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May 14, 2008

Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta and Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 Beta Now Available

Microsoft has released the Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta and Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 Beta versions and is now available for download.

As per the MSDN website, the Visual Studio 2008 SP1 "includes support for SQL Server 2008, new ADO.NET features such as the Entity Framework, improvements to the WPF designers, WCF templates for Silverlight projects, debugger support for the .NET Framework public symbols and source release, control improvements such as the DataRepeater for Windows Forms and Office 2007 Ribbons for C++, and several general updates for debugging and IntelliSense. SP1 also enhances the stability, performance, and security of many features."

"The included .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 adds many new features and fixes, including the following:

  • .NET Framework Client Release (“Arrowhead”)
  • ASP.NET Dynamic Data
  • ASP.NET Routing
  • ADO.NET Data Services
  • ADO.NET Entity Framework"

To download the same please click the below links:

Posted by E. Krishna Kumar at 05:03 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Office 2007 - Word has stopped working !

Yesterday while trying to open a DOCX file, my Word started to crash. Everytime I would open, i will get a message saying "Word has stopped working". However i tried to open the document, this kept on happening. Checking event log took me no closer to the issue

The message was "Faulting application WINWORD.EXE, version 12.0.6211.1000, time stamp 0x46d4a7df, faulting module wwlib.dll, version 12.0.6212.1000, time stamp 0x46e03d42, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x000210c6, process id 0x1738, application start time 0x01c8b579a153ac6b." with an EventID of 1000

I then tried to open a DOC file suspecting something had gone wrong with DOCX and that too caused the crash and needless to say Word had been working all these days. I hate it when things start to go wrong with no obvious reason. 

I was sure that there no devil's hand at work, so what went wrong all of a sudden? I then noticed "Connecting to Printer, Press ESC to Cancel" in the status bar when loading the document. Since I was travelling my default network printer was no longer accessible. Hmm ! Was that it? I set my local Microsoft XPS Document Writer as default printer and all seemed to be fine again. Word was able to open the documents without any issues.

It is strange that Word tries to connect to the default printer on startup itself. Ideally this should not happen till I really try to print. Afterall I was just trying to read the document !!

Posted by Atul Gupta at 04:22 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

May 13, 2008

WPF Label or TextBlock

Pre WPF days just had a Label control and hence there wasn't really a choice. Now in WPF you have Label and a new TextBlock control. I have been wondering on usually which one to use in the application when i hit upon this interesting comparison between the two by Josh. There is one additional difference mentioned in comments down below on that blog that talk about auto inversion of colors for TextBlock if it is part of say a ListItem. However to me it looked more like setting the Foreground to white, since when i tried with styling the item selection color to something else, the TextBlock still showed white color.

Honestly I am now left more confused. TextBlock is light weight and hence good from app performance perspective, but Label gives the access key functionality, something that people prefer to have in their applications. It will be really good to have this functionality extended to TextBlock.

What is it that you use in your applications and why? Comments welcome. 

Posted by Atul Gupta at 06:30 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

May 12, 2008

Web Accessibility: Myths and Misconceptions

In this last of the four-part blog series on fundamentals of Web Accessibility; let us consider some prevailing misconceptionss about web Accessibility.

In the early part of Web evolution, the available technologies did not adequately support Web accessibility. It was nearly impossible to develop visually appealing, complex, dynamic websites that were also adequately accessible.  But things have changed since those early days. Technologies spanning all the interconnected components - web technologies (XHTML and CSS), browsers and assistive technologies have evolved. Style sheets offer more presentation functionality. Browsers provide text resizing and assistive technologies can handle complex tables.


·         Myth One: Accessibility makes sites look bland and boring


The reasons for prevalence of this perception are historic. As already mentioned, technology did restrict the implementation of accessibility in early days of Web evolution.  But even as things started to improve, many organizations providing these sites could not upgrade the quality of design because they were short on design skills.  Another problem that prevailed was the inability to explore opportunities for creativity within the confines of accessibility requirements.  People misinterpreted WCAG 1.0 guidelines to mean that one cannot use JavaScript and cannot open new browser windows in accessible web sites. If a web page can ensure that a job can be done using an alternative way to the scripting, use of scripts per say is not prevented by accessibility standards. The same thing applies to the opening of new windows. The WCAG checkpoint 10.1 does not say don’t do it; it just says that if you do it, inform the user that you are doing it. Another important contributor to the ‘accessibility is boring’ perception in early days of Web was the lack of accessibility support in the then brand new ‘Flash’ user interface development technology.   


·         Myth Two:  Accessibility it expensive and hard


When organizations get started with accessibility, much of the cost is up-front knowledge and skills acquisition.  A few aspects of accessibility such as captions for multimedia are costly but it is possible to control the overall accessibility related expenses by starting accessibility implementation at the very beginning of the project, understanding and minimizing the costs across each interdependent component and involving people with disabilities throughout. Finally, given that accessibility is essential for equal opportunity for people and is required by law in many cases, the accessibility related expenses fall in its own category and accessibility cannot be sacrificed for cost cutting.


·         Myth Three: Accessibility is the sole responsibility of Web developers


As explained in the earlier blog post, a lot of pieces of technology need to work together to deliver the overall accessibility experience. Web developers need to follow the guidelines and requirements, but authoring tools and accessibility technologies could make it lot easy for web developers to implement sites that adhere to the accessibility requirements.


·         Myth Four: Accessibility is for people who are blind


Much of the efforts in implementing accessibility requirements (like WCAG standards) are directed towards helping blind people.  A lot or research publications and expert reviews have also focused on blind subjects thereby promoting this misconception that accessibility support is mainly for blind people.  But as explained in the first posting, web accessibility needs to accommodate a wide array of disabilities.  Authoring tools, assistive technologies as well as testing tools are available to ensure that all these disabilities are accommodated.


·         Myth Five: Evaluation tools can determine accessibility and conformance to standards


Web accessibility evaluation tools are software programs and online services that help determine if a website meets accessibility guidelines. Evaluation tools are very helpful and reduce the time and effort necessary for testing. But no tool in itself can completely determine the accessibility of a web site. An expert assessment is necessary because some of the accessibility requirements and checkpoints are not objective enough to allow complete automation of the accessibility testing process.

 

Posted by Chandan Gokhale at 02:25 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 08, 2008

Windows XP SP3

New Service Pack - SP3 is now available for Windows XP. You can download it from here. Also note that you can also install SP3 from Windows Update.

If you are one of those who have already been working with IE 8 Beta, then you will need to uninstall it before installing SP3. Check more details on SP3's behavior with various IE versions here.  

Posted by Atul Gupta at 01:57 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 06, 2008

Collaboration, Connectivity and devices –Future trends and .NET

In Future, A Disconnected device would be strange, would be an alien.
Here’s a presentation which throws some insight into the future web trends.http://www.slideshare.net/matthewbuckland/future-web-trends?src=related_normal&rel=193809
The Presentation mainly focuses on Connectivity, collaboration and discrete devices of today that would be transformed into intelligent smart connected devices in future.

Now when we look at it , Some questions of interest arise :

1.What is the size and growth rate of this market space?
2.What are these smart devices capable of? (Refer to my previous posts on this)
3.How do they collaborate with other devices, applications and the web?(Refer to my Previous posts on this)
4.What are the development tools available to develop such systems keeping in view the dynamics of this market and backward compatibility?
5.Are devices ranging across different resource constraints easy to program and Debug?
6.Are these devices capable of providing intuitive user interactions?
7.Is this ecosystem a secure paradigm?


When we analyze all these areas, we find that this ecosystem is the one for the future. Huge investments and development efforts are going to go into this in the near future.The markets for this ecosystem cut across all domains right from domestic toys, Gaming to Finance, Healthcare, Governance etc.

Now, We have a single development paradigm which offers to solve all our above concerns, be it RAD or device centric programming or SOA.It’s the “.NET Paradigm”.


The following six Frameworks and communication mechanisms along with associated technologies like DBMS etc. provide an end to end development facility across Applications, Web and Devices (even tiny and highly resource constrained ones).
.NET Framework
.NET Compact Framework
.NET Micro framework 
Windows Point of Service for .NET
Windows sideshow
DPWS and RF based communication protocols (Refer to my previous posts to get an idea on this)

Thanks to the  RAD environment like Visual Studio which makes development, debugging and deployment so easy even in the case of devices.So having identified the availability of the required mechanisms, it’s time to fasten our seat belts to face the challenges and deliver solutions for future demands in line with this emerging ecosystem. 

Posted by Venkatesh Rajagopalan Narayanan at 06:03 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

May 05, 2008

Web Accessibility: Interconnected Components

Much of the focus of web accessibility has been on the responsibilities of the web developer or web content developer. But accessible web content gets consumed through a series of interconnected technologies.  And for comprehensive accessibility, all these interconnected component technologies must work in tandem and must all support accessibility.

In my previous post about the accessibility related legal framework it was highlighted that the onus of understanding and implementing relevant accessibility standards and guidelines is on the web development agency.  But the web content developer has to work in a complex, interconnect world of technologies.


The different web development technology components that have impact on overall accessibility include
·         Content items like text, images, sounds and markup that defines structure and presentation
·         Web browsers and media players
·         Assistive technologies like screen readers, alternative keyboards, switches, scanning software
·         Authoring tools used to create web sites
·         Accessibility evaluation/testing tools and validation tools used to validate CSS and HTML


If an accessibility feature is not implemented in one component there is little motivation for the other components to implement it as the overall experience will not ensure accessibility. For example, developers are unlikely to implement an accessible feature that authoring tools do not support and that most browsers and assistive technologies do not implement consistently.


In my future postings, we will look at accessibility capabilities of Microsoft technologies like ASP.NET, WPF, Silverlight and Internet Explorer. As we do that, it is very important to keep in mind the interconnected nature of delivering accessible user experience.

Posted by Chandan Gokhale at 04:34 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)