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Yahoo Term Extractor API Discontinued

August 14th, 2009 | 1 Comment | Posted in API's

A couple of days ago Yahoo announced two of its search services will be discontinued on August 31st 2009.

Annoyingly, one of those is the Term Extraction API
Which means my Windows Live Writer Auto Tag Generator plug-in will simply cease to work.

Important Announcement: The Term Extraction Web Search service will be discontinued on August 31, 2

So, what can you do.

Well, according to a few posts on twitter, Zemanta seems like a suitable replacement.

I’ll check this out, and write up a post on it soon, in the mean time, there’s an introduction here.

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Auto Tag Generator Plug-In for Windows Live Writer

July 5th, 2009 | 8 Comments | Posted in API's, Blogging

Auto Tag Generator is a plug in for Windows Live Writer that enables tags to be generated from a block of text (or the whole of the post)

Download:

Project can be downloaded from Codeplex here

Usage:

To generate tags, simply highlight all of the text (or a relevant section) and press “Inert Auto Generated Tags” in the Insert menu on the right hand side.
The tags are then displayed in a list (shown below)

wlwAutoTagGenPlugin
You can delete any tags generated by pressing the Del key, or right clicking, and clicking delete (the list is sometimes a bit random… but this is due to the Term Extractor API)

Hit Ok, and the tags are copied (comma separated) into the clipboard, for you to paste in to the Tags section in Windows Live Writer.

The tags generated for this post were:

auto tag
relevant section
wlw
tag generator
target
single day
clipboard
comma
codeplex
source code
open source
ip
address
yahoo

 

Limitations:

  • Currently, the post text has to be selected before selecting “Insert Auto Generated Tags”
  • Due to the limitations on the Yahoo Term Extractor API, only 5000 requests can be made in a single day from each IP address. I can’t see anyone reaching that limit… but I just thought I’d mention it!
  • You need to manually paste them into the tags section on WLW… this is something I’m working on. (feel free to help… it is open source!)

Source Code

I’ll be posting full details, and a little tutorial of how what and why etc…. shortly.
Until then, the project is on Codeplex, with no documentation.

 

codeplex-logo

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TinyURL API

May 14th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in API's, Geek Speak

The popular url shortening service, TinyUrl has an API.

This is probably the most simple API I’ve come across:

http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=http://www.alexjamesbrown.com

(obviously, you can replace http://www.alexjamesbrown.com with any URL)

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Hotel Floris Avenue, Brussels

May 11th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in API's, Databases

Outside the Eurostar Thalys Terminus station in Brussels you will find an organized queue for taxis, (complete with taxi marshal)
We were allocated our taxi, and I presented the driver with a sheet of paper with the hotels address printed on it.
After some consideration, he said it would be 10 Euros, but that it’s only a 10 minute walk from the station.
We opted for the taxi, since I didn’t have a clue where I was going.
Yes, I could of used my iPhone to get us there, with a little help from Google maps, but the charges for data, even in the EU. Put me off.

The day we arrived in Brussels (10th May) there was some special festival, so there were many people out in the streets.

We pulled up outside the hotel around 5 minutes after we left the station (it really would be a 10 Minute walk)
First Impressions were good – hotel is nicely presented, clean and well lit.

Checking in, I noticed that you could buy Internet connection for 10 Euros for 24 hours (which is what I’m using to write this post!)

We were given room 304.

Room

Room was very clean, large, and spacious, with modern decor.
The bathroom was brilliant, had a bath, with shower.
The shower was extremely powerful, lots of pressure, which I like.
One thing that we noted – no soap was left for us on arrival but we did get it on day 2)

The bed, although advertised as a double, was actually two singles pushed together, but this did not matter. Was very comfortable.

We had a TV, with a type of Freeview box that allowed us to get BBC1 and BBC2.

Gym

The hotel was equipped with a “fitness room”
This was a little disappointing – not because there was not much equipment (there isn’t really room) but because none of it worked.
There is:
A treadmill
A cross trainer
A bike
A multigym – Lat pull down, leg extension, pec-dec etc.

This would of been adequate for our 2 night stay, however most of the equipment did not work.
The multigym had come off its pulley system, the treadmill was missing its safety key, the bike, didn’t move. The only thing working was the cross trainer.

Breakfast

Breakfast was served on level -1
Consisted of cereal, ham, cheese, fruit, pastries (croissants etc..) cooked sausages, bacon, eggs.
All in all, was very nice.

Location

The hotel is brilliantly located. Just a few minutes walk from Great Market Square and many shops.
Directly opposite the hotel was a supermarket, where we bought some things for the room, since the mini-bar was hideously expensive – ?3 for a can of coke!!

 Useful links

Official Site: http://www.hotelflorisavenue.com
Hotel Chain: http://www.florishotels.com
Trip Advisor: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g188644-d344865-Reviews-Floris_Avenue_Hotel-Brussels.html

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Freelancers.net RSS Feed

August 29th, 2008 | No Comments | Posted in API's, Web

I use Freelancers.net to scout out potential freelance clients, however logging on to the site every couple of days is somewhat tedious. Much better would be to have an RSS feed to subscribe to?

Unfortunately Freelancers.net doesn’t provide one!

Not to worry, using Dapper, i have created one.
The URL for the feed is below:

http://www.dapper.net/services/freelancers

Happy freelancing.

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