Saturday, December 25, 2010

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Microsoft Press MCTS Self Paced Training Kit Exam 70-515

Microsoft Press MCTS Self Paced Training Kit for Exam 70-515 was released on 16 December. To download this book free of cost click here.

Windows 7 Taskbar introduces many new feature such as:

Overlay Icons makes your application provide contextual status information to the user even if the application’s window is not shown. The user doesn’t even have to look at the thumbnail or the live preview of your app – the taskbar button itself can reveal whether you have any interesting status updates

Jump List feature is designed to provide you with quick access to the documents and tasks associated with your applications. You can think of Jump Lists like little application-specific Start menus. Jump Lists can be found on the application icons that appear on the Taskbar when an application is running or on the Start menu in the recently opened programs section. Jump Lists can also be found on the icons of applications that have been specifically pinned to the Taskbar or the Start menu.

Taskbar Progress Bar makes your application can provide contextual status information to the user even if the application’s window is not shown. The user doesn’t even have to look at the thumbnail or the live preview of your app.

Thumbnail toolbars are another productivity feature that gives us the ability to do more without actually switching to another application's window. A thumbnail toolbar is essentially a mini remote-control that is displayed when you hover over the application's taskbar button, right beneath the application’s thumbnail.

With these great features that windows 7 offer, we will have to switch our programing skill towards Windows 7 Programing. Stay tuned for tutorials about Windows 7 programing.

Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework

The Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework is a free, centralized code sample library provided by the Microsoft Community team. Its goal is to provide typical code samples for all Microsoft development technologies. It can be downloaded from: http://1code.codeplex.com/.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Create Multiboot DVD or CD

I had a 200 KB ISO image which i burned to a 700 MB CD so all the 699 MB was wasted. Wouldn't it be good if we could make a multiboot CD. I found an excellent utility named XBoot which can burn multiple ISO into single USB or DVD so we can utilize the complete space of single physical drive.

The images are added via drag and drop into the program window and to each we can assign a name and category for easy identification. We will also see the space occupied by each and the combined total space, so that we can make sure to keep the total time below the maximum offered by our unit.

Also, we have an option to verify checksums, which adds extra safety always necessary when burning images that are downloaded from the web. Then only remains for us to click on the button “Create ISO” to start recording XBoot.

Download: XBoot

Microsoft Web Camps

Microsoft's Web Camps are events that allow you to learn and build websites using ASP.NET MVC, WebMatrix, OData and more... The best thing about these are that they are FREE TRAINING from Microsoft for us. For more information see: http://www.webcamps.ms/. Jordan and Pakistan also have Web Camps planned. These will get listed. There is a FREE training kit also for the web camps which you can get from the above mentioned link.

The Essential Guide to HTML5

Hi to all. I am back with a book about HTML5. The return of Mauhib :). My last post had some information about HTML5. For those who want to start with HTML5, this is the essential guide for them. To download this guide free of cost, go to this link.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

HTML5 - An evolutionary technology

More than two decades after HTML was introduced, we’re still asking questions about what the web is, and what it might become. What kinds of features and applications would we, as users, find fun, useful or even indispensable? What tools do developers need in order to create these great sites and apps? And finally, how can all this goodness be delivered inside a web browser?

These questions led to the evolution of the latest version of HTML known as HTML5, a set of capabilities that gives web designers and developers the ability to create the next generation of great online applications. An example of this can be the introduction of the video tag. Before the video tag, for displaying any kind of video on a HTML page needed separate APIs or Plug-ins. All the goodness of flash and silverlight and many other softwares is combined into HTML5.

All the web browsers are now upgrading to HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript as these have become the new standards of the modern web. The new versions of these browsers can be downloaded from here:

Internet Explorer 9: http://windows.microsoft.com/ie9
Google Chrome: http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/chrome/beta/
Firefox 4: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/beta/
Opera 11: http://www.opera.com/download/get.pl?id=33307&thanks=true&sub=true
Safari 5: http://www.apple.com/safari/

Now, for developers who are interested in developing websites in HTML5, there is an excellent video which can be found here. The presentation used in the video can be downloaded from here. The source code in the video can be downloaded from here. For any queries feel free to contact me at mauhib_iqbal@live.com.

At this time, there are very few tools for designing websites for HTML5. Some of these are:
HTML 5 Intellisense for Visual Studio 2010 and 2008
SVG Intellisense schema for Visual Studio 2010 and 2008
Modernizr
Ai2Canvas Exporter

Developers can use this website to validate their markup.

Some great websites designed in HTML5:
http://joydefinesthefuture.com/
http://agent8ball.com/

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Resources for Bloggers

There are many resources available for active bloggers. Some of these resources are:

Google Adsense:
it could be described in the following 4 points:
•Get paid for displaying targeted Google ads on your site.
•Customize ads to match your site's look and feel.
•Track your success with online reports.
•It's free!

To sign up click here

Google Analytics:
It is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website. It proves very useful for bringing traffic to your website. To sign up click here

Microsoft Broadcaster:
Get relevant content from Microsoft for your blogs, newsletters and user groups for free. You can set your keywords and then you can embed content on your blog. To sign up, go to the following link: http://www.microsoftbroadcaster.com/

Resources from Microsoft FREE

Now days many people ask me that from where can I get Visual Studio 2010 and other developer tools free just for learning purposes. If you are a student so you can register for Microsoft dreamspark and get all the developer tools free.

These days there is a common question that how can I get a powerful anti virus free of cost. The answer is Microsoft Security Essentials. It is a free anti virus from Microsoft which helps you stay secure at home and at office. If you are a genuine windows user then you can download it free by clicking here.

Other free resources include:

click the picture for a larger view

Friday, December 10, 2010

Positive Approach

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Visual Studio 2010 IDE New Features

How Do I: Quick Lap Around the Visual Studio 2010 IDE New Features

This video demonstrates several of the new IDE enhancements provided by Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, including Intellisense Completion Mode, Highlight References, Quick Search (and Navigate To), Generate From Usage, Zoom Box Selection, Call Hierarchy, S

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Text to Speech Application

Today we will make a text to speech application which will read aloud the the text we enter.

We will start by opening a new project in Visual Studio 2010(or previous versions). We will name our project "TextToSpeech" as shown in the picture below.

We will now add a Label, Text box and a button. Change the text property of label to "Please enter text and I will Speak it for you". Change the multiline property of the text box to true and change the text of the button to "Speak".

Now go to project menu and click Add Reference. Now navigate to the COM tab of the add reference dialog box and select "Microsoft Speech Object Library". Click OK.

Double click on the button to generate a default event handler. Now right code.

VB.net
Dim speech As New SpeechLib.SpVoice
speech.Speak(TextBox1.Text, SpeechLib.SpeechVoiceSpeakFlags.SVSFDefault)

C#
SpeechLib.SpVoice speech = New SpeechLib.SpVoice;
speech.Speak(TextBox1.Text, SpeechLib.SpeechVoiceSpeakFlags.SVSFDefault);

Now Debug the the program to make sure it works properly. write any thing in the text box and click the speak button and the computer will speak what you enter.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Silverlight 5 announced - Silverlight Firestarter 2010

Silverlight Firestarter 2010 Keynote with Scott Guthrie

Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft's .NET Developer Platform, unveils Silverlight 5, further advancing capabilities in the areas of premium media experiences and business applications at the Silverlight Firestarter 2010 event in Redmond, WA on Dec 2nd 2010

Visual Studio Loadfest

On 4th December many developers of karachi gathered at FAST-National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences for Visual Studio Loadfest. This event was a series of Informative Sessions. It was about the new IDE(Integrated Development Environment), Visual Studio 2010.

Agenda:

What’s New in VS 2010 Ultimate - Adil Ahmed Mughal:
This session was about the new features of Visual Studio 2010 such as Extensiblity, Navigation options, multi-targeting and WPF Editor.

Application Life cycle Management - Jibran Jamshed:
It started with what an application needs to diliver in order to be successful. The sesssion then focused on TFS(Team Foundation Server).

Better Debugging with Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - Munir Usman:
This was about the advance debuging options and techniques built in Visual Studio 2010.

In the end I would like to thank all the speakers for their time and knowledge they shared with us. All of the sessions included demos which resulted in a better understanding of the topics.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Recording of my interview

This is the recorded version of my interview conducted by Metro one TV Channel. The interview was conducted because I became MCTS(Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist) and MCP(Microsoft Certified Professional) of .NET framework 4.0. Please give comments and Suggestions.

The download-able version of the video can be downloaded from here: http://www.multiupload.com/GHN25BW2DR

Friday, December 3, 2010

Microsoft Surface Toolkit

Microsoft has released Microsoft Surface Toolkit. This toolkit includes controls, APIs, templates, documentation, and sample code for WPF on Windows Touch applications and a way for developers to prepare for the next version of Microsoft Surface. This toolkit can be downloaded from this link.
Do not forget to watch the video tutorial on channel 9: http://channel9.msdn.com/blogs/larrylarsen/surface-toolkit-for-windows-touch.

6 Amazing Programing Themes

I wanted to share 6 awesome computer programming wallpapers for windows 7. All of these are prepared by me.
You can download them using this link: Themes

ASP.net MVC Tutorial

I was just surfing the internet when i found an excellent tutorial on asp.net MVC. The tutorial is about making an online asp.net MVC Music store. It teaches the basics of ASP.net MVC. Do check it out.
Click Here to download the tutorial.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Business Times FM Interview

Business Times FM is going to conduct my interview which will be broadcast-ed live online on e-radio: http://www.businesstimesfm.com/ on Saturday, 4th December 2010 at 11:00 AM PST.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Visual Studio LightSwitch

Visual Studio LightSwitch is a new version of visual studio which makes building high quality professional business applications which involve connecting to database easier and faster without writing a single line of code but offcourse we can write code if we want to. It was built to replace to old manual filling system with a computerized system which has many advantages.

The first beta was released on 23rd August 2010. If you have not yet downloaded it so what are you waiting for! you can download it absolutely free from here: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/lightswitch.

The first beta does not have some features which it should have such as themes and shells but it would be made available in the future.

If you like me post, please follow my blog.

Recieving Gold Medal from my school

My school, BeaconHouse School awarded me with a gold medal for becoming MCTS(Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist) and MCP(Microsoft Certified Professional).

Microsoft Open Door

Intel: 1,000-core processor - A Revolutionary Invention

An experimental Intel chip shows the feasibility of building processors with 1,000 cores, an Intel researcher has asserted.

The architecture for the Intel 48-core Single Chip Cloud Computer (SCC) processor is "arbitrarily scalable," said Intel researcher Timothy Mattson, during a talk at the Supercomputer 2010 conference being held this week in New Orleans.

"This is an architecture that could, in principle, scale to 1,000 cores," he said. " I can just keep adding, adding, adding cores."

Only after 1,000 cores or so, the diameter of the mesh, or the on-chip network connecting the many cores, will grow to such an extent that it would negatively impact performance, Mattson said.

Intel remains adamant that the future progress of microprocessors will depend on packing ever more cores onto a chip. As more cores are added, however, Intel designers must confront the problem of scalability.

Initial multicore chip architectures depended on a set of protocols that assures that each core has the same view of the system's memory, a technique called cache coherency.

As more cores are added to chips, this approach becomes problematic insofar that "the protocol overhead per core grows with the number of cores, leading to a 'coherency wall' beyond which the overhead exceeds the value of adding cores," the paper accompanying Mattson's talk noted.

Mattson has argued that a better approach would be to eliminate cache coherency and instead allow cores to pass messages among one another.

The recent work of the design team has centered on developing message-passing techniques for the chip that would scale as more cores are added.

Designed by Intel's TeraScale Research Program over the past several years, the chip itself is an experimental one and is not on the Intel product road map, Mattson said. A limited number of copies have been distributed to researchers and developers so they can build development tools for the design.

The chip, first fabricated with a 45-nanometer process at Intel facilities about a year ago, is actually a six-by-four array of tiles, each tile containing two cores. It has more than 1.3 billion transistors and consumes from 25 to 125 watts.

For simplicity's sake, the team used an off-the-shelf 1994-era Pentium processor design for the cores themselves. "Performance on this chip is not interesting," Mattson said. It uses a standard x86 instruction set.

The novelty of this processor is in its tiled architecture and the network and address infrastructure. Each core has a "mesh interface component" that packages data into packets and connects to an on-board router. Each tile also has a "message-passing buffer," with 16 kilobytes of random access memory.

The team has tried various approaches to streamline the ability of the processor to pass messages among the many cores.

By installing the TCP/IP protocol on the data link layer, the team was able to run a separate Linux-based operating system on each core. Mattson noted that while it would be possible to run a 48-node Linux cluster on the chip, it "would be boring."

"To make this interesting, I would have to ask, how would the programming models map onto the unique features of this chip," he said.

The team also developed a small API (application programming interface) library for message passing among the cores, called RCCE, and which Mattson pronounced as "Rocky."

In tests, the team showed that message passing among the cores could be just as speedy using RCCE as with TCP/IP-based Linux cluster. And both approaches bode well for the message-passing approach for inter-core communication.

"Our preliminary work has demonstrated that the SCC processor and its native message passing API provide an effective software development platform," the paper concludes. "The expected difficulties due to the lack of asynchronous message passing have so far not materialized."

In addition to talking about the chip's message-passing capabilities, Mattson also elaborated on SCC's power-saving capabilities. The frequency of each tile can be varied. Hooks are provided for programmers that would allow their programs to adjust the frequency speed and even the voltage of the cores they are running upon. This feature will, however, create a new challenge for programmers, he warned.

"It's a lot harder than you'd think to look at your program and think 'how many volts do I really need?'" he said.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Developing Application for Windows Phone 7

The new windows phone 7 was shown to MCTs in the MCT Summit 2010. If you want to develop applicatons for it, then you have come to the right place.

WP7 uses a silverlight-based operating system so we can develop applications using silverlight. We will need Windows Phone 7 developer tools, Silverlight for windows phone 7 toolkit and of course Visual studio 2010. To get started to develop apps for WP7 follow the steps below:

Download the zip file from the following link : http://www.multiupload.com/BUJ55LVL0C
Extract all the contents of the zip file to a folder on your computer
Run WP7 Developer tools.exe and install the developer tools
Run the installer named Silverlight for Windows Phone Toolkit.msi

Now you have all the tools to get started. To unlock the emulator follow the steps below:

Go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v7.0\Emulation\Images
Rename WM70C1.en-US.bin in that folder to WM70C1.en-US_old.bin
now copy WM70C1.en-US.bin from the folder we downloaded to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows Phone\v7.0\Emulation\Images
Enjoy the unlocked emulator

Friday, September 24, 2010

Microsoft Course 10262A Free Download

Course 10262A:

Developing Windows Applications with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

To download the course free use the links below:

If you want to download only the presentations go to the following link:

http://rapidshare.com/files/421125246/Presentations.rar

If you like my post please comment, follow and share it

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Reading and Writing to Text Files

Today we will write "Hello World" to a file and then read it from there and display it to the Console

First, open Visual Studio, make a new VB Console Application and add System.IO namespace to your sollution.

To write the text file, create an instance of StreamWriter class and provide the path as a parameter such as

"C:\Hello World.txt". The following code demonstrates this:

Dim sw As StreamWriter = New StreamWriter("C:\Hello World.txt")

Now, we will write code to write in the text file using the write method:

sw.Write("Hello, World!")

Now, close the the text file :

sw.Flush()
sw.Close()

_____________________________________________________

To read the text file, create an instance of StreamReader class and provide the path of the text file as a parameter. The following code demonstrates this:

Dim sr As StreamReader = New StreamReader("C:\Hello World.txt")

Now, we will write code to read from the text file using the ReadtoEnd method:

Console.Writeline(sr.ReadToEnd())

Now, close the the text file :

sr.Close()

If you like my post please follow my blog.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Spliting Strings in Visual Basic

This post demonstrates how to split strings such as "2+2"

Create a Visual Basic Console Application in Visual Studio and Write the following code to split the strings:

Dim i As String = "2+2"
Dim d As Array = i.Split("+")

The Split Method Splits the strings in several parts using the character with which they are separated which is "+" in this case and then it returns an Array. Now write code to convert them to Integer.

Dim a As Integer = Convert.ToInt32(d(0))
Dim b As Integer = Convert.ToInt32(d(1))

Now lets verify that our String was correctly separated.

Console.WriteLine(Convert.ToString(a + b))

Our Console Application should write : 4 .

Please contact me at mauhib@gmail.com and send me your suggestions.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Creating a simple Chat Spammer using Visual Studio

This Chat Spammer simultaneously sends the same message again and again in a chat program. To create a simple Chat Spammer follow the steps below:

Open Visual Studio and create a new Windows Forms Application.

Add a Timer Control, 2 Buttons and a Textbox. Change the title of your form to Chat Spammer, Change the Textbox's text to "Enter message here" and Change the text of Button1 to "Start" and Button2 to "Stop" Now your application will look like this:

Double click "Start" button and write this code:

Timer1.Start()

Double click "Stop" button and write this code:

Timer1.Stop()

Now, write code for Timer1's Tick event by double clicking timer one and writing this code:

SendKeys.Send(TextBox1.Text)
SendKeys.Send("{Enter}")

Now, open debug the program and fill the text box with your message. Click start and put the cursor on a chat program's textbox.