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Articles indexed Monday June 24 2013

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  • My Windows 8 App in Windows Store

    - by Stephen.Walther
    Finally, you have a good reason to upgrade to Windows 8! My Brain Eaters app was just accepted into the Windows Store. Just in time for Halloween! The Brain Eaters app is a sample app from my soon to be released book Windows 8 Apps with HTML5 and JavaScript. The game illustrates several important programming concepts which you need when building Windows 8 games with JavaScript such as using HTML5 Canvas and the new requestAnimationFrame() method. If you are looking for Halo or Call of Duty then you will be disappointed. If you are looking for PAC-MAN then you will be disappointed. I created the simplest arcade game that I could imagine so I could explain it in the book. All of the code for the game is included with the book. The goal of the game is to eat the food pellets while avoiding the zombies while running around a maze. Every time you get eaten by a zombie, you can hear my six year old son saying “Oh No!”. Here’s the link to the game: http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/app/brain-eaters/e283c8d0-1fed-4b26-a8bf-464584c9de6d

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  • Now Instagram lets you record and share 15 seconds video with awesome filters

    - by Gopinath
    Instagram is one of the most popular photo sharing applications and it is very popular for amazing filters that turn an ordinary photo in to an incredible one. Today Instagram extended the filters and sharing options to videos. With the latest version of Instagram application for iOS/Android you can record videos, apply filters and share them. Recording and sharing videos on Instagram is much similar to photos and. You can capture videos up to 15 seconds and there are 13 filters to choose for processing. Wondering why the limit is at 15 seconds? Pundits are saying that TV ads are in general 15 seconds and Instagram is preparing for video ads in near future. Anyways within hours of video sharing features, Instagram is flooded with short videos and the Explore section has very interesting ones to browse through. Just like photos, you can share the captured videos to your Twitter, Facebook and other social stream from Instagram.

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  • Google Loon–A network of balloons to provide internet to everyone

    - by Gopinath
    Google once just a super powerful search engine provider and now they are venturing in to a lot of interesting non software projects like self driving cars, glasses that beam information right on to your eye balls, high speed internet services @ 1 Giga bytes per second. A recent addition to this innovative list is Google Loon – a network of flying balloons that provide internet access to remote parts of the world where it is not feasible for many governments/corporate to provider internet services. Google says there are several billions of people around the world who don’t have access to internet and Google Loon aim is to provide internet facilities to all these people. A pilot project is started couple of days ago by launching 30 balloons into stratosphere from New Zealand. These balloons fly 20 Kilometers above earth(much higher than where aero planes fly) and they beam internet to homes having Loon receiver wirelessly. Checkout the embedded introductory video on Google Loon What is in it for Google? Why is Google getting into these type of projects and what is in it for them? Google is the gateway to web and majority of people find information on web using Google Services/Software. So providing internet facilities to more people means, more people using Google services and it in turn contributes to their revenue growth. Google is not a charity, they do all these projects to earn money just like every other corporate. The best part is while earning money they are touching lives of billions of people in a positive way. Just imagine everyone in the world connected and have ability to take informed decisions irrespective of whether they live in developed countries or underprivileged parts of the world! Wow that will be a beautiful day. Further reading Google Loon website Google unveils its Project Loon Wi-Fi balloons – in pictures Google flies Internet balloons in stratosphere for a “network in the sky” How Google Will Use High-Flying Balloons to Deliver Internet to the Hinterlands Good discussion on Google Loon at Hacker News community

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  • Set iPhone Style Location Based Alerts On Your Android Device With Google Now

    - by Gopinath
    Location based alerts of iPhone are very useful. You can set an alert to popup as soon as you reach a specific location like “Pickup milk and eggs” when I’m near a grocery store. This feature was missing in Android for a long time, but last week at Google I/O conference Google released an update to Google Now which supports location based alerts. To setup a location based alert 1. Launch Google Now 2. Type or say add reminder 3. By default it shows time based alert interface, switch it location based by touching Location icon 4. Set reminder text, choose a location and touch Set reminder 5. Your alert is set now and as soon as you are close by the specified location, you’ll see an alert on your device. This is a nice feature and I’m using it quite often for the past couple of days.  There are couple of things missing from the current version of Google Now location based alerts– recurring alerts and ability to set alerts on leaving a specific location. It is not possible to recur location based alerts. You will be alerted only once as soon as you reach the location and it is not possible to repeat the alert next time you visit the location. Lets say you want to be reminded to say hi to friend’s parents whenever you are travelling close by their home. It does not work. The second missing feature is something basic and some how Google did not incorporate in their first iteration. Lets say you are at office now and you want to set up alert to pickup flowers when you leave office. Sounds like a simple use case for location based alerts right? But there is no way to set this type of alerts. Google Now alerts you as soon as you reach a location, but not when you leave a location. Do you have an Android that supports Google Now? If so what are your thoughts on location based alerts?

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  • At $20/month Windows Azure host my website with 99.97% uptime

    - by Gopinath
    Couple of years ago a reliable and decent performing Windows hosting was not affordable to many enthusiastic developers who want to try a startup idea or build a hobby site. I tried to start an ASP.NET website few years ago to provide services like – Mobile Tracing, Vehicle Tracing. But due to high cost of Windows hosting I developed those services using PHP (not an easy task for .NET developer) and hosted on them Linux servers.  But with recent evolution of Windows Azure, hosting ASP.NET websites on highly reliable servers is affordable. Today anyone can host a high responsive and available ASP.NET website for just $20/month using Windows Azure. My website coziie.com is running on Windows Azure and serves close to quarter millions visitors a month with 99.97% of uptime and most of the page load times are less than 3 seconds. All I spend to run this website is just around $20, if you translate it to India rupees its roughly Rs.1000. The web sever of coziie.com is powered by a single Extra Small Web role instance and the backend is powered by a SQL Azure instance. Azure is quite impressive to provide 99.97% of uptime. Response times during peak are around 3 seconds and on nomarl loads it is around 1.5 seconds. Here is the report of uptime provided by Royal Pingdom over last one year For just $20/month Windows Azure takes care of the following apart from hosting Patches up Windows OS to the latest version Upgrades ASP.NET to the latest version – coziie.com is running on ASP.NET MVC 3 and soon I’ll upgrade it to ASP.NET MVC 4 Hosts data on latest and best version Sql Server database SQL Azure maintains 3 copies of database and automatically recovers in case of server failures and disasters. I never worry about database backups/restore. Provides staging environment for deploying applications for testing purpose and move them to production – I upgrade  twice a month on average With Windows Azure I no longer focus on server maintenance or data backups. They are taken up by Microsoft team and I just focus on building my website. Wish there is a low cost Linux version of Windows Azure so that I can stop worrying about server maintenance of this blog!! If you are looking for a Windows hosting, look no further than Windows Azure. If you find $20/month is a bit expensive to start with you may explore Azure Website (sort of shared hosted environment) which is free to start with and as your traffic grows you can move to paid hosting.

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  • Deploy code to Windows Azure from Dropbox

    - by Gopinath
    There is a lot of innovation happening at Windows Azure team these days under the leadership of ScottGu. The recent updates to Windows Azure published couple of days ago allows us to deploy code to Windows Azure websites straight from Dropbox. It’s very easy and simple to use. Authorize Windows Azure account to talk to Dropbox and whenever you want to deploy latest code from Dropbox just click it button. Boom! The latest code from Dropbox will be automatically deployed on Windows Azure. Everything works like magic. Wow, isn’t this a cool feature for those who don’t want to maintain their version control systems like Git, Svn or TFS? This is a big deal to many developers who maintain their personal websites source code on Dropbox. Wondering why developers maintain their source code in Dropbox? It’s easy to use Dropbox(zero learning curve) and setting up a source control systems demands lot of administrative activities as well as money for hosting them. Here is a quick walk through of deploying code to Windows Azure from Dropbox. Though I’m not going to user this feature for deploying code of my website coziie.com (I’ve a personal SVN server hosted), I’m going to recommend to all my friends who maintain their source code on Dropbox.  For more details read the detailed post on ScottGu’s blog.

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  • Disqus ads are disqusting and here is how you turn them off

    - by Gopinath
    After couple of months I spent sometime yesterday reviewing my blog and coziie.com to see if everything is fine. Disqus, the best commenting system and an unusual suspect was looking weird. Commenting sections of my sites are displayed links of third party sites which I was not aware of. The content is annoying to me and I believe my site users are also annoyed. I don’t remember configuring something in disqus to display ads or earn money by promoting other’s content. Why on earth I would like to shows content of someone else’s website right inside comments section and annoy readers? Here is a screen grab of comment section that shows ads.   It turns to be disqus automatically enabled a feature called as “Discovery” to all publishers who upgraded the commenting system to the latest release. I remember upgrading commenting system to the latest release couple of months ago but I don’t remember specifically allowing disqus to spam my comment section!! I’m extremely unhappy with the way disqus automatically enabled spamming comment sections in the name of so called new features that benefits bloggers. How to turn of Discovery or Ads in Disqus I turned them off as soon as I noticed them and it’s very easy to do that. Here are the steps to be followed to turn off ads in comments Login in to disqus Switch to Settings tab Click on Discovery tab Choose the option Just comments Save the settings.  Though it’s easy to turn off the ads, it would have been nice if disqus did not enable them by default. Hey guys at disqus, you lost my trust and from now onwards I’ll double check before opting in to any new features.

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  • Mark Zuckerberg tops the list of 50 Highest Rated CEOs. 3 Indian CEOs feature in the list.

    - by Gopinath
    Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook is rated as the best CEO according to a report released by the popular employee reviews website Glassdoor.com. 50,000 employees reviews submitted to Glassdoor in the past 1 year are considered for preparing the rating list and Zukerberg topped the list with 99 percent approval to the question “Do you approve of the way your CEO is leading the company?”. Wow! That’s an amazing support to Zukergerg from his employees though stock market and share holders are not with him. Coincidently Facebook is also rated as the best company to work by Glassdoor in a recent survey. Here is the list of top 10 CEOs Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook; 99.3% Approval Bill McDermott & Jim Hagemann Snabe, SAP; 99% Approval Dominic Barton, McKinsey & Company; 97% Approval Jim Turley, Ernst & Young; 96% Approval John E. Schlifske, Northwestern Mutual; 96% Approval Frank D’Souza, Cognizant Technology Solutions; 96% Approval Joe Tucci, EMC; 96% Approval Paul E. Jacobs, QUALCOMM; 95% Approval Richard K. Davis, U.S. Bank; 95% Approval Pierre Nanterme, Accenture; 95% Approval 3 Indian CEOs in the top 50 list – TCS, Wipro & MindTree The list featured three Indian CEOs and all the three are leading Software IT Services organizations in India and creating thousands of IT jobs.  Natarajan Chandrasekaran – the CEO of TCS is at 25th position, Krishnakumar Natarajan – the CEO of MindTree is at 28th position and  Wipro’s T.K.Kurien is at 44th position. Glad to see Indian CEO joining the global ranks. Tech Heavy Weights Google, Apple, Amazon & Microsoft aren’t in top 10 Another thing to note from this report is that the CEO’s of technology heavy weights Google, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft are not in the top10 list- looks like their employees are not really happy with their bosses. At least not as happy as their peers at Facebook. Google CEO’s Larry Page is at 11th position, Jeff Bezos of Amazon at 16th position and Tim Cook of Apple is at 18th position. Well the Microsoft CEO is not even in the list of top 50!! You can read the complete list of ratings at Glassdoor.com’s blog. Photo Credit: Andrew Feinberg

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  • Empty APN list on your Android phone? Restart the phone to fix it

    - by Gopinath
    Today I tried to connect to internet on my Google Galaxy Nexus running on 4.2.2 using Cellular Data connection and it failed. Tried reaching customer care representative to figure out why data connection is not working, but the robots (Interactive Voice Response systems) never allowed me to reach a human. After digging through the settings I found empty list of APN (Access Point Names) is the reason for not able to connect to internet. Not sure what caused APN list to vanish but I tried to create a new one that matches with the settings required for AT & T mobile. To my surprise I found that the newly created APN is also not shown in the APN list. Well there is something wrong with the phone – my APN’s are not shown as well as the newly created one is also not displayed. A simple Google search on this problem shown many forum discussions list and the solution to resolve the issue is to restart the phone. As soon as I restarted my phone the APN list is automatically populated and I’m able to connect to internet on my mobile.

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  • Looking for a comfortable Laptop Cooling Pad? Repurpose a pillow as a Laptop Cooling Pad

    - by Gopinath
    Update: This idea sucks as using a pillow blocks laptop cooling fans and air flow, which in turn would damage the laptop. Thanks Vijay I’ve a HP Pavilion laptop which turns hot quickly and most of the time I would not be able to keep it on my lap after 30 minutes of usage. It’s the same case with my DELL laptop and not to blame any specific brand or model. Most of the budget laptops generate lot of heat and tough to keep them on laps for a long time. They burn skin and the irritation sense leaves me with no option other than throwing them away. While searching for options to beat the heat I found Laptop Cooling Pads on Amazon.They attach to the base of laptops and act like a heat shield/sink to protect thighs from the heat generated by laptops. They are available from around $7 and goes up to $100 depending on the features they offer. After reading reviews I selected a trendy looking and comfortable laptop cooling pad and it was around $25 before shipping and taxes. I’m going to buy one of the cooling pads from Amazon. On a second thought I started searching for options to repurpose any of the house hold items as a laptop cooling pad and save money. The option suggested by wife is to repurpose an old pillow as a laptop cooling pad.  Here is my laptop cooling pad Wow! That is a nice suggestion which saved my thighs from laptop heat as well my wallet from spending $25. Even if I’ve to buy a new pillow I would be able to pickup cheap one from Wal-Mart store for as low as $2.  Also I find it is very comfortable to use a pillow as a Laptop Cooling Pad as they are flexible and automatically adjust to the shape of my body.

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  • Jump-start Your Mind

    - by João Angelo
    I haven’t written in a while mostly because I’ve spent my time reading what others wrote and today I’m writing purely motivated by what I just finished reading. Mindfire: Big Ideas for Curious Mind by Scott Berkun was such a pleasure to read and ended up igniting parts of my mind which I have to admit were becoming a bit numb that I felt the urge to take some time to first say thank you to the author and then recommend it to all your curious minds out there. Now, go read it… it’s time well spent.

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  • How to create Captcha in ASP.NET

    - by Samir R. Bhogayta
    1. Create one page with name "Captcha.aspx" 2. No any control require in this page 3. Go to Captcha.aspx.vb write the below code Protected Sub Page_Load(sender As Object, e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load         'create object of Bitmap Class and set its width and height.         Dim objBMP As Bitmap = New Bitmap(180, 51)         'Create Graphics object and assign bitmap object to graphics' object.         Dim objGraphics As Graphics = Graphics.FromImage(objBMP)         objGraphics.Clear(Color.White)         objGraphics.TextRenderingHint = TextRenderingHint.AntiAlias         Dim objFont As Font = New Font("arial", 30, FontStyle.Bold)         'genetating random 6 digit random number         Dim randomStr As String = GeneratePassword()         'set this random number in session         Session.Add("randomStr", randomStr)         Session.Add("randomStrCountry", randomStr)         objGraphics.DrawString(randomStr, objFont, Brushes.Black, 2, 2)         Response.ContentType = "image/GIF"         objBMP.Save(Response.OutputStream, ImageFormat.Gif)         objFont.Dispose()         objGraphics.Dispose()         objBMP.Dispose()     End Sub     Public Function GeneratePassword() As String         ' Below code describes how to create random numbers.some of the digits and letters         ' are ommited because they look same like "i","o","1","0","I","O".         Dim allowedChars As String = "a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,j,k,m,n,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z,"         allowedChars += "A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,J,K,L,M,N,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z,"         allowedChars += "2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9"         Dim sep() As Char = {","c}         Dim arr() As String = allowedChars.Split(sep)         Dim passwordString As String = ""         Dim temp As String         Dim rand As Random = New Random()         Dim i As Integer         For i = 0 To 5 - 1 Step i + 1             temp = arr(rand.Next(0, arr.Length))             passwordString += temp         Next         Return passwordString     End Function 4. Use this page in you aspx page like this img alt="" border="0" src="Captcha.aspx" style="cursor: move; height: 60px; width: 200px;" //                                   your textbox to insert code by user.

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  • We have moved to larger offices

    - by Chris Houston
    First of all we should probably apologise for the complete lack of blogging over the last 6 months! As web developers we are constantly telling our clients that they should keep their blogs up to date and it seems we have been ignoring our own advice.That being said, we have been very busy moving offices and helping our new host QV Offices setup their new business. As well as all the moving we have not been sitting on our hands, we have built the new site for DairyMaster over in Ireland as well as a separate private website for their global distributor network.As Umbraco Gold Partners we have found more and more that we are working on projects where we are the silent development partners, so although we cannot talk publicly about a lot of the sites we develop, we have some real beauties now in our portfolio :)Now that the dust has settled in our new office ( and has been hovered up! ) we are read for the new year and are looking forward to working on some exciting projects that are currently in the pipeline.We are also intending to run some Hacking sessions for Umbraco as we now have lots of space for developers to come and work with us, so if you have any ideas of a theme for an Umbraco Hackathon then do let us know.And with that it just remains to say Happy Christmas to you all and see you in the new year!

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  • New Pluralsight app for Android will bring variable speed

    Usually, it is very interesting to compare the 'same' software applications and apps between various platforms, and the Pluralsight offline players are an outstanding example to have a closer look at. The original Silverlight desktop offline player, the iOS app of Pluralsight and the new HTML5 online player all have variable playback speed. Just the Android app doesn't. But not for long. A couple of days Pluralsight finally announced that their development department found a reliable solution to provide flexible speeds. For the brave ones among us, please have a look at the public beta they are offering on their blog article.  Please be aware of, that using any Pluralsight offline player requires to have a Plus subscription. Otherwise, you cannot use the application after all.

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  • Feedback on meeting of the Linux User Group of Mauritius

    Once upon a time in a country far far away... Okay, actually it's not that bad but it has been a while since the last meeting of the Linux User Group of Mauritius (LUGM). There have been plans in the past but it never really happened. Finally, Selven took the opportunity and organised a new meetup with low administrative overhead, proper scheduling on alternative dates and a small attendee's survey on the preferred option. All the pre-work was nicely executed. First, I wasn't sure whether it would be possible to attend. Luckily I got some additional information, like children should come, too, and I was sold to this community gathering. According to other long-term members of the LUGM it was the first time 'ever' that a gathering was organised outside of Quatre Bornes, and I have to admit it was great! LUGM - user group meeting on the 15.06.2013 in L'Escalier Quick overview of Linux & the LUGM With a little bit of delay the LUGM meeting officially started with a quick overview and introduction to Linux presented by Avinash. During the session he told the audience that there had been quite some activity over the island some years ago but unfortunately it had been quiet during recent times. Of course, we also spoke about the acknowledged world dominance of Linux - thanks to Android - and the interesting possibilities for countries like Mauritius. It is known that a couple of public institutions have there back-end infrastructure running on Red Hat Linux systems but the presence on the desktop is still very low. Users are simply hanging on to Windows XP and older versions of Microsoft Office. Following the introduction of the LUGM Ajay joined into the session and it quickly changed into a panel discussion with lots of interesting questions and answers, sharing of first-hand experience either on the job or in private use of Linux, and a couple of ideas about how the LUGM could promote Linux a bit more in Mauritius. It was great to get an insight into other attendee's opinion and activities. Especially taking into consideration that I'm already using Linux since around 1996/97. Frankly speaking, I bought a SuSE 4.x distribution back in those days because I couldn't achieve certain tasks on Windows NT 4.0 without spending a fortune. OpenELEC Mediacenter Next, Selven gave us decent introduction on OpenELEC: Open Embedded Linux Entertainment Center (OpenELEC) is a small Linux distribution built from scratch as a platform to turn your computer into an XBMC media center. OpenELEC is designed to make your system boot fast, and the install is so easy that anyone can turn a blank PC into a media machine in less than 15 minutes. I didn't know about it until this presentation. In the past, I was mainly attached to Video Disk Recorder (VDR) as it allows the use of satellite receiver cards very easily. Hm, somehow I'm still missing my precious HTPC that I had to leave back in Germany years ago. It was great piece of hardware and software; self-built PC in a standard HiFi-sized (43cm) black desktop casing with 2 full-featured Hauppauge DVB-s cards, an old-fashioned Voodoo graphics card, WiFi card, Pioneer slot-in DVD drive, and fully remote controlled via infra-red thanks to Debian, VDR and LIRC. With EP Guide, scheduled recordings and general multimedia centre it offered all the necessary comfort in the living room, besides a Nintendo game console; actually a GameCube at that time... But I have to admit that putting OpenELEC on a Raspberry Pi would be a cool DIY project in the near future. LUGM - our next generation of linux users (15.06.2013) Project Evil Genius (PEG) Don't be scared of the paragraph header. Ish gave us a cool explanation why he named it PEG - Project Evil Genius; it's because of the time of the day when he was scripting down his ideas to be able to build, package and provide software applications to various Linux distributions. The main influence came from openSuSE but the platform didn't cater for his needs and ideas, so he started to work out something on his own. During his passionate session he also talked about the amazing experience he had due to other Linux users from all over the world. During the next couple of days Ish promised to put his script to GitHub... Looking forward to that. Check out Ish's personal blog over at hacklog.in. Highly recommended to read. Why India? Simply because the registration fees per year for an Indian domain are approximately 20 times less than for a Mauritian domain (.mu). Exploring the beach of L'Escalier af the meeting 'After-party' at the beach of L'Escalier Puh, after such interesting sessions, ideas around Linux and good conversation during the breaks and over lunch it was time for a little break-out. Selven suggested that we all should head down to the beach of L'Escalier and get some impressions of nature down here in the south of the island. Talking about 'beach' ;-) - absolutely not comparable to the white-sanded ones here in Flic en Flac... There are no lagoons down at the south coast of Mauriitus, and watching the breaking waves is a different experience and joy after all. Unfortunately, I was a little bit worried about the thoughtless littering at such a remote location. You have to drive on natural paths through the sugar cane fields and I was really shocked by the amount of rubbish lying around almost everywhere. Sad, really sad and it concurs with Yasir's recent article on the same topic. Resumé & outlook It was a great event. I met with new people, had some good conversations, and even my children enjoyed themselves the whole day. The location was well-chosen, enough space for each and everyone, parking spaces and even a playground for the children. Also, a big "Thank You" to Selven and his helpers for the organisation and preparation of lunch. I'm kind of sure that this was an exceptional meeting of LUGM and I'm really looking forward to the next gathering of Linux geeks. Hopefully, soon. All images are courtesy of Avinash Meetoo. More pictures are available on Flickr.

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  • FoxTales: Behind the Scenes at Fox Software by Kerry Nietz

    Flash backs from the past! It's truly amazing to discover that software development from freshman to senior level as well as project management hasn't changed that much. Kerry Nietz describes his memoir from his final year at college to his first job at Fox Software to 'an early retirement' at Microsoft. This title also brought his other fictional novels to my attention. Once again here is the review I published on Amazon: Built to last! I have been around in software development for more than a decade now but honestly I have to admit it is only now that I took the opportunity to read about the history of my used to be primary programming language. In fact, I started with Visual FoxPro 6 back in 1999 and went only down to FoxPro for Windows 2.6 during migration projects - long after the stories described in this title. It is really interesting to see how they actually managed to create a great product with such a small team of developers. "Create the best Report Writer in the world, out of only sawdust, bubblegum, and dreams." - That's the best sentence I'm going to quote from this title in the future. An inspiration to achieve the impossible, only by taking small steps. Just begin the journey - one step after the next one. If you fall, stand up and continue to walk. Kerry takes the reader on an amazing trip through almost 4 years working at a small software company in Perrysburg, Ohio. That went from a another 'look-alike' of the mighty Ashton-Tate dBase to the leading force in database development, long before Microsoft Access (project name: Cirrus) was even finished. It survived Borland Paradox and even nowadays Visual FoxPro is still in daily use in thousands of companies world-wide. Actually, I'm glad that I had the chance to foster my programming knowledge with Visual FoxPro. After his excellent work in software development, Kerry went for a second career as a writer. I'm looking forward to read his other titles soon:

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  • The Niantic Project: Ingress by Felicia Hajra-Lee

    Despite the current fact that the augmented reality game for Android is still in beta phase, it is amazing to see that the world of literature is already taking momentum on this 'real-life' universe. After reading 'The Alignment: Ingress' by Thomas Greanias it took only a blink of the eye to go for 'The Niantic Project: Ingress' by Felicia Hajra-Lee, too. Here is the review I posted on Amazon.com: Ingress, a parallel universe to our reality, is here. There is no doubt about this anymore... The Niantic Project, originated at the CERN collider in Geneva, Switzerland, got into focus of global players. And the game is hard; fair-play is only for the fainted ones. Felicia understands to drag the audience directly into the action of the Niantic Project and its protagonists. The novella is heavily based on the investigations posted daily on the website of Ingress. She really understands how to interweave the various clues and creates an atmosphere where it sometimes feels challenging to differentiate between fiction and reality. It all starts with 'Epiphany Night' at the Niantic Labs, the high exposure of Exotic Matter (XM) and the escape of scientist Dr. Devra Bogdanovich and 'sentinel' Roland Jarvis. Of course, a new research, or should we name it technology, like the Niantic Project has to be protected and there are multiple parties on the hunt. Throughout the various chapters Felicia introduces new potential buyers from all over the globe, gives us detailed insights on the hunters and their brutal effectiveness to finish an assignment, and manages to keep the reader in high-pitched mode thanks to a couple of turn-arounds in the overall story. Personally, I have to say that I really enjoyed reading this title. Felicia's love to details is absolutely amazing, and sometimes I was really wondering whether she would be one of the assassins. But unfortunately I also have to say that I'm not a great fan of the structural organization of the (title-less) chapters. It is fascinating to follow the ventures of Devra, Farlowe and 855 but occasionally I had to go back to previous paragraphs in order to keep track of the individual plots. Overall a great title, captivating and rich in details but simply too short. Please Fecilia, gives us more to read. As an owner of an Android smartphone or tablet, you should get yourself into the world of Ingress. Check out the Play Store to install the app. Now. ;-)

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  • Test your internet connection - Emtel Mobile Internet

    After yesterday's report on Emtel Fixed Broadband (I'm still wondering where the 'fixed' part is), I did the same tests on Emtel Mobile Internet. For this I'm using the Huawei E169G HSDPA USB stick, connected to the same machine. Actually, this is my fail-safe internet connection and the system automatically switches between them if a problem, let's say timeout, etc. has been detected on the main line. For better comparison I used exactly the same servers on Speedtest.net. The results Following are the results of Rose Hill (hosted by Emtel) and respectively Frankfurt, Germany (hosted by Vodafone DE): Speedtest.net result of 31.05.2013 between Flic en Flac and Rose Hill, Mauritius (Emtel - Mobile Internet) Speedtest.net result of 31.05.2013 between Flic en Flac and Frankfurt, Germany (Emtel - Mobile Internet) As you might easily see, there is a big difference in speed between national and international connections. More interestingly are the results related to the download and upload ratio. I'm not sure whether connections over Emtel Mobile Internet are asymmetric or symmetric like the Fixed Broadband. Might be interesting to find out. The first test result actually might give us a clue that the connection could be asymmetric with a ratio of 3:1 but again I'm not sure. I'll find out and post an update on this. It depends on network coverage Later today I was on tour with my tablet, a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (model GT-P7500) running on Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich), and did some more tests using the Speedtest.net app. The results are actually as expected and in areas with better network coverage you will get better results after all. At least, as long as you stay inside the national networks. For anything abroad, it doesn't really matter. But see for yourselves: Speedtest.net result of 31.05.2013 between Cascavelle and servers in Rose Hill, Mauritius (Emtel - Mobile Internet), Port Louis, Mauritius and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia It's rather shocking and frustrating to see how the speed on international destinations goes down. And the full capability of the tablet's integrated modem (HSDPA: 21 Mbps; HSUPA: 5.76 Mbps) isn't used, too. I guess, this demands more tests in other areas of the island, like Ebene, Pailles or Port Louis. I'll keep you updated... The question remains: Alternatives? After the publication of the test results on Fixed Broadband I had some exchange with others on Facebook. Sadly, it seems that there are really no alternatives to what Emtel is offering at the moment. There are the various internet packages by Mauritius Telecom feat. Orange, like ADSL, MyT and Mobile Internet, and there is Bharat Telecom with their Bees offer which is currently limited to Ebene and parts of Quatre Bornes.

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  • Test your internet connection - Emtel Fixed Broadband

    Already at the begin of April, I had a phone conversation with my representative at Emtel Ltd. about some upcoming issues due to the ongoing construction work in my neighbourhood. Unfortunately, they finally raised the house two levels above ours, and of course this has to have a negative impact on the visibility between the WiMAX outdoor unit on the roof and the aimed access point at Medine. So, today I had a technical team here to do a site survey and to come up with potential solutions. Short version: It doesn't look good after all. The site survey Well, the two technicians did their work properly, even re-arranged the antenna to check the connection with another end point down at La Preneuse. But no improvements. Looks like we are out of luck since the construction next door hasn't finished yet and at the moment, it even looks like they are planning to put at least one more level on top. I really wonder about the sanity of the responsible bodies at the local district council. But that's another story. Anyway, the outdoor unit was once again pointed towards Medine and properly fixed with new cable guides (air from the sea and rust...). Both of them did a good job and fine-tuned the reception signal to a mere 3 over 9; compared to the original 7 over 9 I had before the daily terror started. The site survey has been done, and now it's up to Emtel to come up with (better) solutions. Well, I wouldn't mind to have an unlimited, symmetric 3G/UMTS or even LTE connection. Let's see what they can do... Testing the connection There are several online sites available which offer you to check certain aspects of your internet connection. Personally, I'm used to speedtest.net and it works very well. I think it is good and necessary to check your connection from time to time, and only a couple of days ago, I posted the following on Emtel's wall at Facebook (21.05.2013 - 14:06 hrs): Dear Emtel, could you eventually provide an answer on the miserable results of SpeedTest? I chose Rose Hill (Hosted by Emtel Ltd.) as testing endpoint... Sadly, no response to this. Seems that the marketing department is not willing to deal with customers on Facebook. Okay, over at speedtest.net you can use their Flash-based test suite to check your connection to quite a number of servers of different providers world-wide. It's actually very interesting to see the results for different end points and to compare them to each other. The results Following are the results of Rose Hill (hosted by Emtel) and respectively Frankfurt, Germany (hosted by Vodafone DE): Speedtest.net result of 30.05.2013 between Flic en Flac and Rose Hill, Mauritius (Emtel - Fixed Broadband) Speedtest.net result of 30.05.2013 between Flic en Flac and Frankfurt, Germany (Emtel - Fixed Broadband) Luckily, the results are quite similar in terms of connection speed; which is good. I'm currently on a WiMAX tariff called 'Classic Browsing 2', or Fixed Broadband as they call it now, which provides a symmetric line of 768 Kbps (or roughly 0.75 Mbps). In terms of downloads or uploads this means that I would be able to transfer files in either direction with approximately 96 KB/s. Frankly speaking, thanks to compression, my choice of browser and operating system I usually exceed this value and I have download rates up to 120 KB/s - not too bad after all. Only the ping times are a little bit of concern. Due to the difference in distance, or better said based on the number of hubs between the endpoints, they indicate the amount of time that it takes to send a package from your machine to the remote server and get a response back. A lower value is better, and usually the ping is less than 300 ms between Mauritius and Europe. The alternatives in Mauritius Not sure whether I should note this done because for my requirements there are no alternatives to Emtel WiMAX at the moment. It would be great to have your opinion on the situation of internet connectivity in Mauritius. Are there really alternatives? And if so, what are the conditions?

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  • Communities - The importance of exchange and discussion

    Communication with your environment is an essential part of everyone's life. And it doesn't matter whether you are actually living in a rural area in the middle of nowhere, within the pulsating heart of a big city, or in my case on a wonderful island in the Indian Ocean. The ability to exchange your thoughts, your experience and your worries with another person helps you to get different points of view and new ideas on how to resolve an issue you might be confronted with. Benefits of community work What happens to be common sense in your daily life, also applies to your work environment. Working in IT, or ICT as it is called in Mauritius, requires a lot of reading and learning. Not only during your lectures at the university but with your colleagues in a project assignment and hopefully with 'unknown' pals in the universe of online communities. At least I can say that I learned quite a lot from other developers code, their responses in various forums, their numerous blog articles, and while attending local user group meetings. When I started to work as a professional software developer (or engineer some may say) years ago I immediately checked the existence of communities on the programming language, the database technology and other vital information on software development in general. Luckily, it wasn't too difficult to find. My employer had a subscription of the monthly magazines and newsletters of a national organisation which also run the biggest forum in that area. Getting in touch with other developers and reading their common problems but also solutions was a huge benefit to my growth. Image courtesy of Michael Kappel (CC BY-NC 2.0) Active participation and regular contribution to this community gave me some nice advantages, too. Within three years I was listed as a conference speaker at the annual developer's conference and provided several sessions on different topics during consecutive years. Back in 2004, I took over the responsibility and management of the monthly meetings of a regional user group, and organised it for more than two years. Furthermore, I was invited to the newly-founded community program of Microsoft Germany (Community Leader/Insider Program - CLIP). My website on Active FoxPro Pages was nominated in the second batch of online communities. Due to my community work and providing advice to others, I had the honour to be awarded as Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) - Visual Developer for Visual FoxPro in the years 2006 and 2007. It was a great experience to meet with other like-minded people and I'm really grateful for that. Just in case, more details are listed in my Curriculum Vitae. But this all changed when I moved to Mauritius... Cyber island Mauritius? During the first months in Mauritius I was way too busy to think about community activities at all. First of all, there was the new company that had to be set up, the new staff had to be trained and of course the communication work-flows and so on with the project managers back in Germany had to be sorted out, too. Second, I had to get a grip of my private matters like getting the basics for my new household or exploring the neighbourhood, and last but not least I needed a break from the hectic and intensive work prior to my departure. As soon as the sea literally calmed down, I started to have conversations with my colleagues about communities and user groups. Sadly, it turned out that there were none, or at least no one was aware of any at that time. Oh oh, what did I do? Anyway, having this kind of background and very positive experience with off-line and on-line activities I decided for myself that some day I'm going to found a community in Mauritius for all kind of IT/ICT-related fields. The main focus might be on software development but not on a certain technology or methodology. It was clear to me that it should be an open infrastructure and anyone is welcome to join, to experience, to share and to contribute if they would like to. That was the idea at that time... Ok, fast-forward to recent events. At the end of October 2012 I was invited to an event called Open Days organised by Microsoft Indian Ocean Islands together with other local partners and resellers. There I got in touch with local Technical Evangelist Arnaud Meslier and we had a good conversation on communities during the breaks. Eventually, I left a good impression on him, as we are having chats on Facebook or Skype irregularly. Well, seeing that my personal and professional surroundings have been settled and running smooth, having that great exchange and contact with Microsoft IOI (again), and being really eager to re-animate my intentions from 2007, I recently founded a new community: Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community - #MSCC It took me a while to settle down with the name but it was obvious that the community should not be attached to one single technology, like ie. .NET user group, Oracle developers, or Joomla friends (these are fictitious names). There are several other reasons why I came up with 'Craftsmanship' as the core topic of this community. The expression of 'engineering' didn't feel right with the fields covered. Software development in all kind of facets is a craft, and therefore demands a lot of practice but also guidance from more experienced developers. It also includes the process of designing, modelling and drafting the ideas. Has to deal with various types of tests and test methodologies, and of course should be focused on flexible and agile ways of acting. In order to meet and to excel a customer's request for a solution. Next, I was looking for an easy way to handle the organisation of events and meeting appointments. Using all kind of social media platforms like Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, Xing, etc. I was never really confident about their features of event handling. More by chance I stumbled upon Meetup.com and in combination with the other entities (G+ Communities, FB Pages or in Groups) I am looking forward to advertise and manage all future activities here: Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community This is a community for those who care and are proud of what they do. For those developers, regardless how experienced they are, who want to improve and master their craft. This is a community for those who believe that being average is just not good enough. I know, there are not many 'craftsmen' yet but it's a start... Let's see how it looks like by the end of the year. There are free smartphone apps for Android and iOS from Meetup.com that allow you to keep track of meetings and to stay informed on latest updates. And last but not least, there will be a Trello workspace to collect and share ideas and provide downloads of slides, etc. Sharing is caring! As mentioned, the #MSCC is present in various social media networks in order to cover as many people as possible here in Mauritius. Following is an overview of the current networks: Twitter - Latest updates and quickies Google+ - Community channel Facebook - Community Page LinkedIn - Community Group Trello - Collaboration workspace to share and develop ideas Hopefully, this covers the majority of computer-related people in Mauritius. Please spread the word about the #MSCC between your colleagues, your friends and other interested 'geeks'. Your future looks bright Running and participating in a user group or any kind of community usually provides quite a number of advantages for anyone. On the one side it is very joyful for me to organise appointments and get in touch with people that might be interested to present a little demo of their projects or their recent problems they had to tackle down, and on the other side there are lots of companies that have various support programs or sponsorships especially tailored for user groups. At the moment, I already have a couple of gimmicks that I would like to hand out in small contests or raffles during one of the upcoming meetings, and as said, companies provide all kind of goodies, books free of charge, or sometimes even licenses for communities. Meeting other software developers or IT guys also opens up your point of view on the local market and there might be interesting projects or job offers available, too. A community like the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community is great for freelancers, self-employed, students and of course employees. Meetings will be organised on a regular basis, and I'm open to all kind of suggestions from you. Please leave a comment here in blog or join the conversations in the above mentioned social networks. Let's get this community up and running, my fellow Mauritians!

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  • VMware Kernel Module Updater hangs on Ubuntu 13.04

    VMware Player has a nice auto-detection of kernel changes, and requests the user to compile the required modules in order to load them. This happens from time to time after a regular update of your system. Usually, the dialog of VMware Kernel Module Updater pops up, asks for root access authentication, and completes the compilation. VMware Player or Workstation checks if modules for the active kernel are available. In theory this is supposed to work flawlessly but in reality there are pitfalls occassionally. With the recent upgrade to Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail and the latest kernel 3.8.0-21 the actual VMware Kernel Module Updater simply disappeared and the application wouldn't start as expected. When you launch VMware Player as super user (root) the dialog would stall like so: VMware Kernel Module Updater stalls while stopping the services Prior to version 5.x of VMware Player or version 7.x of VMware Workstation you would run a command like: $ sudo vmware-config.pl to resolve the module version conflict but this doesn't work anyway. Solution Instead, you have to execute the following line in a terminal or console window: $ sudo vmware-modconfig --console --install-all Those switches are (as of writing this article) not documented in the output of the --help switch. But VMware already documented this procedure in their knowledge base: VMware Workstation stops functioning after updating the kernel on a Linux host (1002411). Update As of today I had the first kernel upgrade to version 3.8.0-22 in Ubuntu 13.04. Don't even try it without vmware-modconfig...

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  • Programming Windows 8 Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript - All you need in one title

    It took me a while to work through the 800+ pages of this title. And yes, I really mean working not reading... Since the release of Windows 8 it should be obvious to any Windows software developer that there are new ways to develop, deploy and market applications for a broader audience. Interestingly, Microsoft started to narrow the technological gap between the various platforms - desktop, web, smartphone and XBox - and development of modern apps with HTML, CSS and JavaScript couldn't be easier. Kraig covers all facets of modern Windows 8 apps from the basic building blocks and project templates in Visual Studio 2012 over to the thoughtful use of specific APIs to finally proper deployment in the App Store and potential monetization. The organisation of the book is lied out like step by step instructions or a tutorial. Kraig literally takes the reader by the hand and explains in detail in his examples about the reasons, the pros, and the cons of a certain way of implementation. Thanks to cross-references to other chapters he leaves the choice to the reader to dig deeper right now or to catch up at some time later. Personally, I have to admit that I really enjoyed the relaxed writing style. App development is not dust-dry rocket science and it should be joyful to learn about new technologies. And thanks to the richness of the various chapters and samples you could easily adapt and transfer the knowledge gained in this title to other platforms like Windows Phone 8. And last but not least: The ebook is freely available at Amazon, Microsoft Press and O'Reilly. Don't think about it, just get the book. Now. Update: I already mentioned this title in other blog entries which are related to Microsoft certification. Feel free to read on and to discover more online resources: Learning content for MCSDs: Web Applications and Windows Store Apps using HTML5 More content for MCSDs: Web Applications and Windows Store Apps using HTML5 O'Reilly offers free webcasts on their site, too. And in case that you would like to know more about Kraig's book and his experience with various development teams, please checkout this one: Zero to App in Two Weeks: Programming Windows 8 Apps in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The recording should be available soon.

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  • Learning from jQuery - Solid fundament for experienced jQuery developers

    Frankly speaking, I had to sleep a night over before typing this review. And even now it is not an easy, straight-forward task to write this recension. I'm not sure whether I'm the right kind of audience this title is actually addressed to. It clearly states that this book is for web developers which are very familiar with jQuery library but would like to extend their knowledge to vanilla JavaScript. Not being part of this particular group it felt strange to go through the various chapters after all. This title is clearly addressed to experienced jQuery users and developers especially while looking for improvements in performance and better ways of optimisations. Sometimes just to simplify the existing jQuery code in order to avoid the heavy load of the complete jQuery library and sometimes for the better understanding of JavaScript and its syntax. Callum's style of writing is clear and the numerous code samples used to emphasize the various techniques are good ones and easy to understand. Quite interestingly, it put a light smile on my face when I compared his sample code of sending an AJAX request to some code in one of my own blog articles I wrote back in 2006 (in German language). JavaScript is clearly a mature language and certain requirements are simply done this way. And Callum explains the nuts and bolts of JavaScript very well. Personally, I gained most out of this book from chapter 5 - JavaScript Conventions. The paragraphs and code snippets on Optimizations and Common Antipatterns gave me a better understanding on various aspects of JavaScript development, and I definitely have to revise a couple of code fragments I have written in the past. Overall the book provides solid information on JavaScript for jQuery developers and is worth the money spent. Just be sure that you're part of the targeted audience.

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  • Perl - can't flush STDOUT or STDERR

    - by Jim Salter
    Perl 5.14 from stock Ubuntu Precise repos. Trying to write a simple wrapper to monitor progress on copying from one stream to another: use IO::Handle; while ($bufsize = read (SOURCE, $buffer, 1048576)) { STDERR->printflush ("Transferred $xferred of $sendsize bytes\n"); $xferred += $bufsize; print TARGET $buffer; } This does not perform as expected (writing a line each time the 1M buffer is read). I end up seeing the first line (with a blank value of $xferred), and then the 7th and 8th lines (on an 8MB transfer). Been pounding my brains out on this for hours - I've read the perldocs, I've read the classic "Suffering from Buffering" article, I've tried everything from select and $|++ to IO::Handle to binmode (STDERR, "::unix") to you name it. I've also tried flushing TARGET with each line using IO::Handle (TARGET-flush). No dice. Has anybody else ever encountered this? I don't have any ideas left. Sleeping one second "fixes" the problem, but obviously I don't want to sleep a second every time I read a buffer just so my progress will output on the screen! FWIW, the problem is exactly the same whether I'm outputting to STDERR or STDOUT.

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  • Process video (canon) mov files

    - by user613326
    Well i would like to program something to process HDR made by magic lantern a canon add on. That doesnt change the format its just some kind of add on, that can produce HDR video. Its a bit complex to make such videos so i would like to use some math and make it myself and makee the software freeware (as a thanks to the creators of magic lantern). The problem with that HDR that normal converts have a lot of artifacts, and i would like to make something (for free) using some new algorithms. I have made, this works fine on individual images, my ideas work. I would want to do this on that canon 60d video format. Canons mov format, and am so far out of luck to read that out. It must be possible dough as i know in some projects they do it too. I would not like to export a movie first to jpg and then back to video as that requires a lot of disk space, i would like to retrieve individual frames, do my math based multiple frames, and then build a new movie on it. The output video can be of any type, avi or mov again. Does anyone know of a library who can do that ? (read and save), So i could use it in a C# project (i prefer C# above c++, but c++ is an option to program in to for me).

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