Justin Lee's Technology Blog

Another Reason to use Flash Instead of Silverlight

jlee — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 03:40:44 GMT

Flash content is finally searchable by two of the biggest online search engines on the internet, Google and Yahoo.

One of the biggest disadvantage of using Flash content for your dynamic content is simply because it is not searchable, and now with Adobe's new optimized Adobe Flash Player helping both Google and Yahoo to search and index Flash content, this means that there is no excuse left NOT TO USE FLASH on your web sites.

Note that Microsoft Live Search was not included in this partnership.

Now, for those enthusiastic about writing Silverlight content on the web, might I ask, what is Microsoft going to do about this? Both in its Live Search, making it competitive with Google and Yahoo to search Flash content, and also making Silverlight content searchable too. This is the biggest advantage Adobe Flash has over Silverlight now, and if Microsoft doesn't do anything about it, the web will not be convinced about Silverlight, regardless of the amount of ~~bribing~~ promoting they can and will do.

Adobe, we love you and thank you.

To those Silverlight enthusiasts, please get your facts right about Adobe Flash before even bashing Adobe Flash technology. You know who you are.

Blaming the User

jlee — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:14:16 GMT

Is it better to have a user implicitly learning how an application work easily by discovery, rather than explicitly learning how an application works through training and books?

If something goes wrong with an application, is it really a "problem between the keyboard and the chair"? Or is it because the "User Experience" isn't sufficient or consistent to assist with implicit learning?

Sometimes people in the "Computer Industry" need to think more about the user and how to ease their pain, instead of blaming them and create more pain for them.

I'm always amazed when a user tells me "It just works! Amazing!" instead of "How do you do this?". That's "User Experience" for you.

Think about it.

This is my rant today.

Links on F# Quotation

jlee — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:01:52 GMT

These are a few links I want to read later on F# Quotations. Quotations are similar to expression trees in C#, but more powerful.

F# - Simple quotations transformation

Practical F# Parsing: The Abstract Syntax Tree

F# Quotations Samples on CodePlex

F# quotations visualizer - reloaded!

Some Q&A on F# Quotations and LINQ

MVP Insider - Q & A with Justin Lee

jlee — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:39:21 GMT

Well, it seems this month I'm up for being interviewed. Here's the link to my interview.

WPF for Developers and Lead Designers Course

jlee — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:51:26 GMT

Rob Burke is teaching a WPF training course through Toronto-based consultancy ObjectSharp. The course is called “Windows Presentation Foundation for Developers and Lead Designers,” and, as the title suggests, it offers a hands-on experience designed to give developers and lead designers the knowledge, background, tips and references they’ll need to build smart client applications using the Windows Presentation Foundation.

After enjoying the process of training a team of developers and designers to use WPF, this course is the result of turning that material into a course that we could offer here.

The inaugural course offering is currently scheduled for August 13th-15th. If you’re interested in taking part, please find more information about the course on ObjectSharp’s site. Also, if August 13th is too long for you to wait, or you’re interested in an on-site course, please contact Julie James, ObjectSharp’s Training Manager.

Pex 0.5 Released

jlee — Mon, 26 May 2008 00:16:25 GMT

What is Pex?

Pex generates test inputs that cover all, or at least many of the corner cases in your .NET code. These test inputs are plugged into parameterized unit test that you write. The result is a small unit test suite, where each unit test calls the parameterized unit test with particular test inputs. There is a great picture on the main Pex page that illustrates this process.

Pex supports other unit test frameworks since the unit tests that Pex generates can be executed by other unit test frameworks without Pex. Pex comes with support for MSTest, the unit test framework of Visual Studio, out of the box. For support for other unit test frameworks, please look at the Pex Extensions project.

Parameterized unit tests have been around for quite some time already, under several names -- row tests, data-driven tests, theories, etc.

What is really unique about Pex is that it analyzes your .NET code, instruction by instruction, to understand what your code is doing. Then, in a fully automatic way, Pex computes relevant test inputs that trigger the corner cases of the code. When you write assertions, Pex will try to come up with test inputs that cause an assertion to fail.

Feedback

To ask questions, get help, or just give feedback, please take a look at our mailing lists.

Links

Homepage: http://research.microsoft.com/pex

Download: http://research.microsoft.com/pex/downloads.aspx

Nikolai Tillmann's Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/nikolait

Peli de Halleux's Blog: http://blog.dotnetwiki.org/

Release of Microsoft Source Analysis for C#

jlee — Mon, 26 May 2008 00:05:55 GMT

Source Analysis, also known as StyleCop, analyzes C# source code to enforce a set of best practice style and consistency rules.

Source Analysis for C# can be downloaded here: https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ProjectName=sourceanalysis.

Source Analysis Blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/sourceanalysis

QuickSort in Functional C#

jlee — Fri, 23 May 2008 20:44:30 GMT

Here's a very simple QuickSort algorithm from Wikipedia written in a very Functional way of C#. Notice that it looks very close to the pseudo-code algorithm shown in Wikipedia. The pivot used is just sequence.First(). You can replace the pivot by some random position if you wish.

   1:          public static IEnumerable<T> QuickSort<T>(this IEnumerable<T> sequence) where T : IComparable<T>

   2:          {

   3:              return !sequence.Any()

   4:                         ? sequence

   5:                         : ((from x in sequence.Skip(1)

   6:                             where x.CompareTo(sequence.First()) < 0

   7:                             select x)

   8:                               .QuickSort()

   9:                           ).Concat(new[] { sequence.First() }).Concat((from x in sequence.Skip(1)

  10:                                                                        where x.CompareTo(sequence.First()) >= 0

  11:                                                                        select x).QuickSort());

  12:          }

I tried making this more fun by using the Fix Point Generator which I mentioned previously, and converted that code into a Func<IEnumerable<T>> instead. Here's the code.

   1:          public static Func<T, T> Fix<T>(Func<Func<T, T>, Func<T, T>> F)

   2:          {

   3:              return x => F(Fix(F))(x);

   4:          }

5:

   6:          static void Main()

   7:          {

   8:              var quicksort = Fix<IEnumerable<int>>(

   9:                  qsort =>

  10:                  sequence =>

  11:                  !sequence.Any()

  12:                      ? sequence

  13:                      : qsort(from x in sequence.Skip(1)

  14:                              where x.CompareTo(sequence.First()) < 0

  15:                              select x)

  16:                            .Concat(new[] { sequence.First() })

  17:                            .Concat(qsort(from x in sequence.Skip(1)

  18:                                          where x.CompareTo(sequence.First()) >= 0

  19:                                          select x)));

  20:          }

This is a perfect example of how you can use the Fix Point Generator to create your recursive functions on the fly. If you want to make it reusable with an extension method, you can easily convert it to the extension method, or a normal method. Personally I feel that using the Fix Point Generator is more intuitive and slightly more readable as oppose to the extension method way of doing things.

One point to note is that the "Concat" extension only accepts an IEnumerable<T> and not a single item. You can solve this by the above, "new[] { sequence.First() }" which is a cleaner way if you don't want to write your own extension method (which you could too).

Crazy stuff eh?

Presentation: Practical Functional Programming in C#

jlee — Thu, 15 May 2008 13:36:00 GMT

Here are my slides I've done at DevTeach Toronto 2008.

Download it here.

Getting Bluetooth working on Windows Server 2008

jlee — Fri, 09 May 2008 00:10:00 GMT

If your bluetooth adapter is a Broadcom Bluetooth 2.0 EDR, like the "ThinkPad Bluetooth with Enhanced Data Rate" or any Broadcom Bluetooth 2.0 EDR type adapter, you can follow the steps below to get bluetooth working on Windows Server 2008.

Required for install:

Vista or WS2008 x86: http://www.toshiba-tro.de/tools/bluetooth/BT-stack.zip
Vista or WS2008 x64: http://www.toshiba-tro.de/tools/bluetooth/BT-stack-64bit.zip

Hex Editor, e.g. WinHex or CodePad

1. If you down it, you will install this software. When Toshiba Setup say Plug your BT device, you'll click to cancel. Install is succesfull.

2. Open Device Manager (Start | Control Panel | Device Manager) or Start | Run... | devmgmt.msc

You find in Other devices - Bluetooth dongle. Get Properties of it. On fold Details you see Property, It scroll to Hardware Ids. In Value Box u see two line, e.g.:

USB\VID_0A5C&PID_2101&REV_0100

USB\VID_0A5C&PID_2101

You copy second line with short Ids ('USB\VID_0A5C&PID_2101')

3. Now you going to folder:
Vista or WS2008 x86: %PROGRAMFILES%\Toshiba\Bluetooth Toshiba Stack\Drivers\tosrfusb

Vista or WS2008 x64: %PROGRAMFILES(x86)%\Toshiba\Bluetooth Toshiba Stack\Drivers\tosrfusb

Here are files: tosrfusb.cat, tosrfusb.inf, tosrfusb.sys
You need edited *.cat, and *.inf file.

4. Open tosrfusb.inf in Notepad.exe (e.g. Start | Run... | Notepad.exe)

Here you must edited line 161:

%TosrfUsb.DeviceDesc97%=TosrfUsb_Device, USB\VID_0C24&PID_000F

and line 288:

%TosrfUsb.DeviceDesc97%=TosrfUsb_Device, USB\VID_0C24&PID_000F

You edit this lines to:

%TosrfUsb.DeviceDesc97%=TosrfUsb_Device, USB\VID_0A5C&PID_2101

And save as tosrfusb.inf (replace original file).

5. Open tosrfusb.cat in Hex Editor (e.g. WinHex, CodePad).

Ctrl+F.. You need line of characters (but not find this data as text value!):

4800570049004400390037020410010001042C7500730062005C007600690064005F00300063003200340026007000690064005F0030003000300035

or

H.W.I.D.9.7.......,u.s.b.\.v.i.d._.0.c.2.4.&.p.i.d._.0.0.0.5

or

HWID97 ,usb\vid_0c24&pid_0005

There you must change value help by ASCI table, e.g.:

4800570049004400390037020410010001042C7500730062005C007600690064005F00300041003500430026007000690064005F0032003100300031

or

H.W.I.D.9.7.......,u.s.b.\.v.i.d._.0.A.5.C.&.p.i.d._.2.1.0.1

or

HWID97 ,usb\vid_0A5C&pid_2101

And save as tosrfusb.cat (replace original file).

6. Now you can install your BT.

Vista or WS2008 x86: %PROGRAMFILES%\Toshiba\Bluetooth Toshiba Stack\ECCenter.exe

Vista or WS2008 x64: %PROGRAMFILES(x86)%\Toshiba\Bluetooth Toshiba Stack\ECCenter.exe

You must Ignore install not sign drivers and all is Okay.

[Source: MSDN Forums]