Scott Hanselman's ComputerZen.com

Venkat writes that he has a text file (CSV) containing over 50,000 URLs. “I want to run a program that will take this file as input and output a text file which contains only the valid URLs. Basically I need a URL/Link Validator that can perform this job.  I tried to put together a custom C# program to do this, but it takes several minutes just to do a hundred URL. Is there any program/code you are aware that can do this?”

I recommended a Range Retrieval Request, such as those used by GETRIGHT.  GetRight uses a Range Retrieval Request, like this.  You can do this in .NET by just adding the name/values for Range to the Headers collection.  NOTE: The Server CAN (and many will) ignore this request.   If you get partial content, you won’t get an OK 200, you’ll get a 206 and the Content-Length will have the amount of data included. 

However, another fellow, more clever than myself wrote me to say that a HEAD (rather than a GET) should provide enough information - namely the headers - to determine page existance, without the trouble of the HTTP Body Content.  Good stuff!

http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html#sec14.35.2
http://www.vbip.com/winsock/winsock_http_08_01.asp

Had a nice lunch at the O'Reilly Open Source Conference with Gunther Birznieks.  He's got offices in Singapore and we've got offices in Malaysia (I'll be there in August) and his company has worked with our company.  He was speaking at the conference but we really got to talking and somehow ended up on BBSs, and he mentioned that he wrote CBASE 64 a legendary and oft copied BBS for the, you guessed it, Commodore 64.  I have 3 C64s, 2 1541 drives and a 1501 monitor in my garage...perhaps it's time to fire it up and do some 2400bps war dialing? ;) 

Let your mind be as a floating cloud. Let your stillness be as the wooded glen. And sit up straight. You'll never meet the Buddha with posture like that.

There is no escaping karma. In a previous life, you never called, you never wrote, you never visited. And whose fault was that?

The Tao has no expectations. The Tao demands nothing of others. The Tao does not speak. The Tao does not blame. The Tao does not take sides. The Tao is not Jewish.

Drink tea and nourish life. With the first sip, joy. With the second, satisfaction. With the third, Danish.

The Buddha taught that one should practice loving kindness to all sentient beings. Still, would it kill you to find a nice sentient being who happens to be Jewish?

Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkes.

From Zen Judaism:  For You a Little Enlightenment by David M. Bader (Harmony Books) © 2002

Thanks to everyone at the Seattle .NET Developers Association.  I haven't done a lot of User's Group lately, but I had a blast at this one.