Category: programming

Prepare the the onslaught of new web-clients, new client releases/updates, plugins, website AIM widgets, and countless computer magazine articles on how to write your own AIM client. AOL has released the AOL Instant Messenger SDK for public use. This is just one of thousands of articles hailing its release. It's been a long time coming, several years that I've been watching for it. When IM clients decided to use one protocol last year sometime, I thought the released of the SDK would be right along side the protocol decision.
I haven't looked at it yet, but I'll probably wait til someone else reads the documentation and comes up with a more friendly HOWTO. (Besides, I really don't care to write my own IM client anyways.)

I recently got a BASIC Stamp microcontroller project board from Parallax, Inc.. Microcontrollers (µC) have been my latest interest. I've wanted to get my brain wrapped around how they work for some time, and I used some money I got for Christmas to buy one.

For those of you that don't know what a microcontroller is, it's simply a chip that acts as a self-contained computer which you program to your liking and hook into a circuit you've constructed. The BASIC Stamp µC is about the size of a postage stamp and the code is written in BASIC (hence the name). BASIC is used over assembly (like the PIC and AVR micocontrollers) because of its easy syntax. It allows a much shorter learning curve and gets you up and going with the basics of µC use.

The particular setup I got is a complete kit from Radio Shack (which they're going to stop carrying soon) which includes a BS2 chip on a programming board, with a breadboard area, 9V battery hookup and a serial port. The kit came with the serial cable, a copy of the "What's a Microcontroller?" book, software, and a bag of basic electrical components to experiment with. The book steps you through lessons (designed for those with zero knowledge of electronics or electric theory). It also explains simple programming concepts and walks you through several projects. My only regret is that the board's µC is built into the board. To create a µC-based project, I will either have to use this entire board with its connections, or purchase a separate Stamp (~$30) and a programming board for it. However, this is not a big problem at the moment since I'm still learning.

If you're interested in getting into this field of electronics/computers I recommend considering the Parallax line for its ease of use and great instructional material. (Not to say I won't move back to the AVR after some time, but the Stamp is much easier to learn on).

This site has a nifty tweak which is located at Devnulled here. Apparently you can customize Firefox to load pages a little faster. I noticed quite a bit of a speed boost after I had loaded this in.

I was searching the Internet for a way to get Firefox to play embedded AVI's and BEHOLD, there is a way. Some guy in some forum posted these 2 lines of nifty code to add to your config file in firefox...
Edit the file
Appdata%/mozilla/firefox/pluginreg.dat
There's two of these files; make sure you get the one that is in the firefox sub-directory.
"
G:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\npdsplay.dll|$ |$
1091573676000|1|5|$
Npdsplay dll|$
Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library|$

10 <-- HERE IS THE 1st CHANGE from 9 to 10
0|application/asx|Media Files|*|$
1|video/x-ms-asf-plugin|Media Files|*|$
2|application/x-mplayer2|Media Files|*|$
3|video/x-ms-asf|Media Files|asf,asx,*|$
4|video/x-ms-wm|Media Files|wm,*|$
5|audio/x-ms-wma|Media Files|wma,*|$
6|audio/x-ms-wax|Media Files|wax,*|$
7|video/x-ms-wmv|Media Files|wmv,*|$
8|video/x-ms-wvx|Media Files|wvx,*|$
9|video/x-msvideo|Media Files|avi,*|$ <-- ADDED THIS LINE
"

Make sure firefox is closed before you do this. After this is done, you can play all the avi's you want.

Perl pwnz j00. It is amazing.

As I said before, most automated tasks at work are scripts written in Perl. It is highly important that everyone on the team be proficient in the scripting language. I've been allowed time to grow accustomed to its usage and syntax. I think that today I finally broke into understanding the power of Perl.

It's extremely easy to implement complex routines through the use of CPAN modules. They are essentially extensible libraries for use in a script. They are very easy to add to you system, they are only loaded when you invoke them from within your script, and can do many powerful things.
Things that would take a C/C++ programmer much longer to do. Granted, C/C++ create smaller/quicker binaries, but Perl is easy to maintain and easy to develop a "quick and dirty" fix.

Skaven has been preaching to me to get into Perl, I think I have finally started to truly break ground. I thought I had made some progress before, but it wasn't until this afternoon that it really hit me - with the force of 2 sumo's colliding at full-speed.
Sorry it took so long Skaven, I'm awake now.