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Monthly Archive for February, 2009

Play Beanbag Toss on Microsoft Surface

What type of application would you create if your target device is a 30 inch table?  Did I mention that it has a hardened top that can take some serious abuse?
Would you have considered a bean bag game?
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/3383810]
The clever folks at Razorfish are churning out some interesting Surface apps.  Check out their video archive [...]

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Quick Tip: Expression Blend - the Hand

 
There never seems to be enough screen space when working with Expression Blend or Visual Studio.   Sometimes in Blend the Artboard gets a little off center and you need to move it to see what you are working on.
In this screen shot the right edge of the button and window are not visible.

Scrollbars are [...]

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MS Demos Surface Physics Engine

James Wood has been quietly hacking away on a new Surface physics engine.  His job is to visualize and create proof of concept applications for Microsoft UK and this is his latest project.
A couple weeks ago James released some videos of his latest research.  Take a look, what do you think?  There are more videos [...]

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If you have ever been frustrated with the mutli-monitor support in Visual Studio 2008  you’ll be pleased to see what’s coming in VS 2010.
VS 2010 will sport a new WPF IDE.  Since the IDE is getting a complete rewrite it allows Microsoft to rethink multi-monitor.  Every window in VS will be ‘tear-off’.  Drag the properties [...]

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WPF has been out for a couple years.  That’s long enough that new releases of Microsoft products are sprouting WPF interfaces. 
Last year at PDC Microsoft announced that the code editor in Visual Studio would be re-written in WPF.   Microsoft didn’t stop at the code editor though.  Today Jason Zander, GM for Visual Studio, revealed [...]

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Ever week a new crop of Silverlight/WPF tools crosses my desk. It’s hard to keep up with the steady flow.    You can’t beat Silverlight Cream for a daily list of what’s new.
The latest item that caught my eye is SilverlightContrib.  This open source Silverlight library just shipped v 1.0.
Silverlight Contrib is a continuously evolving collection [...]

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Reflecting on Design #15

Kinetic typography is a form of animation that uses fonts and words as the main actors.  This style of animation, also known as moving type, can create complex animations mostly on moving text.

 

 
 

 

See the entire Reflecting on Design series.
The point is to find beauty elsewhere; photographs, typography, architecture, fine art, industrial design. Just maybe they’ll [...]

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Building a WPF Search Text Box

I’m sure you have encountered a search box that looks like the following.

 
This type of search box reminds me of a ComboBox.  It takes up very little space in your application and combines many constituent controls into a single control.  In this example the search text box contains a textbox, label and search/clear buttons. 
Unfortunately [...]

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Reflecting on Design #14

What do you do with a book?  If you are like most people your answer is probably; “read it…”.
But if you are an artist you might look at a book as a treasure to be mined for its internal beauty.  All you need is a scalpel and a fertile mind.
Brian Dettmer: Book Autopsies
Brian [...]

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Reflecting on Design #13

Nature is filled with interesting colors and juxtapositions.  Sometimes an organic shot is better than anything you can dream up for using as a pattern. 
Waterdrops on flower by Sophie

Macro photography gives a close-up, detailed look at the the hidden treasures which are all around us.  

 
 

See the entire Reflecting on Design [...]

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