Codeguru Update eNewsletter – August 11th, 2009

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Tuesday August 11, 2009


This Week’s Topics


Comments from the Editor

I know I’ve talked about this a lot, but I believe there are a lot of connections between gaming and computers. This week is the GenCon Conference in Indianapolis where tens of thousands of gamers will converge into a single location to play games. Many of these games are not computer-based, but several are. You might thing this sounds a bit whimsical, but it is actually very serious business.

Online communities and social networks are growing in popularity. One of the books I mention in today’s newsletter focuses on profiting by starting an online community. One community that is being launched in the very near futures will likely get serious coverage at GenCon this week. Thist is Champions Online by Atari. Don’t be fooled into thinking it is “just a game.” It is going to be an application of technology that allows thousands of people to interact and communication. Consider similar software online such as SecondLife, which allows for numerous business applications. As people start playing these games, they will expect the same types of features in their more productive applications. For these reasons, as developers, we need to pay attention.

It is also interesting to see that while GenCon is not a computer conference, they are tapping into technology as well. They will have an application created by LaViaz Mobile called “Gen Con Indy Mobile” that will let iPhone and iPhone Touch users synchronize the conference catalog while at the event. Attendees will be able to mark events that they are attending, as well as be able to let their friends know what events they are attending. With the obvious FaceBook and Twitter connections within the application, it should help attendees keep in touch and connect up. While that might seem minor, when there are tens of thousands of people spread across an entire convention center and a few hotels, it can be hard to find others!

The bottom line — while it might seem that a conference such as GenCon is all about games, it really isn’t that hard to create justifications for a developer to need to spend a day or two there instead of staying in the office. After all, it is a chance to learn.

Until next week…

Brad!
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Bradley L. Jones
www.CodeGuru.com
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Recently Published Books

For those of you keeping up by reading books. The following are just a few of the new books that have been recently released. If you’ve read any of these, feel free to write a review to be posted on CodeGuru. See the submission guidelines.

Smart Start-Ups

By David Silver for Wiley
288 pages for $24.95 (Hardbound)
“How Entrepreneurs and Corporations Can Profit by Starting Online Communities”

Murach’s ADO.NET 3.5 LINQ and the Entity Framework w/ C# 2008


By Anne Boehm for Murach
720 pages for $52.50

New & Updated Articles on CodeGuru

Following are short descriptions of new articles on CodeGuru. If you are interested in submitting your own article for inclusion on the site, then you will find guidelines here.

Extending Microsoft’s Concurrency and Coordination Runtime with MSMQ

By Jeffrey Juday
Join Microsoft’s Concurrency and Coordination Runtime and MSMQ to coordinate work across processes on multiple computers.

How to Read and Write ODF/ODS Files (OpenDocument Spreadsheets)

By JosipKr
Understand the basics of the ODF format, and specifically its implementation in spreadsheet applications (OpenOffice.org Calc and Microsoft Office Excel 2007 SP2). Presented is a demo application that writes/reads tabular data to/from .ODS files.

Creating Responsive .NET Applications with Microsoft Concurrency and Coordination Runtime (CCR)

By Jeffrey Juday
Discover how CCR can work with the .NET Ping class APM functions.

VIDEO: Deploying Applications with ClickOnce

By Dan Rigsby
ClickOnce offers a fast, secure, and reliable way to easily deploy your Windows applications and ensures that your users know about software updates. This video introduces ClickOnce and some of the power it can give your deployments.

Discussion Groups

Check out the CodeGuru discussion forums

Forums include Visual C++, General C++, Visual Basic, Java, General Technology, C#, ASP.NET, XML, Help Wanted, and much, much, more!

… HOT THREADS …


reinterpret_cast<> and where can it be used (C++)


Theory Question: Global Variables (C++)


Is OLE automation via Dll possible? (VB 6)

New Articles on Developer.com

Extending Microsoft’s Concurrency and Coordination Runtime with MSMQ
Join Microsoft’s Concurrency and Coordination Runtime and MSMQ to coordinate work across processes on multiple computers.

Performance Impact of Using Spring.NET Dependency Injection
Looking to start using Spring.NET to provide Dependency Injection in your next project? In this article I will show the performance impact of Spring.NET Dependency Injection and compare it to performing the same functions natively.

Creating a Home Screen App Widget on Android
You can integrate Android applications into the Android platform seamlessly in new and interesting ways using App Widgets.

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