It seems that the more things change, the more they return to the same!

Of course when you hear MultiPoint Server, you might cringe as a developer as there is a fair chance that you use more than one machine versus th intent of MultiPoint, which is to have multiple users on one machine. However, this does give you new opportunities for writing applications, so that should peak your interest. In fact, there is a MultiPoint 1.5 SDK that you can freely download to develop applications.

One of the fun things this SDK will allow you to do is to create support for multiple mouses (mice?) in your application. In fact, you can build applications that support up to 25 simultaneous users on a single PC. Each of these users can even have their own mouse! There is even a guide for getting started available online.

If you check out the SDK and build a cool application, be sure to share it with the rest of us at Codeguru. Of course, feel free to share your thoughts on the MultiPoint Server -- or the concept of the software -- in the comments below!

For more on MultiPoint Server you can see the Microsoft press release

• iPhone users tend to download more paid applications than Android users even though both groups download nearly the same number of applications.
  • 50% of iPhone users purchase one paid application a month.
  • 21% of Android users purchase one paid application a month
• Percentage of people who would recommend their device to others. These statistics come as no surprise:
  • 64% of webOS users would recommend their device
  • 84% of Android users would recommend their device
  • 91% of iPhone users would recommend their device
• From a pure application download perspective, the number of apps downloaded on a monthly basis averages:
  • 12 for iPod touch users
  • 7 for Android users
  • 6 for webOS users

For more information, you can check out the January 2010 Mobile Metrics Report.

Of course, sales of mobile devices doesn't necessarily mean sales of applications. Of course, in the asknet survey, 55% of respondents said they actually had bought software for their smartphone, but most spent less than $50. There were, however, 12 percent that had spent between $51 and 150 for an application. 27% of those buying applications, bought business applications. 51% said they would buy more business software. Not surprising, most had bought music and said they would buy more music.

Regardless of what the press releases say and what the statistics are, it is obvious that more people are using smart phones and that the computing power of those phones is increasing. Along with the increase in power is the increase in the number of people using phones with data plans that allow them to always be connected. The release of the Android operating system and the continued development in the market by Apple are also raising the bar on what phones can do. As such, applications for phones are reaching new heights. With Windows Phone 7 System now announced too, the battle for applications on the phone is bound to heat up.

Whether you are using Objective-C and targeting the iPhone, using Java and programming for Android, or using Microsoft's technologies for Windows mobile, it does appear that the market and opportunities for making money with mobile applications is increasing. The question is, whether you will be building applications that target one or more devices and trying to cash in as well. It seems like the chances of cashing in might be greater than building a new desktop application these days!

Time will tell...

Auto-following in Google Buzz

You follow people you already have in Gmail

Rich, fast sharing experience in Google Buzz

Sharing videos, web content, images, and more. You can pull in activity from other social networks such as flickr, and more. Videos, Photos, and links get special attention. Photos can be seen in a photo viewer that shows images large and fast. Links are also treated specially in Buzz. When you share a link, Buzz grabs images, headlines, and more from the link and also shows those when you share.

Public and private sharing in Google Buzz

Share to just family and friends or publicly. When you post, you can post publicly that goes to your followers and more. If you publish to your private list, then you can post to groups from your gmail account or to custom groups you can create.

Inbox integration in Google Buzz

The inbox is where a lot of people are focused. Buzz brings social updates to your inbox. Buzz items can get into your inbox. When people comment on your stuff, the comments will appear in your inbox. Additionally, comments on your comments will arrive. The third way for items to get into your inbox is by using @replies. When you do an @replies, they will go to the inboxes.

"Just the Good Stuff"

Google Buzz tries to keep just the good stuff with you.

And more

Google is updating buzz into the mobile space too. You'll find it added to Google.com, to buzz.google.com, and in Google maps. You'll be able to do things such as tie a buzz (aka tweet) to a geo location. Similarly, you can look around where you are located in geo maps and see what buzz posts people have made. Another interesting extension is to use a "Nearby" feature to see what people are saying around you.

There is a lot coming from Google. Much of it is similar to what other social groups have done. At the end of the day, though, it seems Google is working to integrate it all together. More importantly, they are integrating it into the mobile world as well. A lot of this is not new, but Google is definitely adding their spin.

Of course, the first question asked of Google when they announced Google Buzz related to the how Google Buzz and stalkers

Google Buzz is launching today

This week I received a release for a "hands on" development product. Of course, that sounds like something you might find interesting, so it should be no surprise that I opened it to take a look.

There are a number of different products for hands on development, but of course, this product was for hands--and developing them. No code, not specifically for programmers, but aimed at anyone with a hand and fingers!

The "hands on" development product is Xtensor, a tool that exercises your hands to help your finger extensor muscles and tendons. While this won't help you write the best C++ or Java program, it will help your hands if you do a lot of typing. I've included a picture because the $39.95 device actually looks pretty cool.

While this isn't the goofiest press release I've received, I have to admit, it rates pretty close!

Download the Office 2010 Beta from Here

Because I'm talking about Office already, let me do a free plug for Microsoft...

Do you use OneNote? If so, no reason to read on! If not, then do you attend a lot of meetings or attend conferences? Do go to classes? If so, you should check out OneNote. It is a great tool for organizing notes (hence the name) and other information into one place. It is like having a slate of paper where you can type, write, draw, record audio, and more. You can even highlight, flag areas, and otherwise mark up your notes too. If you've never tried it, then that is just one more reason to take a look at the Office 2010 beta. It is your chance to check out OneNote!

Back in the "old days" you had to worry about memory management. In fact, if you needed more than 640k of memory&mdashyes "k" as in 1024 bytes per k-- you had to do special processing with extended or expanded memory on the computer. The processors could only easily work with 640kb of memory and thus complex things were needed to go beyond that. Developer would spend days and weeks tweaking programs to get them to operate in under 640kbs. You had to work with memory, you had to understand extended and expanded concepts, and you had to do lots of low level tweaking.

If you are under the age of 30, you might be scratching your head and wondering what I'm talking about. If you are an old C or C++ programmer, you are likely thinking back to the "old days" where you spent hours chasing memory. The bottom line is that today few developers even think about memory constraints let along about the methods around them. You simply just use memory.

.NET includes the Task Parallel Library, which allows you to take C# code like the following:

// Sequential
foreach (var item in sourceCollection)
{
    Process(item);
}

And turn it into parallelized code by changing it to the following:

// Parallel 
Parallel.ForEach(sourceCollection, item => Process(item));

It also includes the PLINQ features added in .NET 3.0 such as:

var source = Enumerable.Range(1, 10000);

var evenNums = from num in source.AsParallel()
               where Compute(num) > 0
               select num;

While this is only a little of the code available, you'll see that there is no reference to threads. The concept of threading is destined to be like the concepts of extended and expanded memory. It is destined to disappear.

As developers, the day is coming when you will likely stop thinking about creating a thread and assigning code to it. Rather, you will likely change your thinking to be about processes that your code performs. You will simply identify process and tasks that can be parallelized and you'll mark them appropriately. Threading--or other underlying technologies-- will be taken care of automatically, and the code within the identified processes will be spread across the cores or processors. The developer won't have to worry about the details.

You won't focus on threads; you'll focus on processes and tasks.

You can already see this change in thinking in what Microsoft has done. You can now run code in parallel by simply adding a few keywords. While the concepts of Extended and Expanded memory didn't disappear overnight, neither will threading. However, it is safe to say the days are numbered that most developers will need to think about the details of threading.

Of course, while you won't have to think about threading, you will have to think about parallelizing or running concurrent code!

GodMode isn't really a change in functionality for Windows. Rather, it is the creation of a folder that has a multitude of links that can help you. Like a Control panel, there are a number of productivity links. These provide links to things such as:

• Action Center (and individual tasks within Action Center)
• Administrative Tools
• AutoPlay
• Backup and Restore
• Color Management
• Credential manager
• Date and Time
• Default Location
• Default Programs
• Desktop Gadgets
• Device Manager
• Devices and Printers

...

• Windows Defender
• Windows Firewall
• Windows Update

These are all some of the categorie's that are listed. There are also items listed within each category. This gives you virtually everything important all in one folder on your system.

To create this GodMode folder simple. Create a new folder on your system. Rename the folder to the following:

GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

Like magic, the folder icon will change:

More importantly, your new folder will be mysteriously filled with all the goodness mentioned above.

I believe that Next Generation Web Services (NGWS) was a close second. In fact, I was priviledged to get to work with Christophe Wille to create the first C# book ever published called Presenting C#. It was a book written by Christophe and published in time to be at the Microsoft PDC in the United States when .NET was announced. If you find a copy of the book, you'll see that there are a lot of references to NGWS. That is because the name changed between the time the book was completed and the time Microsoft announced .NET.

Things were moving fast ten years ago around C# and .NET. Ten years later, we have .NET 4.0 in beta and changes in C# continue to come regularly. The excitement around C# and .NET was very high when it was announced. I believe it is safe to say that that excitement still shows in C# today. After all, it has become one of the most demanded programming languages today!

Of course, as C# reaches its tenth birthday, you have to wonder what the next language will be that surpasses it. More importantly, you have to wonder if it is something already out there, just waiting for a good name!

On the positive side, the delay is partially a result of adding an additional public beta. Expectations are that there will be an additional public preview (public Release Candidate) in February--prior to the official release. This public RC will include a "go live" license, which in effect allows you to launch applications onto the web.

Specifically, according to ChannelWeb, Intel leaked a document that indicated that they will be releasing thirteen different processors on March 16th of 2010. This includes seven quad-core processors and six new six core processors. The six core processors will be running between 2.26GHz and 3.33GHz. The seven 32nm, quad-core processors will operate between 2.13GHz and 3.46GHz.

Also on the leaked list were three other processors, of which one was dual core.

Multicore chips are no longer the future. They are here. Are you coding for them?

If you are not at least considering the impact of multi-core processors on your application development, then it might be a good time to start. If you look at the system offered today, you'll find that many now come with dual core chips. On higher-end desktop systems quad-core is becoming the norm. In 2010 you'll see AMD and Intel start migrating the high-end towards six-core chips.

The number of cores is going to continue to grow. In fact, in 2010 Intel is expected to release a 48-core chip to researches to begin using. According to BBC News, Intel has already developed an x86 based 48-core chip dubbed the Single-Chip Cloud Computer (SCC).

If you are not adjusting your applications to take advantage of multi-core, then you could be wasting nearly 80% of the power of a six core chip. On a 48 core chip you'd barely be touching the power if you don't adjust your application.

Of course, you can argue that 48 core chips are only for the high-end user and not main stream. Of course the same argument was made with dual core chips just a few years ago. The other old argument is that you'll never use all the power of the many cores. Again, a similar argument was made a few years ago about disk space. Nobody would ever need a terabyte of data storage on their machines. They could never use it all. Yet today, people are buying Terabyte drives for under $100. More importantly, they are using the space. Of course, to process all that data, what would be better than applications using multi-core chips to process it concurrently!

Are you already considering the impact of multi-core on your applications?

http://silverlight.net/getstarted/silverlight-4-beta/

Silverlight 4 is targeted for release next year. The first three versions of Silverlight were released within 22 months. Micorosft is on the same clip with Silverligth 4.

Also released are public betas of products such as Microsoft Office 2010, Project 2010, Visio, 2010, and SharePoint 2010. You can find more on these at:

http://www.microsoft.com/2010/en/

I predict a decrease in developer productivity today....

I've been planning to switch my current USB Mouse and USB keyboard with wireless versions for some time now. In fact, I had bought a Microsoft Wireless MultiMedia keyboard (1.0A) a while back, but never installed it. The primary hindrance point was the big wired receiver that you still needed to have on your desk for the devices to work. The receiver was just as bad as having a wired mouse on your desk. While I managed to get this set out of the box, I never installed it.

I also didn't like the idea that you needed to have the receiver and mouse/keyboard in line with each other and relatively close. I use a keyboard and mouse that are located under the main desk and away from the main computer that sits off to the side. There is no straight line and there is a good amount of wooden desk between the computer and the peripherals I use.

With the Desktop 5000, the technology uses a 2.4GHz wireless USB transceiver. This transceiver is no larger than a standard USB memory stick. There are no wires for this receiver, it simply plugs into a USB slot and then gives you up to 30 feet to place your keyboard and mouse. It is very clean and simple.

My wired keyboard was a natural keyboard in that the keys were on a bit of a hill and thus to the right and left. While the Comfort Desktop 5000 keyboard is not a natural keyboard, it does do two things to make up for this. First, its keys are aligned in a curve rather than being straight across. Coming from a natural keyboard, this meant the keys felt perfectly positioned. I imagine that if I used a standard keyboard, the slightly bigger keys in the middle (G, H, B, and N) might feel odd. Secondarily, while most keyboard come with little feet to raise the back this keyboard allows you to put the feet in the back or the front. I put them in the front so that the palm rest is raised to support my hands. Small feature, but one that makes this keyboard much in line with the natural keyboard I am replacing.

Of course, all this ignores the features that are on the keyboard. In truth, if you've used a modern keyboard, then you'll find the features you expect. This includes media keys, customizable buttons, standard arrow, numeric pad, and other keys, and more. The one thing that is a little off is the function keys. They are smaller than the function keys on most keyboards. While initially this smaller size bothered me, I believe the jury is still out as to whether it is a negative or not.

The software for customizing the keyboard is simple to use and makes assigning your on functions to the special keys easy. By running the keyboard program that installs on the Start menu, you can quickly access the settings:

It is a simple matter of selecting a custom key to configure and setting a value. Like everyone should, I set the first custom key to go to Codeguru.com by simply entering http://www.Codeguru.com.

Being that Microsoft gave me this keyboard, I was set for it to possibly be a trick. In reality, so far it has been a great treat! Being that the batteries are not rechargeable, only time will tell if this becomes more of a trick!

Details:

• Microsoft Wireless Comfort Desktop 5000
• List Price: $79.99 (seems a bit high priced)
• Windows 7, Vista, and 32-bit XP compatible (100 MB hard drive space)
• Mac OS X v10.4x- 10.5x compatible (30 MB hard drive space)
• USB required
• Uses 4 AA batteries (included)
• Mouse uses Microsoft BlueTrack Technology