Digging My Blog With CheeseSalt

Craigslist Madlib translation #1

Thu, 12 May 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Phrase: "New _(part name)_, _(part name)_ and _(part name)_. Perfect except for _(part name)_, which is only _$(dollar amount)_ from _(name of store)_ but I just don't have time to do it."

Meaning: "This thing is a piece of shit. Every time I fix something three other things break. I'm tired of messing with it; it will be someone else's problem now."

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Fear your Overzealous Government not your Unsecured Wifi

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 01:00:00 +0000

It was 6:20 a.m. March 7 when he and his wife were awakened by the sound of someone breaking down their rear door. He threw a robe on and walked to the top of the stairs, looking down to see seven armed people with jackets bearing the initials I-C-E, which he didn't immediately know stood for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"They are screaming at him, 'Get down! Get down on the ground!' He's saying, 'Who are you? Who are you?'"
"One of the agents runs up and basically throws him down the stairs, and he's got the cuts and bruises to show for it."
...
After a search of his devices proved the homeowner's innocence, investigators went back [and discovered that a neighbor had downloaded the material via unsecured wifi]
...
The homeowner later got an apology from U.S. Attorney William Hochul and Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent in Charge Lev Kubiak.

via finance.yahoo.com

Since when is it okay for our government to perform a paramilitary assault vs the home of a person accused of performing a non-violent crime. It does not even matter that the accused was innocent in this case. What matters is the complete disregard of individual rights by government authorities.

This wasn't a suspected meth lab. It wasn't the home of a long-time felon. It was the home that an ISP identified as having an IP address that was known by federal agents to be housing child pornography.

Someone decided that a SWAT team assault was the necessary and proper force required for detaining someone thought to be in possession of child pornography?!?! A detective and a couple of officers knocking on the front door wouldn't have been enough?

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WHS Phone for Windows Phone 7 and Android

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 06:31:00 +0000

via whsphone.com

I just installed the WHS App on my Android phone. If you have a Windows Home Server you should definitely check this out. It provides you some admin functionality, but the killer feature for me is remote access to my music and photo libraries from anywhere. With this I can I can virtually carry my 25 GBs of mp3s and 10 GBs of family photos wherever I go. Future planned features include video streaming as well. Fantastic!

If you have a Windows Phone 7 - this is the WHS app that should have shipped with the phone. One complaint I and many people have about Microsoft's consumer products is the lack of integration across their product lines, something that Apple does very well. Windows Phone 7 should have native support for WHS, Xbox, Windows Media Center, etc. And don't even get me started about the lack of support for Windows Media Center on WHS. But back to the task at hand, this app definitely fills part of that void.

AFAIK there is no iPhone version of this yet. There is a WHS app for iPhone from another developer, I think it is called WHS Mobile, but it doesn't look like it has been updated in a while and it doesn't look as nice as this one.

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Justifying yourself to the Angry Masses and the 35 Count Beat-Down

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 02:31:00 +0000

Why I plan on using the new Windows Home Server 2011

...

Let’s start with the “Just Awesome” stuff… most of this bucket falls into the Remote Web Access site, so from the outside in we go!...

Remote Access is just Awesome!

Remote Silverlight Video Streaming

… But maybe it’s time to take a hard look at what data you’re hording on your server. Do you really need to be a digital hoarder and save everything? I mean even Mozy can’t deal with you, as they announced they are killing their unlimited data plan. People save a lot, and it costs money, but do you really need it all?...

via sbs.seandaniel.com

Wow. I literally laughed my ass off for the last 30 minutes. I almost feel bad for the author of the blog post - eh, not really. He wrote some of the reasons why he thought Windows Home Server 2011 is better than WHSv1. Basically it was: Sorry we took away drive extender but look at these trinkets we did add like better Remote Access and cool Silverlight Video Streaming. And then he insinuated that anyone using more than a one or two TBs of storage space on their Home Server is "hoarding" and should consider trimming down.

The best part... 35 scathing comments from angry customers about how the WHS development team screwed the pooch, removed the single best feature of WHSv1 and didn't deliver any additional significant features in 2011 over v1. Not one comment of support. Not one comment of "hey I think you're right". 35 comments of "You're not listening to your customers!", "Please give us Drive Extender and back and add Windows Media Center on top of WHS", "We will give you our hard earned dollars if you just build what we want!!!!".

My guess is that if asked users would say that the #1 existing feature from v1 was Drive Extender and the #1 requested feature would be support for Windows Media Center to run on Windows Home Server. Neither of those are in Windows Home Server 2011. What did they include instead? A completely customizable Remote Web Access web site. Really?!? Really!?!

Wow

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RE: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 02:05:00 +0000

"In the end, the interviewer always makes a personal and deeply subjective decision, I'm merely suggesting [that we do the interview in] a way that delivers more relevant information for that purpose."

"I'm not saying that a good programmer should not have a life. But I do believe that a certain amount of enthusiasm for programming is called for... I would, however, consider the lack of any hobby projects a warning sign for _some_ development jobs."

via: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

There is a place for purely "let's see how geeky you can get" interviews, of which Dave Donaldson (http://arcware.net/) is a master. But I don't ask the potential employee to whiteboard algorithms or tell me details of garbage collection. I'd rather not focus on what they know, but rather their potential. I try to figure out what they like, if they would be a good fit for the team, it they're a budding rock star dev, but most importantly I look for the passion - do they get excited about this stuff? Would they do it for free?

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Windows Home Server 2011... not for me.

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 23:18:00 +0000

Windows Home Server 'Vail' Release Candidate (minus Drive Extender) goes to testers

via zdnet.com

I've been a huge fanboy of Windows Home Server since the first time I heard a brief description of it. I've written blog posts about it, written software to run on it, and recommended it to everyone I know. My WHS box has made my life so much easier and I feel so much more secure knowing it backs up my other PCs nightly automatically with little or no fuss. My kids love it because it streams out movies to the XBOX downstairs. My wife loves it because it holds all our pictures and home movies and even has duplicates in case there is a drive failure. Everything is stored there. No longer are there some files on my PC and some files on my wife's and some others on my laptop.

Most of all my favorite feature, THE Killer Feature, of WHS is Drive Extender. This nifty piece of functionality allows you to add whatever kind of hard drive you want to the PC, whether internal or external USB or whatever. And it treats them all as ONE big drive. You don't need to know anything about RAID or RAID controllers or ... well.. anything. It's drop dead simple - you start getting low on drive space you go find a 1TB external drive on sale somewhere and plug it into an open USB port. Done. If you have specific folders set to make duplicates of (like your photos or home movies or important documents) then the internals of Drive Extender will magically ensure that those copies are on separate physical drives to protect your assets from a single hard drive failure. It may be the most simple piece of computer hardware/sofware that I have ever used.

Guess what? Microsoft ripped Drive Extender out of Windows Home Server 2011. I heard that rumoured months ago but I figured they would come to their senses. Apparently not.I am so disappointed. How can you release version two of a product that doesn't include the best feature of version one?!?!

According to Mary Jo Foley, the author of the article linked above, Microsoft's recommendation is to "use products from various storage providers instead". Really? If I have to start piecing together a solution then I'm not going to bother with Windows Home Server! What's the point. WHS made it stupid easy. If you take that away then it's really no use - at least to me. If I have to learn about storage hardware I'll instead just buy a LAN-based storage server (probably built on Linux!) that will handle all my file server needs easily, maybe even stupid easily. More than likely I'll just keep on keeping on with my version of Windows Home Server v1.

I know my one little voice doesn't amount to much if anything, but please reconsider. I will not upgrade and I know I am not alone.

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Do some fact checking before you shout "gun control"

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:02:00 +0000

McCarthy has been a fierce advocate for stricter gun control. Her husband was killed and her son was wounded in a 1993 shooting on the Long Island Rail Road. She said today she would introduce legislation, as early as this week, that would restrict the high-capacity ammunition that was used by the suspected Arizona shooter.

"There is no reason for a citizen to have to have these large capacity clips. The police officers, the military, absolutely," she told ABC News. "These are just in my opinion a mass destruction on being able to kill as many people in short period of time."

An amendment to extend the assault weapons ban of the Clinton era, which would have made it more difficult to manufacture and purchase the Glock 19 used in the Tucson shooting, passed the Senate in 2004, but the House let it sit without a vote.

via abcnews.go.com

You should always question the "facts" that you read in the news, but especially now and in the coming weeks. There will be plenty of rhetoric in regards to politics, gun control, etc. Check the facts yourself, you may surprised by the mistakes/untruths you're asked to accept as fact.

The article linked to above states that Representative McCarthy (D-NY) would like to introduce legislation that would restrict "high-capacity ammunition"? Really? I've been around guns and ammo since I was very young and I have never heard of "high-capacity ammunition". Hopefully, for the sake of the Congresswoman she said "high capacity magazines" and the author of the story misquoted her. I'd hate to believe that Representative McCarthy didn't really know much about what she is so vehemently opposed.

I've read the quote several times that if the Clinton assault weapons ban had been extended in 2004 that the shooter would not have been allowed to buy the Glock 19 used in the shooting. That is complete and utterly FALSE. Perhaps it's a mistake due to not checking facts that has since been perpetuated across mainstream US media. Or perhaps it is simply a misrepresentation and a lie.

One of the things the Clinton assault weapons ban did was restrict the manufacture and import of magazines/clips that would hold more than 10 rounds. They did not make it illegal to buy or sell such a magazine. And believe me, there were plenty around - it was not "difficult" to buy one. There was nothing in the Clinton ban that would have made it "difficult to manufacture and purchase a Glock 19". The limitation would only mean that it could only be shipped by Glock with a 10-round magazine.

Good for you if you're an advocate of gun control. I applaud Representative McCarthy for fighting for her beliefs. But please do some fact checking before spreading untruths. And journalists: please do your journalistic duty and check facts before you print. Unless of course your mission is to spread lies, myths, and untruths that the unsuspecting American populace will blindly accept as fact.

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Five Things that Ruined Beer | Pacific Brew News

Tue, 28 Dec 2010 20:15:00 +0000

via pacificbrewnews.com

Another Pacific Brew News post, check it out: http://pacificbrewnews.com/?p=1049

My favorite point: Beer isn't supposed to be ice cold. Good beer doesn't need its flavor hidden by being served at near-freezing temperatures. Think about that the next time your American-style mass-produced lager gets a little warm and you think it tastes like shit. Ask yourself if drinking it ice-cold just hides the shit flavor.

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Top Ten Brewers of the Last Ten Years | Pacific Brew News

Tue, 28 Dec 2010 20:10:00 +0000

It’s the end of another year. It’s the end of another decade. In all there is no denying the decade has been fantastic for those who like ‘craft’ beer. We’ve got more now than we used to, not as many as we’d all like. Cheers!

via pacificbrewnews.com

A nice list that includes some of my favorites like Dogfish Head, Sierra Nevada, Bell's and Brooklyn Brewery. Sadly there are some big ones on this list that I haven't had the chance to enjoy yet, but I hope to correct that in the new year: Firestone Walker, Port Brewing (Lost Abbey, Pizza Port), Russian River, Jolly Pumpkin and Allagash.

BTW, Pacific Brew News publishes some good stuff. Add them to your RSS feed if you're into Craft Beer: http://pacificbrewnews.com

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The Five Most Important Figures in American Craft Beer | The New York Observer

Tue, 28 Dec 2010 20:06:00 +0000

via observer.com

Nice article on some of the founders of the American Craft Beer movement: http://www.observer.com/2010/food-amp-drink/slideshow/hophead-five-most-impor...

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C#er : IMage: So What's the Fuss about Silverlight?

Sat, 30 Oct 2010 14:37:00 +0000

If there was any "write once, run anywhere" code, it was the service layer. It turns out you can write a rich set of REST + JSON services that are very easy to consume and use across all platforms.

via csharperimage.jeremylikness.com

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This homeless man deserves a tip. [VIDEO]

Wed, 06 Oct 2010 16:40:00 +0000

via wimp.com

This is cool. If this guy really is unemployed then some theatre company, advertsing company, or Sesame Street needs to give him a job. I don't care what his education is - that kind of creativity cannot be taught.

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Three generations at MUM at same time

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 13:31:00 +0000

via middletownjournal.com

My son, wife and mother-in-law.

"Three generations of family members, Jared Hounshell, 18, his mom Dawn Hounshell, 40, and her mom Brenda Rosser, 63, were taking classes at Miami University Middletown this academic year in pursuit of their education."

http://www.middletownjournal.com/news/middletown-news/3-generations-all-at-mu...

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Android development taught in Middle School programming class

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 18:41:00 +0000

Krueger student publishes first paid app to Android Market

This year at Krueger Middle School, students in Josh Beck's advanced programming class have been learning to develop applications for the Android mobile platform.

Student Christian Cruz (shown right) is the first student to publish an application to the marketplace, charging 99 cents per download. He published his application, which is an animated wallpaper, on Tuesday, Apr. 13. Within the first week, he generated more than $50 in sales.

This week Google announced that it is seeing 60,000 new Android phone activations every day. Over the next year, it is expected that there will be between 15-20 million new Android users.

Posted on April 21, 2010

via neisd.net

via Phandroid (http://phandroid.com/2010/04/22/android-being-taught-in-middle-school-program...

Very, very cool.

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A mouse-bot would look so cool on my desk!

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:03:30 +0000

via epicwinftw.com

A mouse-bot like this would look awesome on my desk. Unfortunately my wife, Dawn, made me get rid of a lot of old computer peripherals and parts last summer when she cleaned out the garage, including all my old mice. I now only have one extra usb mouse and one extra ps/2 mouse. Two mice won't make a very good mouse-bot.

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Butler extends coach Brad Stevens' contract through 2021-22 season - ESPN

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:23:27 +0000

INDIANAPOLIS -- Brad Stevens is content to keep coaching the Butler way.
The 33-year-old coach, who came within a buzzer-beating shot of winning the NCAA men's basketball championship, signed a 12-year deal Thursday that extends through the 2021-22 season.

via sports.espn.go.com

Great show of commitment by Butler. And great show of loyalty by Brad Stevens. There is no reason to leave for a more "winning" program. He's got a winning program now! It's nice to see Butler make sure that money wouldn't be an issue. Coaches like Brad Stevens and Mark Few of Gonzaga make me proud to be a college basketball fan.

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Android Market Sees Huge Growth In March

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:54:57 +0000

via phandroid.com

This is the third trend I've seen in the last ten days that indicates the Android platform and devices are seeing a big surge in adoption and usage right now. The first was a report from AdMob that ads served to Android apps saw a huge increase over the last few months. The second was a report that the number of Android devices being used on the major wireless carriers had seen a jump since November from 3 to 9 percent while Palm and Windows Mobile devices had declined and new Blackberry and IPhone adoption had remained relatively flat. Now we have news that the number of apps in the Android Market nearly doubled between February and March.

It looks we're seeing the beginning of the Android platform and devices jumping the gap between early adopters to mainstream mobile device users.

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Butt Cheaks and Poop Stans

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 15:49:25 +0000

Yesterday evening my little buddy, my 3yo Tucker, and I were taking a walk around the neighborhood. A couple of streets over we walked past a house with a couple of little boys playing in the front yard who looked to be about 5 or 6. They didn't pay us much attention but we said "Hi" and they said "Hi". Just after their house on the sidewalk we saw some chalk writing that said "BUTT" and "Butt Cheaks" (sic) in a couple of places and "POOP" and "Poop Stans" (sic) in a couple of spots. I assume they meant cheeks and stains, but they're just 5 or 6 - give them a break.

Tucker, being a curios little fellow, asked me what the writing said. He had noticed that one of the words had a "T" in it. I told him that yes it was indeed a "T" and then I read each of the phrases written on the sidewalk. He was a little surprised when I responded that the first one said "Butt". He looked at me with wide eyes and said "What?" so I told him again. After that he squated down next to each phrase, pointed to it and asked, "And what does that one say?" I answered each question truthfully.

He didn't have much to say so I wondered what he was thinking. I found out as he stood up after finishing admiring the last one and said "He he he. That funny!"

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PayPal app coming to Android

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:01:25 +0000

But alas, there will always be a group of people who think PayPal and Bump Payments are a HORRIBLE idea. And there is a very specific name for that group… MOOCHERS!

via phandroid.com

Like the author I wonder if you'll be able to bump and Android device and an iPhone for cross-platform payment. That would be great in my world where I am surrounded by Apple junkies and thankfully not too many moochers.

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Yahoo Mail On Android

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:50:00 +0000

[UPDATE: You do NOT need a Paid Yahoo Plus account for this to work... the example below is done with a FREE Yahoo Mail account:]

[UPDATE July 1, 2010: Yahoo has released their own Mail app for the Android marketplace: http://ymobileblog.com/blog/2010/06/30/yahoo-brings-its-world-class-communica...]

To set up Yahoo E-Mail on the Motorola Droid:

Make sure Wi-Fi is turned off

Press the E-Mail icon (the default Android E-Mail application)

Enter your Yahoo E-Mail address and password

Press “Manual Setup” in the lower left hand corner

For “Incoming Server Settings” set the IMAP server to “imap.mail.yahoo.com” and the Port to 143

For “Outgoing Server Settings” set the SMTP Server to “smtp.mobile.mail.yahoo.com” and the Port to 587

Check “Require sign-in” and press Next

Select how often your Droid will check for Email, and choose default options

Give the account a name and set your display name for outgoing messages

Done and done.

via phandroid.com

The above instructions are for a Motorola Droid (running Android 2.0) but it should work for any Android phone. I tested on a Samsung running Android 1.5 - worked great.

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I’m a sucker for a free glass

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:45:00 +0000

Some old friends and I met up last night for the first time in way-too-long to catch up, tell stories, get a little loud, and generally have a good time over a few beers. We lucked out by choosing a meeting spot that happened to be hosting a Cincinnati Beer Week event. We had a great time at the Tap House Grill and enjoyed some great local beers including a local collaboration hopped up Barleywine, Hop Baron from Rivertown Brewery, and a couple of new Sam Adams beers. Yup, that’s right, I count Sam Adams as a local brewery. Why? Because they have a brewery in Cincinnati and according to their local rep who I talked to last night because the local brewery is their smallest one. The Cincinnati brewery is where they brew a lot of their “small batch” and test beers, including their Imperial line and the new beers we tried last night.

If you get a chance to get out this week stop by one of the fine local establishments hosting a Cincinnati Beer Week event and drink a local beer or two that you haven’t tried before.

Canned Goods Cabinet

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:02:25 +0000

Last night I finished up my weekend project for my lovely wife, who was inspired by similar cabinets. This nifty little thing is a 4-inch wide shelf on casters that fits in the formerly unused space between the refrigerator and the wall. The shelf will hold about 75 cans of various sizes, which completely frees up one of our cabinets that was previously used for canned goods. I probably have about $50 in materials in this including the paint plus several hours of design, cutting, assembly and painting. It definitely was not difficult and actually was sort of fun. It is by no means fancy. Since the end result needed to be white I opted not to spend money on nice cabinet-grade wood. Instead it is made of some simple decent-grade 2x4s, some 1x4s for the shelves, a sheet of wainscot for the backing, 4 casters, several cans of satin white spray paint, and a cabinet pull/handle.

Testing Web Services

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:24:00 +0000

Jim Holmes asked me to write an article about testing web services for his great 31 Days of Testing blog series and I gladly did so:
31 Days of Testing – Day 16: Testing Web Services

The article ended up being less about testing web services specifically and more about tips based on our knowledge gained from implementing integration tests for web services over the last few years. Hopefully the pragmatic advice is useful.

My first Harmony Remote, I’ll be back.

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 03:52:00 +0000

Last Friday someone who will go unnamed dropped our TV remote on the floor for the final time. Since replacing our carpet with oak flooring several years ago our remotes have been taking a beating. The occasional drop onto the carpet seemed to rarely hurt them. A drop from an end table to the wood floor tends to permanently detach battery covers, chip corners, and eventually completely disable the remote. They’ve been living for years bound together by electrical tape, rubber bands and hope. The television remote was on its last leg and required that you either squeeze it or tap it on a hard surface before it would work. It drew its last breath on Friday April 1st before making a final though un-glorious plunge to the floor.

Prior to Sunday we were happy living with a separate remote for the TV, primarily just for turning it on/off and adjusting the volume, and cable box remote provided by Time Warner for changing channels, DVR setting and playback, etc. We also kept the DVD remote and VHS player remote (we have a lot of old Disney movies still on VHS) in a drawer for the occasional DVD and tape viewing. That all changed Sunday when I returned from Best Buy with a new Logitech Harmony 300 remote.

I’ve longingly admired the Logitech Harmony line of remotes for a long time, but considered them too pricey and a luxury item.

This looks fantastic, but at MSRP of $399.99 I must pass on the Harmony 1100 Advanced Universal Remote …

These are almost as cool but at $399.99 and $249.99 the Harmony 900 and Harmony One Advanced Universal Remote are still out of my price range…

And I don’t really need to control 15 devices. I only have 4 devices in the living room and 5 in the family/media room.

At $149.99 and $99.99 the Harmony 700 Advanced Universal Remote and Logitech Harmony 650 Remote are closer to my price range but because of previous history I know it will get abused. I wanted something cheap that I won’t feel so bad about having to replace in a year after an inevitable accident with the floor.

And here we have it: the low-end Harmony 300i remote for $39.99

No touch screen, controls 4 devices, and fairly inexpensive. It’s still programmable like its big brothers. It’s dead simple to setup, just connect to your PC via USB, go to the My Harmony site, enter in the Manufacturer and Model names for each of your 4 items and done. While the cheapest Harmony remote, it doesn’t feel cheap – it’s really solid. It feels good in the hand and it works well. It’s also really easy to use and the controls are very familiar, I didn’t have to explain to anyone how to use it. Final step: throw the existing four remotes into the bottom of a drawer somewhere, you’ll never use them again.

Hopefully it will hold up to our abuse but I’m sure I’ll have to replace this eventually. In a few years I hope to step up to one of the bigger, slicker, more fully featured Harmony remotes, but this will do very nicely for now.

Using browser SQLite’s LIMIT/OFFSET to page results with AJAX

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 05:45:00 +0000

Another post mostly for me.

I spent some time tonight trying to solve a problem in a mobile/HTML 5 app I am building. I have two lists that pull data from a client-side database that could possibly contain many records. Rather than pull all the results on page load and dynamically build a huge list I decided to look into doing some sort of paged results. I wanted my results to look something like this:

Luckily SQLite’s SELECT statement supports LIMIT and OFFSET statements that are ideal for supporting AJAX-style paging. Following is psuedocode for the implementation:

function getAccounts(pageSize, pageIndex) {

    // setup the db transaction

    var sql = 'SELECT * FROM accounts ORDER BY name LIMIT ' + pageIndex + ',' + pageSize + ';';

    /// execute the sql statement

    if (result == null || result.rows.length == 0) {

        // hide the "More" button

    else {

        for (var i = 0; i < result.rows.length; i++) {

            // dynamically add the item to the list

Accessing the Miso API: a sample ASP.NET application

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 06:09:00 +0000

Miso recently launched the initial phase of their API and make use of OAuth (similar to Twitter’s implementation) to allow user’s to authenticate with Miso and authorize your application to act on their behalf. The documentation is well written and easy to follow if you have experience working with APIs and OAuth. The sample application is written in Ruby and a fellow enthusiast contributed a version in PHP. This post provides sample code for authenticating a user to Miso and authorizing your application using an ASP.NET application (C#).

The first thing you have to do is register your application. This will provide your Consumer Key and Consumer Secret, which are used by your application to sign your requests so that Miso knows that you are who you say your are.

After you’ve registered your application you now have to build your app that does something interesting with the Miso API. Following are the steps needed to get OAuth access to the Miso API when a user accesses your application (explained in Miso’s documentation):

1. Fetch a request token by making a GET request to https://gomiso.com/oauth/request_token/. The request should include a callback url for an address that the user will be sent back to once they authorize your application. The response will contain a value for oauth_token, save this as it will be used in the next step.

2. Redirect the user to the authorization URL. The request token you retrieved in the previous step will be sent as a parameter of the request. After authenticating your application the user is sent back to the address of the callback url that you specified in step 1.

3. The request to your callback url will contain two pieces of data appended to the querystring that you need to grab: oauth_token and oauth_verifier.

4. Now you fetch the access token by making a GET request to https://gomiso.com/oauth/access_token and passing in the token and verifier you got in the previous step. The response will contain a value for oauth_token and oauth_token_secret. Save these, they are your Access Token and Access Token Secret.

5. Now you have everything you need to sign your requests to Miso and act on behalf of your user. All requests made to the Miso API should now include those four pieces of information.

Managing Miso’s OAuth Handshake with .NET

The list above is a general description of what is required, but you came here looking for something a little more concrete didn’t you? The first thing you’ll need is an OAuth library. I chose to use Twitterizer’s OAuth implementation. Get the source code and compile and then grab the Twitterizer.OAuth dll and reference it in your application (or drop it in your bin folder or whatever meets your needs). Make sure you follow the licensing requirements – basically make sure you give Twitterizer credit for the code. In the code examples below, two of the classes used are from Twitterizer.OAuth: OAuthTokens and WebRequestBuilder.

For performing the OAuth handshake you’ll basically need two pages, one to start the process and a page for the callback (technically you only really need the callback page depending on how you choose to kick-off the process). I created a couple of additional classes, OAuthConfiguration and OAuthUtility, to combine much of the code that was repeated and keep the logic terse, readable, and understandable. The code for both of those classes is provided further down the page. First I created a “default.aspx” page and added the following code to perform steps 1 and 2 above:

OAuthConfiguration config = new OAuthConfiguration();

//Perform a token request

string result = OAuthUtility.ConsumerRequest(
       "GET", 
       "https://gomiso.com/oauth/request_token/&oauth_callback=" + 
            HttpUtility.UrlEncode("http://yourwebsite.com/callback.aspx"),
       config);

NameValueCollection nvc = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(result);

string requestToken = nvc["oauth_token"];

//Send the user to the Miso Authorization page

Response.Redirect(string.Format("https:/gomiso.com/oauth/authorize?oauth_token={0}", requestToken));

Next I created callback.aspx to serve as the callback that the user is sent to by Miso after authorizing your application. It performs steps 3 and 4 above.

OAuthConfiguration config = new OAuthConfiguration();

//Pull the token and verifier from the request (querystring) received after user authenticated 
//and authorized

string oauthToken = Request["oauth_token"];

string oauthVerifier = Request["oauth_verifier"];

//You should add code to handle auth token or verifier not being sent

//Now send request using the token and verifier to get the access token and access token secret

string result = OAuthUtility.ConsumerRequest(
     "GET", 
     string.format(
          "https://gomiso.com/oauth/access_token/?oauth_token={0}&oauth_verifier={1}", 
          oauthToken, 
          oauthVerifier) 
     config);

NameValueCollection nvc = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(result);

string accessToken = nvc["oauth_token"];

string accessTokenSecret = nvc["oauth_token_secret"];

// We now have everything we need to create a token to be used for any future requests to 
// Miso API on behalf of the user

OAuthTokens token = OAuthUtility.BuildToken(config.ConsumerKey, config.ConsumerSecret, 
                                            accessToken, accessTokenSecret);

// now store token for this user (db, session, etc)

// now redirect the user to some other page where they can do something interesting

Making Requests to the Miso API

Once you have the completed token, making requests to the Miso API for the user is as simple as something like this:

string response = OAuthUtility.Request(
              "GET", 
              "http://gomiso.com/api/oauth/v1/checkins.json?user_id=UserIdGoesHere&count=5",
              token);

OAuthConfiguration Class

Neither this nor the utility class are necessary, you could have all this code inline with the logic, but I found them useful. For the sake of an example application I set the values of my consumer key and consumer secret directly in the code, but in a real-life app you might want to grab these from a configuration file, database, etc. This class could also contain the values for the various Miso urls and parameter names so they are not scattered about the rest of the code.

public class OAuthConfiguration

    string CONSUMER_KEY = "Your Consumer Key";

    string CONSUMER_SECRET = "Your Consumer Secret";

    public string ConsumerKey

        get { return CONSUMER_KEY; }

    public string ConsumerSecret

        get { return CONSUMER_SECRET; }

OAuthUtility Class

This class basically handles creating a token used to sign requests and making the signed HTTP requests and returning values. You’ll notice that the ConsumerRequest method only set values on the token for ConsumerKey and ConsumerSecret and do not set values for AccessToken and AccessTokenSecret. That is because that method is used to make the initial token request and to request the access token (step 1 and step 4 above) before we have the access token, so the only thing you need to sign the request with is your consumer information.

public class OAuthUtility {

    public static OAuthTokens BuildToken(string consumerKey, string consumerSecret, 
                                         string accessToken, string accessTokenSecret) {

        OAuthTokens tokens = new OAuthTokens();

        tokens.ConsumerKey = consumerKey;

        tokens.ConsumerSecret = consumerSecret;

        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(accessToken) && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(accessTokenSecret)) {

            tokens.AccessToken = accessToken;

            tokens.AccessTokenSecret = accessTokenSecret;

        return tokens;

    public static string ConsumerRequest(string methodType, 
                                         string url, 
                                         OAuthConfiguration config) {

        OAuthTokens token = BuildToken(config.ConsumerKey, config.ConsumerSecret, null, null);

        return Request(methodType, url, token);

    public static string Request(string methodType, 
                                 string url, 
                                 OAuthTokens token) {

        WebRequestBuilder requestBuilder = new WebRequestBuilder(
                                  new Uri(url), 
                                  methodType == "POST" ? HTTPVerb.POST : HTTPVerb.GET, 
                                  token);

        string result = "";

        HttpWebRequest webRequest = requestBuilder.PrepareRequest();

        WebResponse webResponse = null;

        try {

            using (webResponse = webRequest.GetResponse()) {

                using (StreamReader streamReader = 
                        new StreamReader(webResponse.GetResponseStream())) {

                    result = streamReader.ReadToEnd();

                    streamReader.Close();

        } catch (WebException) {

            throw;

        } catch (Exception) {

            throw;

        } finally {

            try {

                if (webRequest != null) {

                    webRequest.GetRequestStream().Close();

                if (webResponse != null) {

                    webResponse.GetResponseStream().Close();

            } catch { }

        return result;

That should be enough info to get you started working with the Miso API in .NET. Enjoy!

NOTE: You can see a live example of me using the Miso API by going to my home page (danhounshell.com) and clicking the "Television and Movies" link.

I have given myself another home page facelift

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 04:09:00 +0000

It was a much needed facelift. I liked the functionality of my previous blog home page and I liked the way it was implemented (mostly using JQuery plugins), but the design felt too cluttered and was just … well… ugly. Mostly it felt like too much of a “blog home page” and what I really wanted was a “me” home page – separate from my blog. Within a week or two after posting the previous redesign I had grown to hate it. In the meantime I stumbled upon a couple of flavors.me home pages and immediately loved the big type, huge background images and simplistic design. I was inspired.

I ran with the inspiration and what I ended up with is a home page composed of nothing more than HTML and Javascript (mostly JQuery). All the data is pulled into the site from third party services like RSS feeds, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, etc. with AJAX via JQuery plugins. Most of the plugins are the same ones I previously used and blogged about before. Even the contact form is nothing more than a couple of lines of Javascript, with kontactr providing the horsepower behind it. And the social sharing functionality is provided by AddThis.

I found some big beautiful landscape images on Flickr that were licensed Creative Commons that were perfect for the background images I envisioned. There are currently four different backgrounds displayed randomly. As the seasons change I’m sure I’ll find new ones to swap in and out.

Additionally, I had much fun learning new CSS techniques for rounded corners, full-page background images, and dabbling in HTML 5.

The functional beauty of it being nothing more than HTML and Javascript is that it can be easily replicated and can run anywhere. During development it was nothing more than an HTML file in a folder on my desktop and it worked fine. Feel free to copy the page source, CSS, and Javascript files and experiment yourself. Once I get the code organized I’ll post the source to github.

Note: Since building my home page I’ve discovered another site, about.me, that offers a similar service as flavors.me. Both services seem very similar, starting free with different levels of extras offered for paid upgrades. TheNextWeb.com has a good article comparing and contrasting the features of flavors.me and about.me. Both seem great – but I prefer to roll my own.

Almost forgot... you can see my new home page here: http://danhounshell.com/

Business and life lessons I learned from last nights Brew Masters

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 13:18:00 +0000

Have you seen Brew Masters yet? The new Discovery Channel show focuses on Sam Calagione and his brewery, Dogfish Head. Never heard of him or the brewery? Go stand in a corner: you get a timeout for failing life.

If you’re a fan of the brewery or of craft beer in general then you will like the show. But you will also enjoy it if you like business, or you like craftsmanship, or you like humor, or you breathe and have a beating heart. Okay, it may not be for everyone – people who hate puppies probably will not enjoy it.

Last night’s episode, Grain to Glass (Dec-9-2010), was especially interesting because it showed the brewery making the decision to dump 20,000 gallons of their 120-minute IPA down the drain. They said the batch was worth approximately half a million dollars ($500,000)! Why did they dump it? Was it “bad”? Nope, by all accounts it was good. But it was not great and it did not live up to their high standards for the beer. So instead of ship sub-standard brew they instead dumped it all down the drains. Lucky drains!

I learned quite a few things from watching the episode. See kids, learning can be fun! Well okay, not all of the below is new to me so I may not have technically “learned” them all, but if nothing else they were reinforced by the show.

What exactly can you learn about business from watching a show about brewing beer? Well, probably not much other than how to brew beer. But Brew Masters is a show about brewing *craft* beer, and that makes all the difference in the world. In no particular order…

It’s never too late in the process to yell “STOP! Something is wrong!”
Quality Control is everyone’s job.
Do what you love and what you are passionate about. Period.
Don’t base decisions on the best way to maximize profits and/or minimize losses. Focus on delivering the best product you can deliver. Everything else will take care of itself.
“Good enough” is good enough for the other guys – never settle for less than your best.
Sometimes you have to step back and start from scratch.
Surround yourself with people as passionate about what you are doing as you are. i.e. – If you’re a craft beer brewery and you need to hire an accountant, don’t just hire a good accountant – hire a good accountant that loves craft beer!
Keep it fun. Don’t be afraid to experiment and try crazy stuff.

Did you see the show? Any other “lessons” we should take away? Do you disagree with any of my points?

Top 10 Reasons to Refactor Your Tests

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 15:47:00 +0000

10. You do have tests, don’t you?

9. It’s the right thing to do - tests build up technical debt, too

8. Keeping your tests lean, mean, clean and tidy ensures that writing new tests is easy and pain free

7. It’s a nice break from working on your project/product code

6. Your boss will be impressed as the number of automated tests rises faster

5. All the cool kids are doing it

4. You’ll understand your project/product codebase even better

3. Tests are not usually bound to same “rules” as your codebase, you can experiment – try new stuff

2. It’s fun, interesting and challenging work. Recent comment from peer: “Over the weekend I worked on refactoring our tests in my spare time – and I loved it”

And the #1 reason to refactor your test code is…

1. Men and women will find you sexy and desirable!

How to convert a 10-digit timestamp in JSON to a Javascript Date

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 05:25:00 +0000

That’s a fairly long title to describe this:

1280296860

I found this value in a field of a JSON response from a web service where I was expecting a date. I’m used to seeing 13 digit timestamps so this date surprised me and looked a little odd.

After some research I found that the 13-digit timestamp that I’ve grown accustomed to seeing and this 10-digit timestamp are both Unix-style timestamps that represent the number of seconds since January 1, 1970 at 00:00:00 GMT. The difference is that the 13-digit timestamps represent the number of milliseconds and the 10-digit timestamps represent the number of seconds.

History lesson finished. How do you convert that to something useful in Javascript?

In the past when faced with a 13-digit timestamp (now knowing it was milliseconds) I would just use the value in the Javascript Date constructor or use the Date.setTime() method:

var timestamp = 1280296860145;

var pubDate = new Date(timestamp);

OR

var pubDate = new Date();

pubDate.setTime(timestamp);

But neither of those worked with the 10-digit timestamp, which seems pretty obvious now that I know that the constructor and the setTime method expect milliseconds. So when you are given a 10-digit timestamp you should first convert it from seconds to milliseconds by multiplying by 1000:

var timestamp = 1280296860;

var pubDate = new Date(timestamp * 1000); //expects milliseconds

OR

var pubDate = new Date();

pubDate.setTime(timestamp * 1000); //expects milliseconds

After converting to a Javascript Date you can now do something useful, like format it into a string for display:

var weekday=new Array("Sun","Mon","Tue","Wed","Thu","Fri","Sat");

var monthname=new Array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug","Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec");

var formattedDate = weekday[pubDate.getDay()] + ' '

                    + monthname[pubDate.getMonth()] + ' '

                    + pubDate.getDate() + ', ' + pubDate.getFullYear()