Exploiting facebook/twitter mobile facilities

We have seen many GPRS based applications for tweeting and updating your facebook status. But what to do if you want to tweet/update status without connecting to internet? Well, facebook and twitter have facilities where you can tweet/update status by simply sending a message to a certain number. You can use that technique in your application. For this you just have to know the method for sending a message from your mobile. If you are coding in C# it is very simple to do.
You just have to writing the following code:
->Microsoft.WindowsMobile.PocketOutlook.SmsMessage sms = new SmsMessage(number,text);
->sms.Send();
In case of facebook the number will be:923223265 and for twitter it is:53000.
Another thing that needs to be kept in mind is that, you need to add
Microsoft.WindowsMobile.PocketOutlook in the references.

This is a simple way to keep your app different from others.Though C# is used for programming for windows mobile.

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Another useful html tag!

WEll, this time I am talking about the < pre >  tag. It is used when you donot want to insert all the whitespaces individually.
Simply speaking, this tag is used when you want to have a preset text in your web-page.
Generally, the white spaces in your script are neglected by the browser. And they can be added using '&nbsp' ( meaning new blank space).Instead if you are using the 'pre' tag, it will display the text as it is written.
Despite the advantage, this tag is rarely seen in the web-pages.
This is the w3schools article on the tag.

PS: Being busy with my other work, am not able to blog regularly

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# in html!

All the C programmers tend to think of #include as soon as they see '#' symbol. But not all the people know that there is # used in html also!
Well we all have seen the wiikipedia page on one or the other thing,right? Now, there is a table of contents in every page. The elements of this table point to links in the same page. This is where a # symbol comes in handy. It is basically used to maintain an index within the web-page.
while giving the address give href="#link" instead of the entire address of the page.

and to give the target location give name="link" as a part of the 'a' attribute of the location


Here the difference from a normal href is that here we are starting the URL with # indicating that the target is in the same page. Also we have given an attribute 'name' with value=link. This is the address of the target.
(How else would the browser know where to point next?)

Hope you will find it helpfull.


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Time for some shortcuts!!

Usage of mouse all the time to navigate is not so ergonomic, is it? Today I and my friend had nothing else to do so tried out many combinations of key strokes to see what happened. Here are some that might be interesting!

For navigation purpose:
-> Well some of you may be knowing that to go to the previous directory in
your Explorer, be it your internet explorer or the file one, you can use
backspace key.
But do you know that to navigate forward you can use shift + backspace?
for e.g search anything in google and go to the first webpage. now press
backspace
and you will reach back to the search result and now press shift + backspace.
-> You may use windows + D for navigating to the desktop. And press it again to go
back to return to your application.

Notepad:
-> The function keys do have some use in notepad.
-> First is F1: for help
-> Next is F5: for date and time. (Who needs it?)
-> Next is F10: To go to the menubar. If you dont want to use the function keys you
may also use atl button followed by the underlined letter in the respective
field e.g alt + f for file menu.


More will be coming soon!

My first C# project

I was very keen on jumping from writing console applications to applications having a better user-interface and being able to handle events such as a mouse-click. So I jumped over to C#. The guide that i was using turned out to be incorrect one and created a lot of confusion. But in the end I was atleast able to understand how to make a form(interface) and how to handle events.
So, I started meddling with things on my own.For starters I thought of an application that took some input and gave a corresponding output based on some formula . This, led to the project I am talking about.
Last year I had made a program that calculated the 'Daily Breathing Loss' based on a given formula. I just had to take the inputs,use a formula and print the output. Easy isn't it? So, I thought that I could use the code to explain how a simple C# program is made. Coders in VB might find it similar. I have attached, the .zip file and the.rar file. You can download as per your wish. In this code, I have not included any extra header file and have used the default template of the Visual Studio 2008 C# programs.

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Innovative Ideas

The Chinese are famous for their innovative ideas.But, they lack in the quality of products. But what to expect when the Chinese ideas meet with the Finnish quality?Well its the 'plug and touch technology' from the Nokia research Center at Beijing.
  What is 'plug and touch'? Well, how does your Plasma TV acting as your N8 sound to you! ? Interesting isn't it? It is a simple yet powerful app. Basically you have to connect your N8 to your TV using the HDMI cable and keep your phone such that the camera is facing your TV. The display of your TV will turn into a large N8. Now you can touch or scroll in your TV instead of your phone.I haven't yet got a chance to try it out. (Don't even expect that from me.!) But what I saw on TV suggests that the app still lacks in accuracy and is a bit less responsive, but the innovation is what matters doesn't it?Nokia says that the application is a prototype for a 3D interface for mobiles.
   The technology may sound futuristic but I wonder why we would want to interact with our phones using TV when our phones already have touch interface? Also, the need of 3D interface for phones is doubtful.
  Having said that I would also like to add that the 3D interface can be used to interact with some other device,like scientists can easily make and modify their designs this way rather than making them on AutoCAD or such softwares.
  I would like to say that the application can have huge success , given that the Espoos donot limit it to mobile phones.
This is the link for the Nokia's blog on the technology.

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Speed Dial on Firefox!

Chrome and Opera users will be aware of the speed dial feature so that you can save time by directly selecting the site of your choice from the speed-dial list.
But what about the firefox and internet explorer users? Okay we have, add-ons but why download add-ons if you can easily make a html code for that. I have attached a file below that contains the code.
The code is simple to understand and if you don't know what the target="_newtab"is that it opens the links in new tabs or new-windows as your browser interprets them. My Firefox 3.6.8 opens them in new tab while the Internet Explorer opens them in new window.But problem in Firefox is that if you have opened a tab by clicking on a link, clicking on a different link will open the link in the same tab as the previous and hence overwriting the already open link.On the other hand in Internet Explorer, the code makes the link to open in new window. I am trying to solve both the problems and will post an update ASAP.
Here is the link for the code.
After creating the code you must remember to rename the extension of the page to ' .html '(How else will it be a webpage!? ;) )Well to set the page as webpage as home-page you have to  do the following steps:

Firefox : Tools->Options and in the homepage box enter the location of the webpage
                             for e.g:file:///D:/html/homepage.html
                          Click on Save. Your home page will be displayed when you restart your browser.

Internet Explorer: Tools->Internet Options-> enter the location in the homepage section
                                                for e.g: file:///D:/html/homepage.html
                         Click on OK. Your home page will be displayed when you restart your browser.

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