I have never been great at graphic design. Let’s just say my talent barely exceeds the expectations one would have from a groundhog. But I can appreciate a wonderful website conception when I see one, looking at it from a sheer aesthetic point of view, as well as from an interface design and structure point of view.

Sometimes, pixel by pixel, one can strive to make each and every one look great. And some are really good at it, like my friend Mihai here, whose website wowed me into writing this short piece of review. Starting with the good taste in choice of colors to a very practical and good choice in data structuring, I have been impressed at the impact this website has. The design of the upper part blew me away, while I retained just enough attention to also notice the information contained within. Without further ado, pixelcool.com. Great job!

Pixelcool | we make every pixel look great!

Another interesting happening from the awesome world of SharePoint errors and (i dare say) bugs is this weird error you can sometimes get when you try to open a page in the SharePoint Designer, particularly a WebPart page, even the Default.aspx. Starting from the beginning, I should remind you how SharePoint web part pages work. The fact of the matter is that while you can edit them and their code in SharePoint Designer, adding/closing/deleting web parts from within the browser interface also modifies the page’s code. Continue reading…

HTC HD2

Ok, this website is not about the latest news, but I was totally fascinated by this: every geek’s dream. Today, Microsoft officially unveiled their latest and (not so much) greatest Windows Mobile 6.5, an intermediate step between the aging WM6.1 and the future and all-so-talked-about future, touch friendly and utterly amazing WM7. And along with the new OS which is not much more than a cosmetization of the old UI, came the thing that simply blew my mind: the HTC HD2.

The HTC HD2 has been known for several months now, as it leaked slowly but surely on each and every mobile phone website, but now it is official, along with it’s mind boggling specifications. Physically speaking, the HD2 is a true monster. It is simply huge, and while no word on the actual dimensions it’s safe to assume that it will be very hard to pocket with its 4.3″ display which is just about one of the biggest displays in the mobile world (excluding a few models such as the HTC Athena or HTC Shift which tend to cross the mobile phone line). Another thing that is revolutionary about it is the fact that this is the first device to sport a capacitive touchscreen and run Windows Mobile at the same time. Thus it has been subtly branded “Windows Mobile 7 ready” giving us something to look forward to in Microsoft’s mobile future. The device is also supposed to support multitouch, albeit not natively, in windows, but rather in apps within the HTC Sense UI [formerly TouchFLO 3D].

This PDA’s internal spec sheet is nothing short of amazing. It’s powered by a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and makes use of 448MBof RAM. This should provide a stable and fast enough platform for Windows (hopefully). As far as connectivity goes, the usual suspects are there such as WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS, with high-speed Internet access in the form of 7.2Mbps HSDPA and 2Mbps HSUPA completing the list. Of course, the device has a proximity sensor, a light sensor and an accelerometer, but these tend to become standard things in mobile phones, especially high-end ones such as the HTC HD2. As far as multimedia goes, a 5MP snapper and a 3.5mm audio jack complete the picture of the almost perfect PDA-phone.

The battery is quite big, though keeping in mind the quite long spec sheet, we have yet to see how well it will fare on the longevity front. It comes in a capacity of 1230mAh, while the old HTC Touch HD, with lower specs had a 1350mAh unit. There was no word on pricing, but we are about to find out, as the HD2 will be available to select carriers later this month.

Source: GSMArena

As part of their Open Screen Project, Adobe have rolled out the fresh new Flash Player 10.1 with a little twist: it’s multiplatform. Adobe claim that the new player will squeeze every bit of CPU and GPU power out of your handheld device running Android, Palm webOS, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Blackberry OS, along with running on computers sporting Linux, Mac OS and Windows. As part of the aforementioned Open Screen Project, the new player promises to allow the usage of Flash content directly from the OS’s file manager, web browser or streaming applications.

As far as interactivity goes, the browser-based runtime is going to allow viewing of just about any Flash content imaginable and support touch gestures (even going as far as multi-touch), accelerometer and stylus inputs. The new player will be available for Windows Mobile, Google Android, Palm webOS, Symbian and Blackberry OS, as well as for desktop Windows, Linux and Mac OS. No iPhone OS support, though. The beta is expected to arrive later this year.

Source: GSMArena

Many times you will need to manipulate data within a list in your custom SharePoint page or web part. Out of these times, you might also need to edit the data in that list like in, for example, a user profile edit page or a contact edit page. Some might say that this is a piece of cake, just assign the required value to the SPListItem and be on your way. Alas, this is not the case, since if you only do this you might realize that the data you need hasn’t been updated in the database. Though it cannot be called a major inconvenience with the SharePoint object model, it is a bit disorienting and might be a bit of a hassle until you get the actual hang of it. Continue reading…

Nokia E90

At A Glance

The Nokia E90 was at it’s time the ultimate smartphone and now, two years after it’s announcement, it still holds it’s own against the seemingly neverending flow of gadgeds top-filled with features as a full fledged business solution. Despite it’s hefty size and weight, this amazing brick of a smartphone is all about convergence and a bullet-proof spec sheet.

PROS: Convergent QWERTY device, huge internal display (4-inch with a 800×352 resolution), full 5-row QWERTY keyboard with convenient key layout and decent size, high-speed HSDPA 3.6Mbps connection, WLAN support, integrated GPS, 3.2MP camera with autofocus (poor to mediocre picture quality, but a plus on the multimedia side for the Nokia Communicator line), Symbian S60 v3.2 (Feature Pack 1) operating system running on a speedy 330MHz ARM processor, hardware graphics acceleration, huge battery.

CONS: Huge size (132 x 57 x 20mm) and hefty weight (210g), insufficent key feedback on internal keyboard, slow GPS signal acquisition, poor use of internal display real estate in some situations, no smart dialling. Continue reading…

Dell Precision M6400

At A Glance

The Dell Precision M6400 is a true powerhorse of a laptop. It is the ultimate performance machine in the notebook world unmatched save perhaps for the  Lenovo w700. As the lucky owner of one of there beauties, I thought it would be appropriate to write a short review describing my experience with this device. First of all, I know this notebook’s target include people working with graphically-intensive modeling and CAD applications, including AutoCAD, 3dsmax or Maya for example. So even though I’m not within this device’s main target, the cutting-edge performance it provides is just as useful in my field of work, the only component that is overpriced relative to what I need being the graphics adapter.

PROS: Powerful, loads of processing power, mind boggling 16GB RAM limit (DDR3 that is), two internal hard-disk bays and hardware RAID-0/RAID-1 support (no more replacing your optical drive for that all-so-practical RAID configuration or extra disk space), full-size backlit keyboard, very confortable touch pad, myriad of connectors and connectity options, slot-load DVD-RW drive (optional), exceptional 17″ 1920×1200 RGB LED display (optional, CCFL LCD standard) capable of rendering a full 100% of the Adobe’s sRGB color space for true 36-bit color display, huge 9-cell battery offering 2 hours of uptime (on Internet browsing, and it’s quite a long life keeping in mind the included hardware), solid construction with a anodized aluminum case.

CONS: Huge power adapter (it is literally enormous and heavy), grill below the display which covers the speakers feels a bit flimsy at times and catches lots of dust and debris, light keyboard flex. Continue reading…

I am posting this tutorial because it seems there are very few articles on the net that actually present you with a practical way of retrieving SharePoint user information in C#, for example to display in a WebPart. Most of these articles describe the method of programatically achieving this for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS), but in Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) this bit is more tricky. Mainly because WSS keep only limited user info and also because it uses a hidden list to store that information. Continue reading…

I’m going to start my dev journal by expressing my frustrations at Microsoft SharePoint and all that it stands for. Usually, I am a man that likes to create his own solutions from the ground up simply because it’s better that way. There are several reasons for that, among which the possibility of knowing the classes you work with, creating your own workflow, setting your own standard of functionality. These would be only the major advantages of working with your own code. In the following article I will assess some of the things I like and many more things I dislike about Microsoft’s SharePoint solution. By “SharePoint” I am going to refer to the more crippled edition that is Windows SharePoint Services, available as a free download from Microsoft’s website and installable on any computer running Windows Server 2003 or 2008.

Now, why have I picked up SharePoint in the first place? Well, sometimes you don’t get to play by your own rules and a client requests that a specific tool be used in the development of his solution and, since the customer is (almost) always right I set up in my trek amidst the tangled jungle of what is possibly the best and worst thing to happen to ASP.NET-based solutions lately. I’ve only worked with the thing for 3 weeks now, so I’m still learning the ropes so I’ll beg your pardon if I speak out of my league. On the surface, SharePoint looks like a real time and money saver, since it offers a lot of functionality straight out-of-the-box. It handles your security, it handles all those nasty things like organizing your users, permissions, groups, websites, content so you don’t have to. Basically you could build a simple Team Site for your small business right from the start, without the hassle of writing code, worrying about exceptions, databases, connections, classes and other outerworldly stuff like that. Continue reading…