Site :: blogs.vbcity.com

vbfeeds.com RSS was broken ... and it's fixed now

Serge Baranovsky — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 01:48:00 GMT

vbfeeds.com RSS was broken for the last few days... Thanks to Richard Laniel for pointing that out. I was too busy in the last week and didn't have time to read my Bloglines.

What happened is there was one post that is over 90K and it turned the RSS feed over 200K - I fixed the feed by removing the offending post.

So, vbfeeds.com RSS is back and working fine ... for now :) And I added on my list to implement the feed/size validation.

Announcing new web site - vbfeeds.com

Serge Baranovsky — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 05:21:00 GMT

The idea of the new web site - vb:feeds - http://vbfeeds.com - was inspired by DelphiFeeds.com I stumbled upon last month.

So, I decided to build a web site that would syndicate select web feeds with Visual Basic/.NET related content. But I went further - all posts are screened for content and only the technical ones make it to http://vbfeeds.com. The approved content then is published on the site as well as exposed via a single web feed. Be sure you will not see on vb:feeds posts like my recent one.

The basic aggregation idea is not new at all, take .NET Weblog Archive for example. I subscribed to their feed over a year ago but unsubscribed a couple of weeks later as they collect hundreds of posts daily (impossible to read through) and the biggest problem is that many of those hundreds have very little to do with .NET.

In the past couple of weeks I shared the vb:feeds web site with vbCity Leaders and most owners of the blogs being syndicated at the site. And so far the feedback was very encouraging. Here are some comments:

Mike McIntyre: The best compliment I can give you is that I am starting to depend on this site.

Ged Mead: I like the idea .... even though it meant that I just spent another 30 minutes reading blogs that I didn't mean to ! :-}

Mark Dryden: In short, a terrific idea... Wading through a blogger's progress through a specific game, restaurant reviews and bigging up new gadget purchases generally leads to an unsubcribe from me - therefore, pure technical content is a BIG plus.

Jay Roxe: I think this is a fantastic resource and I'm glad to see that you're putting it together.

vb:feeds is the first of the projects that went live which I developed using ASP.NET 2.0, VB2005 and SQL2005 – I love how Whidbey is shaping up in the August CTP and RC1 – real pleasure to use it! I haven't had so much fun with Visual Studio since VB6 :)

Things to do - site search, grouping, tagging, rating posts and such.

What do you think about the idea in general? What do you like about it and what don't? What features you would like to see added? What are VB related feeds you know of that I may've missed?

Please post your feedback in this blog comments or on the vb:feeds support forum.

vb:feeds - http://vbfeeds.com

MIT Weblog Survey

Serge Baranovsky — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 17:52:00 GMT

Installed new .Text skin - BlackSun

Serge Baranovsky — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 04:05:00 GMT

I got bored with all skins installed for http://blogs.vbcity.com, so I went and found new .Text skin on .NET Monster - BlackSun, modified it a bit, installed on vbCity Blogs and now use for my blog :)

Aaah, crap!

Serge Baranovsky — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 10:07:00 GMT

Spent last hour or so deleting spam trackbacks on vbCity Blogs - Shandy posted about those last week.

I found this morning over 3000 spam trackbacks for just a bit over 500 posts 8-(

Luckily, I removed 2/3 of the spam by searching for a substring like “poker”, “casino” and about a dozen more. For the rest it was easier and quicker to delete them manually in the SQL Enterprise Manager than adding SQL queries.

Got to do something about those trackbacks. At this point it would make sense to simply turn them off as 3000/100 ratio in just one month makes them pretty much useless. But I'm sure I will find a better solution.

Hopefully this will get me back on blogging track too :)

Comment spam battle - Captcha control implemented on blogs.vbcity.com

Serge Baranovsky — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 02:40:00 GMT

Comment spam has been growing every day and I received number of requests from vbCity bloggers to do something about that.

So I did.

I googled for a comment spam solution for .TEXT and found ASP.NET Captcha control by Miguel Jiménez that I liked. Adding it to .TEXT was a snap - literally two lines in one of the .ascx files.

Today I updated all skins for vbCity Blogs with the Captcha control.

There are two minor issues with the control at the moment:

if visitor enters the phrase wrong, you lose everything you typed in
to delete comment you will have to enter the phrase. Alternatively you can delete comments in the admin piece.

Both issues can only be resolved by recompiling the .TEXT code. Unfortunatelly I rebuilt my dev machine few months ago and now VS.NET doesn't open .TEXT project even though everything looks correct. I will fix both issues when I manage to open the project :)

Revamped DevCity.NET web site is live

Serge Baranovsky — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 19:52:00 GMT

We (finally) launched new revamped DevCity.NET web site! It took a while to migrate to new software but it is done now :)

New web site features better (hopefully) layout and look, online content management system featuring author registration, article submission, complete article/web site maintenance, RSS feeds.

The home page got redesigned as well and now it features latest articles, news, integrates with vbCity Blogs, FAQs and Forums.

I want to thank vbCity Leaders, especially, Ged and Mike, for the great help and support in launching and testing the new site!

Create User WSH script for .TEXT

Serge Baranovsky — Mon, 22 Nov 2004 01:49:00 GMT

As I commented on Duncan's Blog about the script I developed for blogs.vbcity.com that allows me to add users easy and quick, I got few emails asking for the script code. So I'm posting it here

Note: The script as it posted requires Windows Scripting Host installed on the server. If you choose you can modify it to run as ASP or ASP.NET code.

There is another script that I use for this site - I'm adding FTP accounts and setting up FTP sites for blog users using ADSI - let me know if you want it posted too.

' Command line parameters:
'
'     %1 - User 
'     %2 - Password 
'     %3 - FullName 
'     %4 - Email 
'     %5 - Blog Title 
'     %6 - Blog SubTitle
'

'/****************************** Main Scrtipt **********************************/

Const DEFAULT_CSS = "Marvin3" ' replace with the CSS of your choice
Const BLOG_HOST = "blogs.vbcity.com" ' replace with your host name or use localhost when testing locally

Dim ConnString
ConnString = "Provider=sqloledb;Password={YOURPASSWORD};User ID={YOURUSER};Initial Catalog=blogs;Data Source={YOURSQLSERVER}"

Set objArgs = WScript.Arguments
Dim boolGoodParams
' debug message
WScript.Echo "Arguments Count: " & WScript.Arguments.Count
boolGoodParams = True

If WScript.Arguments.Count < 6 Then 
  WScript.Echo "Sample Use: scriptname.vbs User Password FullName Email Title SubTitle"
  boolGoodParams = False
End If



 
If boolGoodParams Then
  Dim strUser, strPassword, strFullName, strEmail, strTitle1, strTitle2
  Dim i 
  i = 0 
  
  ' debug message
  For Each strArg in objArgs
    i = i + 1
    WScript.Echo "Argument(" & i & "): " & strArg
  Next 
  strUser = WScript.Arguments(0)
  strPassword = WScript.Arguments(1)
  strFullName = WScript.Arguments(2)
  strEmail = WScript.Arguments(3)
  strTitle1 = WScript.Arguments(4)
  strTitle2 = WScript.Arguments(5)
  Dim conn, rs, bOpened
  bOpened = DatabaseConnect(conn, ConnString)
  Dim bExists, SQL
  SQL = "select count(*) as user_count from blog_config where UserName = '" & strUser & "'"
  bExists = DatabaseGetValue(conn, SQL, "user_count", False)
  ' debug message
  WScript.Echo "bExists: " & CBool(bExists)
  If Not bExists Then
    Call BlogDBUserAdd(strUser, strPassword, strFullName, strEmail, strTitle1, strTitle2)
  End If
  DatabaseDisconnect conn, bOpened
  WScript.Echo "Done."

End If

'/******************************************************************************/

Function BlogDBUserAdd(strUser, strPassword, strFullName, strEmail, strTitle1, strTitle2)
  SQL = "INSERT INTO [blog_Config] ([UserName], [Password], [Email], [Title], [SubTitle], " & _
    "[Skin], [Host], [Author], [TimeZone], [IsActive], [Language], [ItemCount], [Flag], " & _
    "[LastUpdated], [News], [SecondaryCss], [Application], [BlogGroup]) " & _
    "VALUES ('" & DoubleQuotes(strUser) & "', '" & DoubleQuotes(strPassword) & "', '" & DoubleQuotes(strEmail) & "','" & DoubleQuotes(strTitle1) & "', '" & DoubleQuotes(strTitle2) & "', " & _
    "'" & DoubleQuotes(DEFAULT_CSS) & "', '" & DoubleQuotes(BLOG_HOST) & "', '" & DoubleQuotes(strFullName) & "', -8, 1, 'en-US', 15, 55, " & _
    "getdate(), '', '', '" & strUser & "', 1)"

  DatabaseExecute conn, SQL
End Function

'/******************************************************************************/

Function DoubleQuotes(strSource)
  DoubleQuotes = Replace(strSource, "'", "''")
End Function

'/******************************************************************************/

Function DatabaseConnect(objConn, ConnString)
Dim bCreateConn
  If Not IsEmpty(objConn) Then
    If objConn Is Nothing Then
      bCreateConn = True
    Else
      bCreateConn = False
    End If
  Else
    bCreateConn = True
  End If
  If bCreateConn = True Then
    Set objConn = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
    objConn.Open ConnString
  End If
  DatabaseConnect = bCloseConn
End Function

Function DatabaseDisconnect(objConn, bOpened)
On Error Resume Next
  If bOpened = True Then
    objConn.Close
    Set objConn = Nothing
    bOpened = False
  End If
End Function

Function DatabaseExecute(objConn, SQL)
  objConn.Execute SQL 
End Function

Function DatabaseSelect(objConn, SQL)
  Set DatabaseSelect = objConn.Execute(SQL)
End Function

Function DatabaseOpenRS(objConn, rs, SQL)
Const adOpenStatic = 3
  If Not IsEmpty(rs) Then
    If rs Is Nothing Then
      Set rs = CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")
    End If
  Else
    Set rs = CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")
  End If
  rs.Open SQL, objConn, adOpenStatic
End Function

' Open Forward Only recordset
Function DatabaseOpenRS_FO(objConn, rs, SQL)
Const adOpenForwardOnly = 0
Const adLockReadOnly = 1
Const adCmdText = &H0001
  If Not IsEmpty(rs) Then
    If rs Is Nothing Then
      Set rs = CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")
    End If
  Else
    Set rs = CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")
  End If
  rs.Open SQL, objConn, adOpenForwardOnly, adLockReadOnly, adCmdText
End Function

Function DatabaseGetValue(objConn, SQL, Field, Default)
Dim rs, vRetValue
  Set rs = DatabaseSelect(objConn, SQL)
  If rs.BOF Or rs.EOF Then
    vRetValue = Default
  Else
    If Trim("" & rs(Field)) = "" Then
      vRetValue = Default
    Else
      vRetValue = rs(Field)
    End If
  End If
  DatabaseGetValue = vRetValue
  rs.Close
  Set rs = Nothing
End Function

Couple of issues fixed on blogs.vbcity.com

Serge Baranovsky — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 13:41:00 GMT

I'm still traveling - leaving Paris for Ukraine tomorrow morning - and have connection only for about an hour every other day (the reason I haven't been posting lately) just enough to make sure the sites are up and glance through new email.

I fixed problem with uploaded images not showing up on blogs and yet another one Duncan Mackenzie is mentioning:

Within a few hours of being up, I ran into this issue... odd, since it doesn't appear to be affecting very many folks...
.Text Threading Bug
...If you are one of the 7 regular readers here you might have noticed some problems over the last few weeks. Every so often .Text would display an error page with the message: “Value cannot be null. Parameter name: value”. Once the error happened it would stick around until the application restarted. Unfortunately, the error was appearing everyday. After asking around on some of the boards to no avail I did some sleuthing...

[Via Blogs on DuncanMackenzie.net]

I haven't ran into this problem before as I was updating the blogs site frequently (hence restarting the app) before I went to vacation...

Well, hopefully these all are fixed now

How to configure desktop client for blogs.vbcity.com

Serge Baranovsky — Mon, 09 Aug 2004 04:29:00 GMT

It is pretty cool to be blog in your browser - you can do that from anywhere you find a connected computer.

But if you want to use desktop client to blog at blogs.vbcity.com here I've put together two articles on how to configure w.bloggar and BlogJet: