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Windows Presentation Foundation - confused and frustrated

idevelop4food — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 02:45:21 +0000

While going through the design phase of our new in-house enterprise-level application, one of the topics our team touched upon is whether we should look into WPF. I think the idea was compeling and besides, it’s always nice to jump into something new. I had some time to mess around with WPF and i have to admit, the things that i don’t like about it are piling up by the hour.

WPF roadmap

My biggest question is whether WPF will actually replace WinForms. The lack of definite answer from Microsoft leads me to think that this is probably what’s going to happen when the framework matures. I have read a few blogs where some folks suggest otherwise. However, I just don’t see a reason why you would consider supporting WinForms when you have something much superior and flexible to offer. Aside from that, what’s stopping Microsoft from screwing a major part of their community developing in WinForms. They’ve already done it with Web Service Enhancements and its support in Visual Studio 2008. VS 2008 itself was pretty much abandoned after the first service pack release, and according to this, we can all suck a big fat one because Microsoft sees more value in getting your benjamins for new licenses of VS 2010 than actually releasing a new service pack for potentially one of the worst Visual Studio releases. (if it isn’t the worst, it’s probably up there with the shitty ones)

Flashy design or back to WinForms?

There is no doubt that WPF is a good enhancement to software design process. It’s a powerful framework and with power comes complexity. Unfortunately, managing that complexity comes at a significant expense. You can either screw around with the XML markup that generates trendy UI or you can get Expression Blend and screw with it, which adds another layer of complexity on its own. Your other option is, of course, to hire a good UI designer who’s not only familiar with all of the tools necessary to work with the framework, but who can also do some design, animation programming and etc. I don’t know what the statistic is for software companies hiring graphics designers, but i have yet to work for one which actually did. Besides, considering how new this technology is, I can only wonder how difficult it would be to fill such a position.

Working with Expression Blend

My exposure with Blend was very limited and frustrating. I’ve had the chance to work with Expression Blend 2, which appears to be out of date since the version 3 is out already. I’m sure a lot of folks worked with Photoshop and its intuitive UI. It seemed much of Blend interface is borrowed from Photoshop, which at first was a great indicator. However, working with the application revealed that it is a new charlie foxtrot from Microsoft. I played around with a few features and tried what i thought was going to be an easy task – adding background image to a rectangle. I spent an hour attempting to do this and got absolutely nowhere. As was explained in this article, performing such a simple task is completely counter-intuitive. At this point, i had absolutely no doubt in my mind that this wasn’t going to go anywhere, and off this hunk of shit went from my machine. What a complete waste of time that was.

A good WPF showcase project?

I find it really difficult to actually get my hands on one. StockTrader is a good candidate for a sample WPF project to look at. However, most of its focus is on service-oriented software design, not so much on WPF. And it shows, as the project is just scratching the surface when it comes to WPF. Otherwise, i can’t recall any showcase projects with decent UI implementation. I wonder why Microsoft hasn’t stepped in and released a real-world WPF solution, just like they did Oxite for ASP.NET MVC. The lack of any decent material on WPF and Blend is also pretty astounding for such a hype both caused. All i was able to find was bits and pieces of information, nothing concrete like design patterns, specific design guidelines and such. It just seems like everything’s up in the air at this point.

I’m not even sure how to conclude this. I would probably still consider utilizing WPF for new solutions. You still have your standard set of controls and everything to get you started. The unfortunate thing is that you’ll probably not going to benefit much from the main features of the framework, but you’ll have to migrate at some point. Might as well do it now and hope that MS enhances their tools a little as the whole thing matures.

Silverlight 4

Flavia Moreira — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 00:24:23 +0000

Se você não conhece Silverlight, aproveite esta vídeo aula, onde você irá aprender os princípios básicos de como iniciar uma aplicação em Silverlight 4 , utilizando a ferramenta Microsoft Blend 4 e Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2. Assim, conhecer a interação entre as duas ferramentas. Você poderá aplicar os mesmos conceitos utilizando o Silverlight 3 com o Blend 3 e Visual Studio 2008.

Você ainda não conhece Silverlight ? O que está esperando para aprender também?

veja a vídeo aula:

http://www.dowhile.com.br/videos/silverlight/115-video-aula-aplicacao-em-silverlight.html

abraços,

Kris Menace & The Dream - Walking On Lightning (U-Tern Blend)

Niña — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:56:04 +0000

Magical… Kris Menace & The Dream – Walking On Lightning (U-Tern Blend) (2009 Dance/B

Kris Menace & The Dream - Walking On Lightning (U-Tern Blend)

Niña — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 04:33:03 +0000

Magical… Kris Menace & The Dream – Walking On Lightning (U-Tern Blend) (2009 Dance/B

ThanksGiving In The Commercial Real Estate Industry

Miguel de Arcos — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:36:45 +0000

It’s Thanksgiving time!
A time for giving thanks for the blessings in our lives. Since this is a Commercial Real Estate (CRE) blog, I will focus my thanks on that and save the personal stuff for the dinner table Thursday night. So let me share a little bit of what I’m thankful for in the CRE industry as if you own or occupy space, this relates to you too.

I’m thankful for:

• Making it through the 2008 banking meltdown.
o I compare 2008 to someone shaking up a snow globe on the financial markets. That in turn effected every aspect of real estate. Lenders, owners & brokers couldn’t tell you which direction was up and everything froze.

• Surviving the 2009 market correction and bottoming out of CRE values.
o Values dropped like a stone all year as capital for purchases was/is non-existent and job losses mounted at a record pace. Some positive economic indicators are starting to spike which shows us that we have hopefully bottomed out.

• A 2010 recovery.
o Although it will be a long slow road, it is already starting to happen. Small businesses are starting to show signs of life & banks are slowly starting to sell off their toxic assets. With bad debt gone, they should be able to start lending again. Time heals all wounds.

• Our team of Advisors & staff at SVN/Paradigm.
o Like Thanksgiving Day we will all likely thank our family for supporting us through the good times and the not so good times. If any of you reading this have ever been to an SVN function or even to our office, you’ll see that we are a (growing) family. I am blessed to be surrounded by such a professional, well educated, morally centric and caring group of people.

In closing, I would like to also say thank you to our clients, colleagues, friends and a special thank you to OUR TROOPS who continue to fight for our liberties everyday.

Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas & have a Happy New Year,

Miguel de Arcos
Managing Director

Animação dinâmica em Silverlight

Flavia Moreira — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:20:11 +0000

Nesta vídeo aula de Dowhile.com.br você irá aprender a criar uma animação estática e dinâmica em Silverlight 4, utilizando o Microsoft Blend 4 e Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2, porém você poderá aplicar os mesmos conceitos utilizando o Silverlight 3 com o Blend 3 e Visual Studio 2008.

Segue o Link

Animação dinâmica

Abraços e bom divertimento,

Flávia Moreira

PI-Funktionsschule: Blends Aufgabe 2

keepcoolbaby — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:23:46 +0000

with permission by photoimpact-bastelforum Gruß Keepcoolbaby

PI-Funktionsschule: Blends Aufgabe 1

keepcoolbaby — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:21:34 +0000

with permission by photoimpact-bastelforum Gruß Keepcoolbaby

Data Triggers and Usage in XAML

codingsense — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 05:40:42 +0000

Hi,

DataTrigger represents a trigger that applies property values or performs actions when the bound data meets a specified condition.

In this sample we will explore how this property can be utilized on how we need it to behave. In this sample I will concentrate on Style Triggers and apply them on the datagrid, in similar fashion it can be applied to any of the container control.

Till now I have been using Data Triggers in many of the places in my project. Combining all the solutions I have made a sample in which i will be describing all the types of usages of Data Triggers.

Let us imagine a collection of Fathers which hold FirstName of fathers. Each father has a kids collection where all his kids names are stored.
The collection are displayed in a datagrid and the rows are displayed using a Listview and a gridview.

<my:DataGrid AutoGenerateColumns="False" Margin="28,39,33,21" Name="dataGrid1">············
<my:DataGrid.RowDetailsTemplate>················
<DataTemplate>····················
<ListView Name="Kids" ItemsSource="{Binding Kids}">························
<ListView.View>····························
<GridView>································
<GridViewColumn  Header="Kids" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Name}"/>····························
</GridView>························
</ListView.View>····················
</ListView>················
</DataTemplate>············
</my:DataGrid.RowDetailsTemplate>············
<my:DataGrid.Columns>················
<my:DataGridTextColumn Header="Father Name" Binding="{Binding FirstName}"/>············
</my:DataGrid.Columns>········
</my:DataGrid>

Now lets create some scenarios in our project in the format the details are to be displayed
Scenario1: Make the families background red where there are no kids
Scenario 2: Hide the families where the name of the father is less than 8 chars
Scenario 3: Make the font bold where the fathers name is greater than 8 chars and there are 2 kids

Download Source Code – 423Kb

Make the families background red where there are no kids
Binding is very flexible in WPF you can easily bind to any of the properties available in the class. Like in this scenario we need to check if the kids count in the family is 0. For this we need to declare a style and bind our RowStyle of the grid to the defined style. Lets work on it.
Lets declare a style and name it as CheckKids and check for the kids.count condition for 0.

········
<Style x:Key="CheckKids" TargetType="{x:Type my:DataGridRow}">············
<Style.Triggers>················
<DataTrigger Binding="{Binding Kids.Count}" Value="0">····················
<Setter Property="Background" Value="Red"/>················
</DataTrigger>············
</Style.Triggers>········
</Style>

In the collection Mr.Ramiayaa has no kids so background of his row is made red.

Hide the families where the name of the father is less than 8 chars
Now comes the challange how will you check fatherName < 8 in XAML. Pretty tricky right. Here is a simple method to be followed. What if we have another property in our class which returns true or false by checking the fathername.length. It will help us to acheive our goal.

Lets Declare a property in Father class and name it as IsLengthLessThanEight, which will return if the father name is less than 8 char or not. It will look like

public bool IsLengthLessThanEight
{
get { return (FirstName.Length < 8); }
}

By this we can be very sure that we can write our own properties and bind it to make anything possible.
Now lets declare the style and name it FatherNameLessEightChar and bind it to our declared property IsLengthLessThanEight
and check the desired condition.

········
<Style x:Key="FatherNameLessEightChar" TargetType="{x:Type my:DataGridRow}">············
<Style.Triggers>················
<DataTrigger Binding="{Binding IsLengthLessThanEight}" Value="True">····················
<Setter Property="Visibility" Value="Hidden"/>················
</DataTrigger>············
</Style.Triggers>········
</Style>

In the collection we have only one father who has the name less than 8 that is Mr.Rocky that name is to be hidden.

Make the font bold where the fathers name is greater than 8 chars and there are 2 kids
Here comes the next challange how will we check more than one condition in XAML. Is it possible or should we declare another property and check 2 conditions in our class. For this we have MultiDataTrigger which will help us to check multiple conditions in XAML and set property accordingly. Cool.
Lets declare a style and name it CheckNameAndKidsCount and use the MultiDataTrigger.

<Style x:Key="CheckNameAndKidsCount" TargetType="{x:Type my:DataGridRow}">············
<Style.Triggers>················
<MultiDataTrigger>····················
<MultiDataTrigger.Conditions>························
<Condition Binding="{Binding IsLengthLessThanEight}" Value="False"/>························
<Condition Binding="{Binding Kids.Count}" Value="2"/>····················
</MultiDataTrigger.Conditions>····················
<Setter Property="FontWeight" Value="Bold"/>················
</MultiDataTrigger>············
</Style.Triggers>········
</Style>

Here we check both the conditions i.e First we check if father name is greater than 8 char with the help of the IsLengthLessThanEight that we have defined and next condition we check if the kids count is 2 or not. If both the conditions are satisfied then the font of the family is made bold.
In our collection we have Mr.Balasubramanyam whose name is greater than 8 char and has 2 childrens so his row should be made bold.

Wow all the scenarios have completed and we have got the desired output for all of them. Thanks to DataTrigger for simplifying the life. In this similar fashion we can declare style trigger and data trigger to make various styles depending on the data that is bound.

References :
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.datatrigger.aspx

Cheers
Naveen Prabhu

Silverlight 4 Beta e seus recursos

Flavia Moreira — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:26:56 +0000

O Silverlight 3 release nem bem saiu do forno e a Microsoft já está mostrando a cara do Silverlight 4. Como diz o Rene de Paula, Uau! Isso para mim é simplesmente fantástico, pois eu venho acompanho o Silverlight desde sua primeira versão. Então, sente e prepare-se, pois é muita coisa, creio que não poderei falar de tudo o que está nesta versão, mas eu tento dar uma resumidinha no que eu li e mais gostei. Então, anote aí e babe com as novidades.

La Cooperative Design

Aurélie — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:07:26 +0000

Il y a quelques temps, je vous ai proposé un article sur la conférence de Frédéric Rossi-Liegibel à propos des innovations packaging.
Aujourd’hui, je vous propose de nous arrêter plus longuement sur la Cooperative Design dont il est le créateur.

Logo de la Cooperative Design©

L’origine de la Cooperative Design est basée sur un constat : il existe à Paris un savoir-faire dans le domaine du design qui mérite d’être valorisé et qui peut répondre aux besoins des entreprises qui recherchent la souplesse et la réactivité de structures moins importantes, mais tout aussi efficaces, que les grandes agences.

Il s’agit d’accueillir créateurs, designers, typographes dans le dixième arrondissement de Paris, boulevard Magenta, pour leur offrir un lieu de création, de travail mais également une visibilité. Le principe d’être « ensemble mais libre » en quelque sorte.

La Cooperative Design, forte de son label « Paris, capitale de la Création » reçu en septembre dernier, veut défendre et promouvoir les métiers du design et notamment la spécificité parisienne. Protectionnisme ? Pas du tout. Plutôt la reconnaissance de ce savoir-faire dont nous parlions un peu plus haut. Ce petit « je ne sais quoi » de français qui nous permet d’être reconnu à l’étranger. Car on ne peut pas « bien créer » si on ne s’ouvre pas sur le monde.

Le collectif regroupe donc plusieurs noms, connus ou qui montent : Atelier 3D Couleur, BETC Design, Blend, Business Madame, Demoniak, Idoine, Jacob+MacFarlane, Karine Arabian, Matali Crasset, Nord, Nouvel œuvre.

Je trouve l’initiative intéressante et méritoire car certains métiers du design relèvent encore de l’artisanat, parfois de la confidentialité. D’autres (comme celui de typographe) sont en passe de disparaître. Il est donc nécessaire de les sauvegarder tout en les faisant évoluer et en leur donnant une utilité, un rôle social et économique. C’est le challenge que tente de relever Fréderic Rossi-Liegibel au travers de la Cooperative Design.

Pour en savoir plus, je vous invite à découvrir le site à cette adresse : http://www.cooperativedesign.fr/menu.html
Ainsi que le blog à cette adresse : http://cooperativedesign.wordpress.com/

Retrouvez l’article sur la conférence de Frédéric Rossi-Liegibel sur les innovations packaging à cette adresse :
http://ecrinsdesaveurs.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/conference-de-frederic-rossi-liegibel-de-la-cooperative-design/

New regulations to protect whisky industry

carasulieman — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:46:14 +0000

Whisky to have more protection from cheap imitations

By Cara Sulieman

NEW regulations come in to force tomorrow (Mon) to protect the reputation of Scottish whisky.

In an attempt to stop cheap imitations from tricking people into buying what they think is the real McCoy, rules on labelling have been stepped up.

Only whisky that has been bottled in Scotland will be allowed to carry the phrase “Scotch whisky” and it must be clear whether the water of life is a single malt or blend.

And a distillery name can only be used if the whisky was distilled there.

“Iconic”

They have been developed by a partnership between the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Scotch Whisky Association.

The move has been welcomed by Scottish ministers, who say it provides much needed protection for the Scottish whisky industry.

Jim Mather, Enterprise minister said: “Scotch Whisky is a truly iconic Scottish product. It makes a huge contribution to our economy and promotes the brand of ‘Scotland’ across the world.

“It is vital to protect the good name of Scotch from inferior imitations, and that is why the Scottish Government has contributed to the development of the new regulations, which do just that.

“The Regulations will make it clear exactly what is in the bottle, where and how it was distilled and will require Single Malt to be bottled in Scotland.

“Economic boost”

“We will work with our enterprise agencies – in particular Scottish Development International (SDI) – to promote the Regulations throughout the world in order to further strengthen the protection of Scotch Whisky in overseas markets.

“This should help maximise the massive economic potential of the industry, safeguarding jobs and investment in Scotland.”

Richard Lochhead, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Environment, said: “Scotch whisky is rightly celebrated around the world.

“It is one of our most successful and iconic exports and these regulations will further strengthen its reputation and deliver a further boost to our whisky sector.”

See more of our pictures at our Flickr site and videos at our dedicated channel, Deadline TV.

WEEKEND END

mitsukoshi — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:50:23 +0000

Sunday evening..

13th Birthday last night – celebrate!!

Church this morning followed by lattes and pizza with my beloved!

A beautiful Perth Spring day!

Welcome flowers..

Ikebana experiment 2

It’s Sunday evening..

Time to get ready for Monday morning.

I’ve done something to my camera and the photos look terrible. Sorry!

Where did those two days go?

Yeah. Ummm. Good night. God bless you. Praying for Kate McRae and Daisy Love and KR’s hubby. Every cell healthy, just as God created them.

Artigos e Vídeos em Silverlight

Flavia Moreira — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:35:10 +0000

Olá pessoal.

Como eu estou mudando o meu blog para um site, então atualizei as informações.

Segue alguns artigos e vídeos sobre Silverlight.

Usando Javascript e Silverlight

http://www.dowhile.com.br/artigos/silverlight/63-usando-funcao-javascript-em-silverlight-.html

Usando e-mail e Webservice

http://www.dowhile.com.br/artigos/silverlight/60-enviando-e-mail-com-silverlight-parte-ii-.html

http://www.dowhile.com.br/artigos/silverlight/59-enviando-e-mail-com-silverlight-parte-i-.html

Usando linq to sql

http://www.dowhile.com.br/artigos/silverlight/58-populando-datagrid-usando-linq-to-sql-em-silverlight-parte-ii.html

http://www.dowhile.com.br/artigos/silverlight/57-populando-datagrid-usando-linq-to-sql-em-silverlight-parte-i.html

vídeo

Usando Javascript e Silverlight

http://www.dowhile.com.br/videos/silverlight/64-acessando-metodo-csharp-pelo-javascript.html

Abraços

Flávia Moreira

http://www.dowhile.com.br

Blendin in

Cheezburger Network — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:00:22 +0000

Blendin in Ur doin it rite

ma camo iz not so gud

Picture by: jensmiles Caption by: ri-pie via Loldog Builder

» Recaption This!

» View All Captions

✍ L'unica miscela sbagliata

Knockout — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 09:17:47 +0000

La Milland-Schneider & Co. era stata fondata nel 1985.

La fabbrica si trovava alla periferia di Folkestone, nel sud dell’Inghilterra, da dove molto facilmente i suoi prodotti potevano attraversare la manica per raggiungere il continente. Nata dall’idea di George Milland , appassionato di pipe e tabacchi, la M-S & Co. produceva il miglior tabacco del mondo. La migliore miscela inglese. Aveva in produzione anche altri tipi di tabacco ma la “English Mixture MS” era il prodotto di punta. Poche erano, invece, le pipe prodotte ma di ottima radica e dal costo molto elevato. E, pertanto, destinate prevalentemente al mercato statunitense e mediorientale.

Jack Schneider aveva accettato di associarsi a Milland dopo molte insistenze. Non credeva molto nel mercato del tabacco sia per l’enorme concorrenza, sia per la crisi economica mondiale sia perchè destinato ad un target di nicchia.

Già dal 1987, dopo aver apportato pochi capitali e scarne idee, aveva dato i primi segni di insoddisfazione e più volte aveva esternato la sua volontà ad uscire di scena. L’ingresso nella società,nel 1988, di due azionisti di minoranza, Hugh Forrest e David McMiller, aveva solo procrastinato la decisione di lasciare l’azienda seppur in fase di floridità.

Nel 1990 dopo tentennamenti, ripensamenti e liti furibonde con George, finalmente alzò i tacchi pretendendo una robusta liquidazione e una quota percentuale mensile sugli utili per vent’anni.

Forrest e McMiller non entrarono mai direttamente nella disputa nè avevano voce in capitolo nelle decisioni più importanti. E quando Schneider andò via, dichiararono al vecchio George fedeltà e volontà nel portare avanti l’azienda che, liberata finalmente, dall’iracondo, causidico e tentennante Jack , poteva solo decollare più in alto.

George Milland aveva il suo ufficio al primo piano della piccola palazzina in mattoni grigi. Era un uomo dedito al lavoro e, spesso, si tratteneva sino a sera inoltrata. Metodico ed abitudinario cercava di portare le sue idee avanti anche se talvolta frutto di impulso più che di razionalità. Ma, in fondo, non aveva commesso grandi errori. E gli utili della ditta lo dimostravano. Con i suoi occhiali perennemente attaccati al naso che, nascondevano due occhi scuri, buoni e leali, trascorreva le sue giornate tra l’ufficio e la casa che aveva preso da qualche anno ad Hastings.

Jack Schneider era corpulento, borioso, diffidente e pignolo all’inverosimile. Chi conosceva i due si meravigliava come avessero potuto fare coppia. Tanto erano diversi. Tranquillo, moderato, pacato e controllato il primo. Esuberante, eccessivo e accidioso il secondo. Le liti avevano sin da subito contraddistinto i loro rapporti.

Quella sera George stava mettendo a posto le ultime carte prime di andare a casa. Aveva fretta perchè, contrariamente al solito, aveva ospiti. La radio trasmetteva alcune melodie a lui gradite che sottolineava fischiettando. E ciò gli impedì di accorgersi che la porta alle sue spalle si era aperta e che Forrest e McMiller avanzavano verso di lui con dei lunghi ed affilati coltelli tra le mani. Senza fiatare e senza fare il minimo gesto superfluo, i due si avvicinarono con calma alla vittima e brandirono senza pietà una ventina di colpi. Milland si accasciò al suolo senza nemmeno avere il tempo di capire cosa fosse successo.

I due si guardarono in volto e, rapidamente, si diressero alla cassaforte che veniva occultata da una vecchia stampa di Monet. La cassaforte era aperta e, così, non fecero fatica a prelevare l’intero contenuto. Milland era piuttosto antiquato e preferiva tenere il danaro in cassaforte, che reputava sicura, piuttosto che affidarlo alle banche di cui non aveva molta fiducia. Il bottino era sostanziosissimo, quasi 1 milione di sterline.

Jack Schneider nella stanza numero 34 dell’Hotel Park di Dover, fumava come una ciminiera. La stanza era completamente avvolta in una grossa e densa nuvola azzurrognola. Ogni minuto o quasi, si alzava dalla poltrona per andare alla finestra e scrutare la strada, a quell’ora, assolutamente deserta. Cadeva una pioggerellina fitta fitta che ricopriva l’asfalto di un film lucido e scivoloso.

McMiller, il biondino tutto pepe, e Forrest, il pigro bel tenebroso, erano due giovani promesse dell’imprenditoria. Dovevano tutto a Milland che , stimandoli per la loro abnegazione e lealtà, li aveva voluti,a tutti i costi, nella società. Con Schneider, invece, i rapporti erano piuttosto tesi e spesso avevano palesemente parteggiato per George nelle frequenti e reiterate liti fra i due soci di maggioranza. Negli anni successivi alla dipartita di Jack, per la verità, il loro impegno si era affievolito via via sempre più ma, il buon George abituato a fare sempre da sè, non aveva dato peso alla cosa. Cercando, anzi, di render ancor meno gravoso il loro lavoro.

Il clangore del clacson richiamò prontamente alla finestra Jack. Finalmente !

Dopo alcuni istanti che sembrarono un’eternità alla porta della stanza 34 apparvero i volti sorridenti di Hugh e David. Si abbracciarono in silenzio e, dopo essersi divisi il bottino, si allontanarono rapidamente su macchine diverse. Si sarebbero rivisti alcuni mesi dopo a Paramaribo, nel Suriname. Dove , questi erano i progetti, avrebbero preso una piantagione di canna da zucchero e avrebbero vissuto da nababbi.

L’omicidio di George Milland rimase impunito. E poi archiviato. Sul luogo del delitto non fu trovata alcuna traccia che potesse far risalire ai tre. E dagli interrogatori non emerse nulla che potesse far insospettire gli investigatori. Si concluse insomma per un omicidio a scopo di rapina da parte di balordi o rom, il cui campo era a poca distanza dalla fabbrica.

Tutti sogni del povero George erano svaniti in pochi anni. La sua cocciutaggine e la fiducia nel prossimo lo avevano portato a fare ciò che, in fondo, avrebbe potuto fare e bene anche da solo.

☼ 17 maggio 2009

☂ ogni riferimento a persone o fatti è assolutamente casuale

Lochan Tea Tasting - #11 Indian Masala Chai Blend

teasphere — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:33:59 +0000

Dry Leaf: Upon opening the packet, I was blown away. The real, discernible spices were extraordinary. The scent was amazing, and the next thoughts were “can I climb in that small packet and live for eternity?” followed by “I need more, much more, of this.” I believe there is bay leaf in the mix as well which adds a great cassia/bay scent.

Wet Leaf: The aromatics sing with cardamom (my personal favorite) edging out the cinnamon for top billing.

Brewed: This is as good as it gets in my estimation. I opted out of milk or sweetener because I wanted to experience it as it is even though the brewing directions stated to use milk and water. I will enjoy it that way next, and post the results, I just had to have this straight up. I have not strayed from the brewing guide once, but I just couldn’t help myself once I saw how amazing the spices were. Hopefully I can be forgiven Cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaf, ginger, and I’m sure more that I am missing form a symphony here that doesn’t just present a note of this or that but an entire performance with an encore. not overly spicy in a heat sort of way but very assertive and easily will stand up to milk and sweetener without losing anything.

Chai in America is generally some poorly (sadly even artificially) flavored low-grade tea buried under milk/cream and tons of sugar. Occasionally a decent cup can be had with tiny bits of actual spices mixed in. Sometimes the balance is way off and skewed too far to the spice notes and the tea is merely a vehicle to darken the water or milk. This is both Yin and Yang in perfect harmony. I have fallen in love twice in one week, first the Jungpana Imperial Muscatel and now with the Masala Chai. This will be forever stocked in my tea cupboard so long as I can obtain it in this form. Again, about as full an endorsement as I could offer any tea. This is a mood lifter, one simply could not be anything but in sheer rapture with this in their cup. Flavored tea often takes a back seat with “serious” tea drinkers, and this would be one that breaks down that wall entirely. I am a truly happy man.

Tip: Set DesignWidth and DesighHeight when styling Silverlight 3 controls

antonidol — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:32:15 +0000

I rediscovered the usefulness of the DesignWidth and DesignHeight Blend properties while styling several controls.

Next time you are looking at a very small ControlTemplate in Resource Editing Mode in Expression Blend, don’t forget to set the design-time width and height. It will make your life easier. You can set it at the expected size of the control in de real interface and you can work in the control and see a reasonably sized control.

Styling a TabItem, for instance, will show the tab at the MinimumWidth en MinimumHeight of 10 pixels, leaving you a 10×10 pixel tab to work with. Setting the DesignWidth and DesignHeight properties on the root grid of the control to, say 150 and 25 gives you room to work with and a more realistic view on the tab.

This needs the Blend NameSpaces at the top of the page to work:

xmlns:d=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008″
xmlns:mc=”http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006″ mc:Ignorable=”d”

Njoy!

Refresh UI elements on collection changed using ObservableCollection in WPF

codingsense — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:20:48 +0000

Hi,

In windows application when we would bind a list with any UI control, on changing of the list we should have refreshed the UI element or reload the list into the UI element. Imagine how tiresome it was if the list was referenced in many UI elements.
In WPF if we are implementing the same structure then we can use INotifyPropertyChanged or INotifyCollectionChanged to minimize our work.
If we are working on a list then we can inherit the list from ObservableCollection which in turn implements the 2 interface mentioned above. By using ObservableCollection we can notify the controls that the list to which they are bound has been changed and ask them to refresh their selves. This will minimize the work to maximum extent and the same time can be utilized for better activities.

In this post let me demonstrate you on how ObservableCollection can be implemented and how the changes to list can automatically refresh the UI element.

Download Source Code (11 KB)

Let me brief on the key things
Bind Textbox to a property of another UI element (Listbox) that returns Object in SelectedItem:
The text box is bound to ListBox.SelectedItem but the selected item will return a object of type PersonName. That is to be split into FirstName and LastName and shown in txtFirstName and txtLastName respectively. Here you have a good option while binding the textbox and the engine will take care of the splitting you can just bind as follows
For txtFirstName I have used binding as

Text="{Binding Path=SelectedItem.FirstName, ElementName=MyListBox, Mode=TwoWay, UpdateSourceTrigger=Explicit}"

As you can see i have specified SelectedItem.FirstName and at runtime the selectedItem will change to the object that is focused. Similarly we can bind to txtLastName.

UpdateSourceTrigger:
In UpdateSourceTrigger you have 3 options PropertyChanged, LostFocus, Explicity. I have used Explicity to handle our own customizations before updating the actual source and the customization can be handled in the save event.

NameList nameList = MyGrid.GetValue(Grid.DataContextProperty) as NameList;
PersonName currentPersonName = MyListBox.GetValue(ListBox.SelectedItemProperty) as PersonName;
PersonName NewPersonName = new PersonName(txtFirstName.Text, txtLastName.Text );
int IndexOfOriginal = nameList.IndexOf(currentPersonName);
nameList[IndexOfOriginal] = NewPersonName;

By just changing the List the newer values are reflected in the UI elements those are bound to the list.
For any clarifcation please feel free to comment.

References: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms668604.aspx

Happy Learning
Codingsense

Cueyfornication Bonus Tracks

haastradamus — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:49:03 +0000

Finally found links to the last two bonus tracks to OnCue’s RHCP mash-up/blend mixtape, Cueyfornication. I seriously think that these two are some of the best ones on the album. I really think you will enjoy these. Made of Gold samples “Snow (Hey Oh)” and When I’m Sober uses “The Otherside”… both are produced very well. As a nice bonus I’ll throw in one of his latest tracks to be hopfully featured on his next mixtape, In A Class All By Myself. This is a very chill song that samples Coldplay’s Trouble titled Gotta Move.

Made of Gold

When I’m Sober

Bonus: Gotta Move

New Silverlight Video Tutorial: How to use the FarseerPhysics.dll to create a Ragdoll with Simulated Physics

victorgaudioso — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:55:00 +0000

Hello All,

I was playing around with simulated physics in Silverlight. I came accross a great, open source library called the FarseerPhysics library originated by Jeff Weber. I watched a couple of videos on how to do a couple of cool things but I realized there was no tutorial on how to create a Ragdoll. So, I decided to make one. This video shows you how to easily incorportate simulated physics into your Silverlight applications all without writing a line of code! Enjoy!

Video: http://tw0.us/4p8

Sample Project: http://tw0.us/4p9

Farseer dlls: http://tw0.us/4pB

Coffee House Chaos

cybertek — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:20:48 +0000

Quickly brew up coffee for a variety of kooky customers in this deliciously blended puzzle and action game. Seat your patrons, take orders, and deliver their cups of coffee before the coffee house becomes too chaotic and they leave without paying. Upgrade your coffee shop and menu to make more profits and attract more customers.

25 fast-paced levels.

3 modes to choose from.

Classic game play.

System Requirements:

OS: Windows 2000/XP/VISTA

CPU: 600MHz or faster Processor

RAM: 128 MB

It Takes Just A second To Say Thanks,

It Takes Longer To The Work On This.

Coffee House Chaos

Porca de Murça

lsergio — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:10:50 +0000

Um domingo na casa do sogrão… Fazemos comida e tomamos os vinhos da adega dele… Esse vinho de castas mais em conta da produção portuguesa vem da região do Douro – Vila Nova de Gaia, sem denominação específica das uvas que o compõe, a 13%.
É um vinho razoável considerando o custo benefício.

Publicado pelo Wordmobi

New SIlvelright Video Tutorial: How to Create a Reusable Functioning Login UserControl

victorgaudioso — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:09:59 +0000

In this video I show you how to create a reuseable Silverlight Login UserControl complete with login functionality.

Video: http://tw0.us/4o2

project: http://tw0.us/4ny

Organizando sua Aplicação com Containers no Blend 3

Fabriccio Bernardes — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:17:14 +0000

Quando a nossa aplicação começa a tomar dimensões muito grandes, é necessário que exista algum tipo de organização para que ela não se torne confusa. Uma ótima forma de organizar a sua aplicação é utilizando Containers. Nessa aula ensinarei a usar os 5 principais tipos de containers: Grid, Canvas, StackPanel, ScrollViewer e o Border.

Boa aula.

Obs.: Você pode melhorar a qualidade do vídeo clicando em “Menu” e, em seguida, em “High Quality”.