August 2006 Entries

PhotoAlbum works

I published yesterday a new version of my PhotoAlbum. This is the web application (running on ASP.NET 2,0) in which I experiment technologies which I find interesting in the moment. It's also my journal andmy pictures' gallery. During the holidays, I used this platform to post pictures and blog entries daily from Malaysia/Singapore, using two custom control I had developed for the occasion: RealSimpleBlog and Thumbnails. RealSimpleBlog is a control which is able to read XML files in a directory, ......
Print | posted on Posted On Tuesday, August 29, 2006 6:00 PM | Comments (0)

Excel integration in (ASP).NET using OleDb

Most of my private programming time lately has been invested in my PhotoAlbum's new version, in which I implement bug corrections and prio 1 improvements over the version I used during the last holidays in Asia. I will publish that version soon together with a list of improvements. One important feature (or so I thought) is the ability to import the content of an Excel file into the XML files I use in the PhotoAlbum system. I use an Excel file as main repository for all my pictures' information, ......
Print | posted on Posted On Friday, August 25, 2006 2:23 PM | Comments (32)

WPF prototype: ActiveX integration and interaction in XBAPs

I published a new WPF prototype today. This prototype demonstrates a possible way to integrate an ActiveX control in a XBAP application, and to communicate (in a rather primitive way) with it. It uses Microsoft's proposed solution, which is running the ActiveX control in a HTML page, which in turn is integrated in a WPF frame. The ActiveX can be controlled using JavaScript code running in the HTML page, and which is independant form the XBAP page. In this scenario, the XBAP page acts as a container ......
Print | posted on Posted On Tuesday, August 22, 2006 7:01 PM | Comments (1)

(Possibly breaking) change in ASP.NET 2.0

A colleague of mine made a comment to me last week that led me to a discovery: ASP.NET has a major change of behaviour, which might be breaking existing application: When a directory located under the web application root is deleted, all existing sessions are terminated, and the application ends. Why could that be breaking existing applications? Well, in theory, web applications should be stateless. However, it's very difficult to do more than very simple web apps without saving at least some information ......
Print | posted on Posted On Monday, August 21, 2006 8:37 AM | Comments (2)

Chinese database for Palm OS flashcard program

At long last, I released a new version of my chinese database for the flashcard program for Palm OS Lexi. The new DB has a lot of new entries, and has also been cleaned up (double entries mostly removed, error corrections, etc...) Extract from the "readme" file: "This database is for the excellent "flash cards" application Lexi. It contains over 4200 chinese words and expressions, and can be used to learn Pin Yin as well as Han Zi (chinese signs)." Readme file Download the database ......
Print | posted on Posted On Sunday, August 20, 2006 7:55 PM | Comments (2)

More WPF prototypes

Today was WPF prototype-cleaning day. I started reviewing the prototypes I developed lately using WPF in order to study the technology, and I cleaned up two of them. Cleaning up means reviewing the code, eliminating what is not necessary, commenting and adding a HTML page to each prototype, so that it's easier to understand what they do, and what points are still open. The two prototypes are running on my site, and can be executed from there. Additionally, the project files are also available for ......
Print | posted on Posted On Wednesday, August 16, 2006 7:55 PM | Comments (0)

Maria Himmelfahrt

Today is Maria Himmelfahrt, which can be translated by the day where Mary went to heaven. This is a catholic public holiday, and since the state I work in (Zug) is catholic, I had a free day today. However, since Zurich is reformed, it didn't celebrate and Chi Meei had to work. So I decided to just have a day on my own, which I like to do from time to time. Actually, this happens from time to time, because of the nature of my job (software engineering), which allows me to have very liberal working ......
Print | posted on Posted On Tuesday, August 15, 2006 7:26 PM | Comments (0)

One week later...

This week has been quite unusual for me. I was supposed to start work again on wednesday after my holidays, but I caught a fever, so I had to stay home until friday. As additionally my kids were spending one week holidays with my parents, and my wife started her new job, I found myself alone home. Well, after a while it got a bit boring, though I did some work on various private projects I have. One thing I did is order a Piel Frama leather case for my Palm LifeDrive (tan color), and I am really ......
Print | posted on Posted On Sunday, August 6, 2006 7:47 PM | Comments (0)

Back home...

We're back home... We came back in Switzerland last week, and time flies, I can't believe it's already tuesday... Work should start again tomorrow (today is national day here, thus public holiday), and a lot of challenges are in front of us. We're studying the possibility to use WPF/E as our platform for the new web application we're starting to work on. Unfortunately, it's impossible to find any preview version of WPF/E, so we're forced to use assumptions and theories. On the private side, I started ......
Print | posted on Posted On Tuesday, August 1, 2006 7:18 AM | Comments (0)

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