Watching TV and chatting at the same time

A patent filed by Microsoft has recently been approved by the United States Patent Office (USPTO). The patent describes a "multimode interactive television chat" system, where the user can view television while simultaneously selecting links available from the show, which may include chat forums revolving around said program.

The TV display and chat interfaces are designed to appear on a single screen at the same time, each in their own frame:

"displaying the video signal and the one or more chat communications on the display in a first display mode, such that the video signal is displayed in a first frame that has a corresponding size and position on the display, and such that the one or more chat communications are displayed in a second frame that has a corresponding size and position on the display."

The practical upshot of this, I suppose, is that you can continue watching Gilmore Girls while simultaneously texting on your remote control "OMG LORELAI IS SO HOT" to the delight of other viewers. While the merging of these media may seem silly to some, it has already started happening. Canadian music station Muchmusic often devotes a full third of the picture display to scrolling fans' inane cell phone text messages, and there have been times when I've turned on CNN and inexplicably seen a TV camera's view of a computer screen displaying somebody's blog. Read more...

"Have your say" for recent bombing in Colombo

BBC is conducting a "Have your say" section for recent bombing in Colombo. Pro-tiger sri lankans living abroad are using this to white wash the bloody tigers.

Now, it's your responsibilty as true Sri Lankans, to take part in this have your say and express the "REALITY" to the international community. It's your National Responsibility.

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=1584&&edition=2&ttl=20060426041501

Installing Team Foundation Server

Last couple of days I was trying to install Team Foundation Server in one of our servers during my other works when the time permitted. The server I was trying to install on was a fresh one that only got Win 2k3 Standered Edition and Sql 2005. I just installed the SharePoint with serveice pack 2.0 which is a prerequisite and tried with installing TFS. But it's got failed and gave Error 32000. So I googled abt it and found out some workarounds, worked on those and tried again. Once Again there was that damn Error 32000.

Then I realized this is not an easy one. I downloaded the installation guild from
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=E54BF6FF-026B-43A4-ADE4-A690388F310E&displaylang=en .If you wanna install TFS be death sure to download and read this even before installing the OS in the mc.

Ok, then I read and followed each and every instructions they have given. Yes… then there was the success.

So then I tried with installing Team foundation Client in my working mc. Then the real shit happened.

The BOSS

One day a man goes to a pet shop to buy a parrot. The assistanttakes the man to the parrot section and asks the man to choose one.

The assistant says, ''$2000.'' The man is shocked and asks the Assistant why it's so expensive. The assistant explains, ''ThisParrot is a very special one. He knows typewriting and can typeReally fast.'' ''What about the green one?'' the man asks.

The assistant says, ''He costs $5000 because he knows typewriting and can answer incoming telephone calls and takes notes.'' ''What about the red one?'' the man asks.

The assistant says, ''That one's $10,000.''The man says, ''What does he do?'' The assistant says, ''I don't know, but the other two call him "BOSS".

Aj is online now...

Well... finally one of my closest homies who didn’t use to blog has started doing it now.

Check him out @ http://www.anjanaonline.com/.

Using GenericDatabase class in EntLib for .net 2.0....?

In the previous Enterprise Library versions, it was necessary to have an Enterprise Library Database-derived class for every ADO.NET managed providers. So as we know there were Database classes for SQL Server, Oracle and DB2 But if we wanna use any other managed providers, we had to find or build our own Database class.

In Enterprise library for .net 2.0, there are SqlDatabase and OracleDatabase class and a new GenericDatabase class. The GenericDatabase can be used with any .NET managed provider including the ODBC and OLE-DB providers that coming with .NET. But there is a problem. That is it doesn’t support all of the functionality we got with SqlDatabase and OracleDatabase classes.

I’m gonna use GenericDatabase class ‘coz I could extend my application to use any DatabaseProvider in future. But the thing is I'm not sure what features I’ll lost because of this.
One disadvantage I know is the overloads that use parameter discovery do not work (since these methods aren’t supported on .NET’s DbConnection or DbCommand classes).
But we can build our own classes deriving Database class to support that functionality.

Anyway guys, if you have any experience on EntLib for .net 2.0 and have used GenericDatabase class, pls enlighten me on features we lost.