Favorites menu (e.g., "Microsoft" instead of "www.microsoft.com"), but I'm looking into using IShellLink for this and would appreciate any insights. Read More

I finally took my own advice and watched the MSDN videos, specifically "Designing .NET Class Libraries: Member Types." I was impressed with the discussion on .NET class library design principles, especially regarding method overloading and cohesion. I highly recommend checking it out and plan to incorporate these best practices into my own coding. Read More

I've been exploring Amazon's SOAP API and Yahoo's REST API and I'm quite impressed with both. I'm thinking about ways to make these two APIs interact and will share my ideas in a future post. I've also been working on using REST in .Net 1.1, which is a little tricky but possible, thanks to Martin G. Brown's work. The process involves using an XSD of the response, running it through XSD.exe to generate a Dataset object, and then processing the results. It's a similar concept to WSDL, but without the automatic stub generation. I'll post some Yahoo API code examples soon. I plan to look into Google's API as well, even though it's in beta with usage restrictions. Read More

This blog post explores the arguments for and against Binary XML. While some argue that Binary XML addresses XML's verbosity, text processing speed, and inability to store binary data, I question its practicality. I've found that XML's drawbacks can be mitigated through compression and concise tags. Binary XML raises concerns about readability, schema management, querying, and the potential for increased complexity. The post links to external resources offering further insights into the debate. Read More

I'm excited about the new MSDN .NET Framework Developer Center on designing class libraries! It looks like a promising series based on internal Microsoft training, with a focus on API design best practices. Brad Abrams is presenting, and the content is being released weekly. Check out the introductory article! Read More

A quick test post to check if everything's working. Planning to share learnings about C#, C# 2.0, and .NET Framework soon. Read More