Plans for 2007

We are about to enter a New Year - 2007. It is the time when we are thinking about what we did wrong and right. It is an excellent time to make plans for the next year. So, I will shortly write about my plans that will concern digitalinsane.com. It’s something like digitalinsane.com to do list.

First, I want to focus more on the Yahoo services, especially on a development center, but only on JavaScript area (Ajax), I have few ideas about using YUI library. Also I will not forget about Google Ajax Search API, I’m tracking blog about this service, so if Google will add new features I’ll try to use it in my applications. It is very interesting experience building application based on a search engine, so I will play with it sometimes. Actually I’m more interested in the Custom Search Engine service and in a few other Google goodies that are not especially related with Ajax and programming. Also I would like to create few application based on Flickr API and I’ve been thinking about to make my Firefox extension and Opera widget, however I still don’t have ideas about that.

Also I am planning to create new web project, but I will not write the details right now because I have to buy a new domain, so I don’t want that someone steal the name. I can only tell that this project will be based on Ajax and I think the first version will appear in the first half of next year.

I almost forgot about Microsoft’s new OS, I just played with the beta versions and wonder when the full version will appear in shops and of course I’m curious about the price. I’m only interested in version with Aero enabled, because I heard that the very basic version will be only with standard XP-like themes…

The next year will be very interesting and I hope I’ll find the time to make all of these things and more… I wish all of you the best in the coming year! Happy new year!

No Comments »

Gproto.js library

To faster and easier build web application based on Google Ajax Search API I created very simple library - gproto.js.

Gproto.js gives you control on every part of the result. You can change the font size, font colors, background color, margins, etc., by simply assigning the style class name to specified result element. You can also put the results of each search into a different containers, hide any parts of the results, control how many results will be displayed, set the “preloader” and “not found” messages, and more…

You can download and use it for free however you have to obey Google Ajax Search API Terms of Use, because it is based on a code provided by Google.

• Documentation
• Example 1,
  Example 2,
  Example 3
• Download gproto.js

1 Comment »

Image-Search

This time I used Yahoo Ajax to build my search engine. Yahoo provide more features than Google, and give us more opportunity to create better application. I’m only talking about Ajax, however with Yahoo we can build applications using Flash, .NET, PHP, Python, Ruby - see Developer Center for more information).

Google vs. Yahoo

Yahoo providing more services and more products than Google, however it is much simpler to build application based on Google Ajax. This is because when we are using Google we don’t have to care about how results are formatted, we can use standard style and put the results into some container. Yahoo give us response in XML format, so first we have to read information from XML (Same with Google when we want to use information contained in array).

I like both solution, Google Ajax gives less but it is simpler, Yahoo Ajax gives more however we need to fight with XML (It is not that hard, but we have to do that). If you didn’t see my Custom Search Engine based on Google Ajax, look here, but today I would like to present my new project Image-Search based on Yahoo Ajax.

No Comments »

Firefox 3 - Gran Paradiso Alpha 1

Mozilla has released alpha 1 version of Firefox 3 - code name “Gran Paradiso“. This version is available only for testing purposes, the full version is planned for release before the end of 2007.

Grand Paradiso uses the 1.9 version of Gecko engine and for layout and rendering - Cairo as the default graphics library. The user interface remain unchanged from Firefox 2.

The one of the important information is that Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, OS X 10.2 are no longer supported platforms by Gecko 1.9 and of course Firefox 3 will not work on these systems.

Version 2.0 is the latest stable version of Firefox, Gran Paradiso alpha 1 should be used only for tests.

No Comments »

CSE and Google Ajax…

Finally I finished the new version of my custom search engine. Now it use Google Ajax Search API and lots of graphics effects and animated preloader. You can use it for searching information about music and movies, however this is only demonstration. I strove so that the code was easy to change and prepared for future implementation.

Quick manual:

When you type the query and click enter or press Search button, you will see the search results inside the panel(this may take a while depends of your internet connection speed).

Each result has its own bookmark button and responds with changing the color of descriptions when mouse pointer is over it.

At the left corner of the panel you can see vertical bar where you can choose how many results are displayed in the one query session.

The last feature you can find in the top right corner inside the panel (the red colored text) - more results… This link directs to Google page with my custom search engine, each link depends on query and the actual visible tab.

That’s all, If I will find some time I will add new features, maybe google add new ones… Will see. Have a nice play with CSE…

digitalinsane.com - custom search engine

No Comments »

Photos

Today I will present twelve photos which I made half year ago when I had digital camera. I’m not profesionall photographer so I don’t know if these images are good or not, however I like it and this is a good reason to show them in my blog. Each of these photos were shot with Panasonic FZ30. Everything was made in my room in a daylight, each object was placed on a white sheet and the distance between camera and object was about 7-8cm (3.5″). Actually I haven’t money to buy new digital camera, and made such a wonderful photos like these :), maybe in the future I will express my talent :), of course if I have one!

No Comments »

Fedora Core 6 - ATI

Two days ago I finally finished downloading Fedora Core 6, I was very excited because this is my favorite distribution. Installation went fine, but when I logged into my account, I saw something what I didn’t want to see, the same problem which I had on Ubuntu - not properly configured screen resolution. The only proper values for my screen was 1024×768x70Hz and if I changed to 85Hz I could see only 3/4 part of the desktop, however I didn’t have to install desktop effects, because all packages was already installed - AIGLX instead XGL or Beryl. But I want to work in 1024×768x85Hz mode.

On Ubuntu I had to play with something what is called modeline, but I had to know my monitor parameters, This is not a good metho

d because I don’t really know if this parameters are correct, just didn’t want to blow up my monitor. The second way was to install graphic card drivers, that helps all the time (ATI in my case). But this meant that
I had to say goodbye to AIGLX, because it not w

orking with fglrx (and I think Beryl also have problems with fgrlx on Fedora 6)… I had right, after installing ATI drivers the screen resoulution with 85Hz works properly. Everything works fine but I couldn’t install XGL, I think the drivers are properly installed, so I don’t know where the problem is.

How did I install Ati drivers:

First: I did everything what was described here

Next:

aticonfig --initial

and

ati-fglrx-config-display enable

I did some changes in xorg.conf

# Xorg configuration created by system-config-display

• Section “ServerLayout”
• • Identifier “single head conf iguration”
  • Screen 0 “aticonfig-Screen[0]” 0 0
  • InputDevice “Keyboard0″ “CoreKeyboard”
• EndSection

• Section “Module”
• • Load “extend”
  • Load “glx”
  • Load “dri”
• EndSection

• Section “InputDevice”
• • Identifier “Keyboard0″
  • Driver “kbd”
  • Option “XkbModel” “pc105″
  • Option “XkbLayout” “pl”
• EndSection

• Section “Monitor”
• • Identifier “aticonfig-Moni tor[0]“
  • Option “VendorName” “ATI Proprietary Driver”
  • Option “ModelName” “Generic Autodetecting Monitor”
  • Option “DPMS” “true”
• EndSection

• Section “Device”
• • Identifier “aticonfig-Device[0]“
  • Driver “fglrx”
  • BoardName “ATI Technologies Inc RV360 AS [Radeon 9600]“
  • Option “VideoOverlay” “on”
  • Option “AllowGLXwithcompos ite” “true”
  • Option “RenderAccel” “true”
  • Option “AddARGBGLXVisuals” “true”
• EndSection

• Section “Screen”
• • Identifier “aticonfig-Screen[0]“
  • Device “aticonfig-Device[0]“
  • Monitor “aticonfig-Monitor[ 0]“
  • DefaultDepth 24
  • SubSection “Display”
  • • Viewport 0 0
    • Depth 24
    • Modes “1024×768″ ” 800×600″ “640×480″
  • EndSubSection
• EndSection

• Section “DRI”
• • Group 0
  • Mode 0666
• EndSection

• Section “Extensions”
• • Option “Composite” “Disable”
• EndSection

No Comments »

Custom Search Engine

I have been working on my Google Custom Search Engine, you can see the actual results here. The GSE documentation is not very comprehensive, for example, I can’t find anything about AdditionalData tag, but it is used in one of the featured examples (same with timestamp attribute). It is not very hard to build your own CSE because almost all what we need we have in the control panel of each search engine, and also we can use advanced options to extend our engine. But I think the best way to build more interesting application is to use Custom Search Engine and Google Ajax Search API, however doing that, we have to
find a compromise between full control and quantity of results. I will try to take as much as I need from both CSE and Google Search API, but I don’t really know how this frankenstein will be look like.

No Comments »

Ascii and Ansii Art - 1999

I mentioned in the About page, that in the past I was on polish demoscene as a coder. I started in 1996, and I had been working very hard for about 4 years before I decided to leave the demoscene for good. I still have a box with diskettes from that period.Yesterday I checked it and I saw that most of these disks are not in a good condition, however I could read files from few of them without any difficulties. This is what I found, the ascii and ansii art, most from 1999. I used AcidView 6.1 to convert them from text to image. Respect for the authors…

No Comments »

Steal these buttons

My collection of antipixels grows fast. You probably ask why this “2.0″ near Antipixel name. The popular buttons looks not very attractive for me, not very high quality images, or just only text with boring fonts, that’s why I decided to make my own collection using multicolor palettes and small logos of the specified services, website, applications. I like to use the original style: same colors for background, fonts, etc. Doesn’t looks better?

I hope you like them and will use them a lot. If you have an idea for the high quality antipixel, or just have one (or more), and would like to add it to my collection, please contact me by email or post comment here… (Soon I will make an upload form)

Antipixels 2.0

No Comments »