My Personal DNA

Like Jean Philip, Peter and Pietel I also determined my personal DNA:

Hm, advocating inventor? Maybe.

Signed up to Google Mashup Editor

Huray, I'm signed up to the Google Mashup Editor beta test program. First impression is that its less graphical then the pipes from Yahoo! I don't know if that's a bad thing. More on this later.

Google Mashup Editor

Google is sending out private invites for their Google Mashup Editor. I already signed up for it. Google Mashup Editor (GME) is a webbased tool for creating mashups using GME syntax along with HTML, CSS and Javascript. Hopefully I'm selected for an invite so that I can tell more about it. Read/write Web has already received their invite and wrote about it. Take the GME tour to learn the basics.

GME resides into the same class as Yahoo Pipes. Those editors are important because they attempt to make it as easy to write as to read the web ("The original slogan was always to have a web that was easy to write as it was to read", said Robert Cailliau of the World Wide Web Consortium.) Mashup editors can be used to make widgets or gadgets as Google likes to call them. Widgets are the latest buzz and receive a lot of attention. Silicon Valley sees them as a Web revolution in the making.

GME is based on the Google Web Toolkit. More and more AJAX libraries are popping up. I think about things like BackBase. What would you do, using GWT or Backbase ? Or dou you prefer vertical integration and thus opt for Adobe Flex ? It makes me wonder if GME makes using Google Gears really easy. In that case, GME might be a strong contender for Adobe Flex.

How to include a HTML page into blogger posts ? (final)

I already undertook three attemps (attempt 1, attempt 2 and attempt 3) to include a Google Sheet into a blogger post without much succes. I almost surrendered but I got a new idea. I started from the proposal I found in "Insert HTML page into another HTML page" that basically proposed the following code:

<!--[if IE]>
   <object classid="clsid:25336920-03F9-11CF-8FD0-00AA00686F13" data="some.html">
      <p>backup content</p>
   </object>
<![endif]-->
<!--[if !IE]> <-->
   <object type="text/html" data="some.html">
      <p>backup content</p>
   </object>
<!--> <![endif]-->

The above code is very good for direct inclusion into a HTML page, but Blogger filters out the conditionals for selecting the code based upon the user agent. So it's not the solution we're seeking for. But then I got another idea. Maybe I could insert the above code using Javascript that IS allowed to be inserted in Bloggers HTML. In that way, it's possible to circumvent the restriction in Blogger HTML. I pasted the code into a HTMl-to-Javascript convertor. This gave me:

<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
<!--
function writeJS(){
var url = 'http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pzcvT0aLrnhuxklkh_C8AVA&output=html&gid=0&single=true&widget=true';

var str='';
str+='<!--[if IE]>';
str+='<object classid="clsid:25336920-03F9-11CF-8FD0-00AA00686F13" data="'+url+'">';
str+='<p>backup content<\/p>';
str+='<\/object>';
str+='<![endif]-->';
str+=' <!--[if !IE]> <-->';
str+='<object type="text\/html" data="'+url+'">';
str+='<p>backup content<\/p>';
str+='<\/object>';
str+='<!--> <![endif]-->';
document.write(str);
}
writeJS();
//-->
</script>


that renders as:

Above code reders nicely in Firefox and Safari but not in Interet Explorer 6.
Therefore I changed the code such that in IE an iframe is displayed and otherwise an object. The code was put into javascript:

<script language="javaScript" type="text/javascript"    src="http://lode.nachtergaele.googlepages.com/includeHTML3.js">
</script>


and on IE6 it renders to:


So finally, we start to view some light:

1. First, include into blogger a Javascript:
   
<script language="JavaScript" src="http://lode.nachtergaele.googlepages.com/includeHTML3.js" type="text/javascript" ></script>



2. Put in the Javascript file the following Javascript code:
   
<!--
function writeJS(){
var str='';
str+='<!--[if IE]>';
str+=' <iframe src="http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pzcvT0aLrnhuxklkh_C8AVA&output=html&gid=0&single=true&widget=true" width='550' height='370' frameborder='0'>';
str+='<p>backup content</p>';
str+='</iframe>';
str+='<![endif]-->';
str+='<!--[if !IE]> <-->';
str+=' <object type="text/html" data="http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pzcvT0aLrnhuxklkh_C8AVA&output=html&gid=0&single=true&widget=true" width='550' height='370' frameborder='0'>';
str+=' <p>backup content</p>';
str+=' </object>';
str+='<!--> <![endif]-->';
document.write(str);
}
writeJS();
//-->
3. Alternatively, Javascript can detect the user agent as well. This leads to the following code:
   
<!--
function writeJS(){
var str='';
if (navigator.appName.indexOf("Microsoft") != -1) {
   str+=" <iframe       src='http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pzcvT0aLrnhuxklkh_C8AVA&output=html&gid=0&single=true&widget=true'       width='550' height='370' frameborder='0'>";
   str+='<p>backup content</p>';
   str+='</iframe>';
} else {
   str+=" <object type='text/html'       data='http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pzcvT0aLrnhuxklkh_C8AVA&output=html&gid=0&single=true&widget=true'       width='550' height='370' frameborder='0'>";
   str+=' <p>backup content</p>';
   str+=' </object>';
}
document.write(str);
}
writeJS();
//-->

   
4. And that wil do the trick. The Javascript code generates HTML code that includes an Iframe if viewed by Internet Explorer and an object for other browsers. I agree that this is maybe a big detour just to able to include an object. And hopefully it shows up in the feed readers....

In 50 ways to include HTML into a Blogger post an overview is given of all kinds of techniques and can be used for testing.

How to (not?) include a HTML page into blogger posts ? (continued 2)

Much to my despair, I noticed the Google Spreadsheet included in a blog post of this blog does not render nicely (even after some digging into the issue, see post1 and post2) in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and 7:
While reading Make Magazine in Google Reader, I noticed that the Youtube movie of post "Thomas Edsison hates cats" was coming trough nicely. I looked up the HTML code in the RSS feed and adapted the code I found for displaying inline HTML code. It boils down to something like this:

<![CDATA[<p>
<object data="URL to HTML page" type="text/html" width="520" height="350">
<embed src="URL to HTML page" type="text/html" width="520" height="350"></embed>
</object></p>
<p>Title of HTML Page <a href="URL to HTML page">Link</a></p>]]>

Unfortunatly, Blogger does not accept the <![CDATA[. It reports "tag is broken". I removed the CDATA:

<p>
<object data="URL to HTML page" type="text/html" width="520" height="350">
<embed src="URL to HTML page" type="text/html" width="520" height="350"></embed>
</object></p>
<p>Title of HTML Page <a href="URL to HTML page">Link</a></p>


which renders to (with URL of the Google Spreadsheet):

Blog of colleagues Juli 2007 Link

which renders on Microsoft Internet Exporer 6 as:

Bummer. The object does not display nicely. Ok, lets see what Google Reader makes from it:

Archhh. This is even worse. It must have been the CDATA. Why is Blogger not accepting that I put CDATA into a blogpost. Give me full control of the HTML in the feed please !
Or maybe, as a last resort conflicting with my open standards first DNA, I could try this (as a kind of revance ;-)): export the Google Sheet to Microsoft Excel and include the Excel sheet with MIME type : application/vnd.ms-excel
The code would be like this:

<p>
<object data="URL to HTML page" type="application/vnd.ms-excel" width="520" height="350">
<embed src="URL to HTML page" type="application/vnd.ms-excel" width="520" height="350"></embed>
</object></p>
<p>Title of HTML Page <a href="URL to HTML page">Link</a></p>

which causes Firefox 2.0.5 on OSX to pop up this dialogue:

Ok, I surrender. Maybe the Iframe code Google Sheets proposes it not that bad at all. If any body has a better idea, please let me know.

Iphone not in Belgium ?

The Register reports "Only 'major' EU countries to be in second iPhone rollout". Since our small Belgian country is anything but major (at least in terms op potential revenues from Apple products), I guess we will have to have some extra patience. Damn.

Pingo : a disguised cheater ?

Our sysadmin mascotte Pingo was moved to the list of cheaters. Some people probably got a bit to enthousiastic. You can still vote for it:

How to include a HTML page into blogger posts ? (continued)

In How to include a HTML page into blogger posts ? I explored using the more general object tag to include an external page of HTML into a blogger post. You would for example want to do this when discussing a published Google Document Sheet. When checking the appearence of the post in the RSS reader Google Reader, I noticed that the alternate text showed up:

This brought me to an idea for an improvement. I took a screenshot of the Google Sheet as displayed in my browser and loaded up the picture to the blog post. Next I moved the blurb of code for the picture:

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();}catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis6fFWgw_EHUdXJ9ez9cL69nHhZWKtx-fGWF_glB7NmFob_7n_2G5KcUPFtB8iBBv1v30grM3GWevFiTlQo7jTnNgS1YUm2upPmP14c6fq3WHpLm8BSwIRsFl5fEZhR_BBqSGXpw/s1600-h/Screenshot_5.png">
<img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px;
text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;"
src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis6fFWgw_EHUdXJ9ez9cL69nHhZWKtx-fGWF_glB7NmFob_7n_2G5KcUPFtB8iBBv1v30grM3GWevFiTlQo7jTnNgS1YUm2upPmP14c6fq3WHpLm8BSwIRsFl5fEZhR_BBqSGXpw/s400/Screenshot_5.png"
border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5091774679559246658" /></a>

into to object tag enclosure:

<object data="URL to HTML page" type="text/html" width="520" height="350">

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();}
catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis6fFWgw_EHUdXJ9ez9cL69nHhZWKtx-fGWF_glB7NmFob_7n_2G5KcUPFtB8iBBv1v30grM3GWevFiTlQo7jTnNgS1YUm2upPmP14c6fq3WHpLm8BSwIRsFl5fEZhR_BBqSGXpw/s1600-h/Screenshot_5.png">
<img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px;
text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;"
src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis6fFWgw_EHUdXJ9ez9cL69nHhZWKtx-fGWF_glB7NmFob_7n_2G5KcUPFtB8iBBv1v30grM3GWevFiTlQo7jTnNgS1YUm2upPmP14c6fq3WHpLm8BSwIRsFl5fEZhR_BBqSGXpw/s400/Screenshot_5.png"
border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5091774679559246658" /></a>

</object>

The result is that in Google Reader a picure of the Google sheet shows up:

If you want that the browser is directed to the published HTML page of the Google Sheet when clicking on the picture of the sheet, you can change the URL of the href of the pciture:

<object data="URL to HTML page" type="text/html" width="520" height="350">

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();}
catch(e) {}" href="URL to HTML page">
<img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px;
text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;"
src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis6fFWgw_EHUdXJ9ez9cL69nHhZWKtx-fGWF_glB7NmFob_7n_2G5KcUPFtB8iBBv1v30grM3GWevFiTlQo7jTnNgS1YUm2upPmP14c6fq3WHpLm8BSwIRsFl5fEZhR_BBqSGXpw/s400/Screenshot_5.png"
border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5091774679559246658" /></a>

</object>

Of cource, you can also copy and past the HTML code directly into the blog post. Then you get this:

URL	Est. Value	Page Rank	Website Grader	Technorati Authority	Technorati Rank
	http://peterdecroubele.be	2059	4	52	37	167,118
	http://www.koenfillet.be	$1910	4	77	-	-
	http://www.werner.be	949	4	49	28	226,753
	http://koenfillet.blogspot.com/	445	4	77	56	103,461
	http://www.braincubes.be/	234	2	12	4	1,367,488
	http://castfortwo.blogspot.com/	82	3	66	8	779,588
	http://www.patdonnez.be/log/index.php	80	3	13	-	-
	http://detender.wordpress.com/	50	4	63	10	638,771
	http://joro.wordpress.com/	42	2	41	2	2,505,981
	http://217.19.231.156/apps/blog_david/	40	2	59	-	-
	http://mertenswouter.com/blog/	11	0	50	-	-
	http://stielo.blogspot.com/	2	0	62	1	3,900,217
	http://hetruimesop.blogspot.com/	0	0	43	-	7,931,033
	http://jeroenvanaert.blogspot.com/	0	0	43	-	7,931,033
	http://myjumps.blogspot.com/	0	0	42	-	7,931,033

which is not that bad. Only something with the first row went wrong.
A bit fiddling with the HTML code allows to obtain this:

URL	Est. Value	Page Rank	Website Grader	Technorati Authority	Technorati Rank
http://peterdecroubele.be	2059	4	52	37	167,118
http://www.koenfillet.be	$1910	4	77	-	-
http://www.werner.be	949	4	49	28	226,753
http://koenfillet.blogspot.com/	445	4	77	56	103,461
http://www.braincubes.be/	234	2	12	4	1,367,488
http://castfortwo.blogspot.com/	82	3	66	8	779,588
http://www.patdonnez.be/log/index.php	80	3	13	-	-
http://detender.wordpress.com/	50	4	63	10	638,771
http://joro.wordpress.com/	42	2	41	2	2,505,981
http://217.19.231.156/apps/blog_david/	40	2	59	-	-
http://mertenswouter.com/blog/	11	0	50	-	-
http://stielo.blogspot.com/	2	0	62	1	3,900,217
http://hetruimesop.blogspot.com/	0	0	43	-	7,931,033
http://jeroenvanaert.blogspot.com/	0	0	43	-	7,931,033
http://myjumps.blogspot.com/	0	0	42	-	7,931,033

Every table row contained a bogus

<td class="rAll"> </td>

that I just deleted.

Show some love for Pingo today

Today is Sys admin day. If you want to vote for VRT's sysadmin, go to http://www.sysadmindag.nl/
and vote for our pingo:

How to include a HTML page into blogger posts ?

In the previous post, I included HTML code generated from a published Google Sheet. To do so, I first used the code proposed when publishing a Google Document and selecting Blogger as target.

This is basically the HTML code Google proposes to post into the HTML code of post on Blogger:

<iframe src="URL to HTML page" frameborder="0" height="350" width="520">
</iframe>

This works when viewing the blog post in a browser, but when reading the post with a feed reader, the HTML iframe is sometimes ommitted. Recently, I read an interesting article "The object tag - embed content in valid strict HTML -" arguing for the use of the HTML object tag as follows:

<object data="URL to HTML page" type="text/html" width="520" height="350">
alt : <a href="URL to HTML page">alternate text</a>
</object>

The advantage of using the object tag is that the HTML object (the Googele sheet) appears when reading the blog post inline with netvibes:

In Google Reader, the alternate text appears (in this case the URL to the HTML of the document):

In iGoogle, it is even worse. There even the alternate text does not appear:

The above picture displays the Atom feed from Google (http://castfortwo.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default) and the feed from feedburner (http://feeds.feedburner.com/cast42).

Conclusion is that even using the object tag is no ideal solution to include an exteral HTML page into a blog post. But if you opt to do it, the use of the object tag may be preferred instead of using an Iframe. In case you would know a better solution, do not hesitate to add a comment.

How are the blogs of the colleagues doing ?

In the above Google spreadsheet, I compared how the blog's of my colleques at the VRT are doing. At least those are the blogs I'm aware of. Of course its comparing apples with oranges because several blogs have different aims. The point of this post is more about the method. The first column list the URL's. The second column lists the estimated value of the blogs calculated by SmartPageRank (Remarkt that the performance of this webservice is flaky. Sometimes it returns errors or incorrect results). I also tried DNScoop but the service values my blog at $1,320,066 , probably only a small measurement error ;). The third column lists the Google Pagerank obtainted by the Pagerank Checker of Peter Forret ( a number between 0 and 10, higher is better). The fourth column reports the website grade calculated by the website grader (a number between 0 and 100, the higher the better). The last two columns list the Technorati rank (lower is better) and authority (higher is better) I checked with Xinu Returns.

New Youtube features allows for custom player

Using a new feature by Youtube, you can customize the player. Here is what I get from youtube.com/custom_player:

Hover your mouse in the bottom of the video playing field while the video is playing and all video's stored in my favourites show up in cover flow style. Cool ! I don't get what the button with three dots next to the play button is supposed to do. Weird.

Calculating the length of Google Maps line segments

A few days ago, I decided to bike home from work (from Brussels to Leuven). Inspired by the "gefietst" blog en based upon the route here I made my adapted route to get to my home. The bike trip went well. Of course, I was wandering how long the bike trip was. Since I have a basic bike with no equipement to measure this I had to resort to the Google Maps info. I was almost sure that a webservice would exist that calculated the length of linesegments of Google Maps or from a KML file but after some searching I found no easy way to do this via the web. (If somebody would be aware of such a service, please drop me a line in the comments) Therefore, I decided to write a small Python script to calculate the lenght of all lines drawn on a Google Map. Just go to your map, click on "Link to this page", copy the URL and fill the URL in the Python script. Run the Python script and, bingo, you have the length in kilometers for every continuous linesegment. Here's the code:

The output of the above script is:

distance of fietsweg is 36.35 kilometer

Of course, this calculation is only an approximation since the trajectory is only an approximation (albeit a pretty good one) of the real route I followed and no heigth information is taken into account. Still I guess that its accurate upto a few kilometers. If somebody has a spare Bluetooth GPS receiver, you can always send me one ;-).

The calculation of the distance in kilometer between two points is based on the code in Ruby and the examples from the zips project a sourceforge. The coordinates of the linesegments are obtained from the KML file that Google Maps generates when appending &output=kml to the URL from 'link to this page'. The KML file is parsed using the Python minidom module. I hope that in the future Google will provide a "&output=jsonp&callback=calcfunc" so that a simple webpage with some Javascript can calculate the length. But that's for another programming project.

Unboxing a Google Search Appliance

Today a Google Search appliance arrived at the office:



The box contains a cool black T-shirt with the Google logo (the real reason for obtaining a SA ;-)) . We decided to dress up the corporate mascotte. Isn't she cute ?

Twitter tweets on Goople maps mashup

I figured out a simple way to make a mashup that displays tweets from twitter on a Google Map. Click on the pin and a window pops up containing the last tweet that was updated. It is easy to change the location of the pin or the twitter feed that is addressed to obtain the latest tweet. For your reference, here's a pretty print of the code using Google Code Javascript code prettifier:

Here is how it works:
Twitter API rocks with a JSON feed for every user. Adding a callback function makes it very convient to read the data. Just call a JSON object http://www.twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/user.json and add a callbackfunction. In our case, the function is called "twitterCallback". The full URL becomes:

http://www.twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/user.json?callback=twitterCallback&count=1

Replace user with your Twitter nickname. In my case, it's cast42.
The count parameter is set to 1 such that only the most recent tweet is obtained. In the callback function it's easy to obtain the text from the latest tweet:

   var tweet = new Object;
 function twitterCallback(obj) {
    tweet.text = obj[0].text;
 }

The full source code can be downloaded from the example. Don't forget to fill in your own Google Maps key and replace cast42 with your own twitter name.

Future of mobile apps = Google Gears + Javascript on Iphone ?

Last Monday his Steve Jobness announced at WWDC'07 that native applications on the Iphone can not be developed (yet) by third parties. A highly contested strategy as explained in
Mobile Disruption: Apple's iPhone and Third Party Software
. More complaints arose after the keynote.

Read for instance what John Gruber wrote about the keynote:

Web Apps as the Route for iPhone Development

Perhaps it’s playing well in the mainstream press, but here at WWDC, Apple’s “you can write great apps for the iPhone: they’re called ‘web sites’” – message went over like a lead balloon.

Could it be that Apple opted for the way forward to escape the schisma between a secure and stable mobile platform and the richness of being open ? Remember that Google Gears is coming to Safari Webkit and hence the Iphone: Google employs advanced Apple technologies for Gears support. Is Gears + AJAX not THE technology for the next generation applications that blur the line between mobile and desktop? Something Iphone promises to establish ?
This nice example of a Javascript interface for the iphone shows that Javascript can deliver sleek interfaces. I guess the speed of Javascript on the iphone will be ok. At least it won't be slower then other sandbox solutions like Sun Java or Microsoft .Net Mobile. According to Steve Jobs keynote, Javascript executed faster in Safari than Firefox and Internet Explored. Google Gears has the potential to alliviate the drawbacks of networked applications that must store all their data in the network. Maybe the 4 or 8BG storage is a bit underdimensioned to shoehorn modern application into ? What do you think ?

Absurd Nintendo Wii Tennis level ?

Since a few month, we have a Nintendo Wii installed in the coffee corner at work. Quite a lot of collegues play on it now and then. Francis is an avid user. Recently he reached a score of 2230 points in Wii Tennis. He's obviously has pro status. As you can see in the picture below, even Nintendo has not foreseen such high skills as the line runs into the title of the page!

Perhaps Francis should join Wiimbledom ?

Bottle of Coca-cola = free Itunes song in Belgium starting first of june

Itunes and Coca-cola agreed to work together. What is already happening in Europa since 2006 is now coming to Belgium.
From the first of June 2007, coca-cola bottles sold in Belgium will have a code on them that you can enter online for free Itunes songs and enters you in a pool for winning an Ipod. Altough Google is number 1 marketing power worldwide for the moment, Coca cola can bring digital media to the masses. It's also a lot easier then the free downloads you get from the ADSL subscription with Belgacom. Just buy a coke, enter a number and you're set. Very effective to accelerate the adoption process. Probably Rogers adoption model has to be adjusted by this or is it just that Itunes crossed the chasm ?

Publishing a tab in Netvibes

Since I experienced some hickups with www.google.com/ig (now igoogle) I switched to Netvibes to read my RSS feeds. So far i really enjoyed it a lot. I used for instance the possibility to export all the feeds into an OPML file. I loaded the OPML file into the Google Reader so when Netvibes is down, i can read my feeds with Google Reader. For the moment it's a must have tool to follow a casual fiction game "Emma online" from VRT. (More info in English) Emma is a telenovelle broadcasted on channel één in flanders. The television program is also available on Sony PSP. To test the netvibes tab public sharing, I shared a tab with all feeds that have something to do with Emma online.
Add Emma Online to netvibes:

Oeps, the Myspace widgets are not exported in the published tab. Bummer!
Waiting for possibility to upload a netvibes universe!

Google Maps Belgium is online

I was already an avid user of Google Maps but via maps.google.nl. Lukily the gods in SanFran must have heard me because Google Maps België came online. The URL is http://maps.google.be . This is what you get when you search for VRT.