OpenSocial API Tomorrow!

wanna build a widget for hi5, linkedin, friendster, and all the other social networking sites?

Tomorrow Google will release it's OpenSocial API. Instead of learning a new *ML (markup language) you just code with regular javascript or html with the help of OpenSocial.

I'm not sure if this will work with facebook with it's FBML and all that jazz. I could be wrong.

Man, these portal's are the way to go for startups these days. Or build a porn site.

XmlSerialization using MemoryStream

Here's a treat for you peeps that need some serialization action, and making it a utility... Check it!

public static string Serialize<ITEM_TO_SERIALIZE>(ITEM_TO_SERIALIZE itemToSerialize)

{

using (MemoryStream memoryStream = new MemoryStream())

{

XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(itemToSerialize.GetType());

XmlTextWriter writer = new XmlTextWriter(memoryStream, new UTF8Encoding());

writer.Formatting = Formatting.Indented;

writer.IndentChar = ' ';

writer.Indentation = 5;

serializer.Serialize(writer, itemToSerialize);

return ASCIIEncoding.UTF8.GetString(memoryStream.ToArray());

}

}

Whoa! Where Have I Been?

Been reading this: http://rfacebook.rubyforge.org/

And this....

 def select
  fql =  "SELECT uid, name FROM user WHERE uid IN" +
  "(SELECT uid2 FROM friend WHERE uid1 = #{@current_fb_user_id}) " +
  "AND has_added_app = 0"
  xml_friends = fbsession.fql_query :query => fql
  @friends = Hash.new
  xml_friends.search("//user").map do|usrNode|
    @friends[(usrNode/"uid").inner_html] = (usrNode/"name").inner_html
  end
  render_facebook
end

I will announce once my app is ready for the public!