BLInk! and Get Categories from blog

Blink

A few people asked for a “get categories” feature for BLInk!. I have this implemented (not yet deployed) but have found something odd. I am testing against dasBlog and dotText.

With dasBlog, I can GetCategories from MetaWeblog and Blogger APIs. With dotText, it fails with the Blogger API. Further research explains that the Blogger API does not support GetCategories. So I can only guess that Clemens, Omar and others who worked on dasBlog did their own implementation somehow.

So I will have to disable the GetCategories feature for Blogger API all together.

Here’s how the feature will work.

  • Category list exists in settings
  • The Post UI will grab the categories from the settings.
  • Post UI has a “Update Categories from Blog” button. Of course, this only works when you are online. This will referesh the categories list and the settings info.

Oh, and the categories will be listed alphabetically now.

Note that with dasBlog, if you add a category via settings and select it with your post, the categories list will get updated on your blog.

I will note when I update the installer with this feature.

Thanks to Don Kiely for helping me decide how to implement this.

Posted from BLInk!

MathPractice and my 7 year old guest

Tablet

We had some friends over for dinner along with their 7 yr old granddaughter, Alexa, who is a bright and engaging little girl. I gave her my tablet to draw on and then after a while thought of MathPractice. I had never played with this app before, but I went to TabletPCPost , browsed to the Education programs and downloaded it and let Alexa use it. She was so excited to work with this application. She actually loves math and her grannies get her lots of math workbooksfor kids her age which entertain her enormously. But the worksbooks don’t give her a little smiley face when she has answered correctly or highlight a number in red if it’s incorrect. So this program just gave her a new, interesting and entertaining way to learn math. Her grannies were really thrilled. She is looking forward to trying out some of the other programs on the tabletpc they have at home. MathPractice is another one of Loren Heiny’s programs that go beyond just using ink to replace a keyboard.

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Fear on the slopes

Just Rambling

Oh no, now you won’t even be able to yell “watch out!!!!!” to the whackos on the ski slopes! Eeeek!

<old fart>I remember when Sony Walkman’s came on the market and people were wearing them while driving their cars and riding their bikes. Really unsafe.</old fart>

The glasses are REALLY cool, but hey, I get paid to worry about “what if”!

Posted from BLInk!