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Full Archives

Thu, 23 Nov 2006

Should I Release WebService::Yahoo::SpellingSuggestion?
I wrote the WebService::Yahoo::SpellingSuggestion perl module for one of my little side projects. It was easy to wrap, seemed to work fine when I did a few tests by hand and didn't take very long to be CPANised; I'm trying to stay in good habits and treat all my internal modules as if they'd be released - I just skimp on the tests a bit. Which I know is bad.

Unfortunately, while it was fine for the light testing, I wasn't very happy with it once I started to use it for heavier loads. The webservice it calls doesn't seem to handle more than a couple of words at a time and makes it impossible to differentiate between a word that's spelt correctly and one that it doesn't know about (it returns undef on either). So now I have a small dilemma. Do I release it to CPAN, add a note listing what I'm not happy with about the service and mention I'm not using it anymore and let anyone else who wants to use download a copy or should I just leave it, unreleased, in a dark corner of my version control system?

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Posted: 2006/11/23 00:59 | /perl | Permanent link to this entry | This entry and same date


Wed, 22 Nov 2006

MS Technet Labs - Initial Impressions
I worked through the MS Technet Virtual Lab Express: Introduction to ISA 2006 Beta demo last night and while the product doesn't really interest me (I couldn't deploy a Microsoft firewall and keep a straight face) the lab itself was interesting.

You enter an email address, download an ActiveX control and wait five minutes for the lab to prepare itself. You then connect, via something that looks like Terminal Services, to four machines. You then work through the lab notes (a PDF) to get an overview of the new product features. It was actually quite a pleasant experience, the machines felt responsive, you can click around to look at parts you want and it took almost no time to work through the lab notes. Only downside was the screen size, it was damn small so the dashboard felt tiny and cramped, which isn't what you want when you see a product for the first time.

Due to the excellent price (free!) I'll be looking at some of the others to get a feel for what the newer releases can do.

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Posted: 2006/11/22 20:29 | /misctech | Permanent link to this entry | This entry and same date


Mon, 20 Nov 2006

Small Redesign
I've re-written bits of the category and archive Blosxom plugins to output CSS friendly markup. Which I've added some CSS to. The changes are mostly non-intrusive (and most of my traffic comes through RSS readers anyway) but if I've painfully broken anything for your browser of choice drop me a note.

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Posted: 2006/11/20 20:05 | /unixdaemon | Permanent link to this entry | This entry and same date


London Perl Workshop - 2006
I've been very slack in mentioning that the 2006 London Perl Workshop is go! It's being held at Westminster (because they pretty much rock) and we're looking for potential speakers. If you've got something interesting to say about perl please have a look at the Call for papers and seriously consider submitting a talk.

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Posted: 2006/11/20 20:05 | /events | Permanent link to this entry | This entry and same date


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