Here is a quick note about VS2010...there is a built in code snippet, propfull, that you can use to have the IDE create the backing variables for you.  In VS2008 I had to use my own code snippet that I called propf.  Now that is very cool that VS2010 has the snippet.  But a little bit creepy that it is so close to the one I used and it does exactly the same thing!!  Also, the nerd+art snippets for creating Dependency Properties in Silverlight/WPF seem to have some new cousins - propdp, and propa.

If you found this blog entry, then you probably found it through my MIX 2010 10k Challenge entry.  The link to my application in case you are actually reading my blog should be here soon is here.

In grade school, I got to go on several field trips to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI - www.omsi.edu) .   OMSI used to be located up by the Portland Zoo in those days.  The exhibits were a bit different too.  But I recall going there and seeing the pendulum drawing table.  It was this pen suspended from a pendulum and there was a drawing surface also in motion.  You could push it around and watch different interesting shapes appear from the motion of the pendulums.  This immediately came to mind when I decided to write something for the 10k challenge.

The name for this device is the harmonograph.  The short definition is that it is a device for creating geometric images using pendulums.  A pendulum is any kind of weight suspended by something like string so that it can swing freely.  Pendulums are thousands of years old and used throughout history.  Harmonographs were invented and gained popularity in about 1890.

There is a Silverlight article about animation techniques that uses a pendulum (www.silverlightshow.net/items/Custom-Animations-in-Silverlight.aspx).  I went to that example first.  The formula for that pendulum required solving a differential equation.  So, while the article is great for illustrating how to simulate a basic lateral pendulum in Silverlight, it still wasn’t quite enough about how to build a better harmonograph.

What I really wanted to do was break away from the profile view of a 2D pendulum and show animations for the paper and the pen.   The obvious physics engine for Silverlight is the Farseer Physics engine (www.codeplex.com/FarseerPhysics).  However, the source code for this project had to be limited to 10k.  Adding the assemblies for Farseer makes the whole project go way over 10k.  So, before trying it, that was also out the window.

My research led to a very simple mathematical solution.  Based on more internet research, I found a great little book, “Harmonograph: A Visual Guide to the Mathematics of Music” by Anthony Ashton (www.woodenbooks.com/browse/index.php).  Wikipedia also had the basic formulae and explanations I needed (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonograph).  The basic formula for a lateral pendulum with the assumption that air or other forces in addition to gravity will slow down the motion over time is:
x_t= A_tsin(f*t + p)*Exp(-d*t), where t=time, A=amplitude, f=frequency, p=phase, and d=damping factor.

It looks daunting but in practice, it’s pretty basic.  For each point in time, 0 to 100 for example, calculate the X point of the lateral pendulum based on the A, f, d, and p of the pendulum.  This is for a single pendulum.  To get an x,y position for a two pendulum system, you apply the same formula and solve for the Y point.  There are two pendulums for the pen and two for the paper.  So, there are four calculations for each value of time. 

One of the things I found in my research was a frequency given but not a length.  If I had more than a 10k limit you would see form fields to enter the length instead of the frequency.  Amplitude is simply the angle from the resting position of the pendulum.  Frequency is a measure of the time it takes the pendulum to swing once and is estimated using the formula:  2pi*Sqrt(Length/Gravity).  This is the simpler version of the formula because larger Amplitudes affect the frequency over time (hence the more accurate differential equation).  Gravity is assumed to be 9.807 m/s².  The simplest way to understand frequency is that it is the cycles per second the pendulums travels (1Hz = 1 cycle per second).   Damping is the affect of friction on the pendulum by air.  The larger the damping factor, the sooner the pendulum swings will slow down.

The Silverlight simulation I wrote for the MIX 2010 10k challenge is the first I’ve seen of a harmonograph.  Most of them found on the internet are written in JavaScript.  Another simulator out there worth mention is from Michael Croucher.  He wrote a simulator using the Wolfram Demonstrations Project (demonstrations.wolfram.com/SimulatingHarmonographs/). 

The big differentiator with this Silverlight version is that you have to wait for the drawing to finish and you can enjoy watching it reveal the final shape.

Here is the full version of this application with the setting editors and isolated pendulum displays.

This is what the 10k application looks like.

Being a Silverlight developer in the trenches, I think about this workflow issue that designers and developers have.  Almost every day at work.  A good interview with Mike Wolf from Cynergy explaining some best practices can be found here: Designer / developer misconceptions podcast.  I'm sure that the workflow he describes works well at Cynergy.  However, I'm not so convinced that designers can work in Blend successfully.  At least not on their own.  They need a lot of help from developers.  I work with several "designers" who do prefer tools that allow them maximum creativity.  The reason I just put the word "designers" in quotes is very simply that to be called a designer at some software companies, it would require the type of knowledge like designers at Cynergy have.  One perception that works against the typical designer is that Adobe software like PhotoShop, and hardware like Mac laptops are the best toolset for them.  If they are going to use Blend, they either need to run it in Parallels Desktop for Mac or have another separate Windows machine.  So the demands on designers with the new capabilities in Expression Blend are pretty high.  On the other hand, when technology changes and languages for software change, as a developer I'm constantly having to stay current with the tools and techniques.  Why don't designers think they have to keep up to date?

I listened to the podcast and wrote down what I interpreted (not a transcript).  It will probably come in useful when I'm working on improving the workflow at my current employer.

My Notes:
Mike Wolf - Principle Developer for Silverlight and WPF Practice at Cynergy
interviewer - Erik Mork of Spakling Client
Misconceptions of the Designer Developer Workflow

Designers think in different ways than developers.  Designers think in layers instead of controls and functionality.  At Cynergy designers work with developers by assisting designers using Blend with direction on control development.  Developers need to constantly think about performance.  Complications during the design of Silverlight applications need to be re-worked to create better performing solutions.  The single hand off doesn't work.  There has to be communication back and forth throughout the entire process.

The physical proximity of the designer to the developer is ideally in the same or near same time zone and can be made easier with use of instant messaging.

Fireworks is a popular design tool to use for exporting design into Blend.  Designers currently do not live in Blend.  They live in PhotoShop, Illustrator, Fireworks, or other tools like those.  It is an unrealistic expectation to have designers work entirely in Blend.  A migration step from the favored design tool to Expression Blend is the normal process.
A designer will go into Blend and make small changes, but will go back to their favorite tools to make larger changes.  The migration step using Blend can happen more than once.
Photoshop drop shadows turn into drop shadows into Blend.  Inner glow, on the other hand does not convert via an import to Blend.  Designers need to understand the limitations of Silverlight enough to know what to avoid but focus on not loosing creativity. There is no inner glow for html, but there are hacks for it.  The same kind of hacks made for html need to be made for Silverlight.  Knowing your toolset but demanding your experience in design comes first.

It is often thought that the designer is only working with one workflow.  The developer has to wait for design assets or changes, or vice versa.  There are actually ways to better structure sharing of resources.  Merged resources and merged dictionaries in Silverlight.  The Visual State Manager is also a powerful tool to be able to do states.  The designer can work with those states within Blend working hand in hand with the developer.

There has been a big switch in the evolution of rich technologies.  The old way was based on developers trying something to see if it would work first.  Once it was working, a designer would attempt to cover the developer's idea of the user experience.  Now it is driven by a front to back approach where the experience drives the development requirements.  Specific requirements can be made into wireframes, then comps, then the developer works with final comps.  Xaml is handed over by the designer based on the comps so the developer can begin working on implementation details.  The designer does more work up front to determine the actual user experience details before handing comps with those details to the developer in the form of comp documentation as well as Xaml in a Blend project.

It looks like the next version of Adobe Flash CS5 will have an easier workflow for creating iPhone applications.  Here is a video tutorial for a simple ball animation using the phone’s accelerometer: http://gotoandlearn.com/play?id=116.  It is interesting that there was no Objective-C in this tutorial.

What is also interesting to me is just how proprietary all of this is.  You need to have Adobe Flash CS5, it is possibly easier to work with on a Mac laptop, an account with Apple for iPhone application development, and an iPhone.  Which also requires that you use AT&T as your phone carrier.  You can develop and test just like Adobe Air, but for accelerometer testing, you probably need a phone.  He shows in the tutorial just how easy it is to use iTunes to deploy the application to the phone and see if it works.

So what is the cost to do all this assuming you don't have any of the tools?

MacBook Pro 13in: $1199
Apple iPhone 3GS 16GB: $199 with a two year AT&T contract
Adobe Flash CS5: (it isn't out yet, but based on CS4): $699 est.
Apple application account: $99 per year

Total Estimated Barrier to Entry: $2,196.

I'm very excited to hear that there is a Silverlight control for Bing maps!  Here is the link to MSDN documentation. It was just announced at TechEd Europe yesterday!!!!  Here is more on that news.  It takes less than 15 minutes to get up to speed on using the maps control.  I've had some experience creating map control in ASP.Net using Google Maps.  The implementation is similar but even easier to use.  Google requires that you register using a gmail account and a valud URL.  They give you a key for a specific URL, which limits you to registering your development environment localhost:{port}.  Bing maps for Silverlight allows you to register to get up to 5 keys and does not limit you to your development URL.

If you are writing anything in Silverlight, you have to check this out! http://team.silverlight.net/announcement/announcing-the-bing-maps-silverlight-control/

It is almost time for the Silverlight 3 release.  There are so many great improvements!

The official release date is July 10th with a release party scheduled in the Bay Area.  My work laptop is already up to date with the Blend 3 Preview, Silverlight 3 Toolkit, and the beta runtime.  I will have to upgrade those in a couple of days but it's good to have them now. 

There is a great article about how to manage the installers for Silverlight 2 and Silverlight 3 tools on the same machine. Running Silverlight 2 and 3 On Same Machine - Redux!. In that article, Shawn Wildermuth details a great step by step process for managing the version installed using a couple of bat files.  It is based on prior work from Amy Dullard.

So, it's time to work on some nice Triggers, Actions, and Behaviors on what will be a sweet little project.  (More details on that once the project is released.)

This blog site is now updated!  This is a rather big change in direction.  I decided to go with an open source project instead of trying to maintain my own blog engine/site.  So, this site is now running on BlogEngine.Net.  There were several features I wanted to include and the internet entrepeneurs are always adding new things to the web.  There is so much going on this summer and I have really very little time.  Besides, there is a great community around BlogEngine.Net project and I may even be able to contribute to it. 

It took me one afternoon to download the code and alter the settings enough to be happy with something to deploy.  That suits my main requirement.  It has all the ASP.Net providers that I like and I'm pretty comfortable with the ORM model (Object Relational Model).  It is written with ASP.NET 2.0 and C#.  They need more LINQ in the code.  But it is a mature enough architecture that I can use familiar tools to enhance and maintain the site.  It looks like there are more than 25 open source projects which enhance BlogEngine.Net.

Now, the next step is to convert some of the Silverlight 2 work I did on my last site into a Silverlight 3 implementation that sits on top of BlogEngine.Net features.  As many .NET developers know, Silverlight 3 will be out next week!!  After Silverlight 3 goes live and after I spend a little time on it, users with newer computers and who install the new plugin will be able to see a much nicer Silverlight UI theme.  Users with older CPUs should be able to see the HTML version of the site.  I expect the possibility of reaching a much wider set of platforms with this tool (mobile phones, Mac, Linux, and more types of browsers).  SEO (Search Engine Optimization) will just work and all the base features of a blog are covered. 

My Silverlight 2 site was fun to build.  I always knew it would take some work to get the feature set I now have and to write a down-level experience for computers that couldn't run the Silverlight plugin.  With BlogEngine.Net I can now focus on the UX (User Experience) and build on top of it.  Oh, and writing blog entries too. 

Cheers and Happy 4th of July! 

Today, a coworker was having problems with his Vista machine.  That got me started on a list of setting changes I've made to my installation that increased performance.  Albeit, some of these are risky in terms of security.  Here is a raw list of things you can do to speed up and free up disk on your Vista Business operating system (mileage may vary):

Turn off Windows Defender Service:
Administrative Tools/Services/Windows Defender service...right click, select Properties, change to Stop and set startup type to Disabled...will get a warning message when starting windows but is ok.

Turn off UAC - user account control:
Control Panel\User Accounts\Turn User Account Control on or off...turn it off .

Turn off System Restore:
Control Panel/System/click on SYstem protection...select the System Protection tab if it isn't already. uncheck any hard drives that you want to remove system restore points from. this will free up about 2GB of disk space.

Clear Problem Reports and Solutions:
Settings/Problem Reports and Solutions...click on Clear solution and problem history. the operating system will try to solve problems in the background if they exist in the list.

Instead of using the Silverlight server control in your custom web parts, try using the html equivalent.  When you create a Silverlight Application, it creates some test pages (if you like).  You can use the aspx code example in your web parts OR, alternatively, you could use the html test page example.  This seems to get around a ScriptManager render issue I recently ran accross:  “System.InvalidOperationException: Script controls may not be registered after PreRender“.  In the following code snippet, you can render the html for the Silverlight control and dynamically set the Width, Height, and Source params.  This is just a starting point.  Of course, there are additional params to set and custom html you could write.  This is just a snippet and you will have to change the code to suit your specific needs.

    public class SilverlightWebPart : WebPart
    {

        private string _SourceUrl = "ClientBin/SilverlightApplication1.xap";

        [Personalizable(PersonalizationScope.Shared)]
        public string SourceUrl
        {
            get { return _SourceUrl; }
            set { _SourceUrl = value; }
        }

        protected override void RenderContents(System.Web.UI.HtmlTextWriter writer)
        {
            writer.WriteBeginTag("div");
            writer.WriteAttribute("id", "silverlightControlHost");
            writer.Write(">");
            
            writer.WriteBeginTag("object");
           
            writer.WriteAttribute("data", "data:application/x-silverlight,");
            writer.WriteAttribute("type", "application/x-silverlight-2-b2");
            writer.WriteAttribute("width", this.Width.ToString());
            writer.WriteAttribute("height", this.Height.ToString());
            writer.Write(">");

            writer.WriteBeginTag("param");
            writer.WriteAttribute("name", "source");
            writer.WriteAttribute("value", this.SourceUrl);
            writer.Write("/>");

            writer.WriteBeginTag("param");
            writer.WriteAttribute("name", "onerror");
            writer.WriteAttribute("value", "onSilverlightError");
            writer.Write("/>");

            writer.WriteBeginTag("param");
            writer.WriteAttribute("name", "background");
            writer.WriteAttribute("value", "transparent");
            writer.Write("/>");

            writer.WriteBeginTag("a");
            writer.WriteAttribute("href", "http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=115261");
            writer.WriteAttribute("style", "text-decoration: none;");
            writer.Write(">");
            writer.WriteBeginTag("img");
            writer.WriteAttribute("src", "http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=108181");
            writer.WriteAttribute("alt", "Get Microsoft Silverlight");
            writer.WriteAttribute("style", "border-style: none");
            writer.Write("/>");
            writer.WriteEndTag("a");
            
            writer.WriteEndTag("object");
            
            writer.WriteBeginTag("iframe");
            writer.WriteAttribute("style", "visibility:hidden;height:0;width:0;border:0px");
            writer.Write(">");
            writer.WriteEndTag("iframe");

            writer.WriteEndTag("div");
        }


    }

As a developer in Microsoft technologies, I often have to setup a Virtual PC ("VPC") with a Windows Server and the software used for a project. Technology requirements vary from WSS 3.0, SharePoint, or to some other third party LMS system like IntraLearn's LearningServer.  Sometimes you just need a Windows Server to emulate a production environment.  The software development environment might be limited to Visual Studio 2005 Web Application Projects.  Or the toolset might require Visual Studio 2008. This blog entry is about one such project.

Recently, about a week ago, I was given the task of re-skinning a live site to use WSS 3.0 SP1. It should have taken a day at most to setup the VPC with a development environment. I've been on a non-SharePoint project for a while so it took a while to get re-oriented and setup took a lot longer than it should have.  The following is a set of instructions on how to setup a dev environment from scratch.

So, to get started, install Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. You can get that here (or search Google): http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/virtualpc/default.mspx. The software is free.  The two most helpful recommendations for VPC settings are to set the RAM to about half of that available on the host machine and to put the virtual hard drive and other VPC files on a drive rated at 5400rpm or higher.

Install Windows Server 2003 SP2 with a default admin account and password.  Don't join a domain yet.  Use only one network adapter in Network Settings of the VPC at this point. The main purpose for that is to have internet access.  So use the network card on the host computer. In addition to Windows Updates, here is a list of other software to install:

• IE7
• IE7 Developer Toolbar
• Firefox
• Firebug AddIn for Firefox
• WSS 3.0 - Advancaed Install type with single server choice
• WSS 3.0 SP1
• Desktop shortcut to the WSS "12" folder: "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12"
• Add the following path to the path system variable in Windows system properties: “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web
• Server Extensions\12\BIN”
• Desktop shortcut to “C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\”
• Consolas Font Pack - just because I like the font
• Sharepoint Manager 2007
• U2U CAML Query Builder v3
• Windows 2003 Open Command Prompt Extension
• Lutz Roeder's Reflector
• Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5 - 2.0 and 3.0 should be installed from Windows Update

Now that all the basic software is installed, it is time to optimize the VPC. Following is a list of steps that should optimize the VPC (source: http://www.sharepointforum.com/en-US/Wiki/Optimize%20developer%20VPC.aspx).

Stop unnecessary services....
• Select Start > Administrative Tools > Services
• In the right pane of the Services window, locate and right-click on the Error Reporting service, then select Properties
• Under the General tab of the Error Reporting Service Properties dialog box, in the Service status section, click the Stop button
• For Startup type, select Disabled from the drop-down list, then click the OK button
• Repeat these steps to stop and disable the Help & Support service and the Print Spooler service.

Disable visual enhancements....
• Select Start > Control Panel > Display
• Under the Settings tab of the Display Properties dialog box, click the Advanced button
• Under the Troubleshoot tab of the Default Monitor dialog box, move the Hardware acceleration slider all the way to the left, then click the OK button
• Under the Desktop tab of the Display Properties dialog box, select (None) from the Background list, then click the Apply button
• Under the Screen Saver tab of the Display Properties dialog box, select (None) from the Screen saver drop-down list, then click the OK button
• Select Start > Control Panel > System
• Under the Advanced tab of the System Properties dialog box, under the Performance heading, click the Settings button
• Under the Visual Effects tab of the Performance Options dialog box, select the Adjust for best performance option, then click the OK button

Disable system recovery features....
• Select Start > Control Panel > System
• Under the Advanced tab of the System Properties dialog box, under the Startup and Recovery heading, click the Settings button
• In the Startup and Recovery dialog box, select (none) from the Write debugging information drop-down list, then click the OK button

Disable Remote Desktop connections....
• Select Start > Control Panel > System
• Under the Remote tab of the System Properties dialog box, in the Remote Assistance section, deselect the Turn on Remote Assistance and allow invitations to be sent from this computer checkbox, and in the Remote Desktop section, deselect the Enable Remote Desktop on this computer checkbox, then click the OK button

Disable searching for network drives and printers....
• Launch Windows Explorer, then select Tools > Folder Options
• Under the View tab of the Folder Options dialog box, in the Advanced settings list, deselect the Automatically search for network folders and printers checkbox, then click the Apply to All Folders button
• In the Folder Views alert box, click the Yes button
• Click the OK button to accept the changes and close the Folder Options dialog box

Defragment the virtual machine C: drive....
• Select Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter
• Ensure that the C: drive is selected in the upper pane of the Disk Defragmenter window, then click the Defragment button. Repeat the defragmenting process until it happens quickly (this may take several cycles).

Compact the Virtual Hard Disk....
• In the Virtual PC window, select CD > Capture ISO Image
• In the Select CD Image to Capture dialog box, browse through your local hard drive to locate the Virtual Disk Precompactor.iso file, then click the Open button
• C:\Program Files\Microsoft Virtual PC\Virtual Machine Additions\Virtual Disk Precompactor.iso
• When the Microsoft Virtual Disk Pre-Compactor alert is displayed, click the Yes button
• When the process is complete, the Pre-Compaction Completed message will be displayed; click the OK button
• Select Start > Shut Down to shut down the virtual machine, then return to the Virtual PC Console and select File > Virtual Disk Wizard
• In the Welcome to the Virtual Disk Wizard dialog box, click the Next button
• In the Disk Options dialog box, select the Edit an existing virtual disk option, then click the Next button
• In the Virtual Disk to Edit dialog box, browse for the VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) file which contains your virtual machine, then click the Next button
• In the Virtual Disk Information and Options dialog box, select the Compact it option, then click the Next button
• In the Virtual Hard Disk Compaction dialog box, select the Replace the original file option, then click the Next button
• In the Completing the Virtual Disk Wizard dialog box, click the Finish button
• When the compaction process is complete, a success message will be displayed; click the Close button to acknowledge the message

Now, it's time to shut down the VPC and get the networking setup. There are several blog sites which talked about optimal settings for networking in addition to other setup tips.  The following are in my opinion some good blogs on that subject:

• http://blog.devstone.com/aaron/archive/2005/05/03/577.aspx
• http://blogs.msdn.com/smguest/archive/2005/02/10/370861.aspx
• http://weblogs.asp.net/erobillard/archive/2007/02/23/build-a-sharepoint-development-machine.aspx

Here is a summary of what to do:

• Create a Microsoft Loopback Adapter on the host machine. This creates a private LAN between the host and the server. 
      o Click Start, Control Panel, and open the Add Hardware wizard. 
      o Click Next. Wait a moment while the wizard scans for hardware. 
      o Select: Yes, I have already connected the hardware, click Next. 
      o Scroll to the bottom of the list and select Add a new hardware device. Click Next. 
      o Select: Install the hardware that I manually select from a list (Advanced). Click Next. 
      o Select: Network adapters. Select: Microsoft. Select: Microsoft Loopback Adapter. 
      o Click Next. Click Next again. Wait a moment. Click Finish.
• Configure the Loopback Adapter on the host machine. 
      o Click Start, Control Panel, and open the Network Connections utility. 
      o Right-click the Microsoft Loopback Adapter connection and select Properties. 
      o Double-click Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). 
      o Now configure an address for this adapter. Use an IP address that is not in use on the network. There will be one setup here that the VPC will point to later (via hosts file entry). 
         - IP Address: 10.50.50.1 
         - Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0 
         - Default gateway: 
               • You can ignore DNS. Click OK. Click OK again.
• Shut down the VPC
• Go into Network Settings via Virtual PC Console
• Set the number of network adapters to 2
• Select the host NIC card as the first one
• Select the Microsoft Loopback Adapter as the second one
• Start the VPC
• Go to network settings on the VPC
• Select Local Connection 2 Properties
• Double-click Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). 
      o Now configure an address for this adapter. Use an ip address that is not in use on the network. Notice that the IP address is incremented by 1 away from that used on the host machine. The subnet masks must match between host and VPC. 
         - IP Address: 10.50.50.2 
         - Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0 
         - Default gateway: 
               • You can ignore DNS. Click OK. Click OK again.
• Go into the hosts file on the VPC
• Add an entry like this, replace the curly bracket text with real text: 10.50.50.1 {host computer name}
• Save the hosts file
• Shut down the VPC
• Go into the hosts file on the host computer
• Add an entry like this: 10.50.50.2 {VPC computer name}
• Save the hosts file
• Restart the VPC. It should see the network that the host computer is on.
• Click Start, Control Panel, System, and click on the Computer Name tab
• Click Change
• Select the Domain radio button and enter the name of the host computer's domain.
• Click OK and restart if prompted
• Now add your domain login to the Administrator's Group on the VPC (after any restart) 
      o Click Start, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, and select Local Users and Groups 
      o Find the Administrator group in Groups and add your domain user to this group 
      o The Find Now should be able to find your username and Locations should now be able to list the host domain.

That's it! That is all there is to it (mostly)! I will probably edit, refine, and expand this document to include MOSS installation and/or server farm installs. But that is it for now.