Dropbox REST API Part 3: Create, Delete and Move Folders
February 19, 2012
In the previous part (part 2: API Requests) I mentioned that the third part would show you how to perform various folder operations such as creating, deleting and moving folders.
Well it has been a month, so let’s get to it. Go to the download page and download the source code of part 2 (Article #63). Unzip and open the solution in Visual Studio. Make sure you modify the API key and secret located in the console application (Program.cs code file). Replace the values with your own application’s key and secret.
Ready? Set? OK, let’s start with creating folders…
Dropbox REST API Part 2: API Requests
January 8, 2012
In the previous article, Dropbox REST API Part 1: Authentication, I showed you how you can obtain an access token using the Dropbox REST API and OAuth.
Once you have an access token, you can use it to access the main Dropbox REST API. Let’s demonstrate this by using some of the API’s requests such as retrieving account information and file (and directory) metadata.
It’s actually surprisingly easy. In the next part we’ll explore other options such as creating, deleting and moving folders.
Let’s get started…
Stack Exchange API
October 2, 2011
Two weeks ago I was playing around with the Stack Exchange API to see if it was easy to build a custom flair application. You know, this little guy:
How hard can it be to retrieve a user’s profile, badge count and reputation updates? Surely, Stack Exchange has an API. And they do…and it’s pretty easy to use. Let’s quickly cobble together a small sample application.
Replacing the “You have created a service” message
September 4, 2011
You all know the default page you get when you enter a WCF service’s URL in a browser (e.g. http://localhost/Service.svc). You are greeted by a blue and white (mostly white) screen that informs you that you have just created a service.
(Sorry for the Dutch localization in the screenshot.)
So apart from informing you that you have created a service (handy if you suffer from alzheimer), it also tells you where you can find the WSDL (just append ?wsdl), how to generate proxy classes and how to use these proxies.
That’s all fine, but you know all of this stuff already. Besides, you don’t want to display this message on public-facing services. Time to get rid of it.
WCF: Sharing Types Using .SvcMap
July 31, 2011
Suppose you have to create an application which consumes a couple of web services offered by a third party. For this post, let’s assume a bank offers a financial API and opted to expose it across multiple endpoints.
Imagine two simple services. One which allows you to withdraw money and another one for depositing money.
- http://localhost:8732/WithdrawalService
- http://localhost:8733/DepositService
Both of these services use a collection of types that are shared between them. How can we make sure these types are also shared on the client side?
Let’s find out…
Silverlight Asteroids Part 10: Asteroid Fragments
July 18, 2010
Time to bring the asteroids series to a conclusion. Let’s finish the game and make it a bit more interesting in this tenth and final part.
Right now when you shoot an asteroid it blows up and dissapears, but more often than not this would cause the asteroid to break into multiple fragments. Let’s modify the game and break up the asteroid into multiple parts when it gets shot.
NCache Distributed In-memory Object Cache
July 11, 2010
In my last post I discussed how you can setup Windows AppFabric Caching and use it from ASP.NET MVC.
AppFabric isn’t the only tool out there that provides you with a distributed in-memory object cache. NCache from Alachisoft is another excellent product which can solve your caching issues.
Let’s see it in action…
Windows Server AppFabric Caching
July 4, 2010
For those of you who haven’t heard about AppFabric yet, check out the Windows Server AppFabric Learning Center on MSDN. The first version is out now and can be downloaded here.
One key functionality of AppFabric that caught my attention was its caching feature also known as Velocity (Project Code Name). To quote MSDN:
“For Web applications, AppFabric provides caching capabilities to provide high-speed access, scale, and high availability to application data.“
Sounds interesting, especially as I am building a web application which is going to be hosted in a web farm. Instead of using ASP.NET’s built-in caching option, which is tied to a single AppDomain and thus one web server, I can opt to use a cache powered by AppFabric which is shared across web servers.
Let’s see it in action…
Silverlight Asteroids Part 9: Explosions
June 27, 2010
The spaceship is armed and can blast away at the asteroids. But as it stands now, the asteroids just disappear when they are hit by a bullet. Let’s put a cool explosion effect in the game.
To make this happen we’ll have to introduce an animated sprite into the game which simulates an explosion. Download the source code for part 8, open it in Visual Studio 2010 and let’s blow some stuff up.
Time to put the last finishing touches on the collision detection algorithm that we introduced in the last part of this series. The current algorithm that is in place functions correctly but sometimes you get a feeling that something is not quite right.
At the moment each sprite has a bounding rectangle and when one sprite’s bounding rectangle intersects with another sprite’s bounding rectangle we flag it as a collission. An image says more than a thousand words, so let’s see what can go wrong with this approach.
Figure 1 – Intersecting Bounding Rectangles
As you can see the sprites bounding rectangles intersect, but the spaceship and asteroid do not actually collide with each other. Let’s see how we can improve on this design.
