oneof.us

When I read the other day that Microsoft will be releasing the .NET source code under a so-called “Review License”, I was more than a little pleased.  Having a chance to step into code under all the namespaces of the framework seems so beneficial and as a tinkerer, I love to see how things work on the inside.

Well, Joe Wilcox over at Microsoft Watch sees this as a way for Microsoft to sue more open-source developers by claiming that their code uses the same concepts, etc as the .NET code.  I whole-heartedly don’t agree.

Microsoft isn’t in a position to wipe open-source developers off the face of the earth as some would have you believe–this is further spreading of FUD and honestly, it’s getting old.  It’s so easy for every Bob, Dick, and Jane to “hate the establishment” and be anti-Microsoft because it’s trendy.  Now I’m no Microsoft fanboy, in fact, I loathe all fanboys because they don’t know the meaning behind the words moderation/fairness/opinion/etc.  Over-the-top support for some cause, while at the same time being ignorant/intolerant of the opposing view is just plain stupid.  But that is how our society is built–extreme competition.

There is a time and a place for competition, but there has to be limits; like when you become a douche-bag about it, that’s the limit.

So, stop being douche-bags you fanboys (not speaking to Joe Wilcox, talking to all fanboys, just to be clear), and have an open-mind from time to time.

While coding up some PoC (proof of concept) for a new side-gig, I finally got around to using the PropertyGrid control in Visual Studio .net (thanks Dan for bringing this control to my attention). If you’ve ever used Visual Studio .net, you’ll immediately recognize this control, even if you didn’t know its name. Here’s a screen-clip of the property grid in action on a Form control:

Now the cool thing about this control is that you can incorporate it into your own app very easily:

1. Create a class with public properties
2. In your Form1 Desginer, drag a PropertyGrid control from the toolbox (if it’s not on your toolbox, check here)
3. Open the Form1.cs class and add the following line: propertyGrid1.SelectedObject = yourObjectName;

That’s it! To add categories, descriptions, etc to the PropertyGrid, check out the lower half of this page on c-sharpcorner.com, it goes into the appropriate attributes you can use (most of the time, they tell you to append ‘Attribute’ to your attribute names, but listen to intellisense, it will omit that).

Here’s a screenshot of a custom class I made with a few properties, bound to a PropertyGrid control:

Ugh, I really need to make time to get back on this project. I thought that my life would become less busy after graduation; I was mistaken. I hope to get something started again soon. I’ll be developing it on Vista now, but that shouldn’t affect the overall compatibility.

So, the current status is that there is no status… blah!

Meet XCOM, my XML, C++, OpenGL, MIDI “dancing” robot. This is the culmination of my independent study course here at my university.

How it works:
-An XML file containing information about the robot’s geometry,shape & color is parsed and a tree data structure is created
-A midi file is loaded into memory and is played
-As the midi file plays, different events occur (note on/off, lyric events). On each lyric event, the lyric is parsed (since each lyric is actually dancing information that will be passed on to the robot)
-After the lyric is parsed, the modifications are applied to the robot via OpenGL calls (glRotatef(….))

To see him in action, check out this video: XCOM - The Dancing Robot Movie

Or click the image above for the Flash version of the video.

I’ve got to stop most development on InkBlogger in order to take care of new requirements (work, school, etc).

In the meantime, check out Windows Live Writer along with an ink writing plugin.

More info here.

I just wanted any/everyone to know that I’m still hard at work on this project. I’m making more and more progress each week. I think I’ll hold off on releasing another version until I get a few things down solid: INK->HTML is the main thing I have to tackle next. I have all the pieces and parts made, now I have to sync them all together and create valid html from that.

So, I apologize for lack of action on my part, but I wanted to let Silver know that I’m still working on the original vision (which was awesome) and I hope to get something released “soon”. Problem is, I’m going on a week-long vacation soon, and as soon as that’s over, I’m heading back to school (college, how dare they!)

Very exciting news on the InkBlogger app front. I’ve gained much progress over the past week, but still have a long ways to go. Many hurdles were overcome and my resolve to complete this has risen immensely. I’ve posted a ‘Features List’ of things I’ve worked on and things coming in the future. Since the rewrite, I’ve not yet included the main component (the handwriting area) but in the past that item came with ease and should be much easier to implement with my new control additions.

I’ve purchased an incredible book that has helped me tremendously (as well as my regular consulting of Google); “Pro .Net 2.0 Windows Forms and Custom Controls in C#” by Matthew MacDonald. I’ve only scratched the surface of the text, but it has been extremely helpful in getting some of the key points home. I’d been creating custom controls with my own drawing code using GDI+, but some things just weren’t working, but thanks to this book, and its terrific examples I’ve been breezing through.

No new release of the app yet, but I hope to have one out “soon” (notice the ambivalence). Check out the Features List while you wait if you’re interested.

InkBlogger Product Page (if you can call it that)

This is just to let all interested parties know that I’d put off updating this app for a few weeks due to increased work-load at my job, but now things are slowing down and I’ve started back up on this project over the weekend.

I hope to have another release soon, but I’m not sure on the feature-set just yet.

Silver, over at inkiness has layed out some rather complete specs for an ideal ink-blogging software package. It seemed to interesting to pass up, so I began coding it last night. The basic controls are there, and now it’s a matter of wiring everything up to get the desired effects, and this part will take the longest. I downloaded the TabletPC SDK last night, and starting banging away at the keyboard producing test projects, etc. Microsoft has done a wonderful job on this SDK, it was really easy to get things started and Visual Studio 2005 is an incredible environment to code in.

The next steps are to sync up the ink written in the top panel with text-output in the bottom panel. This shouldn’t be too hard, but the only thing limiting me is that I don’t have a tablet, and any type of handwriting recognition controls won’t work unless you have a tablet pc, or a proper input device (as it stands now, I have neither). So Silver and Hugh are going to do some testing for me when I get further along.

Current builds and pics are located here on my site, but honestly, there’s nothing really to see yet. Stay tuned.