using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Threading;
using System.Windows.Forms;
 
namespace DigitallyCreated.SleepDisplay
{
    public class Sleeper
    {
        //From WinUser.h
        private const int WM_SYSCOMMAND = 0x0112;
        private const int SC_MONITORPOWER = 0xF170;
        //Not from WinUser.h (from MSDN doco about 
        //SC_MONITORPOWER)
        private const int SC_MONITORPOWER_SHUTOFF = 2; 
        
        public void SleepDisplay()
        {
            Form form = new Form();
            DefWindowProcA((int)form.Handle, WM_SYSCOMMAND, 
                SC_MONITORPOWER, SC_MONITORPOWER_SHUTOFF);
        }
        
        [DllImport("user32", EntryPoint = "DefWindowProc")]
        public static extern int DefWindowProcA(int hwnd, 
            int wMsg, int wParam, int lParam);
    }
}

Posted by Daniel Chambers on 2008/09/07 in General

I ran into a little issue at work to do with generics, inheritance and type-safety. Normally, I am an absolute supporter of type-safety in programming languages; I have always found that type safety catches bugs at compile-time rather than at run-time, which is always a good thing. However, in this particular instance (which I have never encountered before), type-safety plain got in my way.

 

Imagine you have a class Fruit, from which you derive a number of child classes such as Apple and Banana. There are methods that return Collection<Apple> and Collection<Banana>. Here's a code example (Java), can you see anything wrong with it (excluding the horrible wantApples/wantBananas code... I'm trying to keep the example small!)?

Collection<Fruit> fruit;

if (wantApples)
    fruit = getCollectionOfApple();
else if (wantBananas)
    fruit = getCollectionOfBanana();
else
    throw new BabyOutOfPramException();

for (Fruit aFruit : fruit)
    aFruit.eat();

Look OK? It's not. The error is that you cannot hold a Collection<Apple> or Collection<Banana> as a Collection<Fruit>! Why not, eh? Both Bananas and Apples are subclasses of Fruit, so why isn't a Collection of Banana a Collection of Fruit? All Bananas in the Collection are Fruit!

 

At first I blamed this on Java's crappy implementation of generics. In Java, generics are a compiler feature and not natively supported in the JVM. This is the concept of "type-erasure", where all generic type information is erased during a compile. All your Collections of type T are actually just Collections of no type. The most frustrating place where this bites you is when you want to do this:

interface MyInterface
{
    private void myMethod(Collection<String> strings);
    private void myMethod(Collection<Integer> numbers);
}

Java will not allow that, as the two methods are indistinguishable after a compile, thanks to type-erasure. Those methods actually are:

interface MyInterface
{
    private void myMethod(Collection strings);
    private void myMethod(Collection numbers);
}

and you get a redefinition error. Of course, .NET since v2.0 has treated generics as a first-class construct inside the CLR. So the equivalent to the above example in C# would work fine since a Collection<String> is not the same as a Collection<Integer>.

 

Anyway, enough ranting about Java. I insisted to my co-worker that I was sure C# with its non-crappy generics would have allowed us to assign a Collection<Apple> to a Collection<Fruit>. However, I was totally wrong. A quick Google search told me that you absolutely cannot allow a Collection<Apple> to be assigned to a Collection<Fruit> or it will break programming. This is why:

Collection<Fruit> fruit;
Collection<Apple> apples = new ArrayList<Apple>();
fruit = apples; //Assume this line works OK
fruit.add(new Banana());

for (Apple apple : apples)
   apple.eat();

Can you see the problem? By storing a Collection<Apple> as a Collection<Fruit> we suddenly make it OK to add any type of Fruit to the Collection, such as the Banana on line 4. Then, when we foreach through the apples Collection (which now contains a Banana, thanks to line 4) we would get a ClassCastException because, holy crap, a Banana is not an Apple! We just broke programming.

 

So how can we make this work? In Java, we can use wildcards:

Collection<? extends Fruit> fruit;

if (wantApples)
    fruit = getCollectionOfApple();
else if (wantBananas)
    fruit = getCollectionOfBanana();
else
    throw new BabyOutOfPramException();

for (Fruit aFruit : fruit)
    aFruit.eat();

Disappointingly, C# does not support the concept of wildcards. The best I could do was this:

private void MyMethod()
{
    if (_WantApples)
        EatFruit(GetEnumerableOfApples());
    else if (_WantBananas)
        EatFruit(GetEnumerableOfBananas());
    else
        throw new BabyOutOfPramException();
}

private void EatFruit<T>(IEnumerable<T> fruit) where T : Fruit
{
    foreach (T aFruit in fruit)
        aFruit.eat();
}

Basically, we're declaring a generic method that takes any type of Fruit, and then the compiler is inferring the type to be used for the EatFruit method by looking at the return type of the two getter methods. This code is not as nice as the Java code.

 

You must be wondering, however, what if we added this line to the bottom of the above Java code:

fruit.add(new Banana());

What would happen is that Java would issue an error. This is because the generic type "? extends Fruit" actually means "unknown type that extends Fruit". The "unknown type" part is crucial. Because the type is unknown, the add method for Collection<? extends Fruit> actually looks like this:

public boolean add(null o);

Yes! The only thing that the add method can take is null, because a reference to anything can always be set to null. So even though we don't know the type, we know that no matter what type it is, it can always be null. Therefore, trying to pass a Banana into add() would fail.

 

The foreach loop works okay because the iterator that works inside the foreach loop must always return something that is at least a Fruit thanks to the "extends Fruit" part of the type definition. So it's okay to set a Fruit reference using a method that returns "? extends Fruit" because the thing that is returned must be at least a Fruit.

 

Although obviously wrong now, the assignment of Collection<Apple> to Collection<Fruit> seemed to make sense when I first encountered it. This has enlightened me to the fact that there are nooks and crannies in both C# and Java that I have yet to explore.

Posted by Daniel Chambers on 2008/09/07 in General

I wrote this blog on my phone in January 2008 and there it sat until I remembered about it today, 13 months since my last blog. Okay, so I've also been lazy. :)

 

So the year has ended and I haven't yet written about either of my semesters in the Professional Software Development course. Where 2006 was enjoyable and fun, 2007 was... how do I put this? Bloody hard? Death on a stick?
Either way, it was no cakewalk like I'm realising first year was.

 

This isn't to say I didn't enjoy it. I did, but... in hindsight. I certainly did not at the time. Why? The answer is simple. Too much bloody work. More than could be handled. Now I'm no slacker, I've achieved an easy HD average so far, so when I say there was too much work I don't mean there was too much work that it disturbed my slacking and games playing. Those activities (for me anyway) went mostly out the window years ago. I mean I put all my time and effort into the work and it still couldn't be achieved.

 

Still, all is not pain and misery. When I wasn't being worked into the ground I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The content of the course is still (mostly) well taught and relevant. I chose to take the Games stream for my specialisation, and this year was the first year those subjects came into play.

 

In first semester I took four subjects: Object Oriented Programing in C++, Data Communications and Security, Data Structures and Patterns and Software Development Practices. OOP in C++ was good for me because I taught myself C++ in 2002 but never really understood some of the more quirky and less used features that the language offers. This subject wasn't hard for me, having already done C++ for years, but I know it was difficult for my peers.

 

Data Structures and Patterns was a really good subject. Although many people found it really dull, I found it facinating. The labs really supported the content: one lab got us to write an algorithm with linked lists and then again with arrays to illustrate where linked links perform poorly compared to arrays.

 

Software Development Practices took us through the process of speccing, designing and spiking out software projects. They tried to make the subject as practical as possible but it still could be really boring. There was no exam (thank god) which is good because reguritating tonnes of theory is no fun.

 

Data Communications and Security was a good subject except that it attempted too much in too little a time. For example, one of our labs was to make UDP reliable. That's pretty massive. An assignment was to create a whole P2P filesharing system which also included splitting a file and downloading it from multiple sources. That's pretty massive. I really enjoyed the content of the subject, but man, the amount of work ruined the semester for me.

 

There was a fifth subject called Careers in the Curriculum where we were taught about job interviews and how to write a resume. Although it was annoying to have to do it when I already had too much work, I recognise it's usefulness now as I've needed to do interviews and write a resume.

 

In second semester, my four subjects were Database Programming, Languages in Software Development, Software Project Practices and Management and Games Programming. Database was a good subject, although I found it taught very little actual content, preferring to flog the crap out of 'the three layered architecture'. It did skim over some of the details of different database technologies like being able to program custom types into SQL Server 2005, but mostly it was about the three layered architecture. The hardest part about that subject was that it made you learn ASP.NET without any help at all and a rather short deadline. The actual database content was easy; it was the ASP.NET stuff that was hard because we had to learn it from scratch.

 

Languages in Software Development was odd. It was both a boring and facinating subject. It seemed both irrelevant and relevant. Languages taught us about the basis of programming: lambda calculus. It was rather esoteric but also facinating as we got to build a lambda calculus interpreter in Java. It also taught us about induction which was rather brain twisting and I still struggle with it. Our lecturer, Marcus, was wonderfully helpful and was willing to spend hours with me outside of class helping with the lambda calculus and induction problems I encountered. This subject required constant and considerable work, but was worth it.

 

Software Project Practices and Management was a subject that continued on from Software Development Practices. It started off a little dull but got better once it started talking about Extreme Programming practices and Scrum. Unlike SDP, it had an exam, which was a chore. I didn't end up doing the HD assignment because I simply didn't have time.

 

Games Programming was the big disappointment for me. That's not to say it was terrible, it just didn't live up to my expectations. Unfortunately, the subject was focussed towards Games and Multimedia students rather than PSDs and as such didn't actually contain enough programming. We spent half the semester writing a game design and not actually programming. This subject was like data comms in first semester: way too much work that took time away from other subjects and made the semester a nightmare. The distinction assignment was nothing less than, oh, write a whole game. Want an HD? Do a research report as well. It was basically impossible to do when you factor in the other subjects we had to do.

 

So, basically the year was good, just back breakingly difficult, but only because there simply was not enough time to complete all the allocated work. I'm looking forward to next year when I move to Adelaide to do my IBL year at the DSTO. The fixed work hours will mean I can't overwork myself like I did this year trying to do all the work in my subjects.

 

They say that second year is the hardest and it gets easier from there. I really hope so. In either case, it's over a year away so hopefully I'll be ready to take it on again by then. Now? I just want to play games and fiddle with Visual Studio 2008, .NET 3.5 and Windows Presentation Foundation. And sleep.

Posted by Daniel Chambers on 2007/08/07 in General

Lately, I've been getting annoyed at the state of my music and Audiobook collection. Each Audiobook can often be made up of hundreds (one has over a thousand) of small MP3s that allow me to easily skip through the book and also easily remember where I was up to.

 

But unfortunately, these small MP3s are not tagged and named correctly. Often, they are in correct order on the filesystem (alphabetically, by their filenames), but not by MP3 ID3 tag. This makes it a pain to play in my media player, especially on my iPod where there are practically no sorting functions.

 

I looked at various renaming and retagging solutions out on the web and after one of them completely scrambled one of my albums by putting the tag of each song on another song, I decided I needed something that just worked and was really flexible.

 

I always imagined how good it would be if I could just whip up a quick program to run through those thousand MP3s and name them correctly. So today I decided to create such a solution.

 

I wrote a small (~90 lines) console application in C++ called ID3CL (ID3 Command-Line) that uses the open source id3lib library to edit the ID3 tags of MP3 files. It takes in command-line arguments and retags a single MP3 file. Its command-line syntax is as follows:

Usage: id3cl <mp3 filename> -set <fieldname> <value>
       [-set <field name> <value> [..]]

Fields: tracknum, artist, album, title, year
        comment, genre

You basically invoke it like this: id3cl mysong.mp3 -set artist "DJ DC" -set title "Foobar on rocks". That will set the artist and title of the mysong.mp3 file.

 

Of course, this one-file-retagged-per-program-execution solution doesn't seem like it'd help me with retagging over 1000 MP3s does it? That's where scripting comes in.

 

I've recently been going nuts over PowerShell, the newish scripting language from Microsoft which is out to get rid of batch files (yay!). Writing PowerShell scripts is kind of a cross between writing C# and writing Bash. Its got some odd things in it (like '"{0:2D}" -f 2' will format 2 to be 02) which can make it almost as incomprehensible as Bash, but most of the time its a pleasure to work with (like C# and unlike Bash).

 

So, by writing a script in PowerShell which invokes my little C++ app (ID3CL), I can write tiny programs that retag my MP3 files any way I want.

 

Here's a little PowerShell script that takes MP3 files from the folder that the script is run in (and any files in folders under that one as well (recursively)) and changes their track numbers so the first one is 1 and the second 2, and so on.

$id3cl = "& 'D:\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\ID3CL\release\id3cl.exe' "

$mp3s = Get-ChildItem * -Include *.mp3 -Recurse

$tracknum = 1

foreach ($mp3 in $mp3s)
{
    $cmdline = '"' + $mp3.FullName + '" -set tracknum ' +     $tracknum
    Invoke-Expression ($id3cl + $cmdline)
    $tracknum++
    if ($tracknum -eq 256)
    {
        $tracknum = 1
    }
}

This script is useful when I've got a two CD album, and I've got each CD from the album in its own folder. Each CD is treated like its own album with tracks starting from 1 and going on. But the thing is, I don't want to treat the album as two albums, I want one album with in-order track numbers. So that script will take CD1 and set the track numbers from 1 to X and then take CD2 and set the track numbers from X + 1 to Y. All automatically.

 

So you can see the power of this little system I've created. Unfortunately, only a programmer would be able to make use of this, since you've got to write scripts to do anything useful. But that's what makes it so powerful.

 

ID3CL is definately me-ware. It's not user-friendly. It'll do silly things like if you get it to change the tag on a file that doesn't exist, it'll create a music-less MP3 and put your tags on it silently with no error. I can't be bothered fixing such bugs because it works perfectly when you treat it nicely and give it exactly what it expects. This initially made me not want to put it online for you guys to use, but I think I will anyway. Soon™ :). But if it errors because you did something odd with it, you'll have to figure out its unhelpful error messages.

However, I think its worth it for the power it gives you to tag your MP3 collection.

Posted by Daniel Chambers on 2007/06/29 in General

I was going to write about my recent forays into finding a decent PHP IDE, but Eclipse just released a new version (v3.3) of their IDE, so I'll have to try the new version out first.

So instead, I'm going to show off some coding work I've been doing for the last few days. Here, see me going hardcore with four panels of code at once.

 

I've been working on Aurora, Pulse Development's upcoming CMS. It's written in PHP5 and is fully object-oriented. One of the annoying jobs when writing in PHP is "echo"ing out HTML and dealing with submittable forms. It's messy if you want to do the job properly. When I say properly, I mean it should behave nicely when you stuff up the form entry and it returns back to you. This means having your old values that you entered last time back in their boxes, and the erroring parts highlighted so its easy to see where you stuffed up the form. Some informative error messages wouldn't go astray either.

 

Previously, I'd written seven "panels" (rectangular areas on a webpage that do something) just using the normal echoing out of text. Since I've stepped up development during the Uni holidays I could see that I was going to go nuts if I had to hack out a tonne more panels in this manner. I needed some support.

 

In came the Aurora Drawing Framework. I basically designed and wrote a object oriented model for "drawing" a webpage (echoing out stuff). Its main requirements were to make the restoring of past submitted form values automatic and to make the presentation of form errors automatic. Also, since one of Aurora's main design goals is that the UI and control code be very separate so we can easily rip the UI off and write a new one, the Drawing Framework also needed to be easily extensible and changeable. Don't like the way a control is done? Fine! Extend your own class and do it your way. The rest of the framework will still work with you (thanks polymorphism!).

 

The Drawing Framework also helps eliminate some security concerns, eliminates accidental (HTML) syntax errors, reduces the complexity of the code when dealing with complex forms, and helps keep your page XHTML 1.0 Strict valid. All HTML attributes are automatically run through PHP's htmlentities() function which stops people accidentally or maliciously inserting code into your HTML and hijacking your form. All controls are drawn by the framework (you just set properties) so there will be no markup syntax errors (providing the framework isn't busted :D). Complex functions are built into the framework so they're no more than a function call away (no added cyclomatic complexity). Silly things that invalidate your XHTML like having two <option> tags with the "selected" attribute set in the one dropdown control are prevented, keeping your code "Stricter" (it doesn't force you, though. You can still put a form inside a form...).

 

After three iterations of design (the first two iterations mostly blurred into each other, as the second iteration evolved as I was implementing), I had bashed out a decent OO design. Here's a nice whiteboard showing the overall class hierarchy. (You probably want to open that in another window so you can see it as I rave on like a lunatic.)

 

The Control class implements the interface through which the drawing is done, since every "control" is drawable. It also allows an ErrorDrawer to be used. The ErrorDrawer basically knows when errors happen and modifies the form HTML output code to display the errors to the user. Its abstract, so you can create different implementations of the ErrorDrawer that display the error differently. Maybe one will draw a red box around the offending control, and maybe another will put a (.NET style) little red exclamation icon next to the control. Its up to you.

 

Under Control, there is TextControl, which practically lets you "echo" anything out to the page HTML. It's supposed to be there to let you output text like the text inside a <p> tag. However, you can really use it to output anything (your risk and your responsibility). Then there is HtmlControl which deals with HTML controls. It provides some framework for its child classes to use, like HTML attribute handling and other things.

 

HtmlControl itself has two main subclasses, CompositeControl and FormControl. CompositeControls are ones that can contain other Controls (the Composite design pattern). FormControls are just that: form controls. FormControl implements the automatic previous value retrieval functionality, among other things.

 

Under those two classes you can see all the actual implementation classes. These are things that you actually use, like TextBoxes, SubmitButtons, Divs, Paragraphs, etc. Each one draws itself differently (obviously).

 

So, armed with this new framework, I went back to convert old panels across so that they use it. I was disappointed and pleased at the same time. It took more lines of code to ouput something simple using the Drawing Framework (but each line was a very short and simple method call) than using the old hacky echo method. However, when the form got more complex (it had error types and automatic past-value retrieval) then the Drawing Framework used less lines of code (still short and sweet lines). It was also now really easy to do those simple in concept but annoying and mistake-prone complex features.

 

So using the old hacky echoing method I'd probably output a form like this (it's a crappy example I know, but I don't want a massive load of code):

?>
<form action="form.php" method="post">
    <input type="text" name="test" id="TestTB" />
</form>
<?php

Using the Drawing Framework for the same form:

$form = new Form();
$textBox = new TextBox();
$textBox->SetName("test");
$textBox->SetID("TestTB");
$form->AddControl($textBox);
$form->Draw();

As you can see it takes more lines. But to include error handling and auto past value retrieval it only changes to this:

$errorDrawer = new DivErrorDrawer($this, array("EmptyField", "BadTestData");
$form = new Form($errorDrawer);
$textBox = new TextBox(true);
$textBox->SetName("test");
$textBox->SetID("TestTB");
$form->AddControl($textBox);
$form->Draw();

The first line creates the DivErrorDrawer and tells it to get its error info from the current object (which is a panel), and to look for the EmptyField and BadTestData error types being set (these types are created and set by the panel). This ErrorDrawer is given to the form object, which means it will wrap its error illustration code around the form's code.
The "true" value now in the TextBox constructor turns on the auto past value code.

 

That's it. That's all you have to do. I'm not going to illustrate how you'd do the same thing using the echo method, but let me assure you that it would take more lines of code (not to mention the added code complexity). Actually, come to think of it, you can just make out some code mess on the second from the left code panel in this crappy blurry photo (with added 2x24" goodness! :P). You can kind of estimate the cyclomatic complexity of that code just by looking at the indentation (ick!).

 

Basically, writing code with the Drawing Framework is a bit like using the Java or .NET XML library, or the code that the Visual Studio form designer writes behind the scenes to create a desktop application form in .NET (which you can do manually, but who'd want to when you've got the designer?).

 

Although this looks cool and all, and is obviously useful, it seems that I'm really not adding that much value. But look to the future! In the future a "Control" could be more complex things like a Date Picker or a group of existing controls (like a sort of mini-panel) or even a text field that validates itself using Javascript and maybe does some AJAXy stuff (although some extensions would need to be made to the framework for it to support Javascript). The Drawing Framework has the potential to take the complexity out of complex forms (even though it adds complexity (or at least lines of code) to simple forms).

 

If you suddenly have the yearning to use the Drawing Framework, you'll have to wait a bit. Pulse Development is aiming to sell Aurora to web developers in the future, and the Drawing Framework is only a small part of it! Imagine what Aurora's going to be like!

Posted by Daniel Chambers on 2007/06/21 in General

Finally, this semester is over. Its been a long, long, semester and I'm glad that its finally finished, exams and all. As usual, I'll write up a review of the semester, but this isn't the blog for it.

 

Now that I've had my two 24" screens for a couple of weeks, I can formulate a proper opinion on them. Were they worth the two grand I spent on them? Absolutely. There is nothing quite like being able to work on code on one massive screen, only to have the multitude of supporting windows that I also use on the other massive screen. Highly recommended for those that can stomach the price.

 

It was requested of me by a peer that I illustrate the supreme coding environment that two 24" screens provides. Here is a picture showing Visual Studio (with two panels of code), MSDN and a uni project requirements PDF all open simultaneously. Don't mind all the mess on my desk (that was good watermelon and ginger beer).

 

The screens are so bright that they literally light up my room. I almost don't need any other lights on in the room. That said, they can be a little glaring if you don't have some other supplemental light on.

 

The first thing that annoyed me was the lack of a taskbar on the second screen. I wanted all the windows on the second screen to be on their own taskbar rather than junking up the single one on the main screen. A quick search later and Ultramon solved my problems. Highly recommended for those with two screens.

 

However, not is all sweet smelling roses in the 24" garden. One of the screens seems to have a bit of light leakage on the right edge. My last screen had tonnes of light leakage and as such it wasn't really an issue. This screen, however, has no light leakage except for this tiny bit which makes it all the more obvious and annoying. It doesn't affect standard work but during movies with dark scenes it is particularly obvious. It only affects one screen out of my two.

 

So, I submitted a warranty claim with Dell to try and get it replaced, fully expecting to be rebuffed. To my extreme pleasure, I was called within a day of the report and told they will send me a replacement and I can send my existing screen back with the courier that brings the replacement. Hats off to Dell. Exemplary performance. I will recommend Dell to anyone who asks me now.

 

But enough raving about the screens. Now that exams are over, I am planning to put a lot of time into my web development business. We are currently developing a CMS for use in a few clients' websites. Its written in PHP 5 in a fully object-oriented manner and is turning out nicely.

 

Aurora (the CMS) will power the next version of DigitallyCreated.net. The next version? Yes, this design, although nice, is getting a bit tired and as such I've developed a new design from the ground up that, when the correct components from Aurora are done, I will replace this current website with. Expect a much more robust blogging system with comments when that's released. Closer to the time, I may release some screenshots.

 

People may say that Microsoft has grown stagnant, and certainly some sectors haven't been doing as well as was expected (Vista for example). But, as I've always said, if there's one thing that Microsoft can do right, its development tools.
They've gone and released a new web platform called Silverlight. At first glance, it seems to be a Flash-y sort of thing, but when you look closer it seems (to me at least) to be more of a platform than a media presentation format.

 

However, its got one main failing point at this time. It doesn't work in Opera. Works in Firefox and IE, but not Opera. Sorry guys, but until its pervasive, its not going to take off. And they realise that. Their current plan seems to be to release an Opera version "soon" (I'm hoping with the final version of Silverlight 1.1 which is in Alpha currently). At least they are bothering, which is new for Microsoft and Opera (*cough* fix all the Windows Live services while you're at it *cough*).

 

Silverlight seems to be a good place that Microsoft can finally use XAML. I always thought that XAML didn't seem to be particularly useful in the Visual Studio - C# world (I haven't actually used it though, so I very well might be wrong, so take that with a handful of salt). But for a web application, XAML seems to be perfect. Check out the short tutorials on the Silverlight website to see what I mean.

 

Another indication that Microsoft have still got the smarts, so to speak, is the new Popfly mashup creator/website creator/community that they've created, built on Silverlight. I was raving for hours after I saw this. The coolest thing about Popfly is its mashup creator. You literally drag "blocks" onto a drawing surface and join them with lines to join together services like Virtual Earth and Flickr. Its insane.

 

For example, (as shown on the Popfly website), you can create a Virtual Earth map that shows the location of the people who made the latest posts on Twitter. You basically drag a Twitter block (a literal cube object) onto the design surface, drag on a Virtual Earth block and join them together with a line. However, you find that Twitter provides the user's location as a name (eg Melbourne, Australia) and Virtual Earth requires latitude and longitude. So you drag on a block that converts from location name to latitude and longitude (called GeoNames). You join Twitter to GeoNames and then GeoNames to Virtual Earth with lines, tell Virtual Earth to get its coordinates from GeoNames and bam, you've got a VE map with Twitter users on it. Popfly handles all the AJAX, Javascript, Silverlight etc for you.

 

You can create your own blocks as well. There is a Visual Studio plugin you can download that helps you with this. You can then share these blocks on the little community thing that Popfly's got. Don't like what someone's shared? You can easily copy it, edit it and reshare the updated version!

 

If you need to dig a bit deeper into the code, say in the web site developer tool, or in the mashup creator, you can. And its even got Intellisense code prompting. In a web browser. Insane.

 

Popfly's only in Alpha so its still a little rough around the edges. But its remarkably stable. I haven't fiddled with it all yet, but what I have used has been remarkably smooth and polished. The alpha is still only in invitation only mode, but I was lucky enough to get an invite. If you hurry up, you might get one too. To see the really awesome presentation of Popfly check out their page here (you need Silverlight installed to view the movie).

 

Just to put a downer on all this new-found excitement, Apple released a PC version of their Mac Safari browser. Why do I hate this? Because its another damn browser I've got to now test for, me being a web developer. I've already got enough to tear my hair out with, what with Opera, Firefox and IE 6 and 7, since bloody people seem to not want to update to version IE7 (go find some statistics and see). The Inquirer has a nice article that explains why Apple dumped this pile on us and its not because they love us.

 

What probably makes my hackles stand on end the worst, is the fact that they tout it as the fastest browser. In fact, in typical Apple fashion, its not, but they insist on preaching to their zealot ("my life for Apple!") masses that it is. "Huh?" you say, "I've seen benchmarks that prove that it is the fastest!". Those benchmarks are probably wrong. Turns out that Safari's Javascript onload event fires before all the loading is done (unlike all other browsers who only fire onload when everything is loaded). Therefore, all the Javascript benchmarks record Safari as finishing loading before it actually does. Of course, Apple doesn't tell you that, do they? Here's the hard evidence from the guy that did the original browser benchmark.

 

Hell, now that I've got all annoyed with Apple, I might as well focus some rage on their zealot fanboys. A perfectly innocent ZDNet blogger wrote that the new MacOS X that is coming soon isn't too different from Vista. Although I don't agree with everything that she said (especially the part about Coverflow looking like a rip off of Flip3D), she made a lot of good points. However, she was literally threatened and abused into backing down by angry Apple zealots. She was literally told that she should "find a new career", that she "should be running a car wash in Frezno", and one of the zealots was going to complain to her manager to get her fired.

 

This sort of thing, people, is completely unacceptable. The Internet is not a place where you can threaten and abuse people. Its a place where you can present your viewpoint. Its okay that someone else has a different opinion to you. Its not okay to insult and threaten those other people. These people are one of the reasons why I dislike Apple. I don't want to be painted with the same brush as these spineless cowards who didn't even leave their real email address when they posted their insults so that Mary Jo (the blogger) could respond to them rationally. Here's a good rule of thumb for the zealots: if you want people to join up with Apple, try to act in a mature manner. If you need to hide your real name and email address, what you are saying is not appropriate.

 

Cooling down now, I am aware however, that this vocal minority of users is just that: a minority. There are plenty of rational people with Macs. My favourite lecturer has a Mac, one of my best friends has a Mac and some of my uni mates have Macs. I still am interested in Apple's progress and activities. Hell, maybe one day I'll get a Mac. But that day is not now nor in the foreseeable future at this point.

 

Getting back from another Apple rant (sorry, its a habit I've got to get over), let me bring this massive blog to a close on a positive note. At the end of my presentation that I gave on Monday (which went brilliantly), the marker told me about a Google presentation video that talks about tagging as a concept and kindly sent me the link in an email. It sounds boring, but in fact it was an entertaining and facinating video to watch. I highly recommend it. Here's the link. Its long (about an hour) but well worth the watch.

Especially on a 24 inch screen.

Posted by Daniel Chambers on 2007/06/6 in General

Do you know what's awesome?

 

 

Yeah, that's pretty awesome. Especially the cinnamon flavoured ones.

But I bet it's not as awesome as this. Yeah. I'll let you go change your pants now.

 

As you can see, I got myself two 24" monitors for my 19th birthday (my parents chipped in a bit as well). They are very nice; when I sit in front of them they basically fill my entire view. They are so bright I don't even need my desk lamp on to see my keyboard.

 

I've only had them installed for a few hours, so I'll have to write again about how they perform in movies and games etc. The only quibble I've had with them so far, is that the colour on one screen is slightly different from the colour on the other. I've fiddled with the colour settings to minimise this, so it's okay now.

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