Search results matching tag 'Windows 7'

Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio R3 released

paulfo — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 11:02:46 GMT

Slipping out at the end of May was the R3 release of Microsoft RDS. I’ve played with RDS since the early days, but my time has been occupied lately with mobile phones. But the most significant change with RDS is that it is now FREE – not more express, standard or academic editions. RDS is now built for VS2010 :-) which means I just need VS2010 for Windows, Web, Cloud, Xbox Games, Windows Phone7 and ROBOTS.

Completely awesome :-)

A1DW who has been peacefully sitting under the stairs for the last 6 months is already on charge preparing for a upgrade to R3. His already running Windows 7…

See Trevor Taylor on Channel 9 talking about MS RDS R3, and download if from here. Additional, codeplex samples are here.

UK Media Centre and Windows Home Server User Group event 12th June

paulfo — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 08:40:06 GMT

Join us for the UK Media Center and Windows Home Server User Group event. Saturday 12th June 2010 10am to 4pm at the studio in Birmingham.

We love Windows Media Center, the application built into virtually every version of Windows that lets you enjoy TV, Movies, Photo's and a whole lot more from 10ft away from your PC. We love it so much that we want to show you how to build the very best PC specifically for watching TV and enjoying media. We'll even show you how to extend it's capabilities to the limit and how you can enjoy your media throughout your house, sharing your TV with every PC in your house, or even with your mobile or net book.

If you're development minded we have some of the UK's best Media Center and Windows Phone 7 developers showcasing what's possible when you get down and dirty with code.

If building a kick ass home theater that makes the best of your favourite movies or learning cutting edge code doesn't appeal but you're still into this Media Center gig then come a long just for the chance of winning load of cool swag...we're giving away Media Streamers, Zune's and other cool stuff.

http://thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/TDL/b/ian/archive/2010/06/01/book-now-for-the-media-center-whs-user-group.aspx

Windows 7: Setup GPS for the Location API

paulfo — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:56:00 GMT

One of my favourite features of Windows 7 is the new Sensor and Location API. So far I have been able to utilise commercial sensor boards and my own home brew Basic Stamp facilitated sensors. the one thing I haven’t been able to play with is the Location API. This is due to my aging GPS devices not having a Windows 7 driver.

However, revisiting the topic today I have discovered a generic COM port redirection driver for GPS devices connected directly or via BlueTooth. This Windows 7 sensor driver has enabled me to use my BlueTooth HOLUX GPSlim240 with the demonstration applications from Gavin Gear’s blog, to make my Windows 7 laptop location aware.

You need Visual Studio VS2010 beta 2 or better to use the code. Note, changes are expected in the Location API in .Net 4.0 RC expected soon.

Here is the task list:

Connect up your GPS device to your Windows 7 machine. I used a BlueTooth connection which came in on COM40. From reading other posts I tried 4800 baud as the data rate to the device and this is working great.
Test your GPS connection. I used the TurboGPS application to do this, using the settings in 1. All worked fine – I’d forgotten just how fast the Holux GPS I have is in starting up. Awesome!
Install the generic GPS com port redirection driver. You will get an unknown publisher error because the code is signed by the developers own cert. When installing you need to supply the correct com port and baud rate – hence the stage 2 test step!
Windows 7 then asks permission to enable the location device. If you don’t approve it, you can't use it!
Ok, so now our hardware is connected up lets look at the first simple application. This is from Gavin’s blog, paste the code into a new VS2010 C# console application project:

using System;

// This namespace is where you'll find the location API in .NET 4

// **Note that you'll have to add a reference to System.Device.dll first

using System.Device.Location;

namespace LocationAPI
{

    class Program
    {

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {

            Console.WriteLine("Outputting location updates, press any key to exit...");

            // The LocationWatcher object will monitor location updates

            // and output them to the console

            LocationWatcher watcher = new LocationWatcher();

            Console.ReadKey();

        }

    }

    class LocationWatcher
    {

        // Root object for the .NET 4 Location API

        // we'll hang on to a reference for the lifetime of

        // the LocationWatcher object

        private GeoLocationProvider provider;

        public LocationWatcher()
        {

            // Initialize our private member

            this.provider = new GeoLocationProvider();

            // Subscribe to updates when our location changes

            this.provider.LocationChanged += new

                System.EventHandler<GeoLocationChangedEventArgs>(provider_LocationChanged);

            // When we call Start(), two things happen

            // 1. If we don't have permissions to access the location sensor(s),

            //    the user will be presented with a dialog where they can grant

            //    permissions

            // 2. If we have permissions, following this call, we'll be able to 

            //    access location data, and we'll get LocationChanged events if

            //    we have setup an event handler

            this.provider.Start();

        }

        void provider_LocationChanged(object sender, GeoLocationChangedEventArgs e)
        {

            // Output the new location coordinate to the console if present

            if (e.Location.Coordinate != GeoCoordinate.Unknown)
            {

                Console.WriteLine(

                    "Latitude:  " + e.Location.Coordinate.Latitude.ToString() +

                    " Longitude: " + e.Location.Coordinate.Longitude.ToString());

            }

        }

    }

}

All being well you’ll have an exciting result looking like this:

Note: modified image to protect my security!

But now we have the basics running we can do all sorts of things.

For a start, enabling the built-in Windows 7 Weather Gadget has it instantly configured to match your current location, and giving you accurate weather status.

Yes I can confirm by looking out of my office window - it is snowing.

Enabling the Location API adds another capability to your context-aware applications.

Wiimote XNA games

paulfo — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:51:14 GMT

Just before the festive holidays I signed up to support Microsoft Research Cambridge with a technology show for local school leavers. Called ‘Think Computer Science’ it was an awesome event with both Andrew Herbert and Chris Bishop speaking. Andrew shared some great anecdotes from his many years in the computer industry (I didn’t know the Tornado on board computer was so big and underwhelming), and Chris made lots of load bangs while blowing up or setting light to things – all to show the potential of organic computing – with performance to boggle the mind (can’t wait to do robotics with that!).

Mr Sithers and I shared a small exhibit space amongst the MSR boffins with our XNA demonstrations. Notably Goblin XNA, XNA on Zune HD, a Development Xbox 360 and my Wiimote modified XNA Racing Game starter kit.

I found the Wiimote .Net assembly on Coding4fun, and couldn’t resist borrowing one my families revered controllers to make the XNA Racing Game drivable ‘just like Mario Karts(TM)’. The Coding4fun article says the Wiimote, although a BlueTooth device, only works with certain BlueTooth PC stacks. Luckily for me, the Toshiba stack on my X200 worked fine – but note, before putting in lots of effort, try pairing off a Wiimote to your PC using the instructions in the Coding4fun article (ie don’t use a pairing pin!!)

The Coding4fun stuff made the modifications trivial to do and with so little effort involved I was able to waste a good period of time playing it – complete with Wimote steering wheel :-)

Basically the Accelerometer data is easily accessible and this was used to affect the cars speed and steering. I was able to use the source from the Windows 7 Sensor Racing Game version, which already had coding changes for an accelerometer and ambient light sensor.

Most of the changes are in the Input.cs. Here the existing sensor initialisation was ripped out or replaced with the much simpler set up of the Wiimote. I discovered that to use the wiimote in the horizontal ‘Mario Kart’ style I needed to swap the use of the X and Y axis in the existing Accelerometer code.

Having removed the ambient light sensor code I had to re-instated the original PreScreenSkyCubeMapping.cs. The modified one changed the sky colour based on ambient sensor data.

I didn’t do any averaging of the Wiimote accelerometer data to smooth out rapid changes across frames, this results in a very sensitive driving style (much less Mario Karts) but worked fine.

What is clear to me, is that the fun of the WII gaming genre is entirely open to implementation on the Windows PC using XNA – as long as you have a compatible BlueTooth stack. Something to explore more of now I have a full deck of WII Motion Plus devices :-)

You can download the modified Wiimote Racing Game source here. Complete solution at 221mb.

SharePoint 2010 on Windows 7 x64

paulfo — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:11:24 GMT

I’m just completing the installation of a standalone development environment for SharePoint 2010 Beta on my Windows 7 x64 netbook. There are a few gotchas to doing this which I wanted to share with you, it turns out that they are all well documented by the SharePoint team but finding them is always easier if someone pulls together the reading list first.

The most comprehensive documentation is by Jie Li:

http://blogs.msdn.com/opal/archive/2009/11/16/installation-notice-for-sharepoint-2010-public-beta.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/opal/archive/2009/10/25/sharepoint-2010-pre-requisites-download-links.aspx

But I found my Configuration Wizard failing with ‘IIS Not Found’ and had to look further. Then I discovered the SharePoint team blog document:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee554869(office.14).aspx

In Step 8 of the above post, there is an IIS configuration script that needed to be run to. Once I’d done this from the wizard proceeded without issue until it had completed 8 out of 10 tasks.

It then failed again with ‘Failed to create sample data’. Looking into the log file I could see that a web service call had timed out. Suspecting that this was a ‘first run’ issue, I closed a few Windows and re-ran the configuration wizard…15 years as a MS techie doesn’t count for nothing you know ;-)

Of course, a more powerful machine is unlikely to encounter the time out. My target machine is my much loved Acer Ferrari One Netbook – the AMD L310 dual core, 64-bit wonder that I now carry by my side always. This machine is totally awesome, and with 4GB RAM installed, it can do a hell of a lot despite its diminutive size.

While typing the above, the config wizard has now completed the re-run of step 8 and has just finished successfully. I’m looking at the default SharePoint site running in IE8. Memory usage is quite high at 3.46GB, but after the default site creation (which took a while) performance navigating around the site is ok.

Now to get into the new VS2010 SharePoint devenv for some fun and games.

Windows 7: Building your own sensors

paulfo — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 12:52:14 GMT

Windows 7 has a built in sensor and location platform, the key feature of this is any sensor devices connected to it become operating system level resources which any number of applications can utilise the data from. Up until now, sensor devices (like GPS) were ‘owned’ by the first application to grab them, and prevented any other application from accessing the device while running. That has all changed in Windows 7, but we are still waiting for sensor manufactures to update their drivers to fit with the new world of Windows 7.

So while they ponder, lets get on and do some cool stuff ourselves!

The MS Press book ‘Introducing Windows 7 for developers’ has a great couple of chapters on the new sensor and location platform – chpr 9 and 10. These make excellent reading to help you understand just how everything works. Luckily for us, just before Christmas, Donn Morse posted a create article and sample on Coding4fun – so we can utilise Donn’s excellent work to make our custom sensors.

In the article, Donn uses the veritable Parallax Basic Stamp 2 as the intermediary between sensors and the Windows 7 machine. The Basic Stamp is well suited to utilising the range of cheap I2C based sensor devices that have been the main stay of homebrew and professional robotics development for decades.

The sample project includes Windows application, Windows 7 sensor driver and Basic Stamp firmware for linking up a motion detector, but also supports a compass sensor, a 2 axis accelerometer, and a ultra-sonic distance sensor. These devices are all inexpensively available from my good friends at Devantech – who also have USB to I2C interface modules including wireless versions. Using these interface modules obviously cuts out the need for a Basic Stamp 2 but requires the Sensor driver to do all the direct sensor work. I shall explore these options over the next few weeks and let you know how I get on!

I know many of you will think the Basic Stamp 2 is somewhat old hat and have been enjoying the more modern delights of the Arduino devices. As the Arduino development boards use USB rather than RS232 to communicate with the PC. Donn comments in his post that he is working with Brian Jepson to create a driver that works with the Arduino – so we can eagerly await this update.

Donn’s Windows application uses the Windows7.SensorAndLocation DLL from the Windows 7 Code Pack which is also available as a free download and includes the source.

Donn explains the detail of the implementation in his article included with the sample download. Based on the Sensor and Location SDK Skeleton driver example, Donn upgrades this hardware emulating driver to use real hardware based on RS232 communications.

The whole project is an interesting read if only to educate yourself more on the capabilities of Windows 7 – but for all of us tinkerers it facilitates another fun project and adds a bucket load of ideas to the task list. I really recommend it to you!

PDC Windows 7 Bootcamp now online

paulfo — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:19:18 GMT

The Windows 7 Bootcamp from PDC09 is now available to watch online. It is worth a watch to learn the inner details of Windows 7, the how and why behind some of the feature changes and additions. Watching this stuff is well worth the invested time.

PDC 09 attendees get free Win7 laptop

paulfo — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:43:40 GMT

Steven Sinofsky announced at PDC09 day 2 keynote, that all PDC 09 attendees would receive a MSFT designed, Acer built, Windows 7 laptop free of charge.

The laptop has a touch screen, full sensor and location functionality, is 64-bit and fully loaded up with Office 2010 beta and lots more.

Designed to enable application developers to get to grips with Windows 7 features, the keynote audience were first stunned and then jubilant at the gift.

To get going on Windows 7 application enhancement take a look here.

Taking your app forward to Win7

paulfo — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:05:50 GMT

If you are looking for a concise guide to the features you should consider for your application to shine on Windows 7 look here.

A simple list of the 7 things you could do to rejuvenate your applications and ensure they work will and correctly in the modern world of Windows 7.

Super cool themes for Windows 7

paulfo — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:23:04 GMT

A collection of really cool brand theme packs for Windows7 is available here. Just press Download and select Open to install your favourite theme. Me? I went for Porsche. The 911 is my dream car, and although I’ve had a ride in a few, I don’t own one - yet.

Make Windows 7 in your image: