Chrome and Firefox: making mouse wheel working with Silverlight map control

The other day I stumbled upon a situation which I though was a limitation with Silverlight Bing Map Control. The mouse wheel wasn't working with zooming while using either of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browsers. I posted it at MSDN forums and was promptly fed back by an expert. Here is the link for whole thread :
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vemapcontroldev/thread/1e61eb01-984b-42e4-a36f-4d2d8e05a1cd
The key setting to make in host page(hosting silverlight content) is : Windowless="false".
Have fun!!

Chotaaay!

It is about a telecom company advertisement in which a "chota" is made to run to get to the client end. Not many things wrong with it but the part which "pinches" me is the way little boy is made to run and looks completely spent while he reaches the client who tells him about some convenient mobile service, acquiring which , his "ustaad" won't have to send him over and over again. The picture of running-low-on-oxygen boy panting hard ,make me realise hardships of hundereds of thousands of danty hands working in our workshops and may be bearing hardships of far greater proportions everyday. The boy's face in said advertisement gives me more concern than any amusement. Your thoughts are welcome.

Silverlight

So if you have not been living in a cave for some time you must have heard about Silverlight. I have been working with it for some time now and would like to give you my two cents about it. I would call it an initiative by Microsoft to tap into the market for which Adobe Flash has been dominating for almost a decade now. That seems to be the main motive behind Silverlight's launch however there is more to it. Silverlight is a browser plugin which makes it a client end technology. Its a scaled down version of .NET Framework (a humble 4 MB download) with support for programming languages such as C# and VB (traditionally its been all Javascript). Within the plugin it gives the feel of a desktop application however security bar remains the same as it is there for any web application. Now a million dollar question . Would Silverlight be able to replace Adobe Flash or get a big chunk out of AJAX market? I think for now people would go for a hybrid ( pages hosting both AJAX and Silverlight content ) approach and who knows in future it might be the next heartbeat of web.

ciao!

Fuel shortage

Last night I was caught in a routine traffic 'rut' , you know that snail paced traffic moving gingerly? That is something part of our daily life now. But my alarm bells started ringing when I noticed my gas indicator dropping to last point. There are not many worse things you can imagine than being caught in the middle of a jam packed road without any gas! The nearest petrol pump I knew was not too far away so i was kind of relieved, but what is this? As I reached one of the gas stations it was closed with oil drums blocking the entrance. Second one had one of those long queues of cars resembling deewar e cheen, motorcycles surrounded petrol terminals like honey bees. "What to do", I murmured. I was running out of gas and standing in one of the queues would mean that I'd run out of gas by the time I get my turn. After a bit of mental tussle I decided to stop at one of the stations which had comparatively shorter queues and finally after idling for about half an hour I managed to get my share of gas which turned out to be only 3 points. I was told janab gas ka pressure he itna hay , yeah may be all the pressure is directed towards common man in terms of load shedding,fuel shortage,inflation and what not? But then as they say 'Something is better than nothing'. Life goes on.

New SpringWidget

Get this widget!

DenGamleBy

DenGamleBy is the old Arhus city in Denmark. I found it as a great attraction, spent some good 2 and half hours but I think one can easily spend more time. Its not a traditional museum but a whole city being preserved as a museum. You can go into the houses and take some pictures although you'd find the bedrooms,dinings and kitchens protected by glass walls. You can buy some cookies from a shopkeeper dressed in traditional clothes. Horse cartridge would take you around the town , although I preferred to be on my foot. Once in a while you'll find a guy pulling a cart through the streets of city with its wooden wheels making rolling noise over the stony surface, and it was just exciting to get a glimpse of old way of living. There was an office of a postman,residential houses, amusement park for children ,merchant office and a city square where I think people used to just sit around. Once you get out of the old town and enter into the modern city you feel as if you have time travelled and you remain submerged into thoughts until the new town engulfs you!

Denmark: The flattest land of Europe

So I have arrived in denmark. Flattest land of Europe where vikings ruled. Although its a bit late for me to be blogging since I landed here some 20 days ago but then one takes a bit of time to settle down especially if its his first trip abroad and that too a business trip! Now that I am getting the hold of things and starting to understand the culture I hope I'll be blogging more frequently.

Denmark is a small country as compared to its neighbours: Norway and Sweden. It is a composition of many islands and I am in the largest peninsula of Denmark ,Jutland. Keep an eye on my blog if you want to look around Denmark as I look it!

The Shoaib Faktor

Heading of a local newspaper read "Shoaib is back, with a ban". Yes he is back and I'd like to see him hurling deliveries at 100 mph in Supreme court of Pakistan.

I think PCB chairman made a blunder by announcing the decision himself. He could easily have delegated the task to some subordinate,however now he is exposed to the criticism. This also gives impression of some personal grudges between PCB chairman and Shoaib , which the former denied in press briefing. I dont see a point in denying it publicly. Shoaib on the other hand is set to drag PCB in courts. Objectively speaking he is also responsible for this outcome , atleast partly. But the way management has dealt to "tame the beast" is pathetic to say the least. I'd hold captain ,coach and team manager responsible for this as well. Shoaib akhtar needs someone who can defend him against PCB management and in the media. This personality could either come in the form of captain, coach or team manager , unfortunately none of the current holders of these designations seem capable. This personality could then have motivated him to deliver for the team, which in return would have given a boost to the team building process. But I am afraid no one is trying to build a strong pakistan team and everybody is here to just save his seat.

If Shoaib is to be sacked then with him should go the current PCB management because they have failed miserably to tackle the situation. May be Dr.Nasim could do a better job with HRDCP only. Shoaib should also reflect on his conduct, I believe he can do himself and Pakistan cricket a world of good by just concentrating on whatever amount of cricket is left in his career and leave the cricket ground on a good note.

Extravagant Lighting

I would like to have your attention over the extravagant lighting on buildings. Keeping in view the current energy condition in our society , do you think its wise to light up the buildings ,mosques , houses ? one example of which we just saw on eid milad-un-nabi and on 23rd of march? I think no such thought even crossed our minds when we knew that the nation is already facing a deficit of around 3000 MW and would be growing in coming days. Let us for now , not discuss the responsible organizations for the issue WAPDA,LESCO,PEPCO etc. Even wapda had altered its schedule and reduced the amount of time for load shedding. This depicts our national psychie. We are all at the same level on such issues, from govt official to an ordinary citizen. I am of a firm view that if on such occassions we all make firm resolutions about national issues, we'd be fulfilling our national and religious duties.

Pakistan loses to India

After 27 years Pakistan cricket has suffered a series defeat on indian soil , last time it was in 1979-80. This defeat however has serious lessons to be learned from. Shoaib Akhtar who was presumably on his last tour of India was to make a difference but could not. How many times has he tried to make a difference but have failed? Clearly not due to the lack of potential but due to some other circumstances. In any other series he would have opted to sit out considering his fitness and attitude. Here though he opted to play despite not being 100%. Did that help pakistan save two of the three match series? I don't think. One could clearly see that he was more interested in off-field activities , came close to signing a couple of bollywood films while he should be working on his fitness. Shabby is a match winner for sure. Teams do rely on some of its members who can take on the responsibility and be the flag bearers. Like Wasim was the flag bearer after Imran and since he was out of the arena no one could come up to his potential to be the flag bearer of aggression and hostility which remained the hallmark of pak cricket in late 80s and early 90s. Shoaib,Razzaq,Azhar,Saqlain all played lot of cricket under Wasim but sadly no one came up to the level. Now that Shoaib is slowly slipping into his retirement I can't see anyone taking up that role and may be pak cricket is entering into an era of leadership dearth which we are already experiencing as a nation.

My creation

It just struck my mind, and while its fresh I thought it would be worth (b)logging it. So what is the purpose of my creation? But before I try to elaborate my point of view on that let me share with you some of my prejudices which I have most recently found to be not so good. As a teenager I believed in righteous thinking. Now its one thing to be righteous about a matter and completely other to prove your point. Laws of nature demand from you to struggle and prove that you are on the right path. Thats what all struggle of life is about , or rather should be about. So let me answer a very common question : Why am I created? or Why has God created me? God has created you because HE wants you to prove your mettle against wrong/evil/false whatever you name it. So for me its a two step thing , first you got to find out what is righteous and once you are certain that this is the right path you got to prove it to the whole world. No matter how much resistance you have to face and without the fear of loosing. Because you cannot loose anyway.Makes sense?

Gonna get married

Hello world!

A little more than a month remains before I get married. I am just busy these days preparing for the ceremony and also busy in my head ,thinking of my transformed life,priorities and duties after marriage. So as they say "Let the countdown begin!"