Launching Calicut Microsoft Users Group (C-Mug)

We have started a new Microsoft Users group in Calicut today (22-06-2008). We didn’t get much time for advertising before the meet, still we got 13 members for the first meeting. Thanks to viable technologies for providing meeting venue with LCD projector and tea :)

I started with the introduction of Users Group and it needs. Based on the feedbacks from members, I didn’t take the sessions which I planned. Instead I took sessions on introduction to Expression Studio, Bled, Design, Media, Encoder etc and demo of silverlight application.

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T-Mug ( Trivandrum Microsoft User Group) with new look

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T-Mug is coming with new look and feel. Last weekend I was totally occupied with this assigment. We have taken back up of the old forum, but we couldnt migrate the users (Snitz forum) to new site. But members can access the old forum as well, and we don’t encourage new posts to old forum. So I would request all t-muggers to join the new site and support the community.  Please share your comments in t-mug site itself.

www.CookingIdeas.Net for Indian recipes

Nothing happened to this techie guy and I am still with software industry :)

But yes, it is true. I have started another hobby project for cooking recipes (www.cookingideas.net) and we have expert editors (cooking experts) too.

Here is the snippets taken from about us page. “..where you will find most comprehensive collection of Vegetarian and Non Vegetarian recipes from different parts of the world. After going through various sites, we came to know about the need of a good website having easy-to-make and genuine information about cooking. CookingIdeas.net is the one for you which satisfies all your Cooking needs. This website is a result of dedication and effort put forward by various experts who has analyzed the needs of people and their tastes…Read more »

.NET 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit

The .NET Framework 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos. This content is designed to help you learn how to utilize the .NET 3.5 Enhancement features including: ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Dynamic Data, ASP.NET AJAX History, ASP.NET Silverlight controls, ADO.NET Data Services and ADO.NET Entity Framework.

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Best UML design tool for architects?

I have been using the Enterprise Architect tool from sparx systems for last 4+ years for UML based design. Every time I start a new architect role, I used to check with the team which UML tool they are familiar with, so that we can communicate the design to the team more effectively. I am sure, all of us would like to use our favorite tool, if the organization don’t have standards related to design.

Here in my new organization, colleagues use different tools like Rational Rose, StarUML, Visio etc. We will be doing most of the developments in Visual Studio 2005/2008 and C++ or C#. I have worked with Rational Rose, Enterprise Architect, Visio, Raphsody, Rational XDE etc, and I did some research on UML tools available in market. Read more »

WPF Localization using LocBaml

WPF Localization can be achieved via the following steps.

  1. Add UICulture node to project file. ( <Project><PropertyGroup><UICulture>en-US</UICulture> … )
  2. Create Localization IDs for the resources (msbuild /t:updateuid TestProj.csproj )
  3. Create CSV file from en-US resource (LocBaml /parse TestProj.g.en-US.resources /out:en-US.csv)
  4. Create new satellite assembly (LocBaml /generate TestProj.resources.dll /trans:fr-CA.csv /cul:fr-CA)

My sixth MVP Award - Microsoft’s way of new year wish

I have received the MVP award for 2008 and it is my sixth consecutive  award.  Here is my profile on Microsoft site.

https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Sreejumon

Silverlight 2.0 beta in Q1 of 2008

Silverlight v2.0 (previously known as Silverlight v1.1) public release will have the following new features.

  • Rich Controls: The next Silverlight release will add support for core form controls (textbox, checkbox, radiobutton, etc), built-in layout management controls (StackPanel, Grid, etc), common functionality controls (TabControl, Slider, ScrollViewer, ProgressBar, etc) and data manipulation controls (DataGrid, etc).
  • WPF UI Framework: The next public Silverlight will add support for the higher level features of the WPF UI framework. These include: the extensible control framework model, layout manager support, two-way data-binding support, and control template and skinning support. The WPF UI Framework features in Silverlight will be a compatible subset of the WPF UI Framework features in .NET Framework 3.5 release.
  • Rich Networking Support: Silverlight release will add support for REST, POX, RSS, and WS* communication. It will also add support for cross domain network access.
  • Rich Base Class Library Support: Silverlight will include a rich .NET base class library of functionality (collections, IO, generics, threading, globalization, XML, local storage, etc). Silverlight release will also add built-in support for LINQ to XML and richer HTML DOM API integration. Read more »

GMail Mailbox Size, Algorithm and Projection

I am here in Helsinki (Finland) now and just thought of checking the Detroit time by changing the windows date time control’s Time Zone. I was having the gmail login page in the background with size information - “Over 5090.355697 megabytes (and counting) of free storage so you’ll never need to delete another message”.

I thought of playing a bit on the calender control and noticed that the gmail mailbox counter is varying based on the system date. After checking the java script source, I realized that gmail script is dependent on the local system date. Hence thought of projecting the mailbox size for next 35 years. Unfortunately the script failed after 2038, it shows the size less than 5 MB. Hope google will correct the script by that time. Here is the projection of mailbox size.

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Microsoft Silverlight and Windows Media Player?

Do you think Silverlight media features are built on top of Windows Media Player?

The Silverlight browser plug-in is a separate component, independent of Windows Media Player. Silverlight is designed for delivery of cross-platform, cross-browser media experiences and rich interactive applications (RIAs) inside a Web browser combining audio, video, animation, overlays, and more. Windows Media Player delivers a breadth of local playback and user focused experiences. You don’t require Windows Media Player to be installed on PC to run Silverlight applications. Silverlight is completely independent and when installed is less than 2 MB in size.

Silverlight supports Windows Media Audio and Video (WMA, WMV7–9) and VC-1, as well as MP3 audio. Additional formats may be available over time.

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