I just got back from Ghent, where I attended the seminar about Silverlight and XNA.

And I was astonished about the power of Silverlight.

The main advantage is: XAML. The designer uses MS Blend for the creation of the pages/windows/controls, and the developer can just use that code, no conversion needed (it just works). He can import the project in Visual Studio 2008 (same structure), attach some eventhandlers, bla bla.

Silverlight has a very rich framework, of course not the whole .NET framework. It’s a subset, containing the most parts that you need for web development, for example there is no need for File Access.

A very interesting feature is Application Storage. A local cache for example when you want to save some settings. It’s quite the same as cookies, but a lot more powerfull.

This session was given by Gill Cleeren.

About the XNA part:
Was a bit boring in the beginning, but as we advanced it got more interesting. Afterwards Peter and I spoke to the speaker, and he gave us some demos about other stuff he made (which was actually the most interesting part about this session).

We learned how a model got constructed, with Meshes and MeshParts, around bones (parents), and collision detection, which was kind of cool.

To use a sphere to check if they collide, to use per pixel detection, or triangle detection: we discussed all the advantages and disadvantages.

I now have a (supercool) mug with the beautiful Silverlight logo

Learned a lot today, really a lot.

I would like to thank my friend Peter for joining me in this trip, it was great mate!

If you ever make a big change to a table, which would require the SQL Management Studio 2008 to drop and recreate the table you might get this error:

This can be prevented by switching the following checkbox off: Tools > Options:

Today an update for Live Mesh was released.

As stated in the title: there is no need to set your country for your .NET passport and computer to the US, which means my ‘tutorial’ is obsolete now.

Try it out, have fun

Yesterday I tried Windows Live Messenger 9 Beta.

Works pretty well, fast, nice interface (not to childish), and the ability to sign in with the same accounts onto multiple computers.

But there is an issue with the custom emoticons.

They get preserved on upgrade (luckily, they did it right this time), but they don’t display if you use them, not in the chat window itself, and not in the text input box.

Messenger 8

Messenger 9

Let’s hope they fix this in the future release

Since Adobe released Flash 10 I am unable to upload files with the Flash uploader, it seems they changed the API in order to make it more ‘secure’.

They do not allow any openfiledialogs to be opened without explicit click from the user.

This breaks a lot of usability.

I don’t know why they would break something like that, because the user still has to select a file and click ‘Open’. Because of some stupid user they break it for all users.

More info about this (unresolved, and propbably never resolvable) issue.

(Disclaimer: this tutorial is written for Windows XP, I don’t know if it’ll work for Vista.)

As you might know, Microsoft has released a Tech Preview of Live Mesh a while ago. To get the installer from www.mesh.com you MUST have a .NET passport with an address in the USA. And to install it your regional options must be set to English, and the country must be set to USA.

After this double click the installer, and it should launch, and minimize to the system tray. After a few moments the installation is complete (it notifies you of this).

Now click Sign In in the Notification Window:

When it asks for your credentials be sure to use one with an address in the USA (the one you used to download the installation).

On the next Window just click ‘Add device’ to add your computer:

Next Up: go to ‘My Computer’ and double click ‘Live Mesh Folders’, and there create a new folder and choose the location.

That’s it! Repeat these steps on another computer to keep them sync.

You can also go to www.mesh.com to browse your folders, works pretty wel

Good luck.

I would like to clarify a previous post of mine.

As stated there I will be attending Microsoft Tech·Ed EMEA 2008 – Developer in Barcelona the 10th until the 14th of November this year.

There is so much to tell about this, it will be a week PACKED with programming, no silly lessons like school, but information on a decent level.

I already made my agenda for the week (it can change though), in order for them to know how many places they must reserve for each seminar.

I mainly chose WPF and Silverlight, and User Interface. Because that is what I like, the interaction between the program and the user.

Databinding and LINQ is also very interesting, and I will be attending a seminar about that subject.

More information will follow.

RaProducts heeft een zeer interessant programma: JavaRa, voor het eenvoudig updaten van Java, en daarbij oudere versies verwijderen, aangezien de installer dit niet vanzelf doet .

Kijk uit bij de installatie van de JRE, want die wilt standaard OpenOffice installer op je systeem kopieren.

Wil je ooit Google Chrome compileren volgens deze guide: hou dan rekening met de volgende (oplosbare) issues:

Als je de Windows SDK installeert, dan zorgt ie ervoor dat je geen Intellisense hebt in WPF.

En een 2de, (en dan belangrijk voor Google Chrome te compileren): WindowsSDKVer.exe geeft niets weer (op 64-bit, op 32-bit crasht ‘m zultschijnt).

Oplossing:

Repair even de installatie van Visual Studio vanuit Configuratiescherm.