追梦年华

中秋过后

夏意犹存

Today I download VC#2008 and blend toolkits, and I can't help to hav a try after installing them. They are really amazing.

The good thing is that we can write more attractive program using them. The bad thing is that we have to learn new terms, WPF, WCF, XAML... But it's worthy to spend time to do it.

I wonder that why MS makes Blend look different with other VS products. The color of its UI is black, witch looks very weird. Maybe someone likes it.

In order to run the sofeware written by .Net3.5, user will have to download the dotNet runtime package, witch is very big. I really hope that MS can integrate it into Windows. It will but it's not at present. :)

ScreenCapture

* Capture a rectangle region from the screen.

* Copy the image to clipboard, and you can copy it to other program.

Above the Tool

I wrote a ScreenCapture tool in C++ years ago. After studing C# for a few days, I want to implement it in C#. I found it was not difficult while coding. The largest barrier before me was the different programming style of C++ and C#.

For example, We write the declaration and implemetation in the same file in C#, but they are usually implemented in .h and .cpp files in C++. someone doesn't like this kind of style of C++, because the code of the same class can locate many different files. But I think it's more clear to separate the declearation and implementation, isn't it? C# has a keyword partial witch can make a class implemented in different files.

A remarkable feeling is that it's more faster to compile C# code than C++, but vis-a-vis it's more slow to run. That's because C# doesn't compile the code to machine code, but to MSIL.

When using MFC dialog editor, we can disgin our dialog as we want, but it maybe look different in the run time. In WinForm, there are many more controls to choose, and the designer is more powerful than before. Now the next generation of UI class library is WPF, you can try its beta2 version. It will be more flexible to design the UI part of a sofeware.

I spent a afternoon to implement the program, so it has no to0 many features, but it will have.

It is more than six years since CSharp and dotNet were born.

Althogh I know many things about it, but I didn't read a book completely about it yet.

Now it's the time I begin to learn it seriously, but that doesn't mean that I don't learn CPP any more, but means I'll embrace dotNet. Honestly speaking, I don't care about dotNet much before until the day I knew about WPF. WPF attracts me so much, so I decide to use it to make attrating programs.

There are so many books about dotNet. The first book I choose to study is written by Kevin. It's very easy to understand, so I spent about 4 nights in reading it. Before learning WPF, I decide to learn WinForm firstly, I choose Windows Forms Programming with CSharp to read.

The road is under your feet. When you walk, it stretches.

上海环球金融中心

The first tallest building in the world was on fire!

Farmers in England have been worried about foot-and-mouth disease among their cows. The virus sickness is one of the world’s most destructive diseases of livestock. Foot-and-mouth disease does not usually kill animals. But it sickens them and severely reduces the production of meat and milk resulting in economic disaster. The current cases of disease first struck cattle in southern England at the end of July. A farmer in Surrey noted that two of his cows were sick. He reported the news to government health officials. They passed it on to the World Organization for Animal Health.

Agriculture scientists confirmed the first cases of the disease in two animals. The first group of 120 cows was killed August 3rd at that time the government banned export of all livestock, fresh meat and milk products. The ban is expected to remain in place until August 25th. About 100 cattle were killed from a second infected herd on a farm about 3 kilometers from the first. A third group of cows was killed last week. Almost 600 cows have been destroyed so far to prevent the spread of disease. Tests of cows on two other farms in Surrey showed no presence of highly infectious virus. So experts say the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease could be over by the end of the week if no new cases are found. However they urged farmers to continue to check their cattle for signs of the disease.

British health investigators believe there is a strong possibility the outbreak started in a research center close to the farms. The center has two laboratories that use the virus for research and to make that sick. One of the laboratories rejected the claim. It said there is no evidence that virus was transformed out of laboratories by people. In 2001, foot-and-mouth disease cost the British agriculture and tourism in district billions of dollars more than 6 million animals were killed. The crisis delayed a general election for a month, canceled many sports events and closed the countryside to visitors. The disease affects animals such as cows, pigs, goats and sheep. It spreads easily through direct contact among animals. It is also spread by people on clothing and shoes.

This summer, heavy rains and flooding have caused more than five hundred deaths in South Asia. More than ten million people have been forced from their homes. Huge amounts of cropland, animals and property have been destroyed. Officials and aid groups say a public health crisis threatens about thirty million people throughout India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

The World Meteorological Organization says the rain in South Asia is just one of many extreme weather events this year. The United Nations agency announced last week that January and April were the warmest months on record worldwide. The discovery appears to support environmental changes confirmed by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on climate change in February. The group said that it was more than ninety percent sure that carbon dioxide and other heat treat gases from human activities have been the main cause of global warming. The World Meteorological Organization also noted extreme weather in other areas. It said heavy rains in China in June affected more than thirteen million people. In February, Mozambique had the worst flooding in six years. It said record-breaking heat was reported in southeastern Europe and central Russia earlier this year. A full report on weather in 2007 will be released at the end of the year.

The UN weather agency says it is working with its partners to establish an early warning system for climate extremes. It also is creating a long-term observation system to study the effects of climate change. One such effect could be a lack of food and the risk of hunger in developing countries. The head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization warned last week that climate change might hurt food production in warm southern areas of the world. Jacques Diouf spoke in India. He said that crops likely will decrease in seasonally dry countries as average world temperatures rise. However, he said, small temperature increases could increase crops in most industrialized nations. Mister Diouf called for an intense scientific effort to develop crops that will grow in future weather conditions. He said one example is genetically changed crops that will grow in extreme temperatures, dry conditions or poor soil.