Michael Crump - June 2011 Entries

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June 2011 Entries

Getting up and started with the Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 Beta 2

Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 Beta 2 was released on 6/29/2011. Are you ready for it? If not then let my guide help you get your system prepared and go through a few new features.

Download links:

To get started you are going to need to remove the previous version of your Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 Beta 1.

This kicks off the process of uninstalling the Beta.

Once it is uninstalled then you are going to want to grab the bits from: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26648. The only thing your interested in here is the vm_web2.exe.

Make sure before you start that Zune is not running or you will get this error message like this one and have to restart from scratch.

Now just go through your normal Install Screens.

It should be installed and ready to go:

A couple of things to note:

1) When creating a new phone application you now have several new templates to choose from as shown below. I welcome this addition because I’m a firm believer that we need more templates in order to get more people started.

2) Once you select an application template you can now pick which version of the Windows Phone platform that you wish to target:

3) If you created a WP7 7.1 Beta 1 project that it will still work properly in WP7 7.1 Beta 2.

4) You now have access to the search app icon.

Once pressed then you will see something like this:

5) Under Settings –> Applications. You now have background tasks.

6) You will notice that the Web Browser looks a little different with the URL now located at the bottom of the screen and completely removing the “add”, “favorites” and “tabs” icon.

Those icons are now moved to the menu bar.

That is it for my “Getting up and going with the Windows Phone Developer Tools 7.1 Beta 2”. I hope you enjoyed it and please feel free to subscribe to my feed or follow me on Twitter.

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Posted On Thursday, June 30, 2011 7:27 AM | Feedback (1)

3 Incredibly Useful Projects to jump-start your Kinect Development.

I’ve been playing with the Kinect SDK Beta for the past few days and have noticed a few projects on CodePlex worth checking out. I decided to blog about them to help spread awareness. If you want to learn more about Kinect SDK then you check out my”Busy Developer’s Guide to the Kinect SDK Beta”.

Let’s get started:

KinectContrib is a set of VS2010 Templates that will help you get started building a Kinect project very quickly. Once you have it installed you will have the option to select the following Templates:

KinectDepth
KinectSkeleton
KinectVideo

Please note that KinectContrib requires the Kinect for Windows SDK beta to be installed.

Kinect Templates after installing the Template Pack.

The reference to Microsoft.Research.Kinect is added automatically.

Here is a sample of the code for the MainWindow.xaml in the “Video” template:

<Window x:Class="KinectVideoApplication1.MainWindow"
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        Title="MainWindow" Height="480" Width="640">
    <Grid>
        <Image Name="videoImage"/>
    </Grid>
</Window>

and MainWindow.xaml.cs

using System;
using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Media;
using System.Windows.Media.Imaging;
using Microsoft.Research.Kinect.Nui;

namespace KinectVideoApplication1
{
    public partial class MainWindow : Window
    {
        //Instantiate the Kinect runtime. Required to initialize the device.
        //IMPORTANT NOTE: You can pass the device ID here, in case more than one Kinect device is connected.
        Runtime runtime = new Runtime();

        public MainWindow()
        {
            InitializeComponent();

            //Runtime initialization is handled when the window is opened. When the window
            //is closed, the runtime MUST be unitialized.
            this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(MainWindow_Loaded);
            this.Unloaded += new RoutedEventHandler(MainWindow_Unloaded);

            //Handle the content obtained from the video camera, once received.
            runtime.VideoFrameReady += new EventHandler<Microsoft.Research.Kinect.Nui.ImageFrameReadyEventArgs>(runtime_VideoFrameReady);
        }

        void MainWindow_Unloaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            runtime.Uninitialize();
        }

        void MainWindow_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            //Since only a color video stream is needed, RuntimeOptions.UseColor is used.
            runtime.Initialize(Microsoft.Research.Kinect.Nui.RuntimeOptions.UseColor);

            //You can adjust the resolution here.
            runtime.VideoStream.Open(ImageStreamType.Video, 2, ImageResolution.Resolution640x480, ImageType.Color);
        }

        void runtime_VideoFrameReady(object sender, Microsoft.Research.Kinect.Nui.ImageFrameReadyEventArgs e)
        {
            PlanarImage image = e.ImageFrame.Image;

            BitmapSource source = BitmapSource.Create(image.Width, image.Height, 96, 96,
                PixelFormats.Bgr32, null, image.Bits, image.Width * image.BytesPerPixel);
            videoImage.Source = source;
        }
    }
}

You will find this template pack is very handy especially for those new to Kinect Development.

Next up is The Coding4Fun Kinect Toolkit which contains extension methods and a WPF control to help you develop with the Kinect SDK.

After downloading the package simply add a reference to the .dll using either the WPF or WinForms version.

Now you will have access to several methods that can help you save an image: (for example)

For a full list of extension methods and properties, please visit the site at http://c4fkinect.codeplex.com/.

Kinductor – This is a great application for just learning how to use the Kinect SDK. The project uses MVVM Light and is a great start for those looking how to structure their first Kinect Application.

Conclusion: Things are already getting easier for those working with the Kinect SDK. I imagine that after a few more months we will see the SDK go out of beta and allow commercial applications to run using it. I am very excited and hope that you continue reading my blog for more Kinect, WPF and Silverlight news.

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Posted On Tuesday, June 21, 2011 6:40 AM | Feedback (0)

Game Changing Features in the Silverlight 5 Beta (Part 3)

Introduction

In the second part of my “Game-changing Features” series, I investigated how to create multiple windows in a trusted Silverlight 5 application. Now, it is time to explore another set of features: SoundEffect Class for Low-Latency, Supporting Double- and Triple-Mouse Clicks and Linked Text Containers. If you followed my previous tutorial, then you should be ready to get started. The full source code for all three of the projects will be available as a separate download with this article.

The full article is hosted on SSWUG and you can access it by clicking here. Don’t forget to rate it and leave comments if you have any problems.

Other Resources by Me:

My webinar on “Getting started with the Silverlight 5 Beta”.

Getting Started with the Silverlight 5 Beta!
Game Changing Features in the Silverlight 5 Beta (Part 1)
Game Changing Features in the Silverlight 5 Beta (Part 2)
Game Changing Features in the Silverlight 5 Beta (Part 3)

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Posted On Monday, June 20, 2011 1:28 PM | Feedback (0)

The busy developers guide to the Kinect SDK Beta

The Kinect is awesome. From day one, I’ve said this thing has got potential. After playing with several open-source Kinect projects, I am please to announce that Microsoft has released the official SDK beta on 6/16/2011. I’ve created this quick start guide to get you up to speed in no time flat. Let’s begin:

What is it?

The Kinect for Windows SDK beta is a starter kit for applications developers that includes APIs, sample code, and drivers. This SDK enables the academic research and enthusiast communities to create rich experiences by using Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect sensor technology on computers running Windows 7. (defined by Microsoft)

Links worth checking out:

Download Kinect for Windows SDK beta – You can either download a 32 or 64 bit SDK depending on your OS.

Readme for Kinect for Windows SDK Beta from Microsoft Research

Programming Guide: Getting Started with the Kinect for Windows SDK Beta

Code Walkthroughs of the samples that ship with the Kinect for Windows SDK beta (Found in \Samples Folder)

Coding4Fun Kinect Toolkit – Lots of extension methods and controls for WPF and WinForms.

Kinect Mouse Cursor – Use your hands to control things like a mouse created by Brian Peek.

Kinect Paint – Basically MS Paint but use your hands!

Kinect for Windows SDK Quickstarts

Installing and Using the Kinect Sensor

Getting it installed:

After downloading the Kinect SDK Beta, double click the installer to get the ball rolling.

Hit the next button a few times and it should complete installing.

Once you have everything installed then simply plug in your Kinect device into the USB Port on your computer and hopefully you will get the following screen:

Once installed, you are going to want to check out the following folders:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Research KinectSDK – This contains the actual Kinect Sample Executables along with the documentation as a CHM file.

Also check out the C:\Users\Public\Documents\Microsoft Research KinectSDK Samples directory:

The main thing to note here is that these folders contain the source code to the applications where you can compile/build them yourself.

Audio

NUI

DEMO Time

Let’s get started with some demos. Navigate to the C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Research KinectSDK folder and double click on ShapeGame.exe.

Next up is SkeletalViewer.exe

(image taken from http://www.i-programmer.info/news/91-hardware/2619-microsoft-launch-kinect-sdk-beta.html as I could not get a good image using SnagIt)

At this point, you will have to download Kinect Mouse Cursor – This is really cool because you can use your hands to control the mouse cursor. I actually used this to resize itself.

Last up is Kinect Paint – This is very cool, just make sure you read the instructions! MS Paint on steroids!

A few tips for getting started building Kinect Applications.

It appears WPF is the way to go with building Kinect Applications. You must also use a version of Visual Studio 2010.

Your going to need to reference Microsoft.Research.Kinect.dll when building a Kinect Application.

Right click on References and then goto Browse and navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Research KinectSDK and select Microsoft.Research.Kinect.dll.

You are going to want to make sure your project has the Platform target set to x86.

The Coding4Fun Kinect Toolkit really makes things easier with extension methods and controls. Just note that this is for WinForms or WPF.

Conclusion

It looks like we have a lot of fun in store with the Kinect SDK. I’m very excited about the release and have already been thinking about all the applications that I can begin building. It seems that development will be easier now that we have an official SDK and the great work from Coding4Fun. Please subscribe to my blog or follow me on twitter for more information about Kinect, Silverlight and other great technology.

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Posted On Friday, June 17, 2011 6:34 AM | Feedback (4)

Getting started with SharePoint 2010 and Silverlight Web Parts – Part 1 of 2

I wanted to get familiar with SharePoint 2010 because I have noticed how the market is starting to demand it. Also, most of the SharePoint 2010 guides on the net are outdated. They show everything from registry hacks/editing xml files to installing hot fixes/service packs. My guide uses the latest bits as of 6/7/11 to create a SharePoint 2010 server inside of an Virtual Machine. This will be more than enough to begin creating Silverlight Web Parts inside of SharePoint 2010.

NOTE: I did not want to use any automated tools to perform the install (specifically AutoSP Installer) because I want to understand the installation process myself. It would probably be easier to use such tools.

Have the following software available before starting: (You can use trial versions if necessary)

VMWare Player – specifically because it supports x64 OS and was recommended by the SharePoint Community on Twitter.
Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 w/ SP1 – because SharePoint 2010 requires an x64 operating system and getting it to run on Windows 7 looked painful / pointless.
SQL Server 2008 R2 x64 – SP can run on SQL Express from what I have read, but I noticed you need to install a lot of “hot fixes” in order to get it to run. Most SharePoint people were recommending using the full version of SQL Server.
SharePoint Server 2010 x64 – Without this it would be hard to use SharePoint 2010!
Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate – How else am I going to build the Silverlight Web Part?

Questions regarding my setup environment:

Host Server: i7-740QM (Quad-Core) 4GB DDR3 RAM

Ram supplied to VM: 1GB

The VM is responsive since it is running on a Crucial C300 SSD. I would recommend upgrading to 8GB of ram and dedicating at least 2GB to VM.

The first thing is to install is VMware Player. It requires a few reboots but once that is up and running you can click “Create a New Virtual Machine”.

At this point you may want to go ahead and mount your .ISO image of Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 w/ SP1 to a drive by using the software built in or using CloneDrive.

Go ahead and enter your product Key and enter your Full Name and a Password.

Now you are going to want to give it the virtual machine a name. I left it as the default name that VMware Player suggested.

Next up is giving it a maximum disk size. The default is 40GB. I used 80GB because I had the space available. Please note that it will not take the full 40/80GB of your disk space immediately.

Review the changes and click “Finish”.

You will immediately see the following screen saying that it is “Updating VMware Tools for Windows 2000 and later…”

Next up is the “Installing Windows” screen that we all know and love.

To finally, “Setup is preparing your computer for first use”.

We are now ready to start installing the other pieces.

Once inside Windows Server 2008 SP1 R2 you will want to install SQL Server 2008 R2 immediately. So select, “New Installation or add features to an existing installation”.

On the Feature Selection screen, I decided to keep everything as shown below.

If you see the complete screen as shown below then everything should be fine.

Now we get to the reason why we are here. To install SharePoint Server 2010. Some would recommend installing VS2010 before this step and I would as well. I am not going to provide screenshots for installing VS2010 as you have probably done that before. So, let’s continue with installing SharePoint Server 2010.

After you run the installer for SharePoint Server 2010, then you will see the following screen. Go ahead and click “Install software prerequisites”.

Give it a few minutes and you will then see the complete screen listed below.

Now you are going to want to click “Install SharePoint Server”. I needed a Standalone installation and chose that.

After it finishes installing then it will ask you to “Run the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard”. You will want to leave this option checked and clicked close.

The next few images show what the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard looks like.

NOTE: I kept getting errors while running this wizard and the recommend approach to fixing it was to stop the “SharePoint Foundation Search service” by using the command below.

stsadm –o spsearch -action –stop

You will need to navigate to the directory shown below before running the command. I’ve attached a screenshot for reference of what to expect.

After the configuration wizard is complete, you can fire up the SharePoint 2010 Central Administration from the Program Files Group. It will take a few seconds to load but then you will see the following screen:

You can now click “Manage web applications” and select your default SharePoint site which resides on port 80.

Congratulations! You now you have your SharePoint site that you can begin creating Silverlight Web Parts for.

Conclusion:

It was very easy to get up and running with SharePoint 2010 Server on my virtual machine using the latest bits. I’m sure pre R2’s and SP1’s, it may have been difficult but now it is pretty easy. The next step in this guide is actually building a Silverlight WebPart. Thanks for reading and please subscribe to my RSS feed or follow me on Twitter for more SharePoint, Windows Phone 7 and Silverlight Information.

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Posted On Wednesday, June 08, 2011 6:31 AM | Feedback (3)

CodeStock Presentation “Tools and Utilities for the .NET Developer”

As promised, here is a link to all of the applications from my session at CodeStock 2011:

Entity Framework Profiler
Studio Styles
Reflector
Telerik JustDecompile Beta
dotfuscator
CodePaste.NET
Silverlight Spy
WP7 Desktop Marketplace
LINQPad
Snippet Manager
Browser Shots
Snagit 10
7-Zip File Manager
Code Converter
CPU-Z
Notepad2
SSDlife Free
Regular Expression Library
DLL-files.com
Microsoft Web Platform Installer
Visual Studio Gallery
Search Everything
Fiddler2
Paint.NET
Microsoft Expression Blend 4 w/ SketchFlow
KeePass

I also have posted a postmortum of my experiences at the event.

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Posted On Sunday, June 05, 2011 6:29 PM | Feedback (0)

CodeStock 2011 Postmortem

(A picture that I took on 6/3/2011 waiting for the keynote by Charles Petzold to begin at the Bijou Theater in Knoxville, TN)

Day One (Thursday Night)

I headed out on Thursday morning with my friend Daniel Heisler for CodeStock. We were driving from Birmingham, Alabama so it was going to take us about 4.5 hours to get in. After stopping a few times, we finally arrived at the Knoxville Hilton. After checking into our rooms, we met Rafe Kemmis and Spede Bryan in the lobby and headed over to Barley's Taproom and Pizzeria in the Knoxville Old City. It didn’t take long for Wallace B. McClure to show up and we talked Mono for a while. Shortly after that the DevExpress crew dropped in (Seth Juarez and Bryan Wood) and we continued the conversation. We finally made it to a table and I ordered an awesome grilled chicken sandwich. While there, I saw a lot of familiar faces including Alan Stevens and Michael Neel. After chatting and meeting/making some new friends we headed back to the hotel to get some rest from the day.

Day Two (Friday)

I got up Friday morning and headed downstairs to grab some coffee with Daniel Heisler and ran into Justin Etheredge. It was great chatting with him for a while! We then quickly headed over to the conference center to get registered. I was expecting a long registration process but it took a matter of seconds. Anyways, after getting registered I started walking around and ran into Jeremy Likness. Since we are both big Silverlight guys, we chatted for a while and decided to continue the conversation at lunch. Dan Moyer a guy who reads my blog came up and introduced himself to me. It was great getting some feedback on what kind of content the community is looking for. I decided that my first session was going to be HTML5 vs. Silverlight by Matt Casto ( @mattcasto ). This turned out to be a very interesting session and the final answer was… it depends. If you didn’t get a chance to check it out then you can see it again at devLINK. My next session was Kinect Hacks 101 by James Ashley ( @jamesashley ). James showed us the awesome open-source project for Kinect development called Open-Kinect. The session made me want to run out and buy a Kinect just to play with this cool stuff. After the session, I hung around and introduced myself to James Ashley and we have both been blogging on SL/WP7 for a while. My third session for the day was actually lunch and I met up with Jeremy Likness and we talked about SL5, Sterling and other tech things. After lunch was over, I attended his SL5 LOB application talk as I’m a big fan of Jeremy’s work and it was a great session. He created a nice sample browser of SL5 demos and made it public on his website and I would recommend you check them out. The last session that I attended was an “Intro to Ruby on Rails” by Rod Paddock ( @rodpaddock ). I wanted to mix things up and get a fresh perspective on another language and definitely did so with Rod’s session. I decided that I’d build my first Rails application after watching his presentation. It also was great that he gave everyone in the room a free subscription to Code Magazine. Since that was the last session of the day, I headed to my hotel room for about an hour. At 4:45PM, I headed over to the Bijou Theater for a keynote by Charles Petzold. While standing in line for food, I actually got to meet Charles Petzold and talk about some of his books in line. That was a great moment at CodeStock for me as I’ve read his books over the years and his “Applications = Code + Markup” was one of the books that got me into XAML. After the keynote was over Michael Neel gave away a lot of great prizes to the audience. Since I had a session the next morning, we decided to grab something to eat beside the theatre and head back. I stayed up and practiced my 8:30AM session at least 3 times before heading to bed.

Day Three (Saturday)

I got up very early on Saturday morning and headed over to the convention center to make sure everything was setup and ready for my session. I noticed that my session was in the auditorium and was expecting a full house. A few people started coming in around 8AM and I tried to introduce myself to most of them. So 8:30AM arrived and I started right on time as I had a lot to cover in 70 minutes. I believe the session went very well, I tried to keep the audience involved in the conversation and adjusted the amount of time that I spent on a tool to what the audience already knew about it. I had some great feedback on twitter from Geoff Hudik and Constantine Gulgas and a few emails in the inbox in the morning. The questions that the audience asked were great questions and some made me really think. After my session was over, I decided to attend “Intro to Test Driven Development by James Bender ( @jamesbender ). It was another great session as he kept the audience involved. I had to leave the session a tad early to get check out of the hotel and I was starving as I hadn’t eaten breakfast or had my coffee due to my morning session and my OCD to have everything just right before my session started. During lunch, I was able to eat with James Ashley ( @jamesashley ) and we continued talking about the Kinect and other interesting projects we were all working on. The next session that I decided to attend was an “Open Spaces” which was named, “How to Suck Less”. I found the open spaces session excellent as our group was very large and most everyone was contributing to the conversation. After the session was over, I was interviewed by Bryan Wood on some of the cool Silverlight/WP7 projects that I had been working on. I then headed to what would be my last session of the day, Field Survival Guide for the Budding Entrepreneur by Michael Brown ( @browniepoints ). Michael had a great session with a lot of audience participation. We then decided to call it a day and head back to Birmingham, AL.

Overall, the conference rocked and I wanted to say a big thank you to Michael Neel and his wife and everyone else involved in organizing this event. It is an absolute steal for $60 and I would recommend it to everyone.

I wanted to give a big thanks to my employer Point Clear Solutions for allowing me to attend CodeStock 2011.

I took a few pictures to remember the event :