Mykre

OneNote for Android

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 06:49:43 GMT

I am a big time user of Microsoft OneNote and for a long time I have synced with a USB HDD as well as my SkyDrive. Having one note on the SkyDrive meant that I could sync with my Windows Phone as well as my desktop, notebook and netbook.

Now I find that Microsoft has now released a version of OneNote for Android devices.

Download OneNote for Android from the Marketplace.

As of February 7, OneNote is now available for Android phone users on the Android Market app store. So now OneNote is available on Windows Phone, iPhone, iPad, Android (and Windows, of course).
OneNote Mobile for Android includes the following features, according to Microsoft’s blog post:

Text formatting, images, and bulleted lists
To-do lists with clickable checkboxes
Quick photo capture with your phone’s camera
Quick access to recent notes
Store and access multiple OneNote notebooks
Sync to your free SkyDrive account for access anywhere
Offline access to your notes
Option to sync notebooks only over a WiFi connection
Built-in spell checker
Support for external hyperlinks
Table editing

The Software comes in two flavours, the first a free version allows you to view edit and maintain 500 notes, when you exceed this you are able to purchase an in app upgrade to allow unlimited notes (About $5.00), but if not you are only able to read the notes you have.

Microsoft has also mentioned that a version of the Dynamics CRM Application is on it’s way to Mobile Devices in Q2 of 2012.

Blender 3D Create a Model from a Floor Plan

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:19:57 GMT

I am always up for a little drawing and design using Blender 3D, this week I came across a really good tutorial that takes you through the process of drawing a 3D model of a floor plan. The good thing is that we have recently bought a new house, and this could turn into a small project for myself.

Here is a direct link to the Tutorial. (link)

SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn Multisite Failover Cluster

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:29:26 GMT

SQL Server 2012 Whitepaper: SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn: Multisite Failover Cluster Instance

Direct link to the article (Link)

Summary: SQL Server Failover Clustering, which includes support for both local and multisite failover configurations, is part of the SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn implementation suite, designed to provide high availability and disaster recovery for SQL Server. The multisite failover clustering technology has been enhanced significantly in SQL Server 2012. The multisite failover cluster architecture, enhancements in SQL Server 2012 to the technology, and some best practices to help with deployment of the technology are the primary focus of this paper.

SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn White Paper HA and DR

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:15:20 GMT

SQL Server 2012 Whitepaper: Microsoft SQL Server AlwaysOn Solutions Guide for High Availability and Disaster Recovery

Direct link to the article (Link)

Summary: This white paper discusses how to reduce planned and unplanned downtime, maximize application availability, and provide data protection using SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn high availability and disaster recovery solutions.
A key goal of this paper is to establish a common context for related discussions between business stakeholders, technical decision makers, system architects, infrastructure engineers, and database administrators.
The content is presented in two major parts:
High Availability and Disaster Recovery Concepts. Provide a brief discussion of the drivers and challenges of planning, managing, and measuring the business objectives of a highly available database environment. This discussion is followed by a brief overview of the high availability and disaster recovery capabilities of SQL Server 2012 AlwaysOn and Windows Server solutions.
SQL Server AlwaysOn Layers of Protection. Provide a deeper discussion of the feature capabilities, rationale, and dependencies of the layers of protection offered by a SQL Server AlwaysOn solution. It will cover infrastructure availability, SQL Server instance-level protection, database-level protection, and data tier application capabilities.

2012 Windows PowerShell Scripting Games

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 22:58:48 GMT

The PowerShell guys have announced the 2012 Windows PowerShell Scripting games, to help with this they have also posted a link to a page that will have all of the information and links on the one page as they are updated.

What are the Scripting Games…

“Just like last year, each day during the games, a new scenario will appear on the Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog. And just like last year, you will have exactly seven days (until 11:59 P.M. Pacific Standard Time) to submit your answer. An internationally recognized panel of judges (a veritable who’s who in the Windows PowerShell world) will grade your submissions. Daily leader boards and random prize drawings will keep the interest in this exciting event to a near fever pitch for the duration of the games.”

You can help support the event by following this link and adding a badge to your web site or blog.

Februarys MSDN Magazine Background Audio and the Marketplace

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:44:24 GMT

Februarys issue of the MSDN Magazine has 2 new articles on the Windows Phone. In the first article Charles Petzold shows us how to play Audio in the background on the Windows Phone. The second article, Cheryl Simmons helps us to get our Applications through the Market place faster.

Background Audio on Windows Phone 7.5

Get your Windows Phone Applications in the Marketplace Faster

Windows Phone Pirates Game

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:13:58 GMT

The same author that brought you the Windows Phone, XNA and Farseer game Labyrinth has also released another game and code on Code Project, this time it is called Pirates.

pirates uses the same farseer Physics engine and XNA to bring you a game based on the idea of Angry Birds.

"Pirates!" for Windows Phone is a game build in C# and XNA, using Farseer Physics Engine. The idea of the game is largely inspired on and also pays tribute to Rovio's "Angry Birds" game, which reached 500 million downloads at the end of 2011. Angry Birds may have addicted many people around the world, but from my part, I'm not addicted to the playing itself, but to pursuing the pieces needed to build a game like that.
Instead of birds, a cannon full of cannon balls. Instead of pigs, a big pirate ship full of pirates. Your mission here is to aim the cannon and destroy all pirates.

Here is the Direct Link to the Article on Code Project, as well as a short video.

Creating a Reusable Lightbox in Blender 3D

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 04:06:15 GMT

Here is a Simple Tutorial that goes through the process of setting up a simple and reusable lightbox for your Blender 3D scenes.

For everybody who is new to Blender and product rendering Alex Telford released a small tutorial which in a very compressed format highlights a best practice approach for modeling a scene and setting up lights with Blender Internal.

Here is a link to the Original Post (Link)

My name is Alex Telford and today I will be showing you how to build a re-usable lightbox!
This tutorial is for the blender internal render engine (not cycles)
So for those of you who don't know, a light box is a box with lights in it. (funny that)
This is used primarily for product photos that you see on tv and in magazines, but also in shops such as jewellery stores.
So why use a lightbox?
Well basically, a lightbox allows you to control your lighting, so you can get the perfect photo. (Or render in this case)
Now most external render engines don't need a lightbox, but I have noticed a large number of blender users still use the blender internal render engine, so this is for you guys, so you can get that fast product render looking sweet.

And here is a Direct Link to the Tutorial. (Link)

Windows Phone Labyrinth

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:17:09 GMT

For those wanting to get into Windows Phone Development and Games, have a look at the following post. This post on Code Project goes through a simple Labyrinth game using the XNA system along with the Farseer Physics system.

In the tutorial the author shows you how to utilize the Accelerometer functions of the Windows Phone to control the games main character.

This article is intended to show how to play with this new accelerometer emulation, accompanied by a simple application that use it.

Here is a Direct Link to the Code Project site and the Tutorial.

Steampunk Alien Space Ship

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:42:52 GMT

I have always loved playing around in Blender, this morning while waiting for the coffee machine to heat up I came across this great time lapse video showing a SteamPunk space ship that has been developed inside Blender for an up coming vfx short film. Please have a look at it and comment to the author.

Timelapse of part of the modeling of the spaceship for an upcomming vfx short! this is basically 3 hours of modeling squished into 17 minutes! I didn't record it right from when I started, so this time lapse is further into the modeling process (about an hour or more)

HTC Mozart and Windows Phone 7 first Impressions

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 05:48:26 GMT

On Friday I was announced as one of the 25 Telstra Social Reviews for the new HTC and Windows Phone 7 systems, it was a great experience to see a room full of people trying the phones for the first time. In the group we had some mac users, android and iPhone users, and seeing the faces and hearing the comments as they turned on the phones was good. For the last few months I have been to several presentations as well as given a few of them on the functionality of the Windows Phone 7, but all of this has been from the point of a General Developer or a Game Developer, never really from an end user of the Operating System.

Well after the first few days I am impressed with the phone and the supporting applications, one thing I did notice is that the HTC comes with a heap of additional applications that enhance the use of the HTC Phone.

Included HTC Applications on the Windows Phone 7

HTC Hub – Central Place for you HTC Applications and more, includes a nice 3D Weather Application and Clock. It would be nice to get the clock and weather page integrated into the lock screen image and have it active.
Sound Enhancer – An application that will allow you to turn on the enhanced functions of the HTC Mozart Sound System, Going to play more with that this week.
Notes – A Simple note system like the paper based Post It Notes, and again something I have not played with yet.
Photo Enhancer – A application that will allow you to add effects to you photos.
Stocks – A stock viewing application… Sorry doesn't interest me.
Calculator – As the name says a Calculator, there are several of these on the market place, but I am going to hand it over to my wife to rip apart as she is always complaining that most calculators do not follow the basic mathematics rules and none of them are scientific based.
Lists – An application to create lists, Still to play with.
Love – Simple application that simulates the plucking of flower petals… No Interest.
Attentive Phone – An application to turn on some additional functions for the phone, things like flip in call to turn on loud speaker and flip out of call to silence the ringer. I have downloaded this and am still testing.
Converter – As the name suggests it is a unit converter, and again there are heaps of these starting to appear on the marketplace.
Connection Setup – A wizard application to assist you in setting up the phone to work with your carrier.

Ease of Use

One of the things that I like with the mobile phones is how easy they are to use, both in software and hardware. With the Mozart I am still out, as for the operating system, I can say that I find it easy to use and navigate around. There are some things that you need to get used to and understand when first starting the phone, one of those is that it needs a live ID to start-up, and once that live ID has been entered into the phone you can not change it without a hard reset of the phone. Also as the system is designed to use the Exchange Active Sync for your outlook and Exchange mail accounts you need to make sure that you system is using a fully certified and payed for certificate, or you have to load and install your own, and with that there is also a small gotcha that you need to do to get it working.

But once up and running the system is easy to use. Just to set the story, I have an Autistic son of nine years old, he is fairly heavy on the spectrum and can not talk. Every Saturday we make the effort no matter where we are to go down the street for a morning Coffee and some Donuts for the Kids. We have found that over the years keeping this routine has helped us cope with the weekend adventures.

Now back to the story, this week end we were out with the family and Michael was getting a little jumpy while we were waiting for the meal, to keep him entertained I was going to give him a game, but he just took the phone. In a matter of minutes he was creating meeting appointments and removing the ones I had already added. Then he proceeded to the Photos and started to share the photos I had taken with my SkyDrive. So with that I can say that a disabled child could navigate the OS and use it’s core functions, over this week I will have to see what else he can get into.

Battery Issue

On the first night I did notice that the unit seemed to use a lot of power, the I remembered that this was an issue with the device from Day one. What I have found out with the assistance of @jorus is that for the first use of the device you should perform a hardware reset on the device, on Saturday morning I did this. Now with out changing any settings I charged both my Samsung Omnia and the HTC to a full charge. What I did then was leave the Omnia set up as it is with the live Id Account (Set to update every 30 min) and my Exchange Mail Sync (Set to Update each Hour), and just set the HTC to use the Live Id with the same sync settings. Now after 24 hours both Phones are still running and I have used both the same. I started this test at 10:00 am on Saturday with a full charge on both phones and now at 12:30 on Sunday I Still have half charge on HTC and just under half on Omnia.

The next step will be to set up the exchange sync and give that a try on both devices.

Well that's it for me in this post, I am going to start getting the next one ready.

Disclaimer.

“I have been given a HTC Mozart with Windows 7 Phone by Telstra free of charge to review. The comments expressed by me reflect my own user experience and personal opinion and are not made on behalf of Telstra.”

Lightswitch Turning on some Debugging or Trace Logs

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 05:46:09 GMT

I have been playing around with a SQL Server CE 4.0 Database and trying to get it running inside Lightswitch. In doing this I have come across some good logging functions inside the application system that have helped me to take some more steps with the project.

There is probably a better way to get to this, but for me it worked just fine doing it this way.

Opening up the Solution directory and expanding the Server Generated Project
Open the web.config file
Edit the trace option inside the application settings section.
Below is what I have this project set to.

  &lt;appSettings&gt;

    &lt;!-- A value of true will enable diagnostic logging on the server --&gt;

    &lt;add key=&quot;Microsoft.LightSwitch.Trace.Enabled&quot; value=&quot;True&quot; /&gt;

    &lt;!-- A value of true only lets local access to Trace.axd --&gt;

    &lt;add key=&quot;Microsoft.LightSwitch.Trace.LocalOnly&quot; value=&quot;False&quot; /&gt;

    &lt;!-- The valid values for the trace level are: None, Error, Warning, Information, Verbose --&gt;

    &lt;add key=&quot;Microsoft.LightSwitch.Trace.Level&quot; value=&quot;Verbose&quot; /&gt;

    &lt;!-- A value of true will indicate that logging sensitive information is okay --&gt;

    &lt;add key=&quot;Microsoft.LightSwitch.Trace.Sensitive&quot; value=&quot;True&quot; /&gt;

    &lt;!-- The semi-colon separated list of categories that will be enabled at the specifed trace level --&gt;

    &lt;add key=&quot;Microsoft.LightSwitch.Trace.Categories&quot; value=&quot;Microsoft.LightSwitch&quot; /&gt;

  &lt;/appSettings&gt;

Now if you run the application and turn on the output window in Visual Studio you are presented with some extra logging that can help with debugging the application. I know that in my case this displayed the errors and stack trace from my RIA Service which has help me to knock off a couple of the errors it presented to me.

Battlefield 3 Player Profile Damaged

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 05:42:49 GMT

This afternoon I sat down to get some game time in on “Battlefield 3” and when I turned it on I received an error. This error happened just as the game started to load in the player stats.

The Error I received was “Existing player profile data appears to be damaged and cannot be used”

After some quick discussions with the @battlefield twitter support (Which by the way is a brilliant service, thanks guys) I tried to clear my cache on the Xbox to see if that was the problem, but it wasn’t. In the end I tried a few more things and it worked, now I am back online.

I knew there was nothing seriously wrong with it as I could still see my data and stats on the http://battlelog.battlefield.com site and in game I was able to modify my kit with out an issue. I just could not read my stats from the console. In the end these steps are what solved the problem.

Logged onto the Xbox Console
Selected the System Settings menu item
Selected the Storage option
Browsed the storage content for the game data, this data includes all marketplace downloads and updates for the games as well as the save games and profiles.
I found the Battlefield 3 content and selected that
Browsed down to the game save section and just deleted the profile save data for Battlefield 3
Exited the menus and restarted the game.

All now works fine, the only drawback is that my progress in the campaign is now lost and I will have to start that again. All other information is stored on the servers.

Deciding on a License for your Project

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:50:53 GMT

Over the years I have been asked several times and had lots of talks about the type of license to apply to my project, sorry there is no easy answer. Every time someone asks I always point them to the following list on www.codeproject.com for a reference.

When you are choosing a license you need to make the choice yourself based on what the project is and what you want to get out of it. In some cases it will also depend on the libraries and code you have used in your project. But in the end it is your choice and if required you should seek legal advise just to make sure.

Direct Link to the CodeProject list: http://www.codeproject.com/info/Licenses.aspx

Getting Started with Windows Azure

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 03:57:54 GMT

Scott Guthrie has started to go through a series of Blog posts on Getting Started and using Windows Azure. For the Lightswitch Developers out there, this will also be able to be used with your applications.

The first article gives you a link to a 90 minute end-to-end look at Windows Azure (Link), and the second goes through the process of signing up and setting up your trial account (Link).

Edit:

I was just reminded that if you would like to get the “Powered by Windows Azure” logo for your Lightswitch Application, here is a link to get you started there. (link), Thanks Alessandro for the reminder.

Blender Tutorial Making a Sake Set

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 07:09:27 GMT

Here is a Really simple tutorial that will go through the process of making a Sake Set using Blender3D.

As promised, here is a little tutorial for beginners on making a sake set. I did my best to take it slow and explain everything as I went along, so hopefully it will help those just starting out. I tried to emphasize some of the things I had difficulty with in the beginning.

Making a sake set in Blender 3d from david on Vimeo.

Needed a New Monitor

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:45:11 GMT

A Couple of years ago my wife surprised me with a new monitor for Christmas, sitting back that was around 4 years ago this last Christmas, well this last week it has finally died. It was a Really good Monitor and has served me well probably too well. The last monitor had some really nice Auto tuning functions through the PC and also the internals, which in the end are what got me.

This week I returned to playa couple of hours of “Skyrim”, and yes I said a couple of hours as there is no way I can see anyone picking this up for a few minutes and letting go. When I turned the system on the colours on the screen where so dark no matter who much my character slept they did not change… After going through several cables and settings… yep the monitor was going and going fast.

I changed the xbox cables and eventually tried a different monitor and it all worked as it should. Going back to the old monitor I found that the auto adjust has adjusted so much that the brightness and contrast where almost maxed out… time to go shopping.

Did some quick research and finally can to the decision to get another Samsung unit, ended up with a new Samsung LS23A950DS, Full HD 3D Monitor.

It is a really nice looking Monitor with a good slim design.

It did take me to a couple of extra purchases of cables to get the thin running the way I wanted, this included extra HDMI Cables for the Xbox. But in the end it is all running as it should, well at least how I like it and everything looks really good on the display. Time to get some 3D content happening and see how that goes.

My Kindle couldnt see my wireless network

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:38:25 GMT

Last Christmas I got myself a Kindle Device, and love it. Over time I have gone to a Acer A500 Tablet running android… but still have gone back to the Kindle. I find that in the end it is the better device for reading on.

But since we have moved house and I had to re set up my Wireless network I have been unable to get the Kindle to connect to the Wireless Network. No matter what i did I just couldn’t find it. Other devices around the house didn’t have a problem at all.

This evening I decided to play around with it again and see what i could do. After a few Google/Bing Searches I came across a simple post that talked about Wireless Channels on the Router. Here is the link to the post… Link

I did try the option of lowering the channel but that didn’t work. But looking at my Router I found a setting for the Wireless that when set would “Select Best Quality Channel Automatically”. I made this change and right in front of my eyes the kindle came alive and all of the wireless networks I have configured around the house became visible to the Kindle unit.

All is good now….

2D in Blender 2.6 Tutorial Part 1

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:04:51 GMT

For a while now when making games I have been using 3D applications to produce some of the 2D artwork that I have used. I have found that in doing this I can sometimes get a better effect on the shading of the artwork by using full lights.

Today i came across another artist who is doing the same, but this time for animations.

I’ve had a few requests from people wanting to know how I go about making my animations… so here’s the first part of a tutorial series that will hopefully reveal my process.

Here is a link to the first part of the Tutorial.

Creating a Custom Project Wizard Template in Visual Studio

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:24:44 GMT

I don’t know where I would use this yet, but I came across a really good article where the author goes through the process of creating a Project Wizard Template for Visual Studio.

If you are a experienced .Net developer, you might have already created or used custom project template in Visual Studio. In new versions of Visual Studio, Microsoft has included common files like jQuery, CSS, standard Master page etc. in the default web site template which was not there in old Visual Studio versions.
I always require jQuery file, standard CSS file of client, some common logo images to be added in my new projects. Also, whenever I create a new project, I require to modify the connection string by going to web.config file. There are also some other common setting which I repetitively do in web.config.
Visual Studio provides some easy way of creating a custom project template so that, such a common items and code can be included in the new project template.
In this short article, I will explain about

Creating project template
Creating DLL for new project wizard dialogue
Incorporating new wizard in project template to accept additional input from user
Using project template to create new website

Here is the Direct link to the Article. http://www.bluelemoncode.com/post/2012/01/05/Creating-custom-project-and-file-template-with-wizard-for-Visual-Studio.aspx