Software Development

795 Articles

C Sharp Development 101 – Part 1: Hello World

September 30, 2010 by 50 Comments

In this tutorial we are going to get up close with the Visual Studio 2010 environment. We will learn how to make a console application as well as a form to display our hello world applications.  This will give us an opportunity to view 2 types of solutions of the many available in Visual Studio.  We will start making the console application first then progress to the forms application.

First we must  understand the development environment we are going to use.  On the far left side is the toolbox panel.  This panel gives us access to a lot of controls  that can be used by the Windows Forms.  Next is the Solution Explorer that will allow us to navigate the projects and files we are going to create in this Solution.  The Properties panel is directly under my Solution Explorer and will allow us to change properties of controls and of the form we will create later on.  If any of these are not being displayed they can be retrieved from the View menu at the top under Other Windows.  For more information on the Visual Studio IDE visit MSDN and search for the specific questions you are having.

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C Sharp Development 101 – A Tutorial Series

September 3, 2010 by 107 Comments

In this tutorial series we are going to look at C# Development using the Visual Studio 2010 Express editions.  This will take you from the basics of installing Visual Studio 2010 Express, to the Object Oriented Programming style associated with C# and other languages, dabble in some database access (Access & SQL Server Express) and finally, design a project that will pull all of our knowledge together into a final solution.

Top 5 Integrated Development Environments

August 24, 2010 by 185 Comments

So, you want to do some programming but don’t have the budget of a major corporation? This is just the thing for you because all of these development environments are free of charge! Many Integrated Development Environments are marketed towards companies who have money to pay for such expensive environments. Here are the Top 5 Integrated Development Environments that are most widely used and recognized. Some will be used when programming past and future tutorials. The following are listed in no particular order and all make an excellent development environment.

There are alot more IDE’s out there that were not mentioned but should have been.  We have posed the question at Hack A Day Answers “What are your Top 5 IDE’s?” Give us some feedback and we will be back with a revised list from the comments you give us!

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Android Development 101 – Part 6:Getting Ready For Market!

August 10, 2010 by 25 Comments
In this tutorial we are going to cover packaging one of our applications into an .apk file and getting it ready for the Android Market.  After we have completed this tutorial you should be able to use the tools provided in the AndroidSDK to sign your application, put the application on your phone and install it or send it to the Android Market.  These will be great assets to have if you decide to develop applications that you may want to charge for.  This tutorial will also be a change from the normal ones because it will include little, if any, code.

Behind The Scenes Of A 1K Graphics Demo

August 8, 2010 by 38 Comments

Programmer/designer [Steven Wittens] has posted a fantastic write-up on the black art of producing compact demo code, dissecting his own entry in the 1K JavaScript Demo Contest. The goal is to produce the best JavaScript demo that can be expressed in 1024 characters or less and works reliably across all standards-compliant web browsers.

[Wittens] details several techniques for creating a lot of visual flash in very few bytes, including the use of procedural graphics rather than fixed datasets, exploiting prime numbers to avoid obvious repetitions in movement, and strategically fudging formulas to save space while adding visual interest. These methods are just as applicable to other memory-constrained situations, not just JavaScript — some of the contest entries bear a resemblance to the compact microcontroller demos we’ve previously showcased, except running in your browser window.

The contest runs through September 10th, allowing ample time to come up with something even more clever. Whether he wins or not, we think [Steven] deserves special merit on account of having one of the most stylish blogs in recent memory!

Android Development 101 – Part 5:DroidDraw & Information Tracker Completed

August 5, 2010 by 5 Comments



In this tutorial we are going to cover completing the Information Tracker using DroidDraw to design the layout of this project. This will give you insight into an alternative to the stock layout manager in the eclipse environment and how DroidDraw functions. DroidDraw can be your best friend when designing Android applications or your worse enemy if you don’t know the layout of the application and how it works. This will show you the basics to this program and how to incorporate it into your development process.  This is significantly easier than the previous post but will teach skills on other programs to help development such as DroidDraw.

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Android Development 101- Part 4:Advanced Database/GUI Code And DDMS

August 2, 2010 by 40 Comments

In this tutorial we are going to cover some advanced database code as well as tie in to some more advanced GUI techniques. We left off on the last tutorial showing you how to insert and select data to/from the database as well as make a table. What we need now is to be able to delete data if it is not needed and update it if we entered it incorrectly. We will tie these abilities in with some more advanced functionality utilizing a long press on the screen for delete and for updating we will just press the data we want to edit.

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