ImpressionSoft@Work

Adobe Illustrator alternative

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 13:08:00 +0000

I just discovered a great tool to create vector graphics - Creative Docs .NET. It is free for personal use.

The application requires .Net Framework 2.0 to run. I haven't explore every single features in Creative Docs. I guess it is a good companion to Paint.Net, a free image and photo editing software built using .Net 2.0 as well.

On the other hand, both Creative Docs and Paint.Net are still get stuck at .Net 2.0 world. May be the poor performance of WPF is scaring the development teams away...or there are other concerns...I am curious....

Isolated Storage in Silverlight 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 08:49:00 +0000

Firstly, the default limit is 100 KB, but you can increase the quota. The quota increases to predefined levels: 100 KB, 1 MB, 5 MB, 10 MB or unlimited. E.g. when request to increase the isolated storage to 9 MB, it actually increases to 10 MB. The increase quota action must be user-initiated, e.g. a button click event, then a Yes/No dialog box will pop up to ask the user whether to allow the quota increase.


Dim store As IsolatedStorageFile
store = IsolatedStorageFile.GetUserStoreForApplication
dim result as Boolean =  store.TryIncreaseQuotaTo(10 * 1024 * 1024) '2MB
If result = False Then DoSomeThing()
store.Dispose()

For the same Silverlight application, the same isolated storage is accessible from different web browsers, which is good. Regarding on how to save and retrieve data from isolated storage, it is exactly the same as Winforms.

Save data:


Dim store As IsolatedStorageFile
store = IsolatedStorageFile.GetUserStoreForApplication
Dim fs As New IsolatedStorageFileStream(fileName, IO.FileMode.Create, store)
Dim sw As New IO.StreamWriter(fs)
sw.Write(stringContent)
sw.Close()
fs.Dispose()
store.Dispose()

Read data:


Dim store As IsolatedStorageFile
 store = IsolatedStorageFile.GetUserStoreForApplication
Dim fs As New IsolatedStorageFileStream(fileName, IO.FileMode.OpenOrCreate, store)
Dim sr As New IO.StreamReader(fs)

Dim s As String

= sr.ReadToEnd
sr.Close()
fs.Dispose()
store.Dispose()

Open file dialog in Silverlight 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 08:14:00 +0000

To open a file from client side, we need to use a Systems.Windows.Controls.OpenFileDialog object. I found the OpenFileDialog class in SL 2.0 quite interesting. Compare to WinForms counterpart, it has fewer properties and some property names are renamed too but still quite straightforward.

The surprising part is the return type of SelectedFile property. Instead of return the file path of string type, it returns System.Windows.Controls.FileDialogFileInfo object.

FileDialogFileInfo has a Name property, but it returns the file name only, not the full path of the file. I guess there is no way to retrieve the full path.

To read the content of the selected file, I need to use either:
FileDialogFileInfo.OpenText() which returns a System.IO.StreamReader object to read text,
or,
FileDialogFileInfo.OpenRead() which returns System.IO.Stream to read non-text content.

Example (select an image file and display the image on the button):


Dim dlg As New OpenFileDialog
       If dlg.ShowDialog() <> DialogResult.OK Then Return
       Dim img As New Image
       Dim bitmap As New BitmapImage
       bitmap.SetSource(dlg.SelectedFile.OpenRead)
       img.Source = bitmap
aButton.Content = img

Open file dialog in Silverlight 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 08:14:00 +0000

Stumpedia: The human powered search engine

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:20:00 +0000

Stumpedia.com is a social search engine that relies on human participation to index, organize, and review the world wide web. The guided search model is dependent on crowdsourcing and the benefits of social media participation.

I don't believe Stumpedia can give more relevant search results than Google or Yahoo!, but it is interesting to see how far this model can go. Stumpedia just released its new feature - Instant Answers, where we can get real people to help us in real time provided there are somebody online.

Earth Day 2008: Eco-friendly logos

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:50:00 +0000

Major search engines changed their logo in support of Earth Day.

Google

Yahoo

AOL

And most surprisingly, green Flock browser...

You can download Flock Eco-Edition from here.

Oosah: A hub to manage your online media

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:32:00 +0000

Oosah offers free 2 GB online storage space. But it is more than a storage service, it is well integrated with YouTube, Facebook, Picasa and Flickr where you can drag-and-drop a media file from Oosah to the other social network accounts. Basically, it serve as a hub where you can manage all your online media files from one place. The third party integrations reduce the problem of login into multiple accounts and perform various tasks by some degrees.

Another important feature is that, Oosah allows you to share your Oosah-hosted files as a widget which can be embedded into blogs or social network profiles.

Google wants to do Genetic indexing

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:43:00 +0000

Google never feel its database is huge enough, so according to Business Week, Google wants to index your DNA too.

Excerpts from the article:

Google wants to plant an early stake in a potentially large new market around genetic data. 'We are interested in supporting companies and making investments in companies that [bolster] our mission statement, which is organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful,' Google spokesman Andrew Pederson says. 'We felt it was important to get involved now, at the early stage, to better understand the information generated by this fast-moving field.'

3D Video Panoramas

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 07:48:00 +0000

Making photo stitches into 360 degrees panorama are fairly common. Immersive Media is taking one step further by creating 360° video panorama, which is a very different experience of watching normal video. In the video, you can drag and move your mouse cursor along to view the content from different directions, which is amazing!! Check out the gallery here.

Startup Delayer: Make Windows startup faster

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 07:21:00 +0000

A slow Windows startup is caused by too many applications are launching when Windows has started. One way to solve this problem is to disable some applications from launching during Windows startup. However, some applications have no way to allow you to disable this feature, but you can use msconfig to change the behaviour.

Completely disabling an application may not be desirable. This is where Startup Delayer becomes useful. Besides allowing you to enable or disable applications from running, Startup Delayer permits you to specify how many seconds after Windows has started up before running each program.

Startup Delayer is a free software. So far, I haven't encounter any problem running Startup Delayer on Windows Vista.

Baywords: Uncensored blogging service

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 06:30:00 +0000

Excerpts from Baywords.com:

Many blogs are being shut down for uncomfortable thoughts and ideas. We will not do that. Our goal is to protect freedom of speech and your thoughts. As long as you don’t break any Swedish laws in your blog, we will defend it.

I wonder where the service will bring us. Luckily the service does not allow contents that break Swedish laws, so there probably won't be any drug-use, or any illegal activity blogs. But I wonder how people will use this kind of service, so I checked through the list of BayWords blogs, many of blogs are in foreign languages which I don't understand, otherwise, I haven't see anything too weird so far.

The service is powered by WordPress. Since it is just launched last week, it does not have the bells-and-whistles of other blogging platform yet. Nevertheless, Baywords have 10,000 blogs registered within 3 days, eliminating those blogs with only single testing post, I guess number of active blogs are around 5,000.

WidgetBox:Thousands of widgets for Facebook, Blogger and more

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 06:14:00 +0000

WidgetBox directories listing thousands of widgets which can be embed into your blog, social network profile and web page. The widgets are mostly user-generated, many of them are pretty cool.

Embedding a widget is very simple, you simply tell WidgetBox the desired target platform (Blogger, Wordpress, MySpace etc), and WidgetBox will provide you the embeddable code. Another alternative is to use the installer tool from WidgetBox to install the widget to your web page.

The best part of the service is that it is so easy to create my own new widget. Simply feed any content (whether it is Flash, RSS feed, Google gadget or a web page) then WidgetBox will turn it into a widget which can be easily share with others. No prgramming knowledge is required. The only limitation is the styling: The output widget is functional but does not look very attractive.

Hilariously misleading domain names

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 06:34:00 +0000

What is misleading domain name? For example, how do you read this:

www.TherapistFinder.com

or

www.TheRapistFinder.com ?

Now you get the idea.

Although I occasionally see some misleading domain names, I don't take notes of them like this guy. He compiled a list of misleading domain names.

In the future, do spend some times thinking about your domain name before registering it.

Cluttered desktop folders become art

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 06:25:00 +0000

I like to keep my desktop as clean as possible, so I normally don't have cluttered desktop problem. But it seems having tons of folders on your desktop is not totally bad, it can invoke sense of artistry too..

More pics at Macenstein.

The World's Hardest Game

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 06:17:00 +0000

First, the screenshot of level 1...

You still cannot see what is so hard about it? Go and try out yourself, then let me know how much time you have taken to complete the first level. It is a crazy game, you need speed and accuracy.

Yahoo to Take on Google Analytics

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 06:00:00 +0000

Having seen Google set up their Google Analytics product for free and then seen Microsoft release their version of a free web analytics tool (Microsoft adCenter Analytics beta), Yahoo! wants to do the same thing.

Instead of building the tool from scratch, Yahoo! recently purchased IndexTools, an enterprise-level web analytics service provider. Dennis Mortensen, COO of Index Tools announced on his blog that Yahoo! would set the service free, but no news regarding the release date of the free service.

Personally, I am excited about it, since I don't like the Google Analytics.

Google Earth 4.3: Still ahead of Microsoft Virtual Earth

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 05:43:00 +0000

A couple of days ago, I watched a video demo on the new Windows Live Maps, which introduces the 3D rendering of Birds Eye view. And now, it appears Google Earth 4.3 is doing the same thing too.

Google Earth is doing more, it even allows us to adjust the time in order to watch the sunrise and sunset in Google Earth. Also, Google Earth has the Street View feature, which I don't think Microsoft Virtual Earth has it. On the other hand, Windows Live Maps has some nice enhancements on traffic info. Specifically, Windows Live Maps will suggest a rerouting to you based on heavy traffic.

Below is the video demo of Google Earth 4.3.

Start your own video wiki at WikiVideo

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 05:50:00 +0000

Wikipedia is undoubtedly a very successful wiki project. Since then, many web companies join the wiki market to allow you to start your own wiki. Among the most popular ones are:

PbWiki - recently, PbWiki introduced the version 2.0. It has some nice features, but the data storage limit for free version is too limiting.

Google Site - it is part of Google Apps. Hence you need a Google Apps account in order to use it. To sign up for Google Apps account, you need to own a domain name, e.g. www.myCompany.com. Besides this restriction, it is a good choice too.

Wikia - everything is good except I cannot remove the footer that Wikia puts in.

Wetpaint - In my mind, this is the best wiki host. It has the best structure, thus it is easier for users to navigate within the wiki. It offers some very nice looking skins too. Again, same as Wikia, I can't remove the footer Wetpaint puts in.

But recently, there is a new startup joins the market called WikiVideo, which allows you to create a video/audio wiki. It comes with two languages, English version, and Italian version. Unlike other wiki sites, which you can only embed a video into a page, WikiVideo hosts your videos, i.e. you can uploads you videos directly to WikiVideo.

WikiVideo accepts all the popular video formats (AVI, MPG, WMV, MOV, MP4...). But the most interesting feature is, it doesn't convert your videos into FLV like YouTube. It simply displays the video on the web page as it is, which may be or may not be a good thing. The recommended file size is 20-100 MB, but I am not sure whether this is a strict rule or not.

Microsoft designs UAC to annoy you

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 04:48:00 +0000

UAC is among the most hated feature of Windows Vista. At recent RSA security conference 2008 in San Francisco, Microsoft's David Cross said: "The reason we put UAC into the platform was to annoy users. I'm serious".

In fact, the logic is that the annoyance should encourage application vendors to eliminate as many unnecessary privilege escalations as possible by causing users to complain about all the UAC 'Cancel or Allow' prompts.

Microsoft's strategy is actually quite successful. Personally, I never care about security privilege when developing software before this UAC stuff. Since the release of UAC, I noticed my applications will crash and throwing ugly error messages becuse of this UAC thing. As a result, I have to change my software development behaviour to avoid the UAC prompts.

However, Microsoft's strategy comes at the expense of user experience, and Microsoft get most of the complaints for the meaningless security warnings. As stated by Ars Technica, one of the most popular post-Vista install activities is disabling UAC. Yeah, it is true, I disabled UAC after using Vista for 3 days.

Source: Ars Technica

Firefox logo spotted in deep space by the Hubble Telescope!!

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 04:16:00 +0000

The photo is captured by the Hubble Space Telescope way back in March 2005. It is an image of V838 Monocerotis star which lies near the edge of our Milky Way Galaxy. The same photo is overlaid with a familiar logo, an the fits in nicely!!! Actually, I think Internet Explorer logo can fit in too. It does look like a big 'e' as well.

Source: Firefox Logo Spied In Deep Space

Google Maps camera records a police arrest

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 03:26:00 +0000

A police patrol car arrests a man and that scene is captured live by Google Maps camera!!! Explore the Google Maps street view at here...

(via Google Sightseeing)

In case you haven't be entertained enough, please read this: The Strangest Sights in Google Earth from PC World.

Funny video about Windows Vista

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 03:11:00 +0000

For non-Vista users, the video only captured the weaknesses in more exaggerated way, Vista isn't that bad...

Indonesia blocked access to YouTube and MySpace

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 04:57:00 +0000

On February, I blogged about 'Pakistan causes worldwide YouTube outage'. And now, it is Indonesia's turn.

Indonesia blocked access to YouTube and MySpace in effort to stop Indonesians from viewing the anti-Islam film. Oh gosh...what are they doing?? I hope Malaysia will NOT do this kind of funny thing...this really make Islamic countries sound like no freedom of speech, etc to foreigners....There is no use of blocking..if the users intend to view the film, they can still access through proxy servers, bit torrents etc....why make the country's reputation sound bad? I don't understand.

Top Singaporean blogger is featured in top American blog

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 04:20:00 +0000

I am surprised to find Xiaxue, one of the top bloggers in Singapore, is 'featured' in fake Steve Job's blog (Fake Steve Job is among the top 20 bloggers in USA). I seldom see Asian bloggers receive such 'honour'...

Check out Fake Steve Job posting about Xiaxue...

Magic Pen: Crayon Physics clone

noreply@blogger.com (ccchai) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 07:00:00 +0000

3 weeks ago, I blogged about Crayon Physics Deluxe, a cool physics puzzle game which is not yet released. But over the weekend I found a Crayon Physics clone!!! It is called Magic Pen, the game play is exactly the same as Crayon Physics. Maybe both games are from the same developer. If not, who is the copycat?

I figure that this game shouldn't be too hard to clone using Silverlight 2.0 + Farseer Physics Engine, but I am lazy to try....