Greg's Cool [Insert Clever Name] of the Day: 04/03/2011

Saturday, April 09, 2011

Stop the "[hand waving] I'm here madness" with the MIX11 Outsider for Windows Phone 7 app (Think "Room/location in room, check-in for MIX11 app")

Designer Silverlight - Introducing MIX11 Outsider for Windows Phone 7

"...

MIX11 Outsider is the MIX11 app that doesn’t care about your schedule. It cares about something more important: the people you want to talk to, meet, or otherwise hang out with at MIX. Using a map of the conference floor and a simple “battleship” mapping metaphor, you can tweet, email or text your position at the conference. Don’t eat alone in awkward silence… instead find that Twitter friend who doesn’t have a clear picture of themselves in their avatar. Don’t spend half your pre-keynote time waving your hands in the air. Just tap where you are on the map and send out a link like this one.

...

MIX11 Outsider Windows Phone 7 App Screencast

I wish I could introduce this app with a bit more fanfare, but I’ve been waiting since Monday for my app to get through the submission process. I was hopeful that, if I got it in a week before MIX, I would make it in time for the conference. At the moment, that hope fades. As a result, until I can get the app into the Marketplace, it will be available here for download so Windows Phone 7 devs can sideload it onto their phones

MIX Outsider (for sideloading) [GD: Click through for the download link]

(Don’t know how to sideload an app? James Ashley has a great post on sideloading to the emulator or to a device.)

The funniest thing is that the “big idea” in this app isn’t really even the app itself. The app is really just the most complete extension of the original idea.

You see, last year at MIX 10, there was a massive coordination effort among my colleagues to try and sit together during the keynote talks. This led to e-mails, text messages, phone calls, and tweets with hard to understand directions like

“We’re 12 rows from the back in the middle of the far right side as you come in (stage left).”

But my decision to do something about it came when a friend spent 10+ minutes with his lunch plate in hand trying to find our table. I thought, “This is absurd… there must be a better way to find people.”

Unfortunately, my GPS did not work very well inside the conference… which didn’t really matter since (I assume) no one wants to open up a Google Maps or Bing Maps to find people inside a building.

So Jason Alderman and I discussed the problem and thought that it might be fun to do a “Battleship” metaphor for finding people at MIX11, laying the grid on a map of the conference floor. ...

If you're going to MIX and can sideload WP7 apps, you might want to check this out...

[Book Review] "Getting Started with Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.6" by Augusto Alvarez

[Full Disclosure Notice: The mentioned book was provided to me free by the publisher. This review is my own. The publisher has not seen it, nor prompted me in its content in any way, shape or form. All they did is provide the book free and ask me to review it… ]

Getting Started with Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.6

Chapter 1: Introducing Application Virtualization in a Virtualized World
Chapter 2: Understanding App-V Architecture
Chapter 3: Preparing your App-V Environment and Installing App-V Management Server
Chapter 4: Deploying the App-V Sequencer, Desktop Client, and Streaming Server
Chapter 5: Taking the Initial Steps in the Sequencing Process
Chapter 6: Sequencing Complex Applications
Chapter 7: Managing Dynamic Suite Composition
Chapter 8: Integrating App-V with System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2
Chapter 9: Securing your App-V Environment
Appendix: Reviewing App-V for Remote Desktop Services (Terminal Services)

Overview

Virtualization. Seems that's almost all we hear about in the IT corridors these days. Machine, Presentation, Storage, Application, everything is being virtualized. And each, while very different than the other, has the same basic foundational idea. Isolation.

Application virtualization is no different. The basic idea is to provide isolation scoped at the application level. To allow you to deploy applications to users without jacking up, or being jacked up, by stuff on their machines. Think having Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 all on the same machine. Without application virtualization, that would be pretty much impossible. With it, it's no only "possible" but kind of easy.

Microsoft's application virtualization product, App-V, provides the tools, services and servers to enable you to bring this magic to your users. This book is your springboard into the world of App-V

Likes

Starts of simple and builds toward complexity. I dig books that don't have their own learning curve requirement, that start you at the beginning and when you're done, you look down from the top you realize you've been climbing a pretty darn steep learning curve without even knowing it. Learning in-spite of yourself... lol. That's this book. Starts simple and by the end you're not only familiar with it, but are actually ready to start using App-V.

Comparisons to other Application Virtualization Options. There's a number of options in the application virtualization space. What those options are and how they are similar or different from App-V is well covered. It's not exhaustive as this book is supposed to be about App-V, but its more than enough to see what's out there and how they compare.

Where App-v doesn't fit. I appreciated that it was made clear where App-v shouldn't be used. The book helps you avoid the whole "if all you have is a hammer..." thing.

Dynamic Suite Composition. This was something I knew nothing about before I started the book, I didn't even knew it existed. I thought application virtualization was a one way mirror. That the virtualized app could see out, but nothing else could see in. The book's introduction to discussion of, App-V's Dynamic Suite Composition feature showed how this doesn't have to be true, that you can have one App-V app talk to another App-V app, i.e. dynamically combining them.

Think web browser and Acrobat. You'd first think that if you wanted Acrobat to be App-V'ed with a browser, you'd have to include them both in the same app-v sequence (aka package/file/etc.). But with Dynamic Suite Composition you don't have to. You can create two sequences, one for the browser and one for Acrobat and then use Dynamic Suite Composition to bring them together. Why is this cool? What if you had size web browsers App-V sequences (say six different versions of Firefox) that all needed access to Acrobat?

Real World example usage. This book did not shy aware from the hard examples. For example, deploying the App-V client in an enterprise is not a simple task, yet this book covered that. And there's fewer more complex applications, with more moving parts, than Microsoft Office 2010. Yet again, that's one of the examples walked though in the book. They might have gotten away with providing simpler examples "that demonstrated the concept" yet they took the "hard right" approach and jumped in with both feet into the "real IT world IT" where Office is everywhere and a very applicable example.

Well Written. I just thought the book was well written and even as a dev, easy for me to read and understand.

Improvements/Thoughts (i.e. what else I’d like to see)

This is not a knock against this book. I thought the book was great for its intended target (i.e. IT). But as a developer what I 'd like to see is more about how I can deliver my apps with this technology. To deliver pre-sequenced apps to my IT teammates. Or how, as a developer I can extended the capabilities of the App-V client/server.

Also I'd really like to see App-V baked into the Windows OS. Not having access myself to MDOP means I can't really play with it. I can't offer it to my users. I can't use to to deliver my personal projects either. Not every program or utility is a candidate for App-V but many/most are. I want the MSI madness to end. I 'd LOVE to give my apps to users in a single file, no install, no setup, one file that just works (cough... this maybe what AppX is going to be in Windows 8? We'll have to see...). If App-V were included in very copy of Windows, we live this dream today.

What Did I Learn?

Given that I pretty much only knew how to spell App-V when I started reading the book (well I understood the concept around application virtualization, but you get the idea) I walked away with a much deeper understanding and appreciation of the entire app-v product line. From the stand-alone client to the server to mixing in application virtualization with presentation virtualization (aka Remote Desktop). From deploying the client to deploying very complex suites with it (harder to get more "complex" than Microsoft Office 2010), to the servers.

After reading this book I'd feel comfortable having an App-V conversation with IT, whereas before it was a black and scary box...

Final Thoughts

Who is this book for? I think the perfect person for this book the IT team member, either a cube warrior or management who's interested in Microsoft's App-V. Also this book is really great for those who have access to Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) and aren't sure about that that App-V thing in it is. Also developers looking to use App-V to simplify their app deployment or those where App-v is being used on their apps.

Sandboxes, application virtualization, etc is likely going to be one of the primary ways applications are deployed and used in the future. Getting in now will make this future wave easer to ride...

Thanks again to Packt for giving me the opportunity to review it.

Here's some additional links that might of interest:

“Understanding Microsoft Virtualization R2 Solutions” – The free, 466 page, eBook (only available until the end of February 2010)
StartKey - Your Windows Settings on your USB Key chain (coming soon to a developing nation near you)
PDC2008 Quick Video Link List (Updated: Now with Keynotes)
.Net Client Profile - The .Net Framework on SlimFast (aka a slimmed down version of the Framework with JUST the client stuff in it - A .Net Framework in a 27MB install...)
Chrome Notes: Isolation achieved via application virtualization?
Google's Other Purchase Last Week - GreenBorder (Application Virtualization)

Friday, April 08, 2011

Opening TFS to the world via supported "web" API - OData For TFS (Beta) (Oh and you can use OData with CodePlex now too!)

Microsoft Downloads - OData Service for Team Foundation Server 2010 (beta)

"This sample allows you to expose an OData service for Team Foundation Server 2010. This service can make it easier to work with data from Team Foundation Server on a multitude of devices.

File Name: ODataForTFS2010-SampleSetup-Beta.exe

Size: 19.4MB

Version: Beta

Date Published: 4/8/2011

Language: English

The purpose of this project is to help developers work with data from Team Foundation Server on multiple types of devices (such as smartphones and tablets) and operating systems. OData provides a great solution for this goal, since the existing Team Foundation Server 2010 object model only works for applications developed on the Windows platform. The Team Foundation Server 2010 application tier also exposes a number of web services, but these are not supported interfaces and interaction with these web services directly may have unintended side effects. OData, on the other hand, is accessible from any device and application stack which supports HTTP requests. As such, this OData service interacts with the client object model in the SDK (it does not manipulate any web services directly).

For a video demonstration of this service please click here.

We are interested in your feedback on this beta, and we are excited to hear about the types of experiences you create with it. You can email us at TFSOData@Microsoft.com.

...

There are several components of this sample, and the software requirements depend on how you would like to use it. The list of required software may include the following:

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

Microsoft Visual Studio Team Explorer 2010

Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 (or access to a project hosted on a Team Foundation Server instance hosted by CodePlex.com)

Microsoft .NET Framework 4; WCF Data Services Toolkit (aka ODataContrib); Internet Information Services 7 (IIS7)

Windows Azure Tools 1.3 for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

(Optional) Windows Phone Developer Tools; (Optional) Microsoft WebMatrix

..."

This could be a awesome opening of TFS to "the world". An official and supported web friendly API for TFS? Awesome...

Here's a snap of the extracted download;

And the included readme;

Also did you catch, "or access to a project hosted on a Team Foundation Server instance hosted by CodePlex.com"?

Looks like if you have a CodePlex project, you can access it via OData? Yep!

CodePlex OData API Preview

"Overview

The CodePlex OData API Preview is an implementation of the OData protocol built upon the existing Team Foundation Server 2010 API used to connect to CodePlex. The API is subject to change as we get feedback from customers.

To learn more about the OData protocol, you can browse the OData site at http://www.odata.org.

If you have questions or feedback about this service, please email TFSOData@Microsoft.com. Please note that this preview service is provided "as-is", with no guaranteed uptime and is not officially supported by Microsoft. But if you are having problems please let us know and we'll do our best to work with you.

Getting Started

In the following section you will find meaningful information about how to consume data from the CodePlex TFS taking advantage of the CodePlex OData API Preview.

...

And yep, it works!

Here's any example for my hosted stuff on the TFS01 collection, in LINQPad of course ;)

ZOMG...

For more information also check out Brian Keller's post, OData Service for Team Foundation Server 2010

Shared Silverlight SharePoint Samples - The SharePoint and Silverlight Training Kit

Microsoft Downloads - SharePoint and Silverlight Training Kit

"Provides developers with advanced guidance on how to develop Silverlight Applications for SharePoint

File Name: SharePointAndSilverlightTrainingKit.Setup.exe

Size: 57.9MB

Version: 1.0

Date Published: 4/7/2011

Language: English

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 makes it easier for people to work together. Silverlight is a powerful development platform for creating engaging, interactive user experiences for Web, desktop, and mobile applications when online or offline. The SharePoint and Silverlight Training Kit includes videos, presentations, hands-on labs and source code.

...

To use the guidance properly, you'll need to have SharePoint Server 2010, Visual Studio 2010, and Silverlight 4 Developer tools installed on a Windows operating system. Supported Operating Systems: Windows Server 2008 R2 (64 bit) and Windows 7 (64 bit)."

This looks like an interesting training kit. You'd think we'd see a tighter native integration/usage between Silverlight and SharePoint...

"Physics engines for dummies"

Paul's blog@Wildbunny - Physics engines for dummies

"This time i’m going to talk about the basic components that make up a physics engine and how to put them together; this tutorial is aimed at programmers who have a basic grasp of maths and geometry but would like to step into the world of simulation.

It is my hope that if, at the beginning of this article, you are able to code the physics behind the 1972 game Pong, by the end of the article you will be equally happy writing your own constraints to use in your own physics solver!

..."

A pretty cool article and tutorial about physics engines and gaming.

Note that while there's a good bit of source in the article, the complete source for the article (ActionScript) is available for purchase only ($3.99). I'm not sure how I feel about that. I can TOTALLY see that a great deal of work went into this post and that free isn't free. Also everyone has to pay the mortgage. Also there's enough "free" information in the article that paying for this source is more of a thank you to the author than anything. Still, it's not something you see often and I think it pretty bold and thought provoking move...

(via Jason Haley - Interesting Finds: April 8, 2011 )

I'm a DBA, what do I need those tools for! Oh, yeah... for that... and that... and that... and...

Merrill Aldrich - Top Tools I Didn’t Know I Needed as a DBA

"Today’s post is an unabashedly subjective plug for a bunch of unrelated tools I have come to rely on and love. I’m not really a “tools guy,” so there are no doubt better and worse tools for these tasks out there. I’m not affiliated with any of the vendors or authors. There’s no scientific method here - I just like these, and use them daily, and you might too. Sole criteria for inclusion: if I lost one of these, I would be both sad and less productive.

...

..."

I thought this an interesting list of tools and utilities from a different POV...

The Visual Studio Patch Place

The Visual Studio Blog - List of patches for Visual Studio 2010

"“Where can I find a list of patches/QFEs/hotfixes for Visual Studio?” This question appears quite frequently in blog comments and it wasn’t until recently that I found a web page that lists all the publically released patches for Visual Studio.

http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/Downloads

The majority of the patches fixed before December should be in Visual Studio 2010 SP1 – you don’t need to install them again. Unfortunately, there isn’t a list of the patches that were included in the service pack. We’ll work on fixing that for future releases.

..."

http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/Downloads

[GD: Note this is page 1 of 10...]

A list of VS hotfixes/patches/downloads/etc from 2006 to today (well 4/4/2011 is the newest one)

Make sure you note that many/most of them are included in past SP's. That said, some have not yet made it into SP's (like the one below), so this URL might come in handy for you if you're looking for VS fixes...

Thursday, April 07, 2011

JIT Business Cards (aka Your Swag'alious Magic Card)

The Daily WTF - Just-In-Time Business Cards

"As you may have noticed, I am a big fan of souvenirs, trinkets, and tchotchkes. And I know I'm not alone. Whenever I go to a conference, at least half of my fellow attendees join me in the pursuit for as much free stuff as possible.

Of course, it doesn't matter that I already have enough logoed pens and pads to write the entire contents of Wikipedia, twice over. Or that I have enough tee-shirts to wear a new one every day for the rest of my life (and that's assuming I live to be a hundred and fifty). No, this epic quest for swag is about something different. Something grander... and perhaps, even primal.

While swag and raffles may be free, you do have to give up something in return: a business card. This de-facto convention currency is a must-have if you want any serious loot. And there-in presents the problem. Not everyone has business cards.

Fortunately, I've got a solution to this problem. Well... actually, my employer does, but I'm pretty sure that I provided some of the inspiration for the idea.

..."

inedo - Just-In-Time Business Cards

"Don't Let This Happen To You

You find yourself in the middle of a vendor hall, with booths as far as your eyes can see. There are tchotchkes of all shapes, colors, and sizes that are practically begging to find a home in your cubicle. As you ogle all the goodies, your fellow conference-goers swarm the room and start snagging the niftiest of toys. But fear not: you've got your swag bag and are ready to collect your loot.

Now imagine the horror as you reach into your pocket for the de-facto convention currency — the business card — only to find that you are fresh out. As you fumble to find an alternative, your colleagues hand out their cards and quickly clear-out the collectables. You're left with mere scraps and gather little more than a few pens and pads of paper.

Just-In-Time Business Cards

Never attend a conference without Just-In-Time Business Cards. The backs feature Initech (à la Office Space) while the fronts offer a convenient means of conveying your vital information.

..."

That last option kills me... LOL

BTW, If you fill out the online form they say they'll send you some in the mail. :)

DARPA provides free "Hunt the Sub" game/simulation (Get it while the US Gov is still open for business...)

DARPA - ACTUV Tactics Simulator Page

"CAN YOU COME UP WITH A WAY TO KEEP TRACK OF ELUSIVE SUBMARINES THAT HAS NEVER BEEN THOUGHT OF BEFORE?
CAN YOU OUTSMART AN ENEMY SUBMARINE COMMANDER AND KEEP HIM FROM ESCAPING INTO THE DEEP?
DOWNLOAD AND PLAY THE ACTUV TACTICS SIMULATOR AND SUBMIT YOUR RESULTS TO DARPA TO HELP DEVELOP THE FUTURE OF ANTI-SUBMARINE WARFARE.

The DARPA ACTUV program is developing a fundamentally new tool for the Navy’s ASW toolkit. Before we can develop the autonomous software that will run on ACTUV’s computers, we need to understand what approaches and methods are the most effective. We have made arrangements for ACTUV to be integrated into the Sonalysts Combat Simulations Dangerous Waters^TM game, and we’re offering this new ACTUV Tactics Simulator here for free public download and this is where you can play an import[ant] role!

You are invited to put yourself into the virtual driver’s seat of one of several ACTUV configurations and show the world how you can use its capabilities to follow a submarine. Of course you won’t be the only ship at sea so you’ll have to safely navigate among the commercial traffic, and the target sub has some tricks up his sleeve so watch out! Rack up points as you complete the mission objectives, and see how you stack up against the competition on our leaderboard page....

..."

The download is a 330MB zip, with setup & MSI. It installed and seem to run okay on my Win7 x64 notebook.

Here's a couple screenshots...

When playing it I had a "War Games" moment, I had no idea what I was doing, but it looked pretty cool... :P

(via Slashdot - Free DARPA Software Lets Gamers Hunt Submarines)

Mickey Makes IntelliTrace Make Sense

Team System Rocks! - Exploring IntelliTrace Part 1 – IntelliTrace Options

"As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I’ll be speaking on IntelliTrace at Tech Ed 2001 – North America. This blog post is the first in a series that I’ll publish as I delve into IntelliTrace in more detail, in preparation for my talk.

IntelliTrace is enabled by default in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, but it is configured so as to only capture some basic information, so as to not impact application performance. I thought a good starting point would be to look and see what the different configuration options for IntelliTrace are.

To access the IntelliTrace options in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, select Tools | Options. This will open the Options window. Scroll down until you see the IntelliTrace node. Expand the IntelliTrace node and select General.

...

..."

Mickey Gousset (@mickey_gousset) is both giving us what looks to be an interesting series on a new feature of VS2010 that we've heard allot about, but maybe don't use as well as we can, and giving us a sneak peak at his TechEd presentation [Insert two for one statement here]

20 Awesome resources to help you design and prototype your Windows Phone 7 apps

Microsoft Feed - 20 Free Prototyping, Mockup and Wireframing Resources for Windows Phone 7

"Here are 20 free prototyping, sketching, mockup and wireframing resources for Windows Phone which can be used to create application layouts, to help guide UI development, or to pitch an idea. Enjoy and Share!

..."

I think this one is my favorite :)

OData Primer wiki content re'org... Now we're cooking with pages!

ODataPrimer.org

For what ever reason (actually it's because I scan 1.97 billion posts a day...) I've grown into one of the news hounds for the OData Primer wiki. This wiki is a human curated resource for all things OData and had grown into a simple, yet massive, list site. It hosted just a couple pages, each with manually grouped lists. i.e. I had to first determine what page a new link should go on, what group and subgroup and then edit the page trying to put the new link in the "right" place in the list. And if there were multiple logical places for the link? Yep, copy-n-paste baby.

This past weekend I hit that threshold we sometimes run into. That point when we finally look up an realize there must be a better way and that "it's the way we've been doing it" just isn't good enough anymore. Something needs to change.

In working with Chris Woodruff (@cwoodruff) of Deep Fried Bytes fame and OData Primer wiki initiator, the OData Primer wiki has moved from a "All Data - Single Page - Massive List" model to a more traditional wiki "Page and Category" model.

Now every piece of "content", every link or link series has its page and where that page appears is based on the page's Categories (think tag, label, post category, etc).

Benefits

Adding new content is very easy now. "Create a New Page", add the content, assign a category, save. That's it. Done. Finished. No editing of existing pages needed, no list management, nothing. New, edit, categorize, save. Done.
Searching now works. Before you really needed to do in-page find's to find anything. Now the site based searching really works as intended.
Content (pages) can be easily assigned as many categories as applicable. No need to try to "figure out" what "kind" of link you've got. No need to duplicate data.
Easier to re-org the data. In the future, if need be, having all the content in their own pages will mean we can do future re-org's, etc much easier and without actually impacting the data on the page.
Each content item can now have as much detail as makes sense. Before we had one line for each item. Now we have an entire page! So series can get their own page. Additional information related to the item can be included. How the given link was found (i.e. attribution) can be included. etc, etc
The data you get in the site's RSS feeds will be much easier to follow. Instead of relying on a page's comments to try to determine what was added, each new page will get its own feed entry
Each Category (and the discussions for pages in that category) gets their own RSS feed. So you can subscribe to the RSS feed just SQLAzure OData related posts if you want. Or iOS OData pages... Or the entire site.

Are we done? Mostly. The first pass is done and complete. We'll (and you, this IS a wiki you know) will be fine tuning the site, categories, etc. We went from 8 total pages on the wiki to today's 186 pages...

Before: We went from this massive list mode:

Today: To this MUCH slimmer, easier to read, find and add content model;

Next Steps:

This new structure means it will be much easier for people to add new content, not just links, but "real" content. I'd like to see about driving forward in the mission of this wiki, to become one of the premier OData resources. Instead of OData content being all over the place, the OData Primer wiki could be the place for links AND original content...

Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Customizing Team Build 2010 post series in 16 (to-date) parts

Ewald Hofman - Customize Team Build 2010 – Part 16: Specify the relative reference path

"In the series the following parts have been published

Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: Add arguments and variables

Part 3: Use more complex arguments

Part 4: Create your own activity

Part 5: Increase AssemblyVersion

Part 6: Use custom type for an argument

Part 7: How is the custom assembly found

Part 8: Send information to the build log

Part 9: Impersonate activities (run under other credentials)

Part 10: Include Version Number in the Build Number

Part 11: Speed up opening my build process template

Part 12: How to debug my custom activities

Part 13: Get control over the Build Output

Part 14: Execute a PowerShell script

Part 15: Fail a build based on the exit code of a console application

Part 16: Specify the relative reference path

As I have already blogged about, it is not intuitive how to specify the paths where the build server has to look for references that are stored in Source Control. It is a common practice to store 3rd party libraries in Source Control, so they are available to everyone, everyone uses the same version of the libraries and updating a library can be done centrally.
In Team Build 2010 these paths are specified as a parameter for MSBuild. What we will do in this post is building the values for this parameter based on the values in an argument. You are now pretty aware how to customize the build template, so let’s do the modifications in another way. Instead of opening the xaml file in the workflow designer, we open it in the XML editor. You can open it in the XML Editor by either selecting the Open with menu (see the context menu), or by choosing the View code option.

To add this functionality we need to:

Specify a new argument

Add the argument to the metadata

Build the absolute paths for the references and add these paths to the MSBuild arguments

..."

This is a pretty awesome series which will come in handy for me in the future...

MIX'ing it up if you can't get to MIX11

Canadian Developer Connection - Catch the MIX11 Sessions, Even if You’re Not in Vegas

You can expect to hear announcements and see sessions about Microsoft’s web and mobile technologies, from Internet Explorer to Silverlight to Windows Phone and more at this event. If you’re going to be there, we’d love to catch up with you!

If you can’t make it, there’s no reason for you to miss out on the keynotes and sessions, because you’ll be able to catch them online:

You’ll be able to watch the keynotes live as they happen, for free, and no registration will be required. Just point your browser at live.visitmix.com at 12:00 noon Eastern (9:00 a.m. Pacific, 4:00 p.m. GMT) on Tuesday, April 12th and Wednesday, April 13th to catch the keynotes.

You’ll be able to watch and download videos of the conference sessions about 24 hours after they take place. Take a look at the sessions to see what interests you.

..." [GD: Post Leach Level: 95%]

One of these years I'm going to have to get to MIX. But until then, at least I can visit virtually... :)

Coding4Fun.Phone.Toolkit v1.3 Released (New Message Prompt, Password Prompt controls and Toast fixes + now NuGet'able too)

Coding4Fun Tools - Coding4Fun.Phone.Toolkit v1.3

"...

Release Notes

New Controls: Message Prompt, Password Prompt
Multiple Bug fixes in Toast control

..."

Coding4Fun Tools

"...

NuGet Installs: (v1.3 release)

Controls Only:
Install-Package Coding4Fun.Phone.Controls

Controls + TimeSpan Picker:
Install-Package Coding4Fun.Phone.Controls.Complete

Only TimeSpan Picker:
Install-Package Coding4Fun.Phone.Controls.TimeSpan

..."

With the crush Clint is under in prep'ing for MIX11 he still found some time to release this update... (I think his current motto is, "I'll sleep when I dead..." :P )

Related Past Post XRef:
Coding4Fun Windows Phone Toolkit (CF4 Blog Post)

The Coding4Fun team has done it again, released another “Kit” that is… The Coding4Fun Windows Phone Toolkit
CF4DevKit (Coding 4 Fun Development Kit) 1.0 Released
Cool Coding with VS2008 and Vista via the Coding4Fun Developer Kit 2008 Vol 1 (Beta)

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Connecting with Kinect (Redux)

[With an official Kinect SDK release coming sometime in the near future (I hope), the original version of this post needed to be pulled from the Channel 9 Coding4Fun blog. With their permission, I’m reposting it here]

Yep, I'm one of the 10 million who purchased a Kinect. And as a dev I've been watching the news stream relating to hacking it.An official SDK has been promised, but there's enough out now where we can start playing with it on our PC's today...

Jim Galasyn shows us just how easy it is in his Getting started with Kinect development post.

And easy it is. Download and install Code Laboratories NUI Platform plug in your Kinect and go. No hacking, no slashing and all the P/invokes are already done for you.

Here's one of the samples included in the SDK;

And here's the other...

Of course, this is only the very very first step. Now we need to actually do something with the data we're getting from Kinect... But every journey begins with a first step and in this case the first step is a pretty easy and painless one.

Here’s a few more links you might find interesting:

Stepping up your NuGet Server - Adding a human friendly package view and upload

CodeCapers - Building a Nuget Server with gold plating

“Last week, Phil Haack wrote a post on how to build a NuGet Server. A NuGet server is really easy to build because 90% of the work is done by running a NuGet command. Just for fun, I decided to add some extra functionality to my NuGet Server such as a package upload form and a formatted list of packages.

In preparing my NuGet server, I followed Phil’s direction to a tee except for the fact that I used a “empty MVC 3 app with Razor support” instead of using a “ASP.NET Empty Web Application”. Out of the box, you will get a barebones, but fully functional NuGet server that provides the package list in Atom Format. For each package in the repository you will get access to properties such as the version number, license information, tags and etcetera. However, since I am not a fan of reading XML I thought it would be useful to transform that XML into HTML using XSLT. This way I can see the list of available packages without opening up Visual Studio. XSLT is one of those technologies that I have always read about but never used. So in the spirit of learning I decided to give it a try.

…

…”

It’s amazing how NuGet has invigorated the .Net development community. Feels like the Visual Studio Extension capability got the fire going and nuget poured gas on it…

(via DZone . Net Zone - Building a Nuget Server with gold plating)

Zombie attacks catching you unaware and getting you down? “Record Zombie Attacks - Home CCTV DVR Solution”

GoArticles.com - Record Zombie Attacks - Home CCTV DVR Solution

“Pesky zombies have you down? Unable to record your security camera footage of your assailants as they seek to break down the doors and drink some brain juice? Ok...maybe Zombies aren't your main concern. Intruders and miscreants may however be what you wish to record and view when you're not at home. If this is the case then take a look at the HomeDVR as we list some pros and cons of its capabilities, and how it can potentially be a solution for your home surveillance needs.

Description

To begin lets first talk about what this cctv product is exactly. The HomeDVR is a digital video recorder solution provided by a company called Securityman, and Securityman is a company who provides a lot of diverse home based cctv products and surveillance equipment. This video recorder is a more simplistic DVR when it comes to the digital video recorders used in a lot of surveillance applications; however it is a potential option for smaller home or small business based installations.

Pros

…”

Got to love a product marketing post that starts with “Pesky zombies have you down?”… lol

Monday, April 04, 2011

Going from Fugly to Fabulous by giving your objects their own debugging visualizer

Clarity Consulting Blogs - Write Your Own Debugging Visualizer

“Have you ever been stepping through a program and tried to inspect an object only to find it has an internal structure that make it very difficult to really see what is going on in there? I recently ran into a third party object that was causing me that problem over and over so I decided to do something about it. I wrote my own debugging visualizer to take the object and put it into a format that is easy to read. I was surprised how easy it is to do, so lets create one.

The Setup

The object I was struggling with was storing collections of name/value pairs internally in 2 different collections. So I’d have to find the key I’m interested in, note the index and find the corresponding index in the values collection. It was actually worse than this since the collections were also hierarchical. Ouch. So I put together a simple class that demonstrates this called WeirdCollection. It looks like this:

…

…

…”

Been a while since I’ve seen a good article on writing your own Debugging Visualizer…

XNA Game Dev gets its own hub on App Hub

XNA Game Studio Team Blog - New Game Development Page and Tutorials on App Hub

“App Hub today launches a game development landing page with guidance for beginning, amateur, and professional developers, plus an evolved XNA Game Studio guide for beginners, called the Game Development Tutorial.

See the game development landing page, jump in and start the XNA Game Studio Tutorial, or read on for more information.

…”

App Hub - Game Development

“With XNA Game Studio, included as part of the Windows Phone Developer tools, you can create games for Windows, Xbox 360, and Windows Phone 7. Jump in and play with free tools, learn from our extensive samples and tutorials libraries, then get your game on Xbox LIVE Indie Games and the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace. If you're ready to go professional, Xbox LIVE programs are available for both platforms.

Game Development - Game Development Tutorial

Monday’s are a good day to learning something new… :)

Gladinet Cloud Desktop adds Amazon Cloud Drive support (Windows integration and syncing too)

Gladinet - Amazon Cloud Drive Windows Integration

“…This article shows how to integrate Amazon Cloud Drive into Windows as a mapped network drive letter to support the BASIC cloud storage use cases:

Backup local folders and files to Amazon Cloud Drive

Access Amazon Cloud Drive with a drive letter and drag/drop capability.

Sync folders and files across multiple PC, leveraging Amazon Cloud Drive

Integrate local applications such as MS Office with Amazon Cloud Drive

Connect local resources with online resources such as the Amazon Cloud Drive.

Install Gladinet Cloud Desktop and Mount Amazon Cloud Drive

The First step is to install Gladinet Cloud Desktop, which continues to support a wide variety of online storage services such as those from Microsoft, Google, Rackspace and Amazon.
Support for Amazon Cloud Drive has been added in the latest version of Gladinet Cloud Desktop. After installing version 3.2.607 or greater, the mounting virtual directory wizard will display a drop down item for Amazon Cloud Drive.

…

”