Category Archives: XML & RSS

Doing things with smart text formats.

Set xsd style dates with zulu time zone in java

By Ian | June 18, 2009

I need to set some XML Schema Date/Time Datatypes (also called xsd date) values for Created (being now) and Expired (one month from now) so that the result might look something like a dateTime in UTC (also known as GMT, but also being a 24 hour clock format) time by adding a “Z” (for Zulu?) [...]

DRM free Songbird Media Player is out of the nest with R1.0!

By Ian | December 2, 2008

in the works since 2005 has SongBird has reached a major milestone with is 1.0 release!!
What is it? A DRM (Digital Restrictions Management, or they “restrict your rights to digits”. ) free, non-proprietary, cross platform, extensible (plug-in services!!), open-source, customizable music player. That’s what!
It’s built atop XULRunner platform (also used by Mozilla [...]

Also posted in Digital Rights & Wrongs, Media, Music, Web Services | Leave a comment

Recent Code and the Culture of Code Links for Sept 5th

By Ian | September 6, 2007

With Accordion Magic, Will Shaver has taken Stickman Labs’s accordion sections and added the ability to close panels, and code to keep contents hidden while page loads. Outstanding!!!
Common Prototype mistakes and how to avoid them : Here’s another list of things that tend to confuse (me) unexperienced “prototypers”
DatePicker using Prototype and Scriptaculous – Not Bad! [...]

Also posted in Code, JavaScript, Math | Leave a comment

Code is Culture Recent Links for July 13th: DRM Law & What’s next in RSS

By Ian | July 14, 2007

The making of DRM Law; What’s next in RSS;

Also posted in Code, DemoCamp, Digital Rights & Wrongs | Leave a comment

Amazon’s Web Top Site (Alexa) web service and Ruby; Fixed and juiced!

By Ian | March 15, 2007

I had need to get some data from Amazon Web Services, and in particular their Alexa Top Sites web service which provides access to lists of web sites ordered by Alexa Traffic Rank.
And, happily, they had a Query Example in Ruby! (as well as Java, Perl, PHP, and C#)
It is a bit unclear about [...]

Also posted in Code, LinkedIn, Ruby and Rails, Web, Web Services | Leave a comment

Amazon Web Services Developer Connection : Query Example in Ruby

By Ian | February 1, 2007

Amazon Web Services Developer Connection : Query Example in Ruby
line 27 of the sample should read :
“http://ats.amazonaws.com?” +
not
“http://awis.amazonaws.com/onca/xml?” +

Also posted in Code, LinkedIn, Ruby and Rails, Web Services | Leave a comment

Where Do You Think You’re Going, Mister!?

By Ian | January 21, 2007

image RSS comic

Also posted in Humour | Leave a comment

Adding Tags to your Blog posts, The Magic rel=”tag”

By Ian | August 15, 2006

For those who don’t have a blogging tool that auto-magically adds tag’s the process can seem a bit bewildering, especially when there is so much to do.
We have come a long way since Folksonomies on Slashdot, and since the Beta of Blogger.com looks to include tagging (making my

Also posted in Code, GreaseMonkey, Web, del.icio.us | Leave a comment

A Songbird is Hatched.

By Ian | February 9, 2006

The Songbird Media Player, built with XUL and DRM free, was hatched yesterday in a preview release…

Also posted in Culture, Digital Rights & Wrongs | Leave a comment

The Songbird Media Player, built with XUL, DRM free.

By Ian | November 24, 2005

The Songbird Media Player is a desktop media player, built atop XULRunner platform (also used by Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox and Thunderbird), and will run on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Just like Firefox, it will be open to extensions!
A preview release is expected in December, but screenshots are now posted, which have [...]

Also posted in Culture, Digital Rights & Wrongs | 1 Comment