viziblr

The Need

Given an HTML file you want to exract all the HREF urls.

You could use a Regex

I've done this before, but haven't found it entirely reliable. I use regex's so infrequently it is painful to relearn the syntax every time.

What I recommend

Use the HTML Agility Pack. If you are familiar with the XML DOM, using the HTML Agility Pack will come naturally.

HTML Agility Pack URL

http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=htmlagilitypack

Two things that make HTML Agility Pack interesting

- It doesn't depend on Internet Explorer

- It works on malformed HTML. See this post for a little for context:  NET Html Agility Pack: How to use malformed HTML just like it was well-formed XML

Sample code

// this isn't a full sample, but enough to see the value of using the HTML Agility Pack

HtmlDocument input_doc = HtmlDocument();

input_doc.Load(“foo.htm”);

foreach ( HtmlNode node in input_doc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//a") )

{

string href_url = node.GetAttributeValue("href", "");

}

A film about a typeface to be released in 2007: http://helveticafilm.com/

Microsoft uses a typeface called "Arial" that I discovered only recently is NOT the same as the "Helvetica" font found on Macs. The differences are subtle to my untrained eye, but those with a background in typography don't take the discrepencies lightly.

On the battle between Helvetica and Arial

Helvetica vs. Arial: http://www.engagestudio.com/helvetica/

How to spot Arial: http://www.ms-studio.com/articlesarialsid.html

Arial or Helvetica?: http://www.iliveonyourvisits.com/helvetica/

Wikipedia's article on Helvetica

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

The real evil: Comic Sans

The Arial's existence is tolerated by those in-the-know. Comic sans is hated. That is is a shame, because its designer, Vincent Connare, also designed one of my favorite fonts: Trebuchet. Read what Vincent says about Comic Sans.

Trivia: I first knew Vincent as a teammate on an ice hockey team. I remember him as a skilled player and an excellent sportsman. Only later did I discover his contributions to Microsoft's typography.

Wikipedia's article on Comic Sans: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Sans

NodeBox (http://nodebox.net/) is an fun tool to experiment with 2D graphics. NodeBox version 1.0 only runs on Mac OS X, but a beta version of NodeBox V2 found on the NodeBox research Wiki ( http://research.nodebox.net/Home) runs on both Windows and Mac OS X (via Jython).

Before I knew NodeBox version 2 existed, I used Visual Studio 2005 to create a demo WinForms app that used GDI+ (System.Drawing) and IronPython. I plan on using this tool to play with some ideas on visualizing data.

A screenshot of NodeBox V1

And thanks to the following page (pretty pictures!) I know I should turn it on when I play games:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000484.html

From the article:

"In my opinion, anisotropic filtering is the most important single image quality setting available on today's 3D hardware"

And a link to wikipedia for some more information

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

 

The Scenario

One has a lot of oddly named files such as thsoe produced by a digital camera.

Example of what a digital camera might produce:

• pic383718.jpg
• pic120453.jpg
• pic938889.jpg
• pic109012.jpg
• pic433590.jpg
• pic219093.jpg

The Pain Experienced

• The names are meaningless
• The ordering is unclear
• One has to open them up to determine their content and order

What is Desired

• Give the files nice names that make sense without having to open them up.
• A way to do this without having to download or purchase a tool

Windows XP comes with a built-in solution to batch rename files

• Browse Windows Exploer to the files you want to fix
• Switch to Details view (recommended, but not required)
• Order the view by time or name or size as desired
• multi-select all the files to with the names you don't like
• While the files are selected, right click on the file you want to consider as the *first* one. The context menu will appear.
• Select Rename
• The file upon which you right-clicked will now show that you can edit its name
• Change the name as desired and add a space and a starting number in parenthesis and leave the extension alone
  • Example:
    • Rename this file: "pic383718.jpg"
    • To this: "My Vacation in Italy (1).jpg"
• The rest of the files will be renamed to match that pattern.
  • Final Output
    • My Vacation in Italy (1).jpg
    • My Vacation in Italy (2).jpg
    • My Vacation in Italy (3).jpg
    • My Vacation in Italy (4).jpg
    • My Vacation in Italy (5).jpg
    • My Vacation in Italy (6).jpg

What happens if the number in parenthesis is left out? For example, if one named the first file "foo.jpg"?

The results will look like this:

• foo.jpg
• foo (1).jpg
• foo (2).jpg
• foo (3).jpg
• foo (4).jpg
• foo (5).jpg