David Davis - Xantus

I'm contemplating going to University of Pheonix or a community college before I lose the money for college that I earned in the Army.  Should I go to a community college, or an online college?  I don't have a lot of time, so I'm leaning toward an online college like University of Pheonix Online.

Here's a college wiget from the company I work for:

I have extended ydnar's very cool hack, CSSHttpRequest, for Extjs.

Ext.ux.CssProxy
 

I just finished rewriting rTerm to be a front-end to Ajaxterm.  It requires Extjs and no backend changes to ajaxterm.  The ajaxterm terminal is now in a web desktop like window.  I works with other ext components and windows on the screen, and you can even open multiple windows.

rTerm Website

rTerm Screenshot

GMap Window Widget Screenshot

About two weeks ago, I created a google maps window widget.  It's based on Extjs and their gmap panel.

Check it out: Ext Gmap Winodw Widget

I had this idea last night...I can let users subscribe to feeds without leaving the mail client.
I added all the feeds as messages in the [feeds] folder, and the subscription is controlled by the status of the message.  See the screen shot to the right.

Feed subscription listing

Recent updates:

• The inbox is a collection of all your subscribed feeds
• Read/Unread status is preserved across folders (inbox/feed)
• Browse all available feeds in the [feeds] folder
  
• Add remove/feeds by setting the unread status on the message
• A Perl SMTP server handles incoming messages and processes commands
• Emails sent are not relayed
• Emails are stored in the db for future review, so suggestions and bug reports can be filed easily
• Commands can be handled, but none are added yet.
  

I may change the feed subscription model to a two folder system. A subscribed folder and an unsubscribed folder.  You would move the message that represents a feed into the subscribed folder to add it to your reading list.  This seems more intuitive than the way I implemented it.  What do you think?

It works!  Sprocket.Reader is an IMAP mail server that pulls news feeds from a database.  I'm focusing on the iPhone mail client at the moment.  It's easy to use and there are no downloads or mods required.

If you are interested in being a beta tester, email me at: xantus at xantus d.o.t org.

Here are screen shots of me reading Slashdot

Sprocket.Reader: Slashdot

Sprocket.Reader: Slashdot story

Sprocket

My project, Sprocket.Socket must have inspired, Michael Carter of orbitd: Comet Daily: Sockets in the Browser

One thing he didn't consider is that you need data framing to handle raw data from sockets correctly.
For instance, if you are parsing lines of data from a socket:

This is a line\r\n
This is another line\r\n
This is

You received a partial line, like the last line above.  You need to wait for the rest of the line, and buffer it until you reach a line ending, which in this case is \r\n

I'm a POE programmer, and we have modules that frame data, and we call them Filters.

I have written several data framing filters in JavaScript, inspired by POE filters:
http://svn.xantus.org/ext-ux/lib/Sprocket/
JSON, IRC, Line, etc

I think having pseudo-sockets in the browser is very useful if done right.  Sprocket.Socket handles multiple outgoing connections from the browser using only one long polling xmlhttp.  A spare xmlhttp request is used for quick sending of data while the other is waiting, so it doesn't have to be woken up.  All data is delivered in order.

Sprocket.Socket consists of several parts:

The framework, Sprocket
Sprocket.HTTP plugin.  It serves files, fast.  Including CGI's
Sprocket.Gateway plugin.  This proxies the socket requests
An access control module.  Controls which hosts the clients can connect to.
The JavaScript library Sprocket.Socket.  This handles the pseudo-sockets in the browser
The JavaScript data framing filters, and base class
Extjs, a rich js framework.

This seems like a lot, but I can run one script and fire up a browser to get it to work.
I have a working IRC client, and a Jabber client, which can be seen on Comet Desktop

See WebSockets, for another writeup of this technology.

David Davis
☄ Software Engineer
http://xant.us/