General

Playing Sudoku...

Gaurav Khanna — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 17:37:00 GMT

[Original Post Date: 22nd August 2005]

Over the past weekend, I have been working a lot on Sudoku, the number game that has been catching up in India a lot. I started off with implementing a Sudoku solver (which, btw, is partially done - it can calculate all the optimized potential values for a given box in the 9x9 grid) and today, finished off with an implementation of a Sudoku generator, PlaySudoku - a Windows based application using which you can play the game:

The game is free for download from http://www.wintoolzone.com/showpage.aspx?url=dotnet.aspx and based upon .NET Framework 2.0 Beta 2. If you don't have Beta 2, you can download it from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=44381.

PlaySudoku features 4 different levels of play (easy, medium, intermediate and advanced) and can even provide you with hints if you positioned the number correctly or not (Green signifies correct position and Red signifies incorrect):

Download and enjoy the game :) It comes with a setup that will put up a folder in your Start menu.

After a month…

Gaurav Khanna — Sat, 13 Aug 2005 13:47:00 GMT

Its been almost a month since I last blogged - partially due to the fact that I was in Redmond, meeting key product teams and also attending TechReady - an internal technical conference.

During my trip, I met Steven Pratschner who authored Customizing the Microsoft .NET Framework Common Language Runtime - check details on this book here. Its an excellent behavioral insight into the CLR, with complete details on the new hosting APIs of CLR 2.0 and its implications. This book serves to be the complement for Don Box's book on CLR - Essential .NET Volume 1: The Common Language Runtime (details here). Both these books are a must read if you want to understand how the CLR works!

I also met Raja Krishnaswamy, the development lead in the CLR team for Code Access Security (CAS).

Now that am back, here's an update on TechED India 2005 - you can download the presentations from here. Also, starting mid-August 2005, I would be on a TechED-on-the-Road show with other developer and ITPro evangelists, where we shall be delivering few of the key TechED sessions at the following cities:

Trivandrum - 18th August
Kolkatta - 23rd August
Ahmedabad - 24th August
Chandigarh - 26th August

There are going to be two parallel tracks - one each for Developers and IT Pros. Developers should register for it here, while ITPros should go here. I would be talking about Windows Communication Foundation (formerly known as Indigo) and on Enhancements in .NET Compact Framework and Windows Mobile 5.0.

So, if you are interested in known about the future of .NET Remoting, or ASMX, or ES and understand how WCF (Indigo) is going to change the future of distributed computing, or if you are a PocketPC/SmartPhone developer, actively developing using .NET CF and Windows Mobile, then you will sure benefit from attending this event.

Last, but not the least, fellow evangelist and friend, Vineet Gupta, has started blogging here. He drives the ITPro Evangelism - so if you want to know more about our servers or have queries regarding them, get in touch with him!

Blogging from InfoPath

Gaurav Khanna — Sat, 13 Aug 2005 10:57:00 GMT

I just came across an InfoPath template that was designed to read and author .TEXT based blogs. If you see this post, then I have been successful in getting it up and running. Its called SimpleBlogger and can be downloaded from the author's blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/guowu/archive/2004/07/20/187990.aspx.

DevCon at Hyderabad

Gaurav Khanna — Sat, 02 Apr 2005 07:47:00 GMT

I love the city of Hyderabad and the weekend of 10th April is the DevCon of the Microsoft User Group, Hyderabad. I would be speaking there - do join the community; it will be fun. Registrations are free and can be done at http://www.mugh.net/devcon.htm.

Sauce Reader - the better way to read and post to blogs

Gaurav Khanna — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 18:10:00 GMT

An excellent blog reader and publisher (supports all major blog engines) - Download it from http://www.synop.com/Products/SauceReader/. I have been using w.bloggar and this scores way over it.

Bloggar 4 released

Gaurav Khanna — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 00:39:00 GMT

Offline blog publisher, w.bloggar, has its v4.0 released that can be downloaded from here. Amongst other enhancements, it allows you to specify multiple categories for a post.

Want to create HTML Help Files?

Gaurav Khanna — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 17:50:00 GMT

Yesterday I was in the process of documenting some of the managed class libraries I wrote in the past week for Windows CE/.NET CF. And I was looking for a HTML Help Maker that's very easy to use and rather simple. Few searches and I stumbled upon Abee CHM Maker. Its free and can be downloaded from http://www.tucows.com/preview/338769.html

Deepak has a "Tech" blog

Gaurav Khanna — Tue, 04 Jan 2005 17:25:00 GMT

Check it at http://devfun.blogspot.com/

WinToolZone Updated

Gaurav Khanna — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 01:31:00 GMT

I just finished updating the UI of my website, WinToolZone. Click here to visit it and let me know what you think :)

Channel 9 India Update

Gaurav Khanna — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 18:14:00 GMT

We just updated the Channel 9 India website - on Community and Developer and Platform Evangelism in India, MOM 2005 and Rotor. You can view them at http://channel9.msdn.com/India/