How to display a progress message aka "hourglass" in Android around long running tasks, really moving that long running tasks to a different thread but obstructing your activity with a curtain from progress so messages are processed and everything shows. Here is a snippet:

 ProgressDialog dialog = ProgressDialog.show(this, "Title",
  "Your message", true);
  final Handler handler = new Handler() {
     public void handleMessage(Message msg) {
           dialog.dismiss();
          
        }
     };
  
  Thread export = new Thread() {  
     public void run() {
   
     // LONG TASK CALL
                          //  callLongTask();
       
      handler.sendEmptyMessage(0);
        }
     };
  export.start();

$25 Computer

http://www.raspberrypi.org/

Enumerated Types in Java Script

Who said that JavaScript lacks enumerated types? Really it does, however due to very flexible nature of the language enums are easily done like so (example taken from ITAdapter Geometry Library):

function GeometryNamespace() //in the Geometry namespace
{
var geometry = this; 
...    ...    ... 
this.MapDirection = {
   North:      {Name: "North"},
   NorthEast:  {Name: "NorthEast"},
   East:       {Name: "East"},
   SouthEast:  {Name: "SouthEast"},
   South:      {Name: "South"},
   SouthWest:  {Name: "SouthWest"},
   West:       {Name: "West"},
   NorthWest:  {Name: "NorthWest"} 
                 };
.............
And then later:
/**      * Converts map direction to angular coordinate in radians      */ 

this.mapDirectionToAngle = function(direction)
{    
    switch (direction)
    {      
        case geometry.MapDirection.North:  return 4/16 * PI2;
        case geometry.MapDirection.South:  return 12/16 * PI2;
        case geometry.MapDirection.East:   return 0.0;
        case geometry.MapDirection.West:   return 8/16 * PI2;
        case geometry.MapDirection.NorthEast: return 2/16 * PI2;
        case geometry.MapDirection.NorthWest: return 6/16 * PI2;
        case geometry.MapDirection.SouthEast: return 14/16 * PI2;
        case geometry.MapDirection.SouthWest: return 10/16 * PI2;
        default: return 0.0;     
    }
}

Coming back to js enums topic, one can easily display enum as:
var dir =  MapDirection.South;
var name = dir.Name; //"South"

IE10? WTF?

Only like 1 month has passed and MS is publishing new IE10 beta assembly?

Check this out:

 http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/04/12/native-html5-first-ie10-platform-preview-available-for-download.aspx

So, once again they talk HTML5...hm where is Silverlight guys? Well, that's right looks like Silverlight is finally going to fall from the stage.

Why would anyone even invest in SL at this point? Mobile? Gimme a break, HTML5 rulez there too - check out PhoneGap www.phonegap.com

How To Draw a Circle in HTML <5 (without Canvas/SVG)

The following tiny script allows to draw circles in "regular" pre-HTML 5 document, it is so fast that it really allows for animations in real time.

Example:

   drawCircle(500, 500, 150, "red", 50, 1);

This will draw a  red circle, 50% transparent, with 150 px radius at the point (500,500). The circle will be drawn using 1px-fine pen (granularity).

The wider is the "pen" the faster is the routine. I usually increase granularity to 4px while dragging/sizing for speed and then re-render with 1px granularity upon drag grip release.

Here is the self-sufficient(does not rely on any libs) procedural source code:

//classic one

function isIE()

{

 return (navigator.appName.indexOf("Microsoft")!=-1);

}

function drawCircle(cx, cy, r, clr, op, gran)

{

 var x = 0;

 var div; 

 

 var dc = document.createElement("DIV");//aka "Device Context" wich is a DIV in doc tree

 dc.style.position="absolute";

 dc.innerHTML = "&nbsp;";

 dc.style.left = cx - r; 

 dc.style.top =  cy - r; 

 

 cx = r; cy = r;

 

 if (gran<1) gran = 1;

 

 if ((r/gran)> 280) gran = Math.round(r / 280);

  

 for(var y=0; y<=r; y+=gran)

 {

  x = Math.sqrt((r*r) - (y*y));

  

  div = document.createElement("DIV");

    

  div.style.position="absolute";

  div.style.background = clr;

  div.style.left = cx - x;

  div.style.top = cy+y;

  div.style.width= x*2;

  div.style.height=gran;

  div.style.fontSize=1;

  div.innerHTML = "&nbsp;";

  setObjectOpacity(div, op);

  dc.appendChild(div);

  

  div = document.createElement("DIV");

  div.style.position="absolute";

  div.style.background = clr;

  div.style.left = cx - x;

  div.style.top = cy-y-gran;

  div.style.width= x*2;

  div.style.height=gran;

  div.style.fontSize=1;

  div.innerHTML = "&nbsp;";

  setObjectOpacity(div, op);

  dc.appendChild(div);

  

 }

 

 return dc;

}//drawCircle

//semi-transparent through CSS/filter

function setObjectOpacity(obj, opacity) 

{

  //IE

  if (isIE())

   obj.style.filter = "alpha(opacity:"+opacity+")";

  else

  {

    opacity = (opacity == 100)?99.999:opacity;//99.9 for Firefox flicker bug

  

    // Konqueror, Safari

    obj.style.KHTMLOpacity = opacity / 100;

    // Old Mozilla and Firefox

    obj.style.MozOpacity = opacity / 100;

    // CSS3,  Safari , new Firefox (Gecko)

    obj.style.opacity = opacity / 100;

  }//else

}//setObjectOpacity

As you can see, this approach uses DIVs as a vehicle for graphics delivery. Also, one may ask why I did not use squares to reduce

 the number of DIVs - the answer is - flicker - squares would have overlapped and would have worked slower than interlaced DIVs.

Use as you please!

Verbatim Identifiers in C#

Not that many people realize that in C#, one can use language keyword names like "void" and "bool" for their identifiers.

The trick is, you need to prefix the name i.e.:

 void @void() {}

declares method named "void".

Of course you would rarely use this feature, if ever but many people start arguing "Why Microsoft did this to begin with?"

I am personally 100% on-board with MS on this one, - not only this is a good practice to be consistent in language design (less limitations) by allowing programmer to use any name

 but this is a must-have feature i.e. you may code an assembly in Delphi Prism( as an example) and call a method "void" -

 then you'd need to consume it in C#. "void" is not a keyword in that language.

I personally think that purposely naming you stuff with "dangerous" names is a bad thing, but having verbatim name capability makes us feel more liberated :)

Aum Syntax Samples: constrained domains

Working on contrained types(domains) idea, proposed syntax:
--------------------------------------------


use RTL;

scope Test begin

//Domain with constrain

public domain HumanAge(int)
{
value >= 0 and value <= 150; }

public static class Program1 begin

public method Main

{

Console.WriteLine("Hello Delphi days!");

Console.ReadLine();

Console.WriteLine("About to crash");

var age: HumanAge;

age = 500; // CRASH!!!!!! Domain is constrained and did not pass validation

}

end;

end;