Internet

Balsamiq – quick (and dirty) UI mockups

David Vidmar — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:28:07 GMT

If you are in the market for simple but efficient program for doing web and desktop UI mockups, I would recommend Balsamiq. They offer web based tool (Flash), a desktop app (Adobe Air) and Confluence / Jira add-in. It’s quite inexpensive - $79 for a single user.

I have been using it on and off for few weeks and I liked it very. Is pretty, fun to used and highly efficient – simple forms can be mocked in seconds. Since we are heavy Jira users at work, its cool that Balsamiq can be integrated and with a click of a button mockup can be added to Jira issue. I'm currently pushing request for purchase up the corporate ladder, but I think once other project managers at our company see it, it's a no brainer…

I was checking out Balsamiq home page today and found out they are offering number of ways how to get a free license. In matter of minutes nice lady replied to my email and now I'm a licensed user!

Live Mesh available in non-US countries!

David Vidmar — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 06:46:45 GMT

While checking news about Live Mesh for Mac I realized that Live Mesh is finally available outside US.

That's great news, but why didn't MS notify me as they promised when I signed up for beta?!

Can't wait to put Live Mesh through some serious testing. This should be a kick as tool!

Cannot access MSDN Subscriptions site

David Vidmar — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 07:23:31 GMT

If you get this error while trying to access MSDN subscriptions section you might be victim of a bug of latest update to MSDN site that was done in late September 2008.

The Windows Live Network is unavailable from this site for one of the following reasons:

This site may be experiencing a problem
The site may not be a member of the Windows Live Network

Clearing cookies and logging in again should fix the situation.

Dropbox invites

David Vidmar — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:08:38 GMT

Thanks to Mark Gibbs I was able to get a Dropbox private beta account.

I have 10 invites to give out, so drop a comment, email, if you would like one.

Update: I gave out 17 invites. Since I can always email last invite to myself, I have basically unlimited number of them.

When cloud goes down

David Vidmar — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:37:36 GMT

Cloud computing is all the rage this days. But what happens when the cloud goes down? CF.

Is seems that Amazon S3 is down. [update: down 3+ hours]

I’m writing an article about Picnik, but it’s behaving strange, Vimeo is missing it’s content, SmugMug is completely down…

GetCanon! 1.7

David Vidmar — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:28:42 GMT

This is a minor release that I made since users asked for it. Please read the note below before asking about why new cameras aren’t supported and why it doesn’t work on Windows Vista!

GetCanon! is a image downloader for Canon digital cameras. It's small, quick and simple. It can download images, rotate them automatically and delete them from camera. If you hate the "designer" interface of Canon utilities and hate Windows messing with image filenames, this is the right tool for you.

GetCanon! is freeware. It includes open-source program JpegTran from Independent JPEG Group's JPEG software.

The program has been downloaded more than 30,000 times from my own server only and is hosted on many sites around the web. This is what user of GetCanon! think about it:

This application is exactly what I've been looking for.
I found GetCanon! as a very useful tool for my PowerShot camera.
Thanks this is exactly what I was looking for: something that just works! Thanks!!!
Wow -- this is a great utility!
I like your hassle free program a lot. It's much better than the annoying canon software included with my camera.
Thanks very much for writing GetCanon and thanks, too, for making it freely available. I love elegant, snappy & simple programs ... just like GetCanon.
GetCanon is the _only_ software, including Canon's CameraWindow, that is able to transfer a ~900MB AVI File from my Cam, at all. I don't know why, all the others crashed, freezed, or produced a NULL Byte file after working for ages.

Download: GetCanon! 1.7 Setup (1016 KB)

This software requires Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0. You probably have it on your computer but if you don't you can download it free from Microsoft.

What's new since version 1.6:

Added Czech language.
Fixed some minor glitches in Dutch translations.
Other minor fixes.

Acknowledgments:

Big thanks to all of translators and testers. These include: Marko Juvančič, Gregor Šuster, Mojca Knaus, Roberto Boriotti, Tobias Sürig, Jac Willekens, Patrick Abi Salloum, Kasper Garns, Adam Nemeth, Marko Justinek and Steffen Klemichen, Josef Remes.

Supported cameras in version 1.7:

PowerShot A10, PowerShot A20, PowerShot A30, PowerShot A40, PowerShot A60,
PowerShot A70, PowerShot A75, PowerShot A80, PowerShot A85, PowerShot A95,
PowerShot A100, PowerShot A200, PowerShot A300, PowerShot A310, PowerShot A400, PowerShot A510, PowerShot A520,
PowerShot S10, PowerShot S20, PowerShot S30, PowerShot S40, PowerShot S45, PowerShot S50, PowerShot S60, PowerShot S70,
PowerShot S100, IXY DIGITAL, DIGITAL IXUS,
PowerShot S110, IXY DIGITAL 200, DIGITAL IXUS v,
PowerShot S200, IXY DIGITAL 200a, DIGITAL IXUS v2,
PowerShot S230, IXY DIGITAL 320, DIGITAL IXUS v3,
PowerShot S300, IXY DIGITAL 300, DIGITAL IXUS 300,
PowerShot S330, IXY DIGITAL 300a, DIGITAL IXUS 330,
PowerShot S400, IXY DIGITAL 400, DIGITAL IXUS 400,
PowerShot SD100, IXY DIGITAL 30, DIGITAL IXUS II,
PowerShot SD10, IXY DIGITAL L, DIGITAL IXUS i,
PowerShot SD110, IXY DIGITAL 30a, DIGITAL IXUS IIs,
PowerShot S410, IXY DIGITAL 450, DIGITAL IXUS 430,
PowerShot S500, IXY DIGITAL 500, DIGITAL IXUS 500,
PowerShot SD20, IXY DIGITAL L2, DIGITAL IXUS I5,
PowerShot SD200, IXY DIGITAL 40, DIGITAL IXUS 30,
PowerShot SD300, IXY DIGITAL 50, DIGITAL IXUS 40,
PowerShot SD400, IXY DIGITAL 55, DIGITAL IXUS 50,
PowerShot SD500, IXY DIGITAL 600, DIGITAL IXUS 700
PowerShot G1, PowerShot G2, PowerShot G3, PowerShot G5, PowerShot G6,
PowerShot Pro90 IS, PowerShot S1 IS, PowerShot S2 IS, PowerShot Pro1

PLEASE NOTE:

Canon stopped development of their DLL library GetCanon! uses. That’s why there is no support for newer cameras Unfortunately there is nothing I can do about it. You might try your luck with Windows Live Photo Gallery image downloader. It’s great, way better that GetCanon! I use it all the time.

It also doesn’t work on Windows Vista for the same reason. Some users reported that turning Windows XP compatibility on .exe file works.

Note: The EOS class of digital cameras is not supported. You can use the version GetCanon 1.02 with EOS class cameras.

Supported languages:

English
Slovenian
Danish
German
French
Hungarian
Italian
Dutch
Portuguese
Czech

Source code:

If you would like to get the source code for this version, you have to sign up for Canon Developer program.

Once you have got your hands on Canon SDK, contact me and I'll send you the source.

These are links where you can apply for Canon SDK, depending where you're from:

Where is Firefox 3?

David Vidmar — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 07:27:08 GMT

For all Firefox 3 fans who are asking themselves when FF3 will be released today:

Release is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time on Tuesday, June 17th. For Europeans it means we'll be able to grab it at 19.00.

Update: FileHippo already offers RTM for download!

Watch EURO 2008 live for free on your computer

David Vidmar — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:19:41 GMT

We all know football has low WAF. Having kids around doesn’t help either. So having a live stream on computer helps in this situations. Luckily, these days free TV is easy to find.

Start by going to some P2PTV portal like MyP2P.eu or WorldTvPc and search for live sports. Try to find a TV station with high bitrate, high rating and in language you understand.

Then, figure out which P2P video application you need. Most popular are TVU, TVants (translated) and SopCast. Download and enjoy!

Good choice for Euro 2008 is TVants and Croatian public TV station HRT.

All is not perfect, tough:

be sure to connect well before you plan to start watching as it can take several minutes before you get enough connections (this can be fixed on Vista and XP),
stream is also delayed for couple of seconds to half a minute,
I don’t know about other programs, but TVants has a band of Chinese ads on top and bottom of video window, but it’s not annoying,
picture will hand from time to time, and occasionally freeze, try reconnecting if it gets bad.

Warning: this is ~~probably~~ illegal, so it’s your responsibility if you step on someone toes.

Free DNS Report alternatives

David Vidmar — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 22:11:11 GMT

Everyone that runs a web server or even a site needs to run a DNS check from time to time. For a long time I have been a happy user of a site DNSstuff.com. But couple of months ago they started charging for their main check called DNSReport.

For few queries a month I'm not willing to subscribe for $80 a year, and I'm certainly not alone.

Finally I have done some research and tried to find alternatives. Here are the results with ratings, where 10/10 is what DNSReport gave us.

CheckDNS.net - 7/10 - Sample

Clear design, errors and warning are nicely visible. Quite fast too. Too bad it check for only basic stuff.

ZoneCheck - 6/10

AJAXy. Only reports error and/or warning. Had a batch mode for multiple domains and desktop program which I don't want to even try. DNS test should be available anywhere anytime.

intoDNS - 8/10 - Sample

Simple, powerful, web2.0-ish. Results are almost identical to DNSReport, it's just that the explanations are not that concise. For example, it says my SOA REFRESH is not ok, but I don't get any recommendations on how to fix it.

Network Tools - 5/10

Only stand alone tools, not DNSReport- like check. Trace and ping are nice though.

pingability - 7/10 - Sample

Solid report, too bad it is terribly hard to read.

iptools.com - 4/10

Similar to Network tools, it only has standalone tools, but no big all-round DNS test. Boring.

DomainTools - 2/10 - Sample

Too simple. Only lists DNS entries.

Free DNS Report - 8/10 (scam?) - Sample

The report looks remarkably similar to that of the original, but the site looks terribly like a scam. I'm kind of scared to enter my domain name in there. If this is real test, please pimp it up a bit!

you get signal - not rated

Doesn't really belong on the list, but it is a nice tool anyway. I use it for port forwarding tests and reverse IP domain check.

My pick is intoDNS. If I need a second opinion, I'll go for CheckDNS.net or pingability. For port scanning and trace router I like you get signal the best.

Technorati tags: dnsreport, dnsstuff, dns, tcp, ip, free

Simplifying my life - Links of the week (Windows Live Writer add-in that generates content from Delicious and RSS feeds)

David Vidmar — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 20:37:55 GMT

I'll soon have far less free time that I have now, so I'm actively working on simplifying my life. I don't want to give up things, I try to slipstream as much as possible. So far I think I'm doing quite well.

One big time waster was putting together Sunday's regular weekly links. I bookmark stuff I find on excellent delicious using Delicious Firefox buttons. That part is fast and painless, there is nothing I can do to improve that. When creating a post, I basically copy/paste, cleanup and then some formatting. Booooring...

As I grew tired of that, I remembered than delicious has an API that I could use to automate formatting. If I would be just little bit more careful when posting, Sunday evening could be free again. I could use first tag as category, enter a description, so post generation could be completely automatic.

And that's how DeliciousLinks project was born few weeks ago. Since some stuff is hard-coded, the executable is not ready for publishing. But if anyone thinks this could be useful, I'll gladly share the code.

Let's go to some C# code how I done it.... Prepare WebClient object with right credentials.

WebClient webClientDelicious = new WebClient

                                       Encoding = Encoding.Default,

                                       Credentials = new NetworkCredential(username, password)

};

Get XML of links from particular day. I'll repeat that for all dates in a week.

Uri uriDelicious = new Uri(string.Format("https://api.del.icio.us/v1/posts/get?&dt={0:yyyy-MM-dd}", date));

string xmlContent = webClientDelicious.DownloadString(uriDelicious);

Then, using Linq to XML, I sort results and fill data in List<Link>

var posts = from post in xdoc.Descendants("post")

            orderby post.Attribute("tag").Value.Split(' ')[0], post.Attribute("description").Value

            select new Link

                           Url = post.Attribute("href").Value,

                           Title = post.Attribute("description").Value,

                           Description = post.Attribute("extended") == null ? "" : post.Attribute("extended").Value,

                           Category = (post.Attribute("tag").Value.Split(' ')[0]).Capitalize()

};

I also parse a RSS feed, I also parse that with Linq to XML.

var entries = from feedElements in rssXDocument.Descendants(xmlns + "entry")

              select new Link

                             Url = feedElements.Elements(xmlns + "link")

                                    .Where(link => link.Attribute("rel").Value == "alternate")

                                    .Select(link => link.Attribute("href").Value).First(),

                             Title = feedElements.Element(xmlns + "title").Value,

                             Description = "",

                             Category = "Software Updates"

};

Then I'll just roll over results, use StringBuilder to build HTML and post body is done.

But where to put this code into? In Windows Live Writer add-in, of course!

First, I add a reference to WindowsLive.Writer.Api. Then I'll create new class that will extend ContentSource.

[WriterPlugin("{06BDBEB7-0D4F-45bf-AD23-2AAE6D98D745}", "Delicious Links",

    ImagePath = "images.delicious_links.png",

    HasEditableOptions = true,

    PublisherUrl = "http://vidmar.net/",

    Description = "Helps to generate link posts using bookmarks on del.icio.us.")]

[InsertableContentSource("Delicious Links")]

public class WlwPlugin : ContentSource

    Settings settings;

    public override DialogResult CreateContent(IWin32Window dialogOwner, ref string content)

        DialogResult dialogResult;

        using (MainForm mainForm = new MainForm(settings.Username, settings.Password))

            dialogResult = mainForm.ShowDialog();

            if (dialogResult == DialogResult.OK)

                content = mainForm.Links;

            mainForm.Hide();

        return dialogResult;

    // ... some more boring code to read and write settings ...

All done! I can get my weekly links post with couple of clicks exactly where I need them. I love it.

This is how my Windows Live Writer looks like now.

Technorati tags: windows live writer, add-in, code, c#