Animaonline's Nerdy Corner

Blog moved!

2010-12-15T14:23:00.000+01:00

This blog has moved to http://www.animaonline.com :)

twNowplaying

2010-03-11T20:04:00.005+01:00

I made this little program today, it tweets your currently playing track from Spotify to Twitter
It is an Alpha version so it's not 100% bug free.

Anyway, I will be happy for all the feedback that I can get.

To get started, download the archive , extract all of its contents to any directory, and run the twNowplayinge.exe. Then, press the Twitter icon to authenticate.

Here's an example of what some tweets posted by it look like.

#twNowplaying
(note the #twNowplaying tag)

Later versions will make it possible to sync the currently playing track from Last.fm and Windows Media Player.

And don't forget to follow me @ twitter

Download it from here

Later! :)

awAPI Weather Condition Images

2010-01-24T20:53:00.003+01:00

Adam Pendle over at blindmotion , shared a list of all weather condition images that are available for Animaonline Weather API , plus some custom looking images, that are looking Good. :)

Check it out

Animaonline Weather API 2.5.0.0 Is Here

2009-12-16T08:45:00.006+01:00

That's right! Animaonline Weather API 2.5.0.0 has been released!
One year has passed since it's last release!
I simply don't have that much time to code, now that I'm married ;)

The new awAPI uses LINQ for all it's core operations, making it much faster, and more stable than the previous versions! The core has been rewritten from scratch and uses a new format, so the old documentation is now considered to be deprecated. But, that doesn't mean it became more difficult to use, in fact it's much simpler in this version!
The API .dll file can be downloaded from Project's download section here on CodePlex.

The source code will be available, as soon as I get my Team Foundation Server up and running!

Here's some example API usage code goodies for ya'll!

var phoenixWeather =

Animaonline.Weather.GoogleWeatherAPI.GetWeather(Animaonline.Globals.LanguageCode.en_US, "Phoenix, AZ");

Console.WriteLine("Current Condition: {0}",

phoenixWeather.CurrentConditions.Condition);

Console.WriteLine("Current Humidity: {0}",

phoenixWeather.CurrentConditions.Humidity);

Console.WriteLine("Current Temperature: {0}",

phoenixWeather.CurrentConditions.Temperature.Fahrenheit);

Console.WriteLine("Current Wind Condition: {0}",

phoenixWeather.CurrentConditions.WindCondition);

You also have

phoenixWeather.ForecastConditions (Which is a List<*> of ForecastCondition objects)

phoenixWeather.ForecastInformation

Plus all the goodies from the old versions; such as:

GeoCoding

GeoNames

Google Maps Generation

GeoRSS Generation

All to be found in the new Animaonline.Geo namespace! ;)

and much more...

Thanks to everyone of you that are using my API, it really makes it worth the effort I put into it!

I would also thank everyone that have donated!, thank you!!! :)

Enjoy

/Roman A.

Saving ASP.NET FileUpload files in all browsers

2009-11-17T12:28:00.006+01:00

After a number of non-successful attempts on making the ASP.NET FileUpload dialog work in Mozilla Firefox browsers, and reading some stuff on the net, I made my own version of the FileUpload dialog, well.. actually it's just a modified version of the FileUpload from the BCL.
Anyways, it fixes the issue when FileDialog returns just the file name, instead of the full folder name , in non IE browsers , and it does so by writing the underlying stream to a file. Spares you the headache ;)

Here's the code.

P.s. to those of you who's still reading my blog, thank you and sorry for not posting in a long time.

using System;

using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

using System.IO;

namespace Animaonline

{

public class FileUploadPro : FileUpload

{

public void SaveFileMozilla(string fileName)

{

try

{

byte[] bytes = new byte[base.PostedFile.ContentLength];

PostedFile.InputStream.Read(bytes, 0, base.PostedFile.ContentLength);

using (FileStream fileWriter = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.Create))

{

fileWriter.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);

}

catch (Exception)

{

throw;

}

Microsoft Accelerator (GPU) based Pi Calculation - A C# Port

2009-01-22T16:21:00.003+01:00


This is a quick and dirty port.
Microsoft Research Accelerator Project

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using Microsoft.Research.DataParallelArrays;

namespace piSharp.cs
{
  class Program
  {
      static void Main(string[] args)
      {
          Random r = new Random();
          // create randomly generated samples in the unit square centered on (0,0)

          int iSize = 1500;
          float[,] x = new float[iSize + 1, iSize + 1];
          // x coordinate
          float[,] y = new float[iSize + 1, iSize + 1];
          // y coordinate
          int i = 0;
          int j = 0;

          // create an x and y arrays of random numbers between 0 and 1
          for (i = 0; i <= iSize - 1; i += 1)            {                for (j = 0; j <= iSize - 1; j += 1)                {                    x[i, j] = (float)r.NextDouble();
                  y[i, j] = (float)r.NextDouble();
              }
          }
          ParallelArrays.InitGPU();

          // make x and y data parallel arrays
          DisposableFloatParallelArray parallelX = new DisposableFloatParallelArray(x);
          DisposableFloatParallelArray parallelY = new DisposableFloatParallelArray(y);

          // center them about (0, 0) with range (-1, 1)
          FloatParallelArray parallelXCentered = default(FloatParallelArray);
          FloatParallelArray parallelYCentered = default(FloatParallelArray);
          parallelXCentered = ParallelArrays.Multiply(ParallelArrays.Subtract(parallelX, 0.5f), 2f);
          parallelYCentered = ParallelArrays.Multiply(ParallelArrays.Subtract(parallelY, 0.5f), 2f);

          // calculate distance of (x,y) from 0, ie. Sqrt(x^2 + y^2)
          FloatParallelArray parallelXSquare = default(FloatParallelArray);
          FloatParallelArray parallelYSquare = default(FloatParallelArray);
          FloatParallelArray parallelDistance = default(FloatParallelArray);
          parallelXSquare = ParallelArrays.Multiply(parallelXCentered, parallelXCentered);
          parallelYSquare = ParallelArrays.Multiply(parallelYCentered, parallelYCentered);
          parallelDistance = ParallelArrays.Sqrt(ParallelArrays.Add(parallelXSquare, parallelYSquare));
          float[,] test = new float[iSize + 1, iSize + 1];
          ParallelArrays.ToArray(parallelDistance, out test);

          // create an array of 1's if distance <> 1
          FloatParallelArray parallelOne = new FloatParallelArray(1f, parallelX.Shape);
          FloatParallelArray parallelZero = new FloatParallelArray(0f, parallelX.Shape);
          FloatParallelArray parallelInCircle = default(FloatParallelArray);

          parallelInCircle = ParallelArrays.Select(ParallelArrays.Subtract(parallelOne, parallelDistance), parallelOne, parallelZero);

          // the number inside the circle is the sum of the entire InCircle array
          FloatParallelArray parallelCountInCircle = default(FloatParallelArray);
          parallelCountInCircle = ParallelArrays.Sum(parallelInCircle);

          float[] inCircle = new float[2];
          ParallelArrays.ToArray(parallelCountInCircle, out inCircle);
          parallelX.Dispose();
          parallelY.Dispose();

          // approximate pi--area of unit circle is pi
          //                 area of square from -1,1 is 4
          // inCircle/(total number of points) == pi/4
          float pi = 0;
          pi = 4 * inCircle[0] / (iSize * iSize);
          System.Console.WriteLine("Pi is approximately " + pi.ToString());
          ParallelArrays.UnInit();

          // Prompt user for exit for running in VS IDE
          System.Console.WriteLine("Press Enter to Exit");
          System.Console.ReadLine();
      }
  }
}

AWLP And AWAPI - New versions out, now!

2008-09-29T13:05:00.004+02:00

Lately I had a lot of spare time to work on my projects , and now I'm proud to announce new versions of Animaonline Weather API (2.0.3.0 BETA) and Animaonline Windows Live Presence Wrapper (2.0)

Animaonline Weather API 2.0.3.0 BETA
What's new:

The GPS Code was improved and tested on a Windows Mobile Device, it works now :)
A Windows Mobile GPS Test Application was added.
Note: GPS code is still unstable
Image Downloader for Windows Mobile

AWLP 2.0 (Animaonline Windows Live Presence Wrapper)
For those who don't know what AWLP is, here is a short description:

Animaonline Windows Live Presence Wrapper Let's you query Windows Live service for user's status.
Powered by Microsoft's Windows Live API
Usage Example:
Animaonline.WindowsLive.PresenceData Presence;
Presence.GetPresence("animaonline@gmail.com");
Console.WriteLine(Presence)

Returns user's current status / status text , nickname and icon

What's new:

The code has been improved in many ways, and the assembly is now CLS compliant :)

Animaonline Weather API 2.0 BETA, Released

2008-09-21T20:59:00.005+02:00

Okay! It's been a while since I last posted, a lot has happened lately
and I simply didn't have time to post, but now I'm back,
and I would like to announce the release of Animaonline Weather API 2.0 BETA,
quite some time has passed since the first release (One year actually!), I had some time to go trough the code, and it was then that I found out that the whole code would be better if I rewrite it from scratch; so I did..

The new release of awAPI has A LOT of improvements.

The performance has been drastically improved by 70-100 percent
The user now has ability to select the language the weather data will be queried in.
Querying weather data is now even simpler, can be done by one line of code!
I added GeoServices support, this includes GeoCoding (Which lets you find associated geographic coordinates from other geographic data, such as street addresses, or zip codes)
Reverse GeoCoding (Which is the opposite of GeoCoding: finding an associated textual location such as a street address, from geographic coordinates.)
GPS Support (Combined with GeoServices let's you query weather for the region you are in)
Google’s Maps support, allows you to generate Google Maps combining it with weather, GeoServices and GPS data
Multi Platform support, run the API on Windows, CE Devices, and the Mono Framework

Note: This is still a BETA version; I'm working on improving the final version and adding new features.

Check out the Recent Check-ins page for the latest version or visit this page for a compiled binary.

P.S.
You can make a donation if you'd like to support my work.

Internet Explorer 8 BETA

2008-03-06T08:16:00.005+01:00

First Look: Internet Explorer 8

Here are some end-user features you can expect to see in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1.

Activities
Activities are contextual services to quickly access a service from any webpage, like Facebook or Digg, Live Search, etc...

WebSlices
WebSlices is a new feature for websites to connect to their users by subscribing to content directly within a webpage. WebSlices behave just like feeds where clients can subscribe to get updates and notify the user of changes.

Favorites Bar
Like the one in Mozilla Firefox, lets you drag and drop URL's on it.

Automatic Crash Recovery
This one helps to prevent the loss of work and productivity in the unlikely event of the browser crashing or hanging.

Improved Phishing Filter
Internet Explorer 7 introduced the Phishing Filter, a feature which helps warn users when they visit a Phishing site. Phishing sites spoof a trusted legitimate site, with the goal of stealing the user’s personal or financial information. For Internet Explorer 8, we are building on the success of the Phishing Filter with a more comprehensive feature called the "Safety Filter."

Download it here

What’s new in Internet Explorer 8 for Developers

Accessibility
ActiveX Improvements
Activities and WebSlices
AJAX Enhancements
CSS Compliance
Developer Tools
Document Compatibility Mode
DOM Storage
Protected Mode Cookies
Selectors API
Tab Isolation and Concurrency

For a detailed list go to this page

Windows Powershell 2.0 CTP Available

2007-12-11T10:57:00.000+01:00

Microsoft has released Windows Powershell 2.0 CTP to Microsoft Beta testers, you can apply for the beta program at https://connect.microsoft.com/

A lot of new features has been added, here are my favorites

Script Debugger (Very neat)
GUI !

For a full list of new features go to Powershell 2.0 CTP beta program site at Microsoft Connect

Vista SP1 RC is here

2007-12-07T10:13:00.000+01:00

Microsoft Released Vista SP1 to MSDN subscribers, here is the script to make it Visible in Windows Update, Right now I'm installing it, I will report as soon as the installation has been completed.

- Enjoy

Note: As far as I know the script should work on any Windows Vista versions, and in all countries.
How to update:

Open notepad -> Paste following text

@echo off
reg delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\VistaSp1 /f > NUL 2>&1
reg delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\VistaSP1 /f > NUL 2>&1
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\VistaSp1 /v Beta1 /t REG_SZ /d da2ba4db-dedb-437e-8e7e-104643454bb6 /f
IF NOT %errorlevel% == 0 ( goto ERROR)
:SUCCESS
goto END
:ERROR
goto END
:END
pause

Save as .BAT or .CMD
Run as administrator (Right click the file, and click "Run as administrator")
Now check for updates on Windows Update

CodeDom Calculator

2007-11-27T15:49:00.000+01:00

How to use
1: Compile the class and add to your application reference list.

2: Add the following line to display output
Console.WriteLine(CodeDomCalc.Calculator.Execute("2*55/1.5", "double").ToString());
[Save]

Visual Studio 2008 RTM avaialble for download

2007-11-20T13:36:00.000+01:00

MSDN subscribers can now download Visual Studio 2008 RTM from MSDN

Converting Excel's DateTime serial to Windows DateTime

2007-11-14T12:15:00.000+01:00

This little snippet here will allow you to convert excel encoded date to standard Windows DateTime.

public static DateTime ExcelDateConverter(int excelDateSerial)
{
if (excelDateSerial <>
{
excelDateSerial++;
}
return new DateTime((excelDateSerial + 693593) * (10000000L * 24 * 3600));
}

F# Windows Forms Tutorial

2007-11-12T12:27:00.000+01:00

Here's a little tutorial on how to show a windows form from F# (The new .NET Language)

You can get the compiler from here

open System
open System.Windows.Forms

let form = new Form()
do form.Width <- 300
do form.Height <- 300
do form.FormBorderStyle <- FormBorderStyle.Fixed3D
do form.Text <- "Windows Form from F#"

let RichTextbox1 = new RichTextBox()
do RichTextbox1.Text <- "Hello Windows Forms From F#"
do RichTextbox1.Size <- new System.Drawing.Size(320,240)

let btn1 = new Button()
do btn1.Text <- "Click me!"
do btn1.Location <- new System.Drawing.Point(0,240)
let btn1Click (e: #IEvent<_>) = e.Add(fun _ -> System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("Hello World, from btnClick event handler!");())

do btn1Click btn1.Click

do form.Controls.Add(RichTextbox1)
do form.Controls.Add(btn1)

do Application.Run(form)

Office application does not quit after automation from Visual Studio .NET client

2007-11-07T14:36:00.000+01:00

This is a common nasty problem that has bugged me a lot lately

When you automate a Microsoft Office application from Microsoft Visual Basic .NET or Microsoft Visual C# .NET, the Office application does not quit when you call the Quit method.

Here's the solution:

In your form's FormClosing event add the following code

ExcelApp.Application.Application.Quit();
ExcelApp.Application.Quit();
GC.Collect();
GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers();

Source: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=317109

Fixing "Cross-thread operation not valid"

2007-09-23T00:33:00.000+02:00

Did you ever get this error? Well I did! I got it pretty often lately…

But I found a quick fix that you can use to fix that issue instead of writing a lot of thread handling code, joining the threads, and so on…

You can just use this little snippet in your application’s Main void

Here it goes:
CheckForIllegalCrossThreadCalls = false;

P.S. Remember to add System.Windows.Forms to your assembly!

Geek Test

2007-09-18T08:14:00.000+02:00

I took the same test as Josh did and here I get exactly the same results, :D

But there's a couple of things that are not correct here, First of all; I don't use *nix OS’es, and no, I did not write my first program in the sixth grade, (I guess it was in the kindergarten)

Vana'diel Time in C# (Vana'diel Crazy Taru Clock) ヴァナ・ディール　☆基地外　たる　時計☆

2007-09-17T00:31:00.001+02:00

ヴァナ・ディール　☆基地外　たる　時計☆
Vana'diel Crazy Taru Clock

I was bored , so decided to port the Pyogenes "Vana'diel Time" Clock to C#
About:
Vana'diel time is 25 times faster than Earth time and is being used in the fictional? universe of Final Fantasy XI Online

I made a simple API that you can use to get current weather in Vana'diel, that means you can use it in any application you want, everything from Command Line Applications, to AJAX Powered ASP.NET websites, remember, you have to use Timer.Tick() to update the information from the API! Or you can implement it directly to the class, if you want to; do whatever you want with it, just remember to credit me and Pyogenes for his great formula.

Note this is the first implementation of Vana'diel clock in C# , if I'm wrong , someone correct me...

Here goes the code (Sorry, no comments (yet), I'm sleepy):

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
namespace Animaonline.Vanadiel
{
public static class Time
{
private static DateTime basisDate = new DateTime(2002, 06, 23, 15, 00, 00, 0000);
private static long msRealDay = 86400000;
private static string[] VanaDay = { "Firesday", "Earthsday", "Watersday", "Windsday", "Iceday", "Lightningday", "Lightsday", "Darksday" };
private static double vanaDate
{
get { return ((898 * 360 + 30) * msRealDay) + ((DateTime.UtcNow - basisDate).TotalMilliseconds * 25); }
}
public static double vYear
{
get { return Math.Floor(vanaDate / (360 * msRealDay)); }
}
public static double vMon
{
get { return Math.Floor((vanaDate % (360 * msRealDay)) / (30 * msRealDay)) + 1; }
}
public static double vDate
{
get { return Math.Floor((vanaDate % (30 * msRealDay)) / (msRealDay)) + 1; }
}
public static double vHour
{
get { return Math.Floor((vanaDate % (msRealDay)) / (60 * 60 * 1000)); }
}
public static double vMin
{
get { return Math.Floor((vanaDate % (60 * 60 * 1000)) / (60 * 1000)); }
}
public static double vSec
{
get { return Math.Floor((vanaDate % (60 * 1000)) / 1000); }
}
public static double vDay
{
get { return Math.Floor((vanaDate % (8 * msRealDay)) / (msRealDay)); }
}
public static string TextTime = vMon + "/" + vDate + "/" + vYear + " (" + VanaDay[Convert.ToInt16(vDay)] + ") " + vHour + ":" + vMin + ":" + vSec;
}
}

Usage: To use the code in your application just create a new class and paste the code (you can also compile it into a dll, and share it with your friends, if you want to)

In your application's main void or click event or whatever write the following code:

MessageBox.Show(Animaonline.Vanadiel.Time.vHour + ":" + Animaonline.Vanadiel.Time.vMin + ":" + Animaonline.Vanadiel.Time.vSec);

That's it, enjoy! :D

New sleek look, and Digg support

2007-09-16T23:04:00.001+02:00

I refurbished the look and feel of the blog, making it more code article friendly
(Yes you can expect a lot of them, in the near future)
I also added Digg support, so you can just start Digg’in along.

Experexperts Exchange "Hack"

2007-09-16T20:05:00.000+02:00

This little Hack allows you to view the results without joining Experts Exchange

I have only tested it in Mozilla Firefox, but I’m positive it will work in IE too.

Go to Tools-->Options

Step 1:
Open up the privacy tab
Click the "Show Cookies" button
In the "Search:" textbox enter "Experts-Exchange"
When the results show up, remove all of them by clicking the “Remove Cookies” button.
If nothing showed up, just jump to step 2.

Step 2:
Now click the "Exceptions" button on the Privacy tab.
Add "experts-exchange.com" to the "Exceptions" List

Now you can browse Experts Exchange, and look trough all the answers :)

This bug is probably being fixed by Experts Exchange team as we speak, but there is another solution too, you can change your user agent to one of those:

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)
Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)
Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)

Automatic Property Handling in C# 3.0

2007-09-13T22:54:00.000+02:00

I have been working on a project with some of the code written in C# 2.0
But today when I was about to port that project to C# 3.0 I discovered this neat new function.

This is what my code looked like in C# 2.0

private string _city;
///

/// Returns the City name
///

public string city
{
get { return _city; }
set { _city = value; }
}

And this is how it looks like in C# 3.0

///

/// Returns the City name
///

public string city { get; set; }

Smart eh?
The cool thing about C# 3.0 is that the compiler declares the private object by it self under the runtime, so it’s being added in to the call stack just like the first example does.
This can actually be seen by disassembling the application or by decompiling it using MSIL,
It’s actually a great feature that may spare you a bit of time, and reduce the source code size.
Well at least it did so in my case.

Note: If you attempt using Automatic Properties in C# 2.0, the compilation will result in the following error.

Error 1 '' must declare a body because it is not marked abstract or extern

Animaonline Image WTF

2007-09-13T21:06:00.000+02:00

I don't even know how to explain this one... :/

... Some days ago, I caught a cold, and I have been staying at home for some days now.

But today I was felling really drowsy, sick and bored as hell, so I made this little good for nothing WTF program! It opens an image file and goes through it, pixel by pixel, outputting the pixels as colorized characters... (Weird stuff)
But at least it made me feel a little better :)

Sample Source:

int y = 0;
int Counter = 0;
for (int i = 0; i <>
{
if (i == Bitmap.Width)
{
i = 0;
y += 1;
ImageOutputASText.SelectedText = "n";
if (Counter > Bitmap.Width * Bitmap.Height - 1)
{
MessageBox.Show("Reached the end");
return;
}
}
BitmapContents.SelectionStart = BitmapContents.TextLength;
BitmapContents.SelectionColor = Bitmap.GetPixel(i, y);
BitmapContents.SelectedText = txtOutputchar.Text;
BitmapContents.SelectionColor = Bitmap.GetPixel(i, y);
Counter += 1;
}

Download:
Mirror 1
Channel9 Post

Me Simpsonized?

2007-09-13T14:12:00.000+02:00

Removing Non-Numeric Characters from a string (The easy way)

2007-09-05T10:11:00.000+02:00

I was searching the web for a way to easily remove all non numeric characters from a string, but the only thing I found was some "for loop" examples, which really slowed down my application, so after a little research I came up with a simple way to do it using Regular Expressions

Here it goes:

string Temp = "Hax00r L33t";
string Output = Regex.Replace(Temp, "[^0-9]", "");