I don't usually do posts like this, highlighting a storefront, but I saw this and loved it (could it be that my current reading of an awesome zombie book, Married with Zombies, is impacting my judgment a bit?... lol ;)
"Ookii.Dialogs is a class library for .Net applications providing several common dialogs. Included are classes for task dialogs, credential dialogs, progress dialogs, input dialogs, and common file dialogs.
This package contains two class libraries: Ookii.Dialogs.dll for use with Windows Forms, and Ookii.Dialogs.Wpf.dll for use with Windows Presentation Foundation. The classes inside are pretty much identical; only the input dialog is not available for WPF. Some additional utility classes for Windows Forms are provided that are not available for WPF, see below for details.
The included sample applications Ookii.Dialogs.Sample.exe and Ookii.Dialogs.Sample.Wpf.exe demonstrate the dialogs for Windows Forms and WPF respectively. View the source of these applications to see how to use the dialogs.
Full reference documentation for the class library is available in the online and in the help file included with the download.
..."
This is a pretty cool looking collection of Winform/WPF dialogs, a library that I've not seen before. I doesn't look like it's been updated in a couple years, but the source is provided and the license looks very friendly, so have at it!
Here's some snaps of the mentioned sample app.
Robert Pickering's Strange Blog - Calculating when the 1000th XKCD will appear
"Like so many geeks I’m a massive XKCD fan. But I’m often troubled by questions like when will the 1000th XKCD appear, or the 1024th or even the 2000th? Even though the first two numbers are getting quite close now, it’s still more fingers and toes than I have so working it out by hand is out. Fortunately we have computers to this kind of heavy lifting for us, and the solution in F# is kinda cute.
We need 3 pieces of information to be able to work out when any given XKCD will appear: an epoch date and number as well as the days that XKCD is published on. I chose todays date, 2nd September 2011 when XKCD 946 was published. I would have been nice to start with issue 1, but in the early days of XKCD it wasn’t published regularly so starting at the beginning would considerable complexity the task, and besides, we already know when numbers in the past were published. XKCD is published on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, so here’s how we encode this information in F#:
...
..."
There's something that's just dev-geek awesome about this...
LAFD News & Information - This September: A Time to Remember. A Time to Prepare.
"As you know, this September will mark the ten year anniversary of 9/11 and the Los Angeles Fire Department asks you to take time to remember those lost as well as time to make sure you are prepared for future emergencies. September is National Preparedness Month (NPM), which was founded after 9/11 to increase preparedness in the U.S. It is a time to prepare yourself and those in your care for an unexpected emergency.
Please plan in the event you must go for three days without electricity, water service, access to a supermarket, or local services for several days. The Los Angeles Fire Department along with our friends at FEMA and Ready.gov suggest you follow these three simple steps:
1. Get a Kit: Keep enough emergency ...
2. Make a Plan: Discuss, agree on, and document....
3. Be Informed: Free information is available to assist you from federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial resources. ...
Some have asked, "Why do I need to prepare?".
Fire, police, and rescue personnel may not always be able to reach you quickly, such as if they're overwhelmed by demand from multiple emergencies, or trees and power lines are down blocking access. The most important step you can take in helping us, is being able to take care of yourself and those in your care; the more people who are prepared, the quicker the community will recover..."
You've heard me sing this song before, and you're going to hear me sing it again... "Being prepared is not hard to do..."
Just do it a bit at a time. A flashlight here, new batteries there, a pre-packed kit (the American Red Cross has some, and building your own isn't hard either) there, extra water then, some extra pet food, etc, etc.
Just do a little at a time and after a bit you'll have quite a bit.
Make it a family project. Have your kids help with the plan and the contact list, make it a game or a fun activity (like a scavenger hunt for preparedness supplies or something). Making it fun makes it less scary.
But start. Today. Please.
Related Past Post XRef:
Be prepared and know what you've got - Free Home Inventory Spreadsheet
A 2012 Survival Guide from How Stuff Works (Nonsense, but being prepared isn’t)
Centers for Disease Control (US CDC) provides Zombie Apocalypse 101 Survival Tips (really...) - And Zombie badges too!
Live on Earth? Then you live in a earthquake zone (your local activity may vary). When should you think about preparing for one? Um… Now!
Your Evacuation Plan – Do you have one? The time to make one is now, BEFORE you really need it…
National Preparedness Month: Don’t be afraid.. Be Ready
A Brief Overview:
Databases have been a major part of software since the earliest days of computing. Hence, it didn’t take long for Database Management Systems (DBMSes) to be developed and quickly become a staple in software development. Their history can be traced back to the 1960′s, but most of the DBMSes still in use today trace their origins to Relational DBMSes (RDBMSes) originally developed in the 1970′s.
However, there is a new group of DBMSes that have gained support and relevance in the last few years, all sharing certain characteristics and collectively known as NoSQL DBMSes.The term “NoSQL” was originally used in 1998 to describe a new lightweight open-source relational DBMS that did not expose an SQL interface. The name was then reprised and used 10 years later by Eric Evans (of Rackspace) and Johan Oskarsson (of Last.fm) for the NoSQL meetup/conference focusing on the topic of “open-source, distributed, non relational databases“.
Clearly the name NoSQL had grown past its initial meaning (note how the original NoSQL DBMS is indeed a relational system)....
..."
Any blog post that begins with a picture like that deserves a second look... :P
Anyway...
You'd have to be living under a rock (not that there's anything wrong with that) to not have at least heard the term, "NoSQL." But you might be in the boat (cough... with me... cough) wondering what it "is.". I mean I know, or can pretend to, what it means and implies, but my knowledge lacks depth (cough... to say the least... cough) (cough... I really have to have this cough looked at... cough)
I dug the way this article presented NoSQL, that it did so where I learned some intelligent sounding words, while not hurting my brain too much and all the while learning about NoSQL too.
CBS Los Angeles - Pictures: Most Useful Road Signs of Summer 2011
Got to love these kind of signs...
Angel “Java” Lopez on Blog - Playing With NodeJs (1) Running on Windows (and Azure)
"Up until some weeks ago, the only way to run NodeJs on Windows were to download it from the Git repo and compile it using CygWin (another case of get the bananas AND get the monkey).
Building node.js on Cygwin (Windows)
How to install Node.js on WindowsBut now there is an alternative: NodeJs team has published a Windows pre-compiled version (0.5.4 and 0.5.5):
http://nodejs.org/#download
http://nodejs.org/dist/
http://nodejs.org/dist/v0.5.4/node.exe
http://nodejs.org/dist/v0.5.5/node.exe(there is a new version http://nodejs.org/dist/v0.5.5/node-186364e.exe)
I’m using the 0.5.4. Let’s run a simple demo that use Socket.IO:
...
..."
Node.Js is getting something of a following and some geek-press. I'm not jumping on it yet, but I am watching, especially now that there's a compiled binary...
Aaron Margosis' "Non-Admin" and App-Compat WebLog - PrivBar Update
"PrivBar is a toolbar I first published over seven years ago (!) for Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer. I updated it three years ago to add support for x64. Today I am updating it to offer better support for Vista and Windows 7 and the corresponding Server versions. Specifically, instead of showing a group name such as Users or Administrators in the toolbar, it shows the integrity level of the current page. One significant benefit is that this helps mitigate the removal of the Protected Mode indicator from the IE9 status bar.
Download the .zip file attached to this post; extract the DLLs to a shared location (e.g., under Program Files) and register each with regsvr32.exe. (Note that PrivBarX64.dll can be used only on x64 editions of Windows.) The toolbars need to be enabled separately for Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer, and Internet Explorer (64 bit): press Alt to display the menu, then choose View | Toolbars | PrivBar x64. (It says “x64” even for the 32-bit version.)
...
..."
I first blogged about this in Feb 2005... Good to see it still alive and getting a little love...
Related Past Post XRef:
Office 365 Help - Windows PowerShell in Office 365 - Use Windows PowerShell to manage Office 365
"As an administrator, you can use Windows PowerShell cmdlets to accomplish many Microsoft Office 365 administrative tasks such as user management and domain management. This topic includes information about Windows PowerShell and how to install the cmdlets for Office 365.
You can also manage Microsoft Exchange Online with Windows PowerShell cmdlets. For more information, see Use Windows PowerShell in Exchange Online.
..."
Office 365 Help - Windows PowerShell in Office 365 - Windows PowerShell cmdlets for Office 365
"... This topic lists and provides a description of all the Office 365 cmdlets by common administrative task, such as user management and domain management.
What do you want to do?
Click one of the following links to find the cmdlets for a particular Office 365 management task, or to learn more about Microsoft Exchange Online cmdlets.
- Manage users
- Manage group and role membership
- Manage domains
- Manage single sign-on
- Manage subscriptions and licenses
- Manage company information and service
- Manage Exchange Online
...
..."
This should put a big smile on any IT guy's or gal's face who needs to support Office 365 users...
(via @RicksterCDN - tweet)
Rudy Huyn - Isolated Storage Explorer for Visual Studio
"Debug data in the isolated storage is not easy, mango brought out a new tool: ‘ISTools’, but not necessarily easy to use. That’s why I create a plug-in for Visual Studio 2010 (Express version does not support add-ins) to simplify the task, no need to select the target (emulator or phone) and to give the identifier of the project (which is a bit boring to find).
...
..."
CodePlex - Isolated Storage Add-In for Visual Studio
"Add-In for Visual Studio 2010 to import, export or modify data from the isolated storage of the phone or the emulator Windows Phone
- Import data from Isolated Storage
- Export data to Isolated Storage
- automatic retrieval of the target (emulator / phone) and the identifier of the current project
...
..."
First I've seen of something like this... a VS2010 WP7 Isolated Storage Explorer extension.
(via reddit/wp7dev - Isolated Storage Explorer for Visual Studio | Rudy Huyn)
The Windows Phone Developer Blog (Wade Wegner) - Building Windows Phone Applications Using Windows Azure
"...
To make it easier for Windows Phone developers to use Windows Azure, we have created the Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone. This toolkit provides a set of Visual Studio project templates that give you an advanced starting point for building Windows Phone applications tied into services running in Windows Azure. The toolkit also includes libraries, sample applications, and documentation.
Today we’ve released version 1.3 which includes some great updates, including:
- Support for SQL Azure as a membership provider.
- Support for SQL Azure as a data source through using OData.
- Updates for the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio 1.4 and the Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 RC.
- Upgraded the web application ASP.NET MVC 3.
- Shipped the full source code to BabelCam, which is now available in the Windows Phone Marketplace.
For more information on this release you can watch this video on Channel 9:
...
..."
Showing the WATD (Windows Azure Toolkit for Devices) WP7 love too... :)
I liked the depth in this post, which provides a good depth in detail to get you up and running with WATD.
Related Past Post XRef:
Windows Azure Toolkits for Devices now in Android flavor too!
Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7 v1.2.0 released - Apple Push, Azure Storage Queue, ACS2 and more…
Windows Azure and Window Phone 7 is like beer and peanuts, with the "Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7"
Wade Wegner - Windows Azure Toolkits for Devices – Now With Android!
"I am tremendously pleased to share that today we have released the Windows Azure Toolkit for Android! We announced our intentions to build a toolkit for Android back in May, and it had always been our intention to release this summer (we only missed by a week or so).
In addition to this release of Android, we have also:
- Released the Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone (v1.3.0)
- Released the Windows Azure Toolkit for iOS (v1.2.1)
- Released a new Windows Phone sample called BabelCam both as source code and to the Windows Phone Marketplace
These releases complete our coverage of the three device platforms we intended to cover earlier this year when we started our work – Windows Phone, iOS, and Android.
...
Android
Today we released version 0.8 of the Windows Azure Toolkit for Android. This version includes native libraries that provide support for storage and authN/Z, a sample application, and unit tests. Everything is built in Eclipse and uses the Android SDK.
...
..."
I don't currently code for android (nor much Azure yet either...) but I know many do and I wanted to highlight this cross platform commitment by Microsoft. While you'd think it a no-brainer, sometimes corps have no brains... : o
Anyway, cool to see this and I hope there's more like commitments in the future.
Related Past Post XRef:
Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7 v1.2.0 released - Apple Push, Azure Storage Queue, ACS2 and more…
Windows Azure and Window Phone 7 is like beer and peanuts, with the "Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone 7"
Microsoft Downloads - Update for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 (KB2529927)
"Migrating setup project from VS2008 to VS2010SP1 changes component GUIDs, which causes upgrades to fail
Version: 10.0
Date Published: 8/30/2011Change Language: Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) English French German Italian Japanese Korean Russian Spanish
KB Articles: KB2529927
VS10SP1-KB2529927-v2-x86.exe 2.0 MB
Overview
When you install the .msi file that is created from the Visual Studio 2010 SP1 Setup project, the .msi file determines that the GUID has changed. Therefore, the .msi file removes the files and registry keys for the installation path by using the sequence of the project. This issue occurs because a different hashing algorithm is used to create the Globally Unique Identifiers (GUIDs) in Visual Studio 2010 SP1.
To resolve this issue, apply this hotfix, and then set the new BackwardCompatibleIDGeneration property to True before you build the project.
This hotfix introduces the BackwardCompatibleIDGeneration property. By default, this property is set to False. Before you build the Setup project in Visual Studio 2010 SP1, you have to explicitly set the BackwardCompatibleIDGeneration property to True
..."
I've run into this (and thought it was something stupid I was doing. Given that I "do stupid" allot, that wouldn't surprise me... lol ;)
"I’m happy to announce the release of NuGet 1.5 just in time to make sure our roadmap isn’t a liar. I won’t bore you by repeating the details of the release, but instead direct you to the NuGet 1.5 release notes.
If you are running a private NuGet.Server repository, you’ll need to update that repository the latest version of NuGet.Server to connect to it using NuGet 1.5.
I’ve updated our roadmap to reflect what we’re thinking about next. The next release is going to focus more on continuous integration scenarios that we’ve heard from customers, pre-release “beta” packages and multiple UI improvements such as allowing folks to disable package sources.
..."
Here's a bullet point summary from the NuGet 1.5 Release Notes
Get-Package command improvement<files /> improvementNuGet rocks. 'nuff said...
DevCheatSheet.com - Git Cheat Sheet & Version Control Best Practices
Here's a snap;
The version control best practices are the common sense ones, but then again, common sense sometimes isn't all that common...
" Hyperion Entertainment CVBA and the AmigaOS development team announce the immediate availability for download of AmigaOS 4.1 Update 3 for registered users of AmigaOS 4.1 on the following platforms:
- ...
Update 3, painstakingly assembled by AmigaOS’ project lead Steven Solie after extensive beta testing by our dedicated team of beta testers, contains a substantial part of the new functionality and a wide variety of bug fixes and improvements developed over the last 16 months.
Please note that some new applications (including Timberwolf) will rely on the feature-set of AmigaOS 4.1 Update 3.
An incomplete list of features in Update 3 includes:
- Updated Installation Utility program;
- Updated PATA and SATA drivers;
- Improved DOS stability and speed;
- Fixed Amiga shared object issues;
- Support for AmigaOne keyboards including boing key swap feature; Set keymap_swapaltamiga to "on" in your firmware to enable;
- Updated Intuition and GUI components;
- New consistent full release string including update number;
- Updated AmiSSL certificates;
- Updated USB stack with USB 2.0 (EHCI) support;
- Improved Sam460ex support including sound driver;
- I2C support for the Sam440ep and Sam460ex platforms;
- Updated and improved Warp3D support;
- Faster 2D graphics support;
- Various kernel fixes for increased stability;
- Updated MUI with many new features to make porting MUI 4.0 based applications simpler;
- Improved notifications support.
..."
There's some cute about this. Amiga still brings back some fond memories... [sniff... miss you... sniff]
(via OS News - AmigaOS 4.1 Update 3 Released)
Network World - The collar bomber's explosive tech gaffe
"The man who claimed to have attached a bomb collar to an Australian high school student two weeks ago thought it would be a good idea to leave a ransom note on a USB stick looped around her neck. What he probably didn't realize is that he also left his name, hidden deep in the device's memory.Again, like I've said over and over... You can't destroy data. Electronic data, once it's been saved, it's nearly impossible to really destroy. Once it's left your possession/control, it really is forever. Think about that the next time you tweet, send that email or post that pic.
The next 10 hours were a gruelling ordeal for the girl before a Sydney police bomb squad was able to determined that the threat was a hoax. But a closer look at the USB drive turned up a couple of files that the criminal thought he'd deleted. One of them, a version of the ransom note written in Microsoft Word, contained metadata about the document's author, including his name: "Paul P."
...
Police collected footage from surveillance cameras in a library where a computer was used to access the Gmail account. The footage, along with the USB drive and circumstantial evidence, such as purchases made around the time of the incident, link Peters to the crime, prosecutors say.
Even if the collar bomber had known his name was on the USB drive, it would have been very hard to remove it, according to Frank McClain, an independent computer forensics expert.
As computer geeks and investigators know, when users delete a file from a computer the file isn't deleted immediately from the hard drive. Instead, the computer takes note that the area of the disk where the file is stored is now available to be written over. So investigators can often recover at least snippets of data from files that are supposed to have been deleted.
...
The collar bomber's first mistake was thinking he could delete something completely from his USB stick. But he also erred by not altering the metadata in his Word document. When Word saves a document, it automatically saves data, such as the user's login name, as part of the file. Office 2007 users can see this metadata by hitting the Office button, then "Prepare" and "Properties."
..."
ElegantCode - Build an Earthquake Application with Bing Maps WPF Control (Beta)
"Recently you may have noticed that the Bing Maps team released a WPF Map control which is currently in Beta. In light of the recent earth quake on the east coast of the United States, I thought an earthquake application would be a great way to become familiar with the Map control. There are a few things you must do before we can get started.
- Get the Bing Maps WPF control.
- Get a Bing Maps API key. (not needed for development)
Now that you have that out of the way let’s write an application. Create a new WPF application targeting the .NET 4.0 framework. Add a reference to the Microsoft.Maps.MapControl.WPF.dll. This will most likely be located in Program Files or Program Files (x86) –> Bing Maps WPF Control –> Beta –> Libraries. Next you need to declare a namespace in XAML:
...
..."
Living in Los Angeles, earthquakes are always on my mind... "Wait, was that...?? No, guess not...". I go to the USGS.gov site all the time, but having a quick an dirty app would be much cooler... :)
(via Pete Brown - Windows Client Developer Roundup 080 for 8/29/2011)
CodeProject - Depends4Net - Part 1
"I’ve been looking for something like “Dependency Walker” for a while – something that simple to deploy. Currently Depends4Net allows me to view a tree of all dependent assemblies – even those not present on the system, or otherwise inaccessible to the rather simple assembly resolver currently implemented, in a manner similar to “Dependency Walker”.
While far from production quality, it’s still a useful little tool that allows me to figure out which assemblies are missing from a given installation. The code depends on the WPF Toolkit, included with Visual Studio 2010, and does not require any other framework to build. You can easily use this code to create a command line utility requiring nothing but a working .Net 4 installation.
To keep things interesting I load the assemblies into a separate application domain, and this presents us with a few challenges. As the .Net Assembly class is
[Serializable], accessing the assembly directly would actually load the assembly into the current domain, and hence defeat the whole purpose of creating a separate domain, so another type must be used to transfer information about the loaded assemblies back to the primaryAppDomain. A bit of testing also seems to indicate that this gives us the correct version the .Net framework libraries.The class responsible for loading the assemblies is part of the primary assembly for the application, and as I really want to be able to load assemblies from any location, this requires a little trick.
Ah... Dependency Walker. That brings back some memories (mostly bad ones of trying to figure out why the heck a given install wasn't work right...). I can use a .Net version of it from time to time, that's sure...
(via Jason Haley - Interesting Finds: August 29, 2011 )
Related Past Post XRef:
Office Developer Center - Office 101 Code Samples
"Microsoft Office 2010 gives you the tools needed to create powerful applications. These Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code samples can assist you in creating your own applications that perform specific functions or as a starting point to create more complex solutions.
Each code sample consists of approximately 5 to 50 lines of code demonstrating a distinct feature or feature set in VBA. Each sample includes comments describing the sample, and setup code so that you can run the code with expected results or the comments will explain how to set up the environment so that the sample code runs.)
...
..."
That's an official boat load of Office 2010 code samples.... :)
addictive tips - BatchFormat – Remove Unused ‘Usings’ And Format Visual Studio Document
"Do you often find it challenging to clean code file from unnecessary statements, imported snippets, functions, etc., and also to indent code, sort or remove unused Using directives in Visual Studio document? Visual Studio, just like many other software development IDEs, doesn’t provide features to clean the code file from such superfluous content, which makes it hard to not only dry run the code but visually scanning the important code modules present in document a tiresome task as well. What you probably need is a plugin which can automate the process of formatting documents without requiring you to find code format irregularities. BatchFormat is Visual Studio 2010 add-in to format document by removing and sorting different elements of any code file in current solution.
BatchFormat includes 3 options to deal with Using directives in your C # code files – Remove Unused Usings, Sort Usings, and Remove and Sort Usings. For instance, if you want to remove redundant Using directives from the code file, select Remove Unused Usings option from document right-click context menu, present in Solution Explorer, whereas, to remove unused Usings and sort others, go for Remove and Sort Usings option.
..."
Visual Studio Gallery - BatchFormat
"...
Code Batch Format Tool
Areas: Solution, Project, Folder, File.
Function: Remove, Sort, Using, Format Document, and more combinations.
..."
The addictive tips has been doing a bunch for dev/Visual Studio related stories recently. If you don't follow them, you should. I would have missed this Extension if it wasn't for their coverage.
Anyway... There's a number of extensions that doing the "Usings'" thing, but none come to mind that do it in a batch like this extension. Doing a "Sort Usings'" or "Remove and Sort..." on an entire Solution with two clicks sure sounds pretty darn useful, doesn't it?
Gal Ratner - How to record Skype voice conversations
"
...
Skype uses a public API to listen and transmit messages to all programs on your computer. Messages are being transmitted via the native windows API and will require us to use some external method calls.
In this article we are going to build a WPF client that will communicate with Skype, detect voice calls, redirect the incoming and outgoing streams into files and finally, create a complete conversation file.
Let’s start by including the necessary external methods:
...
..."
I thought this post and code a pretty cool project and something easily worth highlighting. The inter-op with Skype, going beyond "normal" inter-op, using windows messages, etc was interesting.
The 1932 Zombie Killing Games in Los Angeles
"A Zombie Olympics in Los Angeles! It happened -- or at least you'll think it did after looking at this 11 x 17, suitable for framing print!
Comes with this description: A grand confluence of events created the great Los Angeles Zombie Killing Games. After the success of the 1932 Olympics, the city was eager to make use of their newly built stadiums and housing, and to reap more tourist and investment dollars. At the same time, a virulent strain of Living Undead Infections (or “Zombies”) affected the entire Valley area, from Santa Monica to Whittier. Mayor John C. Porter proposed the Zombie Killing Games (also known as the Living Undead Olympics), which drew renowned slayers from around the world to compete ...
..."
Nothing like a little zombie alt-history on a Sunday... :P
(via reddit/LosAngeles - The 1932 Zombie Killing Games in Los Angeles)
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