Archive
.NET Micro Framework launch (and contest)
The .NET Micro Framework is an innovative development and execution environment for resource-constrained devices.
Its fully integrated Visual Studio experience brings a reliable and productive development system to the embedded world.
Using the .NET Micro Framework, you can:
Develop powerful, interactive, and complex applications
Securely connect devices over wired or wireless protocols
Develop reliable solutions faster at lower cost
Also checkout the Microsoft Dare to Dream Different challenge. It’s a contest with the following 3 steps:
- Submit your idea(s) online
- Create a working prototype
- Demonstrate your system and how you built it
More efficient comments in JSP pages
At JSP (Java Server Pages) better use <%– … –%> comment blocks instead of using a combination of <!– … –> and <% /* … */ %> ones. That way syntax highlighting of IDEs like NetBeans works better and also (and most importantly) the comments don’t go into the HTML page that is generated and sent to the end-user (which means faster processing and transport time, plus more security since end-users don’t see stuff they’re not supposed to)
Delphi Prism for .NET and Mono (for Windows, Mac OS-X and Linux)
At last RemObjects (the hosts of PascalScript and the Oxygene ObjectPascal compiler for .NET) decided to partner with Embarcadero‘s CodeGear department (formerly a part of Borland) in making the next generation of Delphi with support for the latest .NET technologies (like WPF) and also targeting Mono (Novell’s .NET port to Linux/Unix).
Now if Microsoft also decided to opensource J# so that people would make it available to Mono too and be able to add the missing libraries for Java2 source code compatibility (now that Sun’s Java implementation has been opensourced and the GNU Classpath project has done great strides), one could feel confident to say that they can persuade even the most skeptical client to use .NET for a totally new project or for a new re-engineered version of a legacy project.
Update:
It seems Delphi Prism is the Oxygene compiler (Object Pascal with .NET features like LINQ etc.) together with the free VSX (Visual Studio Shell) from Microsoft. It runs in integrated (instead of isolated) mode of VSX, that is if it finds Visual Studio.net installed on the machine it will integrate into it nicely, if not, it will install the (empty from any language compilers) VSX shell and integrate into it.
You can target the Mono framework doing the build at the IDE on Windows and also can run the command-line compiler (which is managed IL code) at Mono on Linux or OS-X if you wish. It would be nice if we also had a cross-platform IDE so that developers could chose the platform to use, but nevertheless, it’s good news even as is (one can use virtual machines after all – it’s a much more stable experience for development I feel: if your workspace gets corrupted, just use a backup version of the virtual machine disk, not any lengthy OS and IDE reinstallations etc.).
Delphi Prism will be available separately but also as a part of "CodeGear RAD Studio 2009" which will contain Delphi for Win32 and C++ compilers among its other goodies.
Touchless – track colored markers via webcam
Touchless is an SDK that allows users to create and experience multi-touch applications. Touchless started as Mike Wasserman’s college project at Columbia University. The main idea: to offer users a new and cheap way of experiencing multi-touch capabilities, without the need of expensive hardware or software. All the user needs is a camera, which will track colored markers defined by the user.
http://www.codeplex.com/touchless/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=17986
http://www.officelabs.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=61&mvp
The video they provide is very enlightening of its capabilities
Hex8$ – pad a hex string’s start with 0′s in Visual Basic
Private Function Hex8$(x As Long)
Dim s As String
Dim l As Integer
s = Hex$(x)
l = Len(s) ‘this will be 8 hex digits maximum cause x is a long
If (t < 8) Then s = String$(8 – l, "0") & s
Hex8$ = s
End Function
Microsoft Cloud Services Platform (Azure Services Platform) – useful links
SmallBasic (BASIC + Logo running under .NET 3.5 runtime)
Small Basic is a project that’s aimed at bringing "fun" back to programming. By providing a small and easy to learn programming language in a friendly and inviting development environment, Small Basic makes programming a breeze. Ideal for kids and adults alike, Small Basic helps beginners take the first step into the wonderful world of programming.
- Small Basic derives its inspiration from the original BASIC programming language, and is based on the Microsoft .Net platform. It is really small with just 15 keywords and uses minimal concepts to keep the barrier to entry as low as possible.
- The Small Basic development environment is simple, yet provides powerful modern environment features like Intellisense™ and instant context sensitive help.
- Small Basic allows third-party libraries to be plugged in with ease, making it possible for the community to extend the experience in fun and interesting ways.
You can find a SmallBasic introduction and some nice SmallBasic samples (notice the support for Turtle graphics) at MSDN forums, keep an eye on the SmallBasic forum there.
Make sure you install Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 first (XP and Vista supported).
Also mind you there’s a bug with locales other than English one, so you may need to change your system’s regional settings.
See the SmallBasic blog for more and this getting started post.
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I also found a tone generator extension for SmallBasic, which kind of implements the PLAY command of classic flavors of BASIC.
Also, note that you shouldn’t confuse Small Basic with SmallBASIC, which is another portable version of BASIC with a simple IDE.
Source code search
When some colleague is searching on how to implement some software feature, or search on how to do something in general, I suggest suggest they use Copernic Agent (there’s a free version of it with advanced functionality disabled). That way they can organize their searches. They can quickly see phrases from possible solution sources (with match ranking based on how many engines returned the hit) for their search and checkmark those sources, then filter only checkmarked items to read one by one on their own pace.
Also I suggest they use search engines like koders.com that search on source code of OpenSource projects. Would be nice to have integration of such tools with one’s IDE.
For example, it would be nice if Microsoft’s Visual Studio allowed one to bookmark a webpage they see from inside the IDE. Also a better Help Favorites pane which wouldn’t allow duplicate entries and would allow one to sort the help pages they put there wouldn’t hurt. In fact I don’t see why you need to have separate Help Favorites pane and not have the system Favorites inside the IDE, allowing to put help URLs there too.
Convert MS Reader to PDF, HTML, CHM, HLP, RTF, DOC, TXT documents
Free utility software to convert MS Reader (LIT) file format to PDF, HTML, CHM, HLP, RTF, DOC, TXT documents: ABC Amber LIT Convertor. Another nice file conversion utility from ProcessText Group (ABC Amber).
Convert ICL (Icon Library) files to ICO, BMP, JPG, PNG, TIF, GIF, PDF
A nice free tool to convert ICL files to ICO and other formats (BMP, JPG, PNG, TIF, GIF, PDF) is ABC Amber ICL Convertor
