Creating Aero-style Wizards in Windows Forms
I spent some time searching for existing controls/frameworks for creating Vista-/7-style wizards in Windows Forms applications. The best framework I found was at http://bitbucket.org/factormystic/aero.wizard/wiki/Home. Also available on the site is a project for aero-style controls such as command links and search boxes https://bitbucket.org/factormystic/aero.controls/wiki/Home.
Resizing Columns in Word 2007
This might apply to previous versions of Word as well, but I came across some interesting tidbits related to resizing columns in Word 2007.
When you move the mouse in between two columns and get the column resize cursor, if you resize a column, in the middle of the table, it makes the next column wider as the previous column shrinks. If you’d rather resize the whole table, hold the Shift key as you resize.
Every now and then you might find that just the one cell resizes rather than the whole column – in this case, make sure the cell isn’t selected – when one or more cells are selected, the resizing only affects the selected cells.
How to Rearrange Your Start Menu in Vista without UAC
I found a good tip at keyliner.blogspot.com that if you give yourself full access to the folders “C:\Users\Public\Desktop” and “C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\StartMenu”, you won’t get the UAC nags when you rearrange, delete, or customize items in your start menu. That was a huge annoyance for me since I like a well organized start menu.
World of Warcraft Interface Idea
Blizzard should release a change where you could right-click on the map and you automatically run to that point. It would be easy if you were on a flying mount.
The Internet wasn’t built for Media
Online distribution is increasingly popular these days due to streaming services such as Hulu. It’s easy to watch what you want, when you want it. Cloud computing is taking us back to client-server days where the “cloud” (a bunch of servers) do all the computing and you interact with the cloud via a browser. Now there’s even talk about streaming video games.
The problem with online distribution is that the internet wasn’t built for mass distribution. Every time you request a video, a separate connection is made and the content is sent to you individually. For a few users or small requests, this works well and efficiently – the content is only sent to those who request it – but when you look at large numbers of users streaming large video files, the system starts to break down. Each user is using separate bandwidth whether they’re watching the same file or different files.
In contrast, TV services from your cable or satellite company are broadcast based. They send the same signal to everyone. They might use a lot of bandwidth sending all the channels to everyone and within each household, the vast majority of this bandwidth is wasted, however it’s much more efficient for a mass audience because the signal is only sent once. You can choose to tune in to the broadcast or not, but the bandwidth used it based on the number of channels being sent, not the number of users using the service.
The ideal distribution method would be a combination of the two ideas: Allow each user to request content, but allow download sharing. Rather than sending each packet to each user individually, send each packet once, but specify multiple addresses so the content can be shared.
We need gender-neutral pronouns
Who’s in charge of the English language these days? I’d like to make a suggestion: Gender-neutral pronouns. Back in the old days, it was perfectly acceptable to use male programs (he/his) in times when you don’t know the gender of the person you’re referring to. This is standard practice in many other cultures and languages in modern times as well, but with the politically correct nature of modern English, this is often frowned upon and we’re forced to result to saying and writing “he or she” or “his or her” to refer to a single person.
What I propose is the addition of a few pronouns to refer to these cases. I’m leaning towards “ve” for the subjective and “vir” for the possessive, though I’m open to suggestions.
Maybe if we all start using these words, they’ll make it into the dictionary. Wrappers make up words all the time. Why can’t we make up some that are actually useful?
VP Debate
I just watched the vice presidential debate on my TiVo. I don’t think Palin did as bad as I expected, but I’m just shocked at the after-debate commentary I heard on NBC where they were praising her. She didn’t say anything! Any time she was asked a tough question she “turned on the charm” and avoided it.
Speaking of the charm, the analysts all praised her for looking at the camara (where else is she gonna look…), smiling, and using her “by gollys” and “you betchas”. Personally, I think she came off as slightly fake and rather than being endeared, it just helped remind me how she does not seem presidential – she seems like another bush. I didn’t get a feeling of respect. I didn’t see someone that inspires confidence. I saw the image that she wanted people to see of an everyday, middle-class, mother, and I really have nothing against middle-class mothers, but is that really someone that should lead the country? A president needs to be in touch with the people in the country of course, but he/she also needs to be someone that commands respect and can see issues on a national level, and I didn’t get that from her at all.
Even though I don’t agree with everything he says or all his policies, I do plan on voting for Obama and I think Biden did a good job. I honestly don’t know much about him, but he seemed to be on the ball and I think he actually answered most, if not all of the questions asked of him. He made valid points, poked a number of holes in the opposition, and reasonably defended against the accusations. I also agreed with most of the points he made and Palin didn’t have a good response to the holes he poked in the McCain plan and McCain’s record.
Biden and Obama were criticized by Palin for looking too much at Bush’s career rather than “looking at the future”, but the whole point was showing how similar McCain’s policies are to Bush’s. We don’t want the same policies. We need change. I’m not saying that Obama’s change is necessarily the change we need, but we can’t have more of the same.
The biggest issue discussed for me was energy. McCain and the Republican party in general criticize Obama and Biden for voting against domestic drilling and some other methods of getting independence from foreign oil, but it irks me to no end because Obama and Biden do support independence from foreign oil – they just support it the right way via alternative, renewable energy rather than looking for oil in environmentally protected areas. The only way to truly break dependance on foreign oil is to get away from fossil fuels entirely. We need renewable, clean energy. This isn’t debatable. Oil is limited, we will run out and it’s far better to make the change now then wait until it’s simply gone.
Neither candidate went into great detail about anything – this is one of the things that irks me about capaigns in general – but I think Biden won here as well, stating more real points rather than broad generalizations. From Palin I heard a lot of “maverik” comments about cross-party cooperation, but from Biden I got actual examples. From Palin I heard “we’re going to change”, while from Biden I heard “here are some things we’re going to change”.
