Developer

RegExr is a web tool for testing those widely used (yet often confusing) regular expressions. Regular expressions (regex) are search patterns that help you find strings of text in e-mail messages, text files, etc.

Things like Usenet search tools, Google Code search, and Open Office support regex, and regex versatility far surpasses simple wildcard searches like *.exe. For instance, a regular expression like .*@([^.] \.)*example.com$ will find all email addresses from example.com (and its subdomains).

To use RegExr, type your expression in the top box, and then type/insert text in the box below to see if it matches your expression. You can use the helpful sidebar to learn about and insert different regex strings to build your overall pattern.

If you want a more feature-rich program, are running Windows, and have $39.95 to spare, try RegExBuddy. The RegExr developer plans to release free AIR versions of his product for Mac OS X and Windows.

Yahoo!, MySpace and Google announced the creation of the OpenSocial Foundation today. The foundation is a non-profit entity aimed at ensuring “…open and transparent governance of the OpenSocial specifications and intellectual property.”

On the final day of SXSW Interactive 2008, we were lucky enough to sit down with Kevin Marks from Google’s OpenSocial project. Kevin broke down what OpenSocial is, where it is going (MySpace, Hi5, and Orkut among others had already signed on as of our interview) and what the plans are for the future. We’ll be posting our interview with Marks shortly.

In the meantime, you can read more about the new foundation after the jump
Google held a conference call outling outlining the Foundation and proposal this afternoon and here are some of the highlights:

• The OpenSocial Foundation (OSF) wants to foster success for all parties and social networks
• The OSF aims to provide a safe harbor intellectual property zone
• The OSF will ensure that OpenSocial remains free forever and community driven (with no one party or company having undue influence)
• It will bet setup within the next 90 days
• Google is contributing the trademark and website for OpenSocial to the foundation
• Non-assertion convenance patents will be signed by all parties to protect the IP of container and application developers

So basically, the foundation is being created to keep transparency and parity in the OpenSocial community as the project expands.

OpenSocial will be present at the Google I/O in San Francisco May 28 & 29.

Shortly after releasing a tool for synchronizing Google Calendar with Outlook yesterday, Google released another key in the synchronization puzzle: an API for accessing Google contacts.

The API will enable trusted 3rd party sites to access your Google contact information without asking you to provide your login information. So next time Facebook, Plaxo, or another service wants to import your Gmail, Google Calendar, or Google Talk contacts you might not have to give up your email password. Likewise, 3rd party software and web sites will be able to export contact lists to Google. And developers could write software that will keep your Google contacts synchronized with your desktop or mobile personal information manager.

In other words, if someone has some free time on their hands, they can write an application that will allow you to synchronize your Outlook and Google contacts. You know, like the application we were kind of hoping Google would release along with Google Calendar Sync yesterday.

Linux users aren’t exactly known as big fans of proprietary software, but sometimes a big commercial app comes in handy. iTunes has been up and running on Linux for a while now, but it was missing one big reason to choose it over an open source music player: iPod Touch and iPhone syncing. These two Apple gadgets need to be unlocked to work with a third-party music player.

But now iTunes on Linux is reportedly able to recognize and sync all iPod models, including the Touch and the iPhone. Maarten Lankhorst recently alerted the wine-devel mailing list that he got iPod-iTunes syncing to work on a Linux system with Wine, iTunes 7.6, and minimal patches. Good news for anyone whose ‘Pod wasn’t supported by the available open source apps.

There’s still a little more work to be done before this will work on unpatched Wine: direct access to the device in explorer is not supported, although it should be coming soon. For now, at least there’s a solution for Windows users who also want to keep their iPhones and iTouches locked - even if it’s still proprietary.

[via Tombuntu]

Quick, name the most annoying thing about your Facebook profile? The status message!

Trying to contort your status to fit the “is” from updates using the proper English language often proves extremely challenging. How many times have you ignored the “is” altogether and just inserted whatever you wanted, whether it made sense or not? Fear not, Facebook has listened to their users. Over 164,000 members in a Facebook group lobbied to get rid of the clunky “is” verb and succeeded. Currently the developer platform is the only code that has been updated with the change.

However, there’s no word on when you’ll see the “is” disappear from your user accounts.

Yesterday Microsoft released an update to Outlook 2007 to help speed up the downloading of messages and reduce the annoying and highly criticized freezing associated with moving or deleting messages.

Microsoft indicated that the problem stemmed from RSS feeds, email, and calendar files all being stored in the same .PST file which as one might imagine could grow in size rather quickly depending on the user. The problem lies not with the software, but how users are using the software. Jessica Arnold Outlooks Program Manager told ComputerWorld “Outlook wasn’t designed to be a file dump, it was meant to be a communications tool…There is that fine line, but we don’t necessarily want to optimize the software for people that store their e-mail in the same .PST file for ten years.”

Along with the patch Microsoft released an updated set of recommendations to enhance Outlook’s performance including moving older emails and files to a separate archived .PST file or splitting a larger .PST file into several smaller ones.

[Via ComputerWorld]

Like many web developers, I use MySQL constantly. Sure I can just use the command line, but it is faster to use some kind of graphical client with a decent UI. There are many out there, but my favorite for a while was MySQL’s own MySQL Control Center (which has now been discontinued for a while). The replacement for Control Center is Administrator, and I am just not a big fan of it. I loved Control Center because it allowed query browsing and database management, and you’d be hard-pressed to find both features in Administrator which is why I don’t like it as much. There are third-party alternatives as well, many of which are not free, which is a sticking point for me? Why, because I am cheap. I currently use (and love) SQLyog community edition (free and full-featured).

Oracle also has a SQL development client, called SQL Developer (oddly enough). They just upgraded it in fact. Now it does easy import and export data in many popular formats. Not retyping all that data, priceless. Oracle’s client will manage MySQL, SQL, and Oracle databases, which is rare to find a free tool that handles all three.

I will stick to SQLyog for my database management needs however, since Oracle’s java-based solution needs to be configured to work with MySQL’s JDBC drivers apparently. Often I don’t have the time to install third party drivers, and configure them, that is what a client should be responsible for. Ease of use, and dummy-proofing your app, even more priceless.

Ya, that’s right, Microsoft is giving away free copies of Microsoft Office Professional 2007, and Microsoft Office Groove 2007. There’s always a catch though isn’t there, and this promotion is no exception. Microsoft is holding “ready for a new day” launch events all across the US to show off and let users experience how Microsoft Vista and the Microsoft Office 2007 applications will empower people. In these sessions, Microsoft will teach users about the software, and how it will simplify how people work together, how it protects and manages content, improves business, and reduces costs. So, if you can withstand a day with Microsoft showing off their products, they are going to give it away to you for free. Not a bad deal. The tour website has a link where you can locate an event and register for it to reserve your free software copy. Have fun!

[Thanks for the tip Ryan D]

On Monday Microsoft launched Digital Advertising Solutions, a new ad network that ties all of Microsoft’s networks together and pushes ads across Windows Live, Xbox, Office, Live Search, smart phones, and handheld computers. Microsoft realizes that people are spending more and more time with all of their devices connected online, and is stepping up to Google and Yahoo to try to gain a larger market share. So in this heavy move to inundate Microsoft network users with ads, how do you feel about the influx of advertising in the digital space? Taking it to smart phones and Xbox gaming systems seems a little too far for me.

Microsoft is busy developing its new AJAX toolset using the codename Atlas. There is a lot of excitement and interest in this new tool that Microsoft is expecting to release at the end of 2006, but is currently only available as a prerelease. The final release will depend on user feedback from a beta release version. Microsoft has said that along with Atlas, we will see the release of certified Atlas products that will work in conjunction with Visual Studio 2005, and ASP.Net. Atlas will be launched into two main categories. A JavaScript library called AJAX Library, and Server side components which will be called ASP.Net 2.0 AJAX Extensions.

[via zdnet]