Free ISP

December 28th, 2006

http://www.greatdialup.com

When you sign up with us you get free dial up internet service and a free 2 Gig email account. There are no strings attached. If you sign up for our service and for any reason are not satisfied you can cancel at any time. Sign up now! It’s FREE!

Convert Double to String

December 5th, 2006

Yesterday night I spent way to long (at least 3 hours) trying to get a label to display “1.2″.  Finally the LORD showed me the proper way on doing this.

 Instead of:

double x = 6/5;
lblLabel.Text = Convert.ToString(x);

I have to do this else the value of x will be 1.

double x = 6.0/5.0;
lblLabel.Text = Convert.ToString(x);

Hallelujah!  Learned something new.  In addition, I got more ideas for “Tapper” and talked with Mrs. Ginnette Serrano-Correa about methods on achieving goals of that program.  In addition I met Carol and Andy and found out about a Mr. Crawford in E220 who does Game Design which may be able to help out with some more ideas.

Frustrated with FMOD

November 25th, 2006

After much toying around with it today, I learned that FMOD’s WINCE API does not support MIDI or WMA.  I should have read the documentation.  WMA it was said to support on their website, but the documentation that came with the API’s were correct in saying they won’t work.  As the use of MP3 files for a program require a license (from my understanding including free projects), I have opted to use Ogg Vorbis for my sound format.

Freetip v1.0 released and thoughts on Pocket Hymnal

November 24th, 2006

Freetip is a clone of Iambic’s tipper.  It was an excellent start for a first C# .NET CF project.  I learned the basics of Windows form programming – never did that before.  In the past I only used C++ and programmed console apps.  I’m still struggling with some of the basics such as classes.  But I know I’ll make it through.  Initially I was trying all sorts of methods to create an “Exit” button.  Took me about 3 hours just to find out that all I needed was 1 line of code “Close();”.  That was disheartening.  Also I didn’t know that there was a control called “numericupdown”.  I was using “domainupdown” and using it with an array in an attempt to do the same thing as a numericupdown.

So overall, the things I learned from this project are:

  • How to close an application:  Close();
  • How to round up:  System.Math.Ceiling(str);
  • How to create a SmartDevice CAB installer.
  • How to make menus.
  • How to convert strings to another data type such as double or decimal.
  • How to limit the number of decimal places: str.ToString(“F2″);
  • How to create a dialog box: DialogResult result= MessageBox.Show(“Message”);
  • How to use textbox, numericupdown, and checkbox controls as well as modifying properties of each such as “.text” or “.increment”.

As for today, I started work on Pocket Hymnal.  With the LORD’s help today I learn a bit on how Microsoft SQL 2005 mobile worked as well as how to interface with FMOD for audio playback.  Man that was confusing – took me about 6 hours to finally get it to work.  When using the wrapper class, make sure you use:

byte[] filenameBytes = System.Text.Encoding.Default.GetBytes(filename + ‘\0′);

rather then:

byte[] filenameBytes = System.Text.Encoding.Default.GetBytes(filename+null);

Also note that objects in C# seem to be casesensitive so “filenameBytes” is different from ”
“filenamebytes”.
A tutorial on audio playback using C# with a FMOD wrapper class can be found here:
http://www.fmod.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4874&highlight=visual+studio+2005

So that’s one thing down….now to implement the rest of the program.

In summary, what I learned today:

  • A bit on Microsoft SQL 2005 Mobile.
  • How to get FMOD APIs to work with WM5 in Visual Studio 2005.
  • A bit on the .NET CF, that it is a subset of the full .NET framework (around 1.5 MB vs 30MB respectively) and that certain controls such as RichText is not available.
  • A possible workaround to the use of RichText is a standard HTML file as there is a “WebBrowser” control in .NET CF.

FREE Movies! Perfect for the upcoming winter break…

November 15th, 2006
This is a code valid till February of 2007. You can use it to get 4 weeks free of Blockbuster Online Total Access.

1945ta

Sign up using this link: http://www.blockbuster.com/bbfamily

Total Access is a combination of online rentals plus free in-store rentals. Basically, once you are finished with an online rental…instead of sending it back through the mail and waiting for your next movie to arrive, just take your mailer to a local store and they will give you a free in-store rental on the spot! On top of that, your next online rental will be shipped the next day and be on the way. Two different types of no waiting. It’s an excellent deal you will love. I highly recommend it!

While at it, you might as well print yourself out a new calendar and plan ahead for the new year. 

Software Freebies!

November 14th, 2006
  • Paragon Partition Manager 2005
  • Paragon Drive Copy 8 Personal SE
  • Registry Mechanic 5.0
  • eXpert PDF 3 
  • Driver Genius Professional 5.3
  • Directory Opus 6.2
  • Ashampoo WinOptimizer Platinum 2
  • Ashampoo Photo Commander 3.5
  • Ashampoo Burning Studio 5
  • Power Point Templates

    BBspot Questions

    November 8th, 2006

    You are Slackware Linux. You are the brightest among your peers, but are often mistaken as insane.  Your elegant solutions to problems often take a little longer, but require much less effort to complete.
    Which OS are You?

    You are .inf You are informative.  When you are gone you make life very difficult for others.
    Which File Extension are You?

    You are Lisp.  Very few people like you (Probably because you use too many parenthesis (You better stop it (Reallly)))
    Which Programming Language are You?

    You are metafilter.com You're involved in the community.  You like to share with your friends. You're into omphaloskepsis. You like pancakes and the color blue.
    Which Website are You?

    Free Waterbottle!

    November 5th, 2006

    http://www.purwater.com/tornado/pur_entry.shtml

    4 Free Rolls of Kodak Film

    October 25th, 2006

    http://www.kodak.com/global/mul/professional/support/wrt/campaigns/GC00369/entry.jhtml

    i-Net+ Certified

    October 25th, 2006

    Add one more certification on the completion list!  I’m now a CompTia i-Net+ Certified Professional.  Yay!