Innovative Technology Weblog » Stefan Stranger

Outlook RSS Feeds to HTML Blogroll

Stefan Stranger — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 20:02:54 +0000

I wanted to update my blogroll on my weblog but because I’m subscribed to quite some rss feeds I did not wanted to do this manually. There had to be an easier way to do this. And I was correct, after doing some Googling I found out that you could use XSL transformation to convert OPML to HTML. But I’m not a XSL (EXtensible Stylesheet Language) or XML specialist but luckily I went yesterday evening to a session (TechNight) about tooling from my company. And one of the tools demo-ed was XML Spy which I tried to use with the XSL template downloaded from Keyvan Nayyeri blog about creating a Blogroll from OPML Files. But this template did not completely worked for Outlook exported RSS feeds

So after this demo I just asked who knew more about XML and XLS and with the help of Wouter van der Harg I’ve now XSLT (XSL Transformations) which transforms the Outlook OPML file to a Blogroll HTML file. Kudos’ to Wouter!

So here are the steps for creating a Blogroll from your Outlook RSS feeds.

Use the Outlook Import and Export Wizard to Export your RSS Feeds to an OPML file.
Rename the *.opml file to *.xml
Open in XML Spy (or an other XML editor) the Exported RSS Feeds XML.
Assign the XSL Template to the Exported RSS Feeds XML file.
Click on XSL Transformation and your Blogroll is created.

XSL Template

xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" version="1.0">
	<xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" omit-xml-declaration="no" indent="yes"/>
	<xsl:template match="/opml">
		<xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes"><![CDATA[
		<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
		]]></xsl:text>
		<html xml:lang="en">
			<head>
				<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
				<title>
					<xsl:value-of select="head/title/text()" />
				</title>
				<style type="text/css">
					a:link, a:active, a:visited, a:hover
					{
						color: #ce0000;
						text-decoration: none;
					}
				</style>
			</head>
			<body>
				<h1>
					<xsl:value-of select="head/title/text()" />
				</h1>
				<ul>
					<xsl:apply-templates select="body/outline">
					<xsl:sort select="@text" data-type="text" order="ascending" case-order="upper-first"/>
					</xsl:apply-templates>
				</ul>
			</body>
		</html>
	</xsl:template>
	<xsl:template match="outline">
		<li>
			<xsl:attribute name="class">
				<xsl:value-of select="@type" />
			</xsl:attribute>
			<a>
				<xsl:attribute name="href">
					<xsl:value-of select="@htmlUrl" />
					<xsl:if test="not(@htmlUrl)">
						<xsl:value-of select="@xmlUrl" />
					</xsl:if>
				</xsl:attribute>
				<xsl:value-of select="@text" />
			</a>
		</li>
	</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Regards,
Stefan Stranger
http://weblog.stranger.nl

VMware ESX3 server running within VMware Workstation 6

Stefan Stranger — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 20:45:44 +0000

Source: xtravirt

Paul Davey from xtravirt wrote a Guide to installing VMware ESX3 on workstation 6.

“This paper illustrates how to install and configure VMware ESX3 Server to run within VMware Workstation 6. From this, VirtualCenter, VMotion, HA and DRS features can be configured.

Although performance is significantly reduced from that of a physical server, this type of environment opens considerable possibilities for portable client demonstrations and is excellent for self training and small lab environments.

This paper assumes the reader has good technical knowledge of VMWare Virtual Infrastructure 3. The paper assumes that you know how to install the VirtualCenter2, License Server and Virtual Infrastructure Client.

The hardware used in this whitepaper was an IBM Thinkpad T60P laptop, Core Duo, 3GB memory, 120GB SATA Hard Disk.

Note: Intel CPU(s) on the hardware running Workstation 6 must have the VT technology or the performance of ESX will be very poor. It is believed that the same applies with AMD chips with AMD-V compatible CPU’s being recommended, although it is currently untested by us on this platform.”

Regards,
Stefan Stranger
http://weblog.stranger.nl

Does virtualization makes monitoring obsolete?

Stefan Stranger — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 20:09:32 +0000

Last week I was in session about virtualization and one question kept running through my mind. â€œWhat will be the impact of Virtualization on Monitoring?â€? At first you would think that not much will change if you monitor virtual machines instead of physical machines. But the way virtualization has taken off and the more virtualization is used this must change the way we monitor today. Let starts with some of my experiences with virtualization.

Vista Planning Query using the SMS database

Stefan Stranger — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 08:07:13 +0000

Enhansoft created a SQL Query that will help you detemine the number of workstations with issues deploying Vista.

Or you could use theÂ GSA Isn’t that right Rob?

Regards,
Stefan Stranger
http://weblog.stranger.nl

Amnesty Generator will generate a new Sidebar gadget with the click of a button.

Stefan Stranger — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 21:18:21 +0000

Source: Bink.nu

Easily convert millions of web widgets, games and videos â€“ designed to live on home pages, blogs or MySpace â€“ into gadgets for your Sidebar. If you like widgets on the web, youâ€™ll love them on your Sidebar.

Key Features

Now you can place Google gadgets, Grazr RSS readers, YouTube videos and more onto your Sidebar.

Copy and paste the HTML code for a web widget directly into Amnesty Generator and generate a new Sidebar gadget with the click of a button.

â˜…Create gadgets without any coding experience
â˜…Autofill feature does the work for you
â˜…Inline step-by-step instructions included
â˜…Supports Flash widgets, games and video

System Requirements

Amnesty Generator is designed for Windows.

â˜…Windows Vista
â˜…Adobe Flash Player (recommended)

Radio interview of Pauwl Lunow on BNR (Dutch) about Vista

Stefan Stranger — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 08:39:15 +0000

Yesterday evening Pauwl Lunow was interviewed by BNR Nieuwsradio about Vista. You can listen to this radio program on BNR.

Regards,
Stefan Stranger
http://weblog.stranger.nl

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 VHD – 32-bit version

Stefan Stranger — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 08:53:50 +0000

A Pre-configured Virtual Machine with Exchange Server 2007.

This download comes as a pre-configured VHD. This download enables you evaluate how Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 together can help create an optimized messaging system for your organization.

Go to Microsoft Download Center.

Regards,
Stefan Stranger
http://weblog.stranger.nl

For those who are not Vista Certified yet

Stefan Stranger — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 20:31:33 +0000

I found the next site (running on Drupal) for those who are beginners to Vista. No not Rob Molenaar and Kevin Reeuwijk;-)

Vista4Beginners.com:

Mission Statement

Microsoft’s new operating system – Windows Vista brings lots of new features and changes compared to Windows XP. Some of them are significant and some or not. The transition from Windows XP to Windows Vista is a big step for everybody. Even so, IT professionals will learn and adopt Vista faster than most people. But what about normal people, who are not working in the IT business? After years of working with Windows XP, Vista might be much too different and difficult to use.

Vista4beginners.com is here to help you. The team behind this site will try to provide simple and easy to understand tutorials about Windows Vista. We will try to cover as much topics as possible, starting with the most simple things like playing music on your Vista PC. You will see the site expand continuously as we will try to include as much content as possible.

Regards,
Stefan Stranger

http://weblog.stranger.nl

Interested in Architecture?

Stefan Stranger — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 20:26:45 +0000

If you are interested in Architecture you should look at the Microsoft Architecture Resource Center. You can find the lastest articles from the Microsoft Architecture Journal and much more.

I hope I find time to finish reading my TOGAF book

Regards,
Stefan Stranger
http://weblog.stranger

Vista Lite with vLite

Stefan Stranger — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 12:10:09 +0000

Source: Techlog

Windows Vista from Microsoft takes a lot of resources, we all know that. So here is the tool for easy removal of unwanted components and bootable ISO creation in order to make Vista run faster and to your liking.
This tool doesn’t use any kind of hacking, all files and registry entries are in their original form and protected as they would be if you install the full version only without the components you select for the removal.
It configures the installation directly, before the installation, meaning you’ll have to remake the ISO and reinstall it. This method is much cleaner, not to mention easier and more logical than doing it after installation on every reinstall.