Brian Ortiz

Time for another update.

Last time I posted about OrtzIRC, I mentioned I was looking at using System.AddIn as the framework for OrtzIRC’s plugins. (I’ll just call it MAF for Managed AddIn Framework, what it used to be called) Well the biggest problem with MAF is that it’s so freaking complicated. After I finally sat down for a while and read up on it, it just seemed to get more and more complex. And even more so when I started asking “well, how would I do this?”. For instance, everything that crosses the isolation boundary needs a contract. Events, collections (you have to use IListContract), everything. So for OrtzIRC this meant every single event (something like two dozen) needed to be redefined as contracts. (Or wrapped, or whatever) Another problem is that nobody uses it. I’ve only found two projects on CodePlex that use it and virtually no blog posts about it. I’ll admit, I never completely understood it all, but I’m pretty sure it would’ve been a LOT of work. Our own way may also be a lot of work, but at least it’s our own way. Which is what I really wanted to discuss today…

As a quick side note, I did discover the Managed Extensibility Framework, being developed by Microsoft, presumably for future inclusion in the .NET framework. It looks really nice. Much simpler than MAF. And more popular too, at least on Stack Overflow. It’s a really young project though, and although they’re making it rather clear that MEF is here to stay, I think I’ll wait until CTP to give it serious consideration.

So Max and I had a disagreement about how to do the command plugins but that has been resolved (he won lol). So I’ll just point you to his two posts he wrote about it rather than re-explain it.

Onward and upward!

There’s a post here about getting it to work, but it’s old. Since then, the include statements for HTML Purifier were moved to their own file. In a normal script you would include the HTMLPurifier.includes.php file, but this isn’t in line with how CodeIgniter loads libraries, so it requires some hacking to get working.

1. Download HTML Purifier and put the contents of the library folder into your codeigniter /system/application/libraries folder.
2. Open HTMLPurifier.includes.php and change

   require 'HTMLPurifier.php';

   to

   //require 'HTMLPurifier.php';

3. Open HTMLPurifier.php and add this just under <?php

   require_once('HTMLPurifier.includes.php');

And that’s all! Load with

$this->load->library('HTMLPurifier');

HTML Purifier

HTML Purifier Docs

I’m not sure how many people couldn’t access my site the past week or two, or if I was the only one for that matter. But apparently Time Warner’s DNS servers have been screwed up leaving a lot of people without Internet access, here (NC) as well as on the other side of the country. So once I figured that out, I switched my router to OpenDNS, reset the NIC on my server, and I could access my site. (Previously, my personal computer was the only one using OpenDNS, so of course I didn’t notice any outages.)

I guess I don’t completely understand DNS because it was my understanding that it only mattered what DNS the client was using not the server. Well at least it works now. For me anyway.

Edit: I guess the jokes on me, it’s still happening.

Edit2, 12-24: Looks like it’s fixed for me. My ISP’s status page is only showing problems for Raleigh.

Edit3, 12-30: It’s on and off apparently. Wish there was something I could do about it.

If you read Hot Air like I do then, like me, you might be annoyed by the giant blogroll on the side.

I made this userscript to clean up the formatting.

You’ll need Firefox and either the Stylish or Greasemonkey extensions.

Enjoy!

http://userstyles.org/styles/12627

Some real helpful info there…

Just wanted to make a quick note about the progress of OrtzIRC.

It’s been pretty slow lately. I really want to get commands in before I do anything else, just to get it in a semi-usable state. So this means taking a step back and trying to work out how to do plugins.

We were kind of at a loss at first (I was anyway) but then I found out that .NET 3.5 had this new system for adding plugins to your apps System.AddIn. So far this looks really nice, and I’ll be implementing it soon unless Max has any objections. The only issue I can see so far is that I don’t know how this will jibe with possibly adding scripting later on.

You can get updates more often by following me on Twitter.

I’d never understood Twitter but I’ve finally discovered its virtue.

Follow me

Another lazily written yet useful script I wrote for creating SVN repositories in Gentoo.

This script is based on this great guide at Rockfloat.

Could use some improvement, like another argument for the name of the user getting access to the repo…

Again, apologies for the line wrapping… Fixed

Code below the fold.

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Well I decided to post more of the stuff I write even if I think it’s crappy….

So even though there’s probably a dozen like this and it could be a lot nicer, here’s the bash script I wrote to create new subdomains on my web server. Customize to fit your needs.

My apologies for the line wrapping. Fixed

Code below the fold
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If you love music like I do, then you should have a Last.fm account. Go, right now.

When I first found Last.fm I was listening to a lot of classic rock. Mostly Santana, Hendrix, and Led Zeppelin. Then it introduced me to Massive Attack. I’m not sure how I found Last.fm or how I ended up listening to Massive Attack, but I loved it. “Trip-hop” was very different from anything I had listened to. Well, not exactly, because my first impression was that it sounded like the kind of music that plays during movie credits. It kind of gives you that “time to stumble into the lobby and take a leak” feeling. (You know, that vulnerable time after having sat in a dark room for 2 hours matching a suspenseful movie staring at a bright wall and you feel like someone could steal your pants and you wouldn’t notice. Anyway…)

Massive Attack – Butterfly Caught

Well trip-hop then got me into hip-hop, which I had been exposed to a lot in high-school but never got into. I’m not talking about 50 Cent or Ludacris, I’m talking about what I would consider “real” hip-hop. Like The Herbaliser.

The Herbaliser – The Hard Stuff

So then I was introduced to turntablism. You know, scratching and all that. Starting with DJ Shadow‘s album Endtroducing. The entire album is 100% samples from old vinyl records.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54_7m-CVTMY
DJ Shadow – Midnight In A Perfect World

He completely changed my perception of hip-hop.

Then I started to get into other electronica genres. Right now I’m listening to downtempo, though electronica genres tend to blend together a little. Basically, right now I’m listening to Bent and Air.

I could listen to this song forever:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr4fP9A3Oi0
Air- Surfing On a Rocket

This one too:

Bent – Private Road

So that’s the condensed version, I guess. This may be old news to you but finding new and different music to listen to is very exciting.

You can look at what else I listen to or add me as a friend here:

http://www.last.fm/user/ortzinator

You can also check out this awesome graph(pdf) made by Lastgraph.

EDIT: Embed-disallowed videos fixed.