basics
fun and games
programs
outlook macros
windows media center
tip jar
Another update to Avantslash by Han-Kwang which adds a tiny piece of new functionality that allows you to see extra thread and reply links for each comment. You can see these by clicking on the link at the very bottom of the page. As always, it is downloadable from the usual place.
Tuesday 15th November 2011 | Comments
My HTPC setup consists of an Atom based nettop with two DVB-T tuners (for Freeview) running Windows 7 Media Center and I think it’s probably the best user experience I’ve seen (disclaimer: I’ve not seen the Tivo UI which may be better). However one thing that really dampens the experience is the poor EPG data provided by some of Microsoft’s third parties that causes the series link functionality to go berserk and attempt to record every single possible instance of a television show ever scheduled. If you’ve ever tried to record CSI here in the UK, you’ll know exactly what I mean.
Given that complaints to Microsoft generally go unresolved, I’ve written my own program which temporarily “fixes” the problem by scanning all recorded shows on your hard-drive and deleting duplicate recordings to save you from drowning in repeats of a show. If you don’t want to delete them immediately, you can move them into a separate folder away from the “Recorded TV” section and the program can automatically delete them after they’ve been sitting in there a certain number of days.
It’s pretty easy to set up provided you’re comfortable with running command line applications and using the Windows Task Scheduler. More details can be found here.
Sunday 30th October 2011 | Comments
A small update to Avantslash by Han-Kwang which fixes a bug with the CSS cookies in later versions of Perl. In addition, he updated some icons and added an “Apply and return” button to the preferences page. You can download it from the usual place.
Monday 11th July 2011 | Comments
Another mega update from Han-Kwang which provides a massive number of tweaks, updates and fixes (about 63 if you want to count) to what shall henceforth be known as AvantSlash 4.2. Watch out for better error handling, time zone translations and date formatting, new artwork, a better credits page, blocking of web robots, a demo mode (to be installed here shortly), black colour scheme for reading in the dark and better reading of truncated comments amongst the gems. You can download it from the usual place.
Monday 13th June 2011 | Comments
Another update to AvantSlash from Han-Kwang (with a small amount of support from myself, for once!) which adds several new options on the way that comments are shown. In addition, many of the preferences have now moved from the config file into the “About/Preferences” page which means they can be different for each device that views the page. We’ve also squashed a few bugs, added support for book reviews, updated the credits page with more useful information and added some pretty icons (favicon and iOS shortcuts). As usual, you can download it from here and feedback is always welcome.
Sunday 10th April 2011 | Comments
There were a couple of issues the last 2 days that meant that the AvantSlash page showed the wrong version. This has now been corrected, sorry for any inconvenience caused.
Friday 18th March 2011 | Comments
Following a massive amount of work by Han-Kwang Nienhuys (and, honestly, not that much from me), I’m pleased to announce the release of AvantSlash 4.0 which not only fixes the parsing problem caused by Slashdot’s most recent changes - but adds in a massive amount of new functionality including a new look and feel (courtesy of style-sheets) and better viewing of comments (thanks in part to the nifty new AJAX comment code). There are plenty more interesting things planned in the future but please try it out and let us know what you think in the comments.
Note: There is no “easy” way to upgrade from 3.x to 4.0. I would recommend renaming your existing folder (as a backup) and unpacking 4.0 into a new folder and configuring it from there. It should take less than 5 minutes to do and you probably won’t need to edit avantify.cgi at all - which is nice.
Monday 7th March 2011 | Comments
Following a reported bug (involving Outlook notes with no subject), I’ve released an updated version of Outlook2Evernote. In addition to that fix, I’ve changed the UI slightly so that when the export is finished, you get a pop-up window instead of having to press return or enter. You can get the latest version from here.
Saturday 29th January 2011 | Comments
Many thanks to Han-Kwang Nienhuys for this update of AvantSlash which fixes the parsing following the redesign of the Slashdot website. As there are plenty of issues with the Slashdot site, I expect more changes to happen which may break AvantSlash again. You can pick up the latest version here.
Friday 28th January 2011 | Comments
Early this morning (UK time), Slashdot launched their third major re-design. According to the site owners this new theme represents “a serious gutting of the underlying HTML and CSS” which has obviously meant that AvantSlash no longer works. In the coming couple of days, I will be reviewing the new site and design (especially how it looks on mobile devices), determining whether or not AvantSlash is still needed and (if so) issuing an update once I work out what they’ve changed. If you have any thoughts or comments, please let me know.
Wednesday 26th January 2011 | Comments
