Branch is closed. You are most welcome at 22nd street, Headoffice.

Guys! You must be wondering about my absense. No, I am not involved in any drugs enhancements. I have not faced any accident lately, I am was just absent and working on our headquarters which is now open to serve you.

I always believe in TEAM work. Hence, I'm a part of one. So I'd be really happy if you visit our new weblog which is Geekword (same name, different urls, different people.. with different thoughts).

See you there! =)

Socket Programming, Instant Messenger pre-req

This tutorial speaks about the creation of TCP/IP socket and use of this connection between applications. The client-server architecture can be local or distributed over the network. I will discuss it in a simple manner which would help you in developing a small chat-like application. Based on this application, I will let you know how to develop an Instant LAN Messenger in WPF using Socket Programming.

The .NET Framework provides us a higher level of abstraction upon sockets in the form of TcpListener and TcpClient. TcpListener is a high level interface for server and TCPClient is for client application. They are both implemented over sockets but provide easier and high level interface. NetworkStream is used for an end to end communication between TcpListener and TcpClient. We can use both stream reader and writer over NetworkStream through StreamReader and StreamWriter.

I will use two namespaces System.Net and System.Net.Sockets which are required for Socket Programming. Basically, TCPListener class provides simple methods to listen and accept incoming connection requests whereas, TcpClient class implements a socket for sending and receiving data using TCP.

IPAddress class provides an Internet Protocol (IP) address and it’s used by clients to get connected with the server.

For the code of TcpServer and TcpClient, please visit Redmond Pie.

SkyDrive updated - 25GB of free online storage

Six months ago, the last update to SkyDrive right there on the SkyDrive team blog was announced. Although they have been pretty hush-hush since then, the team has been working diligently to bring you new features and improvements across SkyDrive and the rest of Windows Live based directly on your feedback.

While they work on the finishing touches, here's a taste of what's to come.

• Even more free online storage - Bringing you the grand total of 25MB free online storage.
• More control over your data - Download your photos / files directly or in a zipped format. You can also move and copy them between multiple folders.
• Photos rule - Twenty new features have been included in this release that contains bigger thumbnails, order prints, slide show and people tag.
• Sharing sould be easy - Share your files and photos without requiring friends and family to use Windows Live ID. Also, see what your friends have shared lately all in one place with some more features.
• Plus much, much more - Keep your Internet Explorer favorites in sync between computers, and access them anywhere from your SkyDrive. A complete overhaul of the look and feel to match the look and feel of Windows Live and many more..

ZONG introduces USB GPRS/EDGE modem

Zong, the international brand of China Mobile in Pakistan has launched a simple, smart and elegant USB GPRS/EDGE modem that is capable of catering to all consumers needs including mobile professionals, laptop computer users and frequent travellers due to its efficiency and affordability elements.

This Internet USB card will facilitate fast Internet browsing, instant access and the uninterrupted ability both to upload and download data. Combining cutting edge technologies with sleek design, ZONG's customers can look forward to enjoying high-speed wireless access, both at home and on the go.

The plug-and-play featured devices are compatible with Windows 2000 (SP4 or above), Windows XP (5P2 Or above), Windows Vista and Mac, whether run on a PC, laptop or handheld device. SMS software is also installed, allowing texts to be sent directly from the computer.

For further details visit Zong's website.

Samsung Beat, the new music phone

Samsung Electronics on Thursday launched its newest music phone, Samsung beat (model M3510) as the starters of the company's music phone line The Beat Edition TM". Steve Han, Country Manager Samsung Electronics said the new music phones offer heart-beating music experience to music-loving mobile users who lead dynamic and passionate lifestyle.


M3510 is equipped with Digital Natural Sound engine, also known as DNSeTM, which is inherited from Samsung's own audio technology, provides more natural sound effects, perfectly overcoming the limitations of sound from earphones and small speakers in portable devices. It reproduces a genuine 3D sound and deep bass resonance.

Windows Mobile 6.5 screenshots revealed

Screenshots for the new Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system have appeared on SmartphoneFrance delivered by an Anonymous source. The new interface is designed to be touch-friendly by having a honeycomb home page as well as a carousel menu.

In previous Windows Mobile releases, the items in menus were often too small to use a finger, forcing the user to resort to a stylus. Windows Mobile 6.5 hopes to change this by having a large scrolling menu that enlarges the current object and provides additional information for it. The honeycomb menu shown above allows the user to quickly select their task. Tasks that are used more often appear closer to the center of the screen.

These screenshots have yet not been confirmed by me.

Farewell Windows 3.x

Windows 3.x has come to the closing moments of its long life. On 1 November Microsoft stopped issuing licences for the software that made its debut in May 1990 in the US.

The various versions of Windows 3.x (including 3.11) released in the early 1990s, were the first of Microsoft's graphical user interfaces to win huge worldwide success.

They helped Microsoft establish itself and set the trend for how it makes its revenues, and what drives the company until the present day.

Windows 3.x required an 8086/8088 processor or better that had a clock speed of up to 10MHz. It needed at least 640KB of RAM, seven megabytes of hard drive space, and a graphics card that supported CGA, EGA and VGA graphics.

By comparison, the Home Basic version of Windows Vista requires a 32-bit 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 20GB of hard drive space, and a graphics card with at least 32MB of memory.

Convert your Text to Speech in Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)

Converting text to speech does not only help the children in Kindergarten, but it is also beneficial for variety of domains. In this tutorial, I'd let you know how to build a text-to-speech sample using Microsoft Speech API (SAPI) with Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). This application will allow you to browse a text file, open it in a RichTextBox control, set the volume and rate of the speech.

So first of all, let me give you a brief introduction about this latest Microsoft Speech API (SAPI) version 5.3. It is a managed API that allows developers to write speech enable applications in .NET Framework 3.0 and it is already integrated with Windows Vista. Physically, this API resides in System.Speech.Dll assembly.

Please read the full article at Redmond Pie.

Touchless

Touchless enables touch without touching by using a webcam to track color based markers.

Touchless includes two parts:

• Touchless Demo is an open source application that anyone with a webcam can use to experience multi-touch, no geekiness required. There are 4 fun demos: Snake - where you control a snake with a marker, Defender - up to 4 player version of a pong-like game, Map - where you can rotate, zoom, and move a map using 2 markers, and Draw - the marker is used to guess what.... draw!
• Touchless SDK is an open source SDK that enables developers to create multi-touch based applications using a webcam for input, geekiness recommended.

This project is an Office Labs community project. So you can also download it's SDK, try the application or watch demo video from the source.

Firefox knows where your computer is located

Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox browser, has released technology that helps websites detect the physical location of computers.

The system will allow users, for instance, to find local restaurants when they travel to a new town.

The Geode project is an experimental add-on ahead of a full blown launch of geolocation technology in version 3.1 of Firefox. Users will have control over how much location information they give. It uses technology from a firm called Skyhook which works out a computer's location from nearby wireless networks.

Its so-called Loki system can determine location within seconds with an accuracy of about 10 to 20 metres.

PTCL offers free internet services from October 18

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) has decided to offer free internet services to all its customers, effective from October 18, 2008.

Dr Sadik Al-Jadir, Senior Executive Vice President SEVP Commercial stated, "With this perspective, PTCL, the largest IP service provider in Pakistan now brings a revolutionary offer for all its landline subscribers, which is unmatched anywhere in the world.

Sadik said that PTCL landline subscribers could now experience the best dial up speeds with unlimited internet usage during night hours from 10:00 pm to 07:00 am and they could avail up to 100 hours of free dialup internet on monthly basis from 07:00 am to 10:00 pm every day. He further said that to access the internet subscriber should simply dial 131-7777 with "ptcl" as login and password.

From October 18th, PTCL customers availing unlimited dialup internet package of Rs 199/month will not be charge anymore. However, customer exceeding 100 hr of free internet during day time will be charged as per existing tariff of PTCL dial up internet of Rs 6/h. in addition, PTCL is also shifting customers of value plus (Rs 75/month for 20 hrs of dial up internet) to basic plus, which has no additional charges effective from November 1, 2008, he added.

In this connection, this Free Internet offer has replaced their limited time (3 months) free local calls promotion allowing free local calls between 11pm to 6am, which has ended in October.

Microsoft's Oslo on the move

Microsoft plans to give developers their first crack at its new Oslo modeling technology later this month when it releases an early test version of the software at the company's semiannual Professional Developers Conference, Microsoft announced Friday.

The company is calling the release a community technology preview

Model-driven software development seeks to impose rule-based structure and workflow on applications in order to make software development more efficient and the software itself more stable and better suited to the needs of users. Oslo itself includes three pieces: a new programming language to help architects and developers describe models, a visual modeling tool, and a repository for storing different models in a database [...]