Windows Developer Newbie Secrets

I roughly recall my first class in Visual Basic back around 2004 and remember that it was such an easy environment compared to the nix based c++ environments that I started out on. Now that I have had experience in real world programming, there is one thing that I wish we would have covered in class; COMM OBJECTS! A comm object is a really simple item that you can add to your available tools or controls in a windows development environment (visual studio, visual web developer, visual..insert name here...express...etc). As anyone that has used a tool knows, there are properties that you can easily have access to in the Windows programming environment. Comm objects provide an easy programming extension or API into many of your favorite applications that you run on Windows. I have used the comm objects for flash and MapPoint so far and both of them were a breeze to use. Just the act of having the host applications installed usually allows access to the comm objects.

So if you are a new Windows developer, then something you should really look into are COMM objects. In Visual Studio 2005 and all of the express versions, you can add a COMM object to your list of tools by right clicking in the tool box and selecting "Choose Items", then click on the tab for "COM Components". You can see by the screen shot of my list just how many objects there are!

On an unrelated note, I just installed the newest version of my favorite audio media player, Winamp and I found it ironic that they now have support for playing flv and swf files internally in Winamp. I suppose Adobe's release of the swf and flv protocols was a smart move. I'm also thrilled that flash player 10 beta 2 for Linux makes it so the player can see vfl2 devices under the uvc type drivers. My Eeepc's built in web-cam now works with flash!