Musings of a Dabbler

Windows Phone 7 - Impressions and Transparent Lockscreen

2010-12-20T00:28:00.000-08:00

So last week I impulsively bought a Windows 7 Phone, a Samsung Focus, partially to mess around with development on the new platform, but mainly because I like toys and wanted to play with it - and also to be able to compare between the major mobile OS players right now - iPhone, Android and now WP7.

I really like the interface. A lot. And the screen is very pretty-not quite the resolution of the iPhone 4, but it's still quite nice. It's quite responsive, and the way tiles move and slide around almost imparts an organic feeling, alost playfulness. I do miss Android's awesome notification system and the wealth of great apps that are available on iOS4, but I think Microsoft can gain ground on both fronts with the right moves.

Anyway, so far there are two features that I really love so far:

1. You can use the phone as an FM radio through the Music + Videos player - it uses your headphones as the antenna. How cool is that???

2. Via @brianfeucht, it came to my attention that the lock screen wallpaper supports transparent PNGs, and you can see your live tiles through the transparency (see shot above - that's a png graphic I came up with, with the help of my lovely lady and her mad Photoshop skills). Very, very neat - but there are some caveats:

The graphic is only see through when you touch the screen. So in the shot above, you'll see a white bulb outline, but everything else is black (or white, if you've chosen the light theme)
This only works if you're not locking your phone with a passcode (which you probably should do).
You have to set the png file as your wallpaper from attachment from email (AFAIK - the only way I was able to do this was by sending the png to my phone via email from my computer)

You can download the wallpaper here.

USA World Cup Bid

2010-11-05T23:20:00.000-07:00

Breaking radio silence for a cause - USA World Cup Bid. How awesome would it be to bring the world's game, the beautiful game, to the states, Seattle even?

I signed up and I absolutely think everyone else should, too :)

Last Beach Night, cont.

2010-07-13T09:28:00.000-07:00

One more before I pack up and leave. It was a good night for a walk and perfect weather to soak in the last few minutes as the sun disappeared behind the ocean horizon. Makes me glad to live on the west coast- no way I could possibly wake up early for a sunrise :)

Last Beach Night

2010-07-13T09:14:00.000-07:00

I would love to say that Blake had a contemplative moment on the beach as the sun went down, but really, I just got lucky and timed things right. I think this shot turned out pretty well :).

Crossroad

2010-07-11T21:34:00.000-07:00

Since I was ruined from drinking too much whilst watching the World Cup Final (ESPANA!!!) I didn't really make it out of the house much. I finally did drag myself to the beach and took some shots, and I liked this shot in particular, even though it was away from the water

Seafood and a Sunset

2010-07-10T15:52:00.000-07:00

Salmon grilling on cedar plank, and halibut wrapped in banana leaf. Delicious!

I can't say that I ever pay attention to sunsets, or sunrises, but it seems you just can't not when you have scenery like this.

Manzanita Vacation - Day 1

2010-07-08T19:32:00.000-07:00

Ok, so Day 1 of time off from work, we drive out of SUNNY, 90° F, Seattle to Manzanita, OR, where C and I are vacationing with her family for the next 6 days. Although the weather here is definitely cooler and overcast, nothing can really beat the ocean air and the sense of calm you get from hearing the waves crash. And maybe I just need to pull myself away from computers. Cheers!

SPWebConfigModifications and Manual Config entries don't mix

2010-06-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

This is just a short post for my own retention and edification - As it is considered best practice to deploy web.config modifications using the SharePoint object model and calling ApplyWebConfigModifications() and Update() on the SPWebService, I want to make note of a few caveats.

When ApplyWebConfigModifications() is called, SharePoint behind-the-scenes looks at the collection of SPWebConfigModifications for EACH web application in the farm and applies those changes. It doesn't matter if you called it for a specific web application; this propagation of config changes is pushed for every web.config that is associated with a web application that contains these SPWebConfigModification entries.

The problem here, is that if you have made any manual configuration changes (for example, if you have to encrypt a section for security purposes), once that ApplyWebConfigModifications() gets called, those entries are reverted back to whatever value they were entered within that SPWebConfigModification entry.

So, the lesson here- if there are config sections that are known to be sections that will be edited by hand or through some external configuration tool, these are probably best left out of the collection of SPWebConfigModifications to be deployed.

SharePoint 2010, VS 2010 and Deploying Resources to the App_Global Resources folder

2010-05-12T11:11:00.000-07:00

When you are localizing a SharePoint site, you may need to get your .resx files to the App_Global resources folder in your virtual directory for the web application. This gave us a bit of trouble, so I thought it would be worth writing down. And funnily enough, the answer is very simple and provided by Visual Studio 2010 (VS2010's integration with SharePoint 2010 is pretty awesome).

We'll start by adding a New SharePoint 2010 item: an Empty element…

And name it "Resources"…

After adding the Empty Element Item to your project, you can add your .resx files to its folder. Once your resx file is there, you'll want to edit the properties to configure its deployment to the App_GlobalResources folder.

First, set the DeploymentType property to AppGlobalResource.

Once the Deployment Type is set, VS will automatically set the Deployment Location property to "{WebApplicationRoot}\App_GlobalResources\{PROJECT_NAME}\Resources\", which isn't really useful to us.

So, we expand the Deployment Location node, and edit the Path property. Basically just clear out the Path property, so that your .resx file gets deployed to the App_GlobalResources root folder. And that's it! When your package gets deployed, your .resx files will go where you need them. Hope that helps someone :)

Sounders vs. KC Wizards

2010-04-17T17:36:00.000-07:00

It was a good day for a ball game in Seattle, and we were treated to a pretty good game, with a sweet finish - a winning goal in the 91st minute from Fucito!

Bun Rieu from Lemongrass

2010-04-13T17:48:00.000-07:00

So, it's a sick day, so going through the archive. This is a shot of one of my favorite Vietnamese soups, bun rieu. Carly decided to do noodle soups as a focus for one of her photography assignments. How could I complain?

Beginning to look like Springtime in Seattle

2010-04-13T17:41:00.000-07:00

Not really sure what these are, but some sort of perennial remnant from the past has bloomed in our backyard.

2010-04-05T22:06:00.000-07:00

Manzanita, OR

Ok. I'm being lazy and pulling one from the archive. But the fact of the matter is, is that I'd much rather be there right now, instead of posting this while I wait for the next meeting on India Standard Time to begin. As my sister-in-law put it today, it "pays the bills."

As for the picture, it was an idyllic summer day on the Oregon coast that promised, and delivered, a picturesque sunset.

2010-04-05T00:28:00.000-07:00

Easter inspired "Peep-shi"

C got inspired by an article sent to her about sushi made with rice krispie treats, peeps, and fruit rollups. These are the result. I've been very bad at keeping with things I want to do, including post here. So here's another attempt at keeping this up. I would really like to try my hand at having a daily photoblog, but that may be a bit ambitious. So first thought: post at least once a week. Here goes...

2009-11-20T22:56:00.000-08:00

La Push

LaPush Stones - unknown

2009-10-18T23:04:00.000-07:00

Photo Dabblage

2009-10-18T21:52:00.000-07:00

Dabbling in photography. This is an expensive hobby to dabble in, but oh-so rewarding. There's something about capturing an image that represents a view of something that was in your head moments ago. Capturing a moment in your own vision. Or something idealistic about that. Any way you put it, I like trying to be creative about it.

Here's some crap of mine that I'm throwing in the wind. Earlier today, we took a short jaunt to a couple photogenic spots around Seattle with P and PNY.

From Seattle with PaulNY & DrPhil

The Art of Dabbling

2009-10-17T19:19:00.000-07:00

I consider myself a "Jon" of many trades: I dabble, am pretty good at it, but am a master of none. When you're not really sure of what you want out of life, but you know you want to experience/know a thing or two about it. You dabble. Hilarity may or may not ensue. We'll see where this goes.