Old school ft. New school: Snake with a Lumia 920 controlling a 5110 LCD using a Netduino

This project definitely gave me a good helping of nostalgia, and I had more fun than any other project I’ve done.

The Objective was to remake the original snake game from 1997 that came with the monochrome Nokias, and display it on a Nokia 5110 LCD connected to a Netduino. Then have a Lumia 920 connected over Bluetooth as the controller.

A while back when looking around for display solutions for various projects I stumbled onto the 5110 LCD. I’m not sure *why* exactly they are so popular, but it turns out that you can find them easily online and they are dirt cheap! I bought a couple from DX recently and they work exactly how I expected, and are perfect for a lot of things. At the price, I highly doubt that the DX ones are real, but at less than $5 who’s going to complain?

...

What you need:

• Netduino (I recommend a Netduino 2)
• Bluetooth module
• A Windows Phone 8 (should be a Nokia for authenticity sakes)

Netduino:

A Netduino community member, Omar, wrote an awesome library for using this particular LCD, which you can grab here: http://wiki.netduino.com/Nokia-5110-LCD.ashx

On that wiki the labels for wiring were in a different order and had slightly different names to my LCD, so if you have one from DX follow my wiring below, or use the wiki instructions.

...

Windows Phone:

The Windows Phone side is really simple, and is mainly just stuff to make it “pretty”.

...

Pretty simple huh? A bunch of code wasn’t mentioned here, so make sure you download the source below:

Download the Netduino + WP8 Source Code (~1.6MB) [GD: Click through for the download link... don't want to leach his traffic...]

Looks like a fun project to play with over the weekend, doesn't it?

Imagine this...

Building Windows 8 MVVM app... Gaa, don't like the available templates, but good enough to start with. hack, hack, hack.

Building second app. Ahh, templates again... hack, hack, hack...

Third app. Project templates... Oh this is silly, enough! Creating own darn project templates. And while I'm at it, Item templates too!

That took a bit, but now, wow, building app's is faster, with much less hacking.

App four, five, six... This is nice! You know, having gotten so much from the community, it would be cool to gave back. Bet there are others who could use these templates! ...

Windows Store MVVM Templates for Visual Studio

If you have ever tried to create a Windows Store application using the MVVM pattern then you will probably have found that the Visual Studio project and item templates are a bit cumbersome. I often find myself adding a new page to my projects using one of the default templates, only to need to rewrite it to follow the MVVM pattern before I can even start adding application specific logic. What if there was a way to take advantage of the selection of project and page templates provided by Visual Studio, but have them produce fully MVVM compliant code?

Well today I’d like to announce the release of a free extension for Visual Studio 2012 (including the Express editions for Windows 8) that provides just that. It is based upon the open source Okra App Framework, and provides almost all of the Visual Studio Windows Store templates in an MVVM friendly manner.

Installing the Extension

The “Windows Store MVVM Templates for the Okra App Framework” ...

What Templates are Provided?

There are two types of template included, project templates and item templates. The project templates are designed to get you started with a new application and provide exactly the same behaviour as the default Visual Studio templates (but written following the MVVM pattern).

• Okra Basic App - A single-page Okra App Framework project with no predefined controls or layout.
• Okra Grid App - A three-page Okra App Framework project that navigates among grouped items arranged in a grid. Dedicated pages display group and item details.
• Okra Split App - A two-page Okra App Framework project that navigates among grouped items. The first page allows group selection while the second displays an item list alongside details for the selected item.

...

Also included are a number of item templates that allow you to add new pages to any existing Okra App Framework based application, whether created using the project templates or not.

• Basic Page (MVVM)
• Split Page (MVVM)
• Items Page (MVVM)
• Item Detail Page (MVVM)
• Grouped Items Page (MVVM)
• Group Detail Page (MVVM)
• Search Contract (MVVM)
• Share Target Contract (MVVM)
• Settings Pane (MVVM)

...

What do the MVVM Pages Look Like?

All the page templates (and each of the pages in the project templates) include the following files,

...

If you're building Modern UI MVVM app's, looks like this should really help speed up your delivery and help you focus on what will make your app great...

• [01:07] Introducing a new Windows Dev Center experience, Windows Dev Center
• [02:25] Windows 8.1 at //build (Windows Keeps Getting Better) (Brandon LeBlanc)
• [03:25] Channel 9 Highlight: Programming Windows with Charles Petzold (Charles Petzold, Jaime Rodriguez)
• [04:44] MissionControl - A Flexible API for Remote Device Control (Clint Rutkas, Den Delimarsky)
• [06:08] Visual Studio ALM Ranger Solutions Catalog (Willy-P. Schaub)
• [07:30] Testing with Visual Studio 2012 Agile TMap The QUALITY A-Z Roadshow (Clemens Reijnen)
• [08:20] Channel 9 Highlight: Getting started with Cinder for Windows Store Apps (Rick Barraza)
• [09:30] Solving Mazes with AI Pathfinding Techniques: A* vs Tremaux (Kory Becker)

Picks of the Week!

• Mark's Pick of the Week:[12:04] Farticus (Sayed Hashimi, Mads Kristensen)
• Dan's Pick of the Week:[13:27] Blue Screen of Death: Who designed the original Windows Blue Screen of Death? (John Vert)

Kinect No Need 4 Green – The Green Screen without a Green Screen

This little piece of software allows you to produce easily, quickly and cheaply the type of picture that you would normally need a proper green screen setup to create. The software uses a Kinect for Windows or Kinect for XBOX360 device connected to a Windows 7 or 8 pc.

All you need to do is stand in front of the device and it will cut you out. You can choose between different backdrops, which you can add to by copying your own pictures (JPEG or PNG) into the PICTURES sub-folder. You can zoom in & out and move the cut out image using the keyboard or by on-screen controls.  You can take snapshot pictures of what is displayed in the window and these pictures are saved into the SNAPSHOTS sub-folder.

The keyboard controls are as below:-
SPACE bar takes a snapshot photo
W,A,S,D keys move the cut-out image left, right, up and down
+ and – keys zoom the cut-out image in and out
UP and DOWN keys allow you to adjust the viewing angle of the Kinect Device
LEFT and RIGHT keys allow you to choose the backdrop picture
M toggles mirroring mode on and off
F11 toggles full screen mode on and off
C toggles depth cut off mode on and off. This mode changes the way Kinect cuts the image out, by cutting out based on the distance from Kinect, rather than trying to cut out individual people. When in this mode the < key and the > key allow you to adjust the cut off distance.

Project Information URL: http://drenton72.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/kinect-no-need-4-green-the-green-screen-without-a-green-screen/

Project Download URL: Click here to download No Need 4 Green version 1

Project Source URL: Click here to download No Need 4 Green version 1 with C# source code

Contact Information:

• Blog: http://drenton72.wordpress.com
• Twitter: @drenton72

Update: Since the writing of this post David has already released a v2!

Kinect NoNeed4Green v2

I've already made some changes to my NoNeed4Green, so here is version 2. The main addition being the facility to add foreground pictures. The foreground pictures have their own sub-folder called foreground and they use PNG files only, as you need images with transparent backgrounds for it to work. This allows you to put objects in front of the live cut-outs of people as well as having a background behind them. This lets you do things like putting someone behind the desk of the oval office or behind the desk of the BBC newsroom or on the bow of the Titanic. You can also now resize and move all 3 layers. Layer 1 is the background, layer 2 is the live cut-outs of people, while layer 3 are the foreground objects.

...

There is a few new keyboard controls as well :-

H toggles between hiding all on-screen buttons and revealing them. Keys 1,2,3 select layers 1,2 and 3 to allow you to move and resize them.

...

Project Information URL: http://drenton72.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/kinect-noneed4green-v2/

Project Download URL: Click here to download No Need 4 Green version 2

Project Source URL: Click here to download No Need 4 Green version 2

Today...

Kinect Magic Cursor version 1.7 with Gesture support

I am releasing a new version of Kinect Magic Cursor which works much like the last version except it now uses gestures to simulate the left mouse button, instead of raising your left hand. So now your right hand controls the mouse pointer and you can PRESS with your left hand to simulate a single left mouse button click. You can also GRIP (make a fist) with your right hand to simulate holding down the left mouse button for dragging, selecting etc. To stop holding it down you simply RELEASE (stop making a fist). I went with the LEFT hand for PRESS rather than the right hand as I found pressing with the RIGHT hand tending to move the cursor and made it hard to click on small buttons.

Project Information URL: http://drenton72.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/kinect-magic-cursor-version-1-7-with-gesture-support/

Project Download URL: Click here to download Kinect Magic Cursor V1.7

Project Source URL: Click here to download Kinect Magic Cursor v1.7 with C# source

Contact Information:

• Blog: http://drenton72.wordpress.com
• Twitter: @drenton72

• [01:46] - Data strategies
• [06:46] - SQLite
• [09:57] - SQLite Demo
• [20:43] - App packages and deployment
• [35:38] - Windows Store App certification

Full course outline:

• Mod 01: Overview of the Windows 8 Platform and Windows Store Apps
• Mod 02: Creating User Interfaces using XAML
• Mod 03: Presenting Data and Implementing Layout using Windows 8 Built-In Controls
• Mod 04: Handling Files in Windows Store Apps and Process Lifecycle Management
• Mod 05: Working with Resources, Styles, and Templates
• Mod 06: Designing and Implementing Navigation in a Windows Store App
• Mod 07: Implementing Windows 8 Contracts, Tiles and User Notifications
• Mod 08: Local Data and Planning for Windows Store App Deployment

• [01:05] - Search Charm and Contract
• [20:27] - Share Charm and Contract
• [28:20] - Playto Contract
• [33:15] - Settings Charm
• [38:41] - Primary and Secondary Tiles
• [49:57] - Toast Notifications

Full course outline:

• Mod 01: Overview of the Windows 8 Platform and Windows Store Apps
• Mod 02: Creating User Interfaces using XAML
• Mod 03: Presenting Data and Implementing Layout using Windows 8 Built-In Controls
• Mod 04: Handling Files in Windows Store Apps and Process Lifecycle Management
• Mod 05: Working with Resources, Styles, and Templates
• Mod 06: Designing and Implementing Navigation in a Windows Store App
• Mod 07: Implementing Windows 8 Contracts, Tiles and User Notifications
• Mod 08: Local Data and Planning for Windows Store App Deployment

• [01:37] - Understand navigation
• [11:52] - Data hierarchy
• [19:30] - Semantic Zoom
• [24:25] - Demo

Full course outline:

• Mod 01: Overview of the Windows 8 Platform and Windows Store Apps
• Mod 02: Creating User Interfaces using XAML
• Mod 03: Presenting Data and Implementing Layout using Windows 8 Built-In Controls
• Mod 04: Handling Files in Windows Store Apps and Process Lifecycle Management
• Mod 05: Working with Resources, Styles, and Templates
• Mod 06: Designing and Implementing Navigation in a Windows Store App
• Mod 07: Implementing Windows 8 Contracts, Tiles and User Notifications
• Mod 08: Local Data and Planning for Windows Store App Deployment

• [01:14] - Resources
• [05:54] - Styles
• [11:14] - Templates
• [17:12] - Templates and GridView demo

Full course outline:

• Mod 01: Overview of the Windows 8 Platform and Windows Store Apps
• Mod 02: Creating User Interfaces using XAML
• Mod 03: Presenting Data and Implementing Layout using Windows 8 Built-In Controls
• Mod 04: Handling Files in Windows Store Apps and Process Lifecycle Management
• Mod 05: Working with Resources, Styles, and Templates
• Mod 06: Designing and Implementing Navigation in a Windows Store App
• Mod 07: Implementing Windows 8 Contracts, Tiles and User Notifications
• Mod 08: Local Data and Planning for Windows Store App Deployment

• [03:51] - File handling
• [15:15] - Process lifecycle management
• [26:10] - Activating Windows Store Apps
• [33:56] - Site management strategy

Full course outline:

• Mod 01: Overview of the Windows 8 Platform and Windows Store Apps
• Mod 02: Creating User Interfaces using XAML
• Mod 03: Presenting Data and Implementing Layout using Windows 8 Built-In Controls
• Mod 04: Handling Files in Windows Store Apps and Process Lifecycle Management
• Mod 05: Working with Resources, Styles, and Templates
• Mod 06: Designing and Implementing Navigation in a Windows Store App
• Mod 07: Implementing Windows 8 Contracts, Tiles and User Notifications
• Mod 08: Local Data and Planning for Windows Store App Deployment

• [00:46] - Layout
• [27:26] - Data binding

Full course outline:

• Mod 01: Overview of the Windows 8 Platform and Windows Store Apps
• Mod 02: Creating User Interfaces using XAML
• Mod 03: Presenting Data and Implementing Layout using Windows 8 Built-In Controls
• Mod 04: Handling Files in Windows Store Apps and Process Lifecycle Management
• Mod 05: Working with Resources, Styles, and Templates
• Mod 06: Designing and Implementing Navigation in a Windows Store App
• Mod 07: Implementing Windows 8 Contracts, Tiles and User Notifications
• Mod 08: Local Data and Planning for Windows Store App Deployment

• [01:12] - XAML Basics
• [25:54] - XAML Code-behind
• [35:55] - Custom controls
• [46:34] - Create a ViewModel

Full course outline:

• Mod 01: Overview of the Windows 8 Platform and Windows Store Apps
• Mod 02: Creating User Interfaces using XAML
• Mod 03: Presenting Data and Implementing Layout using Windows 8 Built-In Controls
• Mod 04: Handling Files in Windows Store Apps and Process Lifecycle Management
• Mod 05: Working with Resources, Styles, and Templates
• Mod 06: Designing and Implementing Navigation in a Windows Store App
• Mod 07: Implementing Windows 8 Contracts, Tiles and User Notifications
• Mod 08: Local Data and Planning for Windows Store App Deployment

• [07:49] - Intro to Windows 8 platform
• [34:13] - Background tasks
• [44:38] - Windows 8 UI principles

Full course outline:

• Mod 01: Overview of the Windows 8 Platform and Windows Store Apps
• Mod 02: Creating User Interfaces using XAML
• Mod 03: Presenting Data and Implementing Layout using Windows 8 Built-In Controls
• Mod 04: Handling Files in Windows Store Apps and Process Lifecycle Management
• Mod 05: Working with Resources, Styles, and Templates
• Mod 06: Designing and Implementing Navigation in a Windows Store App
• Mod 07: Implementing Windows 8 Contracts, Tiles and User Notifications
• Mod 08: Local Data and Planning for Windows Store App Deployment

Visual Studio has these cool things to help you in your debugging, called Visualizers. They help you see beyond the code and into the data, using a custom dialog or interface. And while there's a number in the box, they can't build one for everything.

But Visual Studio being what it is, you can create your own...

Visual Studio Visualizer: Part 1

Add a Visual Studio Visualizer to look data from: 

• Dataset; 
• DataTable; 
• DataRow; 
• DataView; 
• DataRowView; 
• DataRowCollection.

Using the code

Visit the project home page, download your flavor (2010 or 2012), unzip, and place the DLLs in the right folder, Documents\Visual Studio xxxx\Visualizers. 

When debugging with VS there is a extra option for visualizer, for the DataSet, DataTable, DataRow, and DataView objects. 

Points of Interest

For some reason arrays are not allowed for visualizing within visual studio debug, but when using the VisualizerDevelopmentHost class to test the visualizer, an array is allowed.

This project shows a work around to make a non-serializable object available to our custom visualizer. 

Create a visualizer

This project was created using visual studio express, any edition can be used.

First create a class library project then add a reference to the Visual Studio Visualizer API, the DLL can be found on: (Visual Studio installation folder)\Common7\IDE\ReferenceAssemblies\v2.0 Microsoft.VisualStudio.DebuggerVisualizers.dll. 

Add references to the types of objects, the visualizer will receive:

[assembly: System.Diagnostics.DebuggerVisualizer(
    typeof(DSVisualizer), typeof(VisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(DataSet), Description = "My DataSet Visualizer")]
[assembly: System.Diagnostics.DebuggerVisualizer(
    typeof(DTVisualizer), typeof(VisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(DataTable), 
    Description = "My DataTable Visualizer")]
[assembly: System.Diagnostics.DebuggerVisualizer(
    typeof(DRVisualizer), typeof(DataRowVisualizerObjectSource), 
    Target = typeof(DataRow), Description = "My DataRow Visualizer")]
[assembly: System.Diagnostics.DebuggerVisualizer(
    typeof(DVVisualizer), typeof(DataRowVisualizerObjectSource), 
    Target = typeof(DataView), Description = "My DataView Visualizer")]
[assembly: System.Diagnostics.DebuggerVisualizer(
    typeof(DRVVisualizer), typeof(DataRowVisualizerObjectSource), 
    Target = typeof(DataRowView), Description = "My DataRowView Visualizer")]
[assembly: System.Diagnostics.DebuggerVisualizer(
    typeof(DRCollectionVisualizer), typeof(DataRowVisualizerObjectSource), 
    Target = typeof(DataRowCollection), Description = "My DataRowCollection Visualizer")]

This can be inside any cs file of the project, but it must be outside any namespace declaration. As you can see, some types use VisualizerObjectSource and others use DataRowVisualizerObjectSource, this is because the DataRow type needs some massage before we can use it, this is covered later.  

The class that will get the object to visualize must inherits from DialogDebuggerVisualizer. 

This will allow to override the Show method: 

...

Visual Studio Watchers

This project contains some visualizers to work with Visual Studio.

Currently this project has visualizers for:

• DataSet
• DataTable
• DataRow
• DataView
• DataRowView
• DataRowCollection

There next visualizers will be for entity framework objects (trying to do a visualizer for all custom objects), StringBuilder, string and XDocument.

Introduction

Place the dll's in the right folder, Documents\Visual Studio xxxx\Visualizers.
When debugging with VS there is a extra option for visualizer, for the DataSet, DataTable, DataRow and DataView objects.

DataSet

The dataset visualizer mainpage, show a tree and a datagrid. In the tree all of the datatables are available:

...

And as you expect the source for all this is available too...

Space Invaders

Project Description
The classic Space Invaders game written in C#.

**Space Invaders The Game **
The project represents entertaining console game. The idea in the game is stopping alien invasion. There are different types of alien ships that must be destroyed by the player’s ship. Both the player and the aliens can fire to destroyed the enemy and have number of lifes. For every destroyed alien ship player receives points. Also there can be bonuses for killing the aliens – Gifts (points or additional life).

Deceptively simple? Check out the included Diagram;

And a snap of the Solution;

Yeah, all that for a console space invaders. How cool is that...

• [00:36] Windows Azure: Active Directory Release, New Backup Service + Web Site Monitoring and Log Improvements (Scott Guthrie)
• [02:13] Walkthrough #1: Adding Sign-On to Your Web Application Using Windows Azure AD (Vittorio Bertocci)
• [03:28] Game Starterkit for Windows 8 with leaderboard in Windows Azure (Petri Wilhelmsen)
• [04:53] Channel 9 Highlight: Building Windows Games with Unity
• [08:06] Unity for Beginners Tutorial
• [11:30] Complete guide to dynamic keyword in C# (Punit Ganshani) [Found Via: Complete guide to Dynamic keyword in C#]
• [12:45] Philips Hue Lighting Controller (Clint Rutkas, Jarem Archer)
• [13:58] How to Create a Database-First Code-First Entity Framework 5 Model (Mike Christian)
• [15:08] Make Testing the Untestable Easy with Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 and the Microsoft Fakes Framework (Doug Rathbone)
• [15:50] Free SQL Server Training Videos for Developers (Brent Ozar)

Picks of the Week!

• Dan's Pick of the Week:[17:46] GunPowder - Rogue Rocket Games
• Rick's Pick of the Week:[19:20] How To Draw Einstein's Face Parametrically (Mike James)

Here's a few of the past posts;

• Controlling a .NET Gadgeteer Device with your mind...
• Mind Control with C# (and the Emotiv and Emotiv Engine Client Library)
• It's as if it can read your mind...

Today we show off Antonio Blescia's work in his ThinkUino project.

ThinkUino Project

ThinkUino (Thinking Arduino) is an open source project that allows to connect the Arduino board with Mindwave headset. The cognitive application opens new frontiers for control the electronic circuits through  the reading of brainwaves. With this article I explain how to make a cognitive application for control a single LED light.

Mindwave... what is it?

Mindwave is an innovative headset produced by Neurosky. Mindwave converts the brainwaves into digital electronic signals. There are two version of this device:   

• Mindwave Headset: is the basic configuration of Mindwave. It can be connected only to pc for reading data only with Neurosky applications. Its color is white. You can buy it from this link: http://store-eu.neurosky.com/collections/hardware/products/mindwave-1
• Mindwave Mobile Headset: this version allow to connect with mobile device through bluetooth SPP communication. This device retrieves the brainwaves with more precision. This device, than, can be connected to Android and iOS operating system. Its color is black. You can buy it form this link: http://store-eu.neurosky.com/collections/hardware/products/mindwave-mobile

Mindwave... two versions, but which i should choose?

For the scope of this project the Mindwave Mobile is indispensable. That device supports the bluetooth connection, through the bluetooth connection it send the data in RAW mode to the connected devices. With the retrieved data we can parse the various frequency reading by the headset. 

What do I need to implement this project?

The fundamental elements to create this project are:  

1. Mindwave Mobile Headset 
2. Arduino 2009 or higher 
3. Led  

 

...

Best of all is the code is all C# and looks pretty simple (as must code does in hindsight

The device's price seems reasonable, the Brainwave Starter Kit is currently $99, it's developer tools are free and this project shows just a glimpse of how you can start turning it into the "Internet of [Mind] Things"...

So Philips recently introduced their Hue Connected Bulbs: an easy-to-use set of LED light bulbs and Wi-Fi connected bridge which allows you to dynamically change the color of your home lighting using their iOS or Android app. What’s particularly cool is that the bridge has a web API which you can access to set the colors of each bulb with your own app.

We at untitled network developed our own Philips Hue app called Oni: light Control, which is currently available on the Windows Phone Store. In addition to allowing you to set the color of your home lighting with defined “Moods”, the app also allows you to do the same using your phone’s built in voice commands or inexpensive NFC stickers. Here’s a demo of the Oni: Light Control in action:

I’m going to show you how you can develop your own app using the color picker from the Coding4Fun Toolkit for Windows Phone and the Json.Net library from Newtonsoft. These libraries can be found on NuGet, but you’ll obviously need the Philips Hue Connected Bulbs kit to test things out.

Getting Started:

The Philips Hue API uses a restful JSON interface you can access using any http client. Documentation on all of the supported methods by the Philips Hue bridge can be found at http://blog.ef.net/2012/11/02/philips-hue-api.html.

To get started, you’ll need authorized access to your bridge’s API. Once the bridge has successfully established a network connection with your router, discover its internal IP address via the URL: http://www.meethue.com/api/nupnp

You should get a response similar to:

[{"id":"ffss00fffe123456","internalipaddress":"192.168.1.100","macaddress":"0aa:bb:cc:dd:00:11"}]

Note the internalipaddress value and use the IP to access the bridge’s API directly the with the URL http://192.168.1.100/api

Now, since we haven’t registered a user for authorization, attempting to access the hub will return an error from the bridge:

[{"error":{"type":1,"address":"/","description":"unauthorized user"}}]

To register a new user, we’ll first POST the username we wish to use.

var client = new WebClient();
 
//our uri to perform registration
var uri = new Uri(string.Format("http://{0}/api", HostnameTextBox.Text));
 
//create our registration object, along with username and description
var reg = new
{
    username = UsernameTextBox.Text,
    devicetype = "Coding4Fun Hue Light Project"
};
 
var jsonObj = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(reg);
 
 
//decide what to do with the response we get back from the bridge
client.UploadStringCompleted += (o, args) =] Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() =]
{
    try
    {
        ResponseTextBox.Text = args.Result;
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        ResponseTextBox.Text = ex.Message;
    }
});
 
//Invoke a POST to the bridge
client.UploadStringAsync(uri, jsonObj);

Note the response we get back from our hub will be

[{"error":{"type":101,"address":"","description":"link button not pressed"}}]

This is because bridge requires you to first push the link button before new registrations can be made. After pushing the button and invoking the registration function again, you should receive the following result from the bridge:

[{"success":{"username":"coding4fun"}}]

Setting the Bulb Color:

We should now be able to access all methods on the bridge. You can get all of the configuration details, including all of the bulbs and their statuses with the same base url: http://192.168.1.100/api/coding4fun

Now comes the fun part. There are three color modes in which you can use to set the color of your bulbs:

• hue & sat: ‘hue’ is a color range between 0-65535 which represent 182.04*degrees, ‘sat’ is saturation with a range of 0-254
• xy: are coordinates in the CIE 1931 space
• ct: is a color temperature expressed in mireds from 154 to 500, coolest to warmest respectfully

Source: http://rsmck.co.uk/hue

We’ll be setting the colors of our bulbs using hue & saturation parameters. Luckily, the Coding4Fun Toolkit for Windows Phone has three awesome color picker controls and some useful color extensions which makes setting the bulb colors a breeze. We start by building our state object – a list of parameters we want our bulb to be set to. Then we use the PUT verb to set the light with the following URL: http://{BRIGE-IPADDRESS}/api/coding4fun/lights/1/state

The “1” in the url is the 1-based index of the bulb you want to set.

//Get the HSV Value from the currently selected color
var hsv = LightColorSlider.Color.GetHSV();
 
//build our State object
var state = new
{
    on = true,
    hue = (int)(hsv.Hue * 182.04), //we convert the hue value into degrees by multiplying the value by 182.04
    sat = (int)(hsv.Saturation * 254)
};
 
//convert it to json:
var jsonObj = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(state);
 
//set the api url to set the state
var uri = new Uri(string.Format("http://{0}/api/{1}/lights/{2}/state", HostnameTextBox.Text, UsernameTextBox.Text, LightIndexTextBox.Text));
 
var client = new WebClient();
 
//decide what to do with the response we get back from the bridge
client.UploadStringCompleted += (o, args) => Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() =>
{
    try
    {
        ResponseTextBox.Text = args.Result;
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        ResponseTextBox.Text = ex.Message;
    }
     
});
 
//Invoke the PUT method to set the state of the bulb
client.UploadStringAsync(uri, "PUT", jsonObj);

That’s it! Be sure to check out all of the other functions the (other functions the Hue API supports) at http://developers.meethue.com/index.html

Bio:
Jarem Archer is a self-taught Software Developer and UX Designer. He’s part of a small team at untitled network who have a passion for video games, digital motion, entertainment and gadgets. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/unt1tled.

It's got some "standard" features but also some pretty cutting edge and pretty cool ones too.

And besides binaries (GNU or LGPLv2), the source for everything is available too!

Sasa

Description

Sasa is a collection of extensions to the .NET framework organized in logical, often standalone assemblies.

Sasa: no deps
* tuples
* IEnumerable extensions
* thread-safe + null-safe events
* numeric extensions
* Option type
* lazy type

Sasa.Binary: -
* low-level bit-twiddling functions
* portable BinaryReader/Writer

Sasa.Collections: Sasa, Sasa.Binary
* purely functional collections, ie. list, dictionary, queue, set, etc.

Sasa.Mime: -
* media types and file extensions

Sasa.Numerics: -
* statistical and numerical functions

Sasa.Net: Sasa, Sasa.Collections
* full MIME message parsing
* POP3 client
* Rfc822 header parsing

Sasa.Contracts: Sasa
* Code Contracts impl.

Sasa.Concurrency: Sasa
* software transactional memory
* Concurrent Revisions fork-join framework

Sasa.Parsing: Sasa
* extensible Pratt parser

Sasa.Dynamics: Sasa
* type-safe reflection

Sasa.Linq: -
* LINQ expression visitors and query providers

...and much more!

To get a real feel for everything that's in this cool collection, check out the doc's, http://higherlogics.net/sasa/docs-v0.9.4/

Source? Yep! (and you can see that it's under active development too

Here's a snap of the binary drop (to highlight the "standalone assemblies" statement):

Want to see more? Check out Sandro's blog posts on Sasa, http://higherlogics.blogspot.com/search/label/Sasa

What kind of Sasa stuff has he written recently?

• Sasa.Strings - General String Extensions
• Sasa.Parsing - type-safe, extensible lexing and parsing framework
• Sasa.Dynamics - type-safe polytypic/reflective programming
• Sasa.Func - Type-Safe Delegate Combinators
• Sasa.Option - Handling Optional Values
• Sasa.Result - Handling Exceptional Values
• Sasa.Numbers - Generic Number Extensions

Hopefully that has wet your appetite a little. Now it's up to you to grab it and start Sasa'ing! (I just like saying, "Sasa..." can you tell?

Aviary Launches Windows 8 SDK with 6 Partners

We’re proud to launch Aviary’s Photo Editor SDK for Windows 8, specifically designed for apps on Windows 8 tablets and PCs. This new SDK joins our existing SDKs for iOS, Android, HTML5 & Windows Phone 7, collectively used by our 3,500+ partners.

We worked closely with AMD and Microsoft to build this SDK from the ground up, optimizing our photo-editing technology by leveraging unique AMD APU architectural advantages.

...

Windows 8 developers – you can download and use Aviary’s SDK, available immediately here: http://aviary.com/w8

If you’d like to try out the features and functionality first, download Aviary’s Photo Editor app for Windows 8 from Microsoft’s app store.

Contact us if you have any questions at partners@aviary.com – we would love to help you integrate Aviary

...

If you're new to Aviary, first you create an account (about 2 seconds of work), you get a key (by "creating an app" again about 2 seconds), you download the SDK and sample code (about 4 seconds), install the SDK (4.73 seconds), fire up the sample code and start playing.

It's taken me longer to write about it that it took for me to get to the point of running the sample code...

BTW, there was one issue I ran into with the sample code provided with the SDK.

When I first fired up the Project, it was set to Any CPU, which Aviary didn't seem to like.

Quickly switching it to x64 (x86 and ARM worked too, anything but Any CPU) fixed it all up

Here's it running on my notebook;

Looks like allot of stuff there right? How hard to get this into your app? About 6'ish lines of code...

And I said something about free?

If you need photo editing features for your app, this looks like a great place to start looking at...

• [00:26] The latest Kinect for Windows [v1.7] SDK is here
• [01:38] Windows Azure: New Hadoop service + HTML5/JS (CORS), PhoneGap, Mercurial and Dropbox support (Scott Guthrie), Getting Started with the Mobile Services HTML Client (Nick Harris)
• [02:43] SignalR eBook (campusMVP.Net, Jose M Aguilar) [Found via: The Morning Brew #1316]
• [03:34] Modeling Neuron Behavior in C# (James McCaffrey)
• [04:59] Aviary Launches Windows 8 SDK with 6 Partners
• [06:00] dx.h - A modern C++ library for DirectX programming (Kenny Kerrca)
• [06:52] An Introduction to Meteor (Stephen Walther)
• [07:54] From a side project to Windows 8 Store featured app - the Interference story (Sara Allison)

Picks of the Week!

• Dan's Pick of the Week:[08:55] Treat Your Kids Like a Team of Agile Software Developers and Lower Your Family Stress (Whitson Gordon)
• Clint's Pick of the Week:[10:50] Kodu Challenge (Jennifer Ritzinger)

Today's project by Marco Macciò takes that to an entirely new level, creating a complete and fully functional text editor++.

DtPad - .NET Framework text editor

DtPad is a Windows text editor, developed with Microsoft .NET Framework 4 and identified by many advanced features, including HTML and XML code management, search in files, search with regular expressions, note mode (light window in foreground), built-in multilanguage support with dictionaries usage, integration with online services (ie. Google, Wikipedia), CSV file management and much more.

Today's feature

• Search in files - This window allows to search a text content inside more files at once, showing results inside internal explorer panel...
• Windows "hosts" file editing - Do you know that DtPad owns an explicit feature for Windows "hosts" file? ...
• Sessions - DtPad allow the saving of all the opened tabs in a unique session. In such a way it is possible to close DtPad, open it again and continue to work ...
• Command line properties - Could I improve my work speed by starting DtPad with a specific functionality? Yes, you can.
• Note mode - I have often felt the need to have a text editing window that was able to stand in the foreground, so that I can write important data and information without two windows side by side...
• CSV editor - Many features of DtPad were born as a result of real needs. This is the case of the CSV editor...
• Window modes - DtPad has different visual modes that allow it to adapt to different usages, or to satisfy particular needs.

What's also different about this project is that the author created his own installer, uninstall, updater and even a help system...

DtDesk suite

This page contains some informations about the DtDesk suite, which is composed by the following applications:

• DtPad
• DtPad Updater
• DtPad Setup
• DtPad Uninstaller
• DtHelp

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DtPad

This is the main application, the one to which this CodePlex's project is dedicated.

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DtPad Updater

This program allows you to update DtPad to latest version, without having to reinstall it and lose your personal settings. It is not necessary to execute it frequently, since DtPad can automatically communicate the existence of an update (depending on how you have set it).

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DtPad Setup

This is the main downloadable file that you can find here, and it consists of a few simple steps to help in the installation of DtPad.

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DtPad Uninstaller

DtPad use Windows registry only to store "Open With" link. If you don't enable it into settings, you can simply uninstall DtPad deleting its folder. Otherwise you can use this comfortable application.

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DtHelp

This application is a guide viewer, and it should be integrated inside DtPad to explain to users its functionalities, but unfortunately it wasn't due to lack of time.

Grabbing the latest check-in, I was able to compile and run it with no problems. Note through that you should Build it in release mode first, then in debug. Or edit the Project's Post-build steps. There is a post build copy of the output to a "release" folder. So either create that folder, remove that post build step or just do a Release build.

Here's a snap of the Solution;

As you can see here' there's a number of interesting features included. For example, the Dropbox integration via the SharpBox project and the XmlGrid control.

Then there's the DtPad project itself;

From File Compare, Hex Display/Editing, Search in Files, Translation, spell checking and even zip stuff.

Who ever said text editors can't be fun! (I mean look at all that code, features and functions to check out!)

• [02:06] - ASYNC and AWAIT
• [07:51] - What is a database?
• [33:20] - What is LINQ?
• [36:54] - LINQ Demo

Full course outline:

• Mod 01: OOP, Managed Languages and C#
• Mod 02: Complex Types, Object Interfaces and Inheritance
• Mod 03: Controlling Programmatic Flow, and Manipulating Types and Strings
• Mod 04: Code Reflection and Working with Garbage Collection
• Mod 05: Type and Value Validation, and Encryption Techniques
• Mod 06: Splitting Assemblies, WinMD, Diagnostics and Instrumentation
• Mod 07: Interacting with the File System, and Leveraging Web Services
• Mod 08: Using LINQ to Objects and XML, and Serialization