I provide below some reasonably solid HTTP fetching and cacheing in ASP/VBScript. I hesitate to add “because almost everything I found on the web was rubbish” because that would show hubris in the face of me having just had to sanitize the code, quite likely introducing typos along the way. These code samples also come with no warranty and no likelihood of me answering awkward questions about them. To invoke the fetcher/cacher, put the following in your currently executed VBScript file:

<% Dim strUrl, strUrlKey, objWinHttp
strUrlKey = “top_menus” %>
<!– #include file=”fetch.inc” –>
. . .
<% strUrlKey = “side_menus” %>
<!– #include file=”fetch.inc” –>
. . .
<% strUrlKey = “footer” %>
<!– #include file=”fetch.inc” –>

Some notes on this below, but here is the actual fetcher/cacher to put in fetch.inc and bring it in with the above:

<%
‘ @description remote calls to get livery
‘
‘ @param strUrl might need to be Dim-defined in wrapping file
‘ @param strUrlKey must be Dim-defined and set to a particular
‘   livery identifier in wrapping file - also appends it to the URL
‘   query string that it gets
‘ @returns HTML on standard output

strUrl = “http://example.com/?livery=” & strUrlKey

‘ Cache timeout is 60 minutes
‘ Application(foo) fails gracefully if key foo does not exist
If DateDiff(”n”, Application(strUrl & “.LastModified”), Now()) >= 60 Then
  ’ If cache expired, get the page
  Set objWinHttp = CreateObject(”Msxml2.ServerXMLHTTP”)
  ’ Turn error handling on
  On Error Resume Next

  ’ Timeouts will now be handled
  objWinHttp.open “GET”, strUrl, False
  objWinHttp.send

  ’ If no error, trust content
  If Err.number = 0 Then
    ’ Lock the application scope and insert page and cache date
    Application.Lock()
    Application(strUrlKey) = objWinHttp.responseText
    Application(strUrlKey & “.LastModified”) = Now()
    Application.UnLock()
  End If

  ’ Turn error handling off
  On Error Goto 0

End If

‘ Regardless, read from the application
Response.Write(Application(strUrlKey))

‘ Tear down object
Set objWinHttp = Nothing
%>

The Dim statements before the <!--include--> make it all a real pain in the arse. Some server configurations will arbitrarily interpret and run ASP files without Dims; some won’t. And you can only ever Dim a variable once in a particular variable scope, or everything dies horribly; you have to keep track of whether or not a variable has already been declared, pretty much by eye.

Depending on your server, you might also not have access to the particular DLL that provides Msxml2.ServerXMLHTTP. If that’s the case, then there are other possible ways of making the HTTP call out there on the web: it’s just that the Graceful Exits bouncer isn’t letting them through the door.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need a shower.

Web architects must understand that resources are just consistent mappings from an identifier to some set of views on server-side state. If one view doesn’t suit your needs, then feel free to create a different resource that provides a better view (for any definition of “better”). These views need not have anything to do with how the information is stored on the server, or even what kind of state it ultimately reflects. It just needs to be understandable (and actionable) by the recipient.

— Roy Fielding on creating new resources for REST architectures.

>>> from mysite.models import Country
>>> Country.objects.order_by(’?')
>>> Country.objects.filter(continent=’Europe’).order_by(’?')

The objects should then be iterable in a random order.

Astonishingly, the existing documentation has very little Google juice, unless you search for “randomly” rather than “random”. Otherwise, at most you get db-api.txt telling you about using ordering tuples when you build your model.

Christopher Hinze has written a great Firefox addon that exports bookmarks to OPML 1.0. Unfortunately, OPML is a bit of an anything-goes specification. So although Hinze’s plugin produces valid OPML, it isn’t the same sort of valid OPML that Google Reader expects. Google Reader, in fact, gags and chokes on Hinze’s OPML, and refuses to import it.

The main problem is that the <outline/> element, the basic hierarchical building block for OPML, will take any attributes. What does that mean in practice? Well, here’s what Hinze’s export produces:

<outline text=”Coding”>
  <outline type=”link” text=”Joel on Software” url=”http://www.joelonsoftware.com/rss.xml” />
</outline>

and here’s the result of Google Reader exporting its own store of RSS bookmarks:

<outline title=”Coding” text=”Coding”>
  <outline text=”drupal.org - Community plumbing”
    title=”drupal.org - Community plumbing” type=”rss”
    xmlUrl=”http://drupal.org/node/feed” htmlUrl=”http://drupal.org”/>
</outline>

To a computer, these are fundamentally two different data formats: the URLs are stored in different attributes, and there are attributes on each that either have different values or are not present on the other. Someone did a DTD for OPML: looking at those two apparently analogous fragments above you have to ask yourself why they bothered.

Help is at hand, though. This sort of problem is bread and butter to XSLT, and here’s an XSL transform for converting Firefox OPML to Google Reader OPML. If you have xsltproc installed on your system, you would type:

xsltproc http://www.jpstacey.info/applications/google/ff2gr_opml.xsl bookmarks.opml > fixed_bookmarks.opml

Or download the XSLT—it’s released under GPL2—and run it locally, changing that URL there to a local file location.

One thing to note: the XSLT will remove an outline wrapped around your bookmarks with title “Sage Feeds” (case-sensitive). So you can export that branch of your bookmarks, and the XSLT will strip the wrapper off and you won’t import a load of bookmarks tagged “Sage Feeds”. If you don’t like this behaviour then either rename your Sage bookmark container, or learn XSLT: it won’t kill you.

Alsa seems stable and graphics support is present from installation onwards. Enabling fancier 3D compiz effects requires the nvidia-glx-new package; compiz spots this, however and prompts for installation. All very smooth. Wireless works; my VoIP headset works; but I haven’t yet tested Bluetooth.

The only problem was in upgrading from Gutsy: my previous peregrinations had rendered my hybrid distribution shafted and incapable of upgrade. This isn’t a problem, though, if one has installed the /home directory (and in my case the /music one too) on a separate partition: the Ubuntu Live CD will blat the root partition with Heron, but leave the other partitions alone if you so require. Don’t resize any of your partitions during installation, though, or you’ll lose everything. Everything!

Your mashup is probably legal.
Your mashup is probably sound.
Your mashup is probably legal,
So pass all that data around!

Stuff here
Stuff there
And something mashed up in between (be-tween!)
Stuff here
Stuff there
And something mashed up in between

Your mashup is probably legal;
You could monetize it as well!
But though I contend it’s all legal,
Remember I-A-N-A-L!

[Repeat chorus]

The session I compèred went reasonably well: I can’t say my elegant prose exactly sparkled, and I occasionally found myself getting into the subjects being discussed so much that I forgot to flash the “X minutes left” warning signs. With that in mind, thanks are due to speakers Ben, Steven, Roo and Nick for both their talks and their patience. Hopefully there’ll be some area for speakers to upload their slides etc. soon, so I can link their names through to it when that happens.

It’s called Straight Edge, and I’ve switched to it today. Once I’ve finished alpha-testing it I’ll write more about it, and offer it for download if anyone’s interested.

Of course, much earlier than today, and he’d have had to have written it before giving the talk that it was based on, which might sound a bit demanding on my part. But hey! I don’t make the rules.