Pete Brown's Blog (POKE 53280,0)
Pete Brown writes on a variety of topics from XAML with the Windows Runtime (WinRT), .NET programming using C#, WPF, Silverlight, XNA, and Windows Phone, Microcontroller programming with .NET Microframework, .NET Gadgeteer and even plain old C, to raising two children in the suburbs of Maryland, woodworking, CNC and generally "making physical stuff". Oh, and Pete loves retro technology, especially Commodore (C64 and C128). If the content interests you, please subscribe using the subscription link to the right of every page.
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Today we released a minor update to Silverlight 5. The 32 and 64
bit update version number is 5.1.10411.0. (The documentation said
5.2 at first, but this has been fixed.)
This will be rolled out to everyone. We throttle large
updates of products at the start, so for some folks it was not
automatically downloaded this morning.
This is primarily an important security update addressing an TrueT...
Published
Wednesday, May 09, 2012 |
Tagged:
Silverlight |
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We homeschool our two children. Ben, is kindergarten age, Abby
is pre-school age. My wife does, by far, most of the work there,
including trucking them to specialized classes (art, music,
gymnastics, karate, our homeschool group single day school, etc.)
plus all the playdates with the other kids, and special events.
Melissa even teaches several of the classes at the home school
group. I genera...
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On April 24th I helped run the patterns & practices
Symposium 2012 Online on Channel 9. All of the videos are currently up and viewable
on-demand.
As part of the event, I gave a talk on the .NET Micro Framework. I had a ton
of fun doing it, and got to show off a lot of great gear. Take a
look and let me know what you think.
I'll have the demos and presentation pptx uploaded shortly.
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The Maker Geek Roundup aggregates information of interest to
makers everywhere. Topics include .NET Micro Framework, Arduino,
AVR and other MCUs, CNC, 3d Printing, Robotics, Microsoft Robotics
Studio, Electronics, General Maker stuff, and more. If you have
something interesting you've done or have run across, or you blog
regularly on the topics included here, please send me the URL and
brief d...
Published
Saturday, April 21, 2012 |
Tagged:
.NET, CNC, Commodore, Synthesizer, c64, Netduino, Electronics, Gadgeteer, GHI-FEZ, 3d-Printing, MakerRoundup, Maker, Arduino |
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This connect bug describes an issue with creating certain types
of Silverlight projects in Visual Studio. If you're referencing
Silverlight 4 DLLs from a Silverlight 5 project, you may run into
this
code analysis/FXCop issue yourself if code analysis is part of
your process. The core of the problem is a versioning decision in
Silverlight 5 which results in compile-time violation due to
loadi...
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When creating modules for the .NET Gadgeteer or Netduino GO, one of the harder
parts to source is the 10 pin IDC socket. This is the tiny 1.27mm
pin pitch socket you see on the boards.
Manufacturers will get those by the reel in most cases, directly
from China. There are several places the average hobbyist can get
them from:
Digikey Part 609-4054-ND. Quantities as low as
1.
Samtec Part S...
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Jack Tramiel, the founder of Commodore International, and father
of such beloved computers as the PET, VIC-20, C64, C128 and others,
passed away this weekend at the age of 83.
According to many of the books I've read, Jack was often
considered a tough guy to work with, as he drove his employees and
the rest of the industry, relentlessly. Some say he even used
unfair tactics to get what he wan...
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I just received a bunch of packages from both Secret Labs and
GHI Electronics. The Secret labs packages contained their brand new
Netduino GO. The GHI package contained the FEZ Cerebus Starter kit
I ordered.
This post looks at the new Netduino GO and briefly compares it
to the .NET Gadgeteer (Cerebus and others). I also build a couple
simple example applications using the Netduino GO kit.
Th...
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Warning: this is as much a rant as anything remotely
useful. Oh, and don't comment without reading the whole thing
:)
The Internet is not a democracy. More specifically, blog
commenting systems aren't a democracy. Blog authors and
administrators get to decide which comments show up on their
blog, and which do not. On my own blog, I remove spam
messages (or I let Akismet do it in most cases), ...
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The Maker Geek Roundup aggregates information of interest to
makers everywhere. Topics include .NET Micro Framework, Arduino,
AVR and other MCUs, CNC, 3d Printing, Robotics, Microsoft Robotics
Studio, Electronics, General Maker stuff, and more. If you have
something interesting you've done or have run across, or you blog
regularly on the topics included here, please send me the URL and
brief d...
Published
Sunday, April 01, 2012 |
Tagged:
.NET, Commodore, c64, Netduino, Micro+Framework, Robotics, Electronics, Gadgeteer, MakerRoundup, Maker, Arduino |
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This module implements a basic MIDI In and MIDI Out interface
for 3.3v to 5v microcontrollers. MIDI is a 5v protocol, so special
steps were taken to step up the voltage on output, and step it down
(if 3.3v board) on input. This module includes a specific .NET
Gadgeteer-compatible 10 pin connector for use with .NET Gadgeteer
mainboards and the
Netduino Go, as well as a 5 pin .1" standard ...
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You may have noticed that your current copy of Expression Blend
for Silverlight 5 expires in the next day or two. A new version of
Expression Blend Preview for Silverlight 5 is now out. Get it here.
This new version has the all important go-live license, and also
extends the expiration date to June 20, 2013 (over a year from
now)..
More information on the Expression Blend Team Blog.
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Recently, a reader asked how they should go about
setting the Typography properties from code-behind.
The original question was about Silverlight, but the approach
works in WPF, Windows 8 and more.
Given the following markup:
<StackPanel>
<TextBlock x:Name="OriginalText"
FontSize="72"
FontFamily="Gabriola"
Text="Hello World!" />
...
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I'm working on a little WPF 4.5 sample app. As part of that, I
needed to create a drop-down list of Font Families. Here's what the
ComboBox currently looks like:
The Data Source
I wanted control over the fonts including sorting and,
potentially, filtering the results. I didn't want to use static
binding from XAML. So, in my viewmodel, I added a collection of
FontFamily objects which is loa...
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Over the years, I've conditioned myself to use the Uri class
when surfacing web URLs in my application. Early versions of
Silverlight couldn't bind an image source directly to an instance
of a Uri because they lacked an appropriate type converter; the
usual workaround was to change the property to a string type.
Subsequent versions Silverlight added that capability and the
converter. For exam...
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Join us live on April 24th for our first ever online live
streamed patterns & practices Symposium! Register at
eventbrite to ensure you can attend and participate (and, of
course, to help us gauge attendance so we can properly scale the
streaming for the best experience).
The April 24th online p&p symposium program 2012 will
include keynote sessions and technical sessions focusing o...
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For those of you in the US, today is Pi day : 3/14. For those
countries that would call this 14-3, bear with me, as you don't
get any pi pfftth :)
The Maker Geek Roundup aggregates information of interest to
makers everywhere. Topics include .NET Micro Framework, Arduino,
AVR and other MCUs, CNC, 3d Printing, Robotics, Microsoft Robotics
Studio, Electronics, General Maker stuff, and...
Published
Wednesday, March 14, 2012 |
Tagged:
.NET, CNC, Commodore, Synthesizer, c64, Netduino, Electronics, Gadgeteer, 3d-Printing, MakerRoundup, Maker, Arduino, PIC |
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Last year, I
designed my first Gadgeteer module. I didn't have a board
designed, but went through all the same steps. I recently designed
a MIDI module primarily for use with the .NET Gadgeteer, but also
for use with any 3.3v to 5v microcontroller with a serial port.
Existing MIDI boards all assumed a 5v signal level from the MCU.
Most modern MCUs are 3.3v or even less.
Having tried those 3....
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I'm working on a little side project that requires the use of
Ethernet on the .NET Micro Framework. Here's how to get Ethernet
going on the .NET Gadgeteer, specifically the FEZ
Spider with the Ethernet
module. I also used a T35
display module. Both of the modules and the Spider were bought
as part of the larger FEZ Spider
Starter Kit.
This post covers what's needed to get started wi...
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My Lenovo W520 laptop is running the
Windows 8 consumer preview. When at home, I don't use my laptop
as my primary workstation -- I have my 6 core 4.2ghz, 2x30" beast
for the majority of my work. However, I do often need to do some
things on my laptop, especially given that it is currently the only
Windows 8 machine in my office.
The way I work on the laptop is to remote into it ...
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At the South Florida Code Camp last week, I gave an early
morning talk titled "Getting Started with XAML". In this talk, I
covered the basics of XAML, the property system, layout, and other
things you need to know as a XAML developer for WPF, Silverlight,
or Windows 8.
Slides
Attached to this post
Demos
It was all real-time stuff in this talk. No downloadable demos.
I...
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At the South Florida Code Camp last week, I presented the ".NET
Micro Framework and .NET Gadgeteer". The primary demo was the
Gadgeteer diaper monitor, but I also showed off hardware, wired
some LEDs to the Netduino etc.
PowerPoint Slides
Attached to this post
Demos and Code
The .NET Gadgeteer Diaper Alarm Part 1 (Moisture Sensor)
Building a .NET Gadgeteer Comp...
