IsKernel

A Simple Web Crawler in Perl

2013-07-28T16:06:00.002-07:00

What's a web crawler? A web crawler is "a internet bot that systematically browses the World Wide Web, typically for the purpose of web indexing".

Well, I got bored one night and decided to write one in Perl.

Here's the result:

Github

If you want to use it, you have the following options:

Q: Want to ask something about the crawler? Leave a comment!

GrandTrunk Currency API in C#

2013-07-14T12:13:00.006-07:00

Today I just finished a client API for the GrandTrunk historic currency conversion web service.

The web service allows the following:

Getting a list of the supported currencies according to a specified date
Converting a currency to another according to the rate of a specified date
Retrieving a list of conversion rates between 2 currencies according to a specified time interval.

If you are interested in using it, you can find it on Github.

Here's how you can use it:

You can find the library on:

Github

Q: Do you know other free web services which provide similar features? Leave me a link!

Always Obtaining a Future Date in C#

2013-07-13T18:14:00.001-07:00

I was working today on building a C# REST client for a historic currency conversion web service and needed to write the unit tests.

A historic currency conversion web service it is a web service that allows the retrieval of the exchange rate of 2 currencies from a specified past date. In order to prevent the user from sending a bad data to the service, I employed some simple measures to verify the user input.

In order to simulate error cases in the unit tests I needed to find a method to create a date that will always be in the future. Below you can see my solution:
The main idea is that you will never know for how much time your software will be used, so it's better to play it safe :-).

Q: Since I was talking about past and future, what is the oldest library you wrote and still use today?

Organizing your Gists with GistBox

2013-07-13T11:58:00.002-07:00

Github Gist is one of the most used pastebins at the moment, but from my point of view is deficient when it comes to organizing stuff.

On this blog I use Gist to display various code snippets in my posts. Such as this one:
A problem which I encountered when using Gist was the fact that I didn't had the possibility to organize my snippets. In the long run, this could have turned into a major issue. But, luckily, I found out about GistBox.

GistBox is an app which connects to your Github account and allows you to organize your gists in folders using labels.

How my GistBox looks like

As you can see in the screenshot above, you can use multiple labels for each of your gists and let the obsessive-compulsive in you take control :-).

GistBox is available as a "normal" web app and as a Chrome App.

Get it Here

Q: Do you know other similar tools which do this? Leave me a comment!

Full Screen Console in Windows with ConEmu

2013-07-12T15:51:00.001-07:00

Starting with Windows Vista, the Windows Display Driver Model changed and it no longer supported DOS video modes. As a consequence of this, the Windows Console lost its ability to go full screen (a feature which I've missed).

Today I stumbled upon ConEmu, a Windows console emulator which allows the user to make the console full-screen. Simply beautiful.

ConEmu running full screen on Windows 8

ConEmu running maximized on Windows 8

Download it here

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConEmu

Q: Do you know other, better terminal emulators for Windows? Leave me a comment!

HTML Tablesorter Package in Dart

2013-07-06T10:26:00.002-07:00

Between trying to remember the Hurwitz criterion for stability, how a thyristor works and minimizing functions with Veitch-Karnaugh diagrams for my bachelor's degree exam (I major in Software Engineering, but the final exam also included topics from physics, analog circuits, control theory, etc), I managed to get some free time to work a little bit on improving the design of my blog.

This resulted in a simple HTML Tablesorter package for my Projects and Tutorials pages.

I have chosen Dart because I was really curious to see what was all the fuss about. Overall, I'm quite pleased with the language (reminds me of C\C++\Java).

How to use:

Dart

HTML

The package is available on:

Pub (the package manager for Dart)
Github (source)

Q: How do you think the package can be improved? Do you have any new features in mind? Leave me a comment!

Presenting Yourself with JQuery and Twitter Bootstrap

2013-07-06T08:32:00.003-07:00

Most websites/blogs have an "About" page, where people write about who they are, what they do and why they created their website. So, I've made one for this blog as well :-) .

Since I was pretty bored, i decided to go and play a little bit with JQuery and Twitter Bootstrap. See the result below.

Demo

If you want to use something similar for you blog/website, go crazy with the code below:

References:

http://jsfiddle.net/simevidas/fwUMx/5/
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/114543/how-to-center-a-div-in-a-div-horizontally

Q: How do you think I make the script more interesting? Leave me a comment!

C# Mapping Enums To Comboboxes with Style

2013-05-08T05:50:00.000-07:00

I was working on my bachelor degree project (a code generator for Atmega16) these days and found myself having a nasty enum/combobox problem.

I usually map a enum directly to the data source of a combobox. Unfortunately for the enum below, it didn't look the way I wanted:

Ugly mapping

I wouldn't want for the user to see the leading underscore. Furthermore, I wanted to find a solution in which I could display instead of _16k something like 16000 Cycles without complicating myself too much.

I did some research and I found a solution here. Stated briefly, you need to derive a class from TypeConverter (see the implementation I found here) and start writing your enums like this:

Good-looking mapping

The main idea is that if you use a TypeConverter, you can break the dependency between the name of the enum and what's displayed in your combobox.

In case you didn't knew, here's how you map an enum to a combobox and set/get the selected item::

Q: Do you know other (better/simpler) methods for mapping enums to comboboxes? Leave me a comment, if so.

See here the example source files
Download here the entire C# code examples collection

Read more about this topic:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.componentmodel.typeconverter.aspx

Ninja Image

2013-05-02T10:16:00.000-07:00

Ninja Image is a commercial steganography app that allows you to embed hidden messages into pictures.

Currently is available on Ubuntu Software Center, but I also plan to make a Windows version for Intel AppUp.

No one observes a pig posing as a cat in a ninja suit.

Encrypting a message into a image

Decrypting a message into a image

‹ ›

Why Ninja Image?

+You want to embed secret information understandable only by a select few into pictures shared over social networks like Google+ or public forums.

+You want to exchange information like passwords or other sensitive data over an insecure transmission protocol, like email.

+You just want to impress your friends and co-workers with your sneaky ways.

Ubuntu - https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/precise/ninja-image/

Windows – Soon to come

If you use the app, tell me how you like it. Also, I'm open to ideas for future apps or improving NinjaImage. Leave me a comment below!
Limitations:
+Do not change the format of the picture or its size after you encrypted it. Such operations may alter your message.
+You can save encrypted pictures only by using the bmp, png or tiff formats.