Monday 29 December 2008

Crunchies 2008 - vote now

Voting is open for the Crunchies 2008 (part sponsored by TechCrunch), and right there amongst the 'big hitters' of Web 2.0 is Swype



That's some heavy competition (um, four multi-billion dollar companies) - but not all of them are 'unique'. There's two "Connect"s in the list, plus (another) web browser, (another) spin on Search, (another) Microsoft 'Live' thing... and Swype

Ever since I first saw Swype I've wanted it on my iPhone - it is COOL! Imagine if you had seen T9 back when everyone was triple-tapping without predictive text on their Nokias and Motorolas - you'd have voted for it, right (and not Microsoft Bob, or Netscape Navigator, or whatever else was 'new' back then)?

To be honest, I wouldn't have had a chance to play with Swype first-hand if I didn't know some of the guys working on it - but of everything in that list - Swype is the one thing I want RIGHT NOW.

Anyway - don't take my word for it - check out Swype and if you like what you see, vote!

Sunday 28 December 2008

MIX 10k Challenge - entry accepted!

My MIX 10k Challenge entry is online (try it now)!

It's called exploDZ - Explore Deep Zoom - and its raison d'être is simply to help understand the structure and operation of DeepZoom images by 'exploring' them dynamically. Sure, you can read about DeepZoom and its file format, but my hope is that being able to visualize the layers and grid is more instructive (or at least a bit of fun)...

It looks like this

and should be able to parse and display any DZC/DZI/XML on the web - assuming the hosting site has a ClientAccessPolicy.xml (you can copy that one if needed).

At the very least, you can test it on these two collections:
If you feel so inclined, visit exploDZ and the other entries and vote?

Using Seadragon (iPhone) with PhotoZoom content #2

Further to this post, rather than just point people to the RSS 'how-to' instructions I've uploaded a page to do the translation for you.

To access your PhotoZoom DeepZoom images in Seadragon on iPhone, go to the Add RSS Feed screen and type this Url (replacing craig with your PhotoZoom alias).


You can read more on the DeepZoomPublisher.com website, including downloading the c# code.

Here are the iPhone screens using this url http://deepzoompublisher.com/PhotoZoom/rss.aspx?user=eflaten (from the previous post)






UPDATE: Seadragon seems to CRASH sometimes when accessing some RSS feeds. I think it is fixed now -- and was related to either (or all of) the following:
<description> tag containing linebreaks (must be all on a single line - fixed in generated RSS)
<link> tag being too long or containing unexpected characters (fixed in generated RSS)
<author> tag not appearing EXACTLY in the format user@domain (fullname) (I've put a fake email address in the generated RSS to 'fix')
Guid not being a 'real' GUID (instructions say it doesn't have to be, but maybe it does...)
Drop a comment if you experience problems with it.

Saturday 27 December 2008

MIX 10k Challenge

I just submitted my MIX 10k Challenge entry - so I can stop worrying about tweaking and move on to the next little project. I'll post a link if/when it's approved, but for now here is the single line of c#

and the single line of XAML

and the 'proof' that it's only 10k


I had planned to write a whole post about 'how to fit more code into 10k', but Bill's Thoughts on the MIX 10k Challenge and Adam's What can you make with 10k of Silverlight or WPF? have covered most of the tricks already... I'll just mention a handful of comments/additions below:

Bill's second suggestions is to use short class/method/property/field/variable names - single characters if possible. In the interests of 'maintainability' I did not quite go that far (using two- and three-letter acronyms) but in general the code looks like it's been obfuscated (as you can see on the class diagram, which also shows I 'missed' a couple of opportunities for refactoring)

I'd originally used human-readable names (the code was well over 20k originally, with comments) and used the Visual Studio Refactor->Rename feature to arrive at the 'compressed' version.

Bill also said "Make sure to use using statements to avoid having to specify the namespace". Good idea - but using can be even more helpful if you alias classes that you plan to use a lot. For example,
using v=System.Windows.Media.Animation.Storyboard;
requires 50 chars for the using declaration, but nine instances of 10 chars became 1 char (Storyboard --> v) which is 81 chars less, an improvement of 31 chars :) You only need to use PropertyChangedEventHandler three times before it's more efficient to
using p=System.ComponentModel.PropertyChangedEventHandler;

Another one I'd expand on is "Reduce whitespace. C# can be written as a single line for the entire file". It's not just line-breaks that you can save - C# in particular can be much shorter if you remove unnecessary spaces (that the IDE inserts) around parens, braces, commas and semi-colons, and omit braces where not required (single-statement-if s). Not sure how space-efficient you can be with Visual Basic...
Another area where the IDE will frustrate you is by offering to put each of your classes, code-behinds, etc into a individual files. DON'T LET IT! there's nothing special about a code-behind file, so put ALL your code into one .cs (I put the entire codebase into Page.xaml.cs). This saves you mulitple using clauses and namespace declarations.

It might seem obvious, but using var instead of the Type name will always be shorter (how many Types other than int are three chars or less?).

Also obvious: declare variables of the same Type together ('globally' if required) and initialize them in the declaration if they need initializing. eg int i,j,k=256; rather than int i;int j; int k; k = 256;
Re-use variables across methods. Don't use a property where a field will do.

Use defaults to your advantage - for example don't specify public protected private if you don't need to. Think about the defaults that apply in Xaml, Databinding, etc.

Unfortunately I don't have any hints on making 'small' applications "look good". I definitely did not inherit the Designer-gene ... for that I'd check out Jose's blog.

Good luck with your MIX 10k entry!

Friday 26 December 2008

Using Seadragon (iPhone) with PhotoZoom content

UPDATE: new post 29-Dec-08

I had a question (from Erland) on this post about viewing PhotoZoom images like this on the iPhone with Seadragon.

The Seadragon Use Your Own Images page says
PhotoZoom:

Enter a PhotoZoom username. The user's content will appear in the main listing, allowing you to view their albums.
However that option doesn't appear (at least on my iPhone...).
Seadragon Add screen

Until the PhotoZoom option is available, you can fairly easily create a 'shortcut' to one or more Deep Zoom images or collections using the RSS Feed option.

For example, from this PhotoZoom page Deep Zoom image tile you can View Source and extract this tag <param name="initParams" value="collectionUrl=http%3a%2f%2fphotozoom.mslivelabs.com%2fDZ%2f3%2fz8b0c8100950d45379c794efbc559f800%2f633654978975379998%2fcollection.xml" /> and this url http://photozoom.mslivelabs.com/ DZ/3/z8b0c8100950d45379c794efbc559f800/ 633654978975379998 /collection.xml which can be embedded in a custom RSS document (instructions) then viewed on the iPhone!



That short URL is a lot easier to type than those GUIDs on the PhotoZoom website; of course I've just uploaded that one as an example - you'll need to find a host to upload yours to... and here is how the image looks:




Incidentally, Seadragon Settings (in the iPhone settings area) shows a PhotoZoom option - so I'm not sure why it's missing from the application itself?

Tuesday 23 December 2008

Silverlight Parser Error: when to trust your instinct

I finished my entry into the MIX 2009 10k competition this morning - having been [dis|en]couraged by Andy's cool Flickr-based entry and reading that Robby's also entering.

After getting it running locally (and trimming the code down to 9,601 bytes) I decided to upload to a remote server for testing... and the problems began:

Unhandled Error in Silverlight 2 Application Code: 7014 Category: ParserError Message: illegal xml character File: XXXXX.xap Line: 1 Position: 3

Of course I was mystified... it "worked on my machine". Since I had stripped out so much from the C# and Xaml, I assumed it was the code, and set about 'fixing' it (despite a nagging doubt about why it worked locally).
  • I looked in App.xaml to see if I had somehow introduced invalid XML

  • I looked in Page.xaml for the same thing

  • I checked AppManifest.xml in the project for errors

  • I checked AppManifest.xaml in the XAP file as well

  • I googled and found that someone fixed a similar error by updating the <object> tag to use the current Silverlight version, but mine was already correct

  • I changed the file extension from XAP to ZAP (in case the server wasn't sending the file) - no difference

  • I verified that I could download the XAP and ZIP files directly (to confirm the server was sending them) - yes, the file downloaded successfully

  • I even managed to get a slight different error code somehow: Unhandled Error in Silverlight 2 Application Code: 5014 Category: ParserError Message: illegal xml character File: XXXXX.xap Line: 1 Position: 3
After spending longer than I care to admit, I started to doubt my sanity. I knew it was working locally. I was pretty sure there wasn't even any distinct element at "line 1 position 3" in any of the relevant Xml files. What could be different between my local and the server???

Finally it occured to me to check the XAP/ZIP file I downloaded from the server, just to see that it was the same as I uploaded... AH-HA! a clue!
The Compressed (zipped) Folder is invalid or corrupted. I FTPed another build of the XAP file up, and downloaded it again. Corrupted!

What's different between my local and the server? How the files got there! The file was being corrupted during the FTP process - possibly because I am sending a binary/zip format using TEXT FTP mode (not intentionally, by the way)?
It took about 2 seconds to confirm that changing the FTP mode to I/BIN and re-uploading the XAP file fixed the problem!

If FireFTP is your favourite file transfer program, the mode is shown in the status bar - where it can also be changed by a single (and accidental) click!


Apparently Silverlight can't tell the difference between corrupted ZIP/XAP packaging and a corrupted file within it; or else the error messages don't explain that very well. If you are getting this error, my first advice is to double-check your FTP settings; drop back to the command-prompt if necessary to ensure you are using the binary mode for file transfer. In fact, whenever you're FTPing, make sure you are using the correct mode!


BTW, the 10k entry isn't anything exciting - not a game and not animation driven - but it was fun nevertheless so I'll submit it and see what happens. More to come (including a plea for 'votes') when it appears on the MIX Gallery.

Saturday 20 December 2008

Google Earth - New York in 3D

I promise to post something technical soon - but for now here's another OT post...

russ sent this news on the latest Google Earth update with New York in 3D. It looks awesome! Since I was only just in New York, I decided to compare a couple of photos with Google's rendering...

First, here's my photo from "Top of the Rock" at Rockefeller Center:

and Google's


And this is the view from the Westin on 43rd and 8th

and Google's (had to make a rough guess on the position of my window)


Can I have my city in 3D too now, please?


Monday 15 December 2008

SeaDragon 'returns' - Deep Zoom on iPhone

I *love* my iPhone... and now the original Microsoft Labs codename for Deep Zoom - SeaDragon - has reappeared as the moniker for Microsoft's first iPhone application: SeaDragon Mobile!

There are some nice built-in collections to play with...


Notice the Virtual Earth Maps (Aerial, Hybrid, Roads)... SeaDragon even uses iPhone Location Services to tell me where I am! Virtual Earth on iPhone by stealth?!


It's more fun to view your own Deep Zoom images and Photosynths. Here is a collection of photos from Bhutan (created with DeepZoomPublisher) - press the [+] button in SeaDragon Mobile to Add Deep Zoom Content:




It's even easier to add a Photosynth collection (eg. CraigD)! Since there's a hook to Location Services, I wonder when I will able able to browse "Synths near me" (since Photosynth collections can be geocoded)...







You can also find or create RSS feeds of Deep Zoom images - example to come!


As Tim Heuer says, you can create your own Deep Zoom/SeaDragon images (for iPhone, and everything else) with Deep Zoom Composer too. Download SeaDragon Mobile here if you don't just search in the iPhone AppStore.

Friday 12 December 2008

'Genetic Programming' in art

"I don't know if it's art, but I like it"

Roger Alsing's Mona Lisa generated by code caught my eye immediately on my blog reader. So it was great to see he released the source code so we could all play.

Here my contributions to the 'art' gallery.





The daytime one was finished (passed the 'fit-ness' test) but the bottom one is just a screenshot of an 'evolution' still in progress. It's running at work over the weekend - will see how it looks on Monday.

Monday 8 December 2008

Visualizing Data

Visualizing DataI was (sadly) very disappointed with Ben Fry's Visualizing Data book. It wasn't as though it's a badly written or presented book - I just had vastly different expectations about it's content (the downside of buying unseen from Amazon, I guess).

Recently, via the MIX site and their Decry section, I found this link:

Data Visualization: Modern Approaches

which is EXACTLY what I wanted to read about in Visualizing Data. While discussion of the 'traditional' data visualization techniques (your standard graphs and pictograms, etc) is no doubt useful, in the RIA world of today we need to go the extra mile to make data not only easy-to-understand, but attractive too. There is also more and more data to understand, so incorporating multiple axes of data into a single visualization in a logical way is a secondary goal, often supported by dedicated 'designer' resources. It is these subjects that I wished were addressed in Visualizing Data, and look forward to reading about at Decry.

Other links that I like (notice the skew towards geographic data):


Part of my interest is related to Geoquery 2008 and what features it needs to be a useful thematic mapping/data visualization front-end for SQL Server 2008.

Wednesday 15 October 2008

Silverlight 2.0 'live'

Everyone knows by now that Silverlight 2.0 has been released, and Silverlight-enabled websites everywhere are scrambling to update their beta2 code.

Two conceptdevelopment.net sites have been updated:
racereplay.net and others still to come...

Tuesday 7 October 2008

Design wireframes/black&whites/whatever in Flash

I saw Tim's post on Software Mockups using Balsamiq just a few days after independently 'discovering' it via Russ.

I'm a big fan of 'visuals', so I had to immediately give it a try, mocking up some additions to Geoquery 2008's user interface:

I think a 'google earth globe' is about the only widget they didn't include!

Balsamiq Mockups is great fun - a very wide variety of widgets are built in, the Flash interface is easy to use (and if you can't get stuff to quite line up exactly, who cares! it's a mockup!). If you continue to use it, don't forget to buy.

Sunday 21 September 2008

SilverlightEarth updated for rc0

If you have been updating your Silverlight 2.0 beta 2 for Release Candidate 0, you will probably be familiar with this error "Failed to load the application. It was built with an obsolete version of Silverlight":

Even if your code is 100% RC0 'compatible', you need to re-compile your Silverlight assemblies with the RC0 Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio.

For example, SilverlightEarth.com/2 is updated for RC0, and SilverlightEarth.com/2b2 still hosts the beta2 bits. Although no code changes were required (or made), there a minor visual differences that I have yet to correct (the height of the radio-button StackPanels, for example).

SilverlightEarth.com hosting OpenStreetMap with the Google StreetView overlay

Slightly OT: GIS in XML blog posted recently about
Virtual Earth - DeepEarth - Deep Pockets. Basically it calculates a cost of approx. $1.25 per viewer if licensing Microsoft's Virtual Earth tiles for use in DeepEarth (Silverlight 2.0 map tile client)... although Microsoft can't be too concerned since they have it listed in their Community Gallery!

Luckily silverlightearth.com/2 offers OpenStreetMaps and NASA Blue Marble imagery...

Way OT: the Deep Zoom Tag Cloud example also updated for RC0

Wednesday 27 August 2008

GeoData Visualization: Geoquery v. SQL Server 2008

Came across this post today - GeoData Visualization vs. Analysis - and thought it would be fun to try in Geoquery.

The dataset (au_sumg.e00) can be found at USGS and imported into SQL Server 2008 using Shape2Sql (by Morten). Among other statistics it contains data on known oil reserves (outside the USA, as of 2000).

The simplest query - SELECT * FROM au_sumg - looks like this in SQL Server 2008 Management Studio and Geoquery 2008 respectively:



Management Studio's Dundas graphic sure looks nice - but a little difficult to interpret in isolation. Geoquery's Shape tab looks worse without even the funky pastel colors.

However, the Map tab in Geoquery starts to make up for the green-ness by giving the shapes some context.


But that's not all - using the same 'scale' as this image and the [Fill] and [Thickness] 'special columns' that Geoquery supports we can write this:
select * ,
CASE
WHEN KWN_OIL < -6238 THEN '#FFF2ECB0'
WHEN KWN_OIL < 15769 THEN '#FFF3CE75'
WHEN KWN_OIL < 37775 THEN '#FFEA944B'
WHEN KWN_OIL < 59781 THEN '#FFB16B3A'
ELSE '#FF864E37'
END AS [Fill]
, 0 AS [Thickness]
FROM au_sumg
to produce this result:


Of course, viewing these results on the globe offers absolutely no advantage; but I'll include an obligatory screenshot anyway...

Sunday 24 August 2008

DeepZoom "Publisher" (alpha)

The website for DeepZoomPublisher.com is now 'live', although Publisher itself isn't quite finished yet. In the interim, I've uploaded Tag Updater which is a much simpler tool to extract metadata from JPGs and make it 'accessible' within a Silverlight 2.0/Deep Zoom application.

Tag Updater is based on this Filtering by Tag Sample and these previous posts. An example of the 'output' from Tag Updater can be viewed here

Also, Deep Zoom Composer can now stitch panoramas!.

In unrelated news, Geoquery 2008 examples have also been updated.