reWorking: ExifLib — A Fast Exif Data Extractor for .NET and Silverlight

As soon as I began to get what a fabulous new technology Microsoft have developed in Silverlight, I decided to come up with something useful that I could implement with it — mostly just to get hands-on experience with the technology. Most people know that you can use Silverlight to create Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) and also "Apps" that run in smart phones… but one of the most intriguing things about Silverlight is that with the click of a configuration checkbox that same code can also run standalone — in so-called OOB (or "Out of Browser") mode —  on Windows, Mac OS X, and on many other platforms. So from the beginning I set my sights on creating “an App for that” which would do something useful with snapshots produced by digital cameras.

So I read with great interest the article by Simon McKenzie from Oct 2009 called “ExifLib — A Fast Exif Data Extractor for .NET 2.0” because “Exif Data” refers to the metadata stored in picture files by most digital cameras. Examples of this metadata are the properties that record what the camera settings were plus the date/time when the snapshot was taken — as you see in the ToolTip screen shot on the right. So imagine my disappointment when the article said that this ExifLib wouldn't work with the .NET libraries found in Silverlight 4 (because Silverlight comprises only a subset of the 'full' .NET platform). In McKenzie's defense, he did outline what one would have to do in order to "bridge the gap", so I set about doing exactly that; hense my release of the Silverlight version of this C# library which I recently posted back to the forum (www.codeproject.com) from whence it came.

To download the C# + Visual Studio 2010 project for this library, see: http://bit.ly/Exif-Silverlight-zip

Working on this project… I spent a majority of my time finding a panoply of different .jpg's from many different digital cameras — old and new — to make sure that my modifications not only worked for my pictures, but also for "everything" I could get my hands on. So aside from the code changes, in the new project, I've included this set of .jpg's (Big-endian and Little-endian) along with all of the regression testing data that I accumulated to ensure that the Silverlight and non-Silverlight versions of this library produce exactly the same results. From my project you can build either version of the library by just defining a conditional compilation that I made up.

Of course… please contact me if you find any flaws in this library since I am in the process of using it for a new Silverlight Application that — after its Bastille Day beta test began — I have now written about, here.

GiveCamp — Learning Silverlight and “Coding for Charity”

Last weekend I had the distinct privilege of being part of the 1^st annual New England 2010 GiveCamp hosted by Microsoft in Cambridge, Ma. For those who've never heard of GiveCamp, it is a weekend-long event where technology professionals — from designers, developers and database administrators to marketers and web strategists — donate their time to provide solutions for non-profit organizations. For my part, it was somewhat from altruism… but mostly I stepped up for the 48-hour marathon because it gave me an opportunity to join the Silverlight team so that I could hone my skills using this latest and greatest technology from Microsoft.

On the right you see a screen shot of what my team produced: CHaD.Chatter, so named because our non-profit — who we did the Silverlight project for — was Children's Hospital at Dartmouth (CHaD). The "Get Well Messages presented in floating balloons" paradigm was the perfect project — enabling us to delve into numerous aspects of this .NET technology, and to showcase Silverlight in all its glory… even though the truth is that we didn't finish it in the time allotted; that's why there was only one message-carrying balloon animation in the final presentation we made to the larger group.

Since the CHaD team has decided to regroup and finish working on CHaD.Chatter, stay tuned for a subsequent blog article where I will write about — and probably present — a fully working version of this web-based, interactive, database-driven, Silverlight application.

DigitalMediaMagik.com 2010 Business Cards

During 2009 I got an excellent response to the panorama format that I used for my 2009 DigitalMediaMagik business cards, so this year I decided to do something very similar except that I used a different panorama. Shown on the right, my 3^rd-generation card design features a countryside vista from small town Vermont. For more details click thru the graphic on the right or click here to see that panorama in the Panorama Viewer.

Following last year's paradigm, the goal with the 2010 card was to deliver a more accurate picture of what DigitalMediaMagik.com is all about. The card reflects the two aspects of my business as they have evolved — website design and working with digital media. In addition, this year's card presents my LinkedIn profile (www.LinkedIn.com/in/KevinGenePammett) in an effort to further promote my services as a Principal C#, .Net and Java software engineer — possibly outside of the context of my own company.

As I expected last year, creating the design for these cards — the dilemma of which panorama to use — gave me the idea of using multiple panoramas in a new masthead for my company site which has featured a panorama animation since April '09 when I came out with a face lift for my DigitalMediaMagik.com web site.

Using Seasonal Panoramas to Promote Health & Fitness

At DigitalMediaMagik.com we create marketing and promotional materials using the latest in digital imaging techniques, as we describe in this article.
The thumbnail you see on the left is an 8.5" x 11" flyer I was asked to make for an event my client calls “The Big Rocks Mile, 2010”.

Part of their organization's Health & Fitness program, this "running a mile" was to be a 3-part event and I was asked to create a flyer to promote this 1-mile run happening at the beginning, ending, and mid-point juncture of a 6-month training period.

What came to mind immediately was to use panoramas — from my Panorama Gallery — to communicate the “Spring, Summer, Fall ” timeline that was to be the framework for this 'event'.

Being many times wider than they are tall, panoramas fit perfectly onto a horizontal flyer page leaving room for captions under each picture to achieve the other goal of the flyer — to convey that this 'event' was actually going to be 3 events, taking place over the period of 6 months. In addition, the captions convey the context for the event — “Every Man Wins” — because this was not to be a traditional man-against-other-men race, but rather that each man trains throughout the 6-month period, sets a baseline for himself in the Spring, shows progress with more training until Summer arrives, and then experiences the full benefit of the training in the Fall when he realizes that this Health & Fitness program is just the beginning — there's much more ahead.

The final piece was to create a simple URL that points to the flyer: BigRocks-Mile2010, and to encourage people throughout the organization to use that as a link in their communications about the event.

Picture Stamps — Gifts that Get Given Away Twice

Have you ever heard of Stamps.com — in the USA — or its Canadian counterpart ? Click thru for details, or… the take away is that you can create your own US or Canadian postage stamps which can then be used exactly like real stamps. You can do this for any number of promotions / reasons, including that they make excellent gifts, as I did for my extended family last Christmas.

So… what's the connection with DigitalMediaMagik.com ?

Following the tagline “You Imagine it… We make it Happen !! ” — on your behalf, we could do all of the image-editing and other cyberspace work to create one or more stamps from pictures that you provide. When the gift arrives, it looks like the familiar 'book' of stamps shown on the right.
























A step beyond the stamps themselves — also available as a DigitalMediaMagik.com service — would be that I/we create a web page using the wildly flashing 3D cube navigator shown on the left, the idea being that "the story", as told by this "experience", is part of your promotion or gift. Of course… that 6-chapter story could be anything that you can imagine.

Shown here purely as an example of such a story… use the 3D cube navigator (on the left) to explore the set of stamps I created :
• Move your mouse into the center of the green background frame (to the left) to “drive” and “look at” each of the images.
• As you move the mouse (within the 3D cube frame) you are in “drive mode” — doing manipulation via mouse movement, without mouse clicks. E.g. move the mouse towards any corner of the frame and the cube begins rotating in that direction. The rotation follows you around as you move the mouse, and is faster/slower depending on how close you are to the center of the cube.
• Click on any cube face; it "zooms out", showing you the stamp image. A subsequent single click continues the rotation.
• Double Click on an image face to 'read that chapter'. In this case more detail means you see the picture the stamp was made from). When finished, your browser's "Back" button returns you to the cube navigator.
• In “drive mode” the rotation stops whenever you move the mouse outside of the green background space, and resumes when you re-enter it.

For an example where the 'chapters' are real stories, check out my "life story" done with the 3D cube navigator.

Coming Soon — TheGypsyCafe.com

It is my pleasure to announce the official opening (here) of “The Gypsy Café ” — the follow-on to “The Café @ Groton Trading Co.”, represented by my first .NET web site until my clients closed up shop at the end of Februrary 2009. In its next reincarnation, with a new style and gypsy flair, the new café (physically) will be at 112 Main St., (Paugus Mall, Route 113), Pepperell, Ma.

In cyberspace, the new site will be my first opportunity to demonstrate the re-usable blueprint that I created using Microsoft's .NET technology to increase my productivity at creating one rich web site from another.

The picture to the left features the new logo (just the top part) — the harbinger of an exciting new beginning for my clients, Keith and Christina Doucette. I added a border and address/contact information to that, ostensibly for presentation (to make it more square) but also to make it more standalone.

Further details are available in the "Testimonial" that I wrote in the old web site to point the way to the new web site: TheGypsyCafe.com (officially opened June 3^rd) to encourage customers to give it a try.

DigitalMediaMagik.com Gets a Facelift

The website is not completely finished yet, but the facelift is pretty much complete so I will take the "Easter / Holy week milestone" as my cut-off point to declare the facelift complete.

• Cross-browser support: The site (and blog) now work with a very broad spectrum of popular browsers including IE (Microsoft's Internet Explorer), FireFox (Mozilla), Safari (Apple), and Chrome (Google). Up-to-date browser usage statistics peg this coverage at 97%.



• A panorama animation on DigitalMediaMagik.com gives the pages a "constant width" and showcases one of my services — making panoramas from multiple digital snapshots



• To accomodate smaller screens, there is an "X" action on the right-hand side of the panorama animation which makes it disappear and the page redraws so you can read more without having to scroll.



• The former "menu tree", on the left-hand side of all the pages, has been replaced with something much simpler. The "Community / TalkAbout" icon — an extension of that menu — was reworked to 'fit' better and to reflect the new DigitalMediaMagik.com logo.



• I elaborated the previously-empty page about my StoryBoard (video) product, celebrating a project I did for my sister's 60^th birthday.



• My "community" space — these pages — still have the same web address (blog.DigitalMediaMagik.com) but the blog has been rehosted, I got caught up wrt my backlog of articles, and I created a customized template to give the blog a much more pleasing and accessable format. For comparison, the old blog is still there… but there are no links to it ☺; the final article therein details the rehosting.



• There are a number of new "Page Elements" in the blog sidebar, including my DigitalMediaMagik.com Twitter "feed" and more About Me.