February 17, 2004
[Ann] Palm Weblogger 1.1
I've just released another version of Palm Weblogger. The main difference is that it moves away from using the inbuilt Palm Memo Application for sooooo many reasons. Basically each conduit it meant to have it's own database and application. So I added one.
This released contains a custom palm application that allows you to write multiple entries as drafts and select them to publish when you are ready.
PS. Happy Birthday Mick
February 04, 2004
I forgot how fun maths can be
I forgot how fun maths can be!
Yes nerd alert for those reading this that aren't so inclined. That file format that I did a bit of reverse eng on has come back again. I had been getting some strange results when the file increased in size. I could see the value of the sixth byte of the output file increasing every 200 odd bytes I added to the input file. Odd in that it wasn't incremented every 256 bytes, in fact it wasn't incremented at any exact value, but it was always close to 256.
I then did a bit of brute force on it and wrote a little program that increasingly added bytes to the file and printed out the sixth byte of the output file. I could then see at what input file sizes the sixth byte of the output file incremented.
What I saw was quite interesting (annoying). When the input reached 214 bytes, byte 6 went from 0 to 1, and the next increments at 470, 726, 982 and 1238 bytes.
What I needed and ended up finding was an equation that I could plug in the number of bytes and it would give me the value to put into the sixth byte, byte 6 = f(number of bytes). I had hoped it would be a nice linear x = 256y,but I did enjoy the brain exercise and I think you will too. Try and work out the function. It isn't that hard .. and you will be pleasantly suprised (Simpsons quote).
.. and yes I did post this using Palm Weblogger
Update: Don't read the comments if you don't want to see the answers.
February 03, 2004
[Ann] Palm Weblogger 1.0
I have made the initial release of the Palm Pilot Weblog software, Plog. It allows you to write Weblog entries in your Palm Pilot and have them posted onto your Weblog when you synchronize with your PC.
The software came about because I was waiting in a dentists reception area for my wife to finish a checkup. I had my Palm Pilot with me and wanted to get an entry down that I've been thinking about for a while. So I hacked out the entry as a Memo and began thinking how it would be nice just to sync up to my PC and have this entry posted.
The software is a simple Palm Conduit that is installed on the PC that you sync to. The user writes entries using the Memo application on the Palm and places them into a "Weblog" category when they wish them to be published. The conduit picks up the entries and posts them using an XML-RPC interface.
The licence allows use for non-commerial purposes, but does require that users post a comment to this weblog entry. The comment must contain the users configuration and optionally a feature request and/or link to their weblog.