Crysis 2 Multiplayer Demo

Posted by jasper22 at 22:57 | Saturday, March 5, 2011

As promised, Electronic Arts has released a multiplayer demo for Crysis 2 (PC, Xbox 360) offering two maps, two modes (Team Instant Action pits two teams against each other as they kill as many opponents as possible to win the round and Crash Site, where players will battle for control of alien drop pods, earning points by guarding their pods and keeping enemies at bay), and hours of multiplayer action. The first map, Skyline, is set along New York rooftops and is playable in Team Deathmatch. The second, Pier 17, is a more open map that's playable in Crash Site mode -- a variant of King of the Hill where you will fight for control of alien drop pods and rack up points in the process. The 1.6GB PC download can be found on AtomicGamer, CGO.ro, NVIDIA, GH, STEAM and SI. If you're an Xbox 360 user, you can download the demo from the Xbox Live Marketplace.

How to Send a Ringtone from One Android Phone to Another

Posted by jasper22 at 02:58 |

Nothing says friendship like sharing that ringtone you picked up and sending it your friends. But how exactly do you do that? What do you need to do in order to make sure they get it? What apps or equipment do you need? Here, we answer "How do I send a ringtone from my Android to another?"

Sharing is Caring

Have you ever been somewhere, heard a cell phone go off, and wondered where that person got that particular ringtone? Cell phone technology has advanced from giant and bulky handsets to the slim and portable smartphone tech that we have now. Along with that advance has come the ability to customize your phone however you want it. One aspect is to personalize your ringtone -- that is the sound that goes off when someone calls you. Most people aren't that excited about the standard phone ring, so many either download or make their own.

But if your friend has an Android phone and you want their ringtone on your Android phone you may have wondered - "How do I send a ringtone from my Android to another?" There are actually several ways in which you can share ringtones with your friends and this article looks at three different ways - e-mail, Bluetooth, and third party apps.

How Do I Send a RIngtone from My Android to Another?

As mentioned, there are a few ways in which you can share ringtones, pictures, music, and other things with your Android cell phone. Some basic and easy ways include using Bluetooth technology, e-mail, and third party apps like Bump.

Bluetooth

Bluetooth is a radio technology that allows for sharing of information and data in a short radius. While not as big or popular as Wi-Fi (which allows us to work wherever), it is still a popular technology that enables a wide variety of usage. There are Bluetooth printers and of course, Bluetooth headsets. In terms of sharing ringtones, most cell phones now support Bluetooth.

Video Tutorial: Android Internals - Building a Custom ROM, Pt. 1 of 2

Posted by jasper22 at 02:58 |

Part 1 of 2. This video comes from a section of Marakana's Android Internals Training Course, which Marko Gargenta presented in Beijing, China earlier this year.

In this two-part series, Marko is going to show you how to build a custom Android ROM from scratch. This series will cover:

Building Android From Source
Setting up your machine
Getting the source code: git and repo
Building the source code
Android project layout - what is what

Building Custom Android ROM

Customizing the build
Adding and removing applications
Rooting the device and modifying users
Modifying startup process
Installing native libraries

Modifying Android Frameworks

About Android frameworks and services
Sensor service
Telephony service
Multimedia framework

The Door To More Tablet Apps Is Now Open: Fragments API Is Available For Nearly All Android Versions

Posted by jasper22 at 02:57 |

A new Application Programming Interface (API) called Fragments has been opened to all 1.6+ versions of Android. If you have no clue what that means, this should have the effect of making many more apps tablet-friendly on tablets and phone-friendly on phones.

At the core of Fragment’s API is the multi-panel user interface that you see on certain tablet email apps, for example (labels in left panel, inbox in right panel). The ability to use this layout will now be integrated into a variety of applications without compromising the more basic look for phones. This will allow the same program to show the multi-panel look when run on a tablet, while phones stay with the single-panel UI.

PROTIP: PARALLEL-INSTALLING MONO VERSIONS IN AN APT-HAPPY WAY

Posted by jasper22 at 02:55 |

If you’ve ever gotten tired of waiting for a new Mono release to appear, and taken matters into your own hands by compiling your own copy of Mono, you’ve likely faced the problem of “missing” libraries. “That’s weird, it says it can’t find gtk-sharp, but I have that package!”
This happens because every version of Mono on your system has what’s called a Global Assembly Cache – a location where all system-wide assemblies lives. So when you run an app like Tomboy, it loads its libraries such as GTK# from the GAC belonging to the Mono runtime being used. Ordinarily, this is in /usr/lib/mono/gac on a Debian/Ubuntu system.

When you have your parallel Mono, it doesn’t share a GAC – as a result, libraries in your main distro GAC are not available in your DIY GAC, as they were never registered in there.

Typically, the advice is to either start compiling every lib you need into a non-standard place too – however, here’s a better idea. Why not make Apt take care of not only your system’s GAC – but additional GACs too? We actually have structures in place to handle this, so it’s not as hard as you think (merely relatively unknown). This guide does NOT take startup scripts into account – it’s your problem to ensure you’re using the correct “mono” command to run your copy of MonoDevelop or Tomboy or whatever. You should probably learn about update-alternatives and $PATH for this. Oh, and this guide will BREAK HORRIBLY if you try to uninstall system mono completely. Don’t try it.

Setup step 1: preparation
Don’t install parallel Mono into /usr/local. I don’t care what happens to you if you do. Use some random folder in /opt, usually a per-build prefix like /opt/mono-2.10

Setup step 2: duplicating existing magic
Open a terminal, and copy /usr/share/cli-common/runtimes.d/mono to a new filename, e.g. /usr/share/cli-common/runtimes.d/mono-2.10

Setup step 3: tweak duplicate magic
Open your copied file in an editor, and change the name value on line 27ish (e.g. from “Mono\n” to “Mono (parallel 2.10 install)\n”). Then change the two places in the file, on lines 64ish and 120ish, from “/usr/bin/gacutil” to “/opt/mono-2.8.2/bin/gacutil” or equivalent.

Setup step 4: apply magic to existing packages
Run “/usr/share/cli-common/gac-install mono-2.10″ (or whatever filename you picked for your runtimes.d entry) as root. This will instantiate your parallel GAC(s).
From now on, every GAC library you install or uninstall will happen to every single runtime in runtimes.d.

To go back to how things were before, with only a single Mono runtime:

OpenGL ES 2.0 in libgdx

Posted by jasper22 at 02:53 |

I played around with the awesome libgdx which makes it possible to develop for desktop and android at the same time. I tried some OpenGL ES 2.0 shader stuff to test the performance. Here are some of the results on a Motorola Milestone with android 2.2.

Monjori Shader from mic:

[Monodroid] Preview 13 Hotfix Released

Posted by jasper22 at 20:16 | Friday, March 4, 2011

Hello MonoDroiders,

If you are hitting the "Unhandled exception in button_ok_Click:Task" error, I have posted a hotfix that should fix this error:

http://go-mono.com/monodroid-download/monodroid9639-hotfix.msi

Note that as a hotfix, this has less testing than normal, so you may not want to upgrade if you are not having this issue.

Please let me know if you still experience this issue, or any new issues with this hotfix.

Thanks!

Jonathan

Google to Certify Apps Expertise

Posted by jasper22 at 20:14 |

Google has launched a certification program for its Google Apps set of cloud-based programs. Appropriately enough, the certification process is all cloud-based as well.

The Google Apps Certified Deployment Specialist test, available starting Wednesday, is the first in a series of certifications Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has planned in the areas of sales, developer and support.

"Our customers want to recognize those users with the greatest expertise and our partners want a way to better differentiate themselves and their expertise to garner more clients," Stephen Cho, director of Google's Apps Channels, told InternetNews.com.

Jon Hallett, CEO of Cloud Sherpas, a Google Apps authorized reseller, said he thinks the certification program "will help generate new client interest by highlighting our commitment to offering the highest-value consulting services to the market."

The Google Apps Certified Deployment Specialist certifies IT professionals who have demonstrated the fundamental knowledge and skills required to migrate to, configure, and deploy Google Apps, the search giant said.

Cho said the multiple choice exam tests specific knowhow and expertise in migration issues and related tasks. Exams must be scheduled and there is a live human proctor monitoring the process.

The $100 fee includes a webcam provided by Google, which must be used as part of the process. Cho said Google is working with third-party companies to help administer the exams. The proctors will have a view of the applicant's face and keyboard as a check against cheating.

"If there's anything going on that looks suspicious the proctor can text the applicant as a warning or shut them down depending on what they see," said Cho. Google requires a minimum of a 14-day wait to retake the exam and another 60 day wait if it needs to be retaken again. Users can see their results immediately upon completion of the exam. There is also an annual recertification requirement, i.e. retaking the latest version of the exam.

Network Monitor

Posted by jasper22 at 20:12 |

Project Description
Simple application with a vu-meter style display of recent incoming network traffic.

- Requires .NET 4,
- Requires WinPCap (http://www.winpcap.org/)
- Only tested to run under Windows 7

Read more: Codeplex

Posted via email from Jasper-net

Hash Crack - IGProgram

Posted by jasper22 at 20:11 |

FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=hashcrack&DownloadId=211131

Hash Crack is a software program for hashes and passwords cracking.

Hash Crack use dictionary or set of symbols for hashes cracking, and also support pwdump file format for Windows passwords cracking NTHash MD4.

Features
- Crack list of hashes or pwdump file format for MD4 NTHash
- Hash functions: MD2, MD4, MD5, SHA1, SHA256, SHA384, SHA512
- Crack with dictionary text file
- Crack with set of symbols

Hash cryptographic function is a one way function that creates hash from some value and cannot be reversed.
For example MD4 hash function for value password1 creates hash E2E0D780CC30CCFBD1BBCF196B97A735 and it is one way function, it is not possible from the hash to get back to value password1.

Hash functions are used also in information technology security, for cryptography, communication, password storage …

Windows operating systems store user passwords in hash format, when the user first time creates password the operating system transform the password with hash functions LM and NT(MD4) and save the hashes to the system registry.

These hashes can be extracted with programs as pwdump.exe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwdump

Example of usage and result of pwdump.exe, the right most hash is NTHash (MD4).
C:\>pwdump.exe -o hashes.txt windowsxp
HelpAssistant:1000:5E6C5112C3BDA4B6E4351D29FB15DCDF:712F59799EE21A074B3C40E7739EB1E1:::
…

Hash cryptographic function is a one way cannot be reversed, but the hash can be cracked creating hashes from different values for example from dictionary and comparing generated hashes with the target hash.

Read more: Codeplex

Posted via email from Jasper-net

Basic JQuery Interview Questions

Posted by jasper22 at 20:10 |

If you put jQuery in your CV, then beware, you should be able to answer following questions. Better you read on, and test yourself how much you can score.

1. What is jQuery & its significance? Why it is so popular?
2. What is jQuery UI?
3. What are various jQuery Features?
4. What do Dollar ($) sign significance in jQuery?
5. Does document.ready() function similar to onload()? (Or)Explain the importance of document.ready()?
6. How did you use jQuery in ASP.Net Application? Explain with an example?
7. Explain How jQuery Works?
8. What are the advantages using jQuery?
9. Do you prefer jQuery over JavaScript? Explain Why?

7 Useful Tools For Android Developers

Posted by jasper22 at 20:09 |

There’s a huge market for mobile app development. I’m an iPhone user myself, and we’ve posted plenty of stuff here on iOS design and development. But it looks like the popularity of the Android platform isn’t slowing down anytime soon. It’s market share keeps growing. So we thought it was about time that we help out you Android developers out there. Here’s a list of tools and kits that you should find handy.

Android Honeycomb Stencils & Sketchsheets
DroidDraw
Sensor Simulator
Fireworks template for Android
App Inventor
Android Phone GUI Kit
Android Sketch Stencil

How to: Storyboard only start with the conspicuousness of the application in the browser window

Posted by jasper22 at 20:08 |

In two previous articles, I have described techniques to only start a Storyboard when loading of the Silverlight based application is complete. These techniques help no longer at the latest when the Silverlight application has a small size, part of a larger html page is and is not initially visible, if the html page starts, for example because it is embedded at the bottom of the html page.

This article fills this gap.

At the bottom of this article, you will find a sample application that demonstrates the technique. The application takes place a Storyboard, as soon as the application in the browser window is visible. If you are curious, scroll this page simply down and as soon as the sample application is visible, the storyboard begins. (The Storyboard a bar from left to right is moving and changes the background color of dark grey to green.) (It runs only once.) Below you will find the source first.

Partial Public Class Main page
Inherits UserControl

Public Sub New()

InitializeComponent()

AddHandler CompositionTarget.Rendering, AddressOf DoSomething

End Sub

Private Sub DoSomething (ByVal sender as object, ByVal e as EventArgs)

sbTest.Begin()

RemoveHandler CompositionTarget.Rendering, AddressOf DoSomething

End Sub

End Class

And this is how it works. In the handlers of the constructor of the application, a delegate is added to the CompositionTarget.Rendering() event. This delegate points to the DoSomething() method. The DoSomething() method starts the storyboard, and then remove the delegate.

And why does the whole thing? It's simple: The event "Rendering()" of the class CompositionTarget fires only if the Silverliight PlugIn in the browser window is visible at least part of the way."

If you want to use GUIDs to identify your files, then nobody's stopping you

Posted by jasper22 at 20:07 |

Igor Levicki proposes solving the problem of file extensions by using a GUID instead of a file name to identify a file.

You can do this already. Every file on an NTFS volume has an object identifier which is formally 16-byte buffer, but let's just call it a GUID. By default a file doesn't have an object identifier, but you can ask for one to be created with FSCTL_CREATE_OR_GET_OBJECT_ID, which will retrieve the existing object identifier associated with a file, or create one if there isn't one already. If you are a control freak, you can use FSCTL_SET_OBJECT_ID to specify the GUID you want to use as the object identifier. (The call fails if the file already has an object identifier.) And of course there is FSCTL_GET_OBJECT_ID to retrieve the object identifier, if any.

#define UNICODE
#define _UNICODE
#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <tchar.h>
#include <ole2.h>
#include <winioctl.h>

int __cdecl _tmain(int argc, PTSTR *argv)
{
HANDLE h = CreateFile(argv[1], 0,
FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_WRITE |
FILE_SHARE_DELETE, NULL,
OPEN_EXISTING, 0, NULL);
if (h != INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE) {
FILE_OBJECTID_BUFFER buf;
DWORD cbOut;
if (DeviceIoControl(h, FSCTL_CREATE_OR_GET_OBJECT_ID,
NULL, 0, &buf, sizeof(buf),
&cbOut, NULL)) {
GUID guid;
CopyMemory(&guid, &buf.ObjectId, sizeof(GUID));
WCHAR szGuid[39];
StringFromGUID2(guid, szGuid, 39);
_tprintf(_T("GUID is %ws\n"), szGuid);
}
CloseHandle(h);
}
return 0;
}
This program takes a file or directory name as its sole parameter and prints the associated object identifier.

Big deal, now we have a GUID associated with each file.

The other half is, of course, using this GUID to open the file:

#define UNICODE
#define _UNICODE
#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <tchar.h>
#include <ole2.h>

int __cdecl _tmain(int argc, PTSTR *argv)
{
HANDLE hRoot = CreateFile(_T("C:\\"), 0,
FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_WRITE |
FILE_SHARE_DELETE, NULL,
OPEN_EXISTING,
FILE_FLAG_BACKUP_SEMANTICS, NULL);
if (hRoot != INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE) {
FILE_ID_DESCRIPTOR desc;
desc.dwSize = sizeof(desc);
desc.Type = ObjectIdType;

UI Design Pattern - Dashboard

Posted by jasper22 at 20:06 |

Dashboard a landing page of an application containing large and clear symbols of main functionality and optionally an area for relevant new information.

Check out Google I/O 2010 conference presentation Android UI design patterns for a conference presentation about UI design patterns. It features the dashboard pattern.

Pattern card

Problem

Very clear and easily accessible navigation to application's main functionality is very important in mobile applications. They are used for short periods of time usually to achieve a very simple goal (post a update to a social network, send a message, take a picture, etc).

פעולות חיתוך ואיחוד בין קבוצות וביצוע Union בעזרת Join

Posted by jasper22 at 20:04 |

דרך מעניינת להסתכל על טבלאות היא כעל קבוצות של רשומות.

נכון שהדימוי האינטואיטיבי הוא דווקא של רשימה מסודרת (טבלה..) אבל לסדר אין חשיבות והטבלה נשארת אותה טבלה ללא קשר לאופן המיון הלוגי או הפיזי של הרשומות (זו כנראה אחת הסיבות להתעקשותה של Microsoft לא לאפשר ביצוע Order By ב-View), ובין טבלאות ניתן לבצע פעולות חיתוך ואיחוד כפי שלמדנו במבוא לתורת הקבוצות..

לצורך ההמחשה ניצור שתי טבלאות בעלות מבנה זהה, ונכניס לתוכן נתונים - חלקם זהים וחלקם שונים:

Use tempdb;
Go

If Object_Id('Tbl1') Is Not Null Drop Table Tbl1;
Go

Create Table Tbl1(ID Int Primary Key,
Name Varchar(10),
Date DateTime);
Go

Insert
Into Tbl1
Select 1,'Anat','19700101' Union All
Select 2,'Beni','19750201' Union All
Select 3,'Galit','19770301' Union All
Select 4,'Dana','19800401';
Go

If Object_Id('Tbl2') Is Not Null Drop Table Tbl2;
Go

Create Table Tbl2(ID Int Primary Key,
Name Varchar(10),
Date DateTime);
Go

Insert
Into Tbl2
Select 3,'Galit','19770301' Union All
Select 4,'Dana','19800401' Union All
Select 5,'Eli','19880501' Union All
Select 6,'Hila','19900601';
Go

Getting Started with Spring.NET

Posted by jasper22 at 20:03 |

I have been a big fan of the Spring Framework for quite some time. As a matter of fact, I count on the many benefits and features of Spring for most of my Java projects. I have found Spring to be a gateway to productivity and better practice development for a number of solutions in the enterprise.

Recently, I have been investigating the .NET platform and C#. We have a mixed Java/C# environment at work and I would like to be a more flexible resource in order to help out on more projects. As I started looking into C#, I thought it was only appropriate to look into the Spring.NET project. It is quite similar to its Java counterpart and here is how I got things started with a very simple C# project:

First, I downloaded Visual C# 2010 Express. It is not quite as fancy as the variety of Visual Studio 2010 offerings, but it is a great IDE to get started with learning C#. Next, I downloaded the latest Spring.NET release, which happens to be version 1.3.1. In Visual C# 2010 Express, I then created a new blank project, ‘SpringNET1′. Next, I added the Spring.Core.dll and Common.Logging.dll as references in my new project.

I created a new Class, MyApp.cs. This is the entry point of my application. I will go over the details of the Main(string[] args) function shortly, but basically it grabs the application context, gets an instance of the MyService class, calls MyService’s GetName() function and writes the output to the console.

Социальные службы «помогают» похищать людей

Posted by jasper22 at 20:02 |

В последнее время преступники, которые занимаются похищением людей с целью получения выкупа, начали активно использовать для этих целей Интернет, в частности разнообразные социальные службы. В таких популярных сервисах, как Google, Facebook, Twitter и в таких геосоциальных службах, как Foursquare, легко можно узнать всю информацию о будущих жертвах. В Мексике, например, помощью этих служб часто пользуются киднепперы.

Мошенники действуют по выверенной схеме. Сначала выбирается случайная жертва, потом проверяется информация о ней в социальных сетях. Это легко можно сделать даже из смартфона, находясь в любом месте. Преступники получают полное представление о том, каким может быть размер выкупа для каждого конкретного человека.

Мошенники также могут узнать местопребывание конкретного человека в данный момент. Таким образом, он, сообщая всю информацию о себе и своих перемещениях, неосознанно может подвергнуть себя ограблению или насилию.

Пользователи сети ещё не привыкли к такой публичности, они смело оставляют сведения о своём местоположении . Активные завсегдатаи социальных служб не задумываются, что узнать, где они находятся, очень легко и с большой точностью. Мошенникам помогает сервис Please Rob me. С его помощью можно увидеть «чекины» в Foursquare, они подсказывают грабителям, когда их будущие жертвы могут находиться вне дома. Также были случаи ограбления из-за статусов в Facebook.

XAMLtoMVC dynamic image generator

Posted by jasper22 at 20:02 |

What XAMLtoMVC is for
XAMLtoMVC was created to ease tasks in web development when you have something to display that is impossible (or nearly impossible) with html. And especially with images you want to use, but you realize you can't because they are too static to reflect even the smallest changes.
The solution is based on MVC actions and Html helper methods creating images ondemand.

Let’s see some example problems and the extension methods that cure the pain.
Problems that can be solved with XAMLtoMVC
Problem 1. Your web page is designed with glossy buttons that have custom typefaces.

FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=xamltomvc&DownloadId=211041

Problem 2. You'd like to display user-uploaded images on your webpage in a polaroid-like frame with a soft shadow and a watermark on it.

FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=xamltomvc&DownloadId=211042

Read more: Codeplex

Posted via email from Jasper-net

F# WPF Application with Themes Template

Posted by jasper22 at 19:59 |

Project Description

F# WPF Template with Themes.

This project includes the source code of the template installer.
The template will generate a simple WPF application which contains a menu bar, sample UserControl and themes, and demonstrates the usage of the WPF Commanding (both built-in ApplicationComamnds and DelegateCommand).

After installing the template (VSIX file), you will see the “F# WPF application with Themes” project item in the new project dialog box as follow.

FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=fsharpwpftemplate&DownloadId=212354

Read more: Codeplex

Posted via email from Jasper-net

Getting ASP.NET MVC application to work on IIS 6.0

Posted by jasper22 at 19:59 |

איך להתקין אפליקציית Asp.net MVC על שרת iis 6.0.

שלב 1: התקנת Asp.net Mvc

מכאן אפשר להוריד את ההתקנה ל – Asp.net MVC 2. יש להוריד את הקובץ AspNetMVC2_VS2008.exe

לאחר ההורדה יש לחלץ את ההתקנה.

פתח Cmd, גש לתיקיה שבה נמצאת ההורדה וכתוב את הפקודה הבאה:

AspNetMVC2_VS2008 /x

נפתח חלון להכנסת שם התיקייה, ולאחר הזנת השם נוצרת תיקייה חדשה בשם שנתת, מתוך התיקייה שנוצרה תחת המחיצה של mvcruntime יש את הקובץ aspnetmvc2.msi אותו יש להתקין על השרת.

שלב 2: wildcard

כדי שאפליקציית mvc תעבוד צריך להגדיר על ה – VirtualDirectory מיפוי כך שהלינקים באפליקציה שאין להם סיומת aspx יעבדו.

תחת ה – properties ב – VirtualDirectory יש לבדוק שהגירסה של asp.net היא 4.0.

Stack architecture demystified

Posted by jasper22 at 19:58 |

Eli Bendersky resolves the confusion over stack architecture with the help of some diagrams. He focuses on the Intel x86 but it equally applicable to other architectures.
Where the top of the stack is on x86

I’ve noticed more than once that some programmers are confused about the direction in which the stack grows on x86, and what "top of the stack" and "bottom of the stack" mean. It appears that this confusion is caused by a basic mismatch in the way people are used to thinking about stacks, and in the way the stack on x86 actually behaves. It doesn’t help that some online resources mistakenly call the top of the stack "bottom". The version presented here is the correct one of x86, since it relies on terminology defined in Intel’s x86 architecture manuals.
In this article, I intend to resolve this confusion with a few helpful diagrams.
The stack analogy

Back to the basics. The stack analogy is sometimes demonstrated to new students of computing with a stack of plates. You push a plate onto the stack and pop a plate off the stack. The top of the stack is where your next plate goes when pushing, and from where you take a plate when popping.

Hardware stacks

In computers, the stack is usually a specially treated region of memory. In the abstract sense, the analogy applies – you push data by placing it on the top of the stack, and pop data by taking it from the top of the stack. Note that this doesn’t address the issue of where the top of the stack is located in memory.
The stack in x86

Herein lies the source of the confusion. Intel’s x86 architecture places its stack "head down". It starts at some address and grows down to a lower address. Here’s how it looks:

Создаем профессиональную, качественную тему для блога в Adobe Photoshop

Posted by jasper22 at 19:56 |

От автора: Из этого учебника вы узнаете, как простыми, прямыми дизайнерскими приемами можно создать качественную тему для блога сообщества в Adobe Photoshop. Несколько техник, обсуждаемых в этом пособии, включают использование надлежащих интервалов, типографской разметки текста, цветов и зрительной иерархии — некоторых основных инструментов из ящичка успешного дизайнера. Давайте начнем!

Конечный продукт. Что вы создадите

How to decide which WCF binding to choose??!!

Posted by jasper22 at 19:54 |

Hi,

I decided to share a nice diagram that can help you decide which WCF binding you should choose for your application or SOA architecture.

(If you can see the entire image you can download it using right click and "Save Picture As...")

Jquery Grid in ASP.NET MVC application Part2

Posted by jasper22 at 18:41 |

לפני כמה חודשים כתבתי פוסט על השימוש ב- Jquery Grid באפליקציות ASP.NET MVC מאז עברו מים (מעטים מדאי) בירדן וגיליתי שההתקנה קצת יותר מורכבת, בפוסט הנוכחי ריכזתי את כל שלבי ההתקנה בצורה מסודרת.

בהצלחה

שלב 1: התקנה

מכאן אפשר להוריד את ה – Plug in. כדאי להוריד את כל האפשרויות.

מתוך מחיצת ה – src יש להעתיק את כל קבצי ה – script וה – CSS לאפליקציה, ולבחור מתוך תיקיית ה - i18n את השפה איתה רוצים לעבוד

כך נראה ה – Solution לאחר ההתקנה.

בתוך ה – loader יש לשנות את הכתובת כך שהוא יטען את הקבצים

ב – MasterPage צריך לטעון את ה – Jquery, loader, JqModel ו – JqDnR.

Using the DrawAnimatedRects() function

Posted by jasper22 at 18:38 |

Introduction

If you look at MS Word and invoke the find dialog, you can see a neat animation. I wished to mimic this and came across the DrawAnimatedRects() function. The DrawAnimatedRects() function draws a wire-frame rectangle and animates it to indicate the opening of an icon, or the minimizing or maximizing of a window. The syntax is as follows:

BOOL WINAPI DrawAnimatedRects(
HWND hwnd, // handle to clipping window
int idAni, // type of animation
CONST RECT *lprcFrom, // rectangle coordinates (minimized)
CONST RECT *lprcTo // rectangle coordinates (restored)
);

The lprcFrom parameter sets where the animation will start, and the lprcTo value where the animation will end. For instance, if you wish to make a window appear to expand from a button to a window, you would set lprcFrom as the dimensions of the button, and lprcTo as the dimensions of the final window position. The effect is not as good as MS Word, but if any GUI experts can provide a MS Word Sample, it will be of great help.

Using the function

The sample application demonstrates a nice use of the function. In the demo, the About Box is animated so it appears to expand and collapse from a button inside a dialog.

To achieve this, you simply override the OnCreate and OnDestroy functions in your About Box dialog class, and add calls to DrawAnimatedRects() at the appropriate places.

To make things simple, we first store the dimensions of the button where the About Box will expand from. We add a member variable m_rectFrom to the About Box class and to make the About Box appear, we use the following.

CAboutDlg about;
m_ctlButton.GetWindowRect(about.m_rectFrom);
about.DoModal();

where m_ctlButton is the button control the About Box is appearing to expand from.

Next, you need to add overrides to OnCreate and OnDestroy inside your About Box class:

int CAboutDlg::OnCreate(LPCREATESTRUCT lpCreateStruct)
{
if (CDialog::OnCreate(lpCreateStruct) == -1)
return -1;

if (!m_rectFrom.IsRectEmpty())
{
CRect rectTo(lpCreateStruct->x,lpCreateStruct->y,
lpCreateStruct->x + lpCreateStruct->cx,
lpCreateStruct->y + lpCreateStruct->cy);

DrawAnimatedRects(m_hWnd, IDANI_CAPTION, m_rectFrom, rectTo);
}

return 0;
}

void CAboutDlg::OnDestroy()

IKVM.NET 0.46 Release Candidate 0

Posted by jasper22 at 18:36 |

Finally, after way too long, the first 0.46 release candidate is available.

What's New (relative to IKVM.NET 0.44):

Integrated OpenJDK 6 b22.
Added -Xreference: option to ikvm.exe and ikvm.runtime.Startup.addBootClassPathAssemby() API.
The binaries zip now includes lib/ikvm-api.jar to avoid having to run ikvmstub to get access to the IKVM Java APIs.
Ported parts of fdlibm to C# to use for StrictMath methods tan, cbrt, floor, pow, hypot, expm1 and log1p.
Add support for serializing .NET exceptions in Java. We don't serialize the actual object, but a placeholder instead, to avoid having to implement full .NET serialization interop.
Added IL optimization step to code generator.
Added SynchronizationContext for AWT event thread.
Many IKVM.Reflection improvements and bug fixes.
Many Swing/AWT improvements.
Implemented IPv6 support (.NET only) for java.net package APIs.
The sun.boot.class.path system property now points to VFS to allow javac to work (although a bit slow, because the boot class files are dynamically generated on demand).
Resource and generated stub classes are now projected into the virtual IKVM home directory, to make code that assumes that resources live in jars happy.
Improvements to @ikvm.lang.Internal handling.
Many minor improvements.

Fixes since previous development snapshot:

IKVM.Reflection: Added limited support for #- metadata stream ("uncompressed" table heap). ParamPtr table is not yet implemented.

Subversion v1.6.16

Posted by jasper22 at 18:35 |

Subversion Download: WANdisco's certified Apache Subversion open source software is a complete, fully tested version of Subversion based on the most recent, stable release, including the latest fixes. The software is backed by our dedicated team of Subversion development, QA and support professionals focused exclusively on delivering the highest quality version of the software. Our developers have been involved in the Subversion open source project since its inception and have the status within the community to make changes to Subversion's code base. This ensures fast delivery of fixes and enhancements. The team is led by Hyrum Wright, WANdisco’s Director of Open Source. Hyrum is president of the Subversion Corporation and has been the release manager for Subversion since early 2008

Version 1.6.12
- BUG: hook scripts could fail due to an invalid CWD parameter
passed to the CreateProcess API. (Stefan)

Version 1.6.11
- BUG: Using spelling dictionaries in utf8 could crash
the commit dialog. (Stefan)
- BUG: Dialogs could hang if they were closed if the
modeless log dialog was still open. (Stefan)
- BUG: When checking an added file in the commit dialog,
the parent folder wasn't checked automatically if
it was added too. (Stefan)
- BUG: when passing /tourl: to the merge command, the
revision range page was shown instead of
the tree page. (Stefan)

Version 1.6.10
- BUG: Updating single items from the check-for-modifications
dialog could lead to inconsistent working copies. (Stefan)
- BUG: Adding a file in an unversioned folder from the commit
dialog only marked the file as added. (Stefan)
- BUG: The overlays didn't work on win2k up to XP SP2. (Stefan)
- BUG: The 'browse' button (...) in various dialogs did nothing
when a file:/// url was specified. (Stefan)

GDC11: Akamai launches net games publishing kit

Posted by jasper22 at 18:33 |

Electronic Software Delivery for Gaming offers download aid and metrics insight
Cloud optimisation services firm Akamai Technologies has unveiled an online gaming solutions package for devs called Electronic Software Delivery for Gaming.
Akamai has said that the package, which comprises the Akamai Download Manager, Akamai Download Analytics and HTTP delivery, 'leverages the strengths of the Akamai network to enhance a consumer’s game download experience and increase download completion rates for publishers.'
The package is targeted at working with 'try-before-you-buy' MMOGs and free casual games. Akamai has also talked-up the download metrics and consumer behaviour information it makes available to publishers, as well as its business support models.
“The Internet has transformed the gaming industry and presented new opportunities for game distribution and monetisation,” said Akamai senior product line director Reynold Harbin.
“Online and digitally-distributed games have advantages over the traditional software-in-a-box retail model, including more efficient game distribution, global reach, more social gaming experiences, and the opportunity for innovative, new business models.

Problems running sos-commands

Posted by jasper22 at 18:32 |

Yesterday I tried opening up a standard dump file from a 64-bit Windows 2008 Server. It opened up just fine in windbg, but when I tried executing a command I got the following:

0:000> !dumpheap -stat
The garbage collector data structures are not in a valid state for traversal.
It is either in the "plan phase," where objects are being moved around, or
we are at the initialization or shutdown of the gc heap. Commands related to
displaying, finding or traversing objects as well as gc heap segments may not
work properly. !dumpheap and !verifyheap may incorrectly complain of heap
consistency errors.
Error requesting GC Heap data
Unable to build snapshot of the garbage collector state

This can happen if both the .NET 4.0 and the .NET 2.0 runtime are loaded in the same process. I actually tried using .loadby on both Framework versions and neither of them returned with an error

0:000> .loadby sos mscorwks
0:000> .loadby sos clr

The easiest way to resolve this is to run the following command:

0:000> .cordll -I mscorwks.dll -N -ve

"Introduction to Mobile Application Development Using Silverlight [Windows Phone 7]" lectures and resources from the Microsoft Faculty Center

Posted by jasper22 at 18:31 |

"This course teaches students through lectures, discussions, demonstrations, and homework assignments. Students learn the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to develop a mobile application on the Windows Phone 7 platform using Microsoft Silverlight. Prior to taking this course, you should have some background in programming (preferably C#, but C, C++, Java helps).
...
Lesson Overviews

The Walkthrough videos in each lesson discuss the associated PowerPoint file and how to cover the material.

Lecture 1: Industry Perspective

Assignments (Word and Source Files)
Demos (Word and Source Files)
Silverlight Tools Demo – Hello Phone (Video)
WP7 L1 Industry Perspective (PowerPoint)
WP7 L1 Industry Perspective Walkthrough (Video)

Lecture 2: Anatomy of a Mobile Application

Assignments (Word and Source Files)
Isolated Storage Demo (Video)
Isolated Storage Demo (Word and Source Files)
Navigation Demo (Video)
Navigation Demo (Word and Source Files)
SIP Demo (Video)
SIP Demo (Word and Source Files)
WP7 L2 Anatomy of a Mobile Application (PowerPoint)
WP7 L2 Anatomy of a Mobile Application Walkthrough (Video)

Lecture 3: Multimedia Integration

Assignments (Word and Source Files)

Posted via email from Jasper-net

Video Tutorial: Android Application Development - StatusData

Posted by jasper22 at 16:06 |

Class 4, Part 1. This video comes from Marakana's 5-Day Android Bootcamp Training Course which Marko Gargenta taught in San Jose, CA earlier this year

In the previous tutorial, Class 3, Part 3, you learned how to create a local database for your Android app. Now, Marko will show you how to create the service (UpdaterService) that pulls data from the cloud and then inserts it into your local database.

In this tutorial, you will learn:
How to create the service that will pull data from the cloud and store it in your local database
How to verify that your database was created
How to use sqlite3 - A tool that ships with Android which gives you access to your database

Microsoft Press free ebook roundup, eight ebooks, one post, zero cost

Posted by jasper22 at 15:18 |

We haven’t posted this in a while and I thought that it might be time for a refresh. This is a list of all of our free ebooks. We’ll have more coming up in 2011, so stay tuned.

Posted via email from Jasper-net

Danger, Will Robinson!

Posted by jasper22 at 15:18 |

As long-time readers of this blog know, I am often asked why a particular hunk of bad-smelling code does not produce a compiler warning.

"Why not?" questions are inherently hard to answer because they turn causation on its head; normally we ask what caused a particular thing to happen, not what caused a particular thing to not happen. Therefore, rather than attack that question directly I like to rephrase the question into questions about the proposed feature. (A warning is of course a feature like any other.) By answering these questions we can see whether the compiler team is likely to spend its limited budget on the feature rather than prioritizing something else. Some questions I think about when considering "why did you not implement this warning?" are:

Did someone think of it?

If no one on the compiler team ever thinks of the possibility of a particular warning then obviously it won't happen. As an example of that, I was recently asked why:

using(null) statement;

does not produce a warning. That code is legal; it is equivalent to

IDisposable temp = null;
try
{
statement;
}
finally
{
if (temp != null) temp.Dispose();
}

Of course the code is completely pointless; all it does is introduce a try-finally block that adds nothing useful to the program. Why don't we give a warning for this useless code? Well, the primary reason is that (to my knowledge) no one on the compiler team ever thought that a customer would do such a thing, and therefore, never thought to design, implement, test and document a compiler feature to deal with the situation.

Posted via email from Jasper-net

WCF Credentials Manager in WPF (MVVM)

Posted by jasper22 at 15:17 |

Project Description
This is a WPF (MVVM) version of the IDesign WCF credentials manager. It provides a more responsive user interface for managing users and roles in applications that use the ASP.NET membership and role providers.

The project Overview contains details on setup and use, as well as acknowledgements.

Read more: Codeplex

Posted via email from Jasper-net

Android Developers Union makes Google demands

Posted by jasper22 at 15:16 |

AN ANDROID Developers Union has been set up to fight Google over allegations of poor Android Market conditions.
Apparently a disgruntled Android developer has compiled a list of demands that he believes will improve the Android Market. The demands include renegotiation of the 32 per cent Google tax on apps sales, public bug tracking, increased payment options, and a removal appeals process.
He says on the Android Developers Union blog, "If our demands are not met, we will move our applications to alternative marketplaces or the web, cease Android development in favor of other more open platforms."

"We will dissuade other developers from developing Android projects, and we will work tirelessly to counter any of Google's hypocritical claims about Openness in the media."

It is difficult to know how seriously to take this Android Developers Union, as it's unknown whether there is actually a group of developers involved rather than just one who is a little crazy and seriously annoyed. The picture the blog uses doesn't help, which is a photoshopped Android logo with a communist red star symbol and a fist of defiance.

What size icon am I supposed to use my for app/toolbar/menu/dialog/etc? The "Icon Reference Chart" might be just the icon cheatsheet you've been looking for..

Posted by jasper22 at 15:16 |

Looks like a handy chart... (I always forget what size Icon I can/should use where...)

Understanding and Using Parallelism in SQL Server

Posted by jasper22 at 15:13 |

Many experienced database professionals have acquired a somewhat jaded view of parallel query execution. Sometimes, this is a consequence of bad experiences with older versions of SQL Server. Just as frequently, however, this view is the result of misconceptions, or an otherwise incomplete mastery of the techniques required to effectively design and tune queries for parallel execution.

This is the first in a series of articles that will provide the reader with the deep knowledge necessary to make advanced use of the parallel query processing features available in Microsoft SQL Server. Part one provides a step-by-step guide to the fundamentals of parallelism in SQL Server, introducing concepts such as parallel scans and seeks, workers, threads, tasks, execution contexts, and the exchange operators that coordinate parallel activity.

Future instalments will provide further insights into the inner workings of the database engine, and show how targeted parallelism can benefit many real-world environments, not just the data warehousing and decision-support systems normally associated with its use. Systems that are often thought of as having a primarily transaction-processing (OLTP) workload often contain queries and procedures that could benefit from the appropriate use of parallelism.

Perhaps inevitably, this and subsequent instalments contain quite deep technical content in places. Making the most effective use of parallelism requires a good understanding of how things like scheduling, query optimization, and the execution engine really work. Nevertheless, it is hoped that even those who are completely new to the topic will find this series informative and useful.

What is Parallelism?

You have probably heard the phrase "many hands make light work". The idea is that splitting a task among a number of people results in each person doing less. From the individual's perspective, the job seems much easier, even though a similar amount of work is being done overall. More importantly, if the extra people can perform their allocation of work at the same time, the total time required for the task is reduced.

Counting Jelly Beans

Imagine you are presented with a large glass jar full of assorted jelly beans, and asked to count how many there are. Assuming you are able to count beans at an average rate of five per second, it would take you a little over ten minutes to determine that this particular jar contains 3,027 jelly beans.

If four of your friends offer to help with the task, you could choose from a number of potential strategies, but let's consider one that closely mirrors the sort of strategy that SQL Server would adopt. You seat your friends around a table with the jar at its centre, and a single scoop to remove beans from the jar. You ask them to help themselves to a scoop of beans whenever they need more to count. Each friend is also given a pen and a piece of paper, to keep a running total of the number of beans they have counted so far.

Improve Website Speed With mod_pagespeed

Posted by jasper22 at 15:12 |

Few months earlier, Google announced about their new developed Apache module, mod_pagespeed on their googlewebmaster's blog post. This is a apache module, which can be installed just like other apache modules and its command directives can be used on .htaccess file(If you don't know anything about using htaccess command directives, you are gladly invited to my another tutorial about apche htaccess tutorial for beginners).

Although Google mention that they are working with Godaddy to provide its support, Godaddy didn't instantly start supporting this on their hosting plans. After a few months of testing, Godaddy currently providing supports of this module for being used by its customers on linux shared hosting plans. As my hosting is also on Godaddy, i have come to experience it and found pretty much impressing. So, i decided to share some basic overview and quick start instructions about it. In this tutorial, I will show you how you can start using it very easily and can improve/optimize your website's performance.

Which Servers Supports mod_pagespeed?
As far I know, currently, Godaddy and Dreamhost have support for mod_pagespeed on their shared hosting environment. If you are using some other hosting, please check with them whether they supports or planning to supports in near future. Otherwise, if you using dedicated server, you can install mod_pagespeed yourself easily.

Basic htaccess structure for using mod_pagespeed:
To use mod_pagespeed on your server, first a .htaccess file is required on the hosting root directory. on the .htaccess file, use the following code snippet anywhere in the file(top/bottom, doesn't matter, just shouldn't be inside another module's code block):

<IfModule pagespeed_module>
ModPagespeed on
# using commands,fileters etc
</IfModule>

mod_pagespeed filters references:
Although there is a rich set of filters provided by mod_pagespeed module, my hosting provider, godaddy, doesn't support all. So, i didn't try all yet. But hope the following ones will be mostly help you to get a already a better result and help you get very good idea to use them and you can use others also without much hassle.

Creating a Silverlight Out-of-Browser Splash Screen

Posted by jasper22 at 15:11 |

Implementing the Splash Screen

The implementation is really very simple. At its heart, you’re simply loading in a very lean user control. After this lean view is loaded you then inject your first view, only setting it up so it’s not seen, but the views/controls/subviews/viewmodels all living in XAML get constructed. Once you’re ready, ripping out the splash screen and replacing it with the full content is all that’s left. At the end of the day you can simplify it down to one line in your app.xaml.cs.

App.Xaml.cs

private void Application_Startup(object sender, StartupEventArgs e)
{
if(App.Current.IsRunningOutOfBrowser)
{
SplashscreenController.Initialize(new Splash(), 500, 482, WindowState.Maximized,true, 600);
}
else
{
App.Current.RootVisual = new InstallView();
}
}
and with in the SplashScreenController:

public static void Initialize(UserControl splashcontrol, int width, int height, WindowState postWindowState, bool initializeOnLoad, double minSplashTime)
{
// only run if the rootvisual is null, ie only run when the splash or some content hasn't been shown
if (App.Current.RootVisual == null)
{
...

if (App.Current.IsRunningOutOfBrowser)
{
// ensure window widths match splash width
App.Current.MainWindow.Width = Width;
App.Current.MainWindow.Height = Height;
}
// pull out the type to be activated later
CoreScreenType = typeof(T);

Getting Started with Shader Effects in WPF

Posted by jasper22 at 17:54 | Thursday, March 3, 2011

Introduction

Hardware accelerated effects for WPF were first introduced in .NET 3.5 SP1. Very complex effects and graphically rich applications can be created with little impact on performance, thanks to the huge computing power of modern graphic cards. However, if you want to take advantage of this feature, you first need to learn a thing or two. The purpose of this article is to provide all the information you need to get started with Effects.

What is an Effect?

Effects are an easy-to-use API to create (surprisingly) graphical effects. For example, if you want a button to cast a shadow, there are several ways to accomplish the task, but the simplest and most efficient method is to assign the "Effect" property of the button, either from code or in XAML:

MyButton.Effect = new DropShadowEffect() { ... };
Collapse
<Button Name="MyButton" ... >
<Button.Effect>
<DropShadowEffect ... />
</Button.Effect>
</Button>
As you can see, effects are so easy to use that you don't need any further explanation. The fun starts when you decide to write your own effects...

BitmapEffect, Effect, ShaderEffect... What?

First of all, there are several .NET classes that share the "Effect" suffix, and to make it even more confusing, they are all in the System.Windows.Media.Effects namespace. However, not all of those classes are useful when it comes to hardware acceleration, in fact some of them are completely useless.

BitmapEffect

The BitmapEffect class and its subclasses were originally supposed to provide the functionality of effects. However, this API doesn't use any hardware acceleration and it has been marked obsolete in .NET 4.0. It's strongly recommended to avoid using the BitmapEffect class or any of its subclasses!

Effect and its Derived Classes

As stated above, you apply an effect to a control by assigning the control's Effect property (the property is actually inherited from UIElement, just in case you needed to know). Now the question is... What needs to be assigned to the Effect property? The answer is as simple as it can be - it's an object of type Effect.

The Effect class is the base class of all hardware accelerated effects. It has three subclasses: BlurEffect, DropShadowEffect and ShaderEffect. The first two are ready-to-use effects included directly in the .NET library. The ShaderEffect class is the base class of all custom effects.

Why BlurEffect and DropShadowEffect?

Why are there only 2 fully implemented effects in the library and why don't these 2 effects derive from ShaderEffect? I can't answer the first question, but I can tell you what makes BlurEffect and DropShadowEffect so special.

Both DropShadowEffect and BlurEffect are using complex algorithms that require multiple passes, but multi-pass effects are not normally possible. However, the guys at Microsoft probably did a few dirty hacks deep inside the unmanaged core of the WPF rendering engine and created these two effects.

Note: It is possible to create a single-pass blurring algorithm, but such algorithm is terribly slow compared to multi-pass blurring. Anyway, there are probably more reasons why these 2 effects are implemented in a special way.

How Does It Work?

If you want to take advantage of hardware acceleration, you first need to know how the whole thing works.

A Few Words about the GPU Architecture

The architecture of Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) is different than the architecture of CPUs. GPUs are not general-purpose, they are designed to perform simple operations on large data sets. The operations are executed with high amount of parallelism, which results in great performance.

Modern GPUs are becoming more and more programmable and the range of tasks that can be executed on GPUs is growing (although there are several restrictions described below). Small programs executed on GPU are called shaders. There are several kinds of shaders - vertex shaders and geometry shaders are used when rendering 3D objects (not used by WPF Effects) and pixel shaders are used to perform simple operations on pixels.

There are even attempts to use the sheer computing power of GPUs for general purpose programming... Unfortunately there are several restrictions, such as limited number of instructions in one program, no ability to work with advanced data structures, limited memory management abilities, etc. Amazing speed comes with several trade-offs...

Pixel Shaders

A pixel shader is a short program that defines a simple operation executed on each pixel of the output image. That's pretty much all you need to create all kinds of interesting pixel-based effects.

Before You Write your First Effect...

WPF objects, including Effects, are rendered using the DirectX engine. DirectX shaders are written in High Level Shader Language (HLSL) and then compiled into bytecode. Therefore HLSL is one of the things you need to learn to write your own Effects (more about HLSL further in this article).

Some people will tell you that you need to download and install the entire DirectX SDK in order to compile HLSL code. Fortunately, this is not true. All you need is to download a Visual Studio add-in written by Greg Schechter and Gerhard Schneider. It is called Shader Effects BuildTask and you can get it from the CodePlex WPF site. This add-in reportedly works with Visual Studio 2008 and 2010.

Once the add-in is installed, a new project template called "WPF Shader Effect Library" will appear in Visual Studio. The best thing about this add-in is that you can write HLSL code directly in Visual Studio (without intellisense support and syntax-highlighting though) and all your shaders will be compiled automatically when you build your project.

Sencha Touch

Posted by jasper22 at 17:50 |

Built with Web Standards

Sencha Touch is the world's first app framework built specifically to leverage HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript for the highest level of power, flexibility, and optimization. We make specific use of HTML5 to deliver components like audio and video, as well as a localStorage proxy for saving data offline. We have made extensive use of CSS3 in our stylesheets to provide the most robust styling layer possible.

Altogether, the entire library is under 120kb (gzipped and minified), and it's trivial to make that number even smaller by disabling unused components or styles.

The World’s Best Devices

Sencha Touch is a cross-platform framework aimed at next generation, touch enabled, devices. It's currently compatible with Apple iOS and Android devices, and very soon with RIM Blackberry 6 devices. Together these devices represent over 95% of current US mobile traffic. Android and Blackberry developers can also make use of special themes we've created just for those devices. With the ever-rising number of Android models and the widespread popularity of WebKit on mobile devices, we expect our supported device list to grow very rapidly.

Man upgrades Windows 1.0 to Windows 7 [video]

Posted by jasper22 at 17:49 |

One man has captured every install of Windows from 1.0 through to 7 and shared it with the world via YouTube.

The video details install processes and the UI for each version of Windows over the past 25 years and most importantly the upgrade process. The only exception is Windows ME, missing as you can only upgrade to ME or 2000 and not both. The video creator, Andrew Tait, used VMWare to install each version and started by installing MS-DOS 5.0 to prepare for the Windows 1.0 installation. Monkey Island and Doom 2 are both installed to test upgrade compatibility throughout the years.

Microsoft first introduced Windows 1.0 on November 20, 1985. Since the introduction of Windows, the operating system has dominated the personal computer market. Microsoft’s market share worldwide for Windows currently sits at 91%, which is significantly higher than its rivals, Apple and Linux. Windows has seen a number of key changes throughout its life and the video (below) demonstrates the majority of these.

Nielsen: Android Pulls Ahead Of RIM And iOS For U.S. Smartphone Share

Posted by jasper22 at 17:45 |

Nielsen has just released new data on U.S. smartphone share. According to the report, smartphone powered by Android operating systems (29 percent) is pulling ahead of RIM’s Blackberry (27 percent) and Apple iOS (27 percent).

But Nielsen says that because RIM and Apple create and sell their own smartphones with their operating systems, these companies are actually in a better position in the three-way race (in terms of device manfuacturers). Because Google licenses its OS to device manufacturers, the Android ecosystem is more fragmented.

In terms of the break down of Android OS ,12 percent of Android smartphone owners having an HTC device, with Motorola following behind with ten percent share. Samsung comes in third with five percent. and 7 percent owning an HTC device running a Microsoft OS.

SilverShader – Introduction to Silverlight and WPF Pixel Shaders

Posted by jasper22 at 15:48 |

This article explains how to write pixel shaders for the Microsoft Silverlight and WPF platform with HLSL, as well as how to write an extensible Silverlight application for shader demos.

Introduction
Almost 10 years ago, Microsoft announced DirectX 8.0, including the huge real-time computer graphics milestone, Direct3D 8.0. Direct3D 8.0 introduced programmable shaders and gave the developers a chance to create never-before-seen effects and experiences apart from the fixed-function graphics pipeline. With Direct3D 8.0's new shader capabilities, it became possible to compute neat custom-rendering effects on mainstream graphics hardware. Today's graphics hardware is capable of running hundreds of shaders in parallel and modern games make heavy use of this technology t to achieve stunning effects.

A shader is a rather small program, a so-called kernel function, typically executed in parallel for each data element. Pixel shaders, for example, are executed for each pixel of a bitmap, and therefore used to implement per-pixel effects.

This introductory article will explain how to write pixel shaders for Silverlight and WPF, what tools should be used, and how to work with the tools. Furthermore, it will show how to build an extensible Silverlight shader application.

Demo Application
The demo application makes it possible to apply different shaders to an image or to the live stream from the webcam. The application not only comes with the two shaders that will be implemented in this article, it also contains three other shaders I've written before. The complete source code is licensed under the Ms-PL and can be downloaded from the CodePlex site.

You need at least the Silverlight 4 runtime installed to run the sample and a webcam is needed in order to exploit the full functionality. The runtime is available for Windows and Mac.

WPF Forum FAQs - Updated for WPF 4

Posted by jasper22 at 15:44 |

I am excited to announce the availability of the following FAQ paper which lists some of the WPF 4 questions frequently asked in the forum. This version has covered many parts of the new WPF 4 features; however, it’s far from complete. We’re working on the second part which will be updated here soon. Our forum support team keeps trying to help WPF developers to find the answers to their questions even easier and faster, and it’s always the top priority for our team to make the MSDN forum a better place for developers to ask questions, talk about technologies etc. So we really welcome and appreciate any feedbacks or suggestions on how to improve the FAQ section.

On behalf of the forum support team, I want to thank Colin Eberhardt, Charles Petzold and Pete Brown from the community for their great contributions to the online WPF contents we referred to in the FAQs; thanks to the WPF team (Rob Relyea, Troy Martez, Chango Valtchev, Andre Needham, William Han, Lester Lobo and many others) for reviewing the FAQs. Finally I want to thank all the WPF forum members who actively participate in this forum and help others.

The previously published FAQs (June 2008) are available here:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/wpf/thread/a2988ae8-e7b8-4a62-a34f-b851aaf13886

TOC

1. New Controls

1.1 Introduction to DataGrid, DatePicker, Calendar
1.2 How to get the cell content from Datagrid?

2. Visual State Manager

2.1 Introduction to Visual State Manager (VSM)
2.2 What is Visual State Manager, and how to use VSM to control the VisualState in the behind code?

3. Touch and Manipulation

3.1. How to use Touch and Manipulation by WPF 4?
3.2. How to use gesture in WPF4?

4. Graphics and Animations

4.1. What is Layout Rounding and how to use it in WPF 4?
4.2. What is the difference between the BitmapCacheBrush and the VisualBrush?
4.3. What is Pixel Shader 3 and how to use it in WPF 4?
4.4. How to create and use an Easing Function?
4.5. Why does Visual Studio give me a compiler warning when I use BitmapEffect classes?

5. Text

5.1. How to use the TextFormattingMode, TextRenderingMode and TextHintingMode properties?
5.2. How to change the Selection and Caret style?

6. Binding

6.1. What is a Dynamic Object and how to bind a Dynamic Object in WPF 4?
6.2. KeyBinding/MouseBinding frozen?

7. XAML Browser Applications

7.1. How to access the host page's HTML DOM from XBAP?

8. WPF and Windows

8.1. How to use the Windows 7 new taskbar features in WPF?

9. WPF and Silverlight Designer

9.1. What's new in the WPF & Silverlight designer and how to set it up?

Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.5 Express

Posted by jasper22 at 11:29 |

Overview

IIS 7.5 Express enhances your ability to develop and test web applications on Windows by combining the power of IIS 7.5 with the convenience of a lightweight web server like the ASP.NET Development Server (also known as Cassini). IIS 7.5 Express is included withMicrosoft WebMatrix, an integrated suite of tools designed to make developing web applications on Windows simple and seamless. IIS 7.5 Express can also be used with Visual Studio 2010 as a powerful alternative to Cassini. The benefits of using IIS 7.5 Express include:

The same web server that runs on your production server is now available on your development computer.
Most tasks can be done without the need for administrative privileges.
IIS 7.5 Express runs on Windows XP and all later versions of Windows.
Many users can work independently on the same computer.

This package installs only IIS 7.5 Express. For an integrated development experience, also install Microsoft WebMatrix or Visual Studio 2010.

Adobe does Open Source in a very open way

Posted by jasper22 at 11:18 |

While browsing the net, I came accross this list of Adobe supported open source projects that covers almost all your needs for your next multi media project.

http://sourceforge.net/adobe/wiki/Projects/

I must say I am really impressed and I hope some of these libraries will start finding their way into the Java ecosystem, especially GIL

IIS & Hosting Videos for ASP.NET MVC Developers (25)

Posted by jasper22 at 11:17 |

Deploying ASP.NET MVC Application
Using ASP.NET MVC with Different Versions of IIS

IIS for ASP.NET Videos
Developing and Deploying in Shared Hosting
Working with IIS7 Delegated Admin
Feature Specific Delegated Management
Troubleshooting Production ASP.NET Apps
Creating a Site with IIS7 Manager
Installing FTP 7
Bit Rate Throttling
IIS 7 Playlists

Hosting Tutorials
ASP.NET Hosting Options
Determining What Files Need to Be Deployed
Deploying Your Site Using an FTP Client
Deploying Your Site Using Visual Studio
Config Differences Between Dev and Production

Apple vanishes Java from Mac OS X Lion

Posted by jasper22 at 11:16 |

Apple has removed the Java runtime from its upcoming Mac OS X Lion, according to a report based on firsthand experience with a preview release of the OS.

Appleinsider reports that the latest developer release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion removes both Java and Rosetta, the package used to run PowerPC code on Intel-based Macs. But according to the fanboi news site, Lion includes a mechanism for automatically downloading the latest version of Java for the Mac.

In late October, Apple caused a fair amount of unrest among Java developers when, in the release notes of a Java update, it said that Java on Mac had been "deprecated" and that it "may be removed from future versions of Mac OS." Now, it has been removed, but the future of Java development on Macs is secure. In November, Apple and Oracle announced that they would collaborate on a Mac-based incarnation of OpenJDK, an open source version of Java.

Apple said it would contribute "most of the key components, tools and technology" needed for a Java SE 7 implementation on Mac OS X, including a 32-bit and 64-bit HotSpot-based Java virtual machine, class libraries, a networking stack, and base code for a new graphical client.

ASP.NET MVC Security Videos (5)

Posted by jasper22 at 11:15 |

Authentication
Authenticating Users with Forms Authentication

Authenticating Users with Windows Authentication
Preventing Open Redirection Attacks

Defense in Depth

Preventing JavaScript Injection Attacks
Preventing JavaScript Injection Attacks 2

Data Export from Database to Excel, PDF and Word for .NET without Automation and Acrobat Reader

Posted by jasper22 at 11:14 |

Introduction

This article introduces how to export data from database to Excel, PDF, MS Word, HTML, MS clipboard ,XML, DBF, SQL Script, SYLK, DIF, CSV without Automation and Acrobat Reader, you just need a free component. In this example, I will show:

Use GetFactoryClasses() method to get all factories.
How to make a connection with database.
How to get data source from database.
How to export the data source from database.
How to export the data to many formats.(Word, Excel, PDF...)
Background

For a programmer, in order to export data to a file specified, you don't need to write a plenty of code, you just need to choose a datasource or write a command to select data and specify a file format to show the data.

Four simple steps:

Select a database.(SQL Client, OLE DB)
Select data source from the database.(Table, View and SQL Command)
Select columns as you want to export.
Specify a file format to show the result and save it to a file with the specified format.( XLS, PDF, MS Word, HTML, MS clipboard ,XML, DBF, SQL Script, SYLK, DIF, CSV)

Here, we use step wizard to show you how to do it.

Step 1: Select a database

You may choose a database to export data from. The database may be SQL Client or OLE DB and so on. Then you may create a connection to the database by inputting the connection string.

StudioShell

Posted by jasper22 at 11:12 |

Overview
StudioShell's goal is to fundamentally change the way you interact with Visual Studio and your code.

If you’ve ever implemented a Visual Studio extension, such as an add-in or a package, you know how convoluted this space has become. You have to become an expert in your tooling if you want to change it. StudioShell changes that by exposing many of Visual Studio’s extensibility points in a simple and consistent way. It makes the Visual Studio IDE interactive and discoverable.

What an add-in does in a compiled binary, StudioShell can accomplish with a one-liner.
Getting Involved
StudioShell has plenty of issues, but it's stable enough for general use. The biggest help you can provide at the moment would be to log any issues using the Issue Tracker.

I welcome anyone who would like to contribute at the code level, and will soon post explicit project openings. In the meantime, feel free to fork the project and play around.

Features
The features supported by StudioShell include:
Support for standard PowerShell profile scripts, as well as StudioShell profile scripts - customize your StudioShell session as you would any other PowerShell session.
Manage your projects, references, breakpoints, stack frame locals, menus, toolbars, Visual Studio settings, IDE windows, and even your code from PowerShell scripts, all in a consistent and discoverable way.
"Solution Modules" - save your StudioShell and IDE customizations as a PowerShell module in your solution, and it will automatically be imported into your StudioShell session when the solution is loaded.
Simple visualization controls you can invoke from the console - create a graph of project code statistics with one line of script.
Fully integrated context-sensitive help.
Host indifference - StudioShell features can be used from any suitable PowerShell host.

For more specific features and examples, please see Examples.

Read more: Codeplex

Posted via email from Jasper-net

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