TouchTyper my entry for the Windows DEV7 Contest

Posted on November 1, 2009 by John Bruin | Permalink 0

This is my entry for the dutch Windows DEV7 Contest.

TouchTyper is a touch-enabled WPF remake of my entry for the MIX 10K Smart Coding Challenge called Silvertyper.

TouchTyper is great fun and learns users how to use Touch and Handwriting Recognition in Windows 7. TouchTyper provides Rich Animation using the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), which holds compatible even on Best Monitors under 100.

Goal
The goal of the game is to write the letters of the scrolling words with your finger, stylus or mouse before they reach the laser.

How it works
If a letter is recognized the ‘Touch Scanner’ will turn green and the letter dissapears. If not the light will turn red. If a word reaches the laser the letters will explode and you will lose your energy. The game is over when you run out of energy.

Technical information
The game is compatible with 32 bit Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 and uses the Handwriting Recognizer.
For Windows XP you have to have the Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 Recognizer Pack installed.
In Windows Vista and Windows 7 you may have to activate handwriting recognition for the desired language.

The game uses a dutch word dictionary but I have also provided english words in the installation folder (default C:\Program Files\John Bruin\TouchTyper). Simply rename words_en.xml to words.xml.

Screen shots
TouchTyper screenshot 1/3

TouchTyper screenshot 2/3

TouchTyper screenshot 3/3

Download
You can download the installation package for TouchTyper here: TouchTyper.msi

Have fun!

.net, gadgets, Silverlight

Tros Wondere Wereld on YouTube

Posted on October 31, 2009 by John Bruin | Permalink 0

Back in the 80’s I really liked to watch Tros Wondere Wereld presented by Chriet Titulaer. Tros Wondere Wereld was a dutch TV program about new technology and gadgets. It really makes me happy to watch it again after so many years on YouTube.

gadgets

Random Image With Sound for your USB Panic Button

Posted on October 11, 2009 by John Bruin | Permalink 5

My USB Panic Button software seems to be very popular and I have got this request from Brian:

Brian :

Hello John!


I am hoping to use the USB Panic Button hack you created at a Halloween event that I’m putting on for kids. What would really make it great would be the ability for the button to select a random audio file from a particular folder each time the button is pressed. Even better would be if the picture coincided with the audio (Frankenstein photo with Frankenstein audio, Ghost jpg with a ghostly sound, etc.) Any quick fixes or batch files that would do the trick? Thanks so much!


Brian Wheeler

And therefor I have made this special add-on: RandomImageWithSound.exe
Copy this file in the Commands folder of the USB Panic Button software and select this command (…\Commands\RandomImagesWithSound.exe ..) as shown below:
RandomImageWithSound.exe ..
Simply add pictures in the Images folder and the corresponding wav files with the same name in the Sounds folder and there you go! Have fun!

gadgets

Silverlight Wordle

Posted on October 5, 2009 by John Bruin | Permalink 8

Do you know the fantastic Wordle by Jonathan Feinberg?
It inspired me to make Silverlight Wordle and I can tell you that it looks much easier than it is…

The result is a bit slow and there are still some collision detection bugs but it looks pretty cool, don’t you think!? Try refreshing the page for some random layouts, fonts, and colours!

The beautiful colour palettes come from the site COLOURlovers.
I have borrowed the collision detection from Andy Beaulieu and Laurence Moroney helped me out with his convert-text-to-path webservice.

Furthermore I have developed a very basic word count routine that strips HTML and returns the first X most occurring words from any WebClient stream. I am using an ASP.NET page as a webproxy to be able to process any URL without the need of a clientaccesspolicy.xml file in place.
If you click on a word it will perform a search on this word.

UPDATED July 20, 2010: This new version does not need to use the convert-text-to-path webservice anymore because I use the WriteableBitmap now to render a TextBlock to a Bitmap. So now you can use any font you like! I have also improved the collision detection.

You can download the source code here: SilverlightWordle.zip

.net, design, Silverlight

Silverlight Money Pyramid

Posted on October 4, 2009 by John Bruin | Permalink 0

My Silverlight Money Pyramid project was inspired by a little statistics experiment that was described in a mathematics schoolbook back in the 80’s.
Again I have used Andy Beaulieu’s Physics Helper and I am also using the charting controls from the Silverlight Toolkit. Hope you like it!

.net, Silverlight

Silverlight MINI Clubman Physics

Posted on August 22, 2009 by John Bruin | Permalink 2

Andy Beaulieu did some great things with Silverlight 3, the Farseer Physics Engine and behaviors.

I have turned his Truck w/Camera demo into the MINI Clubman Physics demo so that everyone is now able to drive and stunt with my beautiful MINI Clubman!

This demo contains NO CODE (except for Andy Beaulieu’s DLL’s) and is fully designed in Expression Blend 3.

Click the image to play!

Or download the Expression Blend 3 Solution and customise it yourself.

design, Silverlight

Silverlight Stencils

Posted on August 10, 2009 by John Bruin | Permalink 1

I am a big fan of Banksy and of street art in general AND I am a big fan of Silverlight. And if you mix the two you will get: Silverlight Stencils!

With Silverlight Stencils you can create your own stencil art walls and save them to JPG.

Here are some examples I have created:

Rat activist

Under attack

Under attack

Have fun with Silverlight Stencils and ofcourse I am very curious about your creations! Please leave your comments…

design, Silverlight

Carousel – a truly amazing video

Posted on June 7, 2009 by John Bruin | Permalink 0

Carousel from maxime caron on Vimeo.

design

I am a Geocacher!

Posted on June 7, 2009 by John Bruin | Permalink 0

Thanks to Wian I have a new hobby. Geocaching already exists for about 10 years and I was always very interested. Today with the internet, Google maps and mobile phones with built-in GPS it has become much easier and it is great fun!

Here is a picture of my second treasure which I have found with my girlfriend Annemieke and her brother Roelof:

If you are a member you can find my profile here: http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?guid=c606c2ba-b9ee-480a-a944-568b8e102344

gadgets

I Love Sticker – Silverlight 2.0 source code

Posted on May 19, 2009 by John Bruin | Permalink 2

Did you like my I Love Stickers post?
I was inspired by a 20 year old sticker that I have found when we were moving to our new house. That sticker is ofcourse based on the famous I love NY logo that was designed in 1977 by Milton Glaser.

For my little Silverlight 2.0 project I have used these resources and tools:

  1. The original I Love NY logo
  2. WhatTheFont! to find out the exact font used in the original logo. Great online tool!
  3. American_Typewriter_Bold_BT.ttf
  4. Paint.NET to crop the heart of the logo
  5. The amazing Open Source vector graphics editor Inkscape to trace the heart and save it as XAML(!)
  6. Expression Blend 2
  7. Visual Studio 2008

You can download the source code here: ILoveSticker.zip

And you can view a live example here: I Love Silverlight

.net, design, Silverlight