Desklighter Update: Beta 1.1 with 64 bit support

Thanks to one user (aquaseal) who reported that Desklights are not displaying the Silverlight content on 64 bit systems. We have fixed this issue and a new version of Desklighter (Beta 1.1) is now available for download from Blendables Labs.

Another update we released with this version is the icon feature for Desklights. Earlier, Desklights were showing the default windows executable icon and now it is changed to a Desklight exe icon.

Update: http://ctlabs.blogspot.com/2009/09/desklighter-update-beta-2-with-more.html

Google Chrome - Browser from Google

Today, Google released their new product, Google Chrome, an interesting internet browser. As one would expect from Google, it is much faster, compact and less cluttered.

Like most other Google products, Chrome is also released as Beta version, but I would assume that it will be much stabler than a Release Candidate product from Microsoft. :)

As Google have built this browser from scratch keeping in mind today's Rich Internet Application scenarios, there are several architectural differences from other popular browsers. For example, each tab opened in the browser runs as a separate process, allowing one to close a hung tab without affecting other open tabs.

The memory used by each site and plug-ins can be seen through its task manager... so we know who is eating up more resources, and can kill them instantly. Read more about such technical details as a comic book here.

Google Chrome has a mix of useful features from both Internet Explorer 8 and Fire Fox 3. One such feature is incognito tab, where you can browse a site without leaving any trace or history.

After installing Google Chrome today, I immediately fell in love with that. In fact, I have changed my default browser from IE to Chrome. I may still continue to use Fire Fox, as it has got many useful extensions and plug-ins, until they are available in Chrome.

Many sites didn't work as expected in Chrome as they didn't understand this new browser. Windows Live Mail complained, but let me get in with the older version. Even Blogger complained "Your browser's cookie functionality is disabled", but on the second attempt it was fine. The Silverlight installation page displayed "This Web browser or operating system may not be compatible with Silverlight.". But I was able to view a Silverlight content without any issues.

Desklighter – carry the light along

Today is a great day for me. At IdentityMine, I’ve been working on a software tool named as ‘Desklighter’ since some time back and now it is released to public as a free beta version through our product website’s labs section at http://blendables.com/labs/Desklighter/Default.aspx.

Desklighter is a windows utility that can convert a Silverlight application into a standalone desktop application. The output from Desklighter is a single executable file that can display the Silverlight content on windows desktops without requiring a hosting server or a browser. Desklighter enables users to carry a Silverlight application off the web to wherever they need it.

Download Desklighter from here and try converting your Silverlight XAP files into windows exes.

The idea of taking the Silverlight application off the web into a portable single file executable opens up a whole new playing field. Now you will be able to carry your favorite Silverlight games from the web in a USB Flash drive to your friends who are not connected to internet. You can now share your exciting ideas materialized in Silverlight without having to worry about the hosting infrastructure. Your flashy Silverlight demo can now be taken to your customer for showcasing during a presentation. You can distribute your stylish e-brochure done in Silverlight in CDs to whomsoever you want. The possibilities are endless.

A Desklight (the EXE created using Desklighter) need to have the Silverlight plug-in (currently Silverlight 2 Beta 2) installed to run on windows desktops. Below is a screen shot of a sample Desklight. You can download more samples from http://sites.google.com/site/silverlightoffline.

Information about a Desklight including the Desklighter version used to create it can be found when executed from a command line with 'info' as the argument.

Another available command line argument is ‘debug’, which displays the Desklight’s server information while the Silverlight content is getting served. Use this if you see some issues while running a Desklight to know what is happening behind the screens.

Read the complete technology story behind Desklighter here.

The name ‘Desklighter’ was chosen to represent Desktop + Silverlight. My colleague Hariprashanth was the one who created all the graphics work for Desklighter. The logo is made up of four ‘D’s (representing Desklighter) with the windows logo colors (representing desktop).  Hari did an excellent work in giving it a stylish look.

I would like to thank all my colleagues here at IdentiyMine for extending their support and providing valuable feedback during the development of Desklighter. The wish list for the next version of Desklighter is growing,  thanks to the innovative ideas from them.

Please let us know what you think about this tool, and what you would like to see in its future versions.

Update - New Version Released: http://ctlabs.blogspot.com/2009/09/desklighter-update-beta-2-with-more.html

Google Sites

Few months back (February 2008) Google released a new web product known as Google Sites. Unlike Google Page Creator, it has more features to build and host complete websites for free.

The announcement on Google Page Creator home page says that they are getting rid of this service to focus on the new Sites service. The complete announcement is here:

We are no longer accepting new sign-ups for Page Creator because we have shifted our focus to developing Google Sites, which offers many of the capabilities of Page Creator along with new features like site-level navigation, site-level headers, control over who can see and edit your site, and rich embeddings like calendars, videos, and Google docs.

If you are currently a Page Creator user, you can continue to use Page Creator and your pages will automatically be transitioned to Google Sites later this year. We are committed to making this transition as smooth and easy as possible, and we will post more details as we get closer to the transition time. You can also manually move your web pages from Page Creator to Google Sites or other service providers at any time.

I played around with Sites and found it very easy to host a new site. All it took was few clicks. Here is the site I created: http://sites.google.com/site/sameerct

It has a killer feature to host files. While creating a new page, you can choose its type as File Cabinet and you get unlimited version controlled file storage for free.

Here is a sample file I hosted: http://sites.google.com/site/sameerct/sourcecode/SilverlightApplication1.zip

Really cool… Thank you, Google!

SQL Server 2008

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (code named as Katmai) is now ready and the trial version is now available for download. See details here.

This major release after SQL Server 2005 (Code named as Yukon) has got lots of new features. Processing of delimited strings, C like math syntax, Intellisense in the SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) are some of them. Read more here or here.

SQL Server 2008 Express Edition (Free version) is now available for download, but it's free Management Studio is not yet ready.

SQL Server never had a logo before. With this new release, now SQL Server has also got a logo. Read about it here.