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• Is there an alternative to SDL 1.3 for a C++ game that should run on iOS and Android?

  - by futlib

  I've used SDL for many desktop games, always as the cross-platform glue for: Creating a window Processing input Rendering images Rendering fonts Playing sounds/music It has never disappointed me at those tasks. But when it comes to graphics, I prefer to work with the OpenGL API directly, even though all of our games are 2D. In the project I'm currently working on, I've made sure to only use the API subset supported by both OpenGL 1.3 and OpenGL 1.0, so making the thing run on Android should be easy, I thought. Turns out there is no official Android or iOS port of SDL yet. However, there's one in SDL 1.3, which is still in development. SDL 1.3 doesn't seem very appealing to me for three reasons: It's been in development for at least 4 years, and I have no idea when it will be done, not to mention stable. It's not ported to as many platforms as SDL 1.2. From what I've seen, it uses OpenGL for drawing, so I suppose the community will move away from directly using OpenGL. So I'm wondering if I should use a different library for our current project - it doesn't matter much if I need to port my existing code from SDL 1.2 to SDL 1.3 or to some other library. We're planning to release on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, iOS and Android, so good support for these platforms is essential. Is there anything stable that does what I want?

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• How bad would be to focus on iOS/Android development for an indie developer?

  - by kender

  After some time developing games for others I'm thinking of moving towards my own productions. My background is 10+ years of software development, with last 2 years spent on the iOS development (Objective-C and CoronaSDK). With my current experience in Corona I can quickly develop for iOS and Android systems. And this is something that I'm probably gonna do with several of the game ideas I have, at least for the prototype part. But - I'm wondering if it's not a bad idea to focus on those 2 systems only. After all there are other mobile platforms, there are PCs, Macs and Linux boxes... All of them having gamers using them. I was wondering if it wasn't a good idea to try some other SDK, giving me more flexibility when it comes to platform-independance. There's Unity3D (I think I can develop a 2D game in it though), there's MoAI from what I checked. I see a few options, not sure which one is best as I have little experience in this field (publishing own games): Stick with CoronaSDK for the whole time, release for iOS and Android platforms, screw other mobile devices and PCs, Use Corona for prototyping, then when the idea goes more into the "production" phase rewrite it in MoAI or Unity3D for more platforms support, Start with one of those 2 SDKs right now (which means the prototype phase will be delayed a bit, but after that I can jump right into real coding). Any clues here, what to do?

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• Picking a suitable resolution for a modern low-res game?

  - by MrKatSwordfish

  I'm working on a 2D game project right now (using SFML+OpenGL and C++) and I'm trying to figure out how to go about choosing a resolution. I want my game to have a pixel resolution that is around that of classic '16bit' era consoles like the Super Nintendo or Neo Geo. However, I'd also like to have my game fit the 16:9 aspect ratio that most modern PC monitors use. Finally I'd like to be able to include an option for running full screen. I know that I could create my own low-res 16:9 resolution that is more-or-less around the size of SNES or NeoGeo games. However, the problem seems to be that doing so would leave me with a non-standard resolution that my monitor would not be able to support in fullscreen mode. For example, if i divide the common 16:9 resolution 1920x1080 by 4, I would get a 16:9 resolution that is relatively close to the resolution used by 16bit era games; 480x270. That would be fine in a windowed mode, but I don't think that it would be supported in fullscreen mode. How can I choose a resolution that suits my needs? Can I use something like 480x270? If so, how would I go about getting fullscreen mode to work with such a non-standard resolution? (I'm guessing OpenGL/SFML might have a way of up-scaling...but..)

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• Solution for lightweight LAN peer discovering?

  - by DevilWithin

  I built a library for purely cross-platform programming. My games made with it run fine in Android , Pc, Linux, Mac etc. The networking capabilities are provided by ENET library, therefore all communication between my apps is not TCP or UDP compatible, but only in the custom protocol, even tough its based on the UDP ultimately. I don't think its possible to do what i want with ENET, thats why I ask here for help! Lets say I have the same game running in my Android phone, my laptop and my pc. They are all in the same wifi network, and therefore in a LAN, whether its Wifi hotspot(?) or the household router. I need each of those 3 peers to discover the other two in the network. This is meant only to find the IP of alive apps in the LAN network, to be able to host multiplayer games between them. I can only think of one effective way to do this, UDP broadcast, wait responses, but if that is the solution, i need something small, since its the only purpose of the implementation. Other way could be to try to connect to all IPs in the LAN address subrange, but I don't think the OS would be with me on this one :p Sorry for the long question!

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• GeForce and Radeon: what is present condition of opensource and proprietary drivers?

  - by Septagram

  So, it'm about to buy a fresh videocard. Since I do most of my stuff on Linux, I wonder how well will either videocard perform. I recently had a good experience with GeForce 6600 with proprietary drivers and a less than satisfactory experience with Radeon 9000 a while ago. From my experience, proprietary drivers for GeForce used to work very well, while proprietary drivers for Radeon failed miserably. And opensource drivers were sloooow. A few months ago I found out that ATI opened their specifications, and a work on fully featured opensource driver is in progress. I prefer to use free software whenever possible, with the exception of games, so, if that driver is fast enough, feature-rich enough and reliable enough I'd very much like to try it out. I wish I could say that if I can just to basic things, like watch video, heavily use compiz and work with simple applications, this may be enough. I do most of my gaming under Windows anyway. However, there is a good chance I'll go into indie game development in a few months fulltime, so it should also be able to run not-so-very-demanding games (say Nexuiz). But if it isn't, I'd like to know, what to expect from proprietary drivers. Do recent proprietary drivers from NVIDIA and ATI work well? Are ATI drivers just as easy to install on Ubuntu as are NVIDIA drivers?

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• Is there any simple game that involves psychological factors?

  - by Roman

  I need to find a simple game in which several people need to interact with each other. The game should be simple for an analysis (it should be simple to describe what happens in the game, what players did). Because of the last reason, the video games are not appropriate for my purposes. I am thinking of a simple, schematic, strategic game where people can make a limited set of simple moves. Moreover, the moves of the game should be conditioned not only by a pure logic (like in chess or go). The behavior in the game should depend on psychological factors, on relations between people. In more details, I think it should be a cooperation game where people make their decisions based on mutual trust. It would be nice if players can express punishment and forgiveness in the game. Does anybody knows a game that is close to what I have described above? ADDED I need to add that I need a game where actions of players are simple and easy to formalize. Because of that I cannot use verbal games (where communication between players is important). By simple actions I understand, for example, moves on the board from one position to another one, or passing chips from one player to another one and so on.

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• What is a "Technical Programmer"? [closed]

  - by Mike E

  I've noticed in job posting boards a few postings, all from European companies in the games industry, for a "Technical Programmer". The job description in both was similar, having to do with tools development, 3d graphics programming, etc. It seems to be somewhere between a Technical Artist who's more technical than artist or who can code, and a Technical Director but perhaps without the seniority/experience. Information elsewhere on the position is sparse. The title seems redundant and I haven't seen any American companies post jobs by that name exactly. One example is this job posting on gamedev.net which isn't exactly thorough. In case the link dies: Subject: Technical Programmer Frictional Games, the creators of Amnesia: The Dark Descent and the Penumbra series, are looking for a talented programmer to join the company! You will be working for a small team with a big focus on finding new and innovating solutions. We want you who are not afraid to explore uncharted territory and constantly learn new things. Self-discipline and independence are also important traits as all work will be done from home. Some the things you will work with include: 3D math, rendering, shaders and everything else related. Console development (most likely Xbox 360). Hardware implementations (support for motion controls, etc). All coding is in C++, so great skills in that is imperative. As I mentioned, the job title has appeared from European companies so maybe it goes by another title in America. What other titles might this specialization of programmer go by?

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• Partition Alignment Confusion

  - by user170757

  I have a new Samsung 840 250GB SSD on the way, and I want to make sure that everything is running optimally after install. I've spent many frustrating hours on the internet trying to understand how I should align the partitions of the SSD when it arrives (and even how to partition everything; my other drive is a 1TB HDD with files already on it). I'd like to know a foolproof way of setting everything up. Now, the only place I could find the erase block size of the 840 is here: http://thessdreview.com/Forums/ssd-beginners-guide-discussion/3630.htm I simply can't understand why such information isn't made freely accessible by manufacturers! But, anyway, this would suggest the EBS is 1536kb, which seems odd to me. It is to my understanding that you should now align by MiB (usually set at 1MiB). I assume that the figure above should actually be 1536k B=1.5MiB? This seems to suggest the partition alignment will be somewhat non-standard. So my question is: How do I align my partitions given this information? Please bear in mind that I have never used linux before; I'm doing my best to get everything set up so that I can begin to learn but am finding this process incredibly opaque and time consuming. If possible, a step by step guide through GParted would be great; at the moment I'm considering an NTFS partition ~20GB for Windows (playing games), an EXT4 ~20GB for ubuntu (for doing everything else) and a shared documents+games partition for everything else in NTFS file format. I'm not going to have any swap partition and use swap files instead.

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• To sell or give for free

  - by QAH

  Hello everyone! I am currently making a game that I was originally planning to sell. It is a simple 2D arcade style game for the PC. I've seen many indie games become popular and generate revenue from advertisements, but the game itself remains free. I need some advice on whether or not I should sell my game, release it for free with advertisements, or ask for donations and keep the game free. I feel that my game is fun, but of course the graphics aren't tip top because I am a programmer, not an artist. I just take screenshots of 3D models I get from Turbosquid and crop around it to make a sprite. Also, and I could be very wrong about this, it seems that there are more legal issues surrounding selling a game than making it free and generating revenue from advertisement, or asking for donations. If I am wrong, someone please correct me. Also, I am very interested in generating some revenue for my work, but that isn't at the very top of my list. I am in my last year of high school, soon to be going to college, and I am going to major in computer science/software engineering. So I am trying to gain some preliminary experience at home by coding stuff every day. One way of getting this experience is by making this game. So what do you think? What route should I take? What has worked well with other indie games? Thanks in advance.

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• Pick Up BioShock and Bioshock 2 for Price of a Big Mac Meal

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Pre-ordering just opened on the third-installment of the highly-acclaimed horror-survival game series BioShock, BioShock Infinite. As part of the pre-order promotions, you can pick up a bundled copy of BioShock and BioShock 2 for a song. For the unfamiliar, BioShock is an atmospheric first-person-shooter backed up by an incredible storyline set in the underwater utopian-turned-dystopian city of Rapture. BioShock 2 continues the story in Rapture and the upcoming release (Febuary 2013) of BioShock Infinite takes place in the same game universe but fifty years before the events of the first two installments. If that seems like the kind of game you could dig into, Amazon has the Windows-platform version of BioShock and BioShock 2 bundled together for a scant $7.49–81% off the Steam and general retail price. The best part about the promotion is you can either download the games from Amazon or, for those of you that use Steam, you can simply plug the game product key into Steam. You can read more about the both the original two games and the upcoming release at the official BioShock site. BioShock Dual Pack [via Geeks Are Sexy] How Hackers Can Disguise Malicious Programs With Fake File Extensions Can Dust Actually Damage My Computer? What To Do If You Get a Virus on Your Computer

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• Automating repetitive game development tasks

  - by MrDatabase

  Disclaimer: this is an open-ended and kinda "far out" question Over the last few years I've made a few iPhone games. I use very common programs like Xcode and Illustrator to make the games. Lately I've become tired of repeating certain tasks over and over again. Here are some examples: in Xcode: "clean target, build, run" over and over again in Xcode: delete image resources and then import updated image resources (identical names) I'd like to automate these tasks in Xcode. Any ideas? I've done some automation in Photoshop using the "button mode" thing where you record a macro... that's been very useful. Here's the kinda wacky or "far out" part of the question: how can this automation be done via voice commands? (perhaps using a Nuance product or something) Here's an example of what I'd love to do via a few voice commands: Save artwork from illustrator at a user-specified size (@2x versions as well) Delete "someArt.png" and "[email protected]" from Xcode Add the updated versions of someArt.png to Xcode In Xcode: clean target, build, and run I know this question probably seems bizarre... but something like this could make certain things substantially easier for game developers. Edit: wonder if a combination of AppleScript and Nuance might work?

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• Unity , libgdx, or something else to develop my first game for Android?

  - by capcom

  I want to start by saying that I absolutely love Unity (even more when I team it up with Blender). I really want to start developing games for Android, but it seems like Unity poses way too many roadblocks in terms of which devices it supports (and even if it does support them, it doesn't work well on all of them). I've been looking around for alternatives, and found something called libgdx. Well, it's nothing like Unity unfortunately, but at least it seems like I may be able to reach a larger audience in the market. I'd like to start by making 2D games, but with 3D graphics (say, imported from Blender). I can do this very easily in Unity, and it seems like it should be alright with libgdx too. But I really want to know if ditching Unity is a smart idea, considering how comfortable I am with it already, and how much I like it. Finally, is libgdx something you would recommend considering my requirements/situation? BTW, I am quite familiar with Eclipse too. Many thanks. Feel free to request further details.

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• What are some ways to separate game logic from animations and the draw loop?

  - by TMV

  I have only previously made flash games, using MovieClips and such to separate out my animations from my game logic. Now I am getting into trying my hand at making a game for Android, but the game programming theory around separating these things still confuses me. I come from a background of developing non game web applications so I am versed in more MVC like patterns and am stuck in that mindset as I approach game programming. I want to do things like abstract my game by having, for example, a game board class that contains the data for a grid of tiles with instances of a tile class that each contain properties. I can give my draw loop access to this and have it draw the game board based on the properties of each tile on the game board, but I don't understand where exactly animation should go. As far as I can tell, animation sort of sits between the abstracted game logic (model) and the draw loop (view). With my MVC mindset, it's frustrating trying to decide where animation is actually supposed to go. It would have quite a bit of data associated with it like a model, but seemingly needs to be very closely coupled with the draw loop in order to have things like frame independent animation. How can I break out of this mindset and start thinking about patterns that make more sense for games?

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• Good practices when optimizing HTML5/Javascript Game Developement [closed]

  - by hustlerinc

  I'm just starting out as a game developer and have created a few crappy but playable clones of classic games like pong, and bomberman. Being self taught (bless the internet) I do this by just stuffing in code to make the games work. Now I feel the time has come to create something complete, for this I need to know how a game is structured. I've searched on the web but there isn't that much to be found. The only "high-level" language I know is javascript so reading a tutorial or article based on C++ doesn't help me that much. I'm looking for good resource's pedagogically covering the theory and possibly examples (in Javascript or pseudo code that is understandable for a beginner) of how the game pieces fit together. From the start screen to asset loading and running the game loop. I'm not looking for anything complicated like reading through a 4000 line source code. All I want to learn is where, how and when the main parts of every game should be called. If you know any good resources to share, or maybe even have an answer for me I would deeply appreciate it.

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• Can I use my prepaid phone balance (in pesos) to buy from the Software Centre?

  - by obetus

  Using local network broadband, we can use it to buy games and applications from load balance. Is there any possible ways to use it also in Ubuntu software Center? additional: I'm using mobile broadband for the internet connection,this broadband has a sim card and account number where you can download money from buying a prepaid card worth 100 pesos,300 pesos or 500 pesos, provided by our local network. We use this mobile broadband when there is no wifi connection. There are two kinds of mobile broadband, one is postpaid account and the other is prepaid account. I use prepaid account, this kind of account can load a money for transaction like data plans, from 10 pesos for 30 minutes internet connection or 200 pesos for 5 days internet connection., and this prepaid account can load 5 pesos up to thousands of pesos. Now, if this prepaid mobile broadband can provide money in pesos and has internet connection, I think it can also use it for buying goods or applications or games via internet. i think its only need a software that can detect the sim card number and the money balance for transactions. Sorry for my bad english but I hope you got my point.

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• What's the right/standard way of achieving separation of concerns?

  - by Ghanima

  Some background: I want to start developing games, and taking some of the advice given in this site, I've started with something simple and familiar, such as pong, tetris, etc. I want to take as much time as needed to make sure that I have the basics right before moving on to something bigger. I have medium programming experience but I realize making games is a different thing. I find myself wondering many things like should this be in a separate class? Should this module handle this stuff or is it better to let other modules have that kind of functionality? For example, the bouncing of a ball in pong, right now is handled in the ball module, but maybe it's better that some other module did it. Right now I have different modules: one for the graphics, one for the game logic, and others for the objects (depending on the kind of movement required, not all the objects are alike). I know I am asking a lot, any tips you have will be very much appreciated. Short question: What's the right or standard way of separating the modules? What have you found most effective? Is it enough to just keep the drawing (graphics) and the logic separate? Is it necessary to have a lot of classes? (for example for the objects in the game, to handle the movement, etc)

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• An entry-level programmer's best option [on hold]

  - by user134409

  I am facing a puzzle and I am not sure the best way to make a decision. In my spare time besides playing video games I got around to develop some games, nothing fancy, just small projects to get a better grasp at programming. After I finished college and got my BA in Computer Science, I got a job as web developer at a small firm. The next few months were very stressful as I had no previous experience and tried my best to make up for it. But after 6 months my boss told me I was inefficient and not very independent and let me go. To my credit, the help from the senior was very limited, I did learn a lot but I have learned by myself. For example they told me to do a UI in BackboneJS and I took me a while but I got it working (even if it was poorly designed). But I managed to do it all by myself because my senior was very busy and he did not have time even for my questions. Now I have found a new job again in web development but I am very afraid of what is going to happen next. I am afraid because I don't want to take the job and then be fired again after a couple of months, I get the feeling that this will be very bad on my CV, job hopping is like a red flag. They want to hire me but I am aware that they are working with new technologies and maybe I will end up not coping with it. So the question is: Should a entry-level programmer be better off with a starting job in QA, testing and work his way from there? I did learn allot from my first job but it was a moral blow when they decided to fire me. I do have a low self-esteem and I know my skills as a programmer are not that great. But I like programming and want to get better and I want to have a long career in it so that basically my pickle. Thank you in advance for the answers.

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• Need guidelines for studying Game Development

  - by ShutterBug

  Hello Everyone, I've completed my graduation in Computer Science and currently working as a Software Engineer in a software company. I was wondering if I can build my career in Game Development. If so, what should be my approach. I've a few questions: Which universities to apply for masters? Preferably in Canada. Scholarships available? How shall I prepare myself before applying which shall give me an edge or advantage over others? I know Java, C#, PHP etc. I dont think these languages will be needed in Game Development. In that case, what languages shall I focus on from now? How do I get some ideas about IDE/Engines/Platform of game development? I'm not talking about flash/browser games. Please suggest me anything you want as I don't know much about it so I'm most likely to miss the most important questions. Feel free to make this thread a starter guide for those interested in perusing their career in game development. Post every relevant information. Thanks in Advance. EDIT: I can see a lot of people suggested to build a small project/game. If so, please suggest me how do I start a small game developing (maybe a clone to some existing small games ie pacman, brick game etc) from start to end.

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• Choosing the correct network protocol for my type of game (its Wc3 Warlock style)

  - by Moritz

  I need to code a little game for a school project. The type of the game is like the Warcraft 3 map "Warlock", if anyone doesnt know it, here is a short description: up to ten players spawn into an arena filled with lava, the goal of each player is to push the other players into the lava with spells (basically variations of missiles, aoe nukes, moba spells etc) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3PoO-gcJik&feature=related we need to provide multiplayer-support over the internet, for that reason I am looking for the best network protocol for this type of game (udp, tcp, lock step, client-server...) what the requirements are: - same/stable simulation on all clients - up to ten players - up to ~100 missiles on the field - very low latency since its reaction based (i dont know the method wc3 used, but it was playable with the old servers) what would be nice (if even possible, since the traffic might be too big): - support for soft bodies over the network (with bullet physics), but this is no real requirement I read several articles about the lock step method used for RTS games, this seems to be great, but does it fit for real-time action games too (ping-related)? If anyone has run into the same problems/questions like me, I would be very happy about any help

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• Rendering 8 bit graphics

  - by Matjaz Muhic

  I have a strong programming background just not from game development. I only made some pong and snake in high school and I did some OpenGL in college. I want to make my own game engine. Nothing fancy just a simple 2D game engine. But because I'm kinda old school and feeling retro. I want graphics to look like old 8 bit games (megaman, contra, super mario, ...). So how were the old games made back then? I want the simplest approach. Were they also using assets (images) like newer engines now do? How do you achieve this kind of rendering using OpenGL? Keep in mind. Simplest solution. I want to know how it was made back then and how I can replicate that. Doesn't even have to be OpenGL. I can draw on window canvas. I do want to make it from scratch basically.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, April 12, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, April 12, 2012Popular ReleasesSnmpMessenger: 0.1.1.1: Project Description SnmpMessenger, a messenger. Using the SNMP protocol to exchange messages. It's developed in C#. SnmpMessenger For .Net 4.0, Mono 2.8. Support SNMP V1, V2, V3. Features Send get, set and other requests and get the response. Send and receive traps. Handle requests and return the response. Note This library is compliant with the Common Language Specification(CLS). The latest version is 0.1.1.1. It is only a messenger, does not involve VACM. Any problems, Please mailto: wa...Python Tools for Visual Studio: 1.1.1: We’re pleased to announce the release of Python Tools for Visual Studio 1.1.1. Python Tools for Visual Studio (PTVS) is an open-source plug-in for Visual Studio which supports programming with the Python language. PTVS supports a broad range of features including: • Supports CPython and IronPython • Python editor with advanced member and signature intellisense • Code navigation: “Find all refs”, goto definition, and object browser • Local and remote debugging • Profiling with multiple view...Supporting Guidance and Whitepapers: v1 - Team Foundation Service Whitepapers: Welcome to the BETA release of the Team Foundation Service Whitepapers preview As this is a BETA release and the quality bar for the final Release has not been achieved, we value your candid feedback and recommend that you do not use or deploy these BETA artifacts in a production environment. Quality-Bar Details Documentation has been reviewed by Visual Studio ALM Rangers Documentation has been through an independent technical review All critical bugs have been resolved Known Issue...Microsoft .NET Gadgeteer: .NET Gadgeteer Core 2.42.550 (BETA): Microsoft .NET Gadgeteer Core RELEASE NOTES Version 2.42.550 11 April 2012 BETA VERSION WARNING: This is a beta version! Please note: - API changes may be made before the next version (2.42.600) - The designer will not show modules/mainboards for NETMF 4.2 until you get upgraded libraries from the module/mainboard vendors - Install NETMF 4.2 (see link below) to use the new features of this release That warning aside, this version should continue to sup...DISM GUI: DISM GUI 3.1.1: Fixes - Fixed a bug in the Delete Driver function - The Index field is now auto populated with the number 1LINQ to Twitter: LINQ to Twitter Beta v2.0.24: Supports .NET 3.5, .NET 4.0, Silverlight 4.0, Windows Phone 7.1, and Client Profile. 100% Twitter API coverage. Also available via NuGet.Kendo UI ASP.NET Sample Applications: Sample Applications (2012-04-11): Sample application(s) demonstrating the use of Kendo UI in ASP.NET applications.Json.NET: Json.NET 4.5 Release 2: New feature - Added support for the SerializableAttribute and serializing a type's internal fields New feature - Added MaxDepth to JsonReader/JsonSerializer/JsonSerializerSettings New feature - Added support for ignoring properties with the NonSerializableAttribute Fix - Fixed deserializing a null string throwing a NullReferenceException Fix - Fixed JsonTextReader reading from a slow stream Fix - Fixed CultureInfo not being overridden on JsonSerializerProxy Fix - Fixed full trust ...SCCM Client Actions Tool: SCCM Client Actions Tool v1.12: SCCM Client Actions Tool v1.12 is the latest version. It comes with following changes since last version: Improved WMI date conversion to be aware of timezone differences and DST. Fixed new version check. The tool is downloadable as a ZIP file that contains four files: ClientActionsTool.hta – The tool itself. Cmdkey.exe – command line tool for managing cached credentials. This is needed for alternate credentials feature when running the HTA on Windows XP. Cmdkey.exe is natively availab...Dual Browsing: Dual Browser: Please note the following: I setup the address bar temporarily to only accepts http:// .com addresses. Just type in the name of the website excluding: http://, www., and .com; (Ex: for www.youtube.com just type: youtube then click OK). The page splitter can be grabbed by holding down your left mouse button and move left or right. By right clicking on the page background, you can choose to refresh, go back a page and so on. Demo video: http://youtu.be/L7NTFVM3JUYCslaGenFork: Rules sample v.1.1.0: On projects for CSLA v.4.2.2, added 5 new Business Rules: - DependencyFrom - RequiredWhenCanWrite - RequiredWhenIsNotNew - RequiredWhenNew - StopIfNotFieldExists Added new projects for CSLA v.4.3.10 with 6 new Business Rules: - DependencyFrom - FieldExists - RequiredWhenCanWrite - RequiredWhenIsNotNew - RequiredWhenNew - StopIfNotFieldExists Following CSLA convention, SL stands for Silverligth 5 and SL4 stands for Silverlight 4. NOTE - Although the projects for CSLA v.4.1.0 still exist, thi...Multiwfn: Multiwfn 2.3.3: Multiwfn 2.3.3Liberty: v3.2.0.1 Release 9th April 2012: Change Log-Fixed -Reach Fixed a bug where the object editor did not work on non-English operating systemsCommonData - Common Functions for ASP.NET projects: CommonData 0.3L: Common Data has been updated to the latest NUnit (2.6.0) The demo project has been updated with an example on how to correctly compare a floating point value.ASP.Net MVC Dynamic JS/CSS Script Compression Framework: Initial Stable: Initial Stable Version Contains Source for Compression Library and example for usage in web application.Path Copy Copy: 10.1: This release addresses the following work items: 11357 11358 11359 This release is a recommended upgrade, especially for users who didn't install the 10.0.1 version.ExtAspNet: ExtAspNet v3.1.3: ExtAspNet - ?? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???，????? AJAX ?????????? ExtAspNet ????? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???，????? AJAX ??????????。 ExtAspNet ??????? JavaScript，?? CSS，?? UpdatePanel，?? ViewState，?? WebServices ???????。 ??????: IE 7.0, Firefox 3.6, Chrome 3.0, Opera 10.5, Safari 3.0+ ????：Apache License 2.0 (Apache) ??：http://extasp.net/ ??：http://bbs.extasp.net/ ??：http://extaspnet.codeplex.com/ ??：http://sanshi.cnblogs.com/ ????： +2012-04-08 v3.1.3 -??Language="zh_TW"?JS???BUG（??）。 +?D...Coding4Fun Tools: Coding4Fun.Phone.Toolkit v1.5.5: New Controls ChatBubble ChatBubbleTextBox OpacityToggleButton New Stuff TimeSpan languages added: RU, SK, CS Expose the physics math from TimeSpanPicker Image Stretch now on buttons Bug Fixes Layout fix so RoundToggleButton and RoundButton are exactly the same Fix for ColorPicker when set via code behind ToastPrompt bug fix with OnNavigatedTo Toast now adjusts its layout if the SIP is up Fixed some issues with Expression Blend supportHarness - Internet Explorer Automation: Harness 2.0.3: support the operation fo frameset, frame and iframe Add commands SwitchFrame GetUrl GoBack GoForward Refresh SetTimeout GetTimeout Rename commands GetActiveWindow to GetActiveBrowser SetActiveWindow to SetActiveBrowser FindWindowAll to FindBrowser NewWindow to NewBrowser GetMajorVersion to GetVersionBetter Explorer: Better Explorer 2.0.0.861 Alpha: - fixed new folder button operation not work well in some situations - removed some unnecessary code like subclassing that is not needed anymore - Added option to make Better Exlorer default (at least for WIN+E operations) - Added option to enable file operation replacements (like Terracopy) to work with Better Explorer - Added some basic usability to "Share" button - Other fixesNew ProjectsAzure Diagnostics Monitor: Just another tool to monitor the Windows Azure Diagnostics logs. The tool runs on Windows and requires .NET Framework 4.0.BSF - Business solution framework: BSF covers components and patterns that span from server to client side. It focuses on developer's productivity and rich configurable operational support. Its main goal is to streamline business solution development letting developers focus on business requirements.ceshi: makes it easier for cms cmdb hierarquico: CMDB leve organizado de forma hierárquica, e com opção para ter informações criptografadas CRCMS: CRCMS PhoenixFong Plugin Engine: This is a basic plugin engine that was written in Visual Basic.NET. It can be placed in applications so that they can easily be extended.Golabetoon: This is my AI Project trying to change Finglish writing to FarsiHomeProjects: Collection of Many "Home" ProjectsHyper-V Management Library in C#: A C# library to manage Hyper-V server (network switch settings, VM configurations, etc.) via WMI APIsIQ.DbA: IQ.DbA is a light weight database management tool. - Easily browse through your table's data, run queries. - Compare schema / meta data. - Compare & synchronize table data (schema must be the same). - Create, Backup & Restore Db. - View & kill connections.JavaProjects: Proyectos en javaLLBLGen Pro LINQPad Driver: LINQPad driver for LLBLGen Pro v3.5 or higher. The LLBLGen Pro v3.5 LINQPad driver is the official LINQPad driver for LLBLGen Pro v3.5 from Solutions Design bv. It contains all the features necessary to use your generated code assemblies (adapter or selfservicing) directly onto your database using Linq, QuerySpec or the low-level query api. Developed by Solutions Design and Jeremy Thomas.Mini-C#: Interactive C# interpreter using Roslyn.Orchard HTML KickStart: This Orchard CMS module allows you to activate the HTML KickStart scripts and stylesheets without changing your existing theme. The HTML KickStart scripts and stylesheets can be turned on through settings.persistance_personnels_elabouyi: Projet d'étude test TFSqBugger: Powered by qSoftware the fast ajax Professional Issue Tracker.Realm Offline Server: Nonesaleprice: This project is about sale systemScrum Factory 2012: This is the newest and improved version of The Scrum Factory. Scrum Factory is a client-server application that helps teams to conduct software development projects using Scrum methodology. SQL Server Error Log Parsing module: The SQL Server Error Log Parsing module enables efficient analysis of SQL Server's error log (ERRORLOG). This binary PowerShell module parses the ERRORLOG text file and returns the corresponding message IDs and message parameters.Sql Team Server: Sql Team Server aims to provide database compare and synchronization across project teams and members.T4MVC: T4MVC is a T4 template for ASP.NET MVC apps that creates strongly typed helpers that eliminate the use of literal strings when referring the controllers, actions and views.The HTTP Web Server: The HTTP Web Server is an easy-to-use, FAST web hosting server that is written in C#. It has a built-in Install/Uninstall menu and is console based.The Uncle Tony Project: We're going to test the team explorer thing.tigera: a source depot from 2007-now I had written. + ---- exchanges api & framework VxiChat: P2P chatingWCF Data Services Action Provider for Entity Framework: This is a sample implementation of a WCF Data Services IDataServiceActionProvider for the Entity FrameworkWindows Phone SSLStream: WIPWorld of Warcraft Backit up(wow backit up): a project that helps you backup and restore your settings in wow easilyWT Analyse: A GUI Front end for FAST, using XFOIL, utilising AirfoilPrep Code. Written in C#.wuhua tutorial: wuhuaXSockets.WebRTC.Prototype: This example project of XSockets.NET WebRTC Support using WebSockets, PeerConnection, getUserMedia and more is built to show you how we can put together powerfull Realtime audio/video chats just using the browser.????SDK: Help people find your project. Write a concise, reader-focused summary.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, November 07, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, November 07, 2011Popular ReleasesGoogleMap Control: GoogleMap Control 6.0: Major design changes to the control in order to achieve better scalability and extensibility for the new features comming with GoogleMaps API. GoogleMap control switched to GoogleMaps API v3 and .NET 4.0. GoogleMap control is 100% ScriptControl now, it requires ScriptManager to be registered on the pages where and before it is used. Markers, polylines, polygons and directions were implemented as ExtenderControl, instead of being inner properties of GoogleMap control. Better perfomance. Better...WDTVHubGen - Adds Metadata, thumbnails and subtitles to WDTV Live Hubs: V2.1: Version 2.1 (click on the right) this uses V4.0 of .net Version 2.1 adds the following features: (apologize if I forget some, added a lot of little things) Manual Lookup with TV or Movie (finally huh!), you can look up a movie or TV episode directly, you can right click on anythign, and choose manual lookup, then will allow you to type anything you want to look up and it will assign it to the file you right clicked. No Rename: a very popular request, this is an option you can set so that t...Bulk Copy Test Cases Tool for Microsoft Test Manager & TFS: Bulk Copy Test Cases Tool: A while ago I had written a blog post Microsoft Test Manager Test Case Versioning on how to manage Test Cases over multiple releases which required you to manually copy test cases individually. Now there is a tool to help with the bulk copying of Test Cases that updates the Iteration field at the same time.Self-Tracking Entity Generator for WPF and Silverlight: Self-Tracking Entity Generator v 0.9.9 Update 2: Self-Tracking Entity Generator v 0.9.9 for Entity Framework 4.0. No change to the self-tracking entity generator v 0.9.9. WPF sample (SchoolSample) is updated with unit testing for both ViewModel and Model classes.SubExtractor: Release 1020: Feature: added "baseline double quotes" character to selector box Feature: added option to save SRT files as ANSI (instead of previous UTF-8 only) Feature: made "Save Sup files to Source directory" apply to both Sup and Idx source files. Fix: removed SDH text (...) or [...] that is split over 2 lines Fix: better decision-making in when to prefix a line with a '-' because SDH was removedAcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.6.1: ?? ● AcDown??????????、??????，??????????????????????，???????Acfun、Bilibili、???、???、???、Tucao.cc、SF???、?????80????，???????????、?????????。 ● AcDown???????????????????????????，???，???????????????????。 ● AcDown???????C#??，????.NET Framework 2.0??。?????"Acfun?????"。 ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7 ????????????? ??：????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)?.NET Framework 2.0???(x64)，?????"?????????"??? ??????????????，??????????： ??"AcDown?????"????????? ?? v3.6.1?? ??.hlv...Track Folder Changes: Track Folder Changes 1.1: Fixed exception when right-clicking the root nodeKinect Toolbox: Kinect Toolbox v1.1.0.2: This version adds support for the Kinect for Windows SDK beta 2.MapWindow 4: MapWindow GIS v4.8.6 - Final release - 32Bit: This is the final release of MapWindow v4.8. It has 4.8.6 as version number. This version has been thoroughly tested. If you do get an exception send the exception to us. Don't forget to include your e-mail address. Use the forums at http://www.mapwindow.org/phorum/ for questions. Please consider donating a small portion of the money you have saved by having free GIS tools: http://www.mapwindow.org/pages/donate.php What’s New in 4.8.6 (Final release) · A few minor issues have been fixed Wha...Kinect Mouse Cursor: Kinect Mouse Cursor 1.1: Updated for Kinect for Windows SDK v1.0 Beta 2!Coding4Fun Kinect Toolkit: Coding4Fun Kinect Toolkit 1.1: Updated for Kinect for Windows SDK v1.0 Beta 2!Async Executor: 1.0: Source code of the AsyncExecutorMedia Companion: MC 3.421b Weekly: Ensure .NET 4.0 Full Framework is installed. (Available from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17718) Ensure the NFO ID fix is applied when transitioning from versions prior to 3.416b. (Details here) TV Show Resolutions... Fix to show the season-specials.tbn when selecting an episode from season 00. Before, MC would try & load season00.tbn Fix for issue #197 - new show added by 'Manually Add Path' not being picked up. Also made non-visible the same thing in Root Folders...Nearforums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Nearforums v7.0: Version 7.0 of Nearforums, the ASP.NET MVC Forum Engine, containing new features: UI: Flexible layout to handle both list and table-like template layouts. Theming - Visual choice of themes: Deliver some templates on installation, export/import functionality, preview. Allow site owners to choose default list sort order for the forums. Forum latest activity. Visit the project Roadmap for more details. Webdeploy packages sha1 checksum: e6bb913e591543ab292a753d1a16cdb779488c10?????????? - ????????: All-In-One Code Framework ??? 2011-11-02: http://download.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=1codechs&DownloadId=216140 ??????，11??，?????20????Microsoft OneCode Sample，????6?Program Language Sample，2?Windows Base Sample，2?GDI+ Sample，4?Internet Explorer Sample?6?ASP.NET Sample。?????????????。 ????，?????。http://i3.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=1code&DownloadId=128165 Program Language CSImageFullScreenSlideShow VBImageFullScreenSlideShow CSDynamicallyBuildLambdaExpressionWithFie...Python Tools for Visual Studio: 1.1 Alpha: We’re pleased to announce the release of Python Tools for Visual Studio 1.1 Alpha. Python Tools for Visual Studio (PTVS) is an open-source plug-in for Visual Studio which supports programming with the Python programming language. This release includes new core IDE features, a couple of new sample libraries for interacting with Kinect and Excel, and many bug fixes for issues reported since the release of 1.0. For the core IDE features we’ve added many new features which improve the basic edit...BExplorer (Better Explorer): Better Explorer 2.0.0.631 Alpha: Changelog: Added: Some new functions in ribbon Added: Possibility to choose displayed columns Added: Basic Search Fixed: Some bugs after navigation Fixed: Attempt to fix slow navigation and slow start Known issues: - BreadcrumbBar fails on some situations - Basic search not work quite well in some situations Please if anyone find bugs be kind and report them at the Issue Tracker! Thanks!DotNetNuke® Community Edition: 05.06.04: Major Highlights Fixed issue with upgrades on systems that had upgraded the Telerik library to 6.0.0 Fixed issue with Razor Host upgrade to 5.6.3 The logic for module administration checks contains incorrect logic in 1 place, opening the possibility of a user with edit permissions gaining access to functionality they should not have through a particularly crafted url Security FixesBrowsers support the ability to remember common strings such as usernames/addresses etc. Code was adde...Terminals: Version 2.0 - Beta 3 Release: Beta 3 Refresh Dont forget to backup your config files BEFORE upgrading! The team has finally put the nail into the official release date for version 2.0. As bugs are winding down on the 2.0 Roadmap we decided to push out another build - the first 2.0 Beta build. Please take time to use and abuse this release. We left logging in place, and this is a debug build so be sure to submit your logs on each bug reported, and please do report all bugs! Check the source code page on the site, th...iTuner - The iTunes Companion: iTuner 1.4.4322: Added German (unverified, apologies if incorrect) Properly source invariant resources with correct resIDs Replaced obsolete lyric providers with working providers Fix Pseudolater to correctly morph every third char Fix null reference in CatalogBaseNew ProjectsA Blog: This is a blog plus personal web page frameworkAccess 1-D Intersection: This is an Access VBA Module containing functions that allow make it easy to determine overlaps in 1-D intervals. For instance if table A contains a range of 0-7 and Table B contains a range of 5-10, the intersection is 5-7.AkismetPC: A C# implementation of the popular anti-spam plugin Akismet. There aren't many .NET versions of Akismet so I decided to write one and that can be used with .NET blog engines such as Subtext, etc.AlertMonkey: A multicast chat client that enables users to send html, images, sounds, and files to connected users. Provides specialized alert types such as lunch and happy hour, as well as channel support.Azzeton: azzetonBKWork: private project.Blue: Blue is a web application for italian baseball and softball umpires.Build Javascript Models from .Net Classes: Build JavaScript Data Models from .Net Classes automaticallycmpp: cmppCRM 2011 TreeView for Dependent Picklist: This utility will allow CRM Customizer to configure Dependent Picklist items which will be shown as TreeView control on CRM form.DirSign: DirSign is a console exe that evaluates or checks directory signature. DirSign is used to check if something in a directory tree has changed (a file date or a file size or a new or missing file). You can use DirSign in scenario where you need to check if something changed since last time but where you can't install a file system watcher.epictactics: Game for WP7Export SharePoint 2010 External List to Excel: Export SharePoint 2010 external list to Excel with custom ribbon plugin. Export current external list with selected view to office 97 - 2003 or office 2007 - 2010.Floridum: Project for a XML Database.GNU ISO8583: GISO (GNU ISO) is a tool that makes it easier to analyze ISO 8583 financial transactions and also provides a platform to create a host simulator, capable of receiving requests and sending back the responses. It’s a WinForms application and it’s developed using C#.G's Syndication Pocket: G's Syndication Pocket is simple RSS Aggregate application. This is suitable for .NET Compact Framework. I checked it on Sharp's W-ZERO3.Hatena Netfx Library: .NET Library for Hatena Services.inohigo: a programming language that was developed by inohiro.Internet Cache Examiner: Internet Cache Examiner allows Internet Explorer INDEX.DAT files to be read directly, allowing the extraction of more information than is displayed in Internet Explorer, and without being limited to viewing only the activity of the current user. It's developed in C#.Javascript to IQueryable: javascript to IQueryable is an implementation that allows to write a simple query in javascript and then execute it on the server with EntityFramework or a linq provider that implement IQueryable.kisd: Just my code, wanted to keep it safe.LUCA UI for Silverlight 4: LUCA UI is a collection of flexible layout controls for Silverlight 4. Basically, using these controls you can create the same type of user-definable UI that Visual Studio and Expression Blend have.Messenger Game - Starter Kit: Kom godt i gang med at lave spil til Messenger med dette komplette Starter Kit. Indeholder et komplet netværksspil lavet med Messenger Activity API og Silverlight.Music Keys: Music KeysMyNote: MyNoteOpen Source Data System: DataSystem is a file based database system that is thread safe. It is a dynamically generated database meaning developers can either structure it outside the application prior or development. PhotoDesktop: Create background images for your desktop using hundreds of your photos off your local computer. (coming soon - use flickr [or other RSS] feeds)SharePoint Backup Augmentation Cmdlets: The SharePoint Backup Augmentation Cmdlets (SharePointBAC) provide administrators with additional PowerShell cmdlets to complement and extend SharePoint 2010's native backup and restore capabilities. SharePointBAC makes it possible to groom backup sets, archive backups, and more.SharpClassifier: C "Classifier" is an AI software component that tries to classify instances from given evidence (if shiny then diamond). A famous example is classifying email spam, separating it from ham. SharpClassifier currently only contains a single classifier - A Bayesian Naive Classifier. Most Bayesian Naive Classifiers for C# you'll find out there only handles two classes (spam/ham), but this implementation supports any number of classses.Shell Sort Web service and Application: this is a webservice of Sorting methode. use Shell sort methode to sorthing a unsorted number, and it can give a boundary as you input this project is made by Information System students, Ma Chung University , Malang - East Java - Indonesia [url:www.Machung.ac.id] Anna Letizia & SetiawanEka Prayuda Barbiezztissa@gmail.com & setya_09@hotmail.comSistema UELS: adsfasdfSorting Number use Insertion Sort on Web Service: This program can simulate the insertion sort easily.TA_Sorted_App01: First implementation of TA_Sorted Algorithm ThinkDeeper MVC framework: ThinkDeeper MVC is a WPF MVC for .NET 3.5. Typing Game: The Nottingham Game Developer's first game.xBlog: xBlog is a project to build a simple and extensible Blog Engine based on xml and linqXNA DebugDrawer Using Spritebatch: This project serves to show how to draw lines and rectangles using XNA's Spritebatch. This project uses XNA 4.0 and C# programming languageYet another Scedule Planner: YASP - Yet another Scedule Planner

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• Try out Windows Phone 7 on your PC today

  - by Matthew Guay

  Anticipation has been building for the new Windows Phone 7 Series ever since Microsoft unveiled it at the Mobile World Congress in February.  Now, thanks to free developer tools, you can get a first-hand experience of the basic Windows Phone 7 Series devices on your PC. Windows Phone 7 Series represents a huge change in the mobile field for Microsoft, bringing the acclaimed Zune HD UI to an innovative phone platform.  Windows Mobile has often been criticized for being behind other Smartphone platforms, but Microsoft seeks to regain the lead with this new upcoming release.  A platform must have developers behind it to be useful, so they have released a full set of free development tools so anyone can make apps for it today.  Or, if you simply want to play with Windows Phone 7, you can use the included emulator to try out the new Metro UI.  Here’s how to do this today on your Vista or 7 computer. Please note: These tools are a Customer Technology Preview release, so only install them if you’re comfortable using pre-release software. Getting Started First, download the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP (link below), and run the installer.  This will install the Customer Technology Preview (CTP) versions of Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone, Windows Phone Emulator, Silverlight for Windows Phone, and XNA 4.0 Game Studio on your computer, all of which are required and cannot be installed individually. Accept the license agreement when prompted. Click “Install Now” to install the tools you need.  The only setup customization option is where to save the files, so choose Customize if you need to do so. Setup will now automatically download and install the components you need, and will additionally download either 32 or 64 bit programs depending on your operating system. About halfway thorough the installation, you’ll be prompted to reboot your system.  Once your computer is rebooted, setup will automatically resume without further input.   When setup is finished, click “Run the Product Now” to get started. Running Windows Phone 7 on your PC Now that you’ve got the Windows Phone Developer tools installed, it’s time to get the Windows Phone emulator running.  If you clicked “Run the Product Now” when the setup finished, Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone should have already started.   If not, simply enter “visual studio” in your start menu search and select “Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone”. Now, to run the Windows Phone 7 emulator, we have to test an application.  So, even if you don’t know how to program, we can open a phone application template, and then test it to run the emulator.  First, click New Project on the left hand side of the front page. Any of the application templates would work for this, but here let’s select “Windows Phone Application”, and then click Ok. Here’s your new application template, which already contains the basic phone application framework.  This is where you’d start if you want to develop a Windows Phone app, but for now we just want to see Windows Phone 7 in action. So, to run the emulator, click Debug in the menu and then select Start Debugging. Your new application will launch inside the Windows Phone 7 Series emulator.  The default template doesn’t give us much, but it does show an example application running in Windows Phone 7.   Exploring Windows Phone 7 Click the Windows button on the emulator to go to the home screen.  Notice the Zune HD-like transition animation.  The emulator only includes Internet Explorer, your test application, and a few settings. Click the arrow on the right to see the available applications in a list. Settings lets you change the theme, regional settings, and the date and time in your emulator.  It also has an applications settings pane, but this currently isn’t populated. The Time settings shows a unique Windows Phone UI. You can return to the home screen by pressing the Windows button.  Here’s the Internet Explorer app running, with the virtual keyboard open to enter an address.  Please note that this emulator can also accept input from your keyboard, so you can enter addresses without clicking on the virtual keyboard. And here’s Google running in Internet Explorer on Windows Phone 7. Windows Phone 7 supports accelerometers, and you can simulate this in the emulator.  Click one of the rotate buttons to rotate the screen in that direction. Here’s our favorite website in Internet Explorer on Windows Phone 7 in landscape mode. All this, running right inside your Windows 7 desktop… Developer tools for Windows Phone 7 Although it may be fun to play with the Windows Phone 7 emulator, developers will be more excited to actually be able to create new and exciting apps for it.  The Windows Phone Developer Tools download includes Visual Studio Express and XNA Game Studio 4.0 which lets you create enticing games and apps for Windows Phones.  All development for Windows Phones will be in C#, Silverlight, and the XNA game framework.  Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone includes templates for these, and additionally has code samples to help you get started with development. Conclusion Many features are still not functional in this preview version, such as the search button and most of the included applications.  However, this still gives you a great way to experience firsthand the future of the Windows Phone platform.  And, for developers, this is your chance to set your mark on the Windows Phone 7 Series even before it is released to the public.  Happy playing and developing! Links Download Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP Windows Phone Developer Site Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Keep Track of Homework Assignments with SoshikuWeekend Fun: Watch Television On Your PC With TVUPlayerEasily Manage Your Downloads with Download StatusbarCreate a Shortcut or Hotkey to Mute the System Volume in WindowsHow-To Geek on Lifehacker: How to Make Windows Vista Less Annoying TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Convert the Quick Launch Bar into a Super Application Launcher Automate Tasks in Linux with Crontab Discover New Bundled Feeds in Google Reader Play Music in Chrome by Simply Dragging a File 15 Great Illustrations by Chow Hon Lam Easily Sync Files & Folders with Friends & Family

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• Process.Start() and ShellExecute() fails with URLs on Windows 8

  - by Rick Strahl

  Since I installed Windows 8 I've noticed that a number of my applications appear to have problems opening URLs. That is when I click on a link inside of a Windows application, either nothing happens or there's an error that occurs. It's happening both to my own applications and a host of Windows applications I'm running. At first I thought this was an issue with my default browser (Chrome) but after switching the default browser to a few others and experimenting a bit I noticed that the errors occur - oddly enough - only when I run an application as an Administrator. I also tried switching to FireFox and Opera as my default browser and saw exactly the same behavior. The scenario for this is a bit bizarre: Running on Windows 8 Call Process.Start() (or ShellExecute() in Win32 API) with a URL or an HTML file Run 'As Administrator' (works fine under non-elevated user account!) or with UAC off A browser other than Internet Explorer is set as your Default Web Browser Talk about a weird scenario: Something that doesn't work when you run as an Administrator which is supposed to have rights to everything on the system! Instead running under an Admin account - either elevated with a User Account Control prompt or even when running as a full Administrator fails. It appears that this problem does not occur for everyone, but when I looked for a solution to this, I saw quite a few posts in relation to this with no clear resolutions. I have three Windows 8 machines running here in the office and all three of them showed this behavior. Lest you think this is just a programmer's problem - this can affect any software running on your system that needs to run under administrative rights. Try it out Now, in order for this next example to fail, any browser but Internet Explorer has to be your default browser and even then it may not fail depending on how you installed your browser. To see if this is a problem create a small Console application and call Process.Start() with a URL in it:namespace Win8ShellBugConsole { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { Console.WriteLine("Launching Url..."); Process.Start("http://microsoft.com"); Console.Write("Press any key to continue..."); Console.ReadKey(); Console.WriteLine("\r\n\r\nLaunching image..."); Process.Start(Path.GetFullPath(@"..\..\sailbig.jpg")); Console.Write("Press any key to continue..."); Console.ReadKey(); } } } Compile this code. Then execute the code from Explorer (not from Visual Studio because that may change the permissions). If you simply run the EXE and you're not running as an administrator, you'll see the Web page pop up in the browser as well as the image loading. Now run the same thing with Run As Administrator: Now when you run it you get a nice error when Process.Start() is fired: The same happens if you are running with User Account Control off altogether - ie. you are running as a full admin account. Now if you comment out the URL in the code above and just fire the image display - that works just fine in any user mode. As does opening any other local file type or even starting a new EXE locally (ie. Process.Start("c:\windows\notepad.exe"). All that works, EXCEPT for URLs. The code above uses Process.Start() in .NET but the same happens in Win32 Applications that use the ShellExecute API. In some of my older Fox apps ShellExecute returns an error code of 31 - which is No Shell Association found. What's the Deal? It turns out the problem has to do with the way browsers are registering themselves on Windows. Internet Explorer - being a built-in application in Windows 8 - apparently does this correctly, but other browsers possibly don't or at least didn't at the time I installed them. So even Chrome, which continually updates itself, has a recent version that apparently has this registration issue fixed, I was unable to simply set IE as my default browser then use Chrome to 'Set as Default Browser'. It still didn't work. Neither did using the Set Program Associations dialog which lets you assign what extensions are mapped to by a given application. Each application provides a set of extension/moniker mappings that it supports and this dialog lets you associate them on a system wide basis. This also did not work for Chrome or any of the other browsers at first. However, after repeated retries here eventually I did manage to get FireFox to work, but not any of the others. What Works? Reinstall the Browser In the end I decided on the hard core pull the plug solution: Totally uninstall and re-install Chrome in this case. And lo and behold, after reinstall everything was working fine. Now even removing the association for Chrome, switching to IE as the default browser and then back to Chrome works. But, even though the version of Chrome I was running before uninstalling and reinstalling is the same as I'm running now after the reinstall now it works. Of course I had to find out the hard way, before Richard commented with a note regarding what the issue is with Chrome at least: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=156400 As expected the issue is a registration issue - with keys not being registered at the machine level. Reading this I'm still not sure why this should be a problem - an elevated account still runs under the same user account (ie. I'm still rickstrahl even if I Run As Administrator), so why shouldn't an app be able to read my Current User registry hive? And also that doesn't quite explain why if I register the extensions using Run As Administrator in Chrome when using Set as Default Browser). But in the end it works… Not so fast It's now a couple of days later and still there are some oddball problems although this time they appear to be purely Chrome issues. After the reinstall Chrome seems to pop up properly with ShellExecute() calls both in regular user and Admin mode. However, it now looks like Chrome is actually running two completely separate user profiles for each. For example, when I run Visual Studio in Admin mode and go to View in browser, Chrome complains that it was installed in Admin mode and can't launch (WTF?). Then you retry a few times later and it ends up working. When launched that way some of the plug-ins installed don't show up with the effect that sometimes they're visible sometimes they're not. Also Chrome seems to loose my configuration and Google sign in between sessions now, presumably when switching user modes. Add-ins installed in admin mode don't show up in user mode and vice versa. Ah, this is lovely. Did I mention that I freaking hate UAC precisely because of this kind of bullshit. You can never tell exactly what account your app is running under, and apparently apps also have a hard time trying to put data into the right place that works for both scenarios. And as my recent post on using Windows Live accounts shows it's yet another level of abstraction ontop of the underlying system identity that can cause all sort of small side effect headaches like this. Hopefully, most of you are skirting this issue altogether - having installed more recent versions of your favorite browsers. If not, hopefully this post will take you straight to reinstallation to fix this annoying issue.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in Windows  .NET   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• How to Export Multiple Contacts in Outlook 2013 to Multiple vCards or a Single vCard

  - by Lori Kaufman

  We’ve shown you how to export a contact to and import a contact from a vCard (.vcf) file. However, what if you want to export multiple contacts at the same time to multiple vCard files or even a single vCard file? Outlook doesn’t allow you to directly export all your contacts as vCard files or as a single vCard file, but there is a way to accomplish both tasks. Export Multiple Contacts to Multiple vCard Files Outlook allows you to forward contact information as a vCard. You can also select multiple contacts and forward them all at once. This feature allows you to indirectly export multiple contacts at once to multiple vCard files. Click the People tab to access your contacts. Select all the contacts you want to export using the Shift and Ctrl keys as needed. Select Contacts the same way you would select files in Windows Explorer. Click Forward Contact in the Share section on the Home tab and select As a Business Card from the drop-down menu. The selected contacts attached to a new email message as .vcf files. To select all the attached .vcf files, right-click in the Attached box and select Select All from the popup menu. Make sure the folder to which you want to export the contacts is open in Windows Explorer. Drag the selected attached .vcf files from the new email message to the open folder in Windows Explorer. A .vcf file is created for each contact you selected and dragged to the folder. You can close the Message window by clicking on the X in the upper, right corner of the window. NOTE: You can also close the Message window by clicking the File tab. Then, click the Close option on the left. Because you already have your .vcf files, you don’t need to save or send the message, so click No when asked if you want to save your changes. If it turns out that a draft of your message was saved, the following message displays. Click No to delete the draft. Export Multiple Contacts to a Single vCard (.vcf) File If you would rather export your contacts to a single vCard (.vcf) File, there is a way to do this using Gmail. We’ll export the contacts from Outlook as a .csv file and then use Gmail to convert the .csv file to a .vcf file. Select the contacts you want to export on the People page and click the File tab. On the Account Information screen, click Open & Export in the list on the left. On the Open screen, click Import/Export. The Import and Export Wizard displays. Select Export to a file from the Choose an action to perform list and click Next. In the Create a file of type box, select Comma Separated Values. Click Next. Contacts should be already selected in the Select folder to export from box. If not, select it. Click Next. Click Browse to the right of the Save exported file as box. Navigate to the folder to which you want to export the .csv file. Enter a name for the file in the File name edit box, keeping the .csv extension. The path you selected is entered into the Save exported file as edit box. Click Next. The final screen of the Export to a File dialog box displays listing the action to be performed. Click Finish to begin the export process. Once the export process is finished, you will see the .csv file in the folder in Windows Explorer. Now, we will import the .csv file into Gmail. Go to Gmail and sign in to your account. Click Gmal in the upper, left corner of the main page and select Contacts from the drop-down menu. On the Contacts page, click More above your list of contacts and select Import from the drop-down menu. Click Browse on the Import contacts dialog box that displays. Navigate to the folder in which you saved the .csv file and select the file. Click Open. Click Import on the Import contacts dialog box. A screen displays listing the contacts you imported, but not yet merged into your main Gmail contacts list. Select the contacts you imported. NOTE: The contacts you imported may be the only contacts in this list. If that’s the case, they all should be automatically selected. Click More and select Export from the drop-down menu. On the Export contacts dialog box, select Selected contacts to indicate which contacts you want to export. NOTE: We could have selected The group Imported 10/10/13 because that contains the same two contacts as the Selected contacts. Select vCard format for the export format. Click Export. Gmail creates a contacts.vcf file containing the selected contacts and asks you whether you want to open the file with Outlook or save the file. To save the file, select the Save File option and click OK. Navigate to the folder in which you want to save the contacts.vcf file, change the name of the file in the File name edit box, if desired, and click Save. The .vcf file is saved to the selected directory and contains all the contacts you exported from Outlook. This could be used as a way to backup your contacts in one file. You could also backup the .csv file. However, if you have a lot of contacts you will probably find that the .vcf file is smaller. We only exported two contacts, and our .csv file was 2 KB, while the .vcf file was 1 KB. We will be showing you how to import multiple contacts from a single .vcf file into Outlook soon.     

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