Valer BOCAN’s Web Log

You may have heard about Microsoft Surface before: it is a platform that allows the user direct contact to the system, i.e. using touch sensitive devices. While this is nothing short of spectacular, I think the technology has a long way to become commonplace. In the meantime, we can replicate the Surface behavior to a small extent and make something spectacular for the web: the SurfaceLight.

The SurfaceLight demo is based in part on Silverlight “Surface” Demonstration example. I made several changes to the code so that it fits my needs for the future development of the www.CoduriPostale.org website (a site that lists the Romanian zip codes). The code was built using Visual Studio 2008 and Expression Blend 2.5 March Preview.

The demo shows the following:

• Using the Canvas object together with a gradient fill, in order to absolutely position the objects using X and Y coordinates.
• Using animations - there is the pulsating Paymaster Web Design Studio logo on the surface.
• Using transformations - that allows neat interactions with the photos loaded on the surface, such as scaling, translating and rotating.

Download the Visual Studio 2008 project (in C#): SurfaceLight Demo (3.4 MB)

Update (June 10th, 2008): I’m in the process of building the pilgrim’s guide to Athos Mountain (at www.munteleathos.com) and I used the SurfaceLight project as the place holder for the domain. You may want to check this out.

Following the presentation on C# 3.0 enhancements, yesterday I held a presentation on LINQ to Objects to my team.

I am sharing this to everyone who wants a jump start on LINQ as this technology is likely to change the way we access data in our day to day programming. You can download the presentation and the code used throughout the presentation. You will need Visual Studio 2008 (any edition) to experiment with this.

Presentation (in PDF format): linq-to-objects.pdf

Presentation (in PowerPoint 2007 format): linq-to-objects.zip

Visual Studio 2008 Sample Code: linq-to-objects-code.zip

Earlier this week I held a short presentation to my team at Alcatel-Lucent Romania about the enhancements brought to C# by version 3.0. My intent is that everybody in the team is aware of the new things and start applying them the earliest possible. Some time in the following weeks I will post a series on LINQ which is the actual reason behind said language enhancements.

I am sharing this to everyone who wants a jump start. You can download the presentation (24 slides) and the code used throughout the presentation. You will need Visual Studio 2008 (any edition) to experiment with this.

Presentation (in PDF format): csharp3-language-enhancements.pdf

Presentation (in PowerPoint 2007 format): csharp3-language-enhancements.zip

Visual Studio 2008 Sample Code: csharp3-language-enhancements-code.zip

I have just installed Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 and noticed the cool coloring that happens in the address bar. Although this is a “nice-to-have” feature, it basically means that regular users may spot a phony website in a blink of an eye. Yes, provided that they have the eyes and the brains to judge that.