Book reviews for June 2013

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Friday, February 24, 2017.

Letters by Kurt Vonnegut

4/5

Engrossing collection of letters, helpfully sprinkled with context.

How to get SEO credit for Facebook Comments (the missing manual)

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Sunday, September 30, 2018.

I've been using the Facebook Comments Box on this blog since I parted ways with Disqus. One issue with the Facebook system is that you won't get SEO credit for comments displayed in an iframe. They have an API to retrieve comments but the documentation is pretty light and so here are three critical tips to get it working.

The first thing to know is that comments can be nested. Once you've got a list of comments to enumerate through you need to check each comment to see if it has it's own list of comments and so on. This is pretty easy to handle.

The second thing is that the first page of JSON returned from the API is totally different from the other pages. This is crazy and can bite you if you don't test it thoroughly. For https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/comments/ the first page is https://graph.facebook.com/comments/?ids=https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/comments/. The second page is embedded at the bottom of the first page and is currently https://graph.facebook.com/10150360250580608/comments?limit=25&offset=25&__after_id=10150360250580608_28167854 (if that link is broken check the first page for a new one). The path to the comment list is "https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/comments/" -> "comments" -> "data" on the first page and just "data" on the second. So you need to handle both formats as well as the URL being included as the root object on the first page. Don't know why this would be the case, just need to handle it.

Last but not least you want to include the comments in a way that can be indexed by search engines but not visible to regular site visitors. I've found that including the SEO list in the tag does the trick, i.e.

I've included the source code for an ASP.NET user control below - this is the code I'm using on the blog. You can see an example of the output on any page with Facebook comments. The code uses Json.net.

FacebookComments.ascx:

<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="FacebookComments.ascx.cs" Inherits="LocalControls_FacebookComments" %>

FacebookComments.ascx.cs

using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Globalization; using System.Net; using System.Text; using System.Web; using System.Web.Caching; using Newtonsoft.Json.Linq; // ReSharper disable CheckNamespace public partial class LocalControls_FacebookComments : System.Web.UI.UserControl // ReSharper restore CheckNamespace { private const string CommentApiTemplate = "https://graph.facebook.com/comments/?ids={0}"; private const string CacheTemplate = "localfacebookcomments_{0}"; private const int CacheHours = 3; public string PostUrl { get; set; } protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { try { if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(PostUrl)) { string cacheKey = string.Format(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, CacheTemplate, PostUrl); if (HttpRuntime.Cache[cacheKey] == null) { StringBuilder commentBuilder = new StringBuilder(); string url = string.Format(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, CommentApiTemplate, PostUrl); while (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(url)) { string json; using (WebClient webClient = new WebClient()) { json = webClient.DownloadString(url); } // parse comments JObject o = JObject.Parse(json); if ((o[PostUrl] != null) && (o[PostUrl]["comments"] != null) && (o[PostUrl]["comments"]["data"] != null)) { // first page AppendComments(o[PostUrl]["comments"]["data"], commentBuilder); } else if (o["data"] != null) { // other pages AppendComments(o["data"], commentBuilder); } else { break; } // next page URL if ((o[PostUrl] != null) && (o[PostUrl]["comments"] != null) && (o[PostUrl]["comments"]["paging"] != null) && (o[PostUrl]["comments"]["paging"]["next"] != null)) { // on first page url = (string) o[PostUrl]["comments"]["paging"]["next"]; } else if ((o["paging"] != null) && (o["paging"]["next"] != null)) { // on subsequent pages url = (string) o["paging"]["next"]; } else { url = null; } } string comments = commentBuilder.ToString(); HttpRuntime.Cache.Insert(cacheKey, comments, null, DateTime.UtcNow.AddHours(CacheHours), Cache.NoSlidingExpiration); LiteralFacebookComments.Text = comments; } else { LiteralFacebookComments.Text = (string)HttpRuntime.Cache[cacheKey]; } } } catch (Exception) { LiteralFacebookComments.Text = string.Empty; } } private static void AppendComments(IEnumerable comments, StringBuilder commentBuilder) { foreach (JObject comment in comments) { // write comment commentBuilder.AppendFormat(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, "{0} ({1})\r\n", comment["message"], comment["from"]["name"]); // also write any nested comments if ((comment["comments"] != null) && (comment["comments"]["data"] != null)) { AppendComments(comment["comments"]["data"], commentBuilder); } } } }

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Skype for Android 4 - Better but Useless

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Saturday, October 1, 2022.

Skype just released a completely rewritten version of their Android client.

It's a nice streamlined UI and for the first time on Android it actually loads the 15,422 chats I'm required to participate in work and is usable and responsive. I've used it for a few days and really want to like it.

But.

Even though it's faster and prettier it still destroys battery life. Imo.im ad Plus.im manage to handle multiple networks all day without putting a noticeable dent int the battery. With Skype up and running my phone is dead by the early evening. It's useless.

They also haven't fixed syncing the read state of messages which is the worst deficiency of Skype on both mobile and the desktop. Imo.im did this wonderfully until Skype cut them off at the kneecaps.

Back to Plus.im for now...

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Leafhopper Nymph

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Saturday, June 7, 2025.

Leafhopper Nymph

I spotted this odd looking bug in my porch a few weeks ago. It looks like a wingless fly with a hairy tail that wouldn't look out of place on a fly sized horse.

My Google-fu failed me so I turned to JustAnswer. Random insect identification isn't your typical veterinary question but Rebeccavet came through for me via a taxonomist in Kenya and told me it's a Leafhopper (Cicadellidae) nymph. Given this information Google Images confirmed that this seems like the most likely possibility.

(Full disclosure - I work at JustAnswer.)

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Catfood Earth for Android 1.20

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Monday, May 31, 2021.

Catfood Earth for Android 1.20

I recently upgraded to the HTC One which has a transparent notification bar. This makes it hard to see notification icons when using Catfood Earth as your wallpaper, at least in the summer when it's always light at high latitudes and your white icons are displayed on top of polar ice and clouds.

Catfood Earth for Android 1.20 fixes this with an option to paint black under the notification bar. That's the only update other than the latest Xamarin runtime.

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Pride

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Saturday, June 7, 2025.

Pride

Updated 2013-06-30 19:51:

Pride

Updated 2013-06-30 20:37:

Pride

Updated 2013-07-01 00:31:

Pride

Updated 2013-07-01 08:37:

Pride

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Commute

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Saturday, June 7, 2025.

View of Alcatraz from Steiner and Pacific in San Francisco

View to Alcatraz from Steiner and Pacific - about to cycle down very fast.

Updated 2016-04-26 21:42:

Ecology Trial in The Presidio of San Francisco

View from the Ecology Trail in The Presidio of San Francisco.

(Previously: Commute failing to suck this morning...)

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Free

By Robert Ellison. Updated on Saturday, January 18, 2025.

Free

Free Firewood... and Tibet

Sign seen in Bernal Heights, San Francisco.

In this photograph titled "Free," the viewer is immediately drawn to a makeshift, handwritten sign that reads "FREE FIREWOOD +TIBET!" The sign, crafted from a piece of paper, is affixed to the bark of a tree. Surrounding it, dappled sunlight filters through the leaves, casting gentle shadows that dance upon the surface of the paper. The background is a lush tapestry of greenery, composed of leaves and foliage, invoking a sense of nature’s quiet abundance. The overall scene feels organic and spontaneous, captured during a moment of serene outdoor stillness.

The composition of the photograph is striking in its simplicity. The centered placement of the sign serves as the focal point, guiding the viewer’s eye immediately to its message. This centralization reflects a straightforward style that contrasts with the natural chaos of the surrounding foliage. The play of light and shadow adds a dynamic element, enhancing the text’s legibility and imparting a natural texture to both the sign and the tree. What resonates well is the raw, unpolished nature of the sign against the natural backdrop, emphasizing a poignant rustic charm. However, the photograph might have benefitted from a slightly higher contrast or saturation to further differentiate between the sign and the foliage, making the message stand out even more vividly.

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