Archive for March, 2006
I get a lot of requests for Ajax Ticker and BBC TIcker and most of the tickers ive done are either in c# or java so I thought I would knock up a simple ajax/js ticker which people can simply add into a website.
Building this type of ticker is split into three small parts. The first is to create a server side file that can grab a remote RSS XML feed. Ajax doesnt want you to access remote URLS which are not part of your domain, for security reasons. As such we need to create a very small server side file that can act as a proxy between your domain and the RSS feed you want, e.g.
Ajax Requests BBC News Feed -> A serverside file (e.g. php) is called on your domain -> This requests the BBC feed and hands it back to the ajax caller
To sum it up, whilst you are getting a remote feed it appears to ajax as though its coming from the local domain.
The second stage is to create the two portions of javascript we’re going to need. We need an ajax processor to obtain and process and RSS feed and we need a controller to handle the ticker aspect.
Third stage is the HTML, this is really simple and essentially you setup the correct elments and call the javascript file.
I’ve put all the files you need in this all in one ajax ticker file (rar)
Also, you can view a live example of the Ajax RSS Ticker using the BBC News Feed.
March 30th, 2006
I’ve taken the Top 40 Singles chart provided by the BBC at bbc.co.uk/radio1/chart and with a bit of scraping and shaping I ‘ve managed to produce a pretty decent XML feed for those that want it.
If anyone wants to see modifications or has any good ideas on how to push this into an RSS feed then give me an email.
UK Top 40 in XML (Singles Chart)
March 28th, 2006
Since I detest most batch image convertors I thought I would write my own. An easy to use image conversion tool for you to use.
Freeware of course. Simply takes the entire contents of a directory (image files of course) and batch converts them to a number of image formats (png, gif, wmf, emf, jpg, tif). You can resize by percentage scaling, specific width and height or by specifying a specific width and the system will auto calculate the height.
Try it by downloading here
March 18th, 2006
I’ve just downloaded the Royal TS replacement for Remote Desktop which is supposed to be excellent however I’ve come across what looks to be a problem with .NET installers.
Im currently running the latest and greatest .NET CLR 2.0.50727 however this application requires 1.1.XXX. The result is that when I attempt to run the application the installer barks saying i must install this .NET distro but I have the latest version! Totally stupid - you would of thought it would be happy to continue but it seems I must have the exact version of .NET it needs. Come on!
March 17th, 2006
So, I’ve just completed a very small util to screen capture a web browsers view. It loads the URL in question, takes a snapshot of it and also creates a thumbnail. Ill be adding this to my projects list shortly.
March 9th, 2006
Hmm, seemed to be broken this morning. None of the pages are loading for (on this site) and on /. Maybe google have bitten off more than they can chew!
March 9th, 2006