Jeren
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Home page: http://www.joshspadd.com
AIM: JoshHrach
Posts by Jeren
Question: Should I Ask More Questions?
0This very unimportant question came to me this morning. So I figured I would ask. Vote and post your comments about it below!
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My Thoughts on NFC
0For some time, there has been some talk about where near-field communication (NFC) might be going. If it is to take off, many people see it as something that people will use to pay on the go. Want to buy that cup of coffee? Purchase office supplies? Pay for your gas? Just swipe your phone.
While several companies are working on ways to do NFC payments, I don’t know if that is where NFC might take off initially. As noted in two articles I read [here and here], the option for NFC payments as a replacement for other payment forms isn’t the key. Rather, it is the features on top of that which will convince consumers and merchants to participate.
Where I think this could see some use is in marketing. More and more companies are putting themselves on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Foursquare, among other servers. Some businesses even have stickers and banners telling their customers that they are on these networks and services, too.
So why not link up NFC technology with these services?
Let’s say I want to check in to a store I enter. All I would have to do is swipe my phone near their (let’s say) Foursquare banner. My phone would bring up a dialogue asking if I want to check in or not. With one tap on the screen, I’ve checked in.
The same could be done for any number of things. Do I want to like their Facebook page? Do I want to connect via LinkedIn? Do I want to follow their Twitter account? If those options could be given to me with the swipe of my phone, I would be able to easily keep up with that business online.
If this business is using social media or location based services to offer promotions and deals or to stay in touch with their customer-base, this would be an easy way for their customers to take part and stay in touch.
Or let’s say I go into a deli but have no idea what I want. Why not let me swipe my phone and link me to a menu that I can read for myself? I wouldn’t have to bring up any QRCode app to scan/photograph a code.
In short, there are many options that can be explored with this technology. Will it see wide acceptance? Probably not for a while. Will mobile NFC payments take off? No way to know. But payments aren’t the only option for this technology, and there are many avenues that can be taken with it.
Personally, I would rather use NFC for this type of ability than payments. If someone were to steal my phone, I wouldn’t want them to be able to pay for things with it. But I would be perfectly okay with them checking me into Foursquare.
[C#] Using Nini .NET Configuration Library
0When developing a desktop application, there will be times when you want to store settings for your program. A database is one option, but on Windows, you might just wish to have your settings stored in an INI file. One way to work with an INI file in C# is with the Nini Library. This makes it quite easy to read from and write to an INI file.
Let’s get started.
After installing the library, we’ll need to set our namespace.
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using Nini.Config; |
What will our INI file look like? Something like this:
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;conf.ini [Options] Zipped = 0 Filename = test.txt |
For my application, I decided to make a class devoted to the configuration file. So, let’s define that and a few other variables.
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public class OurConfig { string NL = Environment.NewLine; // New line character private string configFile = "conf.ini"; // Our INI file IConfigSource config; // Instance of our config } |
Now that we have our variables declared, let’s create a couple of useful methods.
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public void set_is_zip(int zipped) { config.Configs["Options"].Set("Zipped", zipped); } public void set_filename(string fname) { config.Configs["Options"].Set("Filename", fname); } |
These two methods will update the INI file with new settings, should we change them in our program. Of course, if we make these changes, they need to be saved. Thankfully, we can declare something in our constructor (which we will write a little later) that will auto-save our changes as we make them.
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config.AutoSave = true; |
Now, let’s create a pair of methods to return the data. This will be useful in our program when we need to use these settings.
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public int return_is_zip() { return config.Configs["Options"].Get("Zipped"); } public string return_filename() { return config.Configs["Options"].Get("Filename"); } |
With these methods, we now have a basic class for handling a configuration file. All that is left is our constructor.
But before we get to the constructor, there is something else I created. What if our INI file doesn’t exist? I decided that I would make a function to create a default INI file, should the old one not exist anymore. This is also useful if we want to distribute our program without an INI file.
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private void fill_new_ini() { // Put default values into the INI file // Essentially, we're writing a blank file, so this is fairly simple string toWrite = ";conf.ini" + NL + "[Options]" + NL + "Zipped = 0" + NL + "Filename = test.txt" + NL; System.IO.File.WriteAllText(@"conf.ini", toWrite); } |
We can do a check when we initialize our class that will check to see whether or not this file exists. If not, we’ll create it so we can work with it.
That makes this our constructor:
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public OurConfig() { // Initialize the INI file if it doesn't exist try { configFile = new IniConfigSource("conf.ini"); } catch (Exception ex) { // Write default values into it fill_new_ini(); configFile = new IniConfigSource("conf.ini"); } configFile.AutoSave = true; // Auto save config file as we make changes } |
Our whole class thus looks like this:
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using Nini.Config; public class OurConfig { string NL = Environment.NewLine; // New line character private string configFile = "conf.ini"; // Our INI file IConfigSource config; // Instance of our config public OurConfig() { // Initialize the INI file if it doesn't exist try { configFile = new IniConfigSource("conf.ini"); } catch (Exception ex) { // Write default values into it fill_new_ini(); configFile = new IniConfigSource("conf.ini"); } configFile.AutoSave = true; // Auto save config file as we make changes } private void fill_new_ini() { // Put default values into the INI file // Essentially, we're writing a blank file, so this is fairly simple string toWrite = ";conf.ini" + NL + "[Options]" + NL + "Zipped = 0" + CL + "Filename = test.txt" + CL; System.IO.File.WriteAllText(@"conf.ini", toWrite); } public void set_is_zip(int zipped) { config.Configs["Options"].Set("Zipped", zipped); } public void set_filename(string fname) { config.Configs["Options"].Set("Filename", fname); } public int return_is_zip() { return config.Configs["Options"].Get("Zipped"); } public string return_filename() { return config.Configs["Options"].Get("Filename"); } } // End OurConfig |
That’s how simple it can be to work with your own INI files in C#.
Did you find this useful? Let me know in the comments!
Next Apple OS Revealed: Mountain Lion Coming Soon
0In a spectacular quiet announcement Thursday, Apple revealed details of its upcoming operating system, Mountain Lion. Â Typically, such an announcement is brought along with a huge presentation. Instead, Apple had a small gathering of media for a private event.
Their site showcases several upcoming features for Mountain Lion. Again, it looks like iOS and OSX are being brought closer together. What changes are coming?
For starters, things that people are used to with iOS devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad) are coming to OS X. These include notes, reminders, Game Center, and the notification center.
But the biggest improvement is one that was already released. Messages Beta is available for OS X Lion users to download (requires 10.7.3 patch). This is essentially an upgrade/update to iChat. Besides changing the name to Messages, an important feature has been added, one that I figured would be coming: The ability to iMessage your friends. Yes, you can chat from your Mac to someone with an iPad or iPhone. And any iMessages sent to you are automatically synced to each of your devices, so you can pick up the conversation where you left off.
I’ve already been using Messages and can say that iMessage integration is pretty cool. It isn’t perfect and is a little buggy, but by the time Mountain Lion is released this summer, I think the chat experience will be more perfected.
For a video overview of OS X Mountain Lion, watch the video below.
Other good articles on Mountain Lion:
MacWorld, Mashable, Gizmodo, Ars Technica, EnGadget, Today’s iPhone
How-To: Fix Trend Micro Add-In Missing in Microsoft Outlook
0This post will be the first of many that I plan to write that detail some bugs, technical issues, and problems I’ve had to fix in some way.
I had a friend come to me with an issue: Every time they started up Outlook, they received an error saying that the Trend Micro add-in was missing. Reinstalling Trend Micro did not correct this issue. I thought this was going to be an easy fix. I started by trying to disable the plugin via the Tools/Options area of Outlook. Unfortunately, there was no listing for anything from Trend Micro. Yet, Outlook seemed to think there was something.
One solution I found online was to delete the extend.dat file that Outlook uses to know which extensions are installed. On Windows XP, that is found at:
C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\
On Windows Vista and Windows 7:
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\
Once this file was deleted, I reopened Outlook. Outlook rebuilt the file, and we never saw an issue with a ghost Trend Micro plugin again.
Did you find this solution helpful? Or did you find another solution to this problem? Leave a comment!
Working with DataTable in C#
0One thing I’ve had to do lately is learn some C#. I will admit that it isn’t the language I would prefer to work with during the week, but it does help me become more versatile when it comes to application development.
Working with C#, I had to take data and enter it into a data grid. Being that I still consider myself a C# newbie, I figured this was something I might as well learn to use.
In the end, creating a data table in C# isn’t that difficult. In this example, I’ll be taking data from a Microsoft Access database and entering it into a DataTable object.
First, let’s define our DataTable and its columns.
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DataTable table = new DataTable(); table.Columns.Add("Name", typeof(string)); table.Columns.Add("Age", typeof(int)); table.Columns.Add("Weight", typeof(int)); |
Now, while it isn’t necessary, I like having temporary variables to hold data from a database before entering it into our table. For what we have, that would be:
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string theName; int theAge; int theWeight; |
All that is left to get is the data itself. Assuming we’re getting it from some kind of database, we can get the information in a while loop and add all of the data into the table.
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OleDbCommand cmd = new OleDbCommand("Select FullName, PersonAge, PersonWeight FROM PersonalInfo", con); // Our Query OleDbDataReader reader = cmd.ExecuteReader(); // Execute Query while (reader.Read()) // If we can read rows... { // Show records in text fields theName = reader.GetString(0); theAge = reader.GetInt32(1); theWeight = reader.GetInt32(2); table.Rows.Add(theName, theAge, theWeight); } |
Now we have our data in the DataTable. All that is left is to output it. For this, I have a DataGridView object in my form called myDataGrid.
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myDataGrid.DataSource = table; // Put DataTable data into our DataGrid myDataGrid.AutoResizeColumns(); // Automatically resize columns to show all data |
And that’s all there is to using a DataTable in C#.
Have you worked with DataTables? Submit your experiences and comments below!
Update: Why My Previous Doctor Who Post Was Wrong
0[This post contains spoilers for "The Wedding of River Song". If you haven't seen it yet (though you SHOULD HAVE by now), you may wish to avoid this post.]
Months ago, after seeing The Impossible Astronaut, I thought I had figured something out. Yes, I had seen the Doctor die and knew that River Song could not have done it. (And I don’t mean because she was on the beach!)
I had logically concluded that she would know not to shoot a younger self. Of course, looking back, there was a line that I had not considered before. After trying to shoot the astronaut, River remarked, “No, I suppose not.” That line could have hinted that she knew it was her.
Of course, the confusion comes in for me where it was hinted that River wouldn’t remember killing the Doctor, but then she somehow knew about it when on the beach. So did she know or didn’t she? I’ll leave that as a debate for the comments.
For now, I do admit: I was wrong with my Doctor Who conclusion. So, the moral of the story: You don’t always know where Steven Moffat is going to go with a story. Or maybe you do.
iOS 5: What’s New
0Apple held it’s keynote this morning at the 2011 Worldwide Developer Conference. The three big announcements were regarding OS X Lion, iOS 5, and the launch of iCloud.
Personally, the iOS 5 discussion was the best part for me. I’m always curious about the latest changes to the iPhone (and iPod Touch/iPad) software, and I feel Apple delivered with iOS 5. Here are some of the highlights:
- New Notification Center: Did you hate getting notifications, whether from the Messages app or something else, that kept interrupting what you were doing? Well, you don’t have to worry any longer! All notifications now go in the new Notification Center. How do you get to it? Simply swipe down from the top of your screen from anywhere! All notifications will go there, too, from missed phone calls to text messages.
- iMessages: Text messaging is great on the iPhone. However, services like Blackberry Messenging allowed for Blackberry users to message each other with an internal app. Well, Apple has come up with their own. Messages has been expanded with iMessages, allowing iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad owners to message each other in the same way that one would send a text to someone else. Finally, a great way to easily keep in touch with your iOS friends!
- Newsstand: If iBooks was a way to manage your digital books, Newsstand is your way of handling magazine subscriptions. It looks like iBooks, probably acts like iBooks, and if you’re big into digital magazines, may be just as exciting to you as iBooks. One neat thing with this, though, is that it will automatically download the latest magazines in your subscription for you to view.
- Reminders: How many times have you put in something important into the Calendar app just to remind yourself of something small, such as picking up something before you leave home? Well, there’s now an (Apple made) app for that! Reminders lets you create lists of things you need to do. However, it goes beyond simply reminding you on a certain day or time. It also can be triggered to remind you based on your location. Need to run to the bank before you head home? Reminders can send an alert as you leave work to remind you of that. Now that is useful!
- Twitter Integration: Ever wish you could tweet a photo from the Photos app? Or share a cool link from Safari? Now you can! Twitter is built right in so you can tweet with most apps. Simply enter your Twitter info from Settings.
- Camera Updates: The iPhone 4 camera is already impressive. But what happens when you need to grab a quick photo and you only have a few precious seconds to do so? By the time you unlock the phone, navigate to the page with the Camera app, and take the photo, you might have missed what you had wanted to capture. Not anymore! Apple has included an icon on the lock screen that takes you right to the Camera, so that you can quickly take the picture you wanted. The Camera also includes the ability to pinch-to-zoom feature, the ability to lock the autofocus and autoexposure, and optional grid lines on your photos to help with photo composition. Oh, and have you ever wished for a button on the iPhone to take a picture? The Volume Up button now works as that.
- Photo Editing: You can now edit photos in the Photos app. This includes cropping, redeye removal, and photo enhancements. This makes for a quick way to touch up a photo before you Tweet it to your friends from your phone.
- Tabbed Browsing and Reading Lists in Safari: Now, tabs are visible on the iPad in the same way they are in Sarafi for the desktop. Easily switch to the tab you want. You can also view articles with Safari Reader, which will remove ads and other “clutter” from an article you may be trying to read. Lastly, you can save items you wish to read later to a Reading List. (Sounds a bit like Instapaper, though).
- Goodbye USB Cable: No, I’m not saying you won’t need to charge your iOS device ever again. But, you won’t need to be plugged into a PC or Mac to activate or update your device. And you can now sync your iTunes library over WiFi. It’s about time!
This was just an overview of the features announced by Apple during today’s keynote at WWDC.
Posts regarding iCloud and OSX Lion will come soon, as well.
What do you think about these updates? Comment below!
Doctor Who Theory: Why the ‘Impossible Astronaut’ isn’t River Song
5SPOILER ALERT! THIS POST CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS!
I’m one of many people that saw the first episode of series 6 of Doctor Who this past weekend and was in absolute awe. I thought Moffat couldn’t make it any better than series 5. With one episode, I was proved wrong!
That said, while many questions exist, both from series 5 and this new episode, one thing was brought up by the Doctor Who fans in my circle: Who was the astronaut at the beginning of the episode?
The astronaut killed the Doctor before walking back into the water that it had come out of. Now, given that River Song is imprisoned for killing a good man, the “best she’s ever known”, some might think that this astronaut could be River.
I beg to differ, however. At this point in time, River would know who it was that she killed. If she was the astronaut, she would know that, while waiting on the beach, the Doctor’s death was nigh. Yet, even she was surprised to see the astronaut coming up the beach.
Plus, as the astronaut was returning to the water, she attempted to shoot it. I doubt she would do that if she was really the astronaut.
Thus, this is why I don’t think the astronaut is River Song. But what are your thoughts? What do you think? Discuss this in the comments!
