« July 2005 | Main | September 2005 »
August 23, 2005
CF Deployment in VS.NET 2005
I just got the latest beta of VS.NET installed, so I haven't had a lot of time to play with it. But it looks like I need to check out the differences in deployment. There is now a specific project with property windows for setting values for the INF. From Chris Tacke's article, it looks quite a bit nicer than running batch files and hand editing text files.
http://blog.opennetcf.org/ctacke/binary/DeployingApps.htm
More reading for CPT 355
via Chris Tacke
Posted by mikel at 07:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 22, 2005
Frontiers in Education Conference
FIE looks like it would be an interesting conference to present Alice at someday. This year (October 19-22) is going to be in Indy. But it's to late to present there, I guess we'd have to go to San Diego for 2006.
https://www.mainfunction.com/patp/blog/archive/2005/08/22/245.aspx
Posted by mikel at 02:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
3 people for version 1
If you can’t build your version 1 with three people, then 1. you need different people, or 2. you need to slim down your version 1.http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/three_people_for_version_1.php
I'm finding more and more interesting things to read from 37Signals and Basecamp looks useful.
Posted by mikel at 02:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 21, 2005
Grant possiblity for Alice project
Here's a possiblity for a grant for the Alice project. Might need to work it through 4-H since they won't fund schools
http://www.mattel.com/about_us/philanthropy/ci_mcf_philanthropy_grantmaking.asp
via Main Function
Posted by mikel at 11:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 18, 2005
Purdue Podcasts Classes
Purdue is going to start podcasting lectures.
Many universities are experimenting with podcasting, but I'm not aware of any other university that is deploying a podcasting service on the scale that we are, Gay says. As far as I know, we are the only university that is offering both streaming and podcasting of lectures in this manner as a central university service.I don't see a link to where you can download the podcasts or where I could sign up to podcast CIT 355. I wonder if they will restrict it to students who are enrolled in the class, to Purdue people only, or to the general public. If they really open it up, that could be a really cool resource.
http://www.itap.purdue.edu/newsroom/news.cfm?newsID=449
[Update] Here's the link to the course list and it looks to be available to anyone. Listening to Pol130 Introduction to International Relations right now :)
http://www.itap.purdue.edu/boilercast/
Posted by mikel at 10:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Windows Mobile Power States
A good read for CPT 355 about power for Windows Mobile devices
http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2005/08/01/446240.aspx
This is part of series on power, but one of the more interesting parts is the list of power states for smartphones and Pocket PCs from this post
http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2005/08/10/450186.aspx
* On: The user is interacting with the device. Everything is on.* BacklightOff: There has been a brief period of user inactivity (no one has pressed any buttons or touched a touchscreen). The backlight has been turned off, but everything else is on. When you set the backlight timeout values in the control panel, you're setting how long the system should wait before going into this state. (Note that this state is new for WM 5.)
* UserIdle: There has been a longer period of user inactivity. Both the backlight and LCD have been turned off. When you set the screen timeout value on a Smartphone control panel, you're setting how long the system should wait before going into this state. This state is generally not used on PocketPC. There's no reason to turn the screen off when the device is about to go to sleep (sleeping turns the screen off). However, if/when PocketPCs go to the "Always On" model, they'll start using this state.
* ScreenOff: You go into this state when someone specifically says to turn the screen (and backlight) off. For instance, in Media Player you can assign a button to turn the screen off. When you press it, we go into this state. This state is different than UserIdle, though. This state says, "The user wants the screen off and doesn't want it to turn back on." UserIdle says, "The user hasn't touched any buttons in a while, so we might as well turn the screen off to save power." In ScreenOff, pressing a button (other than the power button) doesn't turn the screen back on. In UserIdle, pressing a button does turn the screen back on. Both PocketPC and Smartphone use this state.
* Unattended: This is a confusing state in which the screen, the backlight, and the audio are off. I won't go into too many details, other than to say that this is a PocketPC-only state that is used by applications which need to do things without alerting the user. While the PocketPC is in this state, the user thinks the device is asleep. For instance, ActiveSync when it syncs every 5 minutes. It's waking up, syncing, and going back to sleep, but the user can't tell.
* Resuming: This is the state the PocketPC goes into when it wakes up from sleep. In this state, the screen is off, and there is a very short (15 second) timer before it goes back to sleep. The only way to keep the device from going back to sleep is to have something put it into one of the other states. This is really for dealing with spurious wakeups and for giving the system a way to get into Unattended without letting the user know about it.
* Suspended: This is the PocketPC "Sleep" state. Everything is off, and the system isn't going to wake back up until some piece of hardware wakes it up. It's not actually an official Power Manager state, the way the other six are, but I'm including it for completeness.
[Update] - BradA has a good link and an interesting stat.
Industry forecasts predict that up to 67% of workforce computers will be mobile PCs.
http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/archive/2005/08/21/PowerManagement.aspx
Posted by mikel at 06:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Purdue Clickers on Future Tense
I subscribe to the Future Tense podcast and I was surprised yesterday while listening to the show on the way to Jessica's volleyball game that Jon Gordon interviewed Erina MacGeorge about the eInstruction clickers in use at Purdue. That's the project we used in CPT 355 last semester and will be using again.
Posted by mikel at 05:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 17, 2005
Business Objects
I listened to Rocky Lhotka on .NET Rocks this morning. CSLA.NET looks like something interesting to look into. The show discusses a lot of the issues covered in CPT 450. Might be a good listen for the students in that class.
Posted by mikel at 10:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 16, 2005
Mobile Web Design
We don't specifically teach web design for mobile devices in CPT 355 - Software Development for Mobile Computers (btw, I should just stop using department names and numbers to refer to courses, they change way to often. But I'm sticking with CPT 355 on here so I can search for all the potential readins assignments I've posted about), but the challenges of the mobile web are similiar to the challenges for mobile applications running directly on the device. Here's a good quote from Jason Fried
We think the idea of write-once-run-anywhere is a pipe dream...but its not just about how something looks, its about how something works. Whats important are peoples priorities on different platforms. People on a phone and people on a computer shouldnt necessarily see the same thing with different paint, they should see an entirely different picture. Different form, different function, and different priority
http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/camerons_mobile_web_design.php
http://www.cameronmoll.com/archives/000398.html
Posted by mikel at 07:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 11, 2005
C# Coding Standards
A link to another example of coding standards for C#
http://www.tiobe.com/standards/gemrcsharpcs.pdf
Posted by mikel at 09:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 09, 2005
Appropriate Error Messages for ASP.NET Web Services
I'm working on a web service and throwing some exceptions. By default, ASP.NET sends along a bunch of debug information. To turn this off and just send the "helpful" message to the client change the web.config file.
This
<customErrors mode="off"/>
Should become
<customErrors mode="RemoteOnly"/>
That will only show the debug info on the local machine but remote clients won't get all the debug info.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnservice/html/service09172002.asp
http://www.dotnet247.com/247reference/msgs/10/54567.aspx
Posted by mikel at 09:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 08, 2005
New DelMar IT Keyboards
Looks like this will have to be the next DIT technology purchase.
http://store.yahoo.com/pckeyboards/customizer.html
Kyle loves the tactile feedback of the IBM Model M. I like them too but miss the Windows key. This keyboard looks to be the best of both worlds (plus they are still be manufactered so Kyle doesn't have to get keyboards in computer museums).
Based on an award winning design, the Customizer combines the same quality and crisp tactile feedback as its IBM and Lexmark predecessors.http://www.pckeyboard.com/customizer.html
Posted by mikel at 08:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 06, 2005
Clickers in the Classroom
An article on news.com about classroom response systems. Purdue has standardized on the eInstruction system. That's what we used in CPT 355 last semester and will be using again this fall. It worked pretty well in a small classroom setting. I mostly used it to give short quizzes at the beginning or end of class. I'll have to try some different things with it this semester.
Posted by mikel at 09:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 05, 2005
SafariU - Build your own textbook
Tim O'Reilly talked about this new service on Dan Bricklin's podcast that I listened to yesterday. It's basically allows a professor to pick and choose portions from various O'Reilly books to create a text for a course.
Posted by mikel at 09:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Open Source Grid Control
Ran across this reading The Daily Grind. Could be useful for a project where we need to give an excel like UI
http://www.codeproject.com/cs/miscctrl/csharpgridcontrol.asp
Posted by mikel at 08:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 04, 2005
Linux computers for Indiana students
Linspire, Inc. and Wintergreen Systems announced today that Indiana high schools are currently testing desktop Linux machines in school systems across the state as part of a plan to provide every public high school student with a computer. If successful, the plan, called the Indiana Access Program, will provide each high school student in the state with an individual desktop Linux computer for instructional use in each classroom they visit during the day -- meaning a potential 300,000 Linux machines could be deployed over coming years. ... Schools across Indiana that have not yet had a chance to try the Linspire operating system should call or email Linspire at edu@linspire.com for a free evaluation copy.
http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/newsitem.asp?id=14679
Not sure how the Indiana Access Program is funded. The computers may be cheaper but that's stil going to be a lot of money.
Posted by mikel at 01:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Programmer Productivity
Here's a few nice quotes and data from the latest Joel article for the next time a student points out how they spent "so much time" on a lab assignment or the project.
There was so much griping among the students about how much work was required for this class that Professor Eisenstat started asking the students to report back on how much time they spent on each assignment. He has collected this data carefully for several years. ... In fact when you look closely at the data it's pretty clear there's no discernable correlation between the time and score ... The quality of the work and the amount of time spent are simply uncorrelated.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/HighNotes.html
And Kyle should really appreciate this ending.
Internal, in-house software is rarely important enough to justify hiring rock stars. Nobody hires Dolly Parton to sing at weddings. That's why the most satisfying careers, if you're a software developer, are at actual software companies, not doing IT for some bank.
Posted by mikel at 11:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Channel 9 video with Windows Mobile Team
Something for the CPT 355 class to watch.
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=95972
Posted by mikel at 07:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 01, 2005
Kids Programming Language
Here's a new programming language for kids.
http://www.ms-inc.net/kpl.aspx
Maybe something for 4-H, Jessica, or the project in CIT. The one thing I still like about Alice is that since it is all GUI based it is impossible to make syntax errors. That leaves the kids totally focused on fixing their logic errors, which to me is really the interesting and challenging part about software development.
via Scoble
[Update 9/17/2005] - An MSDN article on KPL
Posted by mikel at 07:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack