Create Setup Files for your Windows Mobile Applications Using Visual Studio 2005

Learning a simple series of steps in Visual Studio 2005 will make deploying applications to mobile devices a no-brainer from here on out. Follow along with this project, which includes step-by-step instructions, code, and a sample .ini file.

Raise Printing to a Fine Art in Windows Forms

Learn how to format, preview, and print output the way you want it to look using the capabilities of the .NET System.Drawing.Printing namespace and the PrintDocument class.

Add Fingerprint Scan-based Security to Your .NET Applications Today

It wasn't all that long ago that biometric authentication seemed like the kind of sci-fi technology that might never be practical outside of top-secret government laboratories. But believe it or not, you can build a fingerprint scanner into any .NET application you like just by following these simple instructions.

Windows Vista Beta 2 Up Close and Personal

Vista Beta 2 is finally out. What's good and what's bad? I take it for a test drive and gives you the full rundown. May. 30, 2006

Launch of my new PDF book!

ClickOnce, a new technology in Visual Studio 2005, lets you quickly and easily deploy your Windows apps via web servers, file servers, or even CDs. But while ClickOnce delivers web-style deployment of your application, that's only part of the story. Once you've installed an application using ClickOnce, it can automatically check for new updates to the application, which saves time in application maintenance and upgrades. And on the security front, a ClickOnce application runs within a secure sandbox and you configure it using the Code Access Security model.

So, how can you take advantage of this new technology? In this step-by-step guide to using ClickOnce, you'll learn how to create an application in Visual Studio 2005 and how to use ClickOnce to quickly get it in the hands of your customers. You'll also learn how to add security to your distributions using Code Access Security; how to update COM files without corrupting DLLs; and more.

Download this PDF today for just $7.99 and discover how deploying your Windows app is just a click away.

My article featured in the Polymorphic Podcast

My latest aricle on CoDe magazine - An Overview of Windows Presentation Foundation, has been featured in the Polymorphic Podcast, a show about object oriented development, architecture and best practices in .NET. Listen to the Podcast at: http://www.polymorphicpodcast.com/shows/adonet2/.

Get Visual Basic 2005 Jumpstart for Free!

Here is one way to get my book - Visual Basic 2005 Jumpstart, for free!

Just complete one Visual Basic E-Learning course and you will receive a free Visual Basic 2005 Discovery Pack.

Visual Studio 2005 Discovery Pack* includes:

• Microsoft® Visual® Studio® 2005 Professional Edition 90-day DVD trial
• Microsoft Visual Basic® 2005 Jumpstart book from O’Reilly
• Discount voucher for Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition with MSDN® Professional Subscription
• Microsoft Developer Security Resource Kit
• Discount voucher for Microsoft Certified Professional Exam
• Free 30-day hosting account

*Offer good in the United States and Canada only through June 30, 2006, while supplies last.

Programming Serial Ports Using Visual Basic 2005

While serial port programming was absent in .NET version 1.1, Visual Basic developers who grew accustomed to the MSCOMM control in VB6 will be glad to know that this functionality is supported again in .NET 2.0. Learn to use the SerialPort class to make two computers talk to one another or even to manipulate a mobile device from your computer using Bluetooth.

Programming Sudoku Released!

My latest book - Programming Sudoku (Apress) has just been published! Noticed that the cover has been revised from the earlier draft.

If you are a college or University professor teaching a beginning course in programming, you may like to take a look at this book and see if it is suitable as a textbook for teaching programming in a fun way. Simply send me an email (using your university email account) and briefly describe the courses you teach (or are going to teach) and I will get a review copy of the book sent to you for evaluation.

Inside Look: Internet Explorer 7, Beta 2

The long-awaited Beta 2 of IE 7 is finally here. What's new, good, and better? I give you a guided tour and an inside look in this article on WindowsDevCenter.com.

Using the MultiView and Wizard Controls in ASP.NET 2.0

Need to collect data from Web pages? ASP.NET 2.0 makes it easy, with the use of MultiView and Wizard controls. I show you how to take advantage of them in this article on WindowsDevCenter.com.

What’s New in Windows Forms 2.0: Part II

Here is the part 2 of my Windows Forms 2.0 article in ASP.NET Professional magazine.

What's New in Windows Forms 2.0

In the Feb 06 issue of ASP.NET Pro magazine, I kicked off a two-part series covering what’s new in Windows Forms 2.0. I start with a look at some of the new productivity features and how you can take advantage of them. Look out for part 2 in the March issue.

Using the Windows Mobile 5.0 Emulators in Visual Studio 2005

Emulators are a must-have for anyone developing mobile applications. To get you started, I will show you how to use the emulator tools that shipped with Windows Mobile 5.0 and Visual Studio 2005.

Teach Your Old Web Cam New Tricks: Use Video Captures in Your .NET Applications

Just when you thought there wasn't anything new that you could do with a webcam, along comes this article, which shows you how to exploit the AVICap Windows class so you can integrate on-demand screen captures into your applications.

Check out the new Google Reader!

Check out the new Google Reader! Google Reader makes it easier to keep up with your ever-expanding reading list of content from across the web.

New Book - Google Blogger

I have a new book - Google Blogger, coming up pretty shortly. If you have always wanted to create your own blog and don't know where to start, this book will show you how to get started using Google's free Blogger service.

Here is the synposis of the book:
"Learn how to build your own blog using Google’s free Blogger service. This book covers the basic and the not-so-basic concepts and technologies that you need to know in order to thrive in the blogging world.
With this book, you will learn how to use Blogger’s Post Editor and Dashboard to create sophisticated postings that include images and hyperlinks, and how to change the look and feel of your blog using templates. Other topics include making money using Google’s AdSense and Amazon.com’s Associates program, using photo blogging services, adding a site counter so that you can track your readership, using Blogger Mobile for mobile blogging, and how to archive your blog. For those of you who have your own Web hosting, you will learn how to publish your blog to your own server.
This book takes a rational, no-nonsense approach in a compact guide. The book is written to give you the basics…fast!

Technical accuracy is assured by Biz Stone, Former Senior Specialist on the Google Blogger Team. "

Updates to my book

I have posted the updates to ASP.NET 2.0: A Developer's Notebook on O'Reilly web site. To download the updated source code, click the Examples link. To download the list of changes, click the Visual Studio 2005 final release update link.

Sudoku Puzzle 1 - Easy

Here is an easy Sudoku puzzle for you to try your hands on. Beginning today, I will post a Sudoku puzzle every week. Each week, I will select a puzzle of varying levels of difficulty. Once you solve the puzzle, use the comments link at the bottom to let me know how much time you took to solve it. Have fun!

Note. Puzzles posted here only have one solution, unless mentioned otherwise.

free-1 Skype USB phone (from IPEVO)

I just bought the free-1 Skype USB phone (from IPEVO). This is one of the coolest USB phones I have ever seen. While it cost a little more than the rest of the USB Skype-enabled phones in the market, it looks much better. Best of all, the voice quality is crystal clear and works seamlessly with Skype (it is a Skype Certified phone). An added advantage is that it works on Mac OS X.

Hey, if you are using Skype as well, call me at weimenglee. :-)

Are you trying to find a cell phone company? The Internet can assist you in getting a pay as you go cell phone as well as find cheap cell phone plans, helping you get the best price around.

Unit Testing in Visual Studio 2005 Team System

Unit testing is one of the tasks that every programmer worth their salt needs to do. In this article I show you how to use the new Unit Testing feature of Visual Studio 2005 Team System to auto-generate the code needed to test your application.

Data Binding in Windows Forms 2.0 and An Overview of Windows Presentation Foundation

I have two articles published in CoDe Magazine in the Jan/Feb issue. They are:

Data Binding in Windows Forms 2.0
"Data binding is one of the common tasks that developers working with data have to perform. In Windows Forms 2.0, the new BindingNavigator and BindingSource objects can save you a lot of effort in data binding. This article will show how to perform tasks such as sorting and searching records using data binding. I will also show how to display master-detail relationships between tables using data binding in Windows Forms 2.0. "

An Overview of Windows Presentation Foundation
"These acronyms include WinFX, WinFS, WCF (Windows Communication Foundation; codenamed Indigo), and WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation; codenamed Avalon). In recent months there has been a lot of buzz going around WPF, which is one of the core components of WinFX. In this article, I will take you on a whirlwind tour of what WPF is and how you can start preparing for Vista by developing applications today using the available SDK. "

Review of Visual Basic 2005 Jumpstart

Here is a nice review of my book - Visual Basic 2005 Jumpstart, in ASP.NET Pro Magazine.

"ASP.NET 2.0: A Developer's Notebook" Updated for Final Release of Visual Studio 2005

I have recently updated my book - ASP.NET 2.0: A Developer's Notebook, to be compliant with the final release of Visual Studio 2005. While most of the code in the book will work without problem in Visual Studio 2005, I have taken this opportunity to fix some of the bugs in the book as well as update the few sections which contain code that break in the final release of Visual Studio 2005 (most notably the Client Callback Manager section). I hope this book will give you a quick overview of the new features in ASP.NET 2.0 and get you jumpstarted on new projects.

Looking for Sudoku puzzles testers

I am currently looking for testers of my Sudoku puzzles. As part of my new book, I am showing readers how to generate Sudoku puzzles of varying levels of difficulties, using a computer. I wanted to get readers feedback on how difficult my puzzles are, and whether they really fit in to the level of difficulty they are categorized in.

Beta testers will need to do the following:

1. Solve 3 puzzles for each level. There are total 4 levels - Easy, Medium, Difficult, Very Difficult.
2. Rate the level of difficulties for each puzzle.
3. Provide additional feedback (optional).

While I won't be able to offer financial incentives for being a beta-tester, what I can promise is lots of fun (if you are a Sudoku addict) and a complimentary copy of my book when it is published.

If you are interested, send me an email at wei_meng_lee@hotmail.com and I will get back to you. Thanks and have a nice holiday!

Programming Sudoku (Technology in Action)

I have been slow in updating my blog recently as I have busy working on my latest book - Programming Sudoku.

Here is a brief synopsis of the book:

"Sudoku is the wildly popular new puzzle game. Sudoku puzzles are 9x9 grids, and each square in the grid consists of a 3x3 subgrid called a region. Your goal is to fill in the squares so that each column, row, and region contains the numbers 1 through 9 exactly once. And some squares already contain numbers or symbols, which lend clues toward the solution.

Programming Sudoku provides you with great approaches to building and solving Sudoku and other similar puzzles. Using ingenious artificial intelligence and game theory techniques, you'll learn how to get a computer to solve these puzzles for you.
This is a fun, intriguing read whether you're a novice or advanced programmer. It acknowledges the.NET platform as a base, but you'll find this book interesting whatever your programming background. The core techniques in the book enable you to solve Sudoku on any programming platform."

This book will show you how to solve Sudoku puzzles programatically as well as generate puzzles of varying levels of difficulties. It would be a fun read for both Sudoku beginners and Sudoku addicts. Even if you don't want a computer to solve your Sudoku puzzles, the techniques described in this book will help you to solve Sudoku puzzles in a systematic way.

Take the Pain Out of Deployments with ClickOnce

Deploying Windows applications in the age of client-server computing has never been easy. But smart client architecture offers a revolution that makes deployments and maintenance stress-free. Find out how to use the ClickOnce technology to turn your clients into smart clients.

What Is Virtualization

Virtualization lets you have multiple "virtual machines," each with its own operating system running in a sandbox, shielded from each other, all in one physical machine. But why would you want to do this? Wei-Meng Lee explains, and takes you on a tour of some of the most popular virtualization software available: Microsoft Virtual PC 2004, VMware Workstation 5.0, and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005. Check out the article.

Check out Gadgets for Geeks

If you are a gadget freak, you have to check out the new Gadgets For Geeks blog - http://gadgetsforgeeks.blogspot.com/. Edited by yours sincerely, Gadgets For Geeks is an online publication targeted at geeks, by geeks. Check it out today and let me know what you think!

VP-820-L NEXPHONE Homephone Adapter

Rather than buying a Skype phone at the moment, I opted for a VoIP gateway instead. And so today I got the VP-820-L NEXPHONE Homephone Adapter. It is a slim device and plugs directly into my computer via USB. One phone jack plugs into the PSTN line while the others connect to my regular phone. The beauty of this device is that I can continue to use my regular phone for Skype calls as well as regular PSTN calls. And if I want, I can even plug in my cordless phone for making Skype calls. Of course, you won't have Skype integration into the handset, much like the Linksys phone. But for now, I have no complaints.