XML posts

RSS and SimplePie makes for PHP developer heaven

by Nik Fletcher Oct 10th 2009

This is definitely one for the developers amongst you, but if you're developing an application in PHP and need to handle the reading of RSS feeds, SimplePie is a god-send. Some folks will point you in the direction of PHP5's built-in SimpleXML module, however it's highly intolerant of malformed XML - and certainly doesn't have any extra features such as caching that you get with SimplePie.

If you're looking for an easy way to work with RSS or Atom feeds, SimplePie is both easy to implement - and thoroughly documented to help you build on it. I've used SimplePie in a number of projects in the last year - from multi-feed collation to simply showing a list of recent blog posts in a sidebar - and every time I use it I find myself grinning like a cheshire cat at the amount of time it has saved me.

SimplePie is available under the BSD licence for your hacking pleasure, and the developers are currently seeking feedback for version 2!

Tags: Open Source, OpenSource, RSS, XML

Filed under: Office, Microsoft

Microsoft gets to keep selling Word... for now

by Brad Linder Sep 3rd 2009

After receiving a court order to stop selling Microsoft Word due to patent-infringing technology, Microsoft warned that the consequences could be dire if the injunction wasn't stayed. And by dire, I mean, Microsoft might have had to pull Word for a few months while writing new code to get around the problem.

Fortunately (for Microsoft at least, and anyone looking to pick up a copy of Office or Word in the next few months), it won't come to that. Today an appeals court stayed the injunction issued by a federal judge in Texas last month.

That doesn't mean that Microsoft is in the clear. It just means that the company can continue selling its software while the appeals process continues. If Microsoft ultimately loses the case, it's possible the company could still have to pull Word from the market indefinitely. But I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft has a team of monkeys banging away at typewriters to come up with a less patent-infringing version of Word as we speak. That's how software is made, right?

Tags: injunction, iwi, lawsuit, microsoft-office, microsoft-word, patent, xml

Filed under: Office, Microsoft, Humor

Microsoft warns court of Word-related armageddon

by Lee Mathews Aug 19th 2009

Nevermind 2012, according to Micorosoft there's a good chance that a Texas district court judge's recent decision could very well cause civilization as we know it to crumble in a few short weeks.

It all starts with Microsoft's need to redesign Word to remove the code which violates i4i's XML patent. "The money! The beautiful, beautiful money!" an entirely fictitious spokesperson stated. "There's no way we could ever recoup it. It's not like we're a massively profitable company with overwhelming shares of operating system of office software markets or something."

But there's something much more horrifying to consider here than Microsoft losing a few million dollars. It's just the first domino to fall in the series.

Next comes the cataclysmic damage to vendors like Dell, HP, and Best Buy - all of whom would have to immediately re-tool as a result. That means hours and hours of meetings - which also means lost productivity and increased stress levels.

The associated disruption of sales in an uncertain economy? It's not hard to see where this could end up. Increased joblessness. The new unemployed would no doubt turn on the justice system, and lead to waves of rioting, looting, and lawlessness.

Before you know it, the United States is a desert wasteland and we're all driving around in school buses fighting off zombie attacks. After the US, the world quickly becomes a dull, withered husk.

So please - for the sake of humanity - grant the stay.

[via The Register]

Tags: court, i4i, lawsuit, microsoft-word, patent, xml

Filed under: Utilities, Office, Web services

Deadline - simplest web calendar ever?

by Jay Hathaway Nov 17th 2008

Deadline is a really great web-based alternative to the standard desktop to-do apps. There are several ways to interact with it and access your to-do list, including via Jabber/Google Talk, through Atom, RSS and iCal feeds, and email. Deadline understands input in natural language, so you can write something like, "call mom on Tuesday," and the web app will schedule it appropriately.

The Deadline UI is well-designed and not distracting, with edit and delete buttons readily accessible next to each item. Inspired by Twitter, to-do items have a 140 character cap to accomodate SMS support (which is forthcoming for Deadline, but not quite there yet). The 140 limitation doesn't have much practical effect, because date, time and location information can be submitted through brief natural language, no fancy syntax involved. There's an XML API, too, if you want to experiment with Deadline yourself.

Tags: calendar, Deadline, iCal, jabber, rss, to-do, XML

Filed under: Internet, Text, Productivity, Web services, web 2.0

Dapper: RSS for sites without it and more

by Danny Mendez Jan 2nd 2008

Though it may seem like everything has an RSS feed nowadays, lots of sites still lack the feature, leaving RSS fiends with no option but to actually surf the web (blasphemous!). Fortunately, there's Dapper: The Data Mapper, a web service that will take information from a site and package it in the form of your choice (RSS feeds, Google Maps, iCalendar, and more).

In order to create a "Dapp," or Dapper app, navigate to the Dapper site and click on "create a new Dapp." The next few steps are very interesting, requiring users to answer a variety of questions regarding the source of information. The answers will depend on the format you choose and the information you'd like to collect. Options include RSS, Dapp XML, Google Gadget and others. The process of creating a Dapp should be pretty easy if the user understands the concept of RSS.

It may seem like RSS feed creation is the most obvious function of the service, but it's in the more complex stuff that Dapper shines. You can, for example, have the latest YouTube search results for a given keyword appear in your iCalendar daily. The possibilities certainly aren't endless, but there are a lot of them.

[via Read Write Web]

Tags: dapp, Dapper, dapper app, DapperApp, rss, search, site scraping, SiteScraping, web 2.0, Web2.0, xml

Filed under: Audio, Fun, Internet, Web services

Get mobile access to your iTunes library with nuTsie

by Chris Gilmer Jun 29th 2007

So you have a nice playlist growing in your iTunes library, but what happens when you're out on the road and all you have with you is your mobile phone? nuTsie is here to help.

nuTsie is a music client that streams in your iTunes library. Well, as our friends at EngadgetMobile have pointed out, the nuTsie system actually reads the names of your tracks and matches them to whats on nuTsie's server. With this in mind, your main computer does not have to be left on, and the nuTsie application does not require you to upload music anywhere. All you have to do to get started is upload your iTunes Library.xml file to nuTsie's server under your account.

Performance for this service is said to be pretty good, with extremely good connection speeds. Just watch out when you close your clamshell phone, some have been reported to shut the nuTsie applications right off. The service is free to use during the public beta period, but the list of compatible mobile devices is pretty slim at the moment.

Tags: cell phone, CellPhone, itunes, library, mobile, nutsie, phone, playlist, xml

Filed under: Business, Developer, Office, Apple, Microsoft

Microsoft testing Office 2008 on Macs

by Chris Gilmer Apr 3rd 2007

Mac users seem to always get it last, and this upcoming version of Office 2008 is no exception. The team at Microsoft has been testing the next version of Office for Mac which is scheduled to be out in the middle of this year, and luckily adds some features that Apple fans have been missing out on.

Office 2008 has been finally released in a private beta test version for Mac users to test on Intel and Power PC setups. This release has taken longer than Microsoft's normal schedule of 18-24 months for new Mac versions of software releases. The current Mac version of Office is 2004 came out in April 2004. Mac Office will also finally get support for XML file formats, which was added in the Windows Office 2007 version. Office for Mac will also see an application called My Day, which give quick access to calendar items. Other improvements include improved page layout in Word and Excel with ledger sheets.

An Office alternative that more and more users are getting turned onto is the new OpenOffice 2.2 which has recently been released.

Tags: apple, excel, intel, mac, microsoft, office, openoffice, pc, power pc, PowerPc, powerpoint, word, xml

Filed under: Developer, OS Updates, Mozilla

Could there be a Mozilla Desktop Environment in the future

by Chris Gilmer Mar 21st 2007

Could there secretly be a Mozilla desktop environment in the works? We could always use another competitor in the marketplace, and we would love few things more than if that competitor were the Mozilla Foundation.

There's a discussion over at the Mozilla.dev.planning list that has stirred up the idea of building a Desktop Environment. The whole environment would be based on XUL (XML User Interface Language) and could become a reality much like extensions to the popular Firefox, Thunderbird, and the Minimo Mobile Browser product lines. Only time will tell if this discussion evolves into the build of the next generation cross OS desktop environment.

Tags: desktop, environment, firefox, mozilla, thunderbird, xml, xul

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Web services, Google

Google Fun - Personalized homepage hacks

by Chris Gilmer Mar 21st 2007

Google recently launched their beautified personalized homepage themes. These themes provide a nice contrast to the once boring whiteness of the traditional Google layout. But lurking deep inside the XML there stands some interesting tidbits. The "Easter Eggs" that Marissa Mayer hinted about not that long ago are scattered about the themes, and appear at certain time specific interval. Two decimal places past Pi (3.14) as a matter of fact, will see a new skin overlay appear at 3:14 AM local time on top of your selected theme, and stay there for one minute.

The XML files for the overlays can be found here, with the time changes noted inside:

For instance, here is a snapshot of good old Nessy:

Who wants to see more Easter Eggs in Google? I do!

[via Tony Ruscoe]

Tags: easter eggs, EasterEggs, google, personalized homepage, PersonalizedHomepage, xml

Filed under: News, Windows, Microsoft

Microsoft's XML Doc format on fast-track, some cry foul

by Grant Robertson Mar 13th 2007

Nineteen nations and a flood of Open Source developers argue that Microsoft's proposed ISO standard XML Doc format is a load of rich creamery butter, so why is ISO secretariat by Lisa Rajchel putting the controversial format on the fast track? That's unclear however, what appears as clear as day is the format will see a quick five month balloting process before a near certain ratification by the all powerful International Standards Organization sometime this year.

Many states and organizations are passing laws or setting mandates to use open, documented file formats approved by international standards bodies. Currently, the worlds most popular word-processing document format, Microsoft's Word "Doc" doesn't meet that requirement. Losing MS Office customers as large as the state of California would be a huge blow to Microsoft, so there is obviously strong motivation to get the ISO on board with what MS is selling. We've reported before on potentially more sane alternatives which exist to Microsoft's bloated and unwieldy XML format; Can we help it if the ISO doesn't read Download Squad?

See Also:
Open Document Plugin for Word 97-2007 proves Microsoft wrong
Microsoft's Office Open XML spec gets final draft

Tags: EMCA, ISO, microsoft open doc, MicrosoftOpenDoc, open doc, open xml doc, OpenDoc, OpenXmlDoc, XML

Filed under: Business, Finance, Shareware

Free Flash charts with amCharts and PHP/SWF Charts

by Jordan Running Dec 29th 2006

Oh, how I love free things. Especially free pretty things. And I'm the kind of person who things Flash charts and graphs are pretty, so I present amCharts and PHP/SWF Charts. amCharts is a relative newcomer that creates attractive Flash pie and donut charts based on data you put in a text file in either XML or CSV formats (which makes exporting from Excel easy). It's very configurable, allowing you to specify colors, border, tilt (for a 3D effect), labels, fonts, backgrounds, and so on. amCharts' creators promise bar, column, and line charts this spring.

PHP/SWF Charts is sort of amCharts' big brother. It's been around awhile longer and features more than a dozen different chart types and nearly unlimited configurability. As the name implies, PHP/SWF Charts uses PHP to load data from dynamic sources, but it's not required--there's XML/SWF Charts that will load data from a regular XML file. With its advanced features comes more complexity, of course, and the learning curve is probably greater, but if you need, say, a stacked 3D column chart, it's the way to go.

As I mentioned, both charting tools are free, but not totally free. The free version of amCharts will put a small link to amCharts.com in the corner of your charts, and PHP/SWF Charts will direct users to its web site if they click on it. For a single-site license amCharts will cost you 45 Euros (about US$60) and PHP/SWF charts will cost you US$45. "Enterprise" licenses for unlimited sites cost 245 Euros (~US$322) or $550 respectively.

Tags: amcharts, charting, charts, flash, graphing, graphs, php/swf charts, Php/swfCharts, swf, xml

Filed under: Business, Windows, Macintosh, Office, Productivity, OpenOffice.org

WordPerfect to support ODF and Open XML

by Chris Gilmer Nov 30th 2006

Do we still care about Corel's WordPerfect? Is there anyone out there that actually still uses it? Maybe I'm wrong but even people that have no idea about software still tend to use MS Word. Dell did at one time did bundle the app with some of their systems, but not any more. Anyway, Corel might trying to generate some buzz as they will be adding support for Open Document Format as well as Microsoft's Open XML to WordPerfect, starting sometime in mid-2007. Corel is not disclosing any other developments that might be built into the next version of the software, but says it will keep the public up-to-date on their plans. Is WordPerfect on a move to become a player again in the Office arena? They did announce that Firefox bundling will be coming down the pipes. Hmmm..

Tags: corel, odf, office, openoffice, wordperfect, xml

Filed under: Developer, Windows, Freeware

Building apps with AOL's Boxely

by Jordan Running Oct 25th 2006

One thing I didn't know about AIM Triton before now is that the whole thing is built on AOL's Boxely, a toolkit for building full-fledged desktop apps with JavaScript and XML. This probably sounds familiar, especially if you're familiar with Mozilla's XUL (which Firefox is built on) or Microsoft's Avalon/XAML. Boxely was created by notable Netscape and Firefox developer Joe Hewitt. Hewitt has since left AOL, but Boxely is alive and kicking, and is now available as a free download from AOL. If you want to quickly get an idea of what Boxely is capable of, I recommend downloading the OCP (Open Client Platform) Preview from the Boxely web site and checking out the ocpSamples folder. It contains a bunch of demo applications that show off its various features, from windowing to animation to graphics. In a the third of three posts (1, 2) about Boxely's genesis, Hewitt writes about what sets Boxely apart from XUL and Avalon, and I must say between that, the Boxely documentation, and the demo apps, I'm definitely going to be checking it out if I ever decide to write a Windows app. I am in whole-hearted agreement with Hewitt when he suggests to AOL, "If you were to port Boxely to OS X and Linux, and maybe, oh I don't know, open source the library, I think you'd have a real winner on your hands!"

Tags: aol, avalon, boxely, desktop, development, javascript, windows, xaml, xml, xul

Filed under: Text, News, Windows, Office, Productivity, Microsoft

Microsoft's Office Open XML spec gets final draft

by Ryan Carter Oct 11th 2006

Apple, Barclays Capital, BP, The British Library, Essilor, Intel, Microsoft, NextPage, Novell, Statoil, Toshiba and the The United States Library of Congress have all approved the Office Open XML (OOXML) specification to be sent to the ECMA (a European standardization association). This is the next step in Microsoft's spec being accepted across many systems, platforms and applications. This is also the format that is the new hotness in the 2007 version of Office, at a beta-tester's workstation near you. I have to say that I have been very happy with Microsoft's 2007 Office system, and especially the XML format. It seems to make documents save and open a little bit faster, not to mention the endless interoperability features I haven't had a chance to test out yet. I think Microsoft is really on the right track here, and it shows, even in the beta. Hopefully this standard will be as versatile and flexible as we all think it will, but right now it is looking good.

Tags: 2007, document, Microsoft, office, OOXML, open, windows, XML

Filed under: Internet, Web services

Bloglines Mobile: Now with Skweezer

by Amber Rhea Sep 22nd 2006

While we're on the subject of mobile RSS readers... Bloglines announced yesterday that its Bloglines Mobile service now features integrated Skweezer technology.

What's Skweezer, you ask? Well, on its own, it's a free, platform-independent web service that optimizes page content for mobile devices. The benefit of Skweezer technology being added to Bloglines is that you won't have to specifically go to the Skweezer portal when you want to force a particular site to be friendly to your mobile device. When you visit a page via Bloglines Mobile, Skweezer compresses and reformats the content on the fly. Bonus: Skweezer can also translate content into more than a dozen languages.

Tags: Bloglines, Bloglines Mobile, BloglinesMobile, Greenlight Wireless, GreenlightWireless, mobile, RSS, RSS aggregator, RSS feeds, RssAggregator, RssFeeds, Skweezer, syndication, XML

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

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