Author: Randy

Xlack Revisited

A few weeks ago I posted a couple of times about the xlack system info script for xchat. It was very useful considering I couldn’t find the script anywhere on Google. Right after posting the download for the script, I had a decent rank on Google for the keyword “xlack download” and even “xlack”. This was to be expected since there really wasn’t a lot of information about Xlack available on the internet anymore.

Now I’m not even in the first page results. In fact, the number one position for “xlack” is a placeholder page for the old xlack.tk. This was the original website for the xlack script. There’s also a high placement for a member of deviant art. At any rate, if someone were to actually use Google to find the xlack script, they would be hard pressed to find it. Hopefully this site will rank for the xlack keyword soon so people can actually find the script.

Ultra Cheap Web Cam on eBay

I was just using my new tool at whats-hot-weekly.com and I noticed that the most watched item in Computers & Networking has changed a bit. The latest, greatest selling item is a web camera. The price simply can’t be beat. It’s $1.00. It has a built in mic and would be great for Skype and such. I’m not sure how many they have left but they’ve sold over 8,000 of them according to whats-hot-weekly.com.

Two things that should be noted about my site. The “Bid Count” shows how many people have bid on the item, if it is a regular auction. However, if it’s a ‘Buy it Now Only’ auction, the bid count is actually the number of people who have bought the item. Also, the static link I’m about to post to the site is NOT the main part of the site. It is what I call the static links portion of the site which allows me to post a link to a specific item or search criteria. The main site is almost completely javascript and there’s no good way for me to link to the content of a search.

Finally, here is the link to the web camera in question. Notice that it’s only a 300k camera, but that is VGA quality which should be fine. I mean…come on….it’s a buck.

responseXML.documentElement is null or not an object

Ok I have yet another reason to loath IE7. I had an error on Whats-hot-weekly.com earlier in regard to this error message on my ajax XML object:
responsexml.documentElement is null or not an object
Everything worked in Firefox, Chrome, and even my Nokia N810’s browser, but IE7 just wasn’t going to cooperate. I knew that it was working last night, but I made a few changes before going to bed.

Two of the changes I made was in relation to the meta tags in the HTML of the main index page. I added keywords and description for search engine optimization. Little did I know that one of these was the culprit.

After much Googling, I came upon this article. In it I immediately found the reason for the error. It should have been a little obvious but I had overlooked something simple. My search box for entering in keywords had an id(and name) of “keywords”. The new meta tag for keywords also used the “name=keywords” attribute.

In the article, it was the “description” meta tag that had caused the conflict. Upon evaluating that, I realized my mistake. This effected IE only because IE checks the name attribute when you call document.getElementById. It was grabbing the meta element instead of the search box.

I hope this helps someone else, in the event that all the variables fall into place for this to happen again.

eBay Most Watched Items

Well, after a few days of serious development, I’m releasing the beta of my site. It’s called whats-hot-weekly.com. It is basically a “most watched items on ebay” site. With it users can find what everyone else is looking at.

One can search by keyword/keyphrase, by category, or by both. The interface may need a little polishing, but it’s functional. There is at least one minor bug that I’m working on. The site will continue to improve, and I’ll be adding forums soon, so that people can report bugs and discuss what they find. If you are using my site to find what products to buy on eBay I’d also recommend visiting https://www.raise.com/coupons/ebay to find the best coupon codes and use them on your purchase.

Just make sure to read reviews 

Feedback соmmеntѕ аrе a vаluаblе tооl when dесіdіng whether to dо business wіth an еBау ѕеllеr. If a ѕеllеr hаѕ ѕеvеrаl nеgаtіvе feedback comments, you may not wаnt tо dо buѕіnеѕѕ wіth him.

Tо read аn еBау ѕеllеr’ѕ fееdbасk соmmеntѕ, gо to thе ѕеllеr’ѕ Fееdbасk Prоfіlе bу сlісkіng thе fееdbасk number (beside thе ѕеllеr’ѕ uѕеr ID іn thе Sеllеr Infо box) when you vіѕіt an auction/item раgе. Bеlоw thе Rесеnt Fееdbасk Rаtіngѕ, Detailed Sеllеr Rаtіngѕ, аnd Mеmbеr Quісk Lіnkѕ аrе tabs thаt you сlісk to ѕее (аnd rеаd) thе асtuаl feedback соmmеntѕ. Bу default, уоu ѕее thе All Fееdbасk tаb selected. Yоu mау uѕе the оthеr tаbѕ to ѕоrt the соmmеntѕ for rеvіеw:

Fееdbасk as a Sеllеr: Thеѕе comments аrе frоm people whо bоught something from thіѕ ѕеllеr.

Fееdbасk as a Buуеr: Whеn уоu buy аnd рlау bу the rules, уоu gеt ѕоmе роѕіtіvе feedback that ѕhоwѕ uр hеrе.

All Feedback: A conglomeration оf аll fееdbасk lеft for thе раrtісulаr mеmbеr, rеgаrdlеѕѕ оf whеthеr that реrѕоn wаѕ a buуеr or a ѕеllеr in a trаnѕасtіоn. You can tеll whісh раrtу left thе feedback bесаuѕе thе wоrdѕ Sеllеr оr Buуеr арреаr оn thе right оf еасh comment.

Fееdbасk Left for Others: Checking thе tуре оf feedback thаt a ѕеllеr leaves аbоut others can give уоu аn insight іntо hіѕ реrѕоnаlіtу.

Don’t forget to let me know what you think by commenting here or by emailing me at the address listed on the site’s home page.

AJAX Cross Domain Work-around

Any of you that are AJAX developers can skip this post. I’ve just recently started concentrating on AJAX for a project I’m working on. In the past, I’ve used PHP to parse XML returned from various web services and it goes off without a hitch. I also wrote my own web service in PHP for this project.

The project is basically a site that works with the eBay API to pull the most watched items for any keyword search phrase and by category. I’ve pulled all the categories to a local database. This will allow me to avoid using an API call every time someone clicks through different categories. All the categories are in an AJAX menu system I wrote. The menu is completely dynamic and loads the categories and subcategories using calls to my web service. This part was fun because it gave me the opportunity to create a web service and this in itself was worth the time I’ve spent on the whole project.

I ran into a road block however, because I wasn’t aware that AJAX doesn’t allow cross-domain calls. At least from what I see, it doesn’t. I started getting an error 1012 “Access to restricted URI denied’.” This means that the actually calls I would like to make to the eBay API won’t work through AJAX. I wrote the code to try to do so and kept getting this error. That’s when I found out that it wasn’t possible to do this using AJAX. It’s fine in PHP, however. So, here is the work-around I’m brain-storming. I know it’ll work. It’s just a matter of doing it.

The work-around is simply to write another web service in php that makes the calls for me. Then use AJAX to pull the info dynamically from the localhost. The up side to this is I can also log various stats about the calls within the web service as well. I could create a table in my database to log the searches, time of day, IP address of user, and so on. This will allow me to understand how the app is being used, who’s using it, when they are using it, and what they are using it for.

This is also known as using AJAX through a proxy. Where the proxy is the web service on the localhost from which one can make an AJAX call to.
So, I’m off to code another web service.

Planet Earth in Blue Ray (Blu-Ray, Blue-ray, Blu Ray, BluRay)

Even though there are many ways to write Blu-Ray, they all mean one thing, high definition video and great audio. Mix that with the best cinematography every thrown into a documentary and you end up with Planet Earth Blu-Ray edition. To me, this was what Blu-Ray was invented for. 

The Discovery Channel went all out with this documentary. It is an eleven part mini series that explores the mountains, oceans, deserts, jungle, polar, and fresh water regions of our favorite planet. In the process they display the best visuals you’ll ever see in a documentary. I saw this Blu-Ray set in Walmart a week or so ago for around $70. The list retail price is $100. I found it for $50 here. Not even Amazon has this good of a deal.

[phpbay]planet earth blu-ray, 5, “”, “lot”[/phpbay]

CHM file not working

I have quite a few ebooks in various formats, mostly PDF and CHM. Some time ago I noticed that an update from Microsoft limited the ability to open CHM files. I had previously researched how to fix this but after a recent reinstall of Windows I’ve found myself with the same issue as before. I had forgotten how to fix it. I also noticed that the fix isn’t very easy to find. So, I thought I’d post it here for anyone who may run into the same issue.

Here is what the error will look like:

image51

You will see an error like “Navigation to the webpage was canceled.”

This was actually a security feature Microsoft added. Intranet and internet downloaded CHM files are blocked by default. There are a few ways to fix this, we’ll start with the least preferred.

This registry hack will enable CHM files to open remotely or locally. This is quick and painless but could lead to security risks, though I’ve never heard of anyone getting hacked or acquiring a virus from a CHM file. At any rate, use that registry hack at your own risk. To install it, simply download the .reg file, right-click it, and choose install. Azure cloud security tools can assist with protecting the data in your system.

The next way is probably the easiest but it requires that all CHM files be downloaded to the local machine. This, to me, is not a problem. This will unblock all local CHM files and it’s an obvious fix that just elluded me for some reason. When the CHM file is clicked a dialog box appears with a checkbox that says “Always ask before opening this file type”. According to Microsoft, unchecking this box will unblock all the CHM files that are on the local machine. I’ve not tried this method, however.

The final method was the one I used. It is simply to unblock the files individually. I was unaware that there was and “unblock” button inside the properties menu for the file. Simply right-click the file, choose properties, and in the “General” tab there should be an Unblock button at the bottom. Simply click this button and the CHM file should open and display correctly.

Best Cross-Platform FTP Client/Server

Due to my recent web site development work, I’ve been in need of good FTP client for Windows. In the past, I used SmartFTP but it was a free trial or it may have actually been freeware at one time. I liked it, but it’s hard to make a bad FTP client for Windows. Pretty much all FTP clients have the same features these days anyway.

So I thought it’d be a good time to find a free open source FTP client for Windows. It didn’t take long for me to dig up Filezilla. I have to say, I like it. It’s not spectacular or amazing. I really don’t see why an FTP client should be. It is lightweight and works as expected. That’s all one should expect from an FTP client. I like programs that keep it simple and Filezilla does that well.

Another advantage to FileZilla is that it is available on all platforms. I prefer it to anything I’ve ever tried on OS X. For some reason a lot of Mac lovers like some program with a duck in it. The name escapes me. I should take the time to google it but I just don’t have the time at the moment. File Duck or Ducky….Something like that. At any rate, that program has a very Mac feel to it but I don’t like that I have to use it with finder. I think a lot of that comes from the fact that I’ve been using FTP clients for quite some time and it’s just not intuitive to me.

FileZilla is available on Linux, Windows, and OS X. I’m pretty sure it’s available on BSD as well. Once one is familiar with it on one platform, it’s the same on any other.

I’ve limited experience with the server version of FileZilla. From what little experience (from XAMPP) I have with FileZilla server, it seems pretty good. I personally don’t have a need for an FTP server in Windows, and if I did, I would probably use the built-in FTP server in IIS, since I run Windows Server 2008. But if all one needs is an FTP server, Filezilla appears to be an excellent choice.

BattleField 1942 in Windows 2008

I decided to play BF1942 today. I installed it and Battlefield Vietnam. These two games are about the only first person shooters I can play without getting simulator sickness. It had been a while since I played BF1942 so I wanted to try it first.

It should be noted at this point that I’ve been using Windows 2008 server as a desktop operating system for about three months now. Up until now everything pretty much worked out of the box, but once I tried to start up BF1942 I ran into a slight problem. It complained about having the wrong version of DirectX installed. It requires DirectX 6.0 or higher.

I knew I had a higher version of DirectX than this. So after digging around for a while I found out that there is a bug that causes this issue. The fix is a little strange. One person suggested that it was an issue with fullscreen mode. True enough, after changing one line of a config file for BF1942 to force it to start in windowed mode, there was no issues. The only problem is that windowed mode sucks.

So, searching further, I discovered that there is a fix that involves a patch for GTA2. Here are the instructions to execute this solution:
1.) Download this.
2.) Unzip
3.) Copy the dmusic.dll and dmusic.inf files to C:\Windows\System32
4.) Inside the system32 directory find dmusic.inf…right click on it and choose install.

BF1942 should now work in full screen mode.

Xlack Download!

As stated in a previous post, I couldn’t find the Xlack system information script anywhere. Well I was looking through some old backup DVD’s I’d made and sure enough I have a backup of it. So for anyone that wants it you can find it here.

Xlack is my favorite sysinfo script for XChat. It isn’t supported any longer and that may be the reason it’s so hard to find. Also xlack.tk isn’t working any longer. I’m guessing it is an abandoned project. I may actually take it over, eventually. I don’t have the time at the moment, however.

So, download and use at your own risk. If you need help, please post a comment to this post. I will answer to the best of my knowledge.