Sidebar Gadgets and Email

here is an interesting thing I ran into when emailing a sidebar gadget as a gadget file... it seems that some email systems will go into the compiled gadget file and replace all the script files with .txt files and this:

FILE QUARANTINED
[COMPANY NAME HERE] has removed App.Gadget->App.Gadget.html.js since ithas been found to match the FILE FILTER= unnamed: *.js file filter.

I find if I change the file extention to something like .virus then you can get through email filters much better...

Vista Sidebar Gadgets, Silverlight and JSON

ok, so I've posted about JSON in sidebar gadgets before and using Silverlight... when it comes to JSON (in vista side bar gadgets) just say no. at least directly, there are soooo many issues with this that it is unbelievable not to mention I'm running on a 64bit box that shouldn't even run silverlight to begin with the issues are not even consistent across different variations of vista and silverlight... really this is killing me. I found that it is eaiser to just make xml calls which is what I normalled used todo before some one came up with this brillant JSON thing... not that it is a real protocol and all but it is slick, anyway don't use JSON directly in a side bar gadget especially with Silverlight.

That being said, there are a number of ways doing old fashioned xml posting to get what you need and you can just parse and do the old fashioned xml thing and if your extra Industrious or need to write out something and the JSON eval thing solves some problems for you (namely less work) then add some begin and end tags and a nice CDATA section and your good...

But if you find a pratical way todo this let me know (JSON, sidebar gadget, vista, silverlight...), I'd love to see a code sample.

64bit Vista Sidebar Gadget Video Screen Capture Technology...

So um... check out my 'new' technology for 64bit Vista Sidebar Gadget Video Screen Capture

let me caviate this with the fact that I needed this now to show some one that animation in the side bar of a running gadget using Silverlight.

Camtasia didn't work and shows always always what is underneath and its like the sidebar is not even there...

and yes I googled it but I didn't have more then 10 minutes to make this work.

But since it is sooo funny I thought I would post this...

http://www.HackingSilverlight.net/img/001.JPG

I figure if all else fails and I don't have time, brute force is always good...

:)

Silverlight Sidebar Gadgets in 64bit Vista

As a matter of 'fact' Silverlight doesn't run in a 64bit IE browser... ok fine but if your running 64bit Vista you probably won’t see this as an issue as the default is the 32bit version that runs fine. And I'm sure at some point Silverlight will work in 64bit version of Vista. But the side bar gadget framework is in fact paired with the OS type so on a 64bit version of Vista... no Silverlight for you.

Ok so I'm not really that patient with waiting for the new wiz bang 2.0 version of silverlight that is 64bit so I have this little hack... installer that will correct the problem and allow 'Silverlight' to run in the side bar of a 64bit version of Vista.

If you are not running a 64bit version of Vista then this email is not important. No need to read farther.

So I started to go down the road of mucking up my regestry to do this but that proved to time consuming so I have built this simple code base (and silverlight gadget) so I can get my silverlight gadgets to run in my sidebar on my 64bit version of vista.

http://www.HackingSilverlight.net/Samples/Sidebar32on64.Codebase.zip

and gadget:

http://www.HackingSilverlight.net/Samples/Blender.Gadget

So basically there are two binaries. One will search the running processes and kill the sidebar process and then spins up the 32bit version. The next basically installs the other and sets it up to run each time a user logs in so they get the 32bit version of the side bar that actually supports Silverlight.

64Bit? No Silverlight For You

Not sure what is up with this but... If your using the 64bit version of IE even if you install Silverlight... The control will not instatiate. The Silverlight library specifically disabled htis but I hacked it so that it would try and the object is entirely not avaible in the 64bit version. That wouldn't bother me so much but the Vista Side bar is only 64bit if you are running a 64bit OS so you basically are screwed if you want to build a silverlight gadget that runs on a 64bit version of Vista... No Silverlight for you. To add insult to injury Silverlight works fine in the 32bit version of IE on a 64bit box... But for me that means no Silverlight Gadgets on my 64bit box.