This is pretty cool.  Apple is partnering with educational institutions and using iTunes as a mechanism to get educational content to a user’s mobile device such as an iPod or iPhone. 

“Mobile learning” as it is dubbed, allows students to download content when it is convenient from a school-created website or from the iTunes Store.  If the student is using an iPhone, they can discuss the content via chats, email, and social networks 24x7.

“Today’s students expect constant access to information—in the classroom and beyond. Which is why more and more faculty are using iTunes U to distribute digital lessons to their students. And now, with the 3.0 software update for iPhone and iPod touch, iTunes U is directly accessible over both cellular and Wi-Fi networks through the iTunes Store.”

Educational content is delivered in the form of a podcast.  Podcasts can contain both audio and video which means that a lecture that contains both spoke as well as slideshow content can be integrated into a single download and automatically pushed to a subscribing student via iTunes.

Much if not all of the content from institutions like Yale, Oxford, and Wharton are free, so not only can students take advantage of this resource, but so can adults already in the workforce looking for a refresher from categories like Mathematics to Social Science, Humanities and beyond!

You can check out iTunes U here.  (iTunes is required)

I’m working on a project right now and have noticed that XAML seems to be incorrectly rendered in the Visual Studio designer, versus it properly being shown in the Expression Blend 3. 

It seems that sizes and alignments are completely off in Visual Studio 2008 where everything appears correct, renders properly, and executes normally when created in Expression Blend 3.

Here’s an example of XAML as rendered in Visual Studio 2008:

and in Expression Blend 3:

Ignore the black background on the Expression screenshot, but notice that the buttons and all aspects are alligned properly, where the screenshot from Visual Studio 2008 is not.

Here is the XAML source:

<Window x:Class="QuickTwit.AccountWindow"

    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"

    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"

    xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008" xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"

    Title="Accounts" mc:Ignorable="d" Height="300" Width="300" ResizeMode="NoResize" WindowStartupLocation="CenterScreen">

    <Grid>

        <ListBox Margin="12,12,0,124" Name="listAccounts" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Width="188" SelectionChanged="listAccounts_SelectionChanged" />

        <Button Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Right" Margin="0,0,12,7" Name="buttonOK" VerticalAlignment="Bottom" Width="75" Click="buttonOK_Click">OK</Button>

        <Button Height="23" HorizontalAlignment="Right" Margin="0,20,12,0" Name="buttonDeleteAccount" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="75" Click="buttonDeleteAccount_Click" IsEnabled="False">Delete</Button>

        <Rectangle Stroke="#FFC9C9C9" Margin="13,0,12,41" VerticalAlignment="Bottom" Height="75" RadiusX="10" RadiusY="10" Opacity="0.5">

            <Rectangle.Effect>

                <DropShadowEffect BlurRadius="1" ShadowDepth="1" Opacity="0.5"/>

            </Rectangle.Effect>

        </Rectangle>

        <TextBox Height="23" Margin="0,0,27,79" Name="textUsername" VerticalAlignment="Bottom" HorizontalAlignment="Right" Width="160" />

        <Label Height="28" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="28,168,0,0" Name="label1" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="69">Username:</Label>

        <Button x:Name="buttonAuthorize" VerticalAlignment="Bottom" Content="Authorize" Margin="0,0,27,49.04" HorizontalAlignment="Right" Width="75" Click="buttonAuthorize_Click" />

    </Grid>

</Window>

If you have seen this happen or know how to fix it, let me know.

The concept is simple.  You need to update your status or send a quick tweet.  You find an interesting link or article you want to post.  No time to catch up on what is going on in the Twitterverse or the 300 tweets you are behind on.  Just need to post an update.  That’s TweetNow!

TweetNow is a simple WPF application designed to allow for posting quick updates to a Twitter account.  It is currently in development and is actively being tested by our staff of testers.  Well, not really staff.  Just me.  And a few friends.

Initial Release Features

- Secure authentication via oAuth
- Multiple account support
- Automatic URL shortening

Future Release Features

- Minimize to system tray
- Hotkey activation
- Post photos to TwitPic

Seems like it should work without too much pain, but the fact of the matter is each time you increment the version on your application a new version folder will be created that is by default empty and the user.config file is empty which means the user config is lost and the user has to reconfigure the specific settings in the app.  Painful, and a bad user experience no less.

This is really simple to take care of by adding an additional setting in your application settings and modifying code in the settings.cs file.

Jim Scott covers the process here.  Happy Coding!