Smartwombat Blog

Biggest missing feature from Oneblog

Ctrl+K to create hyperlinked text in your notes.

XAML viewer for Whidbey

http://weblogs.asp.net/gmilano/archive/2004/11/24/269082.aspx

microISV interviews Nick Bradbury

microISV Profile: Nick Bradbury creator of TopStyle and FeedDemon - my favorite RSS reader.

"...The only real formula I follow is to make sure I keep the focus on usability and actually solving the needs of customers. There are a lot of great developers out there writing impressive code, but too few of them seem to consider how to make their stuff simple to use. I guess I approach development the same way that I used to approach my cartoons: I have a limited amount of space to work with, so how do I get the most important things across in the simplest way possible, so that the space isn’t overburdened by too many ideas? The tricky part for me isn’t developing the first version of a program, though - it’s developing subsequent versions without greatly increasing the program’s complexity (something I haven’t been completely successful with)…"

From <http://www.microisv.com/archives/2004/11/29/bradbury/>

Strong name, obfuscation and DRM

What is common between Strong Names, Obfuscation and DRM? - Ivan explains it.

From <http://blogs.dotnetthis.com/Ivan/archives/2004/11/what_is_common.html>

Is it likely that Apple's next bet called iPhone?

"...The psychology part is this: Steve Jobs has a mobile phone. I'm not sure which mobile phone it is, but he's definitely got one. And he hates it. He curses at it every day. He hates it like he hated the original IBM PC. He hates how hard it is to add contacts and make calls and he cringes at the web experience and the Java games, if he's even bothered to try them. He holds it in his hand during long trips and admires some things about it, but knows *he could do it better.* He knows that if Apple decided to make a mobile phone, it would be the most intuitive and elegant mobile phone in the world. And he wants that phone. And what Steve Jobs wants, Steve Jobs gets. Not much to argue here..."

http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/1008182.html

How 3 Entrepreneurs Triumphed on eBay

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,317269-1,00.html

Nice summary of calling conventions

If you are interested what calling convetions (__cdecl, __stdcall, __fastcall) are you might find usefull the following article:

http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/win32-callconv.html

There is also another type calling convention called naked:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vccore98/html/_core_naked_function_calls.asp

How to build your own SyncStations

"….At last June’s CE DevCon, Microsoft had two-dozen “Sync Stations” set up at various locations. A Sync Station consisted of a PC running CEServices/ActiveSync that allowed all of the conference attendees to download the latest conference information directly to their CE devices.

There was, however, one very striking difference between these Sync Stations and the PC you’re currently using to synchronize your CE device: the Sync Stations never prompted us to create a device-to-desktop partnership! In other words, every device that connected did so as a Guest without user intervention.

How is this possible? Clearly, you’ve seen that every time you connect a new device –even if you want to connect in Guest mode– you’re always prompted. Well, it turns out that what made this magic possible is an undocumented, unsupported ActiveSync 3.0 registry setting…."

From <<a href="http://www.cewindows.net/applications/undocumentedactivesync.htm">http://www.cewindows.net/applications/undocumentedactivesync.htm>

Make Adobe Acrobat 6 load faster

Neat trick from Darell.
http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/darrell.norton/archive/2003/10/06/2095.aspx

G-Cans

Some really cool photos about the massive underground canals of Tokyo. They started to build them 15 years ago.
From http://www.g-cans.jp/photo/index.html

Fantastic photos...

59th College Photographer Of The Year winning images.
From http://www.cpoy.org/59/winimg.php

Lust for Lard

It seems that there is going to be a shortage of lard in the UK as the new EU countries are buying loads of cuts of cheap pork from the UK as Christmas approaching.

"There has been unprecedented demand from Eastern European countries such as Poland and Hungary for the cheapest cuts of pork to meet their demand for sausages, salamis and pies,"

From <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4012597.stm>

DJ Software for your smartphone!

This is maybe an old one but I just came across  Orange's DJ software for smartphone called Fireplayer DJ. It allows you to download tracks form Orange and then you can mix it and save as your ringtone. It works on Sony Ericsson's P900 and on Orange SPV as well.

Really need to try this.

From http://www.msmobiles.com/news.php/3298.html

Download it from here:
http://web.orange.co.uk/yourorange/gamesandringtones/promo.html?id=Musicdownloads_Fireplayer_Page&menu=yourorange.downloads.fireplayer

How to use your smartphone with gmail.

Here is a step by step guide how to set up your smartphone to download mails from your gmail account. Although right now not every gmail user has its pop3 access enabled I think it will be available to anyone in the future…

From <<a href="http://www.consync.com/articles/gmail/">http://www.consync.com/articles/gmail/>

Firefox maps its next moves

The coals are still hot from Tuesday morning's Firefox 1.0 release, but the Mozilla Foundation is already cooking up its next moves to challenge Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser dominance.

Now that it has the Firefox 1.0 milestone under its belt, the Mozilla Foundation has identified three areas for future growth and development: cell phone and small-device browsing, desktop search integration, and OEM (original equipment manufacturer) distribution.

"It's been a tremendous year, and we can't see anything but upside the way things are heading right now," said Chris Hofmann, the Mozilla Foundation's director of engineering. "We're just starting the planning for the initiatives that are going to be important in the coming year."

From <http://news.com.com/Firefox+maps+its+next+moves/2100-1032_3-5445802.html?tag=nefd.top>

Konfabulator

This widget app recently has been ported from Mac to Windows. Go and try it!

www.konfabulator.com

Also check out this application called Kapsules, what basically does the same as konfabulator.

http://kapsules.shellscape.org/ss.asp

Return of the homebrew coder

Software: Most modern software is written by huge teams of programmers. But there is still room for homebrew coders, at least in some unusual niches

From <http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2476892&CFID=41026713&CFTOKEN=26dcdde-6e03c1e6-0c4a-48de-8929-aa0e7c125811>

ActiveSync - setting up partnership with more than one PC

Bunch of cool windows mobile tips from http://myersmobile.com/.

You can sync to 2 or more computers. When you establish your partnership on the 2nd machine, you will see a dialog asking if you want to connect to only this machine (thus delete all existing profiles) or if you want to connect to multiple machines (thus not deleting the existing profiles). Choose the latter.

From: http://myersmobile.com/asyncmultiplepcs.htm

In the Mind of the Enemy

The Artificial Intelligence of Halo 2

Are you tired of getting whipped by the Covenant? Learn how they think from the man who created the artificial intelligence for "Halo 2." In this exclusive Stuffo interview, Chris Butcher of Bungie Studios enlightens us.

From <http://stuffo.howstuffworks.com/halo2-ai.htm>

Flying trick in HALO 2

Check this awesome video demonstrating a flying trick in HALO 2. All you need is a sword and use the sword lunge attack on a flying enemy.

http://files.mythica.org/halo/darkhelmet/learningtofly.wmv