Search Results

Search found 17192 results on 688 pages for 'geeks with blogs'.

facebook twitter digg google delicious technorati stumbleupon myspace wordpress linkedin gmail igoogle windows live tumblr viadeo yahoo buzz yahoo mail yahoo bookmarks favorites email print

Page 76/688 | < Previous Page | 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83  | Next Page >

  • Apple iPad 2 In April, iPhone 5 in June With New Hardware[Rumours]

    - by Gopinath
    Blogs and news sites are buzzing with the rumours of Apple’s next generation iPad and iPhone devices. These rumours interests the bloggers, geeks and end users of Apple devices as Apple maintains very tight lip on the new features of their upcoming products. The gadget blog Engadget has some very interesting rumours on the release of iPad 2 & iPhone 5 as well the new hardware they are going to have. Lets get into the details if you love to read the rumours of high profile blogs iPad 2 Release Date and Specs Apple seems to be all set to release iPad 2 in April, that is almost an year after the release of first iPad. It’s common for Apple to enjoy an one year long time to release a new version of their products. So if at all the rumours are to be believed, I can place an order of iPad 2 in April. Just like many of you out there, I’m also holding my iPad buying instinct and waiting for iPad 2 as it’s going to have at the minimum retina display,  Facetime features and few game changing features in Apple’s style. The report claims, iPad 2 will have a front and back cameras retina display SD Card slot (seems to be no USB) a dual GSM / CDMA chipset, that lets you use it with both GSM(AT &T, Airte) and CDMA(Verizon, Reliance) telecom providers iPhone 5 Release Date and Specs When it comes to iPhone 5 information, the rumour claims that the new iPhone is a completed redesigned device and it’s slated to release in summer of United States(i.e. June 2011). The device is also being tested by senior Apple executives right inside the campus and strictly not allowed to carry it outside. This restriction is to make sure that iPhone 5 will not land land up in a bar and then in the hands of geek blogs like how it happened with iPhone 4 last year. When it comes to the hardware of iPhone 5 Apple’s new A5 CPU (a Cortex A9-based, multi-core chip) a dual GSM / CDMA chipset, that lets you use it with both GSM(AT &T, Airte) and CDMA(Verizon, Reliance) telecom providers via Engadget and cc image credit flickr/mr-blixt This article titled,Apple iPad 2 In April, iPhone 5 in June With New Hardware[Rumours], was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

    Read the article

  • TFS 2010 Build: Dealing with the API restriction error

    - by Jakob Ehn
    Recently I’ve come across this error a couple of times when running builds that exeucte unit tests using Test containers: API restriction: The assembly 'file:///C:\Builds\<path>\myassembly.dll' has already loaded from a different location. It cannot be loaded from a new location within the same appdomain. Every time I’ve got this error, the project has been a web application, and the path to the assembly points down to the _PublishedWebsites directory that is created beneath the Binaries folder during a team build. The error description really says it all (although slightly cryptic), when using test containers, MSTest needs to load all assemblies and see if they contain any unit tests. During this serach, it finds the ‘myassembly.dll’ in two different locations. First it is found directly beneth the Binaries folder, and then it is alos found beneath the _PublishedWebsites\Project\bin folder. The reason is that the default setting for test containers in a TFS 2010 build definition is **\*test*.dll:   This pattern means that MSTest will search recursively for all assemblies beneath the Binaries folder, and during the search it will find the MyAssembly.dll twice. The solution is simple, set the Test assembly file specification property to *test*.dll instead, this will disable the recursive search:

    Read the article

  • C#: Optional Parameters - Pros and Pitfalls

    - by James Michael Hare
    When Microsoft rolled out Visual Studio 2010 with C# 4, I was very excited to learn how I could apply all the new features and enhancements to help make me and my team more productive developers. Default parameters have been around forever in C++, and were intentionally omitted in Java in favor of using overloading to satisfy that need as it was though that having too many default parameters could introduce code safety issues.  To some extent I can understand that move, as I’ve been bitten by default parameter pitfalls before, but at the same time I feel like Java threw out the baby with the bathwater in that move and I’m glad to see C# now has them. This post briefly discusses the pros and pitfalls of using default parameters.  I’m avoiding saying cons, because I really don’t believe using default parameters is a negative thing, I just think there are things you must watch for and guard against to avoid abuses that can cause code safety issues. Pro: Default Parameters Can Simplify Code Let’s start out with positives.  Consider how much cleaner it is to reduce all the overloads in methods or constructors that simply exist to give the semblance of optional parameters.  For example, we could have a Message class defined which allows for all possible initializations of a Message: 1: public class Message 2: { 3: // can either cascade these like this or duplicate the defaults (which can introduce risk) 4: public Message() 5: : this(string.Empty) 6: { 7: } 8:  9: public Message(string text) 10: : this(text, null) 11: { 12: } 13:  14: public Message(string text, IDictionary<string, string> properties) 15: : this(text, properties, -1) 16: { 17: } 18:  19: public Message(string text, IDictionary<string, string> properties, long timeToLive) 20: { 21: // ... 22: } 23: }   Now consider the same code with default parameters: 1: public class Message 2: { 3: // can either cascade these like this or duplicate the defaults (which can introduce risk) 4: public Message(string text = "", IDictionary<string, string> properties = null, long timeToLive = -1) 5: { 6: // ... 7: } 8: }   Much more clean and concise and no repetitive coding!  In addition, in the past if you wanted to be able to cleanly supply timeToLive and accept the default on text and properties above, you would need to either create another overload, or pass in the defaults explicitly.  With named parameters, though, we can do this easily: 1: var msg = new Message(timeToLive: 100);   Pro: Named Parameters can Improve Readability I must say one of my favorite things with the default parameters addition in C# is the named parameters.  It lets code be a lot easier to understand visually with no comments.  Think how many times you’ve run across a TimeSpan declaration with 4 arguments and wondered if they were passing in days/hours/minutes/seconds or hours/minutes/seconds/milliseconds.  A novice running through your code may wonder what it is.  Named arguments can help resolve the visual ambiguity: 1: // is this days/hours/minutes/seconds (no) or hours/minutes/seconds/milliseconds (yes) 2: var ts = new TimeSpan(1, 2, 3, 4); 3:  4: // this however is visually very explicit 5: var ts = new TimeSpan(days: 1, hours: 2, minutes: 3, seconds: 4);   Or think of the times you’ve run across something passing a Boolean literal and wondered what it was: 1: // what is false here? 2: var sub = CreateSubscriber(hostname, port, false); 3:  4: // aha! Much more visibly clear 5: var sub = CreateSubscriber(hostname, port, isBuffered: false);   Pitfall: Don't Insert new Default Parameters In Between Existing Defaults Now let’s consider a two potential pitfalls.  The first is really an abuse.  It’s not really a fault of the default parameters themselves, but a fault in the use of them.  Let’s consider that Message constructor again with defaults.  Let’s say you want to add a messagePriority to the message and you think this is more important than a timeToLive value, so you decide to put messagePriority before it in the default, this gives you: 1: public class Message 2: { 3: public Message(string text = "", IDictionary<string, string> properties = null, int priority = 5, long timeToLive = -1) 4: { 5: // ... 6: } 7: }   Oh boy have we set ourselves up for failure!  Why?  Think of all the code out there that could already be using the library that already specified the timeToLive, such as this possible call: 1: var msg = new Message(“An error occurred”, myProperties, 1000);   Before this specified a message with a TTL of 1000, now it specifies a message with a priority of 1000 and a time to live of -1 (infinite).  All of this with NO compiler errors or warnings. So the rule to take away is if you are adding new default parameters to a method that’s currently in use, make sure you add them to the end of the list or create a brand new method or overload. Pitfall: Beware of Default Parameters in Inheritance and Interface Implementation Now, the second potential pitfalls has to do with inheritance and interface implementation.  I’ll illustrate with a puzzle: 1: public interface ITag 2: { 3: void WriteTag(string tagName = "ITag"); 4: } 5:  6: public class BaseTag : ITag 7: { 8: public virtual void WriteTag(string tagName = "BaseTag") { Console.WriteLine(tagName); } 9: } 10:  11: public class SubTag : BaseTag 12: { 13: public override void WriteTag(string tagName = "SubTag") { Console.WriteLine(tagName); } 14: } 15:  16: public static class Program 17: { 18: public static void Main() 19: { 20: SubTag subTag = new SubTag(); 21: BaseTag subByBaseTag = subTag; 22: ITag subByInterfaceTag = subTag; 23:  24: // what happens here? 25: subTag.WriteTag(); 26: subByBaseTag.WriteTag(); 27: subByInterfaceTag.WriteTag(); 28: } 29: }   What happens?  Well, even though the object in each case is SubTag whose tag is “SubTag”, you will get: 1: SubTag 2: BaseTag 3: ITag   Why?  Because default parameter are resolved at compile time, not runtime!  This means that the default does not belong to the object being called, but by the reference type it’s being called through.  Since the SubTag instance is being called through an ITag reference, it will use the default specified in ITag. So the moral of the story here is to be very careful how you specify defaults in interfaces or inheritance hierarchies.  I would suggest avoiding repeating them, and instead concentrating on the layer of classes or interfaces you must likely expect your caller to be calling from. For example, if you have a messaging factory that returns an IMessage which can be either an MsmqMessage or JmsMessage, it only makes since to put the defaults at the IMessage level since chances are your user will be using the interface only. So let’s sum up.  In general, I really love default and named parameters in C# 4.0.  I think they’re a great tool to help make your code easier to read and maintain when used correctly. On the plus side, default parameters: Reduce redundant overloading for the sake of providing optional calling structures. Improve readability by being able to name an ambiguous argument. But remember to make sure you: Do not insert new default parameters in the middle of an existing set of default parameters, this may cause unpredictable behavior that may not necessarily throw a syntax error – add to end of list or create new method. Be extremely careful how you use default parameters in inheritance hierarchies and interfaces – choose the most appropriate level to add the defaults based on expected usage. Technorati Tags: C#,.NET,Software,Default Parameters

    Read the article

  • Deploying a SharePoint 2007 theme using Features

    - by Kelly Jones
    I recently had a requirement to update the branding on an existing Windows SharePoint Services (WSS version 3.0) site.  I needed to update the theme, along with the master page.  An additional requirement is that my client likes to have all changes bundled up in SharePoint solutions.  This makes it much easier to move code from dev to test to prod and more importantly, makes it easier to undo code migrations if any issues would arise (I agree with this approach). Updating the theme was easy enough.  I created a new theme, along with a two new features.  The first feature, scoped at the farm level, deploys the theme, adding it to the spthemes.xml file (in the 12 hive –> \Template\layouts\1033 folder).  Here’s the method that I call from the feature activated event: private static void AddThemeToSpThemes(string id, string name, string description, string thumbnail, string preview, SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties) { XmlDocument spThemes = new XmlDocument(); //use GetGenericSetupPath to find the 12 hive folder string spThemesPath = SPUtility.GetGenericSetupPath(@"TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\1033\spThemes.xml"); //load the spthemes file into our xmldocument, since it is just xml spThemes.Load(spThemesPath); XmlNode root = spThemes.DocumentElement; //search the themes file to see if our theme is already added bool found = false; foreach (XmlNode node in root.ChildNodes) { foreach (XmlNode prop in node.ChildNodes) { if (prop.Name.Equals("TemplateID")) { if (prop.InnerText.Equals(id)) { found = true; break; } } } if (found) { break; } } if (!found) //theme not found, so add it { //This is what we need to add: // <Templates> // <TemplateID>ThemeName</TemplateID> // <DisplayName>Theme Display Name</DisplayName> // <Description>My theme description</Description> // <Thumbnail>images/mythemethumb.gif</Thumbnail> // <Preview>images/mythemepreview.gif</Preview> // </Templates> StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); sb.Append("<Templates><TemplateID>"); sb.Append(id); sb.Append("</TemplateID><DisplayName>"); sb.Append(name); sb.Append("</DisplayName><Description>"); sb.Append(description); sb.Append("</Description><Thumbnail>"); sb.Append(thumbnail); sb.Append("</Thumbnail><Preview>"); sb.Append(preview); sb.Append("</Preview></Templates>"); root.CreateNavigator().AppendChild(sb.ToString()); spThemes.Save(spThemesPath); } } Just as important, is the code that removes the theme when the feature is deactivated: private static void RemoveThemeFromSpThemes(string id) { XmlDocument spThemes = new XmlDocument(); string spThemesPath = HostingEnvironment.MapPath("/_layouts/") + @"1033\spThemes.xml"; spThemes.Load(spThemesPath); XmlNode root = spThemes.DocumentElement; foreach (XmlNode node in root.ChildNodes) { foreach (XmlNode prop in node.ChildNodes) { if (prop.Name.Equals("TemplateID")) { if (prop.InnerText.Equals(id)) { root.RemoveChild(node); spThemes.Save(spThemesPath); break; } } } } } So, that takes care of deploying the theme.  In order to apply the theme to the web, my activate feature method looks like this: public override void FeatureDeactivating(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties) { using (SPWeb curweb = (SPWeb)properties.Feature.Parent) { curweb.ApplyTheme("myThemeName"); curweb.Update(); } } Deactivating is just as simple: public override void FeatureDeactivating(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties) { using (SPWeb curweb = (SPWeb)properties.Feature.Parent) { curweb.ApplyTheme("none"); curweb.Update(); } } Ok, that’s the code necessary to deploy, apply, un-apply, and retract the theme.  Also, the solution (WSP file) contains the actual theme files. SO, next is the master page, which I’ll cover in my next blog post.

    Read the article

  • Windows CE: Changing Static IP Address

    - by Bruce Eitman
    A customer contacted me recently and asked me how to change a static IP address at runtime.  Of course this is not something that I know how to do, but with a little bit of research I figure out how to do it. It turns out that the challenge is to request that the adapter update itself with the new IP Address.  Otherwise, the change in IP address is a matter of changing the address in the registry for the adapter.   The registry entry is something like: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Comm\LAN90001\Parms\TcpIp]    "EnableDHCP"=dword:0    "IpAddress"="192.168.0.100"     "DefaultGateway"="192.168.0.1"    "Subnetmask"="255.255.255.0" Where LAN90001 would be replace with your adapter name.  I have written quite a few articles about how to modify the registry, including a registry editor that you could use. Requesting that the adapter update itself is a matter of getting a handle to the NDIS driver, and then asking it to refresh the adapter.  The code is: #include <windows.h> #include "winioctl.h" #include "ntddndis.h"   void RebindAdapter( TCHAR *adaptername ) {       HANDLE hNdis;       BOOL fResult = FALSE;       int count;         // Make this function easier to use - hide the need to have two null characters.       int length = wcslen(adaptername);       int AdapterSize = (length + 2) * sizeof( TCHAR );       TCHAR *Adapter = malloc(AdapterSize);       wcscpy( Adapter, adaptername );       Adapter[ length ] = '\0';       Adapter[ length +1 ] = '\0';           hNdis = CreateFile(DD_NDIS_DEVICE_NAME,                   GENERIC_READ | GENERIC_WRITE,                   FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_WRITE,                   NULL,                   OPEN_ALWAYS,                   0,                   NULL);         if (INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE != hNdis)       {             fResult = DeviceIoControl(hNdis,                         IOCTL_NDIS_REBIND_ADAPTER,                         Adapter,                         AdapterSize,                         NULL,                         0,                         &count,                         NULL);             if( !fResult )             {                   RETAILMSG( 1, (TEXT("DeviceIoControl failed %d\n"), GetLastError() ));             }             CloseHandle(hNdis);       }       else       {             RETAILMSG( 1, (TEXT("Failed to open NDIS Handle\n")));       }   }       int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPWSTR    lpCmdLine, int       nCmdShow) {     RebindAdapter( TEXT("LAN90001") );     return 0; }   If you don’t want to write any code, but instead plan to use a registry editor to change the IP Address, then there is a command line utility to do the same thing.  NDISConfig.exe can be used: Ndisconfig adapter rebind LAN90001    Copyright © 2012 – Bruce Eitman All Rights Reserved

    Read the article

  • Find the occurrence of word/character in SQL column with wildcard character - PATINDEX

    - by Vipin
    CharIndex and PatIndex both can be used to determine the presence of character or string within sql column data. Both returns the starting position of the first occurrence of the character/word within expression. However, one major difference between CharIndex and PatIndex is that later allows the use of wild card characters while searching for character or word within column data. Also, Patindex is useful for searching within Text datatype. Allowed wild card characters are % and _ . " % "  - use it for any number of characters " _ "  - use it for a single character. Syntax PATINDEX('%pattern%', string_expression) Note - it's mandatory to include pattern within %% characters. returns starting position of occurrence of pattern, if found. returns 0, if not found returns NULL , if either pattern or string_expression is null. Example SELECT fldname FROM tblUsers WHERE PatIndex('%v_pin%', fldname) > 0

    Read the article

  • Windows CE: Newsgroups Shutdown

    - by Bruce Eitman
    As of June 1, 2010 many of the Windows CE newsgroups have been shut down by Microsoft, and the rest will be shut down by October 1, 2010.  This is part of an overall Microsoft strategy to move community from newsgroups to web based forums. The newsgroups have been indexed by Google, so the existing content can and should be searched for answers using http://groups.google.com/advanced_search Microsoft has replaced the newsgroups with http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/windowsembeddedcompact which has forums for OS Development, Managed Application Development and Native Application Development. Note that with the planned release for Q4 2010, Microsoft is renaming Windows Embedded CE to Windows Embedded Compact.  This name change is reflected in the forum naming. Copyright © 2010 – Bruce Eitman All Rights Reserved

    Read the article

  • Software Engineering Practices &ndash; Different Projects should have different maturity levels

    - by Dylan Smith
    I’ve had a lot of discussions at the office lately about the drastically different sets of software engineering practices used on our various projects, if what we are doing is appropriate, and what factors should you be considering when determining what practices are most appropriate in a given context. I wanted to write up my thoughts in a little more detail on this subject, so here we go: If you compare any two software projects (specifically comparing their codebases) you’ll often see very different levels of maturity in the software engineering practices employed. By software engineering practices, I’m specifically referring to the quality of the code and the amount of technical debt present in the project. Things such as Test Driven Development, Domain Driven Design, Behavior Driven Development, proper adherence to the SOLID principles, etc. are all practices that you would expect at the mature end of the spectrum. At the other end of the spectrum would be the quick-and-dirty solutions that are done using something like an Access Database, Excel Spreadsheet, or maybe some quick “drag-and-drop coding”. For this blog post I’m going to refer to this as the Software Engineering Maturity Spectrum (SEMS). I believe there is a time and a place for projects at every part of that SEMS. The risks and costs associated with under-engineering solutions have been written about a million times over so I won’t bother going into them again here, but there are also (unnecessary) costs with over-engineering a solution. Sometimes putting multiple layers, and IoC containers, and abstracting out the persistence, etc is complete overkill if a one-time use Access database could solve the problem perfectly well. A lot of software developers I talk to seem to automatically jump to the very right-hand side of this SEMS in everything they do. A common rationalization I hear is that it may seem like a small trivial application today, but these things always grow and stick around for many years, then you’re stuck maintaining a big ball of mud. I think this is a cop-out. Sure you can’t always anticipate how an application will be used or grow over its lifetime (can you ever??), but that doesn’t mean you can’t manage it and evolve the underlying software architecture as necessary (even if that means having to toss the code out and re-write it at some point…maybe even multiple times). My thoughts are that we should be making a conscious decision around the start of each project approximately where on the SEMS we want the project to exist. I believe this decision should be based on 3 factors: 1. Importance - How important to the business is this application? What is the impact if the application were to suddenly stop working? 2. Complexity - How complex is the application functionality? 3. Life-Expectancy - How long is this application expected to be in use? Is this a one-time use application, does it fill a short-term need, or is it more strategic and is expected to be in-use for many years to come? Of course this isn’t an exact science. You can’t say that Project X should be at the 73% mark on the SEMS and expect that to be helpful. My point is not that you need to precisely figure out what point on the SEMS the project should be at then translate that into some prescriptive set of practices and techniques you should be using. Rather my point is that we need to be aware that there is a spectrum, and that not everything is going to be (or should be) at the edges of that spectrum, indeed a large number of projects should probably fall somewhere within the middle; and different projects should adopt a different level of software engineering practices and maturity levels based on the needs of that project. To give an example of this way of thinking from my day job: Every couple of years my company plans and hosts a large event where ~400 of our customers all fly in to one location for a multi-day event with various activities. We have some staff whose job it is to organize the logistics of this event, which includes tracking which flights everybody is booked on, arranging for transportation to/from airports, arranging for hotel rooms, name tags, etc The last time we arranged this event all these various pieces of data were tracked in separate spreadsheets and reconciliation and cross-referencing of all the data was literally done by hand using printed copies of the spreadsheets and several people sitting around a table going down each list row by row. Obviously there is some room for improvement in how we are using software to manage the event’s logistics. The next time this event occurs we plan to provide the event planning staff with a more intelligent tool (either an Excel spreadsheet or probably an Access database) that can track all the information in one location and make sure that the various pieces of data are properly linked together (so for example if a person cancels you only need to delete them from one place, and not a dozen separate lists). This solution would fall at or near the very left end of the SEMS meaning that we will just quickly create something with very little attention paid to using mature software engineering practices. If we examine this project against the 3 criteria I listed above for determining it’s place within the SEMS we can see why: Importance – If this application were to stop working the business doesn’t grind to a halt, revenue doesn’t stop, and in fact our customers wouldn’t even notice since it isn’t a customer facing application. The impact would simply be more work for our event planning staff as they revert back to the previous way of doing things (assuming we don’t have any data loss). Complexity – The use cases for this project are pretty straightforward. It simply needs to manage several lists of data, and link them together appropriately. Precisely the task that access (and/or Excel) can do with minimal custom development required. Life-Expectancy – For this specific project we’re only planning to create something to be used for the one event (we only hold these events every 2 years). If it works well this may change (see below). Let’s assume we hack something out quickly and it works great when we plan the next event. We may decide that we want to make some tweaks to the tool and adopt it for planning all future events of this nature. In that case we should examine where the current application is on the SEMS, and make a conscious decision whether something needs to be done to move it further to the right based on the new objectives and goals for this application. This may mean scrapping the access database and re-writing it as an actual web or windows application. In this case, the life-expectancy changed, but let’s assume the importance and complexity didn’t change all that much. We can still probably get away with not adopting a lot of the so-called “best practices”. For example, we can probably still use some of the RAD tooling available and might have an Autonomous View style design that connects directly to the database and binds to typed datasets (we might even choose to simply leave it as an access database and continue using it; this is a decision that needs to be made on a case-by-case basis). At Anvil Digital we have aspirations to become a primarily product-based company. So let’s say we use this tool to plan a handful of events internally, and everybody loves it. Maybe a couple years down the road we decide we want to package the tool up and sell it as a product to some of our customers. In this case the project objectives/goals change quite drastically. Now the tool becomes a source of revenue, and the impact of it suddenly stopping working is significantly less acceptable. Also as we hold focus groups, and gather feedback from customers and potential customers there’s a pretty good chance the feature-set and complexity will have to grow considerably from when we were using it only internally for planning a small handful of events for one company. In this fictional scenario I would expect the target on the SEMS to jump to the far right. Depending on how we implemented the previous release we may be able to refactor and evolve the existing codebase to introduce a more layered architecture, a robust set of automated tests, introduce a proper ORM and IoC container, etc. More likely in this example the jump along the SEMS would be so large we’d probably end up scrapping the current code and re-writing. Although, if it was a slow phased roll-out to only a handful of customers, where we collected feedback, made some tweaks, and then rolled out to a couple more customers, we may be able to slowly refactor and evolve the code over time rather than tossing it out and starting from scratch. The key point I’m trying to get across is not that you should be throwing out your code and starting from scratch all the time. But rather that you should be aware of when and how the context and objectives around a project changes and periodically re-assess where the project currently falls on the SEMS and whether that needs to be adjusted based on changing needs. Note: There is also the idea of “spectrum decay”. Since our industry is rapidly evolving, what we currently accept as mature software engineering practices (the right end of the SEMS) probably won’t be the same 3 years from now. If you have a project that you were to assess at somewhere around the 80% mark on the SEMS today, but don’t touch the code for 3 years and come back and re-assess its position, it will almost certainly have changed since the right end of the SEMS will have moved farther out (maybe the project is now only around 60% due to decay). Developer Skills Another important aspect to this whole discussion is around the skill sets of your architects and lead developers. When talking about the progression of a developers skills from junior->intermediate->senior->… they generally start by only being able to write code that belongs on the left side of the SEMS and as they gain more knowledge and skill they become capable of working at a higher and higher level along the SEMS. We all realize that the learning never stops, but eventually you’ll get to the point where you can comfortably develop at the right-end of the SEMS (the exact practices and techniques that translates to is constantly changing, but that’s not the point here). A critical skill that I’d love to see more evidence of in our industry is the most senior guys not only being able to work at the right-end of the SEMS, but more importantly be able to consciously work at any point along the SEMS as project needs dictate. An even more valuable skill would be if you could make the conscious decision to move a projects code further right on the SEMS (based on changing needs) and do so in an incremental manner without having to start from scratch. An exercise that I’m planning to go through with all of our projects here at Anvil in the near future is to map out where I believe each project currently falls within this SEMS, where I believe the project *should* be on the SEMS based on the business needs, and for those that don’t match up (i.e. most of them) come up with a plan to improve the situation.

    Read the article

  • Silverlight Cream for February 23, 2011 -- #1051

    - by Dave Campbell
    In this Issue: Ian T. Lackey, Kevin Hoffman, Kunal Chowdhury, Jesse Liberty(-2-), Page Brooks, Deborah Kurata(-2-), and Paul Sheriff. Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Building a Radar Control in Silverlight–Part 2" Page Brooks WP7: "Reactive Drag and Drop Part 2" Jesse Liberty Expression Blend: "Simple RadioButtonList and / or CheckBoxList in Silverlight Using a Behavior" Ian T. Lackey Shoutouts: Kunal Chowdhury delivered a full day session on Silverlight at the Microsoft Imagine Cup Championship event in Mumbai... you can Download Microsoft Imagine Cup Session PPT on Silverlight Dennis Doomen has appeared in my blog any number of times... he's looking for some assistance: Get me on stage on the Developer Days 2011 Steve Wortham posted An Interview with Jeff Wilcox From SilverlightCream.com: Simple RadioButtonList and / or CheckBoxList in Silverlight Using a Behavior Ian T. Lackey bemoans the lack of a RadioButtonList or CheckBoxList, and jumps into Blend to show us how to make one using a behavior... and the code is available too! WP7 for iPhone and Android Developers - Introduction to XAML and Silverlight Continuing his series at SilvelightShow for iPhone and Android devs, Kevin Hoffman has part 2 up getting into the UI with an intro to XAML and Silverlight. Day 1: Working with Telerik Silverlight RadControls Kunal Chowdhury kicked my tires that I had missed his Telerik control series... He's detailing his experience getting up to speed with the Silverlight RadControls. Day 1 is intro, what there is, installing, stuff like that. Part 2 continues: Day 2: Working with BusyIndicator of Telerik Silverlight RadControls, followed (so far) by part 3: Day 3: Working with Masked TextBox of Telerik Silverlight RadControls Reactive Drag and Drop Part 2 Jesse Liberty has his 7th part about Rx up ... and the 2nd part of Reactive Drag and Drop, and oh yeah... it's for WP7 as well! Yet Another Podcast #25–Glenn Block / WCF Next Jesse Liberty has Glenn Block on stage for his Yet Another Podcast number 25... talking WCF with Glenn. Building a Radar Control in Silverlight–Part 2 Page Brooks has part 2 of his 'radar' control for Silverlight up... I don't know where I'd use this, but it's darned cool... and the live demo is amazing. Silverlight Charting: Setting Colors Deborah Kurata is looking at the charting controls now, and how to set colors. She begins with a previous post on charts and adds color definitions to that post. Silverlight Charting: Setting the Tooltip Deborah Kurata next gets into formatting the tooltip you can get when the user hovers over a chart to make it make more sense to your user 'Content' is NOT 'Text' in XAML Paul Sheriff discusses the Content property of XAML controls and how it can be pretty much any other XAML you want it to be, then goes on to show some nice examples. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

    Read the article

  • O&rsquo;Reilly Deal of the Day 4/Aug/2014 - Windows PowerShell 4.0 for .NET Developers

    - by TATWORTH
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TATWORTH/archive/2014/08/04/orsquoreilly-deal-of-the-day-4aug2014---windows-powershell-4.0.aspxToday’s half-price Deal of the Day from O’Reilly at http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9781849688765.do?code=MSDEAL is Windows PowerShell 4.0 for .NET Developers. “The world of technology is growing faster than ever, and the business needs are getting more complex every day. With PowerShell in your toolbox, you have an object-based scripting language, task-based shell, along with a powerful automation engine. PowerShell is built on top of .NET framework which gives an edge over the other tools when it comes to integration and automation of Microsoft product and technologies.”

    Read the article

  • Local Events | Azure Bootcamp

    - by Jeff Julian
    Coming to Kansas City April 8th and 9th is the Microsoft Azure Bootcamp. This event looks very promising for those developers who are looking into Azure for themselves or their companies. It covers the wide range of topics required to understand what Azure really is and is not. Space is limited so if you are considering Azure, register for this event today.Agenda:Module 1: Introduction to cloud computer and AzureHow it worksKey ScenariosThe development environment and SDKModule 2: Using Web RolesBasic ASP.NETBasic configurationModule 3: Blobs: File Storage in the cloudModule 4: Tables: Scalable hierarchical storageModule 5: Queues: Decoupling your systemsModule 6: Basic Worker RolesExecuting backend processesConsuming a queueLeveraging local storageModule 7: Advanced Worker RolesExternal EndpointsInter-role communicationModule 8: Building a business with AzureUsing Azure as an ISV or a partnerAdvantages to delivering valueBPOSPricingModule 9: SQL AzureSetting it upSQL Azure firewallRemote managementMigrating dataModule 10: AppFabricService BusAccess Control SystemIdentity in the cloudModule 11: Cloud ScenariosApp migration strategiesDisposable computingDynamic scaleShuntingPrototypingMultitenant applications (This is my second attempt at this post after MacJournal decided to crash and not save my work. Authoring tools all need auto-save features by now, that is a requirement set in stone by Microsoft Word 97) Related Tags: Azure, Microsoft, Kansas City

    Read the article

  • Anonymous Access and Sharepoint Web Services

    - by Stacy Vicknair
    A month or so ago I was working on a feature for a project that required a level of anonymity on the Sharepoint site in order to function. At the same time I was also working on another feature that required access to the Sharepoint search.asmx web service. I found out, the hard way, that the Sharepoint Web Services do not operate in an expected way while the IIS site is under anonymous access. Even though these web services expect requests with certain permissions (in theory) they never attempt to request those credentials when the web service is contacted. As a result the services return a 401 Unauthorized response. The fix for my situation was to restrict anonymous access to the area that needed it (in this case the control in question had support for being used in an ASP.NET app that I could throw in a virtual directory). After that I removed anonymous access from IIS for the site itself and the QueryService requests were working once more. Here’s a related article with a bit more depth about a similar experience: http://chrisdomino.com/Blog/Post/401-Reasons-Why-SharePoint-Web-Services-Don-t-Work-Anonymously?Length=4 Technorati Tags: Sharepoint,QueryService,WSS,IIS,Anonymous Access

    Read the article

  • CODE PROJECT VIRTUAL TECH SUMMIT ON MOBILE DEVELOPMENT &ndash; ON DEMAND

    - by Tiago Salgado
    Who has not seen the Code Project's Tech Virtual Summit on Mobile Development, you can now see all the sessions on demand. The sessions are: The Mobile Development Landscape Android Push Notifications Beginning Android Flash Development Android for .NET/C# Developers Using MonoDroid iPhone 101: Introduction to iPhone and iOS Development Building Rich Mobile Apps with HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript Building MVVM apps for Windows Phone 7 Using Panorama and Pivot Controls for WP7 apps Building Data Visualization Applications for Windows Phone 7 To access the sessions, you need to register at the following link: http://www.virtualtechsummits.com/Register.aspx?EventID=11

    Read the article

  • Passing the CAML thru the EY of the NEEDL

    - by PointsToShare
    © 2011 By: Dov Trietsch. All rights reserved Passing the CAML thru the EY of the NEEDL Definitions: CAML (Collaborative Application Markup Language) is an XML based markup language used in Microsoft SharePoint technologies  Anonymous: A camel is a horse designed by committee  Dov Trietsch: A CAML is a HORS designed by Microsoft  I was advised against putting any Camel and Sphinx rhymes in here. Look it up in Google!  _____ Now that we have dispensed with the dromedary jokes (BTW, I have many more, but they are not fit to print!), here is an interesting problem and its solution.  We have built a list where the title must be kept unique so I needed to verify the existence (or absence) of a list item with a particular title. Two methods came to mind:  1: Span the list until the title is found (result = found) or until the list ends (result = not found). This is an algorithm of complexity O(N) and for long lists it is a performance sucker. 2: Use a CAML query instead. Here, for short list we’ll encounter some overhead, but because the query results in an SQL query on the content database, it is of complexity O(LogN), which is significantly better and scales perfectly. Obviously I decided to go with the latter and this is where the CAML s--t hit the fan.   A CAML query returns a SPListItemCollection and I simply checked its Count. If it was 0, the item did not already exist and it was safe to add a new item with the given title. Otherwise I cancelled the operation and warned the user. The trouble was that I always got a positive. Most of the time a false positive. The count was greater than 0 regardles of the title I checked (except when the list was empty, which happens only once). This was very disturbing indeed. To solve my immediate problem which was speedy delivery, I reverted to the “Span the list” approach, but the problem bugged me, so I wrote a little console app by which I tested and tweaked and tested, time and again, until I found the solution. Yes, one can pass the proverbial CAML thru the ey of the needle (e’s missing on purpose).  So here are my conclusions:  CAML that does not work:  Note: QT is my quote:  char QT = Convert.ToChar((int)34); string titleQuery = "<Query>><Where><Eq>"; titleQuery += "<FieldRef Name=" + QT + "Title" + QT + "/>"; titleQuery += "<Value Type=" + QT + "Text" + QT + ">" + uniqueID + "</Value></Eq></Where></Query>"; titleQuery += "<ViewFields><FieldRef Name=" + QT + "Title" + QT + "/></ViewFields>";  Why? Even though U2U generates it, the <Query> and </Query> tags do not belong in the query that you pass. Start your query with the <Where> clause.  Also the <ViewFiels> clause does not belong. I used this clause to limit the returned collection to a single column, and I still wish to do it. I’ll show how this is done a bit later.   When you use the <Query> </Query> tags in you query, it’s as if you did not specify the query at all. What you get is the all inclusive default query for the list. It returns evey column and every item. It is expensive for both server and network because it does all the extra processing and eats plenty of bandwidth.   Now, here is the CAML that works  string titleQuery = "<Where><Eq>"; titleQuery += "<FieldRef Name=" + QT + "Title" + QT + "/>"; titleQuery += "<Value Type=" + QT + "Text" + QT + ">" + uniqueID + "</Value></Eq></Where>";  You’ll also notice that inside the unusable <ViewFields> clause above, we have a <FieldRef> clause. This is what we pass to the SPQuery object. Here is how:  SPQuery query = new SPQuery(); query.Query = titleQuery; query.ViewFields = "<FieldRef Name=" + QT + "Title" + QT + "/>"; query.RowLimit = 1; SPListItemCollection col = masterList.GetItems(query);  Two thing to note: we enter the view fields into the SPQuery object and we also limited the number of rows that the query returns. The latter is not always done, but in an existence test, there is no point in returning hundreds of rows. The query will now return one item or none, which is all we need in order to verify the existence (or non-existence) of items. Limiting the number of columns and the number of rows is a great performance enhancer. That’s all folks!!

    Read the article

  • Code style Tip: Case insensitive string comparison

    - by Michael Freidgeim
    Goodif (String.Compare(myString, ALL_TEXT, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) == 0)                                {                                         return true;                                }OK(not obvious what true means) if (String.Compare(myString, ALL_TEXT, true) == 0)                                {                                         return true;                                }BAD: (non null safe) if (myString.ToLower()==ALL_TEXT.ToLower()                                {                                         return true;                                }

    Read the article

  • Entity Framework &amp; Transactions

    - by Sudheer Kumar
    There are many instances we might have to use transactions to maintain data consistency. With Entity Framework, it is a little different conceptually. Case 1 – Transaction b/w multiple SaveChanges(): here if you just use a transaction scope, then Entity Framework (EF) will use distributed transactions instead of local transactions. The reason is that, EF closes and opens the connection when ever required only, which means, it used 2 different connections for different SaveChanges() calls. To resolve this, use the following method. Here we are opening a connection explicitly so as not to span across multipel connections.   using (TransactionScope ts = new TransactionScope()) {     context.Connection.Open();     //Operation1 : context.SaveChanges();     //Operation2 :  context.SaveChanges()     //At the end close the connection     ts.Complete(); } catch (Exception ex) {       //Handle Exception } finally {       if (context.Connection.State == ConnectionState.Open)       {            context.Connection.Close();       } }   Case 2 – Transaction between DB & Non-DB operations: For example, assume that you have a table that keeps track of Emails to be sent. Here you want to update certain details like DataSent once if the mail was successfully sent by the e-mail client. Email eml = GetEmailToSend(); eml.DateSent = DateTime.Now; using (TransactionScope ts = new TransactionScope()) {    //Update DB    context.saveChanges();   //if update is successful, send the email using smtp client   smtpClient.Send();   //if send was successful, then commit   ts.Complete(); }   Here since you are dealing with a single context.SaveChanges(), you just need to use the TransactionScope, just before saving the context only.   Hope this was helpful!

    Read the article

  • Error while trying to run project: Unable to start program &lsquo;&hellip;&rsquo;. The endpoint was not reachable.

    - by Marko Apfel
    During playing with Entity Framework I got the error: “Error while trying to run project: Unable to start program ‘'…’. The endpoint was not reachable.   By running the project in Visual Studio. Outside VS were no problems. A similar project runs fine. So I compared both project files. Indeed the first project file contains the line: <Prefer32bit>false</Prefer32bit> in some property groups. After deleting this line everything runs fine.

    Read the article

  • CCNet TFS Migration - Dealing with left over folders

    - by Michael Stephenson
    Im currently in the process of migrating our many BizTalk projects from MKS source control to TFS.  While we will be using TFS for work item tracking and source control etc we will be continuing to use Cruise Control for continuous integration although im updating this to CCNet 1.5 at the same time. Ill post a few things as much as a reminder to myself about some of the problems we come across. Problem After the first build of our code the next time a build is triggered an error is encountered by the TFS source control block refreshing the source code. System.IO.IOException: The directory is not empty.    at System.IO.Directory.DeleteHelper(String fullPath, String userPath, Boolean recursive)    at System.IO.Directory.Delete(String fullPath, String userPath, Boolean recursive)    at ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.Sourcecontrol.Vsts.deleteDirectory(String path)    at ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.Sourcecontrol.Vsts.GetSource(IIntegrationResult result)    at ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.IntegrationRunner.Build(IIntegrationResult result)    at ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.IntegrationRunner.Integrate(IntegrationRequest request) System.IO.IOException: The directory is not empty. at System.IO.Directory.DeleteHelper(String fullPath, String userPath, Boolean recursive) at System.IO.Directory.Delete(String fullPath, String userPath, Boolean recursive) at ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.Sourcecontrol.Vsts.deleteDirectory(String path) at ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.Sourcecontrol.Vsts.GetSource(IIntegrationResult result) at ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.IntegrationRunner.Build(IIntegrationResult result) at ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.IntegrationRunner.Integrate(IntegrationRequest request) Project: Bupa.BPI.Documents Date of build: 2011-01-28 14:54:21 Running time: 00:00:05 Integration Request: Build (ForceBuild) triggered from VMOPBZDEV11 Solution The problem seems to be with a folder called TestLocations which is created by the build process and used along with the file adapter as a way to get messages into BizTalk.  For some reason the source control block when it does a full refresh of the code does not get rid of this folder and then complains thats a problem and fails the build. Interestingly there are other folders created by the build which are deleted fine.  My assumption is that this if something to do with the file adapter polling the directory.  However note that we have not had this problem with other source control blocks in the past. To workaround this I have added a prebuild task to the ccnet.config file to delete this folder before the source control block is executed.  See below for example < prebuild> exec>executable>cmd.exe</executable>buildArgs>/c "if exist "C:\<MyCode>\TestLocations" rd /s /q "C:\<MyCode>\TestLocations""</buildArgs>exec> prebuild> < < < </ </

    Read the article

  • SilverlightShow for Feb 14 - 20, 2011

    - by Dave Campbell
    Check out the Top Five most popular news at SilverlightShow for Feb 14 - 20, 2011. Way ahead of all other news for the week, in terms of popularity, is the news on the latest Silverlight 4 runtime update. Here are the top 5 news on SilverlightShow for last week: Silverlight 4.0.60129.0 GRD3 Runtime update KB2495644 FloatingWindow v1.2 — multi-windows interface for Silverlight 4 Silverlight MVVM Commanding II Upcoming SilverlightShow Webinar: 'Switch or no switch: Can I build my business apps in LightSwitch?' Kinect and WPF: Painting with Kinect using OpenNI Visit and bookmark SilverlightShow. Stay in the 'Light

    Read the article

  • Apress Deal of the Day - 10/Mar/2011 - Beginning Microsoft Word 2010

    - by TATWORTH
    Today's $10 deal at http://www.apress.com/info/dailydeal is Beginning Microsoft Word 2010 This has been on before, I bought a copy and have found it useful. Beginning Microsoft Word 2010 Beginning Word 2010 is a visually stimulating introductory guide that teaches the complete Word newbie (as well as slightly experienced yet equally baffled users) what they need to know to write that thesis or proposal tonight.

    Read the article

  • Stackify featured in the KC Business Journal

    - by Matt Watson
    Very excited to be in the KC Business Journal today. Stackify is focused on giving limited production access to developers to help them do application troubleshooting. We about ready to launch our product and we are looking for beta testers!Ex-VinSolutions exec pours sale proceeds into Stackify, other tech startupsRead the entire article on their website:http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/print-edition/2012/06/01/ex-vinsolutions-exec-pours-sale.html

    Read the article

  • Fixing up Configurations in BizTalk Solution Files

    - by Elton Stoneman
    Just a quick one this, but useful for mature BizTalk solutions, where over time the configuration settings can get confused, meaning Debug configurations building in Release mode, or Deployment configurations building in Development mode. That can cause issues in the build which aren't obvious, so it's good to fix up the configurations. It's time-consuming in VS or in a text editor, so this bit of PowerShell may come in useful - just substitute your own solution path in the $path variable: $path = 'C:\x\y\z\x.y.z.Integration.sln' $backupPath = [System.String]::Format('{0}.bak', $path) [System.IO.File]::Copy($path, $backupPath, $True) $sln = [System.IO.File]::ReadAllText($path)   $sln = $sln.Replace('.Debug|.NET.Build.0 = Deployment|.NET', '.Debug|.NET.Build.0 = Development|.NET') $sln = $sln.Replace('.Debug|.NET.Deploy.0 = Deployment|.NET', '.Debug|.NET.Deploy.0 = Development|.NET') $sln = $sln.Replace('.Debug|Any CPU.ActiveCfg = Deployment|.NET', '.Debug|Any CPU.ActiveCfg = Development|.NET') $sln = $sln.Replace('.Deployment|.NET.ActiveCfg = Debug|Any CPU', '.Deployment|.NET.ActiveCfg = Release|Any CPU') $sln = $sln.Replace('.Deployment|Any CPU.ActiveCfg = Debug|Any CPU', '.Deployment|Any CPU.ActiveCfg = Release|Any CPU') $sln = $sln.Replace('.Deployment|Any CPU.Build.0 = Debug|Any CPU', '.Deployment|Any CPU.Build.0 = Release|Any CPU') $sln = $sln.Replace('.Deployment|Mixed Platforms.ActiveCfg = Debug|Any CPU', '.Deployment|Mixed Platforms.ActiveCfg = Release|Any CPU') $sln = $sln.Replace('.Deployment|Mixed Platforms.Build.0 = Debug|Any CPU', '.Deployment|Mixed Platforms.Build.0 = Release|Any CPU') $sln = $sln.Replace('.Deployment|.NET.ActiveCfg = Debug|Any CPU', '.Deployment|.NET.ActiveCfg = Release|Any CPU') $sln = $sln.Replace('.Debug|.NET.ActiveCfg = Deployment|.NET', '.Debug|.NET.ActiveCfg = Development|.NET')   [System.IO.File]::WriteAllText($path, $sln) The script creates a backup of the solution file first, and then fixes up all the configs to use the correct builds. It's a simple search and replace list, so if there are any patterns that need to be added let me know and I'll update the script. A RegEx replace would be neater, but when it comes to hacking solution files, I prefer the conservative approach of knowing exactly what you're changing.

    Read the article

  • Does HTML 5 &ldquo;Rich vs. Reach&rdquo; a False Choice?

    - by andrewbrust
    The competition between the Web and proprietary rich platforms, including Windows, Mac OS, iPhone/iPad, Adobe’s Flash/AIR and Microsoft’s Silverlight, is not new. But with the emergence of HTML 5 and imminent support for it in the next release of the major Web browsers, the battle is heating up. And with the announcements made Wednesday at Google's I/O conference, it's getting kicked up yet another notch. The impact of this platform battle on companies in the media and advertising world, and the developers who serve them, is significant. The most prominent question is whether video and rich media online will shift towards pure HTML and away from plug-ins like Flash and Silverlight. In fact, certain features in HTML 5 make it suitable for development for line of business applications as well, further threatening those plug-in technologies. So what's the deal? Is this real or hype? To answer that question, I've done my own research into HTML 5's features and talked to several media-focused, New York area developers to get their opinions. I present my findings to you in this post. Before bearing down into HTML 5 specifics and practitioners’ quotes, let's set the context. To understand what HTML 5 can do, take a look at this video of Sports Illustrated’s HTML 5 prototype. This should start to get you bought into the idea that HTML 5 could be a game-changer. Next, if you happen to have installed the beta version of Google's Chrome 5 browser, take a look at the page linked to below, and in that page, click on any of the game thumbnails to see what's possible, without a plug-in, in this brave new world. (Note, although the instructions for each game tell you to press the A key to start, press the Z key instead.). Here's the link: http://www.kesiev.com/akihabara As an adjunct to what's enabled by HTML 5, consider the various transforms that are part of CSS 3. If you're running Safari as your browser, the following link will showcase this live; if not, you'll see a bitmap that will give you an idea of what's possible: http://webkit.org/blog/386/3d-transforms Are you starting to get the picture (literally)? What has up until now required browser plug-ins and other patches to HTML, most typically Flash, will soon be renderable, natively, in all major browsers. Moreover, it's looking likely that developers will be able to deliver such content and experiences in these browsers using one base of markup and script code (using straight JavaScript and/or jQuery), without resorting to browser-specific code and workarounds. If you're skeptical of this, I wouldn't blame you, especially with respect to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. However, i can tell you with confidence that even Microsoft is dedicated to full-on HTML 5 support in version 9 of that browser, which is currently under development. So what’s new in HTML 5, specifically, that makes sites like this possible?  The specification documents go into deep detail, and there’s no sense in rehashing them here, but a summary is probably in order.   Here is a non-authoritative, but useful, list of the major new feature areas in HTML 5: 2D drawing capabilities and 3D transforms. 2D drawing instructions can be embedded statically into a Web page; application interactivity and animation can be achieved through script.  As mentioned above, 3D transforms are technically part of version 3 of the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) spec, rather than HTML 5, but they can nonetheless be thought of as part of the bundle.  They allow for rendering of 3D images and animations that, together with 2D drawing, make HTML-based games much more feasible than they are presently, as the links above demonstrate. Embedded audio and video. A media player can appear directly in a rendered Web page, using HTML markup and no plug-ins. Alternately, player controls can be hidden and the content can play automatically. Major enhancements to form-based input. This includes such things as specification of required fields, embedding of text “hints” into a control, limiting valid input on a field to dates, email addresses or a list of values.  There’s more to this, but the gist is that line-of-business applications, with complicated input and data validation, are supported directly Offline caching, local storage and client-side SQL database. These facilities allow Web applications to function more like native apps, even if no internet connection is available. User-defined data. Data (or metadata – data about data) can easily be embedded statically and/or retrieved and updated with Javascript code. This avoids having to embed that data in a separate file, or within script code. Taken together, these features position HTML to compete with, and perhaps overtake, Adobe’s Flash/AIR (and Microsoft’s Silverlight) as a viable Web platform for media, RIAs (rich internet applications – apps that function more like desktop software than Web sites) and interactive Web content, including games. What do players in the media world think about this?  From the embedded video above, we know what Sports Illustrated (and, therefore, Time Warner) think.  Hulu, the major Internet site for broadcast TV content, is on record as saying HTML5 video does not pass muster with them, at least not yet.  YouTube, on the other hand, already has an experimental HTML 5-based version of their site.  TechCrunch has reported that NetFlix is flirting with HTML 5 too, especially as it pertains to embedded browsers in TV-based devices.  And the New York Times’ Web site now embeds some video clips without resorting to Flash.  They have to – otherwise iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad users couldn’t see them in the Mobile Safari browser. What do media-focused developers think about all this?  I talked to several to get their opinions. Michael Pinto is CEO and Founder of Very Memorable Design whose primary focus has been to help marketing directors get traction online.  The firm’s client roster includes the likes Time, Inc., Scholastic and PBS.  Pinto predicts that “More and more microsites that were done entirely in Flash will be done more and more using jQuery. I can also see slideshows and video now being done without Flash. However if you needed to create a game or highly interactive activity Flash would still be the way to go for the web.” A dissenting view comes from Jesse Erlbaum, CEO of The Erlbaum Group, LLC, which serves numerous clients in the magazine publishing sector.  When I asked Erlbaum whether he thought HTML 5 and jQuery/JavaScript would steal significant market share from Flash, he responded “Not at all!  In particular, not for media and advertising customers!  These sectors are not generally in the business of making highly functional applications, which is the one place where HTML5/jQuery/etc really shines.” Ironically, Pinto’s firm is a heavy user of Flash for its projects and Erlbaum’s develops atop the “LAMP” (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP/Perl) stack.  For whatever reason, each firm seems to see the other’s toolset as a more viable choice.  But both agree that the developer tool story around HTML 5 is deficient.  Pinto explains “What’s lost with [HTML 5 and Javascript] techniques is that there isn’t a single widely favored easy-to-use tool of choice for authoring. So with Flash you can get up and running right away and not worry about what is different from one browser to the next.“  Erlbaum agrees, saying: “HTML5/Javascript lacks a sophisticated integrated development environment (IDE) which is an essential part of Flash.  If what someone is trying to make is primarily animation, it's a waste of time…to do this in Javascript.  It can be done much more easily in Flash, and with greater cross-browser compatibility and consistency due to the ubiquity of Flash.” Adobe (maker of Flash since its 2005 acquisition of Macromedia) likely agrees.  And for better or worse, they’ve decided to address this shortcoming of HTML 5, even at risk of diminishing their Flash platfrom. Yesterday Adobe announced that their hugely popular Deamweaver Web design authoring tool would directly support HTML 5 and CSS 3 development.  In fact, the Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 HTML5 Pack is downloadable now from Adobe Labs. Maybe Adobe is bowing to pressure from ardent Web professionals like Scott Kellum, Lead Designer at Channel V Media,  a digital and offline branding firm, serving the media and marketing sectors, among others.  Kellum told me that HTML 5 “…will definitely move people away from Flash. It has many of the same functionalities with faster load times and better accessibility. HTML5 will help Flash as well: with the new caching methods you can now even run Flash apps offline.” Although all three Web developers I interviewed would agree that Flash is still required for more sophisticated applications, Kellum seems to have put his finger on why HTML 5 may nonetheless dominate.  In his view, much of the Web development out there has little need for high-end capabilities: “Most people want to add a little punch to a navigation bar or some video and now you can get the biggest bang for your buck with HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript.” I’ve already mentioned that Google’s ongoing I/O conference, at the Moscone West center in San Francisco, is driving the HTML 5 news cycle, big time.  And Google made many announcements of their own, including the open sourcing of their VP8 video codec, new enterprise-oriented capabilities for its App Engine cloud offering, and the creation of the Chrome Web Store, which the company says will make it easier to find and “install” Web applications, in a fashion similar to  the way users procure native apps on various mobile platforms. HTML 5 looks to be disruptive, especially to the media world.  And even if the technology ends up disappointing, the chatter around it alone is causing big changes in the technology world.  If the richness it promises delivers, then magazine publishers and non-text digital advertisers may indeed have a platform for creating compelling content that loads quickly, is standards-based and will render identically in (the newest versions of) all major Web browsers.  Can this development in the digital arena save the titans of the print world?  I can’t predict, but it’s going to be fun to watch, and the competitive innovation from all players in both industries will likely be immense.

    Read the article

  • Computer Visionaries 2014 Kinect Hackathon

    - by T
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tburger/archive/2014/08/08/computer-visionaries-2014-kinect-hackathon.aspxA big thank you to Computer Vision Dallas and Microsoft for putting together the Computer Visionaries 2014 Kinect Hackathon that took place July 18th and 19th 2014.  Our team had a great time and learned a lot from the Kinect MVP's and Microsoft team.  The Dallas Entrepreneur Center was a fantastic venue. In total, 114 people showed up to form 15 teams. Burger ITS & Friends team members with Ben Lower:  Shawn Weisfeld, Teresa Burger, Robert Burger, Harold Pulcher, Taylor Woolley, Cori Drew (not pictured), and Katlyn Drew (not pictured) We arrived Friday after a long day of work/driving.  Originally, our idea was to make a learning game for kids.  It was intended to be multi-simultaneous players dragging and dropping tiles into a canvas area for kids around 5 years old. We quickly learned that we were limited to two simultaneous players. After working on the game for the rest of the evening and into the next morning we decided that a fast multi-player game with hand gestures was not going to happen without going beyond what was provided with the API. If we were going to have something to show, it was time to switch gears. The next idea on the table was the Photo Anywhere Kiosk. The user can use voice and hand gestures to pick a place they would like to be.  After the user says a place (or anything they want) and then the word "search", the app uses Bing to display a bunch of images for him/her to choose from. With the use of hand gesture (grab and slide to move back and forth and push/pull to select an image) the user can get the perfect image to pose with. I couldn't get a snippet with the hand but when a the app is in use, a hand shows up to cue the user to use their hand to control it's movement. Once they chose an image, we use the Kinect background removal feature to super impose the user on that image. When they are in the perfect position, they say "save" to save the image. Currently, the image is saved in the images folder on the users account but there are many possibilities such as emailing it, posting to social media, etc.. The competition was great and we were honored to be recognized for third place. Other related posts: http://jasongfox.com/computer-visionaries-2014-incredible-success/ A couple of us are continuing to work on the kid's game and are going to make it a Windows 8 multi-player game without Kinect functionality. Stay tuned for more updates.

    Read the article

facebook twitter digg google delicious technorati stumbleupon myspace wordpress linkedin gmail igoogle windows live tumblr viadeo yahoo buzz yahoo mail yahoo bookmarks favorites email print

< Previous Page | 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83  | Next Page >