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Most of the posts here were written originally many years ago but they were transferred to this new home in 2024. The dates are transfer dates.

Hong

Mobile Workforce is the reality and future

IDC Forecasts U.S. Mobile Worker Population to grow from 96.2 million (61%) in 2015 to 105.4 million (72.3%) by 2020! hubEngage is primarily for internal use by relatively large organizations. Breather primarily the need for office on deman in metropolises where rent is high. It…

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Hong

Cost of mobile app development

This is the type of question that is bound to have no meaningful simple answer. It is like the question "What is the cost of building a home?". One can build a habitable shelter home for less than $1000, and can spend over $100 million…

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Hong

Consume SOAP Web Services in Mobile Apps

Mobile applications were probably not considered most when SOAP was originated in 90s by Microsoft staff. It is usually impractical, or at least, not optimal for mobile applications to host SOAP services, but it is perfectly practical for mobile applications to consume SOAP web services…

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Hong

Use SkiaSharp to encode images in Uno proejcts

SkiaSharp is a versatile package that can be used on all mobile platforms. The following code encodes a pixel array to an JPEG image and displays it. SKImageInfo sii = new SKImageInfo(iWidth, 1, SKColorType.Rgba8888); SKData sd = SKData.Create(new MemoryStream(abPixels)); SKImage sKImage = SKImage.FromPixelData(sii, sd, iWidth…

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Hong

Migration from Uno to Uno WinUI

The bottom line: WinUI is not ready for prime time as of December 2023. At its current progress pace, it needs at least 1 or 2 more years to grow to be sufficiently reliable and clean. Though Uno is a much more mature and stabler…

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Hong

Create C# SOAP Proxy classes with Microsoft wsdl tool

For developing apps that support service reference (e.g. UWP apps), one can consume web services defined by WSDL files by adding a service reference in VS and using the generated proxy classes. The approach requires the platform supports namespace System.ServiceModel which inner working is quite convoluted,…

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Hong

Uno Platform

Uno Platform is likely the best platform for developing apps targeting multiple platforms - Windows, web, Android and iOS. One should have realistic perspective of Uno before getting into it: To start enjoying Uno Platform: For each new app tarting multiple platforms: UWP Head: Android…

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Hong

Screen capture to video with UWP app

The Microsoft Windows.GraphicsCapture API's performance is so poor that it is largely unusable. It may work with very powerful video cards, but many other screen capture apps such as SnagIt work fine with regular PCs.

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Hong

UWP apps

Xamarin is still not mature, reliable and stable enough to serve its purpose - saving time for making apps targeting multiple platforms. A UWP app project still needs to be an independent project, instead a part of Xamarin project bundle. Resources: Segoe MDL2 Icons Complete…

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Hong

UWP App Release

Update release_notes.txt under folder Shared. Update PCLUtility.sAppVersion in App(). Update versions in the Properties of the UWP head. Build the release package. Update the beta flight with 99.99% rollout. Watch app analytics Update the production release and roll out the update gradually. Update the app's web…

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Hong

Investment

Classic Investment The classic investment is putting money into a business that will eventually generate profits distributed to shareholders. This is still the bulk of modern investment, though the returns for shareholders are often stock price increases instead of distributed profits. For this type of…

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Hong

"Your icon does not fill the entire icon space"

Google Play rejects many apps targeting TV with this infamous claim. The entire rejection notice is as follows: Your app should contain a full-size app banner and icon that is visible in the launcher. We are targeting 1080P, which we consider xhdpi. Apps should include…

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Hong

Skiing on frozen river

X-C skiing on a frozen river is safer than skating, snow-shoeing, and walking on it for the following reasons: Deep water with slow currents has thicker ice than that of shallow water with fast currents. The transition from thick ice to thin ice is usually…

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Hong

Movie The Obama Deception

Movie The Obama Deception is very intriguing. I highly recommend it to all who have an objective mind. In case the title turns off some people, it should be made clear that this movie is not a campaign tool used by conservatives to unseat the…

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Hong

Use VPN, Shadowsock to escape from the GFW

Shadowsocks is currently the best choice. There are excellent instructions for setup. Companies use VPN to allow their employees to access their computing resources by their employees from outside of their LAN’s. Foreign companies in China rely on VPN for one more purpose – accessing…

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