You heard me. Here are the dates:

There you have it. For those still on older versions of your service packs, it is time for you to update your operating systems.

For more information: http://blogs.technet.com/lifecycle/archive/2010/02/24/end-of-support-for-windows-xp-sp2-and-windows-vista-with-no-service-packs-installed.aspx

Resources:
Service Pack 3 for Windows XP: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=68C48DAD-BC34-40BE-8D85-6BB4F56F5110&displaylang=en

Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/default.aspx

F# is Microsoft’s first functional programming language to be included as one of Visual Studio’s official set of languages. F# is a succinct, efficient, expressive functional/object-oriented programming language under joint development by Microsoft Developer Division and Microsoft Research.

Dr. Don Syme is a principal researcher in MSR Cambridge. He has a rich history in programming language research, design, and implementation (C# generics being one of his most recognized implementations), and is the principle creator of F#. Who better to lecture on the topic than Don? This three part series will serve as an introduction to F#, including insights into the rationale behind the history and creation of Microsoft’s newest language.

C9 Lectures: Dr. Don Syme – Introduction to F#, 1 of 3

C9 Lectures: Dr. Don Syme – Introduction to F#, 2 of 3

C9 Lectures: Dr. Don Syme – Introduction to F#, 3 of 3

All I can say is, “HOLY SMOKES”. Now that, is technology at its finest. I can’t wait for April to come when they hopefully will finally ship the product.

Video from: http://www.CS5.org

No matter how I read a bunch of words from the documentation about Activity Launch Modes, it just takes too damn long to understand. Here’s a table showing you what launch modes to use for activities you have.

And here’s what kind of activity you should set for each mode:

Frankly, I don’t know when I will use singleTop mode. If anyone knows a type of activity that suits singleTop, please put a comment and tell me when you will use singleTop mode.

Here’s a common scenario though. What happens if you want to float an existing instance of Activity to the top of the stack? For example, your current stack is (bottom)A-B-C-D(top) and you want to float B to the top of the stack like this (bottom)A-C-D-B(top). You “start” the activity with an intent with the flag FLAG_ACTIVITY_REORDER_TO_FRONT like the following:

intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_REORDER_TO_FRONT);
startActivity(intent);

I think that covers most of the usages of Activity Launch Modes for Android. Hopefully more Android titbits to come in future.

I just read my RSS feeds this morning and came across this. I guess this might be something that will be announced during MIX10. It has already been taking down from Microsoft Download Center.

Here’s a screenshot of it from my RSS reader.

Anyway, here are the descriptions of those 2 downloads:

Microsoft® Silverlight™ for Symbian – Beta

The installable executable enables user to run Silverlight applications on the Nokia S60 5th Edition platform.

Microsoft® Silverlight™ for Symbian – Beta Developer Tools

The installable executable file enables users to run Silverlight applications on the Nokia S60 5th Edition platform. The executable file includes the Silverlight runtime for Nokia S60 5th Edition devices, the Silverlight runtime for Nokia S60 5th Edition emulator, sample applications, and developer documentation.

And there we have it. Anyone excited? All the more reason to learn Silverlight now!

Did you know Martin Cooper is the inventor of the most successful and widely used technology in the world, the cellphone? Well, neither did I, until he went on TV.

He recently gave up his iPhone for a Droid, and joined the whole twitter-sphere. You can follow him on twitter @martymobile: http://twitter.com/martymobile

Just listen to his intellectual and wise words regarding how to solve the increasing use of the limited resources of wireless spectrum on The Communicators. I think he handled the tough questions very objectively and held his position on improving the efficiency of usage.

Respect. Enjoy the video.

This is my little research today for some work I’m helping out. So you have a Unicode encoded HTML string (or url), e.g. “津津有味”, that you want to convert to an actual unicode string, in this case “津津有味″, but you don’t have the trusty use of HtmlUtility.HtmlDecode or anything on hand (for example you’re using the compact framework like myself). Here’s how you convert those numbers into actual unicode characters.

// Convert the number into a short - you can make this a little more safe by using short.TryParse instead
ushort mycode = Convert.ToUInt16("27941");

// Now convert that integer into a byte array
byte[] mybytes = BitConverter.GetBytes(mycode);

// We have our byte array, convert to a string! Tada!
string mystring = Encoding.Unicode.GetString(mybytes);

And there we have it. In order to parse all the unicode encoded numbers out, you just need a simple regular expression which I’m sure you can figure out.

I hope that helps someone out there, because it took me some time inspecting variables in order to get it right.

This week we have some interesting meetings that isn’t so technical. Hey, whoever said HackerspaceSG were just for geeks?

Cambodian Comics & Web Comic
Mon, Mar 8 7:30 pm Mon, Mar 8 8:30 pm

John Weeks, comic researcher and an entrepreneur living in Cambodia is visiting us at hackerspace.sg this Monday. He will be talking about Cambodian comics. John is also keen on discussing the future comics. John is a member of ‘think tank’ Sang Salapak, co-founder of House 32 Web Design, and advisor to nonprofit publisher Our Books as well as numerous other organisations. He enjoys sharing his interests via blogging, drawing and varied writings. John’s opinions on art, culture, and technology have been cited in publications ranging from Time and USA Today to Punk Planet. Web: http://www.jweeks.net

ABAF Cocktails
Tue, Mar 9 7:00 pm Wed, Mar 10 1:00 am

We are hosting the Asian Business Angel Forum Cocktails and After Party for them. ABAF brings together for the first time early-stage venture players and participants: angel networks, investors, startup companies, policy makers, fund managers, and investment professionals from across Asia, Europe and the US.

Book Club Meetup
Wed, Mar 10 7:30 pm Wed, Mar 10 10:30 pm

We’ll be reading and discussing The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde – we’re a small but open group – all who’ve read the book or are interested literature are welcome.

2 months ago, Mariko from LG approached me to do a review of their latest LCD monitor, the LG W2486L. I thought, “Hey, why not?” not quite knowing what I was getting myself into. Among all my other friends that got a unit to review, it seems like not everyone had an idea how to review this. It is a little tough to review a monitor, but hey, I’m going to try and I hope you find this useful.

Table of Contents

Specifications
Notables
My Take
Summary
Photos
(more…)

1st week into March and have a whole slew of events lined up. I hope everyone had a great Chinese New Year and are ready for more events at HackerspaceSG than ever!

Hackerspace Hack Time
Mon, Mar 1 6:00 pm Mon, Mar 1 11:59 pm

We currently have the following projects being worked on – Sucktionator, Water Rocket, Stop Motion Animation, and many other miscellaneous projects currently worked on by our members. So come join in and hack on any of your projects!

Singapore Ruby Brigade Meetup
Wed, Mar 3 7:00 pm Wed, Mar 3 10:00 pm

This month, the topic for our regular Ruby meetup will be on Rails 3. That’s right! Rails 3 Beta was released last month, and we’re meeting up to discuss about what’s new with Rails 3, and possibly how it impacts your current Rails code. I always love a good Ruby discussion.

Introduction to Programming for Beginners Workshop (1/2)
Thu, Mar 4 7:30 pm Thr, Mar 4 10:00 pm

Please note this event is by registration only.

If you have always wondered how computer programs are written and whether you can write a program yourself here is your chance to find out! Over a 2-session workshop you will learn some of the fundamentals of programming and start writing your first programs almost at once! The workshop is designed to be hands-on and fun for complete beginners. We will be using the Python programming language. If you have always wondered how computer programs are written andwhether you can write a program yourself here is your chance to findout! Over a 2-session workshop you will learn some of the fundamentals of programming and start writing your first programs almost at once! The workshop is designed to be hands-on and fun for complete beginners. We will be using the Python programming language.

Online and Tech culture in Cambodia
Fri, Mar 5 7.30 pm Fri, Mar 5 8.30 pm

We will have two popular Cambodian bloggers visiting us on Friday, 5th March. Nearirath is a lawyer and one of the  Barcamp Phnom Penh organizers. Kounila is a writer and is currently planning her first documentary film. They will be talking about the adoption of technology and online culture in Cambodia and tech events in Cambodia.

GenJuice Meetup
Sat, Mar 6 6:00 pm Sat, Mar 6 9:00 pm

It’s basically a meet-up for young people to “get together to discuss their goals and how they market themselves to reach those goals.” (from the site). A personal branding meetup for young people, if you will. RSVP here.