Scott Hanselman's ComputerZen.com

Which Are The Core XML Technologies That Matter?. I stumbled on the The Big Picture of the XML Family of Specifications which lists a large number of technologies that are related to XML in one way shape or form. It seems some people take a look at the diagram and it gives them the impression that XML is too complex after all, just look at all those specs. An interesting fall out of this has been that some fellow B0rg have posted their opinions on what they consider the core of XML. [Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life]

<brainstorming>
You know, this Big Picture is mostly fabulous. It's a great reference (perhaps a potential T-Shirt?), but it really DOES look a lot more complex that XML feels.  On the downside, while this giant document may be a fairly complete list of specs, when you look at it from a Tuftetian point of view, it doesn't make any useful qualitative judgements that we can infer via position.  If you apply Don's "kernel of XML" thoughts to a diagram like this, it would need to take into consideration the size and position of the boxes in perhaps a family tree, or perhaps a modified Venn Diagram.  It'd be nice if the a new diagram took into consideration time and dependancy, with sizes derived from relative importance (based on dependance).
</brainstorming>

Anyway, whether XML is complex, or not complex, or more complex than COM ever was, I care not.  XML just naturally feels right to me. (Remember to linger across the ee's in feels with the appropriate emphasis :)  Complexity doesn't always imply level of difficulty or demand that one impugn.

Here's an interesting cursor, and clever use of Flash.

More bloggers...fellow RD Jon Box is up and running, as well as Eric Gunnerson.  Welcome!  

Eric's first post was about his Robot Vacuum...I look forward to more compelling Brummesque content from this Program Manager on the C# team. ;) <g>

Everyone once in a while someone says something that makes me fall off my chair...today:

"Yeah, I heard this new rapper, he says he's the white Eminem."

And dammit if this kid doesn't ACTUALLY EXIST. It's takes some serious grapes to call yourself the White Eminem.  Anyway.

This is a complex topic, but here's a cursory explanation:

The Web Server, in this case IIS, sets Content Expiration info and information about then things are modified in the HTTP Headers.  If you ask for something from the Web Server, but you say "only if modified since..." they will pass back “Not-Modified” HTTP Headers to the Browser. You can see this even when hitting F5 to refresh the browser if you use a tool like ieHTTPHeaders (http://www.blunck.info/iehttpheaders.html) .  Look at IE Content Expiration in the Properties. 

Most folks like to have a “/images” folder that has SEPARATE Content Expiration settings and static content, or many levels of image volatility.

You have a few possible solutions:

·         Have volatile (often changing) images stored in one folder and set to expire immediately or on your specific schedule. 

·         Have the Browser user press CTRL-F5 to “blow through the cache”…F5 in IE will NOT fetch updated images until they expire. Pressing CTRL-F5 will keep the browser from including “If-Not-Modified” – which is equivalent to saying “get it anyway.”

·         Check the GET requests of your images in the HTTP Headers to see when they will expire...then wait. ;)

·         If you are generating the images yourself (dynamically generated on the server side) then you control the headers, so you can force updates by writing the appropriate headers yourself.

Notice in this screen shot that even though I pressed F5, the Web Server responded “This image hasn’t been modified!”

Even more, this request from the browser specified “Only give me this image if it’s been modified since a certain date.”

The moral of this story is, you'll never know the WHY of the behavior of your system unless you know both the HOW of the HTTP Spec and the QUIRKY HOW of the browser whose behavior you're examining.