StrategyBob2

Early version of StrategyBob2, the Java version of StrategyBob, a strategy visualizer for the BILL (Biology Instruments Learning Lab) module.

CatchBob Enhancements

The development of CatchBob is moving forward. As real-time data communication is not longer required (the players will pull the data), dealing with TCP got easier. No mneed to keep stateful connection in an uncertain network environment anymore. Basically, the iPAQ connects to the server socket every time the player wants to be located and wants to coordinate with the others and closes the connection at the end of the transaction. The server keeps a thread pool of sockets. Solution for real-time communication would have been to use UDP (which could have been a headaches to deal with on the EPFL campus).

Today’s improvements are:
- The access point sniffer object was moved from a Timer to a Thread.
- A drawable map replaces the semi-structured communication context menu.
- A sound notifies that a scan has been performed
- The best signal strength is displayed

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Blogs: Des Scénarios Académiques

Blogs: Des Scénarios Académiques est un article à la mode Cooltown de Nicolas, Patrick et moi décrivant des scénarios d’utilisation des blogs dans le monde académique.

Mai au Parc

Web Services between .NET and Java

Although SOAP is now a standard, different implementations of web services are using it in ways that sometime makes the interoperability with other SOAPs hard if not impossible. Web Services between .NET, Java and MS SOAP Toolkit written in 8/2001 explains that accessing Apache SOAP for Java Service via a .NET client does not work because xsi:type is required in Apache SOAP for Java.

Apperently since then some efforts has been done in the Soap Interop movement. Dev4Net :: Web Service Interoperability summaries the current situation between the Microsoft Soap Toolkit 2.0 sp2, Apache for the Apache Axis (Alpha 2) implementation, and .NET for the Microsoft ASP.NET. Apparently interoperability between .NET Client -> Apache Service seems to work. Interoperability with Other SOAP Implementations give more in depth information on the interop problems with the Apache Soap implementation.

Developing WiFi Applications with the .NET Compact Framework

Developing smart device applications sharing real-time information with peer devices and desktops over WiFi has its challenges. The biggest problem I had so for was to deal the uncertain network connectivity of a wireless network. In other words, the connection must be tolerant to its sometimes-connected-sometimes-not nature. Something that I found hard to solve using a connection oriented protocol like TCP. In Developing Smart Device WiFi Applications with the .NET Compact Framework, Jim Wilson introduces his own MultiCommFramework, which allows .NET Compact Framework and Full .NET Framework applications to share information in a WiFi friendly way. MultiCommFramework is modeled after the concept of multicasting and utilizes connectionless UDP datagrams.

Measuring Text and Fonts

I could not remember how to measure the length of a text according to its fonts (a classic in GUI programming). So here we go:
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From Spam to Info Art

I reached the 2000 spams in my filter yesterday (gathered form March 10). About time to make something out of it. After mentionning it several time with Nico and Cyril, I finally quickly implemented a basic idea of SpamPoetry which to play with the words and sentences received on a daily basis thru spam mail. The hypothesis on this project is that informative art will form Latent Semantic Analysis and some good visualizations.
Spam Poetry: http://www.girardin.org/fabien/spampoetry/

Going Out of Our Way to Find the Right People

The trend is really at companies going to where creative people are and gather.

As read in the new Google Blog:

“When we announced the opening of our engineering office in Zurich, a lot of Europeans seemed pleased about the possibility of working for Google without a commute to California. Zurich draws Italians, French, Swiss, Germans, and other Europeans, and is easier to reach from most parts of the continent than the Amphitheatre Parkway exit off highway 101.”

“Google benefits from a diversity of languages.”

Bloomberg Interfaces

Are “bloomberg interfaces” the way of the future? While watching a short movie on HP’s vision of the future at the HP Invent Center in Geneva, I was surprised by their use of heavy interfaces where unrelated, fast-moving information are displayed on one screen.

Example of what a bloomberg interface is