Operating Systems
Linux
General
- How do I configure Kopete for Google Talk? - on configuring instant messaging clients
- Access Windows Files booted from Kubuntu Disc (help meeeeeee!) - on accessing Windows partitions from Linux
- Cannot change keyboard layout - how to change keyboard layout in Kubuntu
- Linux Commands for Beginning Server Administrators - good list of sysadmin commands, especially to view disk usage
- Adding new users - on creating accounts for multi-user Linux
- Exult: What Do I Need? - how to get Exult to work on Linux
- Why Linux is not (yet) Ready for the Desktop - a list of problems that hinder widespread adoption. When I first read this I thought, what the hell is this guy on about? The lack of one single standard GUI, installer, etc is exactly what makes Linux so configurable. Come to think of it, though, he's right - each API has its own rules and there are no standard interfaces to define the rules of how things are done, which causes interoperability problems between distributions.
- Graphical User Interface Gallery - a gallery showing operating systems with GUIs, including many of the oldest ones
Ubuntu
- How to Enable MP3 on Ubuntu 9.10
- Enabling Flash on Ubuntu 9.10
- Launchpad Bugs: How to take screenshots in menus
- How to Install Banshee on Ubuntu 9.10
- Support Forums: Ubuntu 10.04: Unrecoverable error
Fedora
- How to Enable MP3 on Fedora 12
- How to Access Windows Shares from Fedora
- How to set up an HP LaserJet 1018 Printer on Fedora 12
- Fedora Project: how to enable Flash
Linux Software
Linux distributions use a system of packages (conceptually similar to Windows installers) to install and update software. These packages reside on a repository which is on a known server, and can be retrieved using an appropriate package tool (such as apt-get for Debian derivatives like Ubuntu or Knoppix, and yum for Red Hat derivatives like Fedora).
You need root privileges to install software, so you will need to run commands like:
sudo apt-get install firefox
Below are some useful free applications for Linux, most of which you can install with a package management tool (depending on availability in the distribution's repositories):
- Instant Messaging Client: pidgin (formerly gaim)
- Web Browsers: firefox, konqueror (comes with KDE-based systems)
- FTP Client: filezilla
- SSH Server: openssh-server
- Media Players: vlc, xmms, totem
Below are some supporting libraries you can install for specific development tasks:
- build-essential (C libraries for development)
- ia32-libs (shared libraries for 64-bit systems)
- libsdl1.2-dev (SDL library)
External info:
- Tom's Definitive Linux Software Roundup: Office Applications by Adam Overa, 29th April 2010
Windows
- General
- Read about WindowsPager - the virtual desktop environment for Windows.
- Graphical User Interface Gallery - a gallery showing operating systems with GUIs, including many of the oldest ones
- Vista
- 10 reasons not to get Vista - APC - 21st January 2007
- Is Windows Vista Faster Than XP? - Tom's Hardware - 29th January 2007
- Windows 7
- How to enable Quick Launch
- Fixing DVD driver problems
- "Run as different user, in Windows 7" by Daniel D'Agostino at Gigi on IT, 2012-07-14
- "Working with Windows" by Daniel D'Agostino at Gigi on IT, 2011-09-18
Windows Phone 7
General Info and Resources
The developer tools for the Windows Phone 7 series were announced at the MIX10 conference and subsequently released as a CTP for use by developers, even though the platform is available only via an emulator and there are no phones capable of running ti yet. For me this was reminiscent of my Android days two years ago, when we were using Android developer tools that were so early in development that their version was marked only as a milestone number.
Tools:
Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools CTP/Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP - April Refresh/ Windows Phone Developer Tools Beta (required); includes:- Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone
- An Add-in for Visual Studio 2010 RC for developing Windows Phone 7 Series (so you can use VS2010RC instead of the Express version)
- XNA Game Studio 4
- Silverlight 4 Tools for Visual Studio 2010 RC (needed for developing Silverlight applications for Windows Phone 7)
- Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4 Release Candidate (optional)
- Bing Maps Silverlight Control SDK (optional)
Information Hubs / General Information:
- Wikipedia page for Windows Phone 7 Series
- Shawn Hargreaves' blog (specifically on XNA Game Studio 4.0)
- Overview of the Windows Phone 7 Series Application Platform - session delivered at MIX10 by Charlie Kindle.
- Windows Phone 7 series and XNA Game Studio 4 - what's new - 3 videos of a presentation at Game Developers Conference 2010 where plans for gaming on the new mobile platform were explained
- Windows Phone 7 Series Developer Training Kit - tutorials for developers at Channel 9, that you can either browse online or download.
- Windows Phone 7 Series - Tools and Resources - a list of tools, resources and documentation by Prabhu Kumar
- Book Samples
- Building Your First Windows Phone Application [PDF], a sample chapter from Learning Windows Phone Programming by Yochay Kiriarty and Jaime Rodriguez
- Preview of Programming Windows Phone 7 Series (to be published as a free ebook) by Charles Petzold (if you never heard of this guy, you have a problem)
- A Windows Phone 7 Milestone - press release when WP7 hit technical preview milestone.
Information on specific topics:
- Building a Windows Phone 7 Game by Daniel Vaughan - useful for page orientation
- Simulate Geo Location in Silverlight Windows Phone 7 Emulator by Tim Heuer - on location-based services.
- Using the Silverlight Bing Maps control on the Windows Phone 7 by Bart Czernicki - using Bing Maps on the phone.
- Silverlight screencasts for Windows Phone 7:
- Getting Started with Silverlight for Windows Phone - concise tour of the fundamentals and the emulator
- Windows Phone Application Splash Screen - how to show a splash screen while your application is loading
- Windows Phone Navigation - explains how to shift from one screen to another in multi-page applications
- Windows Phone Application Bar
- Writing a Bing Maps location aware application for Windows Phone 7 Series - shows how to use the Bing Maps Silverlight Control to show and use a map viewer from Windows Phone 7
My Windows Phone 7 Applications
My first application for Windows Phone 7 was a simple Arkanoid-style ball game (it has no particular name) with no bricks to break - just a ball and paddle. The ball can bounce on the paddle or on the top, left and right of the screen, and the game is lost when the ball hits the bottom of the screen.
The textures used by the game for the ball and paddle were improved slightly following the first implementation of the game, and this required no code changes. This updated version of the game was demonstrated during my presentation on Visual Studio 2010 at Microsoft DevDays 2010 Malta, on 26th March 2010.
The great thing about XNA 4 for the phone is that the way you write XNA games for the PC or for the phone is the same. In fact the exact same code written for the Windows Phone 7 game was deployed as-is into an XNA Windows Game (except for having to comment out the Touch API import), and just worked.
The Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools CTP allow creation of applications for the phone as either XNA 4 games or Silverlight applications. Having already written a simple XNA 4 game (above), on 26th March 2010 I wrote a simple calculator application to try out Silverlight for the phone. I had never written a Silverlight application before, but getting it working was simple enough.
Google Android
Android is a mobile platform by Google. Although, at the time of this writing [5th May 2008], there are no phones capable of using this platform, enthusiasts have been programming for it for some time now, using the Android Emulator. I'm not really an enthusiast, as I was 'forced' to write software for Android as one of my third year Assigned Practical Tasks. But it was an experience, an experience I'm very much willing to share with any new developers who, like my friends and I, found very it difficult with the lack of proper tutorials and resources on the net.
For starters, below is a list of links I found useful when I had to develop software for Android.
- Google Android - the official website
- DroidDraw - great tool to facilitate creation of user interfaces
- anddev.org - this is a really helpful site... which mostly consists of a forum (the admin, plusminus, is really helpful) but also provides a work-in-progress 'andbook'
Android 3.0 SDK Preview [28th January 2011]:
- Android 3.0 Highlights
- Promotional video
- Slashdot news (27th January 2011)
- I Programmer news
- "Debug certificate expired" error in eclipse android plugins
Apple iPod/iPhone/iPad
- An Adobe Flash developer on why the iPad can't use Flash by Daniel Eran Dilger, 20th February 2010
- Dali Clock 2.31 by Jamie Zawinski - explains the hassle of porting Mac OS X to the iPhone
- Apple Gestapo: How Apple Hunts Down Leaks by Jesus Diaz
- 6 Ways To Sync Music To Your iPhone Without iTunes by Damien Oh
- "Looking back at OS X's origins" by Benj Edwards, 13th September 2010
- "DEAR APPLE: I'm Leaving You" by Ed Conway, 2012-11-01