Hi users of blogengine. I'd like to announce another minor update to the foursquare widget for your favourite blogging platform which can be downloaded from codeplex. By the way this will be the last release working with the feeds, the next release will be running with the foursquare API.

out-of-the-box usage
Now everyone is able to use the plugin with your out-of-the-box BE installation, because I've changed the parts which were using LINQ to use .NET 2.0 methods. So there's no need to change the framework version to 3.5 anymore...

W3C compliant
The other thing I'd like to announce is that the widget is now fully W3C compliant, like BE itself.

Icons are back
Last I want to mention that the icons are getting embedded again, because they disappeared in some browsers while displayed via css.

Important
You probably have to reset the blogengine application after you've uploaded the widget to your hosting provider. Sorry for that.

Notice
There's a newer release available.

During the last week I've added Bing Maps to the widget, so that you're last check-ins can be displayed on there.

Can I deactivate the map?
I've assumed that not all of you, would like to show your check-ins on the map aswell, so I've implemented the option to turn the map off.

Will the map play nicely with my current theme?
For everyone with a custom designed theme it sometimes can be frustrating adding another widget because you have to alter design settings everytime a new version comes out, to make this part easier, you can now edit the height and width settings in the edit section of the foursquare blogengine widget.

Where can I find the widget?
The new release, as all the other releases, is available at the according codeplex site.

Important
With the current version you'll still need to reset the application after you've uploaded the widget. Sorry for that.

Notice
There's a newer release available.

Last Sunday I decided to build a foursquare sidebar widget for BlogEngine.NET since there wasn't anything around yet. The current version simply shows the last places you've checked-in and is mostly based on the twitter widget from Mads Kristensen.

Requirements
In order to use the widget you will need to have .NET 3.5 installed on your server. I will probably port everything to .NET 2.0 later, but since I was used to work with LINQ, I implemented everything in .NET 3.5.

Installation
First of all download the current version available at codeplex. Extract it and upload everything to your BlogEngine directory into the widgets folder. If you've uploaded the files and switched your current BlogEngine installation to .NET 3.5 you're ready to open your site in the browser and add the widget to the sidebar.
After you've added the widget, you'll have to specify some settings regarding your foursquare feeds. Simply open http://feeds.foursquare.com and copy-paste the urls for the rss and kml feeds into the according input fields inside the foursquare widget edit section. Then go to your foursquare page by clicking on me in the navigation bar at the top, copy and paste the url into the account url input field. Next decide how much your feed should be requested from foursquare. But keep in mind, that if you choose the number of request per hour to high you might get blocked by foursquare. I guess every 15 minutes should already be enough for the average user. Finally choose how many check-ins you want to display on your blog. Next save your settings, and then you're ready to enjoy foursquare together with BlogEngine.NET.

Important
It's possible that the BlogEngine application has to be restarted, after you have added the foursquare widget.

If you have any suggestions or ideas how the widget can be extended or improved please feel free to leave a comment, send me an email or contact me via twitter.