Greg brings up some valid points. A few ideas I have are detailed below.

In the case of MovableType, as Im sure is the case with other blog software, there are numerous properties available when submitting a new post. Take for example:

• Category
• Convert Line Breaks
• Allow Comments
• Allow Pings
• Additional Entry Text
• Excerpt Entry Text
• Keywords

Given this, and the fact that the aggregator should be able to display its own interface in the case of HasEditingGUI() returning false, should there be some method allowed to make these properties and whatever values available via this interface as well?

Im thinking something along the lines of:

public interface IBlogThisEx : IBlogThis
{
 ...
 BlogPropertyCollection Properties
}
 
public class BlogPropertyCollection : CollectionBase
{
 ...
}
 
public class BlogProperty
{
    private string _name;
    private IEnumerable _values;
 
    public string Name
    {
        get { return _name; }
        set { _name = value; }
    }
 
    public IEnumerable Values
    {
        get { return _values; }
        set { _values = value; }
    }
}

Secondly, since exceptions are likely to be thrown back to the aggregator, perhaps there should be a common Exception-derived object that the aggregator can expect. For example:

public class BlogThisException : Exception
{
    // Implementation goes in here
}

Thoughts? Am I way off my rocker here?

Greg Reinacker and Simon Fell are proposing a new interface to extend IBlogThis…

public interface IBlogIt : IBlogThis
{
    // Display configuration dialog to user, if applicable 
    void Configure();
 
    // Return true if an editing GUI will be shown to the 
    // user when BlogItem is called. In this case, the 
    // aggregator will not display its own editing UI. 
    bool HasEditingGUI();
}

This seems very nice to me. I’m currently working on a plugin for MovableType utilizing the IBlogThis interface. One of the hurdles I’ve encountered is a clean way to bring up the configuration dialogs, if the user hasnt completed them.

This would also allow incorporation of Luke Hutteman’s BlogThisURL, creating a complete MT plugin.

See the ad for the new Honda Cog.

No computer generated stuff here… 606 takes, but they finally got it right. Read more about how they did it here.

Uh… I thought these ladies were wanting to shy away from controversy…

Read the article.

April/May has to be my favorite time of year for sports. The combination of basketball, baseball and hockey is incredible.

Some updates:

• Much to the chagrin of Lindsay, the Giants were no-hit yesterday by Kevin Millwood and the Phillies.
• The LA Lakers managed to tie their series at 2 each with the T’Wolves up yesterday. This series is proving a little more difficult than I thought. I don’t like seeing the Lakers have this much competition this early in the post season.
• The Dodgers are on a tear, winning the last 6 games. Let’s see how they do tonight against the Phillies at home.
• What the heck is going on with the Mighty Ducks?? This seems a little too convenient. Is Disney buying championships?? Anaheim wins the World Series last year, the Ducks look unstoppable for the Cup this year. Hrmmm.

My agenda for tonight? Sac/Jazz, Dodgers/Phils, Ducks/Stars all at 8… Life is rough… ;)

After reading myriads of rave reviews about Fritz Onion’s Essential ASP.NET, I have decided to get this book.

I think that its wonderful that there are two editions of this, one for VB.NET and one for C#. I’m eagerly anticipating the arrival of this book on Wednesday.

I’ll post my thoughts as I read through it.

I’m sitting here reviewing some blogs that I havent had time to look at it in a while, and meanwhile have been watching this *wonderful* Stanley Cup playoff game featuring the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim vs. the Dallas Stars.

Currently, this game is halfway into the 4th overtime knotted up at 3-3. The announcers have just stated that this is the fifth longest game in history.

I remember a few years ago, I watched an incredible Stanley cup game between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia which lasted 5 overtimes, for the third longest game in history.

I’ll update the blog with who wins and the length of the game.

Update: Game won by Anaheim 4-3 in the 2nd minute of the 5th overtime. Wow! What a game.

Losing weight could prevent one of every six cancer deaths in the United States — more than 90,000 each year, according to a sweeping study that experts say links fat and cancer more convincingly than ever before.

read more… (via foxnews.com)

I guess I wish I would have seen this before I had a nice fat hamburger and a greasy plate of fries for lunch today. :=)

Looks like MSDN finally got their new layout online. I’ve been hearing mixed reactions from people online. However, for what its worth, I really like the new layout. I think it loads a *lot* faster, and the layout seems to lend itself to points of interest. The one thing that I will miss is the grey flyout menu which took you wherever you needed to go.

I am very excited about the new DeveloperCenters and the addition of the RSS feeds.

Well, Im glad to see that NAnt 0.82 was released recently. The release has support for multiple versions of the framework via the nant.exe.config file. Included framework configurations include 1.0, 1.1 and mono.

Im using this new feature to test compatibility of my builds with 1.0 and 1.1 frameworks. Granted this doesnt test functionality against frameworks; that’s what NUnit is for, but it is still a good way to test that something actually builds on the 1.0 framework.