Sharing the Glow - Using TextGlow to display Word documents on SharePoint

Muhimbi - Displaying MS-Word files in a SharePoint Web Part using TextGlow and Silverlight

“…

This article shows you how to embed TextGlow into SharePoint and use it to display content stored in a Document Library. It is assumed that you are familiar with the Content Editor Web Part, if not then check out Todd Bleeker’s excellent resource on this topic.

OK, let’s get started

1. Make sure you have a copy of Silverlight 2.0 installed on your system
2. Navigate to an existing or create a new SharePoint site collection.
3. Download the TextGlow Silverlight viewer, unzip and copy the TextGlow folder (including the folder) to a document Library named ‘Shared Documents’
4. Add a new Content Editor Web Part (CEWP) to a page of your choice and set the height to something suitable (I used 700 pixels),

…”

Okay, that’s just cool! And it looks like a no coding or server side tweaking solution. Will have to try this as soon as I get a few minutes…

(via James Newton-King - TextGlow SharePoint Web Part)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
See your OpenXML documents glow in Sliverlight via the newly open sourced TextGlow

Applying distance measuring, range finding magic to your digital picture collection – Range Finder

CodeProject - Range Finder

Introduction

After a trip and when you are looking at your travel photos, sometimes you want to know some distances or sizes of objects in there. It’s somehow possible.

If you can find some objects in your photos which you know their sizes, you can measure their distances and if you know the distance of an object, you can find the size of it. For example if you know the height of a special building (e.g. Pharos or a tower) and you are kilometers far from it, you can measure your distance by a simple photo. Sometimes it is funny!

…

I don’t know the exact size of flag, but I guess it must be about 150 cm (5 feet), if so, I type 150 in the object size box and press enter. The program calculate the distance as about 3 Km.

Points of Interest

Even with low accuracy of this program, I think it is sometimes good and you can have some fun with your photos. At least I hope so.

…”

That’s pretty neat…

The Redmond Developer & Kathleen Dollard get MEF’ed with VB

Redmond Developer - Ask Kathleen - Working with MEF

“Learn how to free your application from dependencies and interchange implementations using Managed Extensibility Framework.

Q: I've been hearing the term MEF lately and I know it means Managed Extensibility Framework, but I don't understand what it does. Would it be a good fit for allowing customers to add their own forms to our Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) app? We need those new forms to appear in our menus and we don't want to give customers our Visual Basic source code to recompile.

A: This sounds like a good application for MEF. …

…

MEF is an extensibility model that allows components to interact using a simple model. Components are called parts in MEF (see Figure 1). MEF is designed to be extensible to different types of models, but ships with an attributed model. This lets you define the interaction between your parts via normal .NET attributes. If a part needs something, it uses an Import attribute and if a part supplies something it uses an Export attribute. Any part can be a host or client, provider or consumer. MEF bases these interactions on contracts and offers a flexible discovery model. Your application makes a request and leaves it to MEF to provide the implementation. This frees your application from dependencies and lets you interchange implementations

…

Your application will be the MEF host while your customers will write MEF clients or extensions. Extensions are simpler to write because the host must also manage the CompositionContainer. I'll step through the process of creating an interface, building extensions and building a WPF host.

…

The compose method does the actual preparation:

Private Function Compose() As Boolean
   Dim cat As New AggregateCatalog

The aggregate catalog allows you to manage several catalogs together. If a set of catalogs appear together in an aggregate catalog, all matching items within this set of catalogs are discovered. Several different types of catalogs are available, including DirectoryCatalog, which loads all assemblies in a specified directory. In your case, I'd suggest including the location of extensions as part of the application settings to allow later configuration. You'll also add the current assembly:

Dim extLocation = My.Settings.ExtensionLocation
cat.Catalogs.Add(New DirectoryCatalog(extLocation))
cat.Catalogs.Add(New AssemblyCatalog( _
   Me.GetType.Assembly))
mContainer = New CompositionContainer(cat)

At this point the container is ready to work, but no work has been requested. A composition batch allows you to specify…

…”

MEF is very likely going to be one of those technologies we’re really going to want to know better when VS2010/.Net4 ships.

(via Brad Adams - Redmond Developer: Working with MEF in VB and WPF)

Related Past Post XRef:
Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) CTP2 Released – Now with the full source
The Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) CTP Released (Not to be confused with the Managed Addin Framework [MAF] which became System.Addin)

Anyone who’s made the LA to Vegas drive will have seen this, Zzyzx Road. Ever wanted to know where the heck it went and its history? Google sightseeing has it for you…

Google Sightseeing - Zzyzx, California

“About half way between Los Angeles and Las Vegas you might spot an unusual exit sign on Interstate 15, directing you towards the delightfully unpronounceable Zzyzx Road.

If you were to take the exit, you’d find Zzyzx Road to be rather long, and very boring. …

But the length of Zzyzx Road might well have been a deliberate ploy to keep people stumbling upon what lies at the end…

Up until 1974, travellers that persevered on Zzyzx Road were rewarded with arrival at …

…”

Every time I drive to Vegas this road makes me chuckle and wonder just what the heck its story is. Well now I will be able to astound my friends and family with my newly found knowledge, curtsey of Google Sightseeing. :)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Some Down Day Google Sightseeing Humor - “Top 10 Rudest Place Names in Britain”
A bird's-eye view [Google Maps with Satellite]
Simi Smiley on Google Sightseeing

It’s official, SharePoint Designer 2007 is now free… as in free (Reg-ware)

Microsoft Office Online - SharePoint Designer Home Page

Microsoft Downloads - SharePoint Designer 2007

“SHAREPOINT DESIGNER 2007 IS NOW FREE! Be sure to watch the video in the "Related Resources" below to learn more about details and future direction. Office SharePoint Designer 2007 provides the powerful tools you need to deliver compelling and attractive SharePoint sites and quickly build workflow-enabled applications and reporting tools on the SharePoint platform, all in an IT-managed environment.

Version:	1
Date Published:	3/31/2009
Language:	English
Download Size:	143 KB - 296.0 MB*

SHAREPOINT DESIGNER 2007 IS NOW FREE! Learn more about these changes and future direction. Watch the Q&A video located in the "Related Resources" section below.

Office SharePoint Designer 2007 provides the powerful tools you need to deliver compelling and attractive SharePoint sites and quickly build workflow-enabled applications and reporting tools on the SharePoint platform, all in an IT-managed environment

…”

If you have SharePoint in house (or the free Windows SharePoint Services) and want to tweak it, then this is the tool for you…

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Rumor: SharePoint Designer 2007, soon to be free? (or given the April 1st date…)

How cool would it be if there was a PowerShell Provider for Team Foundation Server? Where you could CD into a Project and DIR its work items? It’s very cool! Check this out…

PsTFS – TFSProvider

“TFSProvider allows you to browse a TFS server as in Windows Explorer.
At the root of the provider you can access:

• Workitem
• SourceControl
• TeamProject

In each subset it is possible to navigate to other elements.
If you are in a TFSProvider orders PsTFS not need to setting a variable $ tfs

…

Sample : Workitems route of a project

PS TFS:\> cd TEAMPROJECT
PS TFS:\TEAMPROJECT> dir
Name
----
Demo23
DemoAuto
MyDemo
test
VSTS.Noham
PS TFS:\TEAMPROJECT> cd MyDemo
PS TFS:\TEAMPROJECT\MyDemo> Get-ChildItem
Alias                                                       Element
-----                                                       -------
WI                                                          WORKITEM
SC                                                          SOURCECONTROL
MP                                                          MEMBERSPROJECT
DC                                                          DOCUMENTS
BL                                                          BUILD
PS TFS:\TEAMPROJECT\MyDemo> cd WI
PS TFS:\TEAMPROJECT\MyDemo\WI> Get-ChildItem  Format-Table

…

…”

Dude, how cool is THAT!

CD into A TFS Server, CD into a Project, CD into it’s Source Control, or Work Items or Documents or Builds and then DIR all the members there. ZOMG, that is officially VERY Cool.

Great work Noham!

Related Past Post XRef:
PsTFS – PowerShell and TFS, better than peanut butter and chocolate? (Okay, maybe not, but it’s close… ;)

Free (MS-PL) and OSS Math/Numerical Library for .Net/Mono - dnAnalytics

(Image stolen from Kloonigames - Say No To April Fool)

CodePlex - dnAnalytics

“dnAnalytics is a numerical library for the .NET Framework licensed under the Microsoft Public License. The library is written in C# and is available as a fully managed library, or as a native version that uses the Intel® Math Kernel Library (MKL). The native version of dnAnalytics provides significantly better performance when working with large sets of data. dnAnalytics is compatible with .NET 2.0 or later, and Mono. The managed version will run on a Windows XP or newer, and any platform that supports Mono. The native version supports 32bit and 64bit versions of Windows XP or newer, and 32bit and 64bit versions of Linux.

2009.4 Features
* Linear algebra classes with support for sparse matrices and vectors (with a F# friendly interface).
* Dense and sparse solvers.
* Probability distributions.
* Random number generation.
* QR, LU, SVD, and Cholesky decomposition classes.
* Matrix IO classes that read and write matrices form/to Matlab, Matrix Market, and delimited files.
* Complex and “special” math routines.
* Descriptive Statistics.
* Overload mathematical operators to simplify complex expressions.
* Visual Studio visual debuggers for matrices and vectors
* Runs under Microsoft® Windows and platforms that support Mono.
* Optional support for Intel®Math Kernel Library (Microsoft® Windows and Linux)

…”

My math ed-u-ma-ka-tion ended at Algebra II in high school (with a refresher college course when I was in the Army… decades ago… sigh…) so most of this is WAY over my head. But I still thought it was pretty cool and well worth a post (just because I can’t use it today doesn’t mean I won’t be able to in the future, and it’s my blog, so there! LOL... ;)

(via Visual Studio Gallery - dnAnalytics Numerical Library)

More spicIE – spicIE Contrib the place for spicIE samples and guidance

  (Image stolen from Kloonigames - Say No To April Fool)

 

MSDN Code Gallery - SpicIE Contrib - Simple Plug-In Creator for Internet Explorer Samples & Guidance

“

SpicIE Contrib = SpicIE Contrib is a contribution project for the SpicIE project.

This project hosts HowTo samples, guidance, code samples, etc. based on the SpicIE Internet Explorer plug-in framework.

There are some Internet Explorer plug-in samples. Comment: If the toolbar plug-ins are not visible use the menu "View --> Explorer bars --> PLUG-IN NAME".

Following sample plug-ins are available now:

• SimpleLogger - HowTo guide and sample project for a very simple logging Internet Explorer plug-in
• HtmlView - HowTo guide and sample project for a complex HTML visualization Internet Explorer plug-in

…

• DisplayActiveElements - Sample project which accesses the applets collection of a HTML document loaded in Internet Explorer ( --> access to ShockWavePlayer, MediaPlayer, ActiveX, ... ). code skeleton
• WOW Plug-in - A fully functional Internet radio Internet explorer plug-in

…
All samples using the SpicIE framework http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/SpicIE and can be used as Internet Explorer 7 or Internet Explorer 8 plug-ins.

There are some blogs entries about SpicIE at following blog --> http://blogs.msdn.com/mtcmuc/archive/tags/SpicIE/default.aspx

…” [Project Description Leach Level: 96.7%]

I thought that due to today’s the signal to noise ratio finding something cool (and “real”) was going to be tough, until I saw this… :)

(via Mostly Technical Content - SpicIE: “SpicIEContrib” project opened at http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/SpicIEContrib)

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Taking your first steps with spicIE
Spice up your IE with spicIE – Writing IE7/8 Plugins in managed code in minutes (beta)