The Development of PhotoLion

Side work news

2006-02-27T08:04:00.000-07:00

Well one of the side things that has been keeping me from working on the development has taken a turn. I signed up a while ago to do a podcast on Podcasternews Network at http://www.podcasternews.com/ and started producing shows in January. This past week my show over there was one of the ones HBO selected to be included in their promotional campaign of their new series 'Big Love' that is starting on March 12th immediately after "The Sopranos".

For the next two weeks, my podcast there at the Podcasternews will be sponsored by 'Big Love' the new series from HBO that "explores the complicated life of a modern day polygamist." With these promotions on my show that turns me into a "professional" podcaster, I guess.

http://www.podcasternews.com/

For Dummies ... for Dummies

2006-02-09T23:05:00.000-07:00

http://www.buzzmachine.com/?tag=fordummies

So this is joining in the protest "for Dummies" posts as I feel that they are really being dummies for trying to get credit for dummies.

I actually own some "for Dummies" quick reference books (they are good for quick reference for stuff I know but don't use often so forget the proper syntax, etc). But that may change...

I wonder if I posted a picture of my desk with their books on it if they would come after me for posting a picture proving their books actually sell and are used.

New VistaDB release

2005-10-26T11:44:00.000-07:00

And you can get a free copy like I am trying to do by posting this Press release about the new version.

New VistaDB 2.1 database for .NET has been released. This free update includes over 60 improvements, including new support for .NET 2.0 and Visual Studio .NET 2005. VistaDB is a small-footprint, embedded SQL database alternative to Jet/Access, MSDE and SQL Server Express 2005 that enables developers to build .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0 applications. Features SQL-92 support, small 500KB embedded footprint, free 2-User VistaDB Server for remote TCP/IP data access, royalty free distribution for both embedded and server, Copy 'n Go! deployment, managed ADO.NET Provider, data management and data migration tools. Free trial is available for download.
- Learn more about VistaDB
- Repost this to your blog and receive a FREE copy of VistaDB 2.1!

ISV Buddy program

2005-10-17T11:13:00.000-07:00

Found a post over on the blog for "Component Factory" and the development of their products. His blog is one of the ones that inspired me to keep this blog on my trek through the development of this application.

Anyway, his post talks about the Microsoft ISV buddy program. This gives you a direct contact with someone INSIDE Microsoft to contact for issues, advice and questions. I am going to investigate it more and see wether it is something for me.

If interested the link to the program is below, and the link to the blog post is at the start of this post.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/isv/isvbuddy/default.aspx

Enforcing code standards

2005-09-24T17:22:00.000-07:00

While looking around for code standards and best practices I saw many references to the FxCop product. It had many good things said about it. It is free download so I guess I will have to get it and check it out.

Anything that helps enforce code standards CAN be a good thing. It is much easier for an automated "code review" to enforce standards than haveing a peer review. And since I don't really have any peers on this project I couldn't do that anyways.

I also found a few articles on using FxCop
http://aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com/articles/060204-1.aspx
http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/Code/2005/April/CodingPractices.asp

And the location for user-submitted rules (and other items) is:
HERE

Interesting read

2005-09-24T16:50:00.000-07:00

A good comprehensive post of the different naming conventions for .NET programming. I knew most of these, and the suggestion of moving away from Hungarian notation.

I am mainly listing it here just for my reference, so i can find it later.

Finding best practices on writing plugin interfaces

2005-09-18T17:17:00.000-07:00

Well after deciding to design first and code later, I started looking around the net for some articles on designing plugin interfaces.

The article listed above with this post, covers the basic fairly well. The one thing that came from this article is the idea of a second interface for the plugins to communicate BACK to the host application. This is now a second interface I have to think about and decide if I need this, and then if I feel it is needed then I would need to determine what kind of feedbacks I want the plugins to be able to send back to the host application.

But for the interface for the plugins to implement I am still determining exactly what methods and properties I want in the interface. I am using the IBlogExtension (I think that's the name) as a starting point for ideas. This is the plugin interface that RSSBandit uses as the plugin architecture and the one I had to implement in the RSSBandit plugin I wrote.

I am still looking for some articles on what process should/could be used to determine what properties and methods to use for, as well as naming structure for them. For example the IBlogExtension has properties named HasConfiguration which is used to indicate whether this plugin has a configuration screen. The question is should you setup properties like this or a single Implements properties that is a bit masked field for the different possible optional items the plugin can implement. I am just looking around to see if it is just personal preference or if there is a best practice.

At the end of the article he says "... feel free to use the PluginServices.vb file in your own applications." I just downloaded it and will be trying to use it in my application when I get to coding it. I am a VERY BIG believer in not reinventing the wheel, if a collection of code is there to use for iterating over a series of files and finding ones that support the requested inteface as well as a factory for instantiating the plugin I will use it.

Design First, Code Later?

2005-09-12T18:43:00.000-07:00

So now that I covered WHY I am writing the PhotoLion application it is time for a post about HOW I plan on writing the application.

The first I did was NOT TO START WRITING the application. I started taking some notes (mental and also in OneNote) on how I would want it to work. I am still up in the air about the interface for the main host application.

You may notice I said "host application", that is because during my design I determmined I would write it using an extensible plugin style. I want it this way so that I can write the inital application and a main plugin or two and get to using it. Then as I find more time I can add more functionality in new plugins, and can distribute them easily.

I came to the decision to use plugins due to several factors:

I wanted to get the inital parts done as I really need the application written so I can use it to get my pictures organized
I have several things I want it to do and they may not always be done on each picture so really needed flexibility
I know that I don't know everything, so I wanted to be able to add new functionality at a later point
I wanted to extend my skillset and learn new programming techniques and plugin arcitechure like this is something I have not done before

I have written COM components and such, as well as ActiveX controls, so this is not something completely unknown to me. I also implemented a Plugin for RSSBandit to handle podcasts, when I first got interested in Podcasts, but dropped work on that because :

I found Doppler, and quickly donated some money for it even though it is free because it is a great application.
RSSBandit is going to implement support for enclosures inside the application.

So after deciding on the fact I wanted it to be plugin based it was an easy decisiong to write it in .NET (which language is still up in the air). I used VB.net for the PodcastLion Plugin for RSSBandit although I had to convert the plugin's interface file from C# to VB.net so I could understand it as I am a VB programmer, and that was my first foray into .NET

Now that I have been doing some more .NET development at my current position I am getting more comfortable using .NET and really can use both C# and VB.NET equally (of course that is still not at the same lavel as I can do coding in VB6) so I am still unsure what language I plan on using. I am leaning towards C# for the Plugin Interface, so that I can use the XML Commenting support in C# (next version of VB.NET will support this better from what I have read) and then probably use VB.NET for the interface part of the application.

Since the general design is pretty set and coding environment is decided on, I am getting close to be able to start writing some code. I am planning on this processing beingiterative and having to do more design after I get into the coding and find any design points and issues I missed initially or went the wrong direction.

Application Background

2005-09-12T18:01:00.000-07:00

How and why did I decide to write yet another photo application when there are so many out there that are available to manage digital pictures?

That's a question I think should be answered, and hope to do that in this post.

From my many Disney trips I have tons of photos, and really need to organize them. I also like to make a "digital negative" copy of them. I also WOULD like to crop, resize and post them to my site (this I don't do as much as I want to as it is a hassle since I have not found anything that works the way I want to do this easily).

I have tried many different pieces of software out there that do different parts of this but none that really do them all the way I want.

Being a programmer, I thought maybe I should just write an application to work the way I want it to.

So that's pretty much the background to why I am writing this application.

A great site for small independent developers

2005-09-09T20:13:00.000-07:00

Of course I stumbled on Phil's blog (previous post) by way of a mention he
had on the MicroISV blog I have as one of my NUMEROUS feeds in RSSBandit.

It is another site to check out if you are looking to start
developing/marketing an application as a small independent developer.

Some of his most interesting posts are his MicroISV profiles.

He also started a LinkedIn group for MicroISV, so if you are on LinkedIn add MicroISV to your "groups and associations" section on your profile and then OPTIONALLY send him an invite. You will have to get his email address from his site, as I do not want to post it here without his permission.

My blog inspiration

2005-09-09T20:04:00.000-07:00

I know I am far from being the only one blogging about this tye of stuff. In fact there is a great blog out there that I aspire to be like. His posts are well written and very informative of not only his process but his thoughts behind them as well.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I hope Phil finds it flattering ;)

Welcome

2005-09-09T05:20:00.000-07:00

This blog will document my experiences while trying to find time outside my work to develop an extensible photo processing application. I have not been able to find an application that works the way I want it to and does some of the things I want it to do.

I have actually had the GENERAL design of this application in my head for a while, and am now trying to get those down in some code.

Stay tuned as I post more information as I go along.

Mike