Entries for Alex M

What windows devices support multi touch? [What windows devices support multi touch?]

Alex M — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 07:35:43 GMT

Hi,

With multitouch support in Win 7 and WPF4 what devices actually support multitouch?

I know Dell have a tablet laptop (Latitude XT) that does and HP a desktop & table machine. I also found loads of press releases of multitouch monitor from Albatron but this doesnt seem available yet.

Is it possible to purchase a monitor to experiment with yet?

Note - I found a work around hack that involved using two mice at: http://blog.wpfwonderland.com/2009/06/29/developing-win-7-multi-touch-apps-without-multi-touch-screen/

Thanks,

Alex

in reply to What windows devices support multi touch?

Technical Test - singular linked list [Technical Test - singular linked list]

Alex M — Fri, 22 May 2009 08:02:04 GMT

Hi all,
I recently had to do a technical test as part of a job application. This consisted of 3 questions that you had to code an answer for.

The second question asked you to create a singular linked list and then retrieve 5 items from the tail. I then got told my answer was incorrect as I approached the problem by iterating through from the head. My understanding is that in a singular linked list you can only move from the head to the tail as its singular linked. Is this incorrect?

Am happy to be wrong on this but wanted to check.

Thanks,

Alex

in reply to Technical Test - singular linked list

Will VS2010 run on XP? [Will VS2010 run on XP?]

Alex M — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:45:17 GMT

Hi,
Do you know if VS2010 will run on XP? Some of the preview bits are Vista only.

Yes I know XP is getting a bit old now but was a query from a user group I gave a talk at.

Thanks,

Alex

in reply to Will VS2010 run on XP?

Oslo Quadrant Tool [Oslo Quadrant Tool]

Alex M — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 22:48:38 GMT

Does anyone know when the Oslo ool Quadrant will be available to download?

My understanding is it is currently only available on the virtual pc image given out at the PDC.

Thanks,

Alex

in reply to Oslo Quadrant Tool

Oslo and M - how do you see these being used/advantages [Oslo and M - how do you see these being used/advantages]

Alex M — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 14:40:39 GMT

I have watched a number of PDC videos on Oslo and M (including the cartoon). After watching these I am still a bit unsure about their intended purpose.

I know its early days still with these technologies but what are the advantages in using them and in what scenerio would they be useful?

The modelling tool Quadrant looks pretty slick.

Thanks,

Alex

in reply to Oslo and M - how do you see these being used/advantages

Kentucky state attempts to take control of online gambling domain names [Kentucky state attempts to take control of online gambling domain names]

Alex M — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 09:38:11 GMT

I am no fan of online gambling but I find this story disturbing about a state attempting to take control of domain names (although the article says they have control then that the motion is scheduled for Friday afternoon?):
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/26/gambling_domain_seizure/

According to the article the sites "stand accused of illegally making their services available to Kentucky citizens"

Could set some dangerous precidents?

in reply to Kentucky state attempts to take control of online gambling domain names

Who is going to Remix UK? [Who is going to Remix UK?]

Alex M — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 22:04:38 GMT

Hi,
Any C9 users attending Remix in Brighton next week?

in reply to Who is going to Remix UK?

Monte carlo method - anyone got .net example? [Monte carlo method - anyone got .net example?]

Alex M — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 06:13:14 GMT

Has anyone got a good example in .net of using a monte carlo method I can use to help me understand the concept?

Alot of the examples I can find assume a good knowledge of maths.

in reply to Monte carlo method - anyone got .net example?

Expression Trees - Please explain! [Expression Trees - Please explain!]

Alex M — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:47:00 GMT

Hi,
I am struggling with the concept of what expression trees are (as related to LINQ).

Does any one have any good links or a good explanation?

Thanks,

Alex

in reply to Expression Trees - Please explain!

Silverlight - Change XAML page on click of button [Silverlight - Change XAML page on click of button]

Alex M — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:39:28 GMT

Hi,
Is the best way to navigate "pages" in a silverlight application adding the control to RootVisual or child property of a layout control?

Or is there an equivalent of something like Response.Redirect("~/page2.xaml")

I am sure when I played with this before you could use something like NavigationHelper to change between xaml pages?

Thanks,

Alex

in reply to Silverlight - Change XAML page on click of button

Simple Silverlight button question [Simple Silverlight button question]

Alex M — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:09:05 GMT

Hi probably being a bit silly here but just wondered best way of doing the following:

I have a button that has some XAML inside it. I want to capture the click event of the button and everything in it. This works fine when the button itself is clicked but not when the shape is clicked. I guess this is because the click event handler is on the button itself rather than the shape.

What is the best way to accomplish this:
Have just an image for the whole button?
Create a seperate control?

Thanks,

Alex

<Rectangle.Fill>

</LinearGradientBrush>

</Rectangle.Fill>

</Rectangle>

</Button>

in reply to Simple Silverlight button question

_ and performance [ _ and performance]

Alex M — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:04:13 GMT

Hi,
First of all the editor stripped my tile as it had chevrons it should have been System.Serializable and performance.

One of our applications needs to be load balanced.

We hold a number of objects in session like who the current user is etc.

A developer working on this project has said if a web farm is used then objects held in session need to be marked as serializable. He has then added the System.Serializable attribute to a number of classes held in session. Clients are complaining that some of our applications appear significantly slower. This may be linked to this serialization change but a number of other changes were made in our core libraries at a similar time.

I dont know very much about what this attribute does but would imagine that as serialization can be resource intensive this would have an effect on performance.

Would you expect adding the serializable attribute to have a significant affect on performance?
Is adding the serializable attribute the correct way to cope with the issues of web farms etc?

Thanks,

Alex

in reply to _ and performance

ASP.net application running slowly intermitently [ASP.net application running slowly intermitently ]

Alex M — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:56:11 GMT

Hi,
We have 2 asp.net applications.

Both are exactly the same code (one is live, one demo).

One is running slowly every so often (the page takes like 5 -10 seconds to load) and then it speeds up again the other always seem fine.

The applications are .net framework 3.5 running on Windows server 2003 with SQL 2005 standard.

They are setup as different applications beneath one website and have different app pools. All the settings look the same.

Its not anti virus doing scans etc.

Really puzzled, any ideas?

Thanks,

Alex

in reply to ASP.net application running slowly intermitently

ASP.net, multiple tabs [ASP.net, multiple tabs ]

Alex M — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:51:45 GMT

Hi,
We have an ASP.net application that stores items in session.

We found the following:
If another tab is opened in IE and directed to the app then this tab also shares the same session as the 1st tab
If another window is opened by ctrl n this also shares the same session as the original window
If an new instance of IE is opened this does NOT share the same session

We would like a way of identifying individual instances however the window is open.

As the session seems to be shared if opened as a tab or ctrl N how would you suggest this is done? I would imagine that since session is shared so will cookies be?

Thanks,

Alex

in reply to ASP.net, multiple tabs

What processes/changes have you seen/introduced which has improved development? [What processes/changes have you seen/introduced which has improved development?]

Alex M — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:02:56 GMT

Hi,
What changes have you seen or introduced into your organisation that have improved development. I am thinking from any angle not just quality etc

We have been looking at some of the Scrum methodologies and have introduced a 5 minute "scrum" meeting where each developer says what they are working on and if they have any issues. This seems to work quite well for us.

Alex

in reply to What processes/changes have you seen/introduced which has improved development?

Is there a way to save a Silverlight Canvas to an image file? [Is there a way to save a Silverlight Canvas to an image file?]

Alex M — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:11:05 GMT

Hi,
Is there a way to save a Silverlight canvas to disk or to retrieve the XAML of the current canvas after you have programmatically added objects?

I have a diagram users can annotate and need to save it as Jpg, PNG or GIF.

I found this link below that implies you can do this with an InkPresenter but is there a another better way?:
http://www.thedatafarm.com/blog/2008/01/31/ConvertingSilverlightInkPresenterImagesToAPNGFile.aspx

Thanks,

Alex

in reply to Is there a way to save a Silverlight Canvas to an image file?

Problem with Silverlight tools for VS2008 [Problem with Silverlight tools for VS2008]

Alex M — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 19:04:14 GMT

Hi,
After installing the latest Silverlight 1.1 tools for VS2008 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=25144c27-6514-4ad4-8bcb-e2e051416e03&displaylang=en)

I am getting the following error when I try to create a Silverlight project:
HRESULT E_FAIL has been returned from a call to a COM component.

I have Blend 2 installed (not sure if this makes a difference).

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Alex

in reply to Problem with Silverlight tools for VS2008

Runtime linq queries [Runtime linq queries]

Alex M — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 10:36:05 GMT

Hi,
Is it possible to create a run time linq query?

E.g. I would like to define the query as a string based on the user selection of some filter options.

Something like:

string strQuery="From p In objContext.Countries Select p"
var query=strQuery

I know this is not using some of the advantages of LINQ like type safe etc just wondered if its possible.

Thanks,

Alex

in reply to Runtime linq queries

Write to windows event log in Vista [Write to windows event log in Vista]

Alex M — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 08:00:28 GMT

Hi,
I was helping a collegue with some code he had to write to windows event log.

He was using various functions in System.Diagnostics.EventLog. This code worked fine on my XP machine but failed with messages about couldnt find Event Source when used in Vista. We found various posts that recommended reseting registry positions, one even said add ASPNET user to administrators group but none of this worked. Someone here must have gotten this working?

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Alex

in reply to Write to windows event log in Vista

Has anyone got a decent link or examples to using certificates with WCF? [Has anyone got a decent link or examples to using certificates with WCF?]

Alex M — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 17:44:27 GMT

Has anyone got a decent link to using certificates to secure WCF?

I am having difficulty getting this to work so wonder if anyone has an example or link with step by step instructions.

Thanks,

Alex

in reply to Has anyone got a decent link or examples to using certificates with WCF?

UK readers in Surrey/Hampshire area new .net user group [UK readers in Surrey/Hampshire area new .net user group]

Alex M — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:34:52 GMT

Hi all,
We have set up a new user group we are calling DevEvening.

It is based in the Surrey/Hampshire area.

DevEvening is:
A very informal evening held at a local hotel with presentations given by .net developers on any topic they wish to talk about followed by a pint & tasty meal.

We have had 1 meeting so far and have another coming up on Thur 12th of June at a hotel in Woking. It is free to join in (apart from the cost of the meal/drink).

For further information please look at:
http://www.devevening.co.uk/

Thanks,

Alex

in reply to UK readers in Surrey/Hampshire area new .net user group

Create an installer program for outlook vba macro [Create an installer program for outlook vba macro]

Alex M — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:17:32 GMT

I have written a couple of customizations for a client that are written as a VBA macro.

Has anyone any experience of creating an installer for this type of customization? It looks a bit bad telling the client to go into tools, macro, vba editor and paste some code in.

Thanks,

Alex

in reply to Create an installer program for outlook vba macro

Inherited dropdownlist does not work with eval databinding in gridview [Inherited dropdownlist does not work with eval databinding in gridview]

Alex M — Wed, 21 May 2008 11:38:50 GMT

Hi,
I have a control that is inherited from dropdown list.

I have added a couple of properties to it (arg1 and arg2).

I have this placed on a datagrid. When I manually write something into these properties manually it works fine e.g

<ext:dropdownlist runat=server arg1="hello" />

When I use this it does not

<ext:dropdownlist runat=server arg1="<%# Eval("test") %>" />

I changed arg1 and arg2 to store the information in viewstate when the properties are set and it works but is there a better way of doing this?

Thanks,

Alex

in reply to Inherited dropdownlist does not work with eval databinding in gridview

Recommend a .net based Wiki? [Recommend a .net based Wiki?]

Alex M — Sun, 18 May 2008 09:37:24 GMT

Hi,
Can anyone recommend a .net based Wiki?

It needs to be:
Free
Lightweight
Have basic security functionality (e.g. can restrict a single page from being edited)

Thanks,

Alex

in reply to Recommend a .net based Wiki?

Why are msdn subscriptions so hard to sign up to [Why are msdn subscriptions so hard to sign up to]

Alex M — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:49:44 GMT

Duno if anyone else have found this but why is MSDN so hard to sign up to? The process is just silly and confusing.

I recently bought an MSDN premium subscription. Upon buying it I received several emails one of which was to go to a web site and click a button that I agreed to the terms and conditions. To do this you need a windows live ID. Another was something about adding users and giving permissions. I then did this. It then sends an email to the user to click on and approve. You then need to go back to the site to approve this add. But if you try and add the user you are logged in as they dont appear in the user list. Okay create another windows live account it now appears in the list. I added permissions etc. At the end of all this I still cant download anything from the online bit as its all greyed out.

In total I think I have about 10 emails from MSDN. and now apparently I need to call MS support. Raaaaa!

I spoke to a collegue and he had the same issue and said it took 3 weeks for them to sort out his account. Sort it out Microsoft.

in reply to Why are msdn subscriptions so hard to sign up to