screenshot

The scene has now become interesting with a number of e-paper based portable e-book readers on the market, and we are getting a brand new gadget every once in a while in this pool now.

Just like BeBook, yet another cool e-book reader on the block…but still no luck with the prices…the asking price for this gizmo is huge 329.95 EUR with converts to almost 510 USD!!!

The success of Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle Reader proves that even latest large screen mobile phones and other hand-held media gadgets are insufficient for reading books, specifically for mature readers.

For other options available, here is a good Feature Matrix on E-book Readers I found on MobileRead Wiki.

cheers,

// ch3ckmat3

Share This

Scott Guthrie of Microsoft enlightens us on upcoming and highly anticipated Beta 1 of Silverlight 2. Link to his blog post here.

For those who don’t know about Silverlight, here it is… in a nutshell:

Silverlight is a (cross)browser plug-in, just like Adobe Flash Player… with a rich set of UI controls and application programming framework, just like Adobe Flex. It uses a declarative language (XAML) for UI definitions and JavaScript + .Net Framework languages for programming logic… just like Adobe’s MXML and ActionScript. Microsoft also has a rich tool-set for developing Silverlight applications (MS Expression and VS 2008)… just like Adobe Flash designer tool and Adobe Flex IDE.

Well… Silverlight is certainly much more than that… just like Adobe Flash is… but I suppose that a comparative approach would make it easier to understand for almost everyone.

Scott’s post is quiet comprehensive for everything else you need to know about Silverlight.

happy lightening

// ch3ckmat3

Share This

Just found a cool resource on Web 2.0 user interface design practices:

I  must say that this folk Anders Toxboe has done a great job by bringing many cool best practices of modern UI design in one place. And as he says, this is not the first site for this kind of effort, Yahoo Developer Network  and Welie.com also has rich collections if UI design patterns as well.

I think these are good reads for software architects, information architects, usability engineers and certainly for web designers and SQA pros of today for building effective business applications of tomorrow.

Visit now:

• http://ui-patterns.com/
• http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/
• http://www.welie.com/patterns/

Cheers,

// ch3ckmat3

Share This

Our website made SWF2Go Professional version 1.5 publicly available through our online store, which was previously distributed to existing customers only.

SWF2Go is a professional tool for Adobe FlashLite mobile applications developers. Faisal has more on his blog post. Checkout product website for details.

// ch3ckmat3

Share This

Here are a couple of quick registry hacks to quickly launch Command Prompt and ASP.Net 2.0 Web Server on right-click action of any folder. Particularly useful for ASP.Net developers and testers using command-line tools and  managing multiple asp.net web sites. Thanks to Faisal for the tips.

Simply paste the below text in notepad and save as .reg file, and double-click to execute and save the changes to the registry (You must have admin rights to do so).

Save this as “Start Web Server Here.reg”

 Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\VS2005 WebServer]
@=”ASP.NET 2.0 Web Server Here”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\VS2005 WebServer\command]
@=”C:\\Windows\\Microsoft.NET\\Framework\\v2.0.50727\\Webdev.WebServer.exe /port:80 /path:\”%1\” /vpath:\”/\”"

And save this one as “Command Prompt Here.reg”

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\CommandPrompt]
@=”Command Prompt Here”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\CommandPrompt\command]
@=”cmd.exe /k cd \”%1\”"

Using these examples, you can add your own custom actions to context menu for folder or files.

Added: Some of my colleagues were having difficulties with the copy-paste method, due to web encoding of some characters in the above registry dump. So i decided to upload a file:

File Attachment: RegistryHacks.zip (717 bytes)

cheers,

// ch3ckmat3

Share This

Yes! this is sync for all…Microsoft Sync Framework…the anywhere, anytime, any device thing, which is currently available in CTP, and will hopefully be released as part of Visual Studio 2008. Countdown for release of VS2008 has already begun, and it is arriving this month.

Here’s a chunk from MS on the Sync Framework:

 ”Microsoft Sync Framework is a comprehensive synchronization platform that enables collaboration and offline access for applications, services, and devices. It features technologies and tools that enable roaming, sharing, and taking data offline. Using Microsoft Sync Framework, developers can build sync ecosystems that integrate any application, with any data from any store using any protocol over any network. Microsoft Sync Framework consists of the following technologies:

• Microsoft Sync Services for ADO.NET, which is used to synchronize databases for offline and collaborative scenarios.
• Sync Services for File Systems, which is used to synchronize files and folders in a file system.
• Sync Services for SSE, which is used to synchronize RSS and Atom feeds with data in a local store.
• Sync Framework core components, which are used to create synchronization providers for any type of data store.
• Metadata Storage Service, which is used to store synchronization metadata in SQL Server Compact Edition.”

Architects and developers and have been developing such custom frameworks for pretty much every large-scale enterprise application. Even I have designed a very light-weight object oriented SAF (Store and Forward) Framework for a system where MSMQ is not appropriate. And yes, for many occasions, these frameworks are one of the the core components of any multi-node, service oriented system. Replicating files or SQL data, passing object oriented messages, either pushing new configurations to nodes, or pulling generated files in the center…we have always used MSMQ, custom schedulers for FTP and web services calls, socket server, 3rd part tools and etc.

The Microsoft Sync Framework is the definite answer to all such needs and for solutions of any scale. I would say that this framework is going to be the heart of all the future SOA based enterprise solutions to be built on Microsoft platform.

This out-of-the-box system can be used in heterogeneous environments, where many tools and utilities are used to integrate loosely coupled multi-platform systems. To have an out-of-the-box experience, many enterprises are using Microsoft BizTalk Server as the core integration hub for integrating in house systems as well as for dealing business with outside world.

BizTalk is a mammoth of SOA jungle…many cant afford it, and many find it an overkill for small or mid size solutions, but hey, now you can have your own BizTalk Mini which can fit anywhere, and here is the formula:

Take .Net Framework 3.5, build required custom synchronization providers for Microsoft Sync Framework, use WCF (Windows Communication Foundation) where appropriate. Lets call them adaptors. Use some Plug-in Framework to raise the level of abstraction for the adaptors. Have a flexible Task Scheduler in the core, along with yet again, a Plug-in based WF (Workflow Foundation) engine, and certainly…the SQL 2005 or SQL 2005 Express as the universal data store, and you are done. All what is left are UI Tools for monitoring and configuration management initially, and many bells and whistles can be added further.

Yeah I know this is no match for BizTalk at all, but trust me, this is a BizSecret I’m revealing here for nothing…one can build a light-weight business process orchestration engine on top of this which can manipulate data from/to any data source. This was the first idea that came into my mind when I read about Microsoft Sync Framework. I will start a POC (Proof of Concept) solution on the idea as soon as I get some time, and I would love to start an open source project based on this idea and any volunteers are welcome.

Happy syncing

// ch3ckmat3

Share This

Eid Mubarik to all Muslims around the world Eid-ul-Fitr is truly a family event and my best wishes to those who are abroad and for any reason, couldn’t make it home with their families. 

Me and Faisal has also upgraded our blogs to WP2.3 with brand new themes from N.Design Studio… And these are really cool Web 2.0 designs. Thank you Nick La for great themes. Your work is really cool.

Enjoy your Eid Moments and Happy surfing!

// ch3ckmat3

Share This

Just happened to know a cool Web 2.0 directory Go2Web20.net.

The site is probably done in Flex. Checkout the cool glossy UI, and sleek Web 2.0 design.

They have got a huge list of Web 2.0 applications, and you can subscribe to their RSS to keep an eye on the new listings.

More Web 2.0 Directory / News / Blog links:

• Web2list.com
• Listio.com/Web20
• NeoBinaries.com 
• webscriptlab.com (by nicolas)

Please share if you have any good links to Web 2.0 Directories.

// ch3ckmat3

Share This

The Server Side Interoperability blog has a very useful article on REST (Representational State Transfer). An emerging technique for integrating web-enabled systems.

Read more: Mini-Guide: REST (Representational State Transfer)

// ch3ckmat3

Share This

iRex Technologies has come up with yet another cool application of e-paper… iLiad, a portable tablet device which also lets you write on its e-paper display.

Software features are cool, technical specifications look promising but its price, which is US$699, is a little too high for a gadget like this. I’ll definitely buy  it when it will come under US$300

Features suggest that this device is the most ultimate one in the electronic reading/writing devices available on the market.

Seems like this e-paper stuff is going to replace conventional paper and “analog recoding devices” (pen and pencils) with their digital counterparts pretty soon.

Cheers

// ch3ckmat3

Share This