Download DVDBlender v0.3

View and bookmark the project page here: http://www.wearerighteous.com/projects-page/dvdblender/

1. Draw the path or shape or object to be animated in Expression Blend 4.

2. Create a new storyboard

3. Add keyframes and you can use the direct select tool to manipulate individual vertices of your path or shap at the various keyframes.

You can also use the animation workspace while doing the animation for a larger timeline region.

4. Select the PhoneApplicationPage

5. Go to events

6. Double Click on the loaded event box

7. Add this statement within the loaded event. Ensure that you change <storyboardname> to the name of your storyboard. E.g. birdanimation.Begin();

<storyboardname>.Begin();

8. The animation should now run when the page loads.

I achieved the same effect in Visual Studio 2010 too, its just that its easier to work on the animation in blend.

Coming soon to your Windows Phone 7 Handset. An aviary management game with a good mixture of both simulation and action elements built for the new Windows Phone 7.

Spindex brings you an overview of your entire social world in one page. With Spindex you can connect to Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, RSS, and Bing – with more services on the way. Communicate with your friends wherever they are. Find what’s new, what’s popular, and see personalized trending topics.

Your Social World in One Page

Spindex allows you to access and interact with your social networks, see trends from your friends, and see related info from Bing on literally everything you click on. Spindex proactively finds useful articles and information based on your interest in your friends’ messages and comments. It lets you find out more about the topics that your friends and feeds are talking about in one click – so you can jump into the conversation.

Make sense of your social overload, open your personalized Spindex page, and find out at a glance what topics are hot in your social world. You can also keep track of the things you are remembering via Evernote – right inside of your Spindex page. Spindex is not just a social reader – as you browse your friends’ updates, Spindex continually suggests related content from Bing – giving you better insight into the topics and trends spinning around you.

Spindex is currently a Tech Preview available to attendees of Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco. Please follow us on Twitter to find out more about when the project will become more widely available.

Spindex is being developed by Microsoft Fuse Labs. The team responsible for Bing Maps, Docs.com, Bing Twitter and Kodu.

/// <summary>
/// Process a valid file, add it to the list of filepaths
/// </summary>
/// <param name="path"></param>
private void ProcessFile(string path)
{
    filePaths.Add(path);
}

/// <summary>
/// Recursively search the directory and when a valid file is found, do something with it
/// </summary>
/// <param name="folder">folder to process</param>
/// <param name="fileAction">delgate to do something to the filepath</param>
private static void ApplyAllFiles(string folder, Action<string> fileAction)
{
    foreach (string file in Directory.GetFiles(folder))
    {
        fileAction(file);
    }
    foreach (string subDir in Directory.GetDirectories(folder))
    {
        try
        {
            ApplyAllFiles(subDir, fileAction);
        }
        catch
        {
            //Some file types are locked and can't be processed, swallow the error
        }
    }
}

The above is the recursive function using a delegate to call ProcessFile() for each file we find. In this case, we swallow/skip any errors (locked folders) in the catch statement. We add each file found to a filePaths list.

private List<string> filePaths;

 

So to call the recursive search function, just use:

ApplyAllFiles(folder, ProcessFile);

Whereby, folder is the string of the path of the folder to search in.

Here, we’ve done our recursive search and stored all valid files into the filePaths list. This runs through every subfolder and file that is not inaccessible and you can add your own processing to the method.

WPF – Writing a Single Instance Application

By default, it comes up with two main items in the solution – "Window1.xaml" (which I renamed to ExampleWindow.xaml") and "App.xaml". Both of these also have their respective code behind files. So first off, do something you have probably never done before – delete "App.xaml" and "App.xaml.cs". We won’t be needing them, because we will be doing our own Application creation.

Now create a new class (I called it "ExampleApplcation"). This will be our application. The two main pieces of logic that this class needs to have are for showing the main window and for processing command line arguments. The first piece will only happen once – the initial application start up. The second, however, will happen every time a user tries to run the app (and we will see how that works in a moment).

Read more: http://www.switchonthecode.com/tutorials/wpf-writing-a-single-instance-application

Single Instance Application Manager

Some .Net applications are required to run as single instance process (at startup, each process “ensures” that he’s unique). This requirement may come from licensing issues, technical and/or other reasons. Quick search in Google will provide a variety of solutions, most of them are based on WindowsFormsApplicationBase object from VB.Net, usage of Mutex object and other techniques. I don’t like mixing VB with C#, and also Win-Forms solution isn’t “pure” enough for WPF applications. So I wrote my version of “Single Instance Manager”…

This post will provide short description about this small project and links to download the sources.

How to Create Single Instance Application for WPF, Win-Forms and Console Applications

The manager uses well-known ThreadPool object with WaitEventHandle object and IpcClientChannel to pass messages (objects) between processes (.Net Remoting).

http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/maxim/archive/2010/02/13/single-instance-application-manager.aspx

Single Instance Codeplex Project

Project Description
It is made by means of Threads synchronization model.
I used EventWaitHandle Class.

http://wpfsingleinstance.codeplex.com/releases/view/20316

Other Useful Links

http://rrelyea.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!167AD7A5AB58D5FE!1834.entry – More Links

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms771662.aspx – MSDN

http://code.google.com/p/nsync/

nsync is a free, open source software that performs synchronization of your data between desktop PCs, laptops, USB drives and more!

• Synchronize folders in just 3 simple steps

Drag & Drop the folders. No complex navigation and search

Built-in help & notification system gives you timely advice unobtrusively

Intelligent management of file paths allows you to sync without worries

More…

View the video fullscreen on Youtube

Developer Guide.

V0.9 Developer Guide

V0.9 User Guide

Installer (ZIP) Installer (EXE) Source (ZIP)

What is Data, Folder and File Synchronization?

Data synchronization is the process of establishing consistency among data from a source to a target data storage and vice versa and the continuous harmonization of the data over time. This includes file and folder synchronization which nsync provides.

Folder synchronization helps keep 2 folders, usually across media, updated and current. If you change files in one folder, synchronization helps replicate this change at the other folder.

It is particularly useful for mobile workers, or others that work on multiple computers. It is possible to synchronize multiple locations by synchronizing them a pair at a time.

Let’s say i have a ‘School’ or ‘Work’ folder on my desktop and another on my laptop. Sometimes I work on my laptop when I’m on the go, sometimes I work on my desktop, when i’m in the comfort of my home (I like the larger monitor). How do I keep both folders current and updated with my latest changes? Synchronization is the way to go!

File synchronization is also commonly used for home backups on external hard drives.

When I want to backup my Documents folder on my hard drive and don’t want to have to copy and paste the whole folder, and be asked everytime there is an overwrite operation, I’d use nsync to keep them mirrored and current!

nsync provides something called 2-way synchronization meaning that updated files are copied in both directions, usually with the purpose of keeping the two locations identical to each other.

• When i delete a file in folder A it is deleted in folder B
• When i create a new file in folder A, it is copied to folder B too
• When i update a file in folder A, it is updated in folder B (replaced)

What happens when I update files in both my folders?

• We take the latest updated version of your file based on the time and update it to both folders.
• However, don’t worry, you can still retrieve the other modified file using our TrackBack feature.

3 much needed controls that if you’re a Windows Forms user, you’d be wondering why WPF didn’t already have these.

• Long awaited DataGrid control (if you’re in 3.5 SP1 check out WPFToolkit as an alternative)
• Calender control
• DatePicker Control

Visual State Manager

Another new feature supporting the WPF-Silverlight continuum is the VisualStateManager, which introduces a simple new way to apply visual states to controls. This mechanism provides a way to easily customize both the look and feel of a control by providing the means to map the control logic to its respective start and end visual states.

VSM is very flexible in that it automatically generates the transition animations in between the respective states, so the control author spends less time writing code and more time on the visual states that are defined in a control template. That means VSM can give a control author the ability to easily interchange the look and feel of controls, and VSM gives the control author a way to easily interchange how a control visually responds to user interaction.  This is fully supported with Expression Blend.

Touch and Manipulation

Elements in WPF now accept touch input. The UIElement, and UIElement3D, and ContentElement classes expose events that occur when a user touches an element on a touch-enabled screen. In addition to the touch events, the UIElement supports manipulation. A manipulation is interpreted to scale, rotate, or translate theUIElement. For example, a photo viewing application might allow users to move, zoom, resize, and rotate a photo by touching the computer screen over the photo.

For more information about touch, see Walkthrough: Creating Your First Touch Application and Input Overview.

Graphics and Animation

• Layout Rounding

  When an object edge falls in the middle of a pixel device, the DPI-independent graphics system can create rendering artifacts, such as blurry or semi-transparent edges. Previous versions of WPF included pixel snapping to help handle this case. Silverlight 2 introduced layout rounding, which is another way to move elements so that edges fall on whole pixel boundaries. WPF now supports layout rounding with the UseLayoutRounding attached property onFrameworkElement.

• Cached Composition

  By using the new BitmapCache and BitmapCacheBrush classes, you can cache a complex part of the visual tree as a bitmap and greatly improve rendering time. The bitmap remains responsive to user input, such as mouse clicks, and you can paint it onto other elements just like any brush.

• Pixel Shader 3 Support

  WPF 4 builds on top of the ShaderEffect support introduced in WPF 3.5 SP1 by allowing applications to now write effects by using Pixel Shader (PS) version 3.0. The PS 3.0 shader model is more sophisticated than PS 2.0, which allows for even more effects on supported hardware.

• Easing Functions
  You can enhance animations with easing functions, which give you additional control over the behavior of animations. For example, you can apply anElasticEase to an animation to give the animation a springy behavior. For more information, see the easing types in the System.Windows.Media.Animationnamespace.

Text

• New Text Rendering Stack

  The WPF text rendering stack has been completely replaced. This change brings improvements to text rendering configurability, clarity, and support for international languages. The new text stack now supports explicitly selecting aliased, grayscale, or ClearType rendering modes. The text stack now supports display-optimized character layout, to produce text with sharpness comparable to Win32/GDI text. The new text stack allows optimizing text hinting and snapping for either animated or static text. The new text stack also supports fonts with embedded bitmaps to be substituted for smaller font sizes, allowing many East Asian fonts to render with sharpness comparable to Win32/GDI text.

• Selection and Caret Customization

  You can now specify the brush that paints the selection and caret for input and reading controls, such as TextBox RichTextBox, and FlowDocumentReader. There are two new properties on TextBoxBase:

  • SelectionBrush allows you to create a brush for highlighting selected text.
  • CaretBrush allows you to change the brush that paints the cursor.

Binding

• Bind to commands on InputBinding.

  You can bind the Command property of an InputBinding class to an instance that is defined in code. The following properties are dependency properties, so that they can be targets of bindings:

  • InputBinding.Command
  • InputBinding.CommandParameter
  • InputBinding.CommandTarget
  • KeyBinding.Key
  • KeyBinding.Modifiers
  • MouseBinding.MouseAction

  The InputBinding, MouseBinding, and KeyBinding classes receive data context from the owning FrameworkElement.

  Bind to Dynamic Objects

  WPF supports data binding to objects that implement IDynamicMetaObjectProvider. For example, if you create a dynamic object that inherits fromDynamicObject in code, you can use markup extension to bind to the object in XAML. For more information, see the Binding Sources Overview.

  Bindable Text Run

  Run.Text is now a dependency property. The main advantage is that it now supports one-way bindings. It also supports other features of dependency properties, such as styling and templating.

XAML Browser Applications

Two features have been added to XAML browser applications (XBAPs).

• HTML-XBAP Script Interop

  You can now communicate with the Web page containing the XBAP when the application is hosted in a HTML frame. The XBAP can get deep access to the HTML DOM and can handle DOM events. For more information seeBrowserInteropHelper.HostScript.

• Full-Trust XBAP Deployment

  If your XBAP requires full trust, the user will now automatically receive the standard ClickOnce elevation prompt when they install the application from the intranet or one of their browser’s trusted sites.

For more information on both these features, see WPF XAML Browser Applications Overview.

WPF and Windows

The Windows 7 taskbar provides enhanced functionality that enables you to use the taskbar button to communicate status to a user and expose common tasks. New types in the System.Windows.Shell namespace provide managed wrappers for functionality in the Windows 7 taskbar and manages the data passed to the Windows shell. For example, the JumpList type allows you to work with Jump Lists and the TaskbarItemInfo type allows you to work with taskbar thumbnails.

WPF dialog boxes on Windows 7 and Windows Vista now support the look and feel of the Windows 7 and Windows Vista style, which includes custom places. For more information, see the FileDialogCustomPlace class.

WPF Designer

In Visual Studio 2010, various designer improvements have been made to help create WPF or Silverlight applications.

• Improved Support for Silverlight

  In Visual Studio 2008, you could install the Silverlight Tools to create Silverlight applications in Visual Studio. However, the designer support for Silverlight projects was limited. In Visual Studio 2010, the designer support for Silverlight and WPF projects are now the same. For example, in Silverlight projects you can now select and position items with the mouse on the design surface.

• Support for Multiple Platform Versions

  In Visual Studio 2008, control design times were able to target only the latest WPF platform version. In Visual Studio 2010, this support is extended across multiple platforms, including design-time support for WPF 3.5, WPF 4, Silverlight 3, Silverlight 4, and future platform releases. As the same extensibility API exists for all these platforms, control design-time authors can easily write one experience and share it across the control runtimes for each platform.

• Visual Databinding

  The new data binding builder enables visual construction and editing of bindings without typing XAML.

• Auto Layout

  Layout improvements include a more intuitive Grid designer and better support for automatically sizing user controls.

• Improved Property Editing

  The Properties window now enables visually creating and editing Brush resources.

For more information, see WPF Designer.

Sources:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb613588(VS.100).aspx
http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2009/10/26/wpf-4-vs-2010-and-net-4-0-series.aspx

Adobe Photoshop is definitely their flagship product and is the best graphics editing software(by some distance), here’s a roundup of some awesome tricks, tutorials, articles and pictures on photoshop.

Photoshop in your garage.

How to make an key icon in photoshop

Following on from a previous article on toolbar icon design we’re going to tackle it’s Big Brother, the Application Icon. The two serve slightly different functions within the program but adhere to the same idea. While we could start on an existing application, we’re going to embrace vaporware and produce an Icon for an Application that doesn’t exist. This is simply to show the process. This tutorial will follow the construction of an Icon for an imaginary application called “Keyfob.” We’ll say that it’s an application for locking and unlocking the Mac remotely. This is partly inspired by a process where someone managed to put their Mac to sleep using a mobile phone.

http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tutorials/cian/how-to-make-icons.html

1000+ free high res photoshop brushes

Hundreds of thousands of incredible Adobe Photoshop brush sets are all over the web. Due to this phenomenally vast amount of Photoshop brushes available, you can now add patches of dirt, rust, floral effect, swirls, mold, oil stains in your artworks and photos to give them an aged, damaged, dreamy or any look you want.

Without further ado, we present 1000+ high-Resolution Adobe Photoshop brush sets that will be perfect for any project you may happen to be working on.

Important: Licenses of every brush set varies, so be sure to check that information before using them.

http://www.noupe.com/photoshop/1000-free-high-resolution-photoshop-brush-sets.html

Happy Birthday Photoshop, 20 years of Photoshop shenanigans

Twenty years ago today, one of the most beloved programs of all time was created, Photoshop.  Photoshop is a photo manipulation program, loaded with features to create or modify any image to make a work-of-art. 

Photoshop was created in 1987 by Thomas Knoll, a Student at the University of Michigan, and later his brother John Knoll, when it was named Display and ImagePro. In September 1988, John Knoll presented a demo of Photoshop to Adobe’s internal creative team, which was well received.  As a result, a licensing agreement was struck. In February 1990, after 10 months of development, Photoshop 1.0 was released to the public.

Now almost 12 versions later and 20 years of history, Adobe celebrates its popular product’s 20th Birthday. Photoshop has become the standard for image manipulation and has spurred a cultural phenomenon alongside it. Photoshop has created a sub-culture of photoshopped images, which contain one or more fatal flaws. This begun the phrase "That looks Photoshopped" and "shopped" meaning something looks too good to be true.  Happy Birthday to Photoshop from everyone at Neowin.net.

The gallery below contains some Neowin’s all time favourite Photoshop shenanigans.

What are some of your favourite photoshop goof-ups?

http://www.neowin.net/news/happy-birthday-photoshop-20-years-of-photoshop-shenanigans

20 Top Photoshop Icon Design Tutorials

Icons can spice up a website and make it look that extra bit special. I have compiled a list of 20 tutorials from many different websites that teach you how to create icons in Adobe Photoshop. There is a great selection of icon tutorials listed here, for beginners and also advanced Photoshop users.

http://www.webdesigndev.com/photoshop/20-top-photoshop-icon-design-tutorials

A train in India.

Reflection.

Bicycles in the trash.

Horse.

Red plains.

Best Friends?

Don’t look at me!

Catching the moon.

Jam on iTunes Acoustic.

Stuntman.