Which returned 1 result. But, I noticed if I performed a similar query

It also returned 1 result (the same result) notice [...]]]> The other day I tried to make a string comparison in a MySQL query for example

SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = "mark"

Which returned 1 result. But, I noticed if I performed a similar query

SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = "mark "

It also returned 1 result (the same result) notice the space after the name.

To fix is this I needed to use the BINARY keyword which performs a byte-for-byte comparison rather than a string comparison.

SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = BINARY 'mark'

To start off I installed the following:

With every new programming language I start to learn, [...]]]> Windows Phone has been around since Nov 2010. However it is only now since I’ve made some time to take a deeper look into the hardware, mobile ecosystem, programming language and development resources.

To start off I installed the following:

1. Visual Studio 2010 (Windows Phone).
2. Zune.

With every new programming language I start to learn, I look at three main areas.

1. Navigating views.
2. Passing data between views.
3. Sending and receiving data to and from a web server.

In this example I will demonstrate how to download XML data from a web server and parse this into a list (1. as item 2. as buttons). To demonstrate passing data between views I will pass the selected list items data onto the next view.

XML example:

<people>
  <person>
    <firstname>Kate</firstname>
    <lastname>Smith</lastname>
    <age>27</age>
  </person>
  ...
<persons>

xaml code to define list of XML elements:

<ListBox HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="0,6" Name="listBox1" Width="450" FontSize="56" SelectionChanged="listBox1_SelectionChanged">
   <ListBox.ItemTemplate>
      <DataTemplate>
          <StackPanel>
              <TextBlock Tag="{Binding LastName}" Text="{Binding FirstName}" />
          </StackPanel>
      </DataTemplate>
   </ListBox.ItemTemplate>
</ListBox>

C#

Make a connection to the XML document:

// Constructor
public MainPage()
{
   InitializeComponent();
   WebClient wc = new WebClient();
   wc.DownloadStringCompleted += HttpsCompleted;
   wc.DownloadStringAsync(new Uri("http://dcs-mobile.lancs.ac.uk/phd/mark/dev/wp/xml/xml_list.xml"));
}

Perform the parsing from the XML file:

private void HttpsCompleted(object sender, DownloadStringCompletedEventArgs e)
{
 if (e.Error == null)
 {

  XDocument loadedData = XDocument.Parse(e.Result, LoadOptions.None);

  var data = from query in loadedData.Descendants("person") select new Person
  {
   FirstName = (string)query.Element("firstname"),
   LastName = (string)query.Element("lastname"),
   Age = (int)query.Element("age")
  };
  listBox1.ItemsSource = data;

 }
}

ACE 2011 conference

Mobile phone as second screen to TV – late breaking results poster.
Free all monsters! A context aware location based game – game competition.

Adobe’s Flash platform have recently introduced a new class called ‘Stage Web View‘ this enables developers to display HTML content from within their application. Since Facebook and Twitter [...]]]> If you’ve been playing games on your iPhone or Android lately you will have noticed the increased social functionality of sharing your game scores, photos, opinions etc.

Adobe’s Flash platform have recently introduced a new class called ‘Stage Web View‘ this enables developers to display HTML content from within their application. Since Facebook and Twitter have moved away from basic authentification to OAuth (in its simplest form; a way of authenticating a user to allow an application access to that user’s private resources, for example Twitter requires external applications to pass through OAuth in order to read/write personal data from that user).

Recently I’ve been playing with OAuth for Twitter and Facebook in order to post status updates on users profiles. I am developing an application that requires the user to post a photo and share the photo on Facebook and Twitter. Until now this hasn’t been possible in Flash, which is why the Stage Web View is used to load HTML content and authenticate the user.

For this project I’ve been using the open source tweetr library from sandro (swfjunkie.com). I got this working pretty easily, quickly and working on iOS and Desktop but something wasn’t quite right on Android. The problem is related to the Android OS handling the Stage Web View event firing differently and wasn’t getting the oauth_verifier sha’d pin in it. To correct this problem Event.COMPLETE is needed in order to trigger the response.

I will post more on this topic once I’ve completed the project and I find more information on this issue facing Android OS

The basics behind the Sugarvine app is to provides its users an alternative method to communicate with the company, currently users [...]]]> Sugarvine, a national restaurant guide require some form of mobile presence, which isn’t too formal a little bit different and provides its users with latest information and the ability to participate in uploading user generated content (photos and comments).

The basics behind the Sugarvine app is to provides its users an alternative method to communicate with the company, currently users write comments on restaurants they’ve visited in the form of a review. The reason for the mobile app is to allow their current user and attract new users to the digital restaurant guide. The apps will be available on iPhone and Android, and will allow its users to take photos of food they’ve eaten at any place they have visited (could be in a restaurant, friends house or even their own home), the photo is accompanied with a comment and posted to Sugarvine’s user generated content pages. The users can also post their food photos/comments on their Facebook and Twitter pages. The app also has another purpose of downloading a list of  local restaurants from within their location.

Sugarvine mobile application design

Inteb Sustainability Limited brings together a unique blend of multi-disciplinary and highly qualified specialists with many years of experience across the whole range of sustainability areas. The work involved was to develop an online database system using MySQL and PHP, Inteb currently used a spreadsheet to hold all their data, this [...]]]> Inteb (March 2011)

Inteb Sustainability Limited brings together a unique blend of multi-disciplinary and highly qualified specialists with many years of experience across the whole range of sustainability areas. The work involved was to develop an online database system using MySQL and PHP, Inteb currently used a spreadsheet to hold all their data, this was proving to be a process in which the company wanted to migrate away from and start to be more data efficient. The spreadsheet held private information to the company and their clients, the online system is a replica of the spreadsheet with extra functionality for security, data capture and automation of information.

The project was devised such that each community would develop their games separately and then come together to play their games and thus [...]]]> Folly is a leading digital arts organisation working across the North West. Folly presents an active artistic programme that provides creative interaction and collaboration between artists and the wider public using technology.

The project was devised such that each community would develop their games separately and then come together to play their games and thus explore each other’s community. In the research conducted I looked at co-design within the community.

A User Centred Design (UCD) methodology was adopted as it would give participants the opportunity to participate and share in all areas of game design from the initial concept to actually playing the game. An iterative design approach was also employed to enable more emergent design from the community who had little or no preconceived ideas about such games and how they are played except for our initial description of such games have some element of physicality combined with location.

The first game the group came up with was ‘Marsh Munchies’ where the player would move around hunting for food items that randomly appeared on the game map in an allotted time limit.  The second game was a variant of Capture the Flag which many of the group had played and dubbed ‘Capture the Marsh’ whereby two teams would have a base in each half of the map and players from the opposing team would have to capture their opponent’s base undetected. The final game ‘marshOtron’ was inspired by the movie Tron Legacy and recreated the light cycles games from the film in which players would move around the creating a light trail which if crossed by other players would end their game and the player with the longest trail at the end would win the game.

The game was developed using Adobes Flash Professional CS5 Flash Lite 4.0 platform.

marshOTron – overview

The game commences once players reach their ‘home’ square and players must wait 15 seconds in order to capture the square. The game server checks if the square has already been captured, if it has then the server informs the player their game is over, if not then the server will store that position of the square and assign it to that players colour represented on the phone by the changing of the original square colour to the players colour. The ordering of capturing the squares is not fixed as this allows players to develop their own emergent tactics within the gaming area which is an important means of ensuring such games continue to engage, also the game permits for players to leave the game area bounds in order for players to escape to a different area of the map