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Thoughts on Bebo Audience

Since one of my applications - Bathroom Stall Vandalism works both on bebo and on facebook as well - it is always useful to compare performance on both platforms. BTW, Bathroom Stall Vandalism is all about people virtually write and vandalize their rest rooms (LOL).

Need to take in to account that:

• Bebo uses facebook's API model for its platform.
• Facebook platform is more stable right now.
• Facebook platform is more mature and much more competitive.
• The app has the same canvas and database.
• Bathroom Stall Vandalism was initially launched on facebook during october/november 2007 and was scaled up to support bebo in january 2008.

One can understand from the screenshot that the app is more popular among bebo users: they spend more time on site, have better bounce rate, etc.

Bebo audience is very special: most users are under 18 from UK, Australia and New Zealand.

Back from Thailand 2

I'm back again from Thailand.

The picture above is taken from Patong Beach, Phuket, Thailand.

Calculate Euler Number with Recursion

I recently went through several posts I had made on one of the development forums back then in 2005. I've found one of them interesting and wanted to repost it here. The question went like this:

"How can I calculate euler number with recursion ?"

Euler number (or e) can be calculated with the following formula in math:

sum = 1/0! + 1/1! + 1/2! + ... + 1/n!

Here one can notice the use of the Factorial function which can be implemented via recursion itself like so:

int Factorial(int n) 
{
    if (n == 0) 
    {
        return 1;
    }

    return n * Factorial(n - 1);
}

After we know how to implement Factorial we can implement Euler number using recursion as well:

double EulerNumber(int n) 
{
    if (n == 0) 
    {
        return 1;
    }

    return 1.0/Factorial(n) + EulerNumber(n - 1);
}

Enjoy :)

HOW TO: Remove Last Character from String

Very often during development we need to remove the last character from a string.

It could be a trailing slash or a trailing comma as a result (side effect ?) of building delimited strings.

There are many ways to do that in C#, however I like the following one for its simplicity and good performance:

str.Remove(str.Length - 1, 1);

Enjoy

Fosimo 0.9.4 - Autoupdate

Fosimo 0.9.4 is the latest release of the Facebook desktop client for windows. You can download it for free here.

Here is Fosimo about page on Facebook.

Autoupdate

Starting from 0.9.4 and later Fosimo supports autoupdate. Fosimo will update itself automagically each time the new version is up there. Therefore this desktop application would be protected from the breaking changes of Facebook API which happen once in a while.

Enjoy :)

Javascript: Cross-Browser XMLHttpRequest Implementation

"XMLHttpRequest is an API that can be used by JavaScript, and other web browser scripting languages to transfer XML and other text data between a web page's Client-Side and Server-Side."

Internet Explorer implementation of XMLHttp is ActiveX. However Mozilla based browsers implement XMLHttp, not as an ActiveX control but as a native browser object called XMLHttpRequest.

Therefore it is a common problem when solutions utilizing XMLHttp work fine in one browser but not in the other. The following snippet is a function which creates XMLHttp object in javascript ready for use. Tested in IE and Firefox:

    
    // Create and return XMLHttp object
    function GetXmlHttp()
    {
        var oXmlHttp = null;

        try
        {
            oXmlHttp = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
        }
        catch(e)
        {
            try
            {
                oXmlHttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
            } 
            catch(oc)
            {
                oXmlHttp = null;
            }
        }

        if ((!oXmlHttp) && (typeof XMLHttpRequest != 'undefined')) 
        {
            oXmlHttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
        }
        
        return oXmlHttp;
    } 

Enjoy :)

Fosimo 0.9.3 - Sync Facebook™ with OUTLOOK®

Fosimo 0.9.3 is available. You can download it for free here (requires .NET Framework 2.0 or later). Fosimo is a Facebook™ desktop client for windows. See Fosimo about page on Facebook.

Fosimo 0.9.3

It's about time for the new release of Fosimo :) Exactly 3 months have passed since the last release (0.9.2).

New in this release:

Friends List

Now it is possible to view all your friends in a list and to observe each one of your friends profiles. "My Friends" in context menu.

Sync Facebook™ with OUTLOOK®

Fosimo is able to synchronize your Facebook™ friend details with your OUTLOOK. It will update OUTLOOK® contact details of your matching Facebook™ friend.

Important to note:

• Fosimo does not synchronize Facebook™ friend contact details (like email, address, etc...).
• Fosimo synchronizes matched entries.
• If matching OUTLOOK® contact does not exist Fosimo would suggest to create one. User has to enter friend details in this case.

Enjoy :)

HOW TO: Read From a Locked Text File

Q: I'm trying to read a txt file using StreamReader, but the file is locked by another process. The problem is that, since this is a log file I can't stop the other process that is using it.

Even if one makes sure to specify the proper FileAccess and FileShare modes when opening the file she won't be able to read it if the other program has opened the file with an exclusive lock.

Since this is a very common problem I wanted to share a small but useful tip of how to do that:

Before you open the file simply copy it to ---> C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Temp\. REASON: Avoids file access violations under Windows. Now open and read the copied file.

DayGrader - Now on Bebo

Just following Bathroom Stall Vandalism a week ago DayGrader - Life Grading System was scaled up yesterday and now also supports Bebo. DayGrader on Bebo.

So for all Bebo users reading this post, you can either:

• Add DayGrader to your Bebo profile.
• Go to DayGrader on Bebo.

Just like Bathroom Stall Vandalism DayGrader continues to work on Facebook. And some features are open to public and not just for Facebook or Bebo users. For example DayGrader Global Report - This is a cumulative Global grade report for all users and all grades users ever made for days on ABCDF scale.

Enjoy :)