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June 29, 2007

"2nd Lt. Bennett" in Silverlight

Terralever (an Arizona company) built Zero Gravity in Silverlight (using C#). It is a pretty coo lil’ game. Simple user animations/movements+a cool concept = a fun game. :-)

Check it out for yourself:

http://zerogravity.terralever.com/

Read more about it from Tim Heuer’s point of view: http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2007/06/26/zerogravity.aspx.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 11:45 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 3, 2006

Restarter.exe 1.0

There was a need to restart an app from another app. So App 1 needs to be restarted by App 2. App 2 was initially built with Zinc but there is reason to believe it isn’t working (hence the fact 12+ App 1’s have been seen open at 1 time). The client suggested a C++/C# version of the restarter so I took off to write one real quick.

Restarter takes 2 params. 1st is app to close and 2nd is app to start. 2nd can be a filename of any sort really. 1st param is the process name and all instances of that name will be closed. It is super simple but very effective.

Continue reading "Restarter.exe 1.0" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 3:01 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 17, 2006

XAML... Flash Killer?

(In response to Cody B.’s post)

Ok. Let’s separate the two really fast and end the debate. :-)

XAML more-so equivalent to Flex than Flash. Flash can do some great things but it isn’t even comparable to Flex and they are in the same product family @ Adobe. Some thought Flex would be a Flash killer but it isn’t. For 1, Flex is built on the Flash player. It doesn’t have a physical timeline for you to utilize but MovieClips are still around so you can do things like onEnterFrame, etc.

Continue reading "XAML... Flash Killer?" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:40 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 14, 2006

C# & Flash Differences: Event Listener Assignments

Ok…me coming from Flash I was expecting some sort of method (or 3) in C# used for adding/removing event listeners and dispatching them. Well, I was terribly mistaken. :-)

While I was working on the Simple Calculator I decided to jump ahead in the dev process and peep some of the code Visual Studio was creating for me with the visual changes I was making. In doing so I found the InitializeComponent method which init’s all of the buttons, menus, etc.

Continue reading "C# & Flash Differences: Event Listener Assignments" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 12:12 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 8, 2006

SimpleCalculator.exe (Pre-Pre-Pre-Alpha)

Ok. I got started on the calculator and I must say, again, Visual Studio is the best IDE I’ve worked with. It is thoroughly amazing in more than 1 way. Cody B. has always said it is the benchmark for IDE’s and I must publicly agree with him. I wish I had something this smooth for ColdFusion…heck, AS while I’m at it. :-) Let me detail a few things about the app dev so far.

Continue reading "SimpleCalculator.exe (Pre-Pre-Pre-Alpha)" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 10:55 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

February 7, 2006

A Simple Calculator

Ok. I don’t know how to create anything other than a command line app right now but I dreamed about the app I want to build. Oh…so you know I dream and talk about code in my sleep (my wife gets some good jokes at my expense) all the time.

I’m going to build a calculator just like the one in Windows. It won’t have the scientific side of things but it will give you the core functionality. I think this will challenge me since I don’t know how to use the WinForms yet. Once I get it going I’ll post it here so folks can check it out.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 9:46 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

February 6, 2006

Thirsting for an App

Ok. I’m learning C# but I am too bored with the examples in the book and am ready for something new, more advanced and phat. I’m fine learning and doing sample apps but I want to use C# in production.

A couple weeks ago, just for the heck of it, I looked into C# and database interaction. It was a bit daunting with all of the new ways to do things. I come from a ColdFusion/PHP background (in terms of db interaction) so I’m used to using datasources and simple functions (php) not connection strings. That was my first hang up but I eventually got it after finding the right help info. From there…what do I build? I just made it so you could run a select query against a database and it would output the results. So, how cheesy is that? It is utterly useless and even made Cody B. (your resident C# guru) ask questions about what it does.

Continue reading "Thirsting for an App" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 10:53 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 26, 2006

Constructor Overload

OK…I thought method overloading was sweet but constructor overloading makes it even better. The whole idea is you can have a method with the same name more than once with a different set of arguments for each. There are rules to how one is selected based on the conversion abilities of the arguments though.

Let’s start out with method overloading. Take for instance these functions.

public void Test(int blah)
{

}

public void Test(long blah)
{

}

public void Test(decimal blah)
{

}

Ok. By calling

sbyte anSbyte = 10;
Test(anSbyte)

which method will be chosen? Well, Rule One states the compiler will find the method with the argument closest to the argument passed on the conversion path. An sbyte (which is what gets passed) converts to a short, int, long, float, and decimal. The compiler chooses the closest which in this case would be int.

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Posted by John C. Bland II at 11:57 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Using Yahoo! Maps GeoCoding API in C#

Digital Colony has taken the Yahoo! Maps GeoCoding API into C# for all of our goodness.

Get it while it's hot!

Posted by John C. Bland II at 8:44 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 22, 2006

1st C# App: Project Calculator

Ok. I started on my book and couldn’t help but to try something on my own.

The first part of the book talked about console applications and a very in-depth look at programming in general (seriously…it is pretty thorough). We built a simple “hello world-ish” app first (so yes, this is my 2nd app) which did nothing but print to the console window some text. Whoop-di-doo! I instantly was hungry for more though.

The next app was a simple calculator. You enter a number and it did some math on it blah blah blah. I took this time to briefly look over the code and branch into doing my own thing. So, in comes the Project Calculator.

First off, Microsoft C# 2005 Express Edition is nothing short of phenominal. It is super slick and growing on me every time I type “{class}.” (where {class} is a class…duh). The overall flow of this IDE is superb and it opens SUPER fast, unlike Dreamweaver which is my normal IDE of choice for any code.

So, what does the app do?

Continue reading "1st C# App: Project Calculator" »

Posted by John C. Bland II at 3:10 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

January 21, 2006

C# Primer Plus - Klaus Michelsen

Those of you who know me may be wondering "Why does he have a C# book?" Better yet, "Why is he toying with C#?" The answer is simple....I want to learn it.

Recently I built a desktop application (can't comment on it right now) and ran into several problems. If I knew C# I could have built custom DLL(s) (proxy/facade/whatever you wanna call'em) and interfaced with it/them instead of spending weeks trying to use Flash+Zinc (I'll post more about that experience l8r) which apparently was impossible for what I was trying to do (natively that is).

So, I did some work for a friend and he insisted on doing something for me which turned out to be buying a book from Amazon.com. Since I was interested in learning a knew language anyway, I have direct access to who I see as a GREAT programmer (Cody Beckner), and a chance @ a free book...I chose "C# Primer Plus" by Klaus Michelsen. Cody said it was the go to book last year and should still be very much so relevant today I chose it.

I only need to get my feet wet into general setup and syntax. The rest is like riding a bike since I already know how to code. Hopefully I'll be able to spit out some desktop apps with it as well. Obviously my first choice would be Flash+Zinc but whatever tool is best for the job will be used.

Posted by John C. Bland II at 7:19 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)