Am enthralled with the new Facebook API. It’s awesomely simple to use. I mean really simple to use. They have changed the authentication process as well, and fuck me it’s so so much simpler than before.

Previously I integrated Facebook Connect with iMapFlickr, to allow uses to post to their own wall automatically, saying that they had created a new map about cheese and bunny rabbits.  But it was such a pain in the ass to use.  But I did it, although am a little balder for it!!

Facebook – now with added thought

The new Facebook API throws essentially everything they have done out the window, rewriting everything and using oAuth to authenticate a user.  They have even made oAuth simpler, which leads me to think it’s not really the full oAuth specification, but hey it works nicely!

But one thing they forgot to do was let .NET developers in on the secrets.  They released all the libraries and code and examples for other programming languages but .NET is sitting outside of Facebook Towers crying, not being allowed into the party as it has “Microsoft” as part of it’s name.  Fuckers.  I sold me soul to Microsoft a long time ago, so I have spent some time working this out. Read the rest of this entry »

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I was recently creating a form that needed to upload an image only to an email handler.  The file would then get emailed to the client.

The way that we have always worked this, is the asp.net fileupload control posted back to the server and checked the fuImage.HasFile and then fuImage.FileName, maybe even using the FileInfo class to let it grab the extension, and check it against a list.

But I realised that is real old school, and with the loveliness of jQuery and regular expressions. Again the internet failed me almost, as there are not really good posts or helpers out there that do this. Everything that appears seems to be out of date, or does something similar but not what am wanting. Well here is a quick script to check the file extensions and inform the user if the file is an image or not:

$(document).ready(function () {

        $("#btnRegister").click(function () {
            // check if the file you are going to upload is an image or not.
            var filePath = $("#fileUpload").val();
            filePath = filePath.replace(/^\s|\s$/g, "");
            if (/\.\w+$/.test(filePath)) {
                var m = filePath.match(/([^\/\\]+)\.(\w+)$/);
                if (m) {
                    if (m[2] == "gif" || m[2] == "jpg" || m[2] == "png" || m[2] == "bmp") {
                        return true;
                    }
                }
            }

            alert("Please make sure you upload only pictures.");
            return false;

        });

    });

And that’s it. You can quite easily change the file extensions here to suit your needs, even try and do something fancy with call backs to the server with the file extension so you can read a dynamic list or from a config file or something, how should I know that’s you job fs!!

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I have to admit I love getting a regular massage, and Glasgow has an abundance of good places to go.  However there also can be a lot of bad ones to be careful.  Last week I was fortunate to be introduced to Julie, a newish kid on the massage block.  My yoga teacher introduced me to her as, Simone has been visiting Julie for a while.  Well I kid you not…Best.  Massage.  Ever.  I was so relaxed afterward I could hardly keep my eyes open!

So why not try it out for yourself if you live in the Glasgow area, or passing through…. Glasgow Massage Works (tell Julie I sent you!).

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I have been helping a friend with his website lately and again it started to slow down, due to the massive traffic the site gets.  The last time I checked the stats Elephant Journal get’s 250,000 visitors a month with approximately 450,000 page views!  That’s quite a busy wee site.

A while back we moved some of the static files off site, and that helped massive get the site another 70,000 visitors a month – people didn’t drop out or bounce while they were waiting for the site to load.  This was real easy to do, and just meant we pointed the URL of the file to the new server.  But now the site is slowing again, and I believe it is due to the massive number of images that get downloaded.  So how do you move all these images off site and update all the URLs?  WordPress comes to the rescue…but you need to do some coding. Read the rest of this entry »

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