The Diagonals Class is a simple drawing class for constructing a rectangle filled with parallel diagonal lines. The class can serve as a border or as a textured background.
In addition to specifying the dimensions of the filled rectangle, additional parameters include line weight, color and transparency, line angle and spacing. Finally, a line of code – currently commented out – causes the alpha of each diagonal to vary randomly when uncommented.
Was looking into using CouchDb with jQuery and managed to find little cheatsheet at Marak Squires blog:
1. Create Database
var dbname = "myDatabase"; $.couch.db(dbname).create();
2. Create Document
var blah = new Object(); blah.x = "asd"; blah.y = "yst"; $.couch.db(dbname).saveDoc(blah);
3. List all documents
$.couch.db(dbname).allDocs();
4. Open Document
var doc = "d7356006e5d8fa592bc95b039b3c434f"; $.couch.db(dbname).openDoc(doc);
Question, obviously, is where i can find this jquery.couch.js file? Two ways, one is actually to look into your CouchDB web console (remember this _utils place?), if you will do ‘View source’ on html page loaded, you will find it there, otherwise, another method, you can download whole thing from SVN http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/couchdb/trunk
On November 18, 2009, at the Professional Developer’s Conference in Los Angeles, Microsoft Corp. unveiled a Beta version Silverlight 4. This latest version delivers hundreds of features and controls that, when combined with the continued innovation in Microsoft’s world-class tools for designers and developers — Microsoft Visual Studio and Microsoft Expression Blend – present the leading edge in rapid, powerful application development. With printing support, rich reporting and charting, and integration with back-end systems and server products including Microsoft SharePoint, Silverlight is ready for business.
What’s New in Silverlight 4 Beta?
Silverlight 4 delivers a full suite of powerful capabilities to business application developers, bringing the best-of-breed .NET platform to browser-based experiences. Silverlight provides an ideal platform for developing and deploying modern business applications for both customer facing and staff-facing applications.
Business Application Development
Silverlight 4 consolidates its position as the natural choice for building business applications on the Web:
New Features for Application Developers
Comprehensive printing support enabling hardcopy reports and documents as well as a virtual print view, independent of screen content.
A full set of forms controls with over 60 customizable, styleable components. New controls include RichTextbox with hyperlinks, images and editing and Masked textbox for complex field validation. Enhanced controls include DataGrid with sortable/resizeable columns and copy/paste rows.
WCF RIA Services introduces enterprise class networking and data access for building n-tier applications including transactions, paging of data, WCF and HTTP enhancements.
Localization enhancements with Bi-Directional text, Right-to-Left support and complex scripts such as Arabic, Hebrew and Thai and 30 new languages.
The .NET Common Runtime (CLR) now enables the same compiled code to be run on the desktop and Silverlight without change.
Enhanced databinding support increases flexibility and productivity through data grouping/editing and string formatting within bindings.
Managed Extensibility Framework supports building large composite applications.
Exclusive tooling support for Silverlight, new in Visual Studio 2010. Including a full editable design surface, drag & drop data-binding, automatically bound controls, datasource selection, integration with Expression Blend styling resources, Silverlight project support and full IntelliSense.
Developer tools
Fully editable design surface for drawing out controls and layouts.
Rich property grid and new editors for values
Drag and drop support for databinding and automatically creating bound controls such as listbox, datagrid. New datasources window and picker.
Easy to pick styles and resources to make a good looking application based on designer resources built in Expression Blend.
Built in project support for Silverlight applications
Editor with full intellisense for XAML and C# and VB languages.
Empowering richer, more interactive experiences
Silverlight is already in use as a comprehensive platform for building rich experiences both for application and pure media scenarios including HD quality, interactive video through Smooth Streaming. Silverlight 4 introduces additional capabilities to enable creation of ever more rich, appealing high-performance interactive experiences and innovative media experiences:
Fluid interface enhancements advance application usability through animation effects.
Webcam and microphone to allow sharing of video and audio for instance for chat or customer service applications.
Audio and video local recording capabilities capture RAW video without requiring server interaction, enabling a wide range of end-user interaction and communication scenarios for example video conferencing.
Bring data in to your application with features such as copy and paste or drag and drop.
Long lists can now be scrolled effortlessly with the mouse wheel.
Support conventional desktop interaction models through new features such as right-click context menu.
Support for Google’s Chrome browser.
Performance optimizations mean Silverlight 4 applications start quicker and run 200% faster than the equivalent Silverlight 3 application.
Deep Zoom enhancements include hardware acceleration to support larger datasets and faster animation.
Multi-touch support enables a range of gestures and touch interactions to be integrated into user experiences.
Multicast networking, enabling Enterprises to lower the cost of streaming broadcast events such as company meetings and training, interoperating seamlessly with existing Windows Media Server streaming infrastructure.
Content protection for H.264 media through Silverlight DRM powered by PlayReady.
Output protection for audio/video streams allowing content owners or distributors to ensure protected content is only viewed through a secure video connection.
Move beyond the browser
Silverlight 3 pioneered the delivery of a new class of Rich Internet Applications to work on the desktop without additional code or runtimes. Silverlight 4 extends this capability:
For Sandboxed applications
Place HTML within your application enabling much tighter integration with content from web servers such as email, help and reports.
Provide support for ‘toast’ notification windows, allowing applications to communicate status or change information while the user is working on another application through a popup window on the taskbar.
Offline DRM, extending the existing Silverlight DRM powered by PlayReady technology to work offline. Protected content can be delivered with an embedded license so that users can go offline immediately and start enjoying their content.
Control over aspects of UI include window settings such as start position, size and chrome.
For Trusted applications
Read and write files to the user’s MyDocuments, MyMusic, MyPictures and MyVideos folder (or equivalent for non-windows platforms) for example storage of media files and taking local copies of reports.
Run other desktop programs such as Office, for example requesting Outlook to send an email, send a report to Word or data to Excel.
COM automation enables access to devices and other system capabilities by calling into application components; for instance to access a USB security card reader.
A new user interface for requesting application privileges access outside the standard Silverlight sandbox.
Group policy objects allow organizations to tailor which applications may have elevated trust.
Full keyboard support in fullscreen mode richer kiosk and media applications.
Enhancements to networking allow cross-domain access without a security policy file.
To learn more about these features, visit the PDC09 site to view sessions from the conference
Microsoft announced on Monday the release and open-sourcing of its .Net Micro Framework 4.0, which provides a .Net-based development and execution environment for small devices. But the TCP/IP stack and cryptography stack were omitted from the open source effort.
Version 4.0 is available under an Apache 2.0 license. Microsoft still intends to remain actively involved in development of the framework, said Microsoft's Peter Galli, senior open source community manager, in a blog post.
Adobe AIR 2 software is the next version of the Adobe Flash Platform runtime for delivering web applications beyond the browser. Now, Adobe AIR lets you use ActionScript(R) or JavaScript languages to quickly build powerful web applications for the desktop on Mac OSX, Microsoft(R) Windows(R), and Linux(R) operating systems. New features include performance improvements that help pave the way for mobile devices, multi-touch and gestures, enhanced support for mass storage devices, peer-to-peer networking, and UDP networking. You can now use Adobe AIR 2 to extend your applications even further with platform-specific native code.
AIR 2 builds on the success of AIR 1 by giving developers new capabilities, and even tighter integration with the desktop. Some new features of AIR 2 include:
Support for the detection of mass storage devices.
Advanced networking capabilities like secure sockets, UDP support, and the ability to listen on sockets.
Support for native code integration.
The ability to open a file with its default application.
Multi-touch and gesture support.
New APIs for access to raw microphone data.
Webkit update with HTML5/CSS3 support.
Global error handling.
Improved cross-platform printing
Improved security and support for enterprise and government standards.
For a complete list of features, please refer to the Release Notes.
The AIR 2 Public Beta is your opportunity to explore new features and communicate your feedback. Please remember that that this is beta software, so there will be bugs, incomplete features, some performance issues, and some missing documentation. Therefore, please use the AIR 2 Beta only for testing and exploratory purposes.
Google has invented a new programming language designed to reduce the complexity of coding without compromising the performance of applications.
Called Go, the language has been tested internally at Google but is still at an experimental stage, so the company is releasing it Tuesday as open-source code in the hope that it will get help with its future development.
"We developed Go because we had become a bit frustrated with how difficult software development has become in the last 10 years or so," said Rob Pike, principal software engineer at Google.
Go aims to improve on the way existing programming languages manage dependencies, which are the software components that applications re-use, such as libraries, Pike said. The language also is designed to handle multiprocessor work particularly well, thanks to its concurrent programming model.
Google started working on Go about two years ago and devoted a team to work on it full time about a year ago. It was conceived as a language for systems programming, such as Web servers, storage systems and databases. However, Google is open to seeing it branch out into other areas.
At this point, Go isn't used in any user-facing Google service or application, since it still has to mature, which is where external programmers come into the picture. "We need better libraries and tools, and the open-source community is great at helping you with things like that," Pike said.
By creating a new programming language, Google continues making inroads into the realm of computing building blocks, prompted by a sense of urgency at making them better. This motivation has also led Google to embark on developing the Android mobile operating system, the Chrome PC brower and the still-unreleased Chrome operating system.
QNX Software Systems announced that its QNX® CAR application platform has won a prestigious Adobe MAX award, in the mobile category.
Each year, the Adobe MAX Awards recognize the best uses of Adobe software for creating engaging user experiences. This year, the QNX CAR application platform won for transforming the driving experience through its innovative use of Adobe Flash technology. The platform was up against stiff competition, including Fanbase Mobile from Atlantic Records and QuadraPop from Sony Ericsson.
“It’s no surprise that QNX CAR took home top honors in the mobile category, as it is redefining the user experience of a mobile device used by hundreds of millions of people every day — the car,” said Linda Campbell, director of strategic alliances at QNX Software Systems. “Through its innovative, automotive-grade implementation of Adobe Flash, QNX CAR not only changes how people interact with their cars, but also helps automakers deploy new applications in dramatically less time and opens a whole new market for developers of Flash applications, games, and content.”
“Imagine a dashboard that reconfigures itself for each driver, or a car infotainment system that tells you where your friends are, or that points you to the nearest gas station when it notices you are running low on fuel — that’s the kind of user experience the QNX CAR application platform is making possible,” said Andy Gryc, product marketing manager, QNX Software Systems.
Launched in February 2009, the QNX CAR application platform is already being designed into next-generation vehicles and has attracted more than 50 technology partners and automotive customers, including Adobe, Cisco, Daimler, Delphi, Freescale, General Motors, Google, Gracenote, IBM, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, Panasonic, Pandora, and Volkswagen. Also at this week’s Adobe MAX conference, QNX Software Systems exhibited a Toyota Prius outfitted with four infotainment systems based on the QNX CAR application platform. The systems showcased numerous applications, including Internet radio, video on demand, games, dynamic navigation, location-based services, climate control, and an innovative virtual mechanic.
To accelerate the development of in-car computing systems, the QNX CAR application platform provides preassembled reference implementations for infotainment units and digital instrument clusters; it also preintegrates numerous applications, including Internet radio, navigation services, and climate controls. QNX CAR is the first automotive-grade platform that allows car makers to deploy Flash-based user interfaces in head units, digital instrument clusters, rear-seat infotainment systems, and other in-car products.
Earlier this year, the QNX CAR application platform also earned a finalist spot in the prestigious Telematics Awards 2009. The QNX® Aviage® acoustic processing suite, a component of QNX CAR, won a European Electronics Industry Award (Elektra) in 2008.
Visit the QNX CAR portal For more information on the QNX CAR application platform, including videos, product briefs, FAQs, and whitepapers, visit www.qnxcar.com.
About QNX Software Systems QNX Software Systems, a Harman International company (NYSE: HAR), is the industry leader in realtime, embedded OS technology. The component-based architectures of the QNX® Neutrino® RTOS, QNX Momentics® Tool Suite, and QNX Aviage® middleware together provide the industry’s most reliable and scalable framework for building innovative, high-performance embedded systems. Global leaders such as Cisco, Daimler, General Electric, Lockheed Martin, and Siemens depend on QNX technology for network routers, medical instruments, vehicle telematics units, security and defense systems, industrial robotics, and other mission- or life-critical applications. Founded in 1980, QNX Software Systems is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, and distributes products in over 100 countries worldwide. Visit www.qnx.com.
IBM announced today a set of cloud services that will allow developers to develop and test cloud applications. In addition, IBM is offering free compute and storage for developers using the IBM platform.
IBM Smart Business Development and Test on IBM Cloud is designed to remove burdens from developers who spend a lot of time setting up their own test environments for applications. By using this kind of a cloud service, developers can test in a fraction of the time, compared to more traditional methods.
This has the potential to translate into a competitive advantage. By speeding up development, companies can move products faster to market.
The service supports third-party and open-source tools. IBM is targeting IT managers who often are managing hundred of projects on an annual basis.
IBM will also offer its service as a private cloud infrastructure. A private cloud infrastructure service is often designed for people who prefer governance and control over their own environment.
The IBM offering is in some respects a collaboration platform for engineers and IT managers. They can share projects and do development and testing. It further permits distributed teams to collaborate on development projects.
IBM is taking the right approach. They are focusing on education as a key component of the offering. They offer their own social network which serves as a resource for developers and IT managers. Cloud computing is still quite abstract for people and education helps customers feel more comfortable about making investments in cloud services. It helps mitigate the risk factor.
Windows Remote Management, part of the larger Windows Management Framework, offers a standards-based way to remotely manage computers running Windows XP or later. Also known as WinRM, is based on several important standards and technologies.
First up is the WS-Management Protocol. This specification was developed jointly by 13 companies including AMD, Dell, Intel, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems and released under the auspices of the Distributed Management Task Force. In addition to SOAP, this specification is also based on web service protocols WS-Transfer and WS-Enumeration.
The next component one needs to know about is the venerable Windows Management Instrumentation. WMI was standard in Windows 2000, but support goes all back to Windows 95. Since WimRM is essentially a wrapper around WMI, learning WMI is critical for understanding WinRM.
While developers are interested in the WS-Managament SOAP interface, system administrators will most likely find command line tools more useful. One option is the older Windows Remote Shell, which allows one to send commands one by one to a remote machine. A far more interesting alternative is PowerShell 2.0. PowerShell is part of Microsoft’s strategic plans to challenge Linux in the server market by offering powerful command-line tools for all its server products.
Both Windows Remote Management 2.0 and PowerShell 2.0 are being released in theWindows Management Framework. In addition to these components, the Windows Management Framework also includes BITS 4.0.
Microsoft’s Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) was originally included with Windows XP back in 2001. Since then it has been quietly acting as the core of everything from Windows Automatic Update to modern software such as RSS Bandit, EVE Online, andGoogle Gears. BITS 4.0 adds a stand-alone HTTP/HTTPS file server for asynchronously transferring large files between computers.
Webware development dedicated blog by Skitsanos R&D Labs. ASP.NET, XML, RIA, Adobe Flex, ActionScript 3, AIR, AJAX, Web 2.0, Backbase, CGI development with RealBasic and other web development issues.
