LiveSide - Developer Blog

January 2008 - Posts

• Insert IMMe Link Plugin

  In a recent post Angus Logan talks about adding someone else's online presence as a link in a blog entry when you're referring to them (it's worth making a note how he gets the CID, as his example uses LiveSide and our IM Presence integration). He spoke to me about this and asked about a plugin for it. At the time, I gave him an alternative using Joe Cheng's Dynamic Template plugin, but then thought about how to make a plugin for doing this. So I sat down and made the Insert IMMe Link Plugin: Now, the real pain about adding in someone's online presence is you need to get their CID code so you can get the presence link working. In Angus' post, he shows about getting the CID from the link, but I figured this was just a pain, and wanted my plugin to be smarter than that. If you go to someone's blog (like Angus' blog) and they have the IM Control embedded in their blog/site (the thing that looks like a Messenger chat window), then you can simply put that link in, select that this site has the user's IM control on it, then hit the Get CID button and the plugin will attempt to get the CID itself: How much easier is that! I should point out though, that this will pick up the first CID it finds. The other thing I thought was needed was a way of storing these links and CIDs, cos you really don't want to have to get the CID every time, so the plugin also allows you to store (and delete) the people who you link to. Just select Remember this person: If you select a remembered person from the drop down list, all their details get filled in for you, and you do not need to check the Remember this person again as they will be remembered. Download: http://gallery.live.com/LiveItemDetail.aspx?li=ab38b04e-7906-4feb-8105-b07018ded8cb Source code: http://www.codeplex.com/IMMePlugin SL Via InsertableContentSource (Me) Posted Jan 24 2008, 07:53 PM by ScottIsAFool with no comments Filed under: Plugins, Presence, Writer

• The Traffic Gadget is Back!

  OK, it's formally called the Live Search Maps gadget, but that's a mouthful so most people simply call it the "traffic gadget". The traffic gadget was taken off the market for a few months for "security reasons" (not unlike like the Tylenol scare back in the 80's). In any case, it's back! Microsoft came to my company LiveGadgets.net and asked us to develop a Windows Vista Sidebar gadget to display local area traffic. It was very popular with people living in one of the supported areas. Then (as previously reported by Kip) a problem was uncovered that had to do with the way that the Virtual Earth API JavaScript was loaded into the gadget. It was loaded over a non-secure (non-SSL) connection. This made it susceptible to MitM (Man-in-the-Middle) attacks. An evil person (such as a terrorist or a mime) could inject code that would run on your machine under the same rights as the local logged in user. The offender could then easily delete files, steal personal information etc. Even though the situation was highly unlikely, it needed to be addressed (which should show you how concerned Microsoft is with security). The new gadget not only loads the VEAPI via an SSL connection, but manually loads the markets.js file and parses the heck our of it (using a regular expression) looking for malware or any other unscrupulous items. What else has changed? Visually, I've updated the icons but that's about it. Basically, the new version is a lot like Vista SP1: not much in the way of UX improvements, but a whole lot of improvements going on all "under the hood". Although not specifically attributed to the new gadget, there have been more cities added since the gadget was introduced about a year ago. The new cities include: Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, San Antonio and Toronto. When more new cities are added, they will automatically appear in the gadget (i.e. no update required). Will there be any features added down the road? I can't say. Seriously, I'm under NDA and can't say :). But if you have any suggestions, please let me know and I'll pass them along to the powers that be. In the mean time, please enjoy the new safe and secure traffic, um, Live Search Maps gadget! It can be download here now. Posted Jan 23 2008, 05:55 PM by donavon with 5 comment(s) Filed under: Gadgets, sidebar

• .Net Framework 3.5 sourcecode now available

  As this affects (potentially) all aspects of development on the Microsoft .Net platform, whether it be adding plugings to Windows Live Writer, writing your own websites incorporating many of the Windows Live API's that have been published or maybe writing something that has absolutely nothing to do with Windows Live, I thought I'd give this a quick mention. A few months ago, Microsoft stated that they would release the .Net Framework sourcecode and today they have followed through with that promise and actually released it. You will need one of the variations of Visual Studio 2008 to take advantage of this. For more information please see Scott Guthrie's blog and Shawn Burke tells you exactly how to link your projects into the sourcecode and debug using it. Posted Jan 17 2008, 11:42 PM by Hackersoft with no comments Filed under: Programming, Visual Studio 2008