Wanna easily create an awesome dummy data set ? ;)

So probably you are one of those developers who is looking for a dummy or fake data set for you application development, testing or populate a set of good-looking screenshots for your application ? Yep ! I have been there… 😉

This is something almost every developer had gone through in their lifetime, and most of the time they end up going through the burden of writing a whole bunch of scripts from scratch to populate the data set and so on…

Well, my story…

Sometime back I had the same exact requirement, where I wanted to populated a bunch of fake data for testing out one of my C# dot net applications, not just a few amount, but in big chunks, a whole bunch of dummy emails, address, names and so on. I was actually going to write a bunch of scripts to populate those data by myself, but I got lucky 😉

Behold…

Yes lucky enough I came across this awesome tiny library called Faker.NET Portable Edition ! 😀 So I thought of sharing about it and give it a shout out as it’s a truly great library for easily populating dummy data sets.

And you can check it out on nuget right here –
https://www.nuget.org/packages/Faker.Net.Portable

Faker.Net.Portable

This is by far one of the easiest and lightest libraries I have used for populating dummy data. This is actually based on the Ruby Faker gem (http://faker.rubyforge.org/) library according to their documentation. It fully supports the below versions of dot net, thereby goes on saying yes you could obviously use this for your Xamarin Forms projects just like I used to.

• .NET framework 4.0,
• Silverlight 5.0,
• Windows 8,
• Windows Phone 8.1,
• Windows Phone Silverlight 8,
• Xamarin.Android,
• Xamarin.iOS,
• Xamarin.iOS (Classic),
• Mono 3.2.8

It’s very much lightweight as well so it wouldn’t be any burden for your application’s compilation size and also it’s pretty fast. 😉

You could check out their documentation and github repo right here –
https://github.com/AdmiringWorm/Faker.NET.Portable

And trust me it’s super easy to implement, simply add it from nuget or through DLLs to your project and start calling the methods right away… 😀 Some of its awesome uses are as follows,

Names – Create dummy names, not just names with random letters but actual real-human-readable names. You could even separate First Names, Last Names, Middles Names and so on.
https://github.com/AdmiringWorm/Faker.NET.Portable#names

Address– Yep, same goes for addresses as well, streets, cities, states, Zip codes, and even Latitudes and Longitudes… 🙂
https://github.com/AdmiringWorm/Faker.NET.Portable#addresses

Phone numbers – Not just some random numbers, but actual real-like phone numbers with actual area codes and so on.
https://github.com/AdmiringWorm/Faker.NET.Portable#phone-numbers

Company – Let’s you create Company names, Suffixes, Logos (yep with actual images), even fake motos with real words…
https://github.com/AdmiringWorm/Faker.NET.Portable#company

Avatar – Yes that is right actual dummy images, with defined sizes, and image formats of your choice… 😉 A very useful option for displaying profiles, contact lists and so on.
https://github.com/AdmiringWorm/Faker.NET.Portable#avatar

Business – Need to populate Business related data ? Credit card numbers ? expire dates ? You got it !
https://github.com/AdmiringWorm/Faker.NET.Portable#business

Internet – Let’s you easily populate almost all the internet related data such as, domain names, emails, MAC addresses, IPV4 IPV6 Addresses…
https://github.com/AdmiringWorm/Faker.NET.Portable#internet

Lorem Ipsum – Oh yeah, you are going to love this, no need to worry about populating large paragraphs with random words, you could do it very much easily with this library
https://github.com/AdmiringWorm/Faker.NET.Portable#lorem-ipsum

App – Need any dummy App Names ? Authors ? Version numbers to be generated ? Oh well not worry… A simple one method call away!
https://github.com/AdmiringWorm/Faker.NET.Portable#lorem-ipsum

So that’s it fellas, and I wanted to show you some insight to it from the VS Object Browser, and see how impressive it is from down below… 🙂

Almost all the types of dummy data you need to populate, right here, and not just random ones that doesn’t make any sense, but absolutely real-like dummy content for your applications.. 😀

I felt like this library hasn’t gotten enough coverage, therefore I thought of writing a small blog post giving credits for this and the developers of it. And most of all let this heard for the fellow developers out there, for I hope I may have saved your burden of populating dummy data for your awesome applications… 😉

Cheers folks ! Stay Awesome ! 😀

Welcome to ÇøŋfuzëÐ SøurcëÇødë Tech Innovations !

Welcome to the ignition of Tech Innovations in Sri Lanka. We are a Sri Lankan based company that focuses on Technological Innovations and pushing the the boundaries beyond the Imagination.

 

I have always been extremely passionate about Innovation and Creativity, and as a result of that I used to invent new things using whatever I learned. Even back in School Days I used to develop new inventions and win awards at competitions. That drove me to University, while studying Software Engineering, I always used to build new software tools y my self in whatever the theory that we learned during lectures, whereas most of the time I got too obsessed and I went ahead learning everything by myself about any specific subject. 
I have always dreamed of solving real life problems through new inventions and ideas, which is still the force that drives me forward. So as a result of my passion towards innovations and experimentation, I happened be developing so many softwares and apps which I had published to the public market. This sparked me the idea of initiating a startup of my own which I could drive through my passion. So here it is, Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to  ÇøŋfuzëÐ SøurcëÇødë Tech Innovations !

– Udara Alwis a.k.a. [CODENAME : ÇøŋfuzëÐ SøurcëÇødë]

Connect with us on our official Facebook page from the below link,

 

We already have a series of ongoing Innovative Development Projects and below are some of them.

Windows Phone App Development

We have already developed and published a series of Innovative and Creative Windows Phone Applications and published on Microsoft Windows Store which has gotten over 160,000 downloads worldwide along with a rapidly growing user base.

Over 30 Windows Phone Apps published…

Over 160,000 Users Worldwide…

As we go on forward we are hoping to keep on developing more and more Innovative Windows Phone mobile apps. Also we are offering services to the public and business, so if you are in need of developing a Windows Phone app for your Company or Business, contact us immediately.

You can view all our Windows Phone apps by from below link,

 

Sri Lankan Newspaper Cartoons Project

Welcome to “Sri Lanka Newspaper Cartoons” project, A centralized portal for showcasing and viewing all Sri Lankan Newspaper Cartoons published across the web. How we do this ? We have hosted cloud servers that crawls throughout the web searching for Newspaper Cartoons using our unique Web Crawling technologies and algorithms, where we will capture them and present to you by streaming from those servers.

http://srilankannewspapercartoons.tk/

We simply bring all the Sri Lankan Newspaper Cartoons that are published across the web to one place and let you access them in a very easy to use, friendly, interactive way. We bring an ultimate experience of viewing Sri Lankan Newspaper Cartoons. Stunning visuals, interactive user experience blended together along with a faster and easier access and look up. “Sri Lanka Newspaper Cartoons”, we are empowering talented Sri Lankan Cartoon Artists to showcase and reach more audience easily and quickly and for the User, we are bringing an ultimate experience to view all Sri Lankan Newspaper Cartoons published across web, right from your fingertips….

Our fully automated system that is running behind this project was able to fetch over 11,000 Sri Lankan Newspaper Cartoons, while making this project the Sri Lanka’s first ever Largest Sri Lankan Newspaper Cartoons collection ever created.

Over 11,000 Newspaper Cartoons…

We are also opened up for Advertisers to publish ads on this project’s website and mobile app which are being used by over 1000s of users worldwide…

Download the Windows Phone app of our Sri Lankan Newspaper Cartoons project –

 http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/sri-lankan-cartoons/83bfab81-883d-421e-8aba-c621bf67aee8

Here are some of the special features that we are bring you…

• View all the Sri Lankan Newspaper Cartoons that has ever been published in Newspaper from one single place as you wish…
• Stay up to date with the latest Sri Lankan Newspaper Cartoons and you can even view the oldest Cartoons ever…
• Like or Dislike and Rate every single Cartoon…
• Add Keywords and Tags to Cartoons as you like..
• Easily share Cartoons with your Social Networks…

 

So join with us for the ignition of the next step of Sri Lankan Newspaper Cartoons entertainment…

Sri Lankan Memes Book

Welcome to the first ever largest Sri Lankan Memes collection ! The most awesome place for Sri Lankan Memes ! (^_-) Join with us today…

http://srilankanmemes.com/

So are you Bored at Home ? or Work ? 9gag much ? a Memes fan ?
Welcome to the first ever largest Sri Lankan Memes collection !
Join Sri Lankan Memes Book today for the most awesome Sri Lankan Memes entertainment…

Welcome to the epic Book of all the Sri Lankan Memes Published on Facebook with over 15,000 Memes encountering Thanks to our unique intelligent Web Crawlers executing on Cloud… We are still on Beta level.. Stay tuned for our Official Release ! (^_-)

Sri Lankan Memes Book brings you the most amazing experience you ever had with Sri Lankan Memes entertainment. Such as,

• View all the best Memes on Facebook
• Even the Latest Memes, Recent Memes, Older Memes, most Liked or Disliked Memes, most Viewed Memes and so on..
• View all the Memes under your favorite Meme pages
• Vote Your favorite Memes
• Daily updates of all the best Memes on Facebook
• Like or Dislike Memes as you wish
• Easily Share on Facebook or Twitter
• View the best, Sri Lankan funny videos on Youtube…

You can also Watch the most awesome funny Sri Lankan Videos on Youtube via Sri Lankan Memes Book TV !
http://srilankanmemes.com/View_MemeStream_TV.aspx

 
Visit our official Website –
http://srilankanmemes.com/

Facebook –
https://www.facebook.com/SriLankanMemesBook

Google –
https://plus.google.com/115627309497218505361
You can Subscribe to our Mailing list to receive daily awesome Sri Lankan Memes right into your inbox – http://goo.gl/oF6rTA

Please drop a Like to the page if you think its awesome 😀 ! This is the first time such an app has been developed, so your support is highly appreciated. Please share with your friends as much as possible. 🙂

We have also opened up for Advertisers to publish Ads and Banners on our website and the mobile application. Please contact us if you are interested…

I Was There Map

I Was There Map, allows you to view all the places you have visited and your Facebook Check-ins. You can view all the amazing information statistics you have never known about those places and your check-ins. You will be shown all the interesting information about You and those check-ins like no other.
This project was developed based on ASP .net and C#. We have developed by our own custom API to grab data from Facebook for each and every user upon their permissions. We have invented a couple of innovative Algorithms in order to generate the relational data and information regarding the user and their check-ins information.

Please check out more information from the below link,

https://theconfuzedsourcecode.wordpress.com/2014/04/03/i-was-there-map-is-ready-to-blow-your-mind/

Your Friends Map

Using ‘Your Friends Map’ you can view all your Facebook friends locations and hometowns in the world map. And it shows you a full list of all the locations and hometowns of your friends separately along with the number of friends in each location. This project was developed based on ASP .net and C#, where as I have used my own Custom Facebook API for pulling and streaming data from Facebook by the user’s permissions when the log in to the App.

We have invented a series of innovative algorithms to process the data and produce information regarding the user and their Friends, to populate statistical relationships.

Please check out more information from the below link,

https://theconfuzedsourcecode.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/your-friends-map-is-ready-for-you/

Sri Lankan Photography Project

This project brings all Sri Lankan Photography that are published on Facebook to a one place, giving an ultimate experience to the user. With “Sri Lankan Photography”, we are empowering talented Sri Lankan Photographers to reach more audience easily and quickly and for the User, we are bringing a stunning ultimate experience for you to view all Sri Lankan Photography published on Facebook, right from your fingertips. This app provides so many special features, such as facilities keep in touch with the user’s favorite photographers as they wish, instantly viewing all the photo albums published on their public pages. Sharing those photography with user’s friends immediately on demand.

Please go to this link to view the full Article of our Sri Lankan Photography Project,

https://theconfuzedsourcecode.wordpress.com/2014/09/27/project-sri-lankan-photography/

Mobile In-App Advertising Project (Phase 1)

We have launched a project where we are giving In-App Advertising facilities to Advertisers and Companies in a series of popular Mobile apps developed by ÇøŋfuzëÐ SøurcëÇødë Tech Innovations.

 

Please go to this link to view the Full Article of this project –

https://theconfuzedsourcecode.wordpress.com/2014/10/20/ultimately-boost-your-marketing-campaign-with-mobile-in-app-advertising/

Undisclosed Projects (under development) –

Intelligent Data Mining App (based on Social Media) Framework

A framework to fetch public Social Media data and coming up with analytical information through data mining…

Lanka Tuk Tuk Services Project

A new way of thinking about three wheeler services in Sri Lanka… (Coming Soon)

Mobile In-App Advertising Platform

A mobile in-app advertising platform for Sri Lankans…

 

So thats a little heads up about ÇøŋfuzëРSøurcëÇødë Tech Innovations initiation. So if any of you are interested of being a partner or an investor we would be very grateful to have you.

Till next time everyone.. 🙂 Cheers !

https://www.facebook.com/296474577210450

Project – Sri Lankan Photography

What is Project – Sri Lankan Photography ?

It all started off with an enthusiasm, where I simply wanted to build an app where at allows people to view photography published on Facebook, which later turned out to become a large scale project. In simple words Project Sri Lankan Photography is a Centralized portal for viewing and showcasing Sri Lankan Photography. View and Showcase all Sri Lankan Photography that are published on facebook in one single place, right in-front of your fingertips.

Photography in Sri Lanka…

Photography is one of the very famous field in Sri Lankan, where its adoption keeps on growing with a huge number of new Photographers. A lot of photographers are publishing their amazing hard work, their photography, on the biggest Social Media Network, Facebook. But how many people actually follow them? How much publicity could you reach? As there are so many

Photography Pages, how could one individual person reach them at once? Or even be aware of them? Therefore we came up with this simple solution, a centralized portal for viewing all Sri Lankan Photography, “Sri Lankan Photography”! There are so many Sri Lankan Photographers who has published their amazing photographs online on the biggest Social Media Network, Facebook, but there is still no one place to access all those photography.

We saw this burning need, So we came up with a Solution…

Therefore we came up with this simple solution, bringing all Sri Lankan Photography that are published on Facebook to a one place, giving an ultimate experience to the user. With “Sri Lankan Photography”, we are empowering talented Sri Lankan Photographers to reach more audience easily and quickly and for the User, we are bringing a stunning ultimate experience for you to view all Sri Lankan Photography published on Facebook, right from your fingertips. This app provides so many special features, such as facilities keep in touch with the user’s favorite photographers as they wish, instantly viewing all the photo albums published on their public pages. Sharing those photography with user’s friends immediately on demand.

Yes it is Awesome !

 

Easy to navigate Stunning user interface with seamless multimedia content streaming from our cloud servers. Thanks to this app now the users has the capability for Searching any Photography Album of those photographers instantly, whereas this app streams over 3000 photography albums for the first time in Sri Lanka, while maintaining the largest Photography album database.

The Innovation and Uniqueness…

“Sri Lankan Photography” app is a very unique and innovative projects because this is the first time such initiative has been launched in order to provide a single portal for viewing and showcasing talented Sri Lankan Photography. Even though so many Photographers has published their talented work on Facebook, they are all scattered everywhere, and it will only be visible for a very limit amount of audience, who has liked their pages only.

But from this project all those scattered Photography of these talented photographers, are bringing together as a whole showcasing them to a wider audience at the same time. These Photography data will be fetched from their Facebook pages in real time from our Cloud servers and instantly displayed to the users upon their choice. This whole process happens fully automated through our cloud servers, all those fetched photography will be streaming into the users smartphone seamlessly.

  

Some amazing features this App brings…

Below are some of the special features this app brings to the user –

• Easily Search through all the Photography Albums that are published on Facebook pages and view them within seconds like never before…
• Keep in touch with all the favorite Photographers very easily…
• Search for any Photography album in one place…
• Pin you favorite Photography pages and Photography Albums to Start screen…
• Offline Image Caching facility saves you Data Connection usage and you can view pre-loaded images even if your data connection is offline..
• Random Gallery – Gives you a random stream of images from all the pages and let you pick your favorites…
• Unique facilities – Photo Stream, Photo Grid – Quickly view and browse through hundreds of photos…
• Awesome View – giving you an awesome experience of viewing each Photography album…
• Play stunning slideshows of each and every photo Album…
• Share any photography with your Friends or on any Social Media Network…

  

Wait what ? the Largest Photography Albums Directory ?

Yes that is true ! Project – Sri Lankan Photography has built the largest Sri Lankan Photography albums database ever created, thanks to our unique high end cloud servers that are automatically executing around the clock. Our cloud servers are streaming from over thousands of Photography Albums into our apps, and using this now you can Search for any Photography album that is published on Facebook, among the thousands that our project has gathered and view them instantly right from our app.

 

Alrighto now you know the awesomeness of this project, so why wait ? Go ahead and download it from here right into your Windows Phone ! Or you could try out our Windows 8 PC app which is in Beta level…

Windows Phone – http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/sri-lankan-photography/63987005-02b7-46c9-868e-05aa53a4a142

Windows 8 Store App – http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/sri-lankan-photography/db25698d-de96-4a80-af66-fbe9c283ec48

So after all that, how are our project Statistics ?

We are very pleased to announce that after about a year of publishing the app into Microsoft Windows Store, we now have over 90,000 users worldwide for our Windows Phone app and over 1000 users for the Windows 8 Store app !

So following are some of the statistics we screenshotted from our Windows Developer account,

And below are the overall statistics of our Windows Phone project, whereas you can see that there are 91,043 users worldwide using our app and nearly 76 news users are downloading our app every single day ! 😉 

So Finally…

We are now looking to expand our project more exponentially, therefore if you are interested in our project and you want to publish your Photography page in our app to open up your amazing Photography skills to a worldwide audience of over 90,000 people around the world, then Contact us immediately !

As to cover up our maintenance cost of this project, we are now opened up for advertisers. Therefore if you want to advertise your ads or banners on our app and open them up to a global audience worldwide, please contact us. Thank you !

Are you ready for the ultimate experience ? 😉

Share with your friends and spread the word !

(xtremesourcecode@live.com)
[ÇøŋfuzëÐ SøurcëÇødë]

Welcome to the Toastmaster Timer app for Windows Phone

Toastmasters International
Toastmasters International is a world leader in communication and leadership development. Simply put a place where anyone could improve their communication, public speaking, and leadership skills. And if you are a Toastmasters Member, or better a Member of the Exco of your TM Club, then you are in the right place.

We Believe…
We believe Smart phone should be a tool to be able to use for anything in Life, one day it might become exactly that along with all these technological advancements. Making things easier and intuitive to use or engage in real life activities, Smart Phones play a major role, whereas developers like us constantly keep on seamlessly bringing the technology closer to real life applications in order to make that Vision a Reality.

Ever been a Timer at Toastmasters Meetings ?
With that thought in mind, Have you ever been the Timer of your Toastmasters Club meetings ? Or even seen how a Timer keeps the timing of each and every Speech and Evaluation ?

If you really had that experience you may have seen them using stop watches, or using their wrist watched, or using some timer app on their mobile phone for the Timing, which is a huge pain and a distraction from the point of view of a Timer.

Being a Timer…
Because you see if you are using a timer, you have to press the start button among all the confusing buttons, and then keep in mind the Time when to show the Green Warning sign, Yellow and Red Warning signs for each and every different Speech types.
And moreover you have to keep a track of time and also hold up the Color Warning signs at the same time. And this gets even more messed up when you have to keep in mind the timing limits for each and every different kind of speech and what if you forget to show the warning signs at one point of time ? Oh my… this is a total Failure !

Don’t Worry.. We found a Solution !
But from now onwards you can Good bye to all that trouble… Let me introduce you Toastmaster Timer ! Timer Role has never been this easier.. 😉
Toastmaster Timer app for Windows Phone is the solution for all the above messed up problems you face in doing the Timer role at Toastmaster meetings. This app would make the Timer role so much easier like never before.

How to ?
How to ? Well all you have to do is Select the Type of Speech -> Click “Start” -> Turn the phone to the Speaker’s side ! 😉

Yeah its incredibly simple to Use…
Yeah thats right ! its that simple ! You don’t even have to use the Warning Color Cards anymore, because Toastmaster Timer app would take care of everything. Toastmaster Timer app would display the warning colors “Green”, “Amber”, and “Red” automatically in full screen so it is visible for even longer distances from stage. And also the Timing is displayed right on the screen therefore it is easier for you and the speaker to see, all you have to do, just press “Start” and turn the phone to the speaker’s side ! Toastmaster Timer app will take care of everything automatically !

    

How Awesome this app is…
NO need for anymore Timers and Watches that makes the Timing process so much more complicated, when you have Toastmaster Timer app right on your Windows Phone ! What is so awesome is that, Toastmaster Timer app comes preloaded with all the Speech types and their Timing automatically, which lets you just select the Speech Type and let everything else done Automatically !

    

You can even have your own Custom Timing for any speech, just select the “Custom” option from the Speeches list and you will be able to set you own Timing automated ! 😉

  

Moreover it will create all the Timing Reports for you and you can view them, send, email them anytime as you wish..

There are a lot more Exciting features in Toastmaster Timer app, which makes the job so much easier for any Timer at Toastmaster meetings. Try out today for free ! 😀

Try out today for Free on you Windows Phone !

Toastmaster Timer

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/toastmaster-timer/6a71961b-b81e-4cd9-b912-4041017367d8?signin=true

#ToastmasterTimer #WindowsPhone #Nokia #Lumia #Toastmasters#TimerRole #ToastmastersInternational

So Enjoy ! Happy Toastmastering !

Another reason Why, I Am At app, for Windows Phone is Awesome !

Fed up of the fact that Bing Maps is pretty much useless in Sri Lanka when you need it the most being a Windows Phone User ? 😉 Very well you have nothing to worry about hereafter thanks to ‘I Am At’ app for Windows Phone !

I Am At app uses a unique sequence of Location targeting, which increases the accuracy of location finding in any country where even Bing Maps doesn’t work !

You see, I Am At app uses the Microsoft Bing Maps Location services in the background of the app, but if by any chance Bing Map fails to find the proper information of a given Location, then our intelligent Location targeting algorithm accesses the other Mapping services such as Google Maps and seek for a much more accurate Location information and provide the user ! 😉 So that you can find your exact location Address wherever you are on Earth and Send or Share with anyone in seconds..!

Now that’s another reason why ‘I Am At’ app is so awesome !

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/i-am-at/b1bcd22a-c57b-4a26-b9e2-3ec6aeb96d01?signin=true

#IAmAt #WindowsPhone #Microsoft #App #Location #Targeting #Places #Travelling #Navigation

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/i-am-at/b1bcd22a-c57b-4a26-b9e2-3ec6aeb96d01?signin=true

Try it out today for free everyone ! 🙂

Tried Installing Windows 8.1 Update, being a Windows Phone Developer? ;)

I recently updated my PC to the latest upgrade given by Microsoft, the Windows 8.1 Update ! So after happily installing the Update I tried working on my Windows Phone dev projects on my good awesome Visual Studio 2012. Then when I tried to run one of my apps from the emulator, Unfortunately it kept on popping an error saying “0x80131500”, only showing up a code without even a description. And Visual Studio 2012 wasn’t able to run any of my apps in the emulator. So after going through couple of web searches I found out that your Windows Phone SDK would not work on Windows 8.1 Update, unless you have installed the latest Update for Visual Studio 2012, the VS 2012 Update 4 ! So after downloading and installing the latest update for VS2012 I was able to run my apps in Emulator as usual.

So if you are hoping to upgrade to Windows 8.1 Update, and if you are using VS2012 then make sure you have the latest version of VS2012 update 4 installed on your PC or you have a ready setup to install if something goes wrong after the System update.

Cheers folks ! 🙂

Stop Hatin’ the Scheduled Agents ! ;)

Fellow WP devs, stop hatin’ the Scheduled Agents in Windows Phone ! xD If you are suffocating from a weird bug for a long time, its prolly not a Framework’s fault, but could be a minor mistake in your code thats is causing the whole mess. It is because Background Scheduled executions on WP is highly restricted and limited, whereas it throws exceptions even for the slightest glitch screwing up the entire thread circle, by interrupting NotifyComplete(); ! O.o
Bottom line, I too hate their stupid restricted Scheduled executions because they are so restricted, but gotta deal with it.. -_-  for gods sake, once only 30 minutes ! 😦 OH COME ONNNNNNN ! :S

Anyhow recently I came across this issue where the Scheduled Agent wasn’t firing in my apps when the app was published to the marketplace and then downloaded to the phone to use. After one or two times of execution the background agents weren’t working, so I later found out it was because of the “LaunchForTest()” method I have called inside the “OnInvoke()” method of the Background Agent. Guys this is a serious issue, most of us try to decrease the time span in a Scheduled Agent execution by using this method every time the “OnInvoke()” method fires. But this is a completely risky because it throws InvalidOperation exception ! :O

Therefore at end user level the Scheduled Agents crashes because the “NotifyComplete()” gets interrupted due to the exception that occurs as above. Because in order to complete and move on to the next thread execution circle the “NotifyComplete()” is crucial.

Check out more about this issue and the solution from below link,
http://blog.mjfnet.com/2013/01/10/windows-phone-dont-call-launchfortest-in-release/

Have fun Coding WP Apps ! 😉
CHEERS ! 😀

Welcome to the Amazing Vesak Festival app for Windows Phone…

Missing the experience of wonderful Vesak Festival ? Remember all the stunning sceneries, the beautiful views all around Sri Lanka during Vesak Season ?
Well then not to worry, We are introducing..
Vesak Festival app for Windows Phone !
A Visual Journey to the Amazing Vesak Festival…

Vesak Festival is the most special and the most sacred religious day for Buddhists all around the world and t is celebrated on the Full moon day of May every year. It is an amazing religious celebration, where as people decorate their homes with colorful lights, lanterns and so on. It is such an eye catching stunning scenery wherever you look during this season especially in Sri Lanka.

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/vesak-festival/e7eaf638-a6b4-40f6-8e38-a5774d91fc18?signin=true

Therefore, We thought of sharing this amazing religious festival experience with people all around the world and spread the awareness and the significance of Vesak Festival.

There are so many amazing stunning photography moments that are being captured during this season by various talented photographers. Therefore we thought of bringing those amazing Vesak festival Photography to your palmtop allowing you to experience the wonder of Vesak Festival, the stunning sceneries and the celebration right from your Windows Phone.
We are bringing you all the Sri Lankan Vesak Photography that are being published on Facebook public photography pages, appreciating and showcasing those talented Photographers.
From this app you can view all the Captured latest Vesak Moments and even the old ones. Showcasing these talented Photographers, you can even share those images on any Social Network. Stay up to date with all the latest stunning Vesak Festival moments right from your Phone..

Thanks to this app, you may never miss the amazing experience of Vesak Festival. You can view all those amazing Vesak sceneries and moments captured by Sri Lankan Photographers published across Facebook. Our intelligent servers filters these content and brings you the best experience through those images. You can even view the very Latest Vesak Festival photographs or even the older ones right from this App.

Moreover we are introducing ‘Wide Live Cycle Tiles’, that Cycles stunning Vesak Festival Images lively on your Home Screen. And also if you are fed up with your boring Lockscreens then you can use the Automated Wallpapers using stunning beautiful Vesak Festival Images, whereas these Lockscreens would be automatically changing time to time making your lock screen looks incredibly stunning.

So try out today for free ! 🙂
We Welcome you all Windows Phone users out there !

#VesakFestival #Vesak #SriLanka #WindowsPhone #Nokia #Lumia

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/vesak-festival/e7eaf638-a6b4-40f6-8e38-a5774d91fc18?signin=true

Special Features –
– View all the amazing stunning Vesak Festival Photography from Sri Lankan Photographers
– View all the recent Vesak Festival Photography published on Facebook by Sri Lankan Photographers
– Add Wide Live Cycle Tiles, that Cycles stunning Vesak Festival Images live on your Home Screen
– Add and Maintain any amount of Wide Live Cycle Tiles on your Home Screen

– Set Automated Wallpapers using stunning beautiful Vesak Festival Images, whereas these Lockscreens would be automatically changing time to time making your lock screen looks stunning

– Keep your own Favorite Vesak Photography Library
– Play Vesak Festival Photography Slideshow Feature

– Share any Vesak Festival Photography with your Friends or on any Social Media Network..
– Download and Save your favorite Vesak Festival Photography Images to your phone..

My Windows 8 Store App Development Projects

I have jump started App development for Windows 8 Store since couple of months back now, whereas I kept on getting more and more addicted to it as a hobby. So I thought of sharing some of the Applications I have developed and published so far.

Click on each heading or the screenshot, to view them in Microsoft Store ! 🙂

Sri Lankan Photography

The first Centralized portal for showcasing all the Sri Lankan Photography published on Facebook.

Xtream Youth Sri Lanka

We simply bring all the Xtream Youth content that are published across their facebook page to one place and let you access them in a very easy to use, friendly, interactive way. We bring an ultimate experience of viewing Xtream Youth content right in front of your finger tips. Stunning visuals, interactive user experience blended together along with a faster and easier access and look up.

Sri Lankan Eventography

A Centralized Portal for Event Photography in Sri Lanka. We simply bring all the event management and photography pages to one place and let you access them in a very easy to use, friendly, interactive way

ART-O-Logy

The Centralized Portal for viewing and showcasing Talented Artists and Art Drawings published across Facebook pages.

Tomorrowland Music Festival

So are you a fan of Tomorrowland ? or an Enthusiast like ourselves who enjoys that sensation of being a part of that amazing long experience, then this is the App for you ! We simply bring you an ultimate experience of viewing content and staying up to date of Tomorrowland Music Festival that are published across facebook…

Lanka Higher Educational Institutes

A Centralized Portal for viewing and showcasing Sri Lanka Higher Educational Institutes and their Information.

Grumpy Cat Meme Reader

Who doesn’t love the Grumpy Cat ! 😀 Now you can view all the Grumpy Cat Memes published across Facebook fan pages in one central place, with simple and easy to use access along with interactive and stunning visual experience thanks to “Grumpy Cat Meme Reader”.

Sri Lankan Newspaper Cartoons

A centralized portal for showcasing and viewing all Sri Lankan Newspaper Cartoons published across the web in a very easy to use way right from your finger tips. How we do this ? We have hosted cloud servers that crawls throughout the web searching for Newspaper Cartoons using our unique Web Crawling technologies and algorithms, where we will capture them and present to you by streaming from those servers.

Sri Lankan Models

Are you a Professional Photographer ? or an Amateur ? Producer ? Director ? Cinematographer ? or anyone who seeks for Models Photography ? Tired of going through search engines, blogs, photography sites looking for models or may be to study them ? wasting hours in your life ? Here we have a Solution for you, A centralized portal for viewing all the models photography. View all the models images in a one place, with all the latest images available online.

Sri Lankan Meme Reader

Sri Lankan Meme Reader, a simple attempt to bring all your favorite and popular SL memes to a one place. This app allows you to view all the SL memes which were posted on facebook daily through some of the top Sri Lankan Meme fan pages.
SL Meme Reader has the capability of fetching all the latest Memes available. Whenever a new meme has been posted to facebook, you can instantly view them through this app.

Cody Harvard Referencing Assistant

Easily and Quickly reference your websites with less time consumption according to Harvard Referencing Practices.

LED Xtream

LED Banner Display for Windows 8 Tables and PCs. Developed by Udara Alwis and Nisal ‘Cheezy’ !

How to make your Windows 8 App support for different Screen Resolutions

So currently I’m going through the aftermath of my Final year Project submission, waiting for the Final Presentation to be done with. The other day my friend Nisal ‘Cheezy’ called me up and talked about developing some app for Windows 8. So as usual, I opened up my Visual Studio 2012 and created a new project. Suddenly it occurred to me that I have been struggling with different Screen resolution support for couple of my past app developments. So here I thought of leaving a small note of it.

Most of the people does not realize this fact, once you develop a Windows 8 App, it usually does not support different Screen resolutions, even though it is a primary requirement in App certification. Due to this fact a lot of applications fails at the certification level. There are several number of standard screen resolutions that we need to make our apps to be supported, some of them are, 1366×768, 1920×1080, 2560×1440, 1280×800, 1920×1080, 2560×1440  and so on. But most of the Windows 8 devices, laptops, tables and PCs today are set to 1366×768 screen resolution by default. According to Microsoft statistics, most of the Windows 8 Devices uses 1366×768 screen resolution. But you will never know what our users will be using as their screen resolutions or in what kind of situations they would change their screen resolutions.

I also once went through this tragedy when someone was showcasing one of mine and Nisal’s windows store apps. Therefore it is crucial to focus on support your apps for different screen resolutions.

So below are some of the techniques that I use when I develop my windows 8 apps,

Start Development with the Lowest Resolution

Once you create a new Windows Store app project in Visual Studio 2012. The app’s layout default is set to 1366 x 768 screen resolution to start the development with. But this is not a very smart step, because 1366 x 768 is not the smallest screen resolution in Windows 8 devices. According to Microsoft 1280×800 is one of the smallest screen resolutions available and it is best to start your development with supporting to the smallest reslution as a practice. Therefore, when you starts your app development, always make sure to change the default UI designer’s screen resolution in Visual Studio to 1280×800 resolution. This can be easily done by going to the “Device” pane in your left and changing the “Display” settings. Through this page you can check how your App’s UI supports different resolutions, View states and themes. Once you start development with the lowest resolution you won’t have to worry much about dealing with the rest because then you can easily zoom in the components by using Viewbox, which we are discussing in the next paragraph.

Use Viewbox, the Life Saver ! lol

Using viewbox component you can easily set your App’s UI to scale and fit automatically for different Screen sizes with ease. You can look up in google how to use it in your code wiht examples, but for the time being below is how I usually use my ViewBoxes to fit into different screen resolutions,

<Viewbox HorizontalAlignment=”Left” Height=”auto” Width=”auto” VerticalAlignment=”Stretch” >

//………………the rest of the components goes here in your XAML…..//

</Viewbox>

Maintain a Root Grid

When you are placing your rest of the UI components, make sure you place them with in a root Grid layout and also make sure to set that grid with static Width and height. This will prevent the ViewBox zooming in your UI unnecessarily for different screen sizes.

Test your app in different Screen Resolutions using the Emulator

And finally, after combining all the above methods, do not forget to test your applications on Emulator under different screen resolution settings.

One thing I have noticed, once you optimize your apps to 1366×768 resolution, it perfectly supports all the other resolutions except 1280×800 resolution. Therefore it is always best to start from the lowest resolution and test it out every step of the way.

Here are some of the useful links which I have used before,
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh465349.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh465362.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh465337.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/jj679352.aspx

Well thats it from me fellow awesome Developers out there !
Cheriyo ! 😀

Stay Awesome ! xD