I just started a MobileTDL project. It is a PocketPC companion for Dan’s ToDo List, which I use extensively.
The code was copied from a dead project at SourceForge and adapted to make it work. More features to follow later but, for now, all the basic functionality is there and I’m quite happy to finally have this tool on my phone. :)
Since I can’t get used to Touch Lock Pro (missing calls as sometimes it does not unlock when the phone rings, need to rotate device when the alarm rings in the morning, etc.), I decided to go ahead with S2U2. It seems to be what one would expect from a locking program but also much more. I’m glad it has the setting to turn off the screen when the phone connects.
It also has a timeout, which locks the device after a number of seconds. The hardware buttons are locked when the device is suspended. The only issue I don’t know about is what happens when the phone rings and gets unlocked. Accidental move or press might answer or reject the call even if that’s not what you want. But that’s not a nuisance. One can always look at the logs and return a call or something like that.
The screen, when the device is locked, contains a clock, slider similar to iPhone’s, battery status, appointments, number of tasks, unread messages, and so on. Quite useful summary of key functions.
So far I like the way app works. It is just intuitive for me – it works the way I’d like such an app to operate.
ToDo List project page at The Code Project contains links to interesting related projects for ToDo List. One of those is the Gantt Viewer for ToDoList, which does exactly what it says – it displays your todo list (.tdl file) as a Gantt chart, taking into consideration start and/or end dates for each task. This is exactly what I needed to accommodate for the visual presentation of the task list.
Some task list are check-box based. These can be simple (list) or hierarchical. Yet, other ones are more project-based and depend on timelines and resources. I’m still finding the best way to organize tasks/projects and, so far, ToDo List is one of the most convenient tools for this purpose. Now, with Gantt Viewer this could just be my Holy Grail of (small) project management. :)
Yet another visual presentation of todo list is the Calendar plug-in for ToDoList. This is perfect companion to the previous two views (task list and Gantt chart).
Touch Lock Pro is my software of choice for locking and unlocking the device. It locks the device when you suspend it, disabling activation by accidentally pushing buttons.
Unlocking with light sensor is effective as it unlocks the device as soon as you take it out of the pouch.
It supports all the sensors on the device so you can create your own conditions and triggers for locking and unlocking – G-sensor, light sensor, screen, buttons, stylus, etc.
Here is a link to some useful software, on XDA Developers wiki. Among other useful things, it contains a link to SSMaPa, which can be used to customize Touch FLO 3D interface and change some default programs. The most common option, that I’m looking to use as well, is to replace the default calendar with Pocket Informant. I’m so used to seeing the Tasks in a calendar, an old habit from “floating appointments” on Visor Handspring.
Here is a free contacts synchronizer for Outlook and GMail. It goes well along Google Calendar Sync if you want to keep your PIM data synchronized between Outlook, GMail, and phone.
Here’s another web synchronization and storage tool – SugarSync. A friend showed me his Dropbox files on an iPhone today. While Dropbox has iPhone client, it is missing one for Windows Mobile. I know it’s probably a matter of time before they get one. However, SugarSync already has a Windows Mobile client and I need one so that my phone could become my real digital assistant. :) Now installing the SugarSync client on my PC and phone.
Well, the new Google option to synchronize your calendar and contacts between Gmail account and your phone is very addictive. The issue of having a central repository of contacts and appointments (hopefully soon there would be tasks as well) is just too good. Now, the issue that raises naturally is keeping contacts in sync between all the different places – your online repository (Gmail), mobile device (phone/PDA), your home computer , your work computer, or any other location you could have. While Google made a sync tool available to synchronize between a phone and Gmail, one thing that is left out is your computer with Outlook. Since Outlook address book is my main contacts repository, I wish to keep it that way. And, while one could sync Gmail with phone, then phone with Outlook, that is not the best solution. I wish, just like there is Google Calendar Sync, that I could sync Outlook with Gmail and then, whenever and wherever I plug in my phone, I get the latest updated contact list synchronized.
Well, Google has a tool but it is available only for business customers and it is a paid service. Fortunately, there are others out there. While I was aware of similar services earlier, I did not use any of them. But now I’m up for it.
So, here are some. Haven’t tested or used them yet but the demo for some of them shows they are simple enough, very straightforward (and I highly appreciate both of these characteristics) and free. Let me know which solution works for you.
I just installed Google Desktop (again) as there are some nice gadgets in there. At work I’m using Windows XP so I was looking for something to replace my Vista Deskbar I’m so used to. Desktop Sidebar is quite useful but the list of plugins does not seem to be that great. Besides, I happen to like the ability to pull out the gadgets and put them at different places on the screen. While I know it should be relatively easy to make these gadgets for any host, it’s just easier if someone has already done it. :)
So, after installing Google Dektop, the deskbar was placed on my main monitor, which is the left of the two, making it come in the middle between the two screens. As there are no options to move deskbar to another monitor, I was a bit confused at first. But the solution is very easy – just grab deskbar with your mouse and drag it onto another position, another monitor… Neat.
According to the latest comparison from Anti-Virus Comparative test in November 2009, Avira AntiVir scored an awesome 74%. That is much higher than the likes of Nod32 and Kaspersky, not to mention McAfee, Sophos, Norton, and the rest. The ranking is impressive so I decided to give AntiVir a go.
Should I say that there is a free version of AntiVir? Congratulations, Avira!
Twiddlebit has a nice piece of software – Plan for Windows and PocketPC. Both applications have identical features with the only difference that one runs on desktop and the other one on a mobile device. The software is compatible with MS Project (.MPX) files, which is great for data exchange. It can also export the task list to (Pocket) Outlook tasks under the project-name category, which is a great feature since you can use your standard task list to follow through the project tasks.
Here is a PocketPC version of excellent AbstractSpoon’s ToDoList – project page on Google Code. Hopefully it is better than the one I had before.
Epocware has some great software for Nokia 5800 and Symbian OS. Organizer that is similar to SPB software on Pocket PC – Handy Calendar and Handy Shell are looking very good in terms of functionality.
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic - Tutorials, Tips & Hints page contains a few useful and illustrated tutorials about the phone and its operating system (SymbianOS). Some useful features are there, like backup and space consolidation on internal memory but also lots of other things you can do with this phone as well as reviews. This web site also contains news and links to the ROM firmware updates.
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“NoSQL” is the new term that represents the idea, a movement, or a line of thinking that is more adapted to the needs of the current needs of web applications. High scalability (the ability to scale out, mostly) is the top priority here.
The products that are used as data storage for these solutions (think Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) are distributed memory storage solutions with low latency (data access time) for both reading and writing.
Here are some interesting projects in that regard. Open Source first…
… and some commercial solutions…
This list is to grow as I find some interesting solutions. In the meantime, have a look at the following texts: The Future of Relational Databases and NoSQL Ecosystem.
Credit cards, like any other product, have their product lifetime. I currently use Wizard Clear Advantage MasterCard as it still has the most benefits I expect from a card. Like, 55 interest free days on purchases, no provisions and charges on ATM cash withdrawals overseas, no subscription or issuance fee, etc.
However, as Wizard (Home Loans) brand was sold to Aussie (Home Loans), this left Wizard credit cards out in the open. The service is still run by GE Money and, in practise, everything is as it used to be. But, as there is no Wizard credit cards brand available any more, I doubt it is possible to apply for this card any more. And I also wonder what is going to happen once the card expires. Whether it will be possible to renew it or would I have to pick another product?
Whichever happens, there are some useful sites around to compare credit cards. One of the new useful web sites is credit card. It contains a list of credit cards for easy comparison of features and advice on getting a credit card.
The good news for me is that the next card, similar in features to Wizard Clear Advantage, is HSBC and I already have it as it was offered by the bank. No fees make it a likely candidate as a reserve credit card.
Check my Australian Credit Cards page to find out more.
As Professional version of Visual Studio 2008 does not contain code coverage tools, I’m now having to look for a functionality elsewhere.
Open Source version of NCover is available here. Description page is here. However, it seems this version has not been updated for a while (since 2004).
Fortunately, there is PartCover project.
Unit testing and refactoring is becoming a real pain in VB.Net. First, Moq can not be utilized properly in VB.Net v9 because the language does not support all the Lambda syntax features and it is not possible to have a function (Sub) that does not return a value. Hence, it is impossible to unit-test method calls that do not return a value or, in VB.Net slang, Subs are not unit-testable while Functions are.
Another painful thing is that Refactor features, available with C# in Visual Studio, are not available for VB. The good thing is that there is a plugin by Developer Express Inc. available for free from MSDN.
Google Chrome (in the Dev channel) supports extensions. This probably was the single most sought-after feature that it was missing in comparison to Firefox. Well, now it’s there and the extension development is quite simple. As Chrome already executes JavaScript very, very fast, it makes sense to have extensions written in JavaScript.
Below is the basic tutorial on how to create a simple extension. As you will see, it is fairly simple. No additional knowledge, apart from the industry standards (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) is required. I like the approach.
If you have a specific homepage setup, like I’m used to with Firefox, then you might have a Homepage set to one but your start page set to another location. This way I have one page displayed when the browser starts but my web homepage is available when I press Alt+D key combination. I find it practical.
To do this in Google Chrome do the following. In options, set the Home page to the location you wish to access by clicking the Home button in the toolbar or using an Alt+D combination.
Set the “On startup” to ‘open the following pages’ and add “chrome://newtab/” as the location.
This way, when Chrome starts, it will display the New Tab page, with all the goodies like most visited pages, search engines, and what not. But, your original home page will still be available on Alt+D.
CruiseControl.NET is an Automated Continuous Integration server, implemented using the Microsoft .NET Framework.From CruiseControl description:
A list of tools that CruiseControl.NET can integrate with can be read at Using CruiseControl.NET with other applications.(CVS,SVN,NAnt, MSBuild, NUnit, NDepend, ...)
CruiseControl is both a continuous integration tool and an extensible framework for creating a custom continuous build process. It includes dozens of plugins for a variety of source controls, build technologies, and notifications schemes including email and instant messaging. A web interface provides details of the current and previous builds. And the standard CruiseControl distribution is augmented through a rich selection of 3rd Party Tools.
Shared Cache is high performance distributed and replication
cache system build for .Net cache and enterprise application running in
server farms.
Shared Cache provides distributed
replicated cache to minimize the load factor. It consists the usage of
two or more servers in a farm. It's replicated all data within the
cluster. The big plus is simple, you have all your cache nodes on all
different servers. In case one of your servers get restarted, it will
receive all nodes automatically from its parent.
Shared Cache uses 100% managed code which is written .Net C#.
Memcached's APIs provides a giant hash table distributed across multiple machines. When the table is full, subsequent inserts cause older data to be purged in least recently used (LRU)
order. Applications using memcached typically layer memcached requests
and additions into core before falling back on a slower backing store,
such as a database.
Protected Sub LinqDataSource1_ContextCreating(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Web.UI.WebControls.LinqDataSourceContextEventArgs) Handles LinqDataSource1.ContextCreating
'Pass the custom connection string.
Dim db As New DBADMDataContext(DBADMDataContext.getConnectionString())
e.ObjectInstance = db
End Sub
By default, LinqDataSource create data context by using default
constructor. If you want to use specific connection, I think you can create
data context object by yourself, and assign the object to the
ObjectInstance property in ContextCreating event.
Please refer to the following document. There is a simple about how to
specify connect string for LinqDataSource by yourself.
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...rols.linqdatas
ource.contextcreating.aspx
[LinqDataSource..::.ContextCreating Event]
Selenium IDE is an integrated development environment forSelenium IDE
Selenium tests. It is implemented as a Firefox extension, and allows
you to record, edit, and debug tests. Selenium IDE includes the entire
Selenium Core, allowing you to easily and quickly record and play back
tests in the actual environment that they will run.
Selenium IDE is not only recording tool: it is a complete IDE.
You can choose to use its recording capability, or you may edit your
scripts by hand. With autocomplete support and the ability to move
commands around quickly, Selenium IDE is the ideal environment for
creating Selenium tests no matter what style of tests you prefer.
VBoxManage clonehd Root_Disk.vmdk Root_Disk.vdi --format VDI
I used the VMDK support in VirtualBox, utilizing the .vmdk disk, but everything went terribly wrong. The disk operations were completely flawed. Installations of software in the virtual machine, which was on an USB drive, were faulty, random errors were popping up, etc, etc. I lost a week just trying to figure out what was wrong with the virtual machine. Let's hope conversion to VDI would make the converted virtual machines stable.Visual Studio 2008 has an option to display all the exceptions being thrown and/or not caught by user code. The Exceptions dialog is available by pressing Ctrl+Alt+E.
This is handy if you’re working on other people’s code that has many try/catch blocks with an empty catch part. Effectively, this jumps over the exception, ignoring it, but can lead to stack overflow blowup in certain occasions.
IETester is a free WebBrowser that allows you to have the rendering and javascript engines of IE8, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Windows 7, Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process.My DebugBar | IETester / HomePage
After upgrading the Firefox 3.5 to 3.5.1 I have quite a significant subjective feeling of speed. I have to add, this is *with* Fasterfox Lite extension. But, still, the speed of page loading and display, and the overall responsiveness of the application is great. On par, if not better (requires a bit more comparisons) than Chrome 3. Good work, Firefox team!
Here is the project to run Linux on HTC Magician (Qtek S100) – link. The status of the project as of 2007-04-03 is B-. This means most features can be utilized, but not all and not fully.
The drivers from this project might be used to help running Android on Magician.
There is the Angstrom Linux distribution (link) that should run on Windows Mobile devices or, if you are interested in Android, the HTC Android hub (link).
Comparing today’s two most widely used approaches in software development from Microsoft’s and IBM’s point of view.
General conclusion of the comparisons could be summarized as:
RUP is (1) a formal, strict and heavy software engineering process that wants to (2) identify the requirements and architecture early in the process to be able to (3) focus on planning the time schedules and budget to create (4) a predictive and ordered software development environment.
MSF4ASD is (1) an informal, loosely, and light software engineering process that (2) embraces ad hoc requirements management and architecture design to (3) facilitate the ability to cope with changes to create (4) an adaptive and responsive environment.
MSF Documentation: RUP vs. MSF - A comparative study (link)
Comparing the Rational Unified Process (RUP) and Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) (link)
This is an agile HTML parser that builds a read/write DOM and supports plain XPATH or XSLT (you actually don't HAVE to understand XPATH nor XSLT to use it, don't worry...). It is a .NET code library that allows you to parse "out of the web" HTML files. The parser is very tolerant with "real world" malformed HTML. The object model is very similar to what proposes System.Xml, but for HTML documents (or streams).
The situation is - I'm setting up an asp.net application to run on my local machine. Running it with a development web server was OK at first but then I needed to use my browser from another computer. This prompted me to set up the application under local IIS instead of the development web server, which accepts only local connections. Trying to set up a tunnel with an SSH server did not work.Login failed for user 'NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE'.
Source: Making Windows Usable"Focus-follows-mouse
Believe it or not, Windows does support focus-follows-mouse, though there is no GUI configuration exposing it. Instead you must edit a registry key and then log out and back in for the change to become effective. You can use regedit to edit the key.
On Windows NT, set the following registry key to have a value of 1:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse\Active WindowsOn NT it has some bugs: some apps auto-raise on focus, and alt-tab doesn't move the mouse.
Tracking
On Windows 2000, XP, or 2003, you need to change a binary-valued registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlThis is a little-endian bitmask. For focus-follows-mouse, add the flag 0x1. For example, my XP SP2 laptop originally had a value of 9E 3E 05 80, which is 0x80053E9E. To activate focus-follows-mouse I changed to 0x80053E9F, or 9F 3E 05 80 in regedit.
Panel\Desktop\UserPreferencesMask
According to http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/18/ you can also achieve raise-on-focus by adding the flag 0x40. I haven't tested that as I don't like raise-on-focus."
So, it is the first number that gets increased by 1 in regedit.
| Google Chrome 2.0.172.31 | Mozilla Firefox 3.0.11 | Firefox 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Richards: 1471 DeltaBlue: 1297 Crypto: 1555 RayTrace: 1841 EarleyBoyer: 2333 RegExp: 554 Splay: 3452 | Richards: 111 DeltaBlue: 130 Crypto: 62.5 RayTrace: 131 EarleyBoyer: 165 RegExp: 92.3 Splay: 352 | Richards: 750 |
I have installed Firefox 3.5 RC2 and the subjective feeling of speed is greatly enhanced compared to Firefox 3.0. To turn the TraceMonkey on, read this article.
For more good news about the next generation Web, read this post.
Update 2009-07-21: Changed the Benchmark Suite link to point to the current suite version.
Mozilla Gecko (Firefox) rendering engine is available as a component for .Net. Should you want to render HTML with an engine other than Internet Explorer, use GeckoFX replacement for WebBrowser control.
One more option for HTML –> PDF conversion. They offer a free Personal license for interactive use on a single computer. Support for XHTML and CSS. The output formatting makes phenomenal documents. Samples can be seen on the Samples page.
Will give it a try.
Drop Shadow effect with jQuery. The effects are awesome. This might reduce load on images in web sites.
It is really amazing what can be produced with only HTML, CSS, and JavaScript now. Here is the demo on how to draw different types of charts using HTML canvas and jQuery.
fgCharting library can be downloaded from the same page. Canvas is not supported by Internet Explorer, though, but there is a workaround. Google devs have created a JavaScript library that sorts that out.
The above page demonstrates the concept and there must be quite a few good libraries available out there by now. One good example is Flot (link).
jQuery In Place Editor is a plugin for jQuery that makes text on the web page editable in a way similar to the way Flickr does. The editable text is highlighted on mouseover. Clicking the text turns it into a text box or text area for text input. Clicking outside the input text box submits (POST) the changed text to the preset URL.
There are other controls with similar and extended functionality but I like the way this one actually does things in a way very similar to Flickr.
Another approach in creating PDF documents in code is the XSL transformation with Formatting Objects Processor (FOP). NFop is .Net port of Java FOP library.
FOP (Formatting Objects Processor) is a tool for formatting of impression controlled by XSL. It is an application which reads a tree of objects of formatting and which generates the resulting pages in a given format. For the moment the formats of returned according to are supported: Pdf, PCL, PS, SVG, XML, Print, AWT, MIF and TXT. pdf being the format of predilection.
Some documentation available (link). Sample on Code Project (link). Additional documentation on Apache FOP site (link)
Cassini 2 source code is available at Dmitryr’s blog. Although WebDev.WebServer.exe originates from Cassini code, they are not completely identical. Should you need a small (development) web server that does not require the whole Visual Studio installation, use the original Cassini instead of WebDev.WebServer. It runs aspx code and code-behind and is, therefore, very useful for small demo sites and ad-hoc development.
dmitryr’s blog: Cassini Version 2
Edit:
My compiled binary version available here.
WebDev.WebServer.exe, with .Net Framework 3.5, is located in “%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\microsoft shared\DevServer\9.0\”.
It is a handy small web server that executes .Net code. Combine jQuery UI with server-side support provided by WebServer and back-end code in .Net. Could this replace desktop applications soon?
To run the web server from a batch file, using the folder where the batch file resides as a root, put the following line in the batch file:
"%programfiles%\Common Files\microsoft shared\DevServer\9.0\WebDev.WebServer.exe" /path:"%cd%"
To create a context menu for a folder that runs the web server in the selected folder, do the steps below. Alternatively, you can copy the following lines into a .reg file and run it:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\WebServer]
@="Start Web Server here"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\WebServer\command]
@="\"c:\\program files\\Common Files\\microsoft shared\\DevServer\\9.0\\WebDev.WebServer.exe\" /path:\"%L\""Eventually change the path to %ProgramFiles%. The steps to do this manually are below:
"c:\program files\Common Files\microsoft shared\DevServer\9.0\WebDev.WebServer.exe" /path:"%L"Another possible way to do this is by using the Windows Scripting Host. Create a .js file with the following contents:
var oShell = new ActiveXObject("WScript.Shell");
var oFSO = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
var sCurFolder = oFSO.GetParentFolderName(WScript.ScriptFullName);
oShell.CurrentDirectory = sCurFolder;
// to display info, use:
// WScript.Echo('wscript.echo');
// oShell.Popup('test');
var wshEnv = oShell.Environment("PROCESS");
var sProgFiles = wshEnv("ProgramFiles");
var cmd = '"' + sProgFiles + '\\Common Files\\microsoft shared\\DevServer\\9.0\\WebDev.WebServer.exe" /path:"' + sCurFolder + '"';
// Run the web server.
oShell.Run(cmd);
// Run the browser.
oShell.Run("http://localhost/");
Interface is a collection of rich interface components which utilizes the lightweight JavaScript library jQuery. With this components you can build rich client web applications and interfaces with the same simplicity as writing JavaScript with jQuery.
The collection is dual licensed with the MIT license and the GPL, which basically means you can use it for free for both non-commercial and commercial usage as long as you keep the copyright notice in each of Interface's JavaScript source file.
Interface library contains some nice UI elements and effects such as: accordion, animation, carousel, cart, drag and drop, image boxes, menus, resizing areas, scrollbars, sliders, color picker, slide show, sorting, tooltips, tabs, and windows.
I reckon that the Web UI is getting pretty close to desktop functionality.
Since more and more people are on Facebook nowadays, here is the Facebook chat plugin for Pidgin, should you decide to have a centralized place for all your contact with Pidgin instant messenger.
I have used this program (formerly Gaim) for ages and have almost all my chat accounts still in use – from ICQ in ‘99 to Facebook chat in 2009. All my contacts from the various networks are in one messenger window.
I am looking for a nice File Upload control for ASP.Net. Ajax calls that enable progressbar functionality are probably the standard at the time. Currently, I have found the following free solutions:
[ServiceContract(Namespace = "MyContractNamespace")]
public interface ITest
{
[OperationContract]
string Echo(string str);
}
[ServiceBehavior(Namespace = "MyServiceNamespace")]
public class Service : ITest
{
public string Echo(string str)
{
return str;
}
}
<endpoint contract="ITest" binding="wsHttpBinding" address="" bindingNamespace="MyServiceNamespace">
Here is the list of the file extensions that may show up in your VMWare virtual machine directory. I am cleaning up the folder after migrating the virtual machine from VMWare to Virtual Box, still using the same disk image, and there are a few files I do not need anymore, even if I go back and run the same disk with a VMWare. Vmdk, nvram, vmem, vmxf, vmx... Which are safe to remove and which are not? Read in more details at the link below.
What Files Make Up a Virtual Machine?
I removed everything else except the virtual disk file (.vmdk) and virtual machine file (.vmx). There were no snapshots and the machine was shutdown properly so no virtual memory file either. In that case it was safe to delete everything besides the two main files. Since I’m already using the disk file with Virtual Box, I could have deleted the VMWare virtual machine file (.vmx) but I decided to keep it just in case.
Running an OS that was installed with VMWare on a VMDK disk will not straightforward with Virtual Box. It might be a small but important change but what worked for me was to activate the I/O APIC. Running Windows 2008 Server worked, although I first booted in Safe Mode so I don’t know whether it would boot up in a regular mode. The next boot was OK, with OS installing different drivers, etc.
The issue with this migration is that Windows will require re-activation as the (virtual) hardware signature has changed.
I am trying to save the contents of a Rich Text Editor control, which is HTML, into a PDF file. Below are some links to converters that do this sort of thing. I tested a few to find which one does what I need. The preference is to have a free one that can be used for hobby projects.
And some other…
An alternative is to use XML to XSL-FO transformation (link).
Did you know there was a "hidden" code-generation feature in VS2008? Text Templating Transformation Toolkit (aka T4) actually debuted in VS2005 Guidance Automation Toolkit, but shipped baked into VS2008. This gives you CodeSmith-style code-generation templates that can be used in your projects to generate code from any source. Simply add a text file with the extension ".tt", and VS will add a "Transform Templates" button to the solution explorer window.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb126445(VS.80).aspx
A Rich Text Editor control for ASP.Net. Haven’t tested the functionality yet but it seems to be good enough for my current needs.
Project management (PM) involves a skill set useful in solving many problems, not only in the professional sphere. The skills used in project management can often be applied to a range of other areas.
One of the first phases of project management is Project Definition. More details available here - link.
Design patterns – article at Wikipedia – contains the list of categories in design patterns, as used in Computer Science.
Office 2007 SP2 is out. Direct download is here – link. This update improves the Outlook performance and adds support for Open Document Format (ODF) in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Save As PDF option is also added to all the programs in the suite. The full list of changes is available on Microsoft web site (link). The download is 290MB file.
XUpdate was supposed to be an XML language for updating arbitrary XML documents. It used XPath for selecting a set of nodes to modify or remove.
Unfortunately, there is not much development on either the specs or the implementations.
Articles:
Merging XML with XUpdate (link), XUpdate update (link), Editing XML Data Using XUpdate and HTML Forms (link)
Here is the GUI for the previously mentioned XML Diff and Patch library. There’s not much to it, comparing to the console version, but the link is there, just in case someone needs it.
I found an excellent piece of code that compares two XML documents. The difference to the in-built comparer in Linq to XML is that XMLDiff uses comparison options. Hence it is possible to say that the comparison of the XML is to be done ignoring whitespaces, or ignoring the child sort order. This last option is what I was looking for.
At the same time, I prefer to use a common solution or a library than to write the same thing myself, assuming there is one out there.
The project files were created in .Net 1.1 but are easily upgradeable to .Net 3.5.
Usage is extremely easy and straightforward:
[TestMethod]
public void xmldiff_test()
{
XDocument doc1 = this.getDoc1();
XDocument doc2 = this.getDoc1Inverse();
// XMLDiff is using XMLDocument
XmlDocument docx1 = new XmlDocument();
docx1.LoadXml(doc1.ToString());
XmlDocument docx2 = new XmlDocument();
docx2.LoadXml(doc2.ToString());
XmlDiff diff = new XmlDiff();
diff.IgnoreChildOrder = true;
diff.IgnoreXmlDecl = true;
diff.IgnoreWhitespace = true;
bool result = diff.Compare(docx1.DocumentElement, docx2.DocumentElement);
Assert.IsTrue(result);
}
And the two functions create two XML XDocuments with children in different order:
private XDocument getDoc1()
{
XDocument doc = new XDocument(
new XElement("root",
new XElement("child1"),
new XElement("child2")
)
);
return doc;
}
private XDocument getDoc1Inverse()
{
XDocument doc = new XDocument(
new XElement("root",
new XElement("child2"),
new XElement("child1")
)
);
return doc;
}
The link to the text and the download are below:
Windows Live Writer now supports Blogger labels. I am using them to group related article because it gets difficult to find certain post over time.
To insert a Blogger (blogspot.com) label to a post use the field “Set categories”, which is located just below the text editor area. This will insert the categories/labels with the post. Use comma (,) to separate the labels.
Here is an excellent review of Samsung Omnia mobile phone. If other reviews are as good and thorough as this one, this web site is an excellent reference as a source of information for other mobile phones, too.
Updated on September 02, 2008 due to changes caused by a newer ROM version.
I just found out about Samsung’s Omnia. Finally a phone I really like. Has just about all the features I may want and at a decent price.
Anyway, back to the topic. Here is a nice phone visual comparison tool. If you are concerned about the design or the dimension of a certain model of a mobile phone, you can compare it to its peers at the address below:
Now, this is a cool new feature for a web browser:
I have just visited staticice.com.au and ebay.com.au searching for the Samsung Omnia mobile phone/PDA. Chrome remembered both sites and added them to the search providers list. Now, whether I type in the address bar, or open a new tab, I have the ability to search these, previously visited, web sites.
This is excellent. Keep bringing on the new features! I'm already wondering how could I have lived without it...
I am actively using AbstractSpoon’s ToDoList. It is the best software for todo lists I have seen. Probably because it shares the same concepts about todo items with me. It had the most important features years ago and lately only continued refining the abilities it offers. Here are a few additional pieces of software that work with ToDoList files (.tdl):
Here is a free book available online. Excellent guide for aspiring JAVA developers
Here is a nice introductory article about Groovy on Google Apps. An example of Groovlet is here:
html.html {
head {
title "Hello" }
body {
p "Hello Groovy World!" }
}
SpringSource Team Blog » Write your Google App Engine applications in Groovy
Webchunks is a Firefox3 implementation of Microsoft Webslices (feature appeared with IE8). It allows you to "follow" an area of a web page through a dedicated feed bookmarked in a new toolbar. Clicking on the toolbar entry shows the information related to your choice in a popup, without the need to open a complete web page. Should you follow information that can expire like eBay auctions, the style (bold or italic) of the toolbar's entry will reflect the status of your entry: new, expired, about to expire. With the help of an extra extension, Greasemonkey, you can insert webchunks/webslices markup into any web page so the Webchunks extension handles it. This is something the Microsoft implementation cannot do, it entirely relies on the server's markup. Please note Greasemonkey is not mandatory for Webchunks. A tutorial for Webchunks is available at http://disruptive-innovations.com/zoo/webchunks/tutorial.html
After you install the extension, check it functionality at IE8 WebSlices site.
GWT projects consist of three elements:
Module defines the entry point, which is found inside the code file. After creating the code file, add line similar to:
<entry-point class="MyProject.client.MyCodeClass" />
to the module XML file.
The code file implements the EntryPoint interface. This file contains onModuleLoad() function, which is similar to main() in C or Java. Additional classes can be implemented as simple Java classes. They should import needed com.google.gwt.core.client namespaces. This is done automatically by Eclipse. The resulting code for the application is very similar to C# or Java. The only thing missing is the designer support for UI classes. It would be extremely nice to have a designer to produce user interface and event linking automatically and/or visually.
HTML file contains a link to generated JavaScript file(s). This link is created automatically if you use Eclipse and GWT plugin. During the creation of HTML file in Eclipse there is an option to select the module(s) to be used. All the modules in the project get included in the HTML file by default. You should include only the modules that will be actually used on the host page. The other code files (.java) can be shared among different modules. HTML files can be left blank if the UI is to be manipulated completely in code, or it can contain some UI elements as well. These are usually only containers that will contain other elements which will be defined in code. One HTML host page can host multiple GWT applications. In that case, each application should have its separate container and not use the whole RootPanel (page body).
Here is the first thing that is not obvious for newcomers to GWT: There are no multiple pages involved in development. I was wondering, just like many others I guess, how to add another page to my GWT application. The answer from com.googlegroups.google-web-toolkit is below. It will take some time to get used to it. And I still hope this changes in the near future.
“I am new to GWT, though I have dabbled in C#/Java before so the language itself doesn't boggle me that much, but it seems some of the simpler concepts aren't sticking. Im pretty sure the answer to my question is so obvious, as I have not seen it answered in any of the tutorials on GWT on the web. What I wanted to know is, how do you do page navigation in GWT? For example I have my new class, with its onModuleLoad function, which is fine, but say I want to click a link and load a new page with a different onModuleLoad function? “
As others have pointed out, the Right(TM) way to do this is using the History mechanism. There are many strategies for working this into your application's internal syntax and structure. However, there are a few other basic concepts I think you might want some clarification on.
First, you should think of your GWT app as a single HTML page, in which user and application events cause PORTIONS of the page (ie DOM elements) to change, be replaced, or loaded with content from the server or internal application logic. In general you will not be sending the user/browser to another "real" URL. Your initial HTML page is basically a canvas on which your GWT application spews up content in response to user or server events (the typical AJAX model).
In the example of your login function, when your app has successfully received authentication credentials from the user, its next job will be to kick the login widgets off the page, and replace them with "whatever is next".
Second, you will probably find that the majority (if not all) of your user navigation paths are not coded in raw HTML. The GWT ui classes provide all the event handling and navigational connectivity that you would find in a typical desktop application. Although it is possible use raw HTML links to navigate your application, the GWT widgets are much easier to work with, test, and maintain than raw HTML files. So instead of following an <a href="blah blah">blah</a> and "going somewhere else", you will create event listeners that respond to mouse or key clicks which cause your app to change what is already there.
Finally, you typically will only have one EntryPoint implementation with an onModuleLoad method in your application. That class will be responsible for initializing your application - probably by creating classes for the UI, classes for handling UI events, and classes for managing your applications internal state. In a lot of the samples, the class which implements EntryPoint also implements all of the UI, the event handlers, and the application logic, but that's only to reduce the amount of code you have to read. In any serious application you will want to factor those things out into different classes (as in MVC).
It might be helpful to think of your EntryPoint.onModuleLoad() as if it were simply the main() method of a more traditional application.
Since I’m working on a web application, using Java, I’m looking to enhance the functionality using Ajax on the client-side. So, the focus turns to a part of my development environment I wasn’t paying attention to – Google Web Toolkit.
It offers the developers to develop the AJAX front-end by developing it in Java. This allows for edit-refresh-view cycle we’re used to. It also allows for easy debugging by stepping through the code. Using GWT’s built-in web browser allows the developer to view the changes in code effective immediately, just by refreshing the edited page. GWT then compiles the code into client-side JavaScript. The compiled JavaScript is highly optimized and is supposedly better than hand-maintained code.
If you’re looking for more detailed list of features, check the GWT Overview.
Playing with Google Apps templates and Eclipse led me to usage of Java Server Pages instead of servlets for output. For the first time, in Eclipse, when I used a wizard for creation of JSP page, I saw a few more options, which included Java Server Faces (JSF) pages. Wondering what that might be, I read the article JavaServer Faces - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia which was a bit mind-boggling, after working with Microsoft technologies.
JSF is a framework that should simplify development of user interfaces for Java EE applications. It uses UI components and saves their state after a user. The state is restored when a user activates the interface again. It can use JSP as a display technology but it can also use other technologies, like XUL. This combines into a powerful combination. JSP contain custom tag libraries which enable customization.
This technology is meant to compete with Microsoft ASP.Net, being a component-based framework.
Moving on with Google Apps engine. After I've ported some logic into Java, now I'm looking on how to render some output.
There are nice introductory tutorials about Servlets and Java Server Pages but these are a bit outdated. Nonetheless, they represent an excellent introductory material. Then, there are intermediate and advanced tutorials, with material available in PDF. There is more than enough material to get you started.
I have found the level where I got stuck and am going to enjoy some reading about templating and scripting.
Photosynth, Microsoft's software that creates a 3D scene from a bunch of photographs taken at the same location is finally out! I remember looking at the initial videos a couple of years back, where the team was demonstrating the features by displaying a 3D synth of Piazza San Marco in Venice.
The software package that allows you to create your own synths of places you've visited is available at the link below. There is also a short tutorial on how to prepare the pictures for a useful synth, like not photographing one-color areas, or shiny materials, etc. This could be exciting. The only drawback is that the initial version of Photosynth is implemented as a service so you have to upload all the photos to the site. If you have a high-speed Internet connection and are willing to try, enjoy it.
