Archive for October, 2008
My 5 Favourite TV Series
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under TV Series
TV Series have become popular in the last couple of years, because the production quality of some of these series are as good, if not better than some movies. Its interesting to see that more and more famous movie actors (off hand think of James Woods from the series Shark and Glenn Close from Damages) are starring in TV Series. With that thought in mind I have been following a few tv series myself, and thought I would list my favourite ones at the moment. I must openly admit that I am not the biggest Lost, Prison Break or Smallville fan. I like Sci-Fi, such as Battlestar Gallatica. I do prefer something that doesnt remind me too much of everyday life, something that helps me escape some reality. In the same breath I did like Damages a lot.
So here are my 5 most favourite TV series:
- Heroes: Now in season three, it has not lost any of its feel. The story is still excellent and has not been watered down, and you still get the feel that its a really expensive Hollywood movie. The twists and turns in the series are making it very interesting to watch.
- Supernatural: I don’t know why I like this series so much. I like the offbeat cheesy humour sometimes, and I like the TV show. Have been watching since the first season and am watching season four at the moment.
- Californication: There is something really cool about the way this story unfolds. You have this promiscuous world being shown on the one hand and on the other hand you sense that these characters really care for each other. I’m into the second season.
- Fringe: I really like this series, because it feels so creepy and dark, full of evil scientific experiments that turn people into balls of goo.
- Star Wars The Clone Wars: You understand you will. I just love this, and its amazing to see how much the cartoon characters look like the real life actors.
Waiting…to build some Silverlight applications
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under Silverlight
As I sit waiting for the Visual Studio Service Pack 1 ISO to finish downloading, I spent some time looking and reading about Silverlight and about C#. I have found one or two good websites, ones that I go to regularly to check for updated articles and source code. So three of my favourite Silverlight websites at the moment:
- Martin Grayson’s Adventures of a ‘Devigner’: The title, ‘devigner’, of the blog suggests that Martin Grayson sees himself as a real designer/developer. Maybe he has that one thing that all developers sometimes miss, the knack to design and develop in one breath. I guess neat and tidy and functional is not always good enough. Then again creativity, in my opinion, can be subjective.
- Smart Draw:I have linked to them before or written about them before and they keep the website updated with new source code all the time. I like the fact that they actually illustrate that it is possible to do something both in Flash and Silverlight.
- Silverlight Made Simple by – Corey Schuman:
Is another favourite website of mine because I got source code for a simple media player from it.
Silverlight 2 was officially released recently, which meant an entire update of tools and plugins, hence the reason for downloading the Visual Studio Service Pack 1. With the new release of Silverlight you need to download a few things:
- Silverlight Developer Tools
- The updated Silverlight Plugin
- Visual Studio Service Pack 1
I downloaded the ISO for the service pack because I wanted to distribute it on more than one user machine.
So, is everything event driven?
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under ASP.NET, Silverlight
I am busy with a Silverlight video player at the moment, and what is interesting to note and understand is that Silverlight is heavily event-driven, as is ASP.NET and a lot of the .NET framework. You can attach event handlers to almost any object, from mouse event handlers to click event handlers.
Having asked that question I took a look at the ASP.NET page life cycle and just realised how intrinsic events are in the .NET framework. There are eight basic stages in the ASP.NET page lifecycle:
- Page Request
- Start
- Page Initialization
- Load
- Validation
- Postback Event Handling
- Rendering
- Unload
Within the page lifecycle there are events raised, which allows you to write code that initialises controls that are dynamically created.
Google Phone coming to South Africa
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under General
I had a brief glimpse of the Google phone and I must say its not a pretty phone when compared to the iPhone. The other interesting thing to note is that the iPhone does not support Flash or Silverlight at this stage and that Microsoft will be looking at putting Silverlight on the Google phone. Silverlight 2 has also just been released.
Microsoft and Facebook
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under Facebook, Web Technologies
Microsoft own a share of Facebook, and whats interesting to note is that there is a Facebook Developer Toolkit available for the Express editions of C#, VB and Web Developer. Facebook is a truly open platform and framework. Is Facebook dead? Or will it continue growing? Who knows.
Nobody seems to know about Silverlight, for now
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under ASP.NET, C#, Silverlight
I would be the first to admit that not a lot of people have heard or know about Silverlight, which is Microsoft’s rich internet plugin, which is an alternative to Adobe’s Flash. It is true that Flash has been around for a long time and that Silverlight will not dislodge Flash’s entrenched following and use. But maybe, just maybe Silverlight was not designed for that purpose and that if people respond to Silverlight in certain ways it means they are taking some notice at least. The response clearly does not take into account the opportunities Silverlight offers a .NET developer. As a .NET developer I can use my C# skills to develop rich internet applications. I do not have to learn Action Script. Those same skills that I use to develop Silverlight applications can be used to develop WPF applications, ASP.NET applications and Windows applications.
3 Reasons why C# and Object Oriented Programming Rocks
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under C#
I have come to really appreciate the quality of and the real possibilities that are associated with C# and object oriented programming, and I thought that maybe I could think of 3 reasons why it rocks. So here are my 3 reasons.
- Real-world object mapping: You can take real world objects and turn them into functional, programmable computer objects. If you have a product in your business then you can define that product, through some analysis, and develop it into something that can be represented as a programmable computer object. This is where business objects are created – they are true representations of the actual objects themselves. Object can have relationships with other objects.
- Object re-use: If I create an object within any of my web projects, I can re-use the functions of those objects as many times as I want. All I have to do is create an instance of that object and I have access to its functions. This reduces the number of times I have to re-use name spaces. It also allows me to focus on developing and refining my objects, and making changes in fewer places.
- Multi-platform and device: C# can be used in windows-based, web-based and mobile applications. Within web and windows applications you can target Silverlight (Web) and WPF (Application) without having to let go of C#. Talk about honing your C# skills!
Top 5 Favourite Flash Games at the moment
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under General
Okay, so you have some time to kill or you are really bored, and you have an internet connection. What now? Well you could waste some really productive hours playing a few Flash games, and its interesting to note that not many Silverlight games exist yet, and I doubt they will ever exceed the number of Flash games out there. So here are my list of top ten Flash Games:
- Stickman Tennis: I’m not quite sure why I like this game so much, but it does feel like the actions and strokes u make are kinda ‘real’. Other than that I just want to beat the living crap out of it.
- Straw Hat Samurai: It’s a bloody game that lets you chop other samurai’s into pieces. Somehow I really like it.
-
Bowmaster
lease don’t ask me how I got addicted to this game, but I just went from one level to the next without realising what I was doing. What a time waster!
- Warfare 1917: It’s amazing to see the detail that goes into some of these games. It almost feels like its a PC Game. Its a really cool game.
- Star Rebellion: Reminds me of StarCraft, but somehow I cannot get to any more levels.
USS Theodore Roosevelt in Cape Town
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under General
The USS Theodore Roosevelt came to Cape Town and I went to Blouberg beach to go and check it out and I must say I couldn’t see much, but from what I read its quite amazing. I mean that carrier has more aircraft on it than the entire South African Airforce, which just shows the magnitude. After looking at the ship I did a search on US Aircraft carriers and came across a list that describes past and future aircraft carriers. Most of these ships are 300 metres and longer and the majority run on nuclear power, which means they can run forever.
Demystifying some .NET Issues
Posted by fr3dr1k | Filed under AJAX, ASP.NET, Web Technologies
What seemed a little odd to me today was that SQL Server Express 2005 is download-able from two places. Both shows different file sizes.
Another issues that needs clarity is ASP.NET and .NET framework versions. .NET 3.5 is an ‘extension’ of .NET 2.0 and replaces .NET 3.0. .NET 3.5 covers AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and LINQ (Language Integrated Query)
