The Coffeehouse

Here's an idea

Long Zheng — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 06:12:44 GMT

Just thought I'd share with you all a new project of mine, it's called "Here's an idea".

I haven't quite launched it yet, but you can find an in-development version of the site here http://heresanidea.net/

Basically it's a community site all about sharing and discussing ideas. Although that might sound trivial, I think there's features implemented and planned that makes it something special.

I'd love to get everyone's feedback and suggestions on the current state of the site and the concept in general.

fragged

me — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:00:59 GMT

anyone else play quake online? add redrum666666 as friend

PS - i get low kills - cause i have a dumb slow MS mouse - but im great at getting flag / defending and assisting

*i mainly play capture the flag (as i suck at killing)

ps - i think above = ..team player ;)

..or like the cub scout that shows up every 3rd week and gets 9 badges he did at home - im the player you hate that wins by total points - not kills.

im getting a better mouse tho... so you never know

Zune Social interface is wonderful

intelman — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:33:08 GMT

I had not realized how clean and easy to use the zune social web interface was for podcasts. The silverlight player is quite quick and easy to use.

http://social.zune.net/podcasts/

I was honestly not aware... It is nice for viewing podcast videos without flash! Hell, even listening to audio without flash is wonderful!

3D Map, Human Interface and Social Game

Robin Lynn Ore — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 18:08:57 GMT

This was on my Twitter this morning and found this link. I was working on something similar and found your threads here for map applications. Lets do a map project on my assigned data bases while the supercomputer is still free. I know how this is done and what is possible with this. Can anyone help?

http://brightcove.newscientist.com/services/player/bcpid1873822884?bctid=52818280001

Subtle aspects of an app's support for Windows 7

contextfree — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:12:04 GMT

Some OS features, like extended Jump Lists or progress indicators in taskbar icons, require that your app be explicitly programmed to use them. Others are generic and function for all apps -- but, like screen resolution, some apps can still be more suited than others for use with them.

For instance, I find taskbar window previews and Aero Peek useful when I have too many apps and windows open and am looking for things to close (I tend to take a "GC cycle" approach to window management). I can quickly and smoothly move though the windows and just middle-click on anything I don't need. But this breaks down when I come to an app such as Firefox that displays a modal confirmation dialog when you attempt to close multiple tabs; that totally breaks the flow. When possible, it's much better to just close the window and have a mechanism for restoring closed tabs, as Chrome does. Aero Snap is another example: not every application (or website) is usable at half width, especially on laptops, but I think developers should give some thought to making their apps work well in this mode, as when it does work it's very convenient for coordinating between applications.

List your Travels

May28th2018 — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 16:49:18 GMT

So most of us programmers have been called to different places around the world to conferences, meetings, and to train.

Where have you been to in the world?

Me:

England (West London, mostly populated by Indian people, and overweight potty-mouth brits)

France

Switzerland

Germany

Japan

Canada

China

Hong Kong

and I am going back to China in 3 days for 2 weeks heading through Beijing as well as a return visit in mid-January. It really is a nice place to visit despite all the negative press they get in various countries.

Trip requirements, CHECK!, and away I will go. Teaching our world neighbors the fine art of software. :)

So where have you been, and what are some cool spots to visit for programmers?

cpu sharing on windows 7

Nick — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 06:57:33 GMT

Lately I have been programming shaders on DX 9. I use my laptop for most of the development work which is fine for most of the time but I would really like to use the spare desktop I have as a HPC unit. What would be ideal is if Windows was able to use CPU resources from a network computer. I know windows server 2008 can be used to add HPC nodes but I did rather keep using Windows 7 and get the HPC benefit.

anyone having an Envy 13?

Ion Todirel — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 05:46:42 GMT

the thing looks nice, how is the touchpad, is it really that bad?

Life

Titan — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 02:03:17 GMT

Planetary monadic system or an isolated ( independent ) monad, foreign to most everything else operating in and around it? Lovelock is right. Life as we know it is a planetary scale system (a wet rocky planet in current implementation. More importantly, the scale of biologic, chemical and physical interoperation extends to all regions of planetary activity). This is true, even mathematically.

See the fractal?

photostory - win7 equiv please?

me — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:01:06 GMT

its funeral time again (someone tory worked with)

how do i do a photostory?

it wont load - i tried loading photogallery - which has links to Photo Collage maker - 30 day trial #%$^

Ive read forums saying you cant - some guy poppa john is writing about replacements

people in the forums are bemoaning not being able to edit their files..

and that they LEARNED it already

i thought ms moved this into photogallery ... no idea anymore

all i know is i cant make a thing for a funeral

and that moviemaker is also gone

and someone should be FIRED

now someone PLEASE tell me im wrong and point me to what i have to do on win7 to Photostory

(hey its a verb!... and you killed it??)

ie; Windows Live Photogallery with PhotoStory TM

sob

WMP on Windows 7

Doctor Who — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 22:35:45 GMT

I've recently installed Windows 7. Been playing with it for about a week or two. Love it!

One question I wonder about, though, is Windows Media Player (WMP) in Windows 7. With Windows Vista I would share out my music to others at home, and they would share out their music with me, etc. It was nice to have this. However, WMP in Windows 7 has the notion of "media streaming", and it looks as though it is only available to the homegroup that is defined in Windows 7. Have I got it correct? Is it the case that I can only share out my music to others in my home network if they also have Windows 7 on their machines?

Nokia N900 N-Tour-Age In Dubai, Maemo Mobile OS Based on Linux

Go Microsoft !!!!!!! — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:48:43 GMT

Firefox 3.7 D2D-accelerated

Go Microsoft !!!!!!! — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:12:23 GMT

Download

Article .

IE 9 Beta 1?

PDC Cartoon

Ian Walker — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:36:08 GMT

One of the Microsoft stands had a guy offering to do a caricature of you (using a TouchScreen / Paintbrush and Corel PaintIt Touch).

Each image was saved as a file using your email address.

I havn't received mine yet, does anyone have a contact (or received their own yet)?

Ian

There must be a better way

CKurt — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:31:58 GMT

Working on a Silverlight App and wrote this:

[code language="csharp"]

if (detectMovement) {
LocationRect currentView = myMap.BoundingRectangle;
double maxLon = currentView.Northeast.Longitude;
double minLon = currentView.Southwest.Longitude;
double maxLat = currentView.Northeast.Latitude;
double minLat = currentView.Southwest.Latitude;
//
fullSource = newCollection.getFullSource();

if ( newCollection.isAvailable() ) {
currentSource.Clear();
IEnumerable<KMLElement> placemarks =
from element in fullSource
where (
(element.Location.Longitude >= minLon)
&& (element.Location.Longitude <= maxLon)
&& (element.Location.Latitude >= minLat)
&& (element.Location.Latitude <= maxLat)
)
select element;

foreach (KMLElement elementje in placemarks) {
currentSource.Add(elementje);

}
myDataGrid.ItemsSource = currentSource;
}
}

[/code]

It works, but its' really slow because the LINQ query must do a lot of calculations. I want to get all placemarks within a givin BoundinRectangle. It there wa way to do the LINQ Query assyncronously?

Ps: Below the Map there is a Daradrig showing the places on the map and I want to filter the grid depending on the currentview of the map. It is also very wierd I have to rebind the datagrid to the result of the query everytime one filters AND I have to use a foreach loop to be able to bind it, because the LINQ query does not return an ObservableCollection

Happy Thanksgiving 9ers!

William Stacey — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:07:19 GMT

new pc and Windows 7 my review

jason818_253.33 — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:55:45 GMT

As stated on a different thread my video card burned out on my 7 year old computer. I thought I would upgrade to Windows 7 from XP and buy a new computer...

Dell hardware.

Dell's Studio XPS 8000. The i7 Intel core processor helps run the machine smoothly and quietly. The 1TB hard drive should be enough room for all my programs, pictures and video.

The entire tower is nice and compact and weighs about half what my last computer weighed.

The dell key board is a little compact. Or maybe I just have large hands, but I don't think that is the case. Until I get used to this key board I think Ill like a little larger key board.

Software and OS

Manufacturer installed Windows 7 home premium and the thing ran from boot up. Every thing seems to be plug and play from additional external drives to my side winder joy stick and canon inkjet printer. Even the internet ran with out having to put in some install disk. Very easy set up.

Interface is well designed with hints of artistry. the only thing I would change would be the color over the x button to exit a window. I think red is a little dramatic. I would like to have seen a yellow or orange. red just says "stop" and some times a person really does want to close the window.

I got rid of the dock on the interface. I am accustom to having shortcuts placed directly on my desk top and I don't need this doc thing to tell me where to put them. I am not a mac user, I don't need my hand held. I did look at a mac but they were so over restrictive they made me feel like I had to fit into a cookie cutter mold to use one.

IE8 is running just fine. I have two tabs set, each running ether google or bing as my primary search engines. kind of a neat thing I could do.

What I am amazed with is the compatibility of windows 7 and that it runs all my old software. Adobe CS2, Office XP and so on. Windows and the i7 Intel processor opens aps in a flash.

The personalized Aero themes are a family favorite. lots of fun art and games. The sounds for Windows 7 are kind of pleasant as well.

This is the first time I have looked at an operating system with admiration towards those who have built it. With windows XP and Windows 95 I never gave it much consideration. I hope my windows 7 experience continues to be an enjoyable one.

New toy, Sony Vaio P Series

Lee Dale — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:25:39 GMT

Bought one of these the other day, loving it so far. Built in mobile broadband is a god send, can access internet all the way to work on the train.

Has a Intel Atom processor, 2GB RAM, 128GB SSD. Running Windows 7 Professional with Aero enabled, and the performance is very good for such a small machine, battery life is pretty good also.

Installed Visual Studio 2010 with Office 2010 also.

Another 'game-changing' phone announced

Ray7 — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:54:09 GMT

Interesting.

This one is based on the Access Linux Platform which Palm abandoned to go their own way with WebOS.

AndyC: Sleeping on the job? :p

W3bbo — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:27:54 GMT

I just remembered how you said you were gainfully employed at the University of East Anglia, and then I noticed the whole email-leak thing was from the CRU unit of the uni. I don't suppose you can shed some light on the whole thing?

please check this out - c9 bug?

figuerres — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:55:31 GMT

hey i opened a thread on the site feedback but i do not know if anyone else can re-pro this problem:

use the silverlight player to start a video and click on fullscreen.

what happens? if it does not work please go to feedback and let the folks know.

thanks!

Want a GPU accelerated browser now?

intelman — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:17:17 GMT

I saw this on Neowin, and instantly fell in love.

http://www.basschouten.com/blog1.php/2009/11/22/direct2d-hardware-rendering-a-browser

The guys are mozilla are working on taking advantage of Direct2D as well. Not only is the rendering quite quick, but the text due to directwrite. The text is the real killer feature. It looks quite beautiful, especially on higher DPI displays.

I encourage everyone to try out the test version. Ify ou already have firefox installed, you'll have to close all instances of it before running this test version. Or force it to use a local profile in the firefox folder.

Climategate

raymond — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:05:41 GMT

any veggie 9ers? (thread)

me — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:16:41 GMT

** first of all - i love meat ... was a chef for 12 years (pre-internet/windows 3.1) **

BUT... we've had our Nova scotia sculptor friends staying with us (for a YEAR - long story) but one of their daughters is a vegetarian - so i hate serving meat and then going " oh and heres your salad .. or tofu or whatever"

So since sept - I just switched to no meat. it wasnt even that hard (wish i could do that with smoking)

Ive learned all about soy "meat-ish" products - mainly learning how to make them myself - using TVP (Textured Vegetable Protien)

In canada we have Loblaws - which in house brand Presidents Choice - makes all kinds of soy based products (meatballs, "chicken" fingers, sausages, ham, etc etc)

Does it taste like ass? ... sometimes... but in general - if you know how to cook - you dont even miss it.

I watched food Inc. on dvd the other night - horrific.. but not if you dont eat meat (well 75% - still issues with veggies)

basically its the COST ... no one will pay more for good proper food (crap i sound like friggin jamie oliver)

damb take-aways and crisps!

anyway - just blabbing. if you want to lose weight though- it seems to work. im down 12 pounds (stone? :p)

so i intend to keep going.

anyone else a veg-head?

...or Jolt, red bull and pizza pops all day? ;)

HomeServer powerpack 3 on windows update

Refrax — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:00:34 GMT

looks like power pack 3 is out. could not find anything about it anywhere and just went in to see if it was under windows update.

havent seen the announcement for it yet.