Stuff

Lighting up the road ahead...

Mark Dryden — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:36:00 GMT

OK - this is a bit of a shameless plug so apologies in advance.

As most of you may (or may not) know I'm a keen cyclist and during the summer I tend to cycle into work as much as possible (20 mile round trip). Its good fun, it makes me feel like I'm keeping fit and satisfies that little eco-nazi inside of me. However, when the nights draw in I tend to either commute by Motorbike or Car, but not this year...

So I'm all togged up with my various winter gear and alike to brave the winds, the rain and the cold. My only problem was sorting out lights. In the past when I've bought lights they've either haven't been powerful enough to cast any light onto the road or seriously weigh down the bike with a giant battery pack (no good for my Giant Cadex Road Racer) and have a ridiculous battery life, usually around the 60 minute mark. And for a cyclist whose journey is mostly unlit country lanes and rather fey, this isn't good.

Anyhoo, a colleague suggested checking out www.brightlites.co.uk (a site he had been involved with) and sorted me out with one of these - a LED Lenser Biker Duplex. Basically, it is one of those nifty LED torches that Geeks and Gadget freaks have a habit of showing off, but it has a simple lens adjustment thingy and a mount that clamps onto the handlebars.

So is it any good? Well, here are my thoughts in bulleted manner...

It is a very powerful torch; I can light up a significant portion of my front view while flying down country lanes in the pitch black. I'm talking of 10 to 15 metres ahead on wide beam and significantly more on focused.
It’s really easy to adjust the beam using the little lever on the top. If you're pushing up a hill and want to quickly adjust the beam, it is a simple flick of the wrist. I really like this feature. In addition, I generally keep the torch on a medium beam but if I'm going downhill and cannot see ahead (such as a dip in the hill) I can easily adjust the beam wider to light up the way.
The mount isn't particular good; I had to play around with mine to get it securely fixed. The problem is that it’s not wide enough for certain handlebars - but once it’s on it is on.
Having a strong light in front of me is extremely reassuring, being able to illuminate a good portion of the road ahead and having a strong beam ensures I can see what is coming and approaching vehicles cannot miss the light. Shame they don't do back lights...

So - if you're looking for a special crimbo present for the cyclist in your life or want one yourself then check out the torch. For me, I'm probably going to buy another - simply to have one torch trained at the kerb and another to look ahead and considering these things don't eat batteries (3xAAA) and weigh virtually nothing - it’s no biggie.

RSS Feed to Dataset (Youtube Sample)

Mark Dryden — Thu, 03 May 2007 10:35:00 GMT

Quick background - I haven't much XML experience. Sure I know what it is, I love using it with datasets and can navigate an XML document if pushed. However, I know there's an awful that it can do that I simply haven't had time to probe.

So, a post came up in the VBCity forums the other day about taking a RSS and passing that data into a dataset. "Unlikely" I scoffed and it wasn't until the next day biking into work (some 11 miles you know) that it occured to me that why shouldn't it? OK - I'm sure this is something that LINQ could do standing on its head - but why couldn't you convert the XML data using an XML Stylesheet into the format that the Dataset.ReadXML method requires...

Anyhoo, I created a quick application with one button and one datagrid. I cobbled together the XSLT document from my scant knowledge and from a couple of tutorials and save it into the BIN directory. XSLT source...

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:transform version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:output method="xml" omit-xml-declaration="yes" encoding="UTF-8"/>
<xsl:template match="/">
<xsl:for-each select="rss">
<xsl:for-each select="channel">
<rssItems>
<xsl:for-each select="item">
<item>
<title>
<xsl:value-of select="title"/>
</title>
<link>
<xsl:value-of select="link"/>
</link>
<description>
<xsl:value-of select="description"/>
</description>
<guid>
<xsl:value-of select="guid"/>
</guid>
</item>
</xsl:for-each>
</rssItems>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:transform>

Using this I could hopefully transform an RSS feed, e.g. the YouTube recently added list, and load that into a dataset. So, by performing a HttpWebRequest - obtaining the xml data, passing that to an XML Document. Then loading the XSLT into an XSLCompiledTransform object (Note: XMLTransform is depreciated in .NET 2.0 - uncomment the line as appropriate) I could perform the transform outputting the results into a memorystream and then loading that into the dataset using the ReadXML method....

Code CopyHideScrollFull

' Make the request to youtube and retreive its response

Dim webReq As Net.HttpWebRequest = Net.WebRequest.Create("http://youtube.com/rss/global/recently_added.rss")
Dim webRes As Net.HttpWebResponse
' Configure
With webReq

.Method = "GET"
.Timeout = 10000 ' Milliseconds

End With
' Obtain the response
webRes = webReq.GetResponse()

' Read the response into a string
Dim sReader As New IO.StreamReader(webRes.GetResponseStream)
Dim xmlData As String = sReader.ReadToEnd

' Close the request and cleanup
sReader.Dispose()
sReader = Nothing
webRes.Close()
webRes = Nothing
webReq = Nothing

' Take the xml data and convert into an XML Doc
Dim xmlDoc As New Xml.XmlDocument
'xmlDoc.Load(Application.StartupPath & IO.Path.DirectorySeparatorChar & "recently_added.rss")
xmlDoc.LoadXml(xmlData)

' Load the xslt document to transform the XML stream

' Note: Use 'XslTransform' in VS 2003. However, this is depreciated in VS2005
'Dim xmlTrans As New Xml.Xsl.XslTransform
Dim xmlTrans As New Xml.Xsl.XslCompiledTransform
xmlTrans.Load(Application.StartupPath & IO.Path.DirectorySeparatorChar & "YouTubeConvert.xslt")

' Generate output stream for the convert XML data
Dim outputStream As New IO.MemoryStream
Dim argsList As New Xml.Xsl.XsltArgumentList
xmlTrans.Transform(xmlDoc, argsList, outputStream)

' Reset the position of the stream and add to a dataset
outputStream.Position = 0
Dim ds As New DataSet
ds.ReadXml(outputStream)

' Simple display code using a DataGridView
Me.DataGridView1.DataSource = ds
Me.DataGridView1.DataMember = ds.Tables(0).TableName

. . .

...And there you go. Obivously, the XSLT doesn't identify every element and I guess when I've got time I'll revisit the XSLT to include all appropriate RSS 2.0 spec'ed objects. And ideally the webrequest should be made asynchronously but duty beckons...

ActionScripting...

Mark Dryden — Tue, 30 May 2006 12:09:00 GMT

Hello! Well, I must admit it’s been a while since my last sporadic post and as with English buses, you wait for one then three come in quick succession. Of course, its not because I particularly didn't want to post here but life has been dragging me around as of late, holidays, re:MVP'ing and an interesting diversion towards ActionScript 2.0...

For those of you not familiar with ActionScript - it’s the scripting language that is built into Flash 6 and onwards. Its ECMA Styley scripting so anyone with JavaScript experience should be able to jump into it pretty easily and ActionScript 2.0 (usable from Flash 7 and above) has become quite an interesting language to use to a very high level as well as the new XML, Stream and FLV objects.

However, if there's one problem with developing ActionScript code, it’s that the Macromedia Actionscript environment is rubbish. In fact, that's building it up - its utter crap. So I went on a hunt around the Internet looking for an ActionScript development environment that supported Intellisense including all custom developed objects. Anyhoo, to cut a long story short I found this Open Source project called 'FlashDevelop' (http://www.flashdevelop.org/community/) that delivers everything. Easy to use and not overpowering, this little fella must have saved me days during the last project I worked on - basically because I could approach the project like a true development project, e.g. as I would with VS2005's IDE.

In addition, the editor also supports JavaScript, PHP along with some other odds and sods, which might not warrant any extended time when used for development, but to dip and in and out it is superb.

Drydo's on Leicester to Skegness Challenge

Mark Dryden — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 10:09:00 GMT

Hello, hello, hello.

On Saturday the 3rd of September 2005, I'm going to be cycling in the Leicester to Skegness Challenge. For those who struggle with verbal reasoning - its a cycle race between Leicester and Skegness ;-)

Apart from the fun of waking up at 5.30am in the morning, cycling up some ridicious climbs and then keeping the will to live whilst cycling through 40 miles of cabbage fields - I'm also going to be raising money for charity. More specifically a local charity that funds projects into cancer research.

Now I've generated a little web page which explains everything in more detail and where you can sponsor me, if you like, through the online sponsorship intent form. Check it out....

http://www.markdryden.co.uk/skeggy/

And on a slightly technical side - it my first completely CSS designed web site. OK - the top graphic was all of five minutes messing around - but its pretty fun to play with and the next CSS project will be this blog...

Cheers for your time, and as the VB.NET Sound class is riding at over 3000 hits and you fancy like giving something back - well, here's your opportunity.

Rememberance Day

Mark Dryden — Thu, 11 Nov 2004 11:23:00 GMT

Today is Rememberance Day, a day to wear your poppy with pride and remember the old soldiers who fought and died for this country (and to remember how your Granma managed to sleep with most of the 81st US Airborne whilst Grandad was mixing it with Italians women who hadn't shaved due to metal rationing).

Anyway, yesterday I was out and about and bought my poppy. Now the poppy is a little plastic flower, red petals and black centre and not hint of opium, that represents the poppies that grow on Flanders fields where some ingenious British Officiers were still delibrating that age-old tactic of how many men can survive running towards a machinegun. Red poppy proudly adorned I was stopped by a guy selling white poppies. Basically, the white poppy represented pacifist recognition of disputes, i.e. we are supporting the troops, but not the reason why they are there, oh yes, not too keen on colaterial damage either.

WTF - what nonsense is that? Its as disturbing as a vegatarian claiming they like the taste and texture of meat. White Poppies - my arse.

Introducing My Blog...

Mark Dryden — Thu, 11 Nov 2004 10:03:00 GMT

'Ning & welcome to the blog.

Bit of a first for me really. I always considered blogs to be some cry for help (alas - allow me to take solace that some ultimately bored surfer may chance upon my blog and leave feeling as inadequate as I feel) however, needs must and a combination of Microsoft asking whether I had a blog and also wanting to cry for help to an uncaring audience kinda appealed.

At 29 I feel old, gone have my reckless days and left this empty shell. Although, I cannot feel death's ghostly hand on my shoulder - my middle years approach slowly but with an air of inevitability. I go 'ahhhhh' went sitting down on the sette, I view internet pornography and feel uncomfortable because I cannot tell whether the girls are at consenting age and the other day I voluntarily did some DIY.

Anyway, misery loves company and I'll post probably about the exciting things I get up to, some stuff that makes me smile and probably some techie stuff occasionally.