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 Monday, January 14, 2008
reuxables released!
Nukeation is proud to announce the full release of our Reuxables themes for WPF (and soon - Silverlight!).  From the Official Press Release: Nukeation Studios, a leader in Windows Presentation Foundation™ (WPF) and User
Experience (UX) solutions has released reuxables, a range of designer themes for
Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008 and Microsoft Expression Blend™.
Reuxables themes are aimed at the fresh new market of WPF applications,
and allow software developers to easily implement a new look for their
applications with lots of features:
- The reuxables library consists of 6 fully customizable themes, each with
their own unique variations that result in a total of 48 different styles.
- The themes are designed by some of the top artists in the UX design
industry.
- Reuxables themes provide a consistent look regardless of the operating
system, and therefore provide the same look on both Windows Vista™ and Windows®
XP.
- Reuxables are completely compatible with both .NET Framework 3.0 and 3.5.
- All reuxables themes are provided in both Static and Animated versions, both
made from native XAML vector objects.
- Implementing reuxables is effortless as they automatically theme the entire
application as soon as the theme file is added to the project.
- Reuxables themes are fully compatible with both Microsoft Expression Blend™
1.0/1.1 and Visual Studio® 2008.
System requirements include
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 or 3.5 for runtime, and Microsoft Expression Blend
1.0/1.1 or Visual Studio 2008 for development. Individual reuxables themes are
available between $19 to $99, with an additional complete collection pack for
$299. A complete demonstration of all themes is available at: http://www.reuxables.com
Monday, July 23, 2007
0.9 Beta released
We are proud to release 0.9 Beta of WPF Transition Framework or WTF. WTF is a set of simple controls which help you in providing cool animation transitions to your WPF applications and all this can be done without having to write complex code to create timelines. As mentioned in Dax's blog using WTF is as simple as: <WTFX:WTF Duration="250" Transition="BlurOut" Quality="Better">
<!-- Put your stuff here -->
</WTFX:WTF>This code will add "BlurOut" Transition with Quality set to "Better". It you like to change the animation to be more faster you can simply change the Quality to "Faster", its that simple. The 0.9 Beta version of WTF can be downloaded at wtf.nukeation.com. A sample application is also provided in the download showing the use of WTF. Microsoft Expression Blend 1.0 or later, and Visual Studio 2008 Beta 1 or later will be required to use WTF. You can checkout the wishlist of features which we intend to add before the final release. For queries please feel free to contact us.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Microsoft Surface shows the power of WPF
 One of my favorite movies is "Minority Report". I used to be fascinated with the technology shown in the movie where everything was controlled with hands. Well its not too far we would be using such technology. Earlier it was UMPC and some of the smartphones that had touch technology, but with "Surface" Microsoft is going to change the way we work. Microsoft announced that it will ship a new table-based computer called Surface, code-named Milan. Surface has been a result of six years of research.  Surface features a 30-inch tabletop display whose unique abilities allow for several people to work independently or simultaneously. All the work can be done without using a mouse or a keyboard.  With Surface it becomes easier to transfer music to your digital music player like Zune. transferring photos to your cellphone also has become much easier. Just imagine company meetings taking place on "Surface" where everyone can contribute in the discussion which can be recorded and used for future purposes. This way company discussions can be more interactive and will take less time to take decisions as all resources will be available on table itself. Surface will be a big boon for industries where any product can be displayed to the customer using surface where he/she can experience the product before buying it. It would be so cool that the payment can be made by placing the card on the "surface" and authorizing the payment.
As mentioned by Robert Scoble the interface has been designed using WPF. This really shows the power of WPF and what can be done with it.
All the information regarding Microsoft Surface can be found at www.microsoft.com/surface.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
“Orcas” Beta 1 is now available
 Microsoft this week released a beta version of the next version of Visual Studio, code-named "Orcas" and the next version of the Microsoft .NET Framework, version 3.5. Beta 2 of Orcas is expected to release later this year. The final version may be released to manufacturing by the end of 2007.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Microsoft bridging the Digital Divide
 Microsoft began with a dream of a PC on everydesk and in every home. Thirty years ago this seemed impossible. Today it has reached more than one billion people. Now it aims to reach next 5 billion people under the Microsoft Unlimited Potential program.  As reported by News.com, in Beijing Bill Gates unveiled a new low-cost bundle of Office and Windows. Microsoft will offer the $3 Student Innovation Suite to governments that agree to directly purchase PCs for students to use in their schoolwork and at home. The collection of software, which starts shipping in the second half of this year includes Windows Xp Started Edition, Office Home and Student 2007, Windows Live Mail Desktop and several educational products. The $3 price includes the software license. In order to be eligible, governments must pick up at least half of the tab for the PC, though the software can also be used on refurbished computers, which can cost as little as $50. Microsoft is expecting these programs and others will help it reach more than 5 billion people who have yet to benefit from the PC revolution. Microsoft is also announcing several other projects. It will nearly double to 200, the number of local innovation centers it has over the next two years. Microsoft will also set up an employability portal aimed at helping more of India’s technology workers find jobs. It is working with the Asian Development Bank to help build additional technology capacity.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Winners of MIX07 Remix contest announced
Microsoft Unveils Silverlight
 Microsoft unveils Silverlight (previously called Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere ( WPF/E)). It’s a new cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive applications (RIAs) for the web. Silverlight offers consistent experiences to both Macintosh and Windows users on a variety of browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. Leading media companies and solution providers have announced support for silverlight including Akamai Technologies, Brighcove, Eyeblaster, Limelight Networks, Major League Baseball, NaviSite Inc., Netflix, Pinnacle Systems Inc., Rhozet Corp., Skinkers, Sonic Solutions, Tarari Inc., Telestream Inc. and Winnov. All have indicated plans to deliver Silverlight-based experiences for their viewers and customers.
Microsoft Expands Reach of .NET FrameworkBased on the Microsoft .NET Framework, Silverlight enables developers and designers to easily use existing skills and tools to deliver media experiences and RIAs for the Web with role-specific tools: for designers, Microsoft Expression® Studio, and for developers, Visual Studio®. New tool and server investments for media professionals include the following: • Expression Media Encoder. Microsoft Expression Media Encoder, which will be a feature of Microsoft Expression Media, enables rapid import, compression and Web publishing of digital video imported from a variety of popular formats, including AVI and QuickTime, into WMV. Capable of running on the desktop or Windows Server®, Expression Media Encoder is a template-driven system that integrates seamlessly into existing Web publishing workflows for both live and on-demand content delivery. Expression Media Encoder will be a free download for customers of Expression Media when it is shipped later this year. • Hardware-accelerated video publishing. When paired with a Tarari Encoder Accelerator, Expression Media Encoder reduces encode times by up to 15 times over software alone, a significant capabilities and cost advantage for publishing Web video today. • Even greater scalability with Windows Server, code-named “Longhorn.” Building on the industry-leading streaming and Web server platform, Windows Server “Longhorn” will enable customers to experience up to twice the scalability on the same hardware when compared with Windows Server 2003. Also being announced today is the Internet Information Services 7 (IIS7) Media Pack, which adds new cost-saving features such as bit-rate throttling and other advanced features designed to help further reduce the cost of media distribution. The IIS7 Media Pack will be a free download for customers of Windows Server “Longhorn” when it ships. Tim Sneath in his article shares with us top ten list of reasons why you might want to use Silverlight. .
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
WPF Vs Apollo/Flex
  I have observed that in this IT field many people like to criticise Microsoft. People hate Microsoft, as if its their hobby. They will use Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office Suite and most the the Microsoft products but then also keep criticizing it.
Lets look back at history. Windows has become a standard and majority of people use it. one myth that is common among people is that "Apple OS is good for designers". I do not know whats the reason behind this myth but I find it really wierd when Apple is considered good for designers. Windows platform has much more tools than any other platform for designers. With emerging technologies like WPF Windows is the best platform for designing and development.
 Linux desktop have copied each and every feature of Windows and the open source community keep on copying Microsoft Office Suite in the name of Open Office. Open Office is such a wierd product that most of the time you will use it hoping that it doesn't crash. I am now wondering how open source community will copy Office 2007. But I am sure there are many copy cats who can easily do it.
Now a days people are creating hype about Apollo and Flex. When I had a look at what these two products are, I found that Apollo and Flex is just the replica of .NET Framework. They are talking so loud about Flash and Flex. Guys Flash is just an animation software which was made with the intention of being a preloader. It cannot take place of programming Language. Apollo people are giving counts of Apollo runtime downloads. Dot NET Framework is downloaded four times more than their Apollo runtime.
WPF technology and .NET Framework 3.0 brings in the years of experience of Microsoft in programming field. WPF is really a revolution. The combination of WPF/Expression Suite with the programming capabilities of Visual Studio makes it the best Programming Suite ever available.
One day I was just trying to open a file in Flash, would you believe Actionscript is such a wierd language that simple task like writing/reading file looks almost difficult, infact I don't count any of the Adobe's new product as programming language products, they are only desperate ways of competing with Microsoft.
Let this year of 2007 come to an end then we will see where this Apollo and Flex stand :D
I would like to apologize for my comments. Since I am passionate about some technology doesn't mean I should have written what I have.
I know I have hurt a lot of people and I sincerely apologize for it.
I made a mistake and I wish that I wasn't sober while writing that. I will do my best to learn from it.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Win a copy of Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition
If you want to improve your existing development skills to become more versatile and productive attend Visual Basic 2005 Labcast series. These labcasts make it easy to check out Visual Basic 2005 in a convenient and virtual environment. Get in-depth training and one-on-one real-time assistance from Visual Basic exprets.
 Learn how to- Modernize and simplify installation of Visual Basic 6.0 applications
- Add new data-bound forms to Visual Basic 6.0 applications
- Introduce simple background threading to Visual Basic 6.0 applications
- View and edit SQL Server™ data
- Create data-centric Web applications with your Visual Basic desktop development skill
- Keep Microsoft Word documents in sync with your database
What more when you attend two Visual Basic 2005 Labcasts and submit the evaluation form for each session, you will be eligible for a complimentary copy of Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition from Microsoft. Click here to go to the Registration Page to register for a Labcast.
Mobile PC Development Webcast
 Windows Vista development team has put together a series of webcasts
starting today 2nd April and continuing weekly through June. These
online-only Live Meetings are mainly for the developer crowd who's
currently (or looking to be) building applications that run on mobile
PCs.
Topics center on getting the
most out of Windows Vista's mobility features from
creating SideShow Gadgets to ink-enabling an application to creating
applications that are network- and battery-aware.
You
can join any of these webcasts by just clicking on the title link no
later than 15 minutes before the event begins on the day of the event.
If you happen to miss one, each webcast will be recorded and posted online.
Man Behind Windows Vista Wallpapers
 Windows Vista is one of the best thing to happen to PC world. I just love working in Vista. I like the cool wallpapers that ships with Vista. Do you know who is the man behind the photographs in Windows Vista Wallpaper? It is Hamad Darwish, a Kuwaiti Healthcare professional, with a passion for
photography. He is one of the photographers commissioned by Microsoft in
2005 to shoot photos to be used in Windows Vista's Wallpaper
Collection.  To know more about his work with Microsoft read this interview by Long Zheng from
www.istartedsomething.com.You can watch his full photograph gallery at http://www.hamadpictures.com . You can also have a look at his flickr profile. He has taken some of the most splendid photographs I have ever seen.
Microsoft Unveils Xbox 360™ Elite
 Microsoft Corp. announces the new addition to Xbox family. Name of this new upcoming member is Xbox 360™ Elite. One of the biggest feature of this upcoming model is that it comes with a huge 120 GB hard disk. It also comes with High-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) cable and cool looking premium black finish.
Elite console is powered with three powerful core processors, full surround sound and DVD playback. Availability of a big hard drive will allow its users to save games and store television shows, movies, music, pictures, extra game levels and any other content that is available from Xbox Live Marketplace.
The Black wireless controller and black Xbox Live® headset jells well with the black console. Wireless controller has a range of upto 30 feet and a battery life of 30 hours on two AA batteries.
Estimated retail price of this product is $479.99 (US). Details of Xbox 360 Elite can be found on the Microsoft Newsflash about Xbox 360™ Elite.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Support for XBAP in Mozilla Firefox
 In today's article Ryan Stewart has mentioned that XBAP support is coming to Mozilla Firefox as part of the .NET Framework 3.5 update that will ship with Visual Studios "Orcas". XBAP applications were up to now supported in IE7 but the news of its availablity with Firefox means more people will be able to access XBAP Browser applications. Web applications created with full WPF functionality can now be viewed in both IE7 and Firefox browsers. as rightly said by Stewart "It makes WPF a very rich browser technology and a viable Rich Internet Appliction solution for Windows users."
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Microsoft® .NET™ Framework 3.0
 In the pre-release version .NET Framework 3.0 was called WinFX. It is the new managed-code programming model for windows. It combines the power of .NET Framework 2.0 with new technologies for building applications that have a better user experience, seamless communication across technology boundaries and support for a wide range of business processes. It is a integral part of Windows Vista and Windows Server "Longhorn" operating systems, it is also available for Windows Xp in the Service Pack2 and in Service Pack1 of Windows Server 2003.
The .NET Framework 3.0 adds new technologies to the .NET Framework 2.0 which makes the .NET Framework 3.0 a superset of the .NET Framework 2.0. This new version of the .NET Framework is designed to provide backward compatiblity with the previous version.
.NET Framework 3.0 consists of these major components:Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) formerly codenamed " Avalon" - It is a new user interface subsystem and API based on XML and vector graphics, which uses 3D graphics hardware and Direct3D technologies. Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) formerly codenamed " Indigo" - It is a service-oriented messaging system which allows programs to interoperate locally or remotely similar to web services. Windows CardSpace formerly codenamed " InfoCard" - It is a software component which securely stores a person's digital identities and provides a unified interface for choosing the identity for a particular transaction for eg. logging in to a website. Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
Installing and Detecting .NET Framework 3.0To install .NET Framework 3.0, you must have one of the following operating systems installed : - Microsoft Windows Xp Home or Xp Home Professional with Service Pack 2 or later.
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 family with Service Pack 1 or later.Minimum hardware requirement to install .NET Framework 3.0 is Pentium 400 MHz with 96 MB RAM but recommended is Pentium 1 GHz or higher with 256 MB RAM.
To check if .NET Framework 3.0 is installed you can look for this specific registry key in the Registry
For .NET Framework 3.0"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v3.0\Setup" the DWORD value of this key would be "1".
Similarly to check if version 2 is installed or not you can check for following registry entry
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v2.0.50727" the DWORD value of this also would be "1".
You can Click Here for detecting .NET Framework 3.0 on your system using internet explorer. You can click here to download .NET Framework 3.0 from MSDN.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Microsoft® .NET™ Framework
 Microsoft® .NET™ Framework provides a large structure of pre-coded solutions to common program requirements and also manages the execution of the programs which are specifically written for this framework. Runtime required to run applications written in .NET is called Common Language Runtime(CLR).
The main aim of the framework is to make the task of developing applications easier at the same time ensure that the applications work properly with full security.
Programmer through the years have faced many challenges like depending on one programming language which restricted them from using all the good features of different languages and tools. Common framework assures the availability of framework features to all applications written in any languages of that framework, this meant programmer can choose any .NET language but he/she could access all the features of .NET, hence it reduces the complexity and the restrictions of communication between programs even if it is written in different .NET language. Visual Basic and C# support .NET Framework.
 Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) is the most important part of .NET framework. The implementation of CLI is called the Common Language Runtime (CLR). In the chart on the left you can see how CLI works.
Development of .NET Framework started in late 90s and the orginial name was the Next Generation Windows Services (NGWS). In late 2000 the first beta version of .NET 1.0 was released.
In this period of six years we have seen different versions of .Net which are as follows :
.NET Framework 1.0,
.Net Framework 1.1,
.NET Framework 2.0
and the latest being .NET 3.0 Framework.
Major changes brought after the release of .Net 1.0 were Built in support for ODBC, earlier it was available as an add-on to .NET 1.0, Built in support for mobile ASP.Net controls, Support for Internet Protocol Version 6. .NET Framework 2.0 was released with Visual Studio .NET 2005. The latest in the framework is .NET Framework 3.0 formely called WinFX.
My next article will contain details about this .NET Framework 3.0 and the way it changes how we design and use applications.
Any comments on the article or on the whole blog are welcome.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Can You Remix the Mix07
 Do you think you can design sites that really looks cool? do you think you have mastered CSS? well its time to try it out. Remixing the Mix07 home page could be your ticket to Mix07. Create one of the top three designs and you will receive paid registration to the Mix07 conference in vegas, three nights at the Venetian hotel and $1000 towards your travel expenses. Is'nt it hot offer.
This is not all the top 10 designs awarded honorable mentions by the panel of judges will receive Zune.
Mix site is written in CSS. This makes it easier to change the look of the site. You just need to download the Mix07 homepage CSS and remix it and you can be one of the winners. More details of this contest can be found at the Official site Remix Contest. Contest closes on April 10,2007 and the winners will be announced on April 13th.
So guys what are you waiting for, if you think you have it in you, its definately worth giving a try.
To know more about Mix07 Conference click here.
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