eXposed Services
This sub-site is a fledgling product here at Reliable Answers. The intent of this region is to provide useful web services to both developers and end-users.
At this time only four service frameworks are being offered, each of which simply wraps a service exposed by another party for ease of use or in order to extend the service to make it more functional.
KBAlertz Classic ASP Framework 2.0
This framework provides a simple 'drop in' method to incorporate the excellent kbAlertz.com service into your Classic Active Server Pages application. It features the ability to use local caching to avoid wasting server resources with remote requests, as well as custom display formatting using a simple-to-follow XSL StyleSheet.
Download it here (11.6 kb, 1940 downloads).
Netcraft eXtension for Internet Explorer
This Browser Extension provides several integration methods for Netcraft's host analysis tools into Internet Explorer. It features a toolbar button, link selection and default domain analysis, as well as a simple install/uninstall mechanism through an INF file (similar to TWEAKUI).
Download it here (4.6 kb, 1678 downloads).
Netcraft enables you to determine the type of server serving a website or web service. It also shows, if available, the length of time since the server was last rebooted, as well as a running time-scale for reboots on tracked servers.
This link demonstrates the information this tool would enable you to access directly for any site you were visiting, or a link appearing within your browser.
Wotsit eXtension for Internet Explorer
This Browser Extension provides a simple 'selection' integration for Wotsit's file type database into Internet Explorer. It consists of only an add-on toolbar button, but enables you to simply highlight the extension you want to research within an existing browser window and click the 'Wotsit' button to launch a query against Wotsit's database. It also installs/uninstalls through a simple INF file (similar to TWEAKUI).
Download it here (6.0 kb, 1930 downloads).
If you are unfamiliar with Wotsit, please check out their free services.
Wotsit appropriately bills itself as the 'Programmers File Format Collection'; in years of searching for resources like this I have never found anything that compares. It has an extensive array of structures, documents and references for most of the file formats available today.If you are interested in this, you may also be interested in my own ContentType service.
MSKB eXtension for Internet Explorer
This Browser Extension provides several integration methods for Microsoft's Knowledge Base into Internet Explorer. It features a toolbar button, 'selected text' as search query, MSKB Article direct lookup, as well as a simple install/uninstall mechanism through an INF file (similar to TWEAKUI).
Download it here (5.3 kb, 1738 downloads).
The Microsoft Knowledge Base, or "MSKB", has an enormous host of information regarding tools, languages, operating systems and 'issues' relating to Microsoft and their software. It provides a great deal of information, samples and suggestions for completing certain tasks, but also serves as the repository for all known issues relating to Microsoft technologies. A very useful resource in anyone's arsenal, this framework provides quick access to their cryptic interface directly through your browser and HTML Help files. This tool can be used on selected text within the Visual Studio Help File, for example, when you want the latest information regarding a technology that you're sure has been revised or extended.
Click here and here to see samples of the information this tool would enable you to access directly from any site you were visiting.
For all of the frameworks and services available here, please download the associated file and read the ReadMe.txt file within the zip.
