Ali Taki Blog

Silverlight business line applications

2012-01-15T11:44:00.002+04:00

I'm using Silver light 4.0, Silverlight toolkit, Entity Framework with RIA Services for Database. I will try to discuss applying themes, working with grid with buttons, opening popup window for editing data, in the popup we will have drop down list, autocomplete, normal controls & etc.

So let’s start, setting up your project and connecting to the data with RIA Service, is easy and straight forward ( a lot of articles is out there for that).

So you need to add a function or query to your domain services and start linking it with a data grid on the silver-light UI.

First I don’t believe in real world application that you will read only from one table and display data, there must be some joins and even some times some calculations.

So first we need to add our function, so where is the best location? I don’t prefer adding it directly to the domain file, it’s better to add a new one with partial class so if you needed to make some changes it want erase your customized functions.

My domain service file name is as follow: ABC_DomainService.cs

My Added functions will go to ABC_DomainService.Custom.cs, with same name space but a partial class as follow:

namespace ABC.Web

{

public partial class ABC_DomainService

{

….

Example of one:

public IQueryable<Item> GetItemsByModuleId(int ModuleId)

{

return this.ObjectContext.Items

.Include("Capability").Include("UserResource")

.Include("Lookup")

.Where(c => c.ModuleId == ModuleId).OrderBy(c => c.ItemsId);

}

So some notes on the above function, to have the include working you need to update the meta data file too. Mine is “ABC_DomainService.metadata.cs”, I go to the main data time in my case its “Items” and add the [Include] tag as follow:

[Include]

public Lookup Lookup { get; set; }

[Include]

public UserResource UserResource { get; set; }

[Include]

public Nullable<int> OwnerUserId { get; set; }

And if the type of the function is IQueryable, you will get it in Sliverlight (The client side code) as GetItemsByModuleIdQuery.

So Server side is ready let’s go to Client Side and consume it.

To display a data grid and have some data in it, I will use the DomainDataSource, put for the popup form we will do it by code. But let’s do it all, lets add paging, sorting, some query parameters and some filters too. Display info from related tables and so on.

<sdk:DataGrid AutoGenerateColumns="False" Grid.Row="1" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Name="ItemsDataGrid" VerticalAlignment="Stretch"

HorizontalContentAlignment="Center" AlternatingRowBackground="#00D44444" Background="{x:Null}" BorderThickness="1"

Height="Auto" ItemsSource="{Binding Data, ElementName=domainDataSource1}"

…..

….

The most important thing is the ItemsSource, its binding to our domainDataSource called DomainDataSource1.

A pager control to be displayed under the data grid

<sdk:DataPager Height="26" Name="dataPager1" PageSize="15" Grid.Row="2"

Source="{Binding Data, ElementName=domainDataSource1}" DisplayMode="FirstLastPreviousNextNumeric" />

That’s it, very simple paging is complete. So lets go to the domainDataService1

<riaControls:DomainDataSource Name="domainDataSource1" LoadSize="15" QueryName="GetItemsByModuleTypeId"

AutoLoad="True" FilterOperator="Or">

<riaControls:DomainDataSource.DomainContext>

<domain:MRSDomainContext />

riaControls:DomainDataSource.DomainContext>

<riaControls:DomainDataSource.FilterDescriptors >

<riaControls:FilterDescriptor

PropertyPath="ItemName"

Operator="Contains"

Value="{Binding ElementName=SearchTextBox,Path=Text}" />

<riaControls:FilterDescriptor

PropertyPath="Number"

Operator="Contains"

Value="{Binding ElementName=SearchTextBox,Path=Text}" />

riaControls:DomainDataSource.FilterDescriptors>

<riaControls:DomainDataSource.QueryParameters>

<riaControls:Parameter ParameterName="ModuleTypeLookupId" Value="38" />

riaControls:DomainDataSource.QueryParameters>

riaControls:DomainDataSource>

Notes:

My LoadSize is the same as my page size, so it will load once for each page.

A Reference to my DomainService need to be added and reference on the header of the page will be needed for that.

There is a two filters with an OR operation, in the domaindataservice body FilterOperator="Or", and add the filters in DomainDataSource.FilterDescriptors

I will try to post the reset if anybody is interested.

ASP.Net MVC4 BlackBerry Application

2011-11-03T03:08:00.000+04:00

I tried MVC4 mobile templates for a blackberry application for my company, as a preview of the power of mobile apps, all our company employee have blackberry devices so, making use of some web Blackberry application essential.

First impression with the default template was it was very cool for if viewed on iPhone or android with large screen and high resolution colors with all the curves and style working, but for the blackberry it was not.

Plus the performance was horrible and very slow, different employees so different output (that was because the style sheet was still downloading).

With a very simple start up page containing only a small menu of 3 elements it took about 4-6 sec to load and that was not accepted. I was using the blackberry curve 9300.

So after some analysis, the Jquery and the style sheet are so big for these devices it was about 400K, so I started removing and cleaning, after stripping JQuery out and starting with a new style sheet from scratch, I got a good result with about 2Kb only, now my colleges accepted the performance that was less than a second for loading the pages, or at the max 2 sec for the pages that contain more data.

even if you say the first style is better on the device it was without the curves so a lot similar to the current one. you can check it here

Another problem raised to the surface and that was security, the application I was trying to expose this mobile new interface was on IIS with windows authentication that didn’t work with blackberry at all. So detecting the user and login him in the application was a new task, I didn’t like the idea of user name/pwd specific for the application or even to connect it with Active Directory. I needed something simpler and easy to use. The only Ideas I have are as follow:

· Use simple user PIN code for each user

· Use certificate on devices

· Detect the IP, if its static identify user with it. (im working here ), and filtering by Browser Agent

or if there any other method !!

So until I manage the security part I think this project will be on the shelf for now.

and i need to give this back to a graphic designer that will return the style to look good and to work good to. as below expected pages:-\

CityVille Popular Science Timed Goal Tips

2011-10-26T04:58:00.000+04:00

I finished the mission in 2 minutes, but prepared for it one day before starting.

I was the worst in the timed missions, so this time I had some extra time to fix it. I have 4 time missions not yet started and decided to learn about them first and know how to get the bet result out of them,
For the City Ville Popular Science Timed Goal, and with some Google search, the requirements are:-

And all this for what ?

Gold Trophy: Solar Panel (gives you a 100 percent payout bonus to any buildings you place the Solar Panel next to).
Silver Trophy :50,000 coins .
Bronze Trophy:20,000 coins.

Its simple impossible to make if you start before you prepare, but if you prepare you can finish it after 2min of starting it, you get the highest reward, this is an advance mission so im expecting you to be an advance player too (have large and good CityVille), no need for extra space, no need to build one house.

In short summary:
• Collect from an Observatory Twice
--Have two of them ready to collect before starting
• Increase your Population by 5,000
--Store several high population houses in your storage that will cover 5000 population and when you start the mission return them to their original location
• Have 10,000 Goods
--Have the needed goods storage for that, and fill it with goods before starting the mission.

First Requirement: Collect from an Observatory Twice
Before you start your mission check that you have a Observatory and its ready to collect, it will be ready again after 24 hours, I have two of these so I will wait until both are ready to collect and when Im ready to start this will be simple task. If you have one, ok no problem you will finish in one day (collect first time and wait 24 hours and collect again), or you can build the another ,completed and wait until its ready to collect.

Second Requirement: Increase your Population by 5,000
I started first by some calculation, I will need about 625K$ to build 25 units of housing that have a population of 200 to make the 5000 goal , the energy too so or even the extra space need !!!!!!, but I found a very good tip and that is , you can use your storage for these time goals, you simple store what you have of the largest population building in the storage, your population will go down (lookout you will lose ready collected from the house, very small I don’t care.) after going down for more than 5000 you are ready to start the mission considering the population requirement. So when you start the mission, you only need to empty your storage by returning your housed to their original location. I used about 20 Big kahuna bungalow housed that had a population of 200-280

Third and last requirement: Have 10,000 Goods
This is easy, I have a storage of about 16K, so I filled it before starting the mission. If you don’t have that storage yet, prepare for it, build some goods storage units and seed your farm for that goal, don’t start if you don’t have 10,000 or more in storage.

So enjoy bouns payout of your businesses and homes by 100 percent? after getting the Gold Trophy Solar Panel

Empires & Allies Advance Game Tip

2011-08-19T08:28:00.001+04:00

This is for the people who are at level 55 and don’t have anything to do before leaving the game this may be the last fun part the game can provide. You will need a lot of money & a lot off industry factories level 3

The idea is simply :-

Provide A Full Time Market Service

To start do the following:

1. Use the maximum production option available,

This will take 3 days but don’t worry about time now.

2. Go to all your friends and start buying all the goods.

A long and boring step but you will need to do it.

3. Later put all the goods in your markets for sail.

Optimize your selling strategy by doing the following:

1. Have (or build) at least 7 markets

5 for the ore productions (Iron, Gold, Aluminum, Uranium and Cupper) and one for Wood and another for Oil, if you like add more to sell military this will help too.

2. Group your market in one place so all the goods are checked

3. Put all your Markets in the Center, the first location the visitors can see.

4. Make some market surrounding so it can be easily and instantly checked by your visitors. use empty space or some decorations to make the all the markets more visible

5. Always try to have huge amount of goods in your market

If you have huge amounts of goods your friends will come back to you whenever they need anything

6. Put all your money in the market, put don’t dry yourself leave about 50K-100K, for building and playing

7. Use all the available space for industry production

8. Put your Ground and Air units in the inventory don’t waste land for that.

9. Remove all unnecessary decorations, including the roads and mission required decorations after your complete them.

10. Increase Oil, Wood & whatever Ore production you have, done waist a lot of land for farms; they are not so good on the long run.

Simply everybody now will can come to your island and buy anything they need, so they will visit your market and in the process the visitors will try to gain one-energy by doing 5 simple clicks on anything worthy.

And if they do that you got there 5 clicks for life whenever they play. And your production time will drop.

Even if they don’t buy anything on their first visit they will remember that your island had a huge market off goods and they will come back.

Be aware that Wood is very high in demand so leave a bunch of Wood to refill your market, each time I come back to my market the wood is gone, I will need to increase my Wood industry even though I have a lot of them.

That’s it, you’re at the correct track after the money comes in with huge numbers build your huge fleet and invade everybody and be the largest emperor in Empire and Allies.

ASPNET MVC & JScript Editor Extensions

2011-08-17T08:41:00.000+04:00

If you started MVC, a lot of java will be there and this extension will help,

In summary it do the following:

Brace Matching

Adds support for automatically highlighting the matching opening or closing brace to the one currently at the cursor. Supports matching parenthesis: (), square brackets: [], and curly braces: {}. Braces in strings, comments and regular expression literals are ignored.

Outlining / Cold-folding

Adds support for automatically creating outlining regions for JScript blocks. Blocks are detected via opening and closing curly braces. Braces in strings, comments and regular expression literals are ignored.

Current Word Highlighting

Adds support for highlighting all instances of the word currently at the cursor.

IntelliSense Doc-Comments Support

Adds support for the element in JScript IntelliSense doc-comments to allow display of new lines in IntelliSense tooltips

And to use and download , or more visit the original site, cool job

VPS options for my ASP.NET MVC3 new project

2011-08-17T07:40:00.000+04:00

I was looking for a good VPS for ASP.NET MVC3 hosting, my role was at least 1GB RAM or 2GB Ram , these were my findings, im thinking the best for 2GB RAM is 1&1, and its a very will know company so may be when the time comes it will be my choice, here is the summary of my quick research:

Windows VPS with min 1GB RAM

All have full root access, Raid 5 or 10,expected Bandwidth 100 Mbit

Company	Offer	OS:Windows	32/64 Bit	RAM GB	Traffic GB/month	HDD GB	Extra	Price $/month	One Year $
vpswebserver	Plan 1024	2008 R2 Hyper-V	64	1	1000	50	2 core cpu 1Gbit/sec	25	299.4
webkeepers	Value	2003	64	1	500	50		18	216
accuwebhosting	WebMaster VPS - Opal	2008 Hyper-V	32/64 Bit	1	250	40	SmarterBundle Pro	23	276
softsyshosting	Bronze VPS	Win Hyper-V	64	1	300	30		25	300
1&1	Virtual Server L	Web Server 2008 R2	64	1	1000	20	SSL certificate Android monitoring	29	348
AvailHosting	AvailVP3	2008		1	1700	100		53	460
ultimahosts	ultimahosts			1	800	20		35 +15 setup	435
webhostingbuzz	oVZ Bronze			1	Unlimited	50		30	360
GoDaddy	Economy	2008	64	1	500	15	$100 Google® Adwords® Credit+ $100 Bing™ / Yahoo!® Search Credit1 $50 Facebook® Advertising Credit2 SSL Certificate 10 Fotolia® Credits^ 3 dedicated IPs	30	324
myhosting	Developer VPS	2008 R2		1	600	40	$70 Google Adwords Voucher	47	564
ucvhost	Starter VPS	Win 2003		1	750	10		22	264
pandela	W-30		64	1	1500	30	30-Day Guarantee	54	648
kickassvps	Basic	Win Server 2008	64	1	200	10	30-Day Guarantee 4 CPU Cores SmarterMail-250 like Exchange Mail SmarterTrack-customer service SmarterStats-50 Sites analytics and SEO	35	420
bbvps	HV-1024	Windows Server 2008 Ent.	64	1	Unmetered	60		50	600

Windows VPS with min 2GB RAM

All have full root access, Raid 5 or 10,expected Bandwidth 100 Mbit & price <450

Company	Offer	OS:Windows	32/64 Bit	RAM GB	Traffic GB/month	HDD GB	Extra	Price $/month	One Year $
1&1	Virtual Server XL	Web Server 2008 R2	64	2	2000	40	SSL certificate Android monitoring	49 (-3 mm)	441
GoDaddy	Value	2008	64	2	1000	30	same as above	36	431
ucvhost	SOHO VPS	Win 2003		2	500	20		34	408
webkeepers	Value+	2003	64	2	1000	100		25	300

A Day Made of Glass

2011-07-29T19:34:00.002+04:00

This is the future today

TRANSFORMERS 3

2011-07-07T01:42:00.000+04:00

Transformers - Dark Side of the Moon

This movie was very cool. the story was a straight.

check the trailer too

Searching for Any Word & All Words in Linq to SQL ( C# & VB)

2011-07-05T10:10:00.000+04:00

Yep this is old and not new, but is useful for non large DB's
So let’s say you have a text box with a search button, and some options (Search exact phrase, Search for any work & Search for all words). The first option will be direct and easy to implement but the other two, mmm, a lot of solutions can be found, what I liked is as follow:

   1:  public static class QueryExtensions

   2:  {

   3:      public static IQueryable<TEntity> LikeAny<TEntity>(

   4:          this IQueryable<TEntity> query,

   5:          Expression<Func<TEntity, string>> selector,

   6:          IEnumerable<string> values)

   7:      {

   8:          if (selector == null)

   9:          {

  10:              throw new ArgumentNullException("selector");

  11:          }

  12:          if (values == null)

  13:          {

  14:              throw new ArgumentNullException("values");

  15:          }

  16:          if (!values.Any())

  17:          {

  18:              return query;

  19:          }

  20:          var p = selector.Parameters.Single();

  21:          var conditions = values.Select(v =>

  22:              (Expression)Expression.Call(typeof(SqlMethods), "Like", null,

  23:                  selector.Body, Expression.Constant("%" + v + "%")));

  24:          var body = conditions.Aggregate((acc, c) => Expression.Or(acc, c));

  25:          return query.Where(Expression.Lambda<Func<TEntity, bool>>(body, p));

  26:      }

  27:      public static IQueryable<TEntity> LikeAll<TEntity>(

  28:          this IQueryable<TEntity> query,

  29:          Expression<Func<TEntity, string>> selector,

  30:          IEnumerable<string> values)

  31:      {

  32:          if (selector == null)

  33:          {

  34:              throw new ArgumentNullException("selector");

  35:          }

  36:          if (values == null)

  37:          {

  38:              throw new ArgumentNullException("values");

  39:          }

  40:          if (!values.Any())

  41:          {

  42:              return query;

  43:          }

  44:          var p = selector.Parameters.Single();

  45:          var conditions = values.Select(v =>

  46:              (Expression)Expression.Call(typeof(SqlMethods), "Like", null,

  47:                  selector.Body, Expression.Constant("%" + v + "%")));

  48:          var body = conditions.Aggregate((acc, c) => Expression.Or(acc, c));

  49:          return query.Where(Expression.Lambda<Func<TEntity, bool>>(body, p));

  50:      }

  51:  }

With ref. to:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2010639/linq-to-sql-any-keyword-search-query

And because the project I was working on was in VB, I thought this will help too:

   1:  Imports System.Linq.Expressions

   2:  Imports System.Data.Linq.SqlClient

3:

   4:  Public NotInheritable Class QueryExtensions

   5:      Private Sub New()

   6:      End Sub

   7:      '<System.Runtime.CompilerServices.Extension()> _

   8:      Public Shared Function LikeAny(Of TEntity)(ByVal query As IQueryable(Of TEntity), ByVal selector As Expression(Of Func(Of TEntity, String)), ByVal values As IEnumerable(Of String)) As IQueryable(Of TEntity)

   9:          If selector Is Nothing Then

  10:              Throw New ArgumentNullException("selector")

  11:          End If

  12:          If values Is Nothing Then

  13:              Throw New ArgumentNullException("values")

  14:          End If

  15:          If Not values.Any() Then

  16:              Return query

  17:          End If

  18:          Dim p = selector.Parameters.[Single]()

  19:          Dim conditions = values.[Select](Function(v) DirectCast(Expression.[Call](GetType(SqlMethods), "Like", Nothing, selector.Body, Expression.Constant("%" & Convert.ToString(v) & "%")), Expression))

  20:          Dim body = conditions.Aggregate(Function(acc, c) Expression.[Or](acc, c))

  21:          Return query.Where(Expression.Lambda(Of Func(Of TEntity, Boolean))(body, p))

  22:      End Function

  23:      Public Shared Function LikeAll(Of TEntity)(ByVal query As IQueryable(Of TEntity), ByVal selector As Expression(Of Func(Of TEntity, String)), ByVal values As IEnumerable(Of String)) As IQueryable(Of TEntity)

  24:          If selector Is Nothing Then

  25:              Throw New ArgumentNullException("selector")

  26:          End If

  27:          If values Is Nothing Then

  28:              Throw New ArgumentNullException("values")

  29:          End If

  30:          If Not values.Any() Then

  31:              Return query

  32:          End If

  33:          Dim p = selector.Parameters.[Single]()

  34:          Dim conditions = values.[Select](Function(v) DirectCast(Expression.[Call](GetType(SqlMethods), "Like", Nothing, selector.Body, Expression.Constant("%" & Convert.ToString(v) & "%")), Expression))

  35:          Dim body = conditions.Aggregate(Function(acc, c) Expression.And(acc, c))

  36:          Return query.Where(Expression.Lambda(Of Func(Of TEntity, Boolean))(body, p))

  37:      End Function

  38:  End Class

Note: Dont forget to include the references
and the using it will be somthing like this

   1:  string[] Words= new string[] { "one", "two", "three" };

   2:  var AnyWordResults = Query.LikeAny(s => s.Subject, Words);

   3:  var AllWordResults = Query.LikeAll(s => s.Subject, Words);

Watch the MIX Keynotes Live, Apr 12 & 13

2011-04-12T15:18:00.004+04:00

Yes you can watch it live even if you are not there, live from Las Vegas,
April 12 & 13 at 9am PDT (8pm UAE time), via live.visitmix.com.

And what if you are interested in more than the keynotes, you need to wait not more than 24 hours and you can online view or download them

If you like to know more about mix check this link MIX2011

dbForge SQL Complete

2011-04-11T20:47:00.002+04:00

I found a very good free tool for SQL Management studio; it will make your life typing t-sql much easer.
Download link: http://ping.fm/dswd7
Select the express edition it’s free.

Note: if you installed Visual Studio SP1 on your computer and you had MS SQL Management studio 2008 R2, Intelsense will stop working, there is a very large fix from Microsoft to fix it, but this solution is much better in my eyes

Simulating sending email

2011-04-02T19:04:00.000+04:00

This is not new but very helpful if you build applications and in the business process need to send emails.

The old way that I was using is to go inside the code and remark some lines and put my email instead of the receiver and make some tests and see the email in my inbox, sometimes we forget to update that part and when we go to production emails come to my inbox or other problems that can appear because we marked some code.

So better than that change the email configuration in the web config to something like the following:

<configuration>
    <system.net>
    <mailSettings>
      <smtp deliveryMethod="SpecifiedPickupDirectory">
        <network host="ignored" />
        <specifiedPickupDirectory pickupDirectoryLocation="c:\email" />
      </smtp>
    </mailSettings>
  </system.net>

After running and sending email you will get these emails in a directory and you can check them with there there format. This will even be helpful if you don’t have the email server setting at the time your developing.

In the end when you go to production only use the correct web.config file setting. In my work I don’t deploy my testing web.config because of all the db connection setting and other stuff. So when you test your application locally you will receive the emails in the C:\email directory and when you go to production it will be there for you working without the need to change code, recompile and test.

2011-03-13T12:40:00.002+04:00

Invitation: Qt Training – Dubai, March 14-15, 2011

Forum Nokia is hosting a free 2-day intensive training workshop on Qt in Dubai, U.A.E. on 14-15 March 2011. Based on the popular Qt Creator IDE, the Nokia Qt SDK brings the power of Qt to Symbian, Maemo, and MeeGo application development. Learn how Qt cuts Symbian lines of code by up to 70% and at the same time delivers native app performance, platform integration, and look and feel. Also find out how to reach 100 million Symbian smartphones and 150 million to come in 190 countries with Qt and Ovi Store. If you are new to Qt and would like to know more about it, check out the Forum Nokia Qt page.

This will be a hands-on, classroom-style, setting where developers will be taught how to create mobile applications using Qt for Symbian smartphones, focusing primarily on smartphones like the Nokia N8, Nokia C7 and upcoming Nokia E7.

If you are curious to learn more about Qt then this workshop will allow you to ask experts about its technical capabilities, exchange ideas with your peers, and see for yourself how Qt will provide increased flexibility while reducing long term support costs.

http://wl4.peer360.com/b/eHo6g641dO21c0ZDCRUs/mle.asp?hl=-1&CID=127074%20

Microsoft Tech.ed Middle East 2011

2011-03-10T13:46:00.029+04:00

Great days at the event a lot of new subjects and new people to communicate and share ideas and thoughts

Subjects that I loved:
Cloud Computing & Online Services

Using the Cloud to Engage Across a Diversity of Devices – Lessons Learned from Using Windows Azure to Connect Via Native Web, Facebook, Android, iPhone, iPad and WP7 Clients
The Windows Azure AppFabric Caching Service
A Lap Around SQL Azure

Web Platforms

What’s New in ASP.NET & Visual Studio for Web Developers
Building Rich Web Applications with Microsoft ASP.NET
ASP.NET MVC 3 & A Deep Dive into Razor
Visual Studio 2010 Tips and Tricks
The Future of Parallel Programming in the .NET Framework

Windows Phone 7 Applications

Understanding Marketplace and Making Money
Understanding the Windows Phone 7 Development Tools
Showcasing we.Muslim for Developing Silverlight

The event was full with great things.

CityVille Tips

2010-12-20T01:27:00.001+04:00

A cool new game from Zynga, in general if you know SimCity you will get the idea quickly. What I liked with this game is the game dynamics. First the economics is based on getting supplies (From farming & etc) and selling goods that will earn you money. In the
process you will use some energy. So lets start our tips:

Tip 1: To make the game move faster (get more profit) maximize your population by doing whatever is necessary.

Tip 2: Make sure to build farm plots to cover your needs (best is Corn in my case, im in level 20).

Tip 3: When you build your business don’t forget the energy consummation. So do the following:

Increase your Tea, Toys & Berger shops in the beginning
don’t build Bakery, Flowers & Video Game shops these will drain your energy

Then when you have enough money and other shops are open to you do the following:

Go with the Shoe shop, it’s the best in my current level

Tip 4:
Surround your shops with Barricades as much as possible(they cost 200, increase surroundings 4% & don’t use a lot of space)

Tip 5: Get 200% more from each business

If you need a lot of money quickly as for the cinema task, a good idea is to make a hot bonus zone, a location to move your business to before you collect the profit.
My best design is as follow and its build from items that you already was forest to have, and some others that you can buy, it will cost but it will cover it cost very quickly.

This is the implementation for it. this will give you 203% bonus

The math behind the tips
For Farming:

supply	15	70	110	30	45	80	90
cost	20	46	62	28	36	49	52

So select the 110/62 and that’s the Corn , its the best and about its long time to be ready, farm several times depending on your timing so you get continues supplies and you don’t get your storage full or get out of supply

For the shops:

Shops	bakery	flowers	tea	toys	Berger	video game	dinner	cosmetic	pool	bicycle	se clothing	coca	sea food	shoe
earning	40	95	320	180	240	50	230	120	420	330	368	441	609	572
supply	10	25	100	50	75	10	50	25	100	75	80	100	140	130
price	200	400	600	800	1000	1300	1600	1900	2200	2500	$20	$15	7500	3500

I started with the above table that made me make the worst decision, and that’s to go with video games. And after a day , my energy was out and everything stops because the shops are waiting for you to recharge with supplies. So I updated the table to see energy usage and got the following:

Shops	bakery	flowers	tea	toys	Berger	video game	dinner	cosmetic	pool	bicycle	se clothing	coca	sea food	shoe
earning	400	380	320	360	319	500	460	480	420	439	460	440	435	440.44
supply	100	100	100	100	99.8	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100.1
Energy	10	4	1	2	1.4	10	2	4	1	1.4	1.25	1	0.72	0.77

So you can see from the above. To use 100 supply you will need 10 energy and yes you will get 500 money, but if you don’t have the needed energy everything will stop and you will be stock to recharge energy and before you know it you are stuck again.
So go with the tea, or Berger in the beginning and then jump to the shoes, with less than one energy you will get about 440 energy and that is great for now.

Ask The Godfather - Mafia Wars-

2010-08-14T13:31:00.000+04:00

If you were a fan of the Mafia Wars Facebook online game (or My Space), this will be intresting.

To sort your mafia and promote the best members to get:

Make jobs require less enery and get more experience & Money
Get more money from fighting & robbing
Get bonus to attacks & defense.

Check the video below for detail steps, and visit the site to Select your Top Mafia
By the way if you have any comments on the site or suggestion i wil be happy to add them too :)

After completing the steps above you will get your top mafia members and the game will be easyer, this is not a cheat, its only a tool to help you out.

Facebook Resources

2010-08-02T11:47:00.003+04:00

Facebook resource as books and articles are everywhere these days so I will try to list the most common and add some comments on them, my focus is for Facebook development books and resources.

The basic list is as follow:

Facebook API Developers Guide
Facebook Cookbook
Building.Facebook.Applications.For.Dummies
Learning Facebook Application Development
Developing Facebook Platform Applications
FBML Essentials
Facebook API Developers Guide
Facebook Applications 100 Success Secrets

For link reference the Facebook official site is the best for starting up your app (Facebook development)

Other books but not related to development are as follow:

Social Networking Spaces
Essential Facebook Development
Facebook Era
Facebook Marketing For Dummies
Sams Teach Yourself Facebook in 10 Minutes
Facebook the missing manual 2nd Edition
Building Facebook Applications For Dummies
Facebook For Dummies. 2Ed
Facebook Marketing
150 Facebook Powertools

My child may start programing Android sooner than I expected.

2010-07-15T01:26:00.000+04:00

A lot of my friends are IT people because I work in an IT environment, but only us (developer) my build application on the mobile, but these days with the new updates and mobile rush and competition between all companies, I believe this story will start changing.

Not only my colleagues that are IT oriented as network engineers or system administrators can know star developing on mobile application, but even very young children that are in school and have the interest in phones and computers (these days most of them do). Simply it don’t require any programming knowledge.

With the new development environment from Google called App Inventor, normal people without any programming skills can star. The will not do 3D game programming at the beginning (but really who star 3D programming anyway). Thy may start with some basic steps that will feed their ideas and I believe we will see from them more than expected. Now our children will have the ability to program their phones. (if they have Android mobile, that they will request sooner than expected too).

So what is App Inventor, "You can build just about any app you can imagine with App Inventor", as from the Google labs site. But really if you check the Sample Apps, I believe you will be impressed.

So it’s the easiest way to create apps for your phone. If you are interested and have an Android device. You can request an invitation and start doing what you thought about technology and knowledge that was outside your league.

Sweet Kids Update

2010-07-12T02:36:00.002+04:00

I updated the sharing tools for the Sweet kids site, im using AddThis, its very simple and cool, you can check the link from here (Sweet Kids )

I used some extra icon packs too, go to there site and you will find everything you need, i was intending to check other sharing tools and component but realy this one covered all my site needs.

Sweet Kids web project in beta testing phase

2010-07-11T16:05:00.002+04:00

Hi, a long time no posts, I was working on a small web project and now it’s online. (you can access it from here)

It’s called Sweet Kids, it’s about uploading the best and most beautiful picture of your babies and voting for them with your family and friends, you can vote for other cute babies too. After voting there is always a top list of votes for the cutest babies.

Top of all Time: the most sweet baby picture
Top of the month: from the name, the top most voted picture during this month
Top of the week: from the name too, the top most voted picture during this week
Top of the day: from the name too, the top most voted picture during this day

After compiling a number of photos I will arrange more top list depending on gender, nationality, age and other characteristics.

Currently the site is in beta testing, so don’t be mad if you see something not working, please your feedback and comments will help a lot to improve the site.

I tried to use the best component and tools to arrange the gallery and the uploading take a look at them they are very cool (most of the are jQuery pluging):

For the voting gallery im using galleriffic

For cropping the uploading images im using Jcrop

For uploading control I’m using uploadify

For displaying images from the gallery I’m using PrettyPhoto

Mobile Surface (3D without glasses)

2010-06-30T10:05:00.001+04:00

Microsoft is in the phase of presenting a new technology to the market that will change the balance of power and mobile distribution, I believe that all high tech mobile owners will throw there mobiles and get ones with this new Microsoft technolog.

To see more check the following links

So know if you have this new mobile technology and have any flat surface, you will have your monitor (screen), mouse keyboard & even touch screen.

Sixth sense technology is coming (microsoft demos surface )

If you want more fun and if you are not still convince that this will work see the simple version of what Microsoft is working on,

The windows phone

Net Fundamentals

2010-06-26T14:40:00.000+04:00

Net Fundamentals

View more presentations from Ali Taki.

Asp Net Advance Topics

2010-06-26T14:38:00.000+04:00

Asp Net Advance Topics

View more presentations from Ali Taki.

WD My Book Studio (2TB External Hard Drive)

2010-06-21T08:50:00.003+04:00

I have a large movie library and I will not start talking about the series too, currently about 400GB movies, I didn't see all of them but I believe I will have sometime in my vacation or on a Sunday/Friday night, so at that moment I will love to select something from my library and see it with the family. The problem was to store all that.

I selected a 2TB hard disk from my near computer equipment office (Speed for Computers) and the most things that I was focusing on were size and speed, with the WD My Book Studio I got both and more.

The size was 2TB, and against its price it was very cool, the speed was impressive, I have a local drive that’s 1TB and WD 2TB is faster (yes its an old 1TB drive). I have USB 2.0 connection that’s good and two FireWire 800 too (now we are talking).

It also includes in the same package a FireWire converter from 800 to 400 adapter cable for older systems with a FW 400 port.

It comes with backup software that will backup all your computer data with very simple and useful interface. So backup of your important family photos or important development software (I'm a coder) is one click a way.

The ink display on the devise is very helpful, with the free space left and a bar to show it, its very easy to know were are you in terms of space. I have a Windows 7 PC but the drive supports MAC too. It also have a very cool flashing let to tell you the state of the device (by the way it's also GreenPower Technology).

The dives design is cool too, a silver cover that looks very cool on my desktop near my monitors, it needs an external power devise to work too.

The WD SmartWare software can be updated (really the first thing I did) , it promises to increase the performance x5, I really did this first so I don’t know the old performance but two computers and two laptops had a very quick detect for the device and were all communicating smoothing.

The software is located on a separate write-protected partition on the drive that appears like a CD ROM when the drive is connected. (you can leave it and use it or you can remove/hide it).

The only sound you hear is a small quiet hesh hash when it is being used. When the drive automatically shuts down (Is not actually in use), there is no sound at all.

Its simply the most attractive device I used from a long time.

A new update to the Light Beta Sudoku

2010-06-21T02:25:00.001+04:00

You can see the live version here Light Beta Sudoku

I made some small enhancement to the site, First completed the Auto Generation of New Sudoku Puzzles, and filled the database for the next two years, so Daily Sudoku is now active with the Complexity setting.

Yes you can select the level to play and then you can select from Random game or from the Daily Sudoku.

I updated the Action menu so it will display checkboxes with the help of symbol fonts, it helped to make the menu lighter and faster to load.

I updated the Sudoku Possibilities so that it will work with other browsers like Google Chrome & etc. made some small color adjustments too.

With a day or two the site will be fully functional, and I will try to add Google AdSense or/and Amazon recommendations too.

Working with this project was fun and I hope I can close it by the end of this week.