Monthly Archives: October 2009

Bing LEGO mosaic

bing_lego-022-EditThis is a simple project I’ve been working on during the weekends lately. It’s the Bing logo done in LEGO plates. I’ll be moving it into my office soon.

It took maybe 6 hours of work and is about 3.4ft (1m) wide.

Feel free to leave comments at flickr, or check it out at my other LEGO posting sites (there are a couple of other shots of it):

C# 4.0 How-To now available for pre-sale!

csharp_howto_ben_watson For the last year, aside from starting a great job with Bing, I’ve also been working on a book about C# 4.0 and the upcoming .Net framework. The news: it is finally available for presale! This book is not your typical C# reference. It’s designed to be an easy guide to how to accomplish specific tasks, using a problem/solution approach. Some examples:
  • How to use P/LINQ (new in .Net 4!)
  • Override Equals and implement IEquatable<T> correctly
  • Enforce coding contracts (new in .Net 4!)
  • Convert numbers to strings in arbitrary bases
  • Various ways of rounding, including “snapping” to specific intervals.
  • Dynamic discovery of WCF services
  • Make your Silverlight 3 application run out-of-the-browser
  • Speed up array access
  • Easily split work among multiple processors
  • Localize WinForms, WPF, ASP.Net, and Silverlight apps

…and hundreds of other topics, covering everything from the basics of C# to WPF, ASP.Net, interaction with the operating system, common application patterns and more. I cover all the new stuff that’s in both the C# language and the .Net 4 framework classes, as well as existing functionality.

Each topic begins with a brief description of when/where/why you would need to use the technique, followed by a brief explanation and source code.

I often just want a reference I can quickly dive into to remind me of how something is done. This book is my attempt to put in writing what I find valuable, both when I was learning C# and now when I just need to locate a sample quickly.

Over the next few months I’ll talk more about what’s in the book, and hopefully get back into blogging more programming topics.

Lots, and lots of tiles

tiles-002Over in my flickr account, I’ve posted a picture of  part of the destruction of the LEGO shuttle. I just wanted to show the amount of tiles used in the project—it was a lot, but I didn’t count. The shuttle is sadly no more, but new projects are coming…

Lots, and lots of tiles

tiles-002Over in my flickr account, I’ve posted a picture of  part of the destruction of the LEGO shuttle. I just wanted to show the amount of tiles used in the project—it was a lot, but I didn’t count. The shuttle is sadly no more, but new projects are coming…

BrickCon 2009 this weekend—get your LEGO fix in Seattle!

DSC_2043If you’re in Seattle this weekend, BrickCon 2009 is going on, and I’ll be participating for the first time, displaying my Space Shuttle model.

The convention has more space than ever this year: 35,000 square feet.

The public hours are Saturday and Sunday, 11am-3pm. It’s only $7 per person (or max of $20 per family) and you don’t want to miss the amazing models that will be there.