Coding My Thoughts » IT

SharpDevelop, an open source C# IDE

mariano — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 19:05:00 +0000

This year I’ve been improving my skills on developing .NET applications using C#. Everyday, I get amazed on how strong the language is. In many ways, I sincerely believe that C# is the language that I wish Java could’ve been. I especially love the usage of templates (I do know they are available since Java 1.5, but they call it generics) and, above all, operator overloading. Thanks to that language feature, it is very interesting how event management is handled in C#. If you haven’t heard about it, I recommend you take a look.

While I’m still waiting for a local bookstore to deliver my copy of what promises to be a great read (Programming Windows with C# by Charles Petzold) I continued my practice by developing a desktop based application for some serious web clipping capabilities. I started the old school way (Textpad + command line C# compiler), but then I found SharpDevelop, a great IDE, which is not only open source but also developed in C#. Take a look at the following screenshot:

Amongst a great set of features, I have to say that the visual form designer is quite exciting (allowing you to drag & drop your own custom UI controls). It is surely making my C# developing experience more enjoyable.

Stay tuned for further news about cricava’s first desktop based C# application!

Cricava launches CRICAVA Technologies Open Source

Google Getting Current With Broadband

mariano — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 03:31:00 +0000

As WebProNews reports, Google, along with Goldman Sachs and The Hearst Corporation, will make a significant investment in Germantown, MD-based Current. Current is a provider of broadband access, but delivers that access over powerlines instead of telephone or cable. The technology makes an electrical outlet in a home a source of always-on Internet connectivity.

The company has managed to rollout a test of their technology last year, in partnership with Cincinnati-based utility Cinergy. The initiative offered a bundle of broadband and voice connections to Cinergy’s electric customer base of 1.5 million. The implementation of BPL would resolve the “last mile” issues faced by traditional Internet service providers of high-speed products. Telecoms in particular have been reluctant to wire rural areas, while cable frequently enjoys a monopoly presence in communities and little pricing pressure.

I’ve been hearing about this project for quite some years now, and I always wondered why it never really took off. It’s my thinking that providing internet access through power lines is a million dollar idea, since the network has already been built. Of course you’d have to deal with royalty issues (well, that’s actually the same dylemma that some DSL companies here in Argentina had to face when providing their service over a phone line network that is owned by another telco.), but other than that it’s worth investing on this project.

Businesses completely dependant of internet? No way…

mariano — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 00:26:00 +0000

It seems that a fault in an undersea cable has crippled many of Pakistan’s internet and mobile phone links overseas, producing a business chaos chain reaction. Referring to this failure, Rahim Kothari, a foreign exchange dealer in Karachi, said: “We’re sitting here idle doing nothing. Trading volume has fallen by almost 80%.” Disruption could also occur in India, the United Arab Emirates, Djibouti and Oman, which are also linked by the cable, and could take up to two weeks to get fixed.

There’s no much more to say about the evident dependency we have of communications. Not so long ago, news would move from country to country in a not so sophisticated and fast way. However, with technology also came a good deal of necessities. One must communicate with fellow business man today, if not yesterday. Failure to do so could mean loosing indispensable opportunities.

Today, at RAC one reads: “Important alert for site users working with parties in some parts of Pakistan UAE, Djibouti, Oman and parts of India. A major internet undersea cable has a fault that has cut off internet access to and from these areas so you may not be able to communiciate with them for an estimated 2 weeks. If you are a buyer and cannot wait, please contact an arbitrator. Any coders affected will not receive a poor rating for this incident which is beyond their control.” Needless to say, they will not get a poor rating, but they could loose the projects they were working on.

Conclusions?

Well… Firefox behaves strangely somehow

mariano — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 22:14:00 +0000

Browsing around the net, I discovered the following: if you are using Firefox as your browser try inserting a wrong URL, such as (click on the link to test): http://http://www.cricava.com.

For some reason, you’ll see, you end up at microsoft.com website, no matter what you typed in as main domain. I’ve read someone saying that probably this is because the Firefox guys are making the following statement: “if you can’t even put a URL in the address bar properly you should be using IE.” That seems about right, doesn’t it?

However, the true answer is that Firefox uses Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” service when inserting what doesn’t appear to be a proper URL (so it considers it a keyword.) Then, Google takes you to the first appearance of a site that matches your search, and for the term “http”, that’s microsoft.com

I liked the statement explanation better, though

Firefox is a hungry mother!