"MyLibrary" in C#

Last semester I sat working at my desk and I looked at my bookshelf and realized that I had no idea which books I owned and which ones I didn't. I also had been wanting to learn a new programming language, and decided to write a program to keep track of my books (and later, DVD's). Since I get Visual Studio 2008 for free from school, I picked C# as the language, and MyLibrary was born.

This semester I was able to completely overhaul the broken, not well written program for a new class at BYU, the "unclass", where the topic is picked by the student. Mine is C#, obviously.

MyLibrary is completely light-weight, and at this point fully-functional. It stores the entire library in an XML file anywhere on the users machine. Many other implementations store these types of libraries in SQL, but I wanted it to be a standalone executable that the user doesn't have to install.

It also allows the user the option to automatically search the Amazon website using the UPC/ISBN (through the Amazon Web-services API) based on one row or the entire database.

In addition, the user can scan the barcodes in from a barcode scanner or a Cuecat scanner (we had to use one for my VBA class, and I thought it'd be fun to implement it here) and have the software find the information for them, limiting user-input.

There are still bugs of course, and I don't claim it to be the best written software, but it's been fun to write. I'll post the executable when it's more complete then it is now.

It also has a really basic stats page:

*sidenote - the stats page has a pie chart that the screen print doesn't pick up for some reason. Odd.

Media Center Update

A lot has changed since my last post on my media center. At that time, I had the media center up and running, and then it unexpectedly crashed on me. After much troubleshooting (the worst part about DIY projects) I realized it was most likely (note I never officially figured it out) that the video card I was using was PCI Express 2.0, and my mobo was an older one, that likely didn't support 2.0 on the Express slot.

Although that sucked, I was okay, because I wasn't quite ready to make the transition to HDMI in my living room. So, I yanked the vid card, put the media center in my office, and used my XBox 360 as a media extender to play my recorded shows from the office.

Did it work? Yeah. Was it the best solution? No way. I found the XBox to be somewhat slow and at times unresponsive. In addition, it required another remote (because I didn't want to take the time to program my Remote Commander for a temporary solution).

Anyway, I soon found a great deal at Buy.com for a 3-to-1 HDMI switch (only $12 with free shipping), and then picked up some HDMI cables, and I realized it was time to move the HTPC into the living room. But it was an unsightly thing in its' mid-tower case. Until my brother offered his "old" media case because he'd purchased a bigger and better one. The downside to this was it only accepts half-height cards, meaning my TV tuner wouldn't fit.

After thinking about this, I ended up being okay with getting rid of the card. I'm quickly becoming an HD snob anyway, and unless I wanted to upgrade my HTPC to Vista and run the TV Pack hack to get QAM on my tuner, I wasn't going to get OTA HD on my tuner anyway, and the new case looked great compared to the old one.

So I made the switch - and still couldn't use my HDMI card. Thankfully, I got an older Radeon X300 low-profile card with DVI out, which will work until I either upgrade my mobo or my video card.

Add to that using Handbrake to rip my DVD's, coupled with AnyDvd to strip the encoding, I've now got all my DVD's stored on my HTPC.

I also was looking for a good, easy to use visual piece to navigate the media when my brother recommended XBMC which is pretty, easy to use and develop on, and best of all, is free.

The last thing that I haven't done yet is to install VNC or Synergy to allow me to control the media center from my laptop. Once that's done, it will be fully functional. I'll post a pic of what the computer looks like sometime here soon.

Today's Quote

"I'm petrified of nipple chafing. Once it starts, it is a vicious cycle. You have sensitive nipples...they chafe, so they become more sensitive, so they chafe more. So, I take precautions."

-Andy

Review: Windows 7 Beta pt 2

There was so much cool new stuff in Windows 7, I decided to make a second post. This is more of a "Here's where you can go for more info" kind of post, and I'll update it as I find better links, but a good one is here, at the How To Geek's site.

In addition, here's the information from Microsoft's help site on getting to know Windows 7:

Review: Windows 7 Beta pt 1

As soon as it was announced that Windows 7 beta would be available for a limited time, I knew I had to grab it. I did, and threw it on an older laptop I had. The laptop doesn't meet the requirements (it's only a 1.7 Mhz proc, 768mb of RAM, and a 32MB video card), but I wasn't about to throw it onto a live machine and have it die. It is a beta, after all.

This isn't going to be a review of under the hood features. This is more of a review of the shiny chrome additions, like the new rear-view mirror, or the new stereo.

So, where to begin? The desktop, of course.


Obviously, there are a couple of things that jump out right away. It's based on the look of Vista, but with changes. The icons are bigger, and the taskbar is bigger, which is nice. Also, you can pin icons on the taskbar easily. Another nice thing is that sticky notes are built in. You can see a couple there on my desktop.


The next change I love is the ability to close items straight from their taskbar icons.


You also have the ability to customize your taskbar with simplicity. I know you could customize it before, but not as simply.

And you see that flag? That's the new action center, a way to control which messages Win7 sends you. Don't want to see backup information? Okay, turn it off.


UAC has gone through an overhaul as well (let all users of Vista rejoice!), allowing the user specifically how tight to control their machine:


All I can say about that is that it's about time.


The calculator has been overhauled as well, allowing built-in conversion tools, a programming calculator (with binary, qword, dword, and other tools), and lots of other changes.

And the speed? Even on this 'slow' machine, it's nice and peppy. I can only imagine what it would do on my beefy machine with a dedicated video card, an AMD x2 proc, and 6GB of RAM.

My favorite change though is the auto-fill and auto-split. If you drag a window to the left, it will auto-fill only the left side. Same with the right side. If you drag it to the top it will fill the whole screen. That's awesome, especially for people with large monitors, like myself.

So, my decision? I will be upgrading. I like Windows 7. It took some major work to get a WEP2 driver on this laptop, but it's a beta, so I'll cut it some slack. Other than that, I have 0 complaints.

For a beta, it's stable. It's almost cliche at this point, but Windows 7 is everything Vista should've been, and more.

Review: Garmin Nuvi 750

Early last year, my wife and I decided to join the throngs of the lost, and purchased a GPS unit. I found a great deal online and purchased a Navigon 2100, a little 3.5" unit with a clumsy windshield mount and terrible GPS speed. But, I got a good deal, and when we went to Denver for 2 months for an IT internship, it saved our lives.

The last little while though, I'd been selling some old crap on eBay and decided to take the splurge and purchase a better GPS. I was able to grab a Nuvi 750 from Best Buy's eBay outlet for $100, and was a little unsure of what I would find.

The Good:
Where to start? There's a reason Garmin is one of the industry leaders in GPS technology.

First and foremost, the response time to commands is AMAZING. Granted, coming from the Navigon to the Garmin is like moving from a Geo Metro to a Corvette, of course it's going to be faster, but either way, I'm sufficiently impressed by how quick it performs.

It also finds a satellite extremely efficiently. This was my biggest gripe with the Navigon. There were times we'd be driving for 5-10 minutes before it would get sufficient reception. Driving in the same locations, the Nuvi connects on average within 1-2 minutes, most times less.

Intuition. The designers of the Nuvi software were really smart. Even the little things it does are great. Take a few examples: You start your car, the GPS is plugged in. It recognizes that and will boot the GPS for you. You start driving, but haven't touched the GPS yet, it will automatically switch to the map, showing you where you are. As you drive, it will show the next cross street, even if you aren't having it navigate. When you turn the car off, it will give you 30 seconds, after which it will automatically shut down. All of these little things make it a no-hassle, think for you approach.

Map updates. The moment I got my Nuvi, I registered it with Garmin. Imagine my surprise when I found it qualified for a free upgrade to the 2009 maps. Most places charge an arm and a leg for a map update, but Garmin handed it out. Granted, I'm sure the next ones will charge, but it was a pleasant surprise.

The mount. It's nice, it's simple, it works. Getting the unit on and off the mount is a snap. Can't say the same for the Navigon.

The Bad:
These aren't so much bad things, more just picky things. First, the rerouting capabilites are slower than the Navigon. This isn't such a big deal, but it's interesting.
The amount of data on the screen is lacking. Now I know you're not supposed to watch the screen of the GPS all that much, but on my Navigon I could get worlds of awesome data on the screen all at once while navigating: est arrival time, current speed, miles left (total), altitude, traffic, etc. The Nuvi offers most of this, but it requires going to separate screens, something I just can't do while driving.

Overall:
I like it. A lot. It was well worth the upgrade. It's lighter, faster, bigger (4.3" vs 3.5"), etc etc. I'm a happy Nuvi-er as of 2 weeks ago.

The Office Quote of the Day

"I signed up for Second Life about a year ago. Back then, my life was so great that I literally wanted a second one. In my Second Life, I was also named Dwight. Absolutely everything was the same, except I could fly."

-Dwight