UK StudentZine Blog : Student Stuff

Student Voice - Life as an Intern by Kevin Pfister

ukstudentzine — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:05:00 GMT

So what is life actually like being a current intern at Microsoft? What does it feel like working at the world’s largest, greatest and best-known software company? Well I guess that for starters I should mention the chairs are exceedingly comfortable and the drinks are free.

To start off with my name is Kevin Pfister and I work in the Developer and Platform Evangelism Group (DPE), DPE being just one of the many three letter acronym’s (TLA’s) that I have to come to remember. My role is that of an Academic Developer Evangelist (ADE), yet another acronym already. Microsoft as a whole is a company run on acronyms, it is the lifeblood here and I truly believe if everyone spent those few seconds longer actually saying the meanings of the acronyms the company would never be where it is today.

However, I digress, although I always get the feeling at the back of my mind that Microsoft is a rather strange company to work at being an intern. Mainly because you do not come to feel like an intern, we get to take part in important projects and services and there is not big sign over my head saying ‘Tea Boy’ of which I am very glad. Finally, everyone seems so happy to work here; it feels so different to every other place I have worked.

So how did I get to be an intern in the first place? Last year I was a Microsoft Student Partner (MSP) and actively tried to communicate technology and varying tools from Microsoft on my campus. Through the MSP programme, I found out about and applied to Pitch Your Passion (which involved spending a total of 16hrs on a train one day... fun). While there and at the final interview, I guess it seems I impressed them enough to give me a job and here I am.

Now I guess a few of the downsides of working here, well the first is not really a downside actually; I have no desk. Therefore, I can walk around and effectively sit where I want. Apart from that, I do not think there is any actually.

Technology is a real passion of mine and there is so much out there at the moment that I take a keen interest to and hope to experiment with throughout the year, some of which I’ll be actively writing about in the StudentZine. The areas of technology that at the moment I am interested in are the Pocket PC and Mobile section; really can’t wait to see Silverlight rolled out onto the platform and also XNA as I just love to make games in my spare time.

One of the main things that shock me while I work here is the sheer amount of software Microsoft actually makes, it’s mindboggling! There is not really a software market that Microsoft is not competing in or thinking about, the product offerings are huge and what Microsoft is currently researching is just disturbingly awesome; if you have seen Photosynth or the World Wide Telescope I think you will understand, if not, find out!

In all its amazing being an intern here and I would encourage anyone to find out more on our careers site and hopefully apply if you feel you want to be challenged and amazed by what is on offer, because I have every day so far.

Microsoft Student Partners by Stacey Ball

ukstudentzine — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:12:00 GMT

As the new intern I thought I would start this issue with a bit about me and what you can expect to see in the Studentzine in the coming issues. Already I’ve been designing the new MSP Programme 2008/9 and have been looking forward to exciting new events, opportunities for you to get involved and brilliant competitions available to you all! Read on to find out more about the year ahead with Studentzine and Microsoft opportunities.

My first task as the new intern was to recruit the new 08/09 Microsoft Student Partners that I’ll be responsible for over the next year. The MSP Programme involves around 30 Microsoft representatives hosting exciting events on campus in order to inform students around the country about exciting new Microsoft technologies. The programme is now fully subscribed so keep an eye out for the MSP on your campus and the chance to catch updates in the next few issues. The MSP’s will be responsible for organising events on their campus such as demonstrations, workshops and more and make full use of these free events and goodies!

As another new intern to the Academic Team, Kevin will be responsible for the Inspiration Tour which is being finalised currently. This will involve exciting chances to bring MS technology alive to you, as well as the chance to work with Kevin and the team for hands on help with Silverlight or other issues, also allowing you to find out the latest in technology news.

There’s lots of exciting new technology emerging and developing so articles from readers and MSP’s will be coming soon, focusing on the programmes and useful application tips. There are launches of Live Mesh the Desktop moving onto the cloud, and World Wide Telescope to look forward to and explore which already prove fascinating. We also have the opportunities for you to win prizes by getting involved with Studentzine activities and by entering competitions including chances to develop your skills as well as demonstrating them to other readers. You can also keep up-to date with all of this by joining our Facebook page

Fancy letting others know about your own discoveries and achievements with MS technologies such as Silverlight? We’re always looking for student to write here and shout out to others about exciting events and technologies which they’ve discovered; so if you wish to take part in this and tell others of your discoveries and journeys I’m your first port of call; contact me by acinfo@microsoft.com

Imagine Cup 2008 - Paris by Ed Dunhill, Academic Developer Evangelist - http://blogs.msdn.com/edunhill

ukstudentzine — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:45:00 GMT

Last week I was in Paris at the Worldwide Finals of the Imagine Cup, in this months article I'll introduce you to the competition, some of the best entries and the overall experience in Paris.

So what's it all about?

The Imagine Cup is the world's largest student technology competition and is open to anyone over the age of 16 in full time education. The competition has 8 categories each with a different format but all culminating in a grand final which next year will be held in Cairo, Egypt. The competitions are Software Design, Embedded Development, Game Development, Robotics and Algorithms, IT Challenge, Mashup, Photo Story and Short film. More information on each individual competition can be found on the Imagine Cup Website.

Each year the Imagine Cup is based around a particular theme, this year it was the Environment. From next year the theme will be based around the eight UN Millennium Development Goals which will give competitors more flexibility in the issues their entry addresses. If you want to find out more about next years theme check out my blog post.

So why would you want to get involved? Well first off there are some great prizes for both competing locally and globally. This year the UK finalists in Software Design won a trip to Seattle to work with the Popfly team at our corporate head office and the Games Dev finalists won a work placement with a Microsoft Game Studio. The Prizes for Software Design and Games Dev fro the overall international winners were in excess of $15,000 plus the chance to turn their idea into a viable business at the Innovation Accelerator. More than the material prizes the Imagine Cup gives you a great springboard for your career, many of the competitors from the UK now work for Microsoft or one of our partners. Plus it's a great experience as I'm sure the UK competitors we took to Paris will agree!

How do I get involved?

Registrations are now open for next years competition so head over to imaginecup.com. Registering doesn't commit you to taking part but gives you the opportunity to find out more about each individual competition and keep updated by email. I will be producing several blog posts to help you get started when the competition itself opens.

What's the final like?

Each year the final is held at a different destination, this year it was Paris, next year it's going to be Cairo and in the past it's also been in Korea, Japan and India. The great thing about the final is that not only will you be competing to be crowned international champion but you will also get the opportunity to experience the culture of the host country. This year the agenda included a welcome reception at the Town Hall, a dinner cruise up the Seine (past the Eiffel Tower), a cultural days with tours around Paris, a trip up the Eiffel tower and the grand final at the Louvre all of which gave the competitors a real sense of the city.

In terms of the competition itself it ranges from presentations to judges to IT simulations to 48 hour photo journals. I was lucky enough to sit in on a bunch of the round one software design presentations and I was blown away by the quality of the entries. From a system using embedded technology to monitor the electrical performance of appliances in the home and improving energy efficiency to an automated irrigation system which takes crops types and weather forecasts into consideration to save water whilst maximising yield. In the embedded category the Irish team built a system to convert diesel engines to use vegetable oil and then built their system into a car and drove it from Ireland to Paris!

What next?

From September I'll be back on the road with the Inspiration Tour but this year we're going to do Imagine Cup lab sessions while we're on campus so watch my blog and hopefully I'll see you in person next academic year!

Worldwide Telescope - Kris Athi (MSP)

ukstudentzine — Wed, 21 May 2008 19:42:07 GMT

Unlock the star gazer in you...

Today, Microsoft Research has released a cool new application that really is out of this world!

WoldWide Telescope turns your desktop PC into an (almost) fully fledged telescope to help you unlock the star gazer deep inside itching to get out.

Using the extremely intuitive user interface, you are now able to pan, zoom and rotate yourself around the virtual universe made up of “stitched together” detailed photos from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Centre, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey among others.

To help you on your celestial travels, you have several tools at your disposal. After all, the universe is a pretty big place so it’s easy to get lost

If you find something that you think is really cool, a simple right click on the object will being up the “Finder Scope” to give you more information on what you are looking at. The “Research” option will also give you some external sites to help you discover more about your discovery

The interface also has a really cool options bar across the bottom that continually updates itself with locations to visit. This is updated to show the nearest views to your current location and clicking one will automatically move you to its location and then update the bar all over again.

Looking for something in particular? A host of options are available across the top of the interface include a real time search option. Simply type what you are looking for and the relevant locations will be displayed. Simply click away and off you fly!

If you’re not really feeling in an exploring mood, Let an expert do the work for you! WorldWide Telescope comes with a “Guided Tour” feature that will take you on a tour of our universes greatest sights. These even come with audio commentary from the experts describing what you are currently looking at.

If you really want to dig deep into the world of intergalactic travel, join or set up a community and talk to other like minded individuals about your space discoveries. You can even create your own guided tour and share it with others.

I think you will agree with me that Microsoft has really done a nice job with this project and I really do think this is going to get an amazing reception with the many scientists, students and enthusiasts who take it for a spin!

You can download the client for yourself right now by visiting http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/

Invasion of the Robots!

ukstudentzine — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 12:18:00 GMT

By Matt Duffin.

In July’s issue of the newsletter, we introduced you to the Invasion of the Robots Contest and its British counterpart, Team Britbot. These competitions invite you to create a conversational robot, or ‘bot’, that can be used with MSN® Messenger and Windows® Live™ Messenger to be in for a chance to share some fantastic prizes. These robots, which chat with you over Messenger in the same way as any other contact, can range from personal assistants or joke tellers through to coursework researchers or TV guide helpers; they are literally limited only by your imagination!

With the competitions closing soon (Team Britbot on 1 September 2006 and Robot Invaders on 15 September 2006), I’ve produced a quick guide to creating a simple ‘my first bot’ that can be extended easily into your actual competition entry.

The bot will have a simple existence. When asked by a user to remember something, it will do so under a particular name, keeping remembered facts separate between users. When needed to recall something, the user just needs to tell the bot what name the fact was remembered under. Hardly groundbreaking, but a simple foundation upon which you can build something extraordinary.

To create the bot, you’ll require Visual Studio®.NET 2005 (Express Editions are fine) and moderate knowledge of how to use it. The tutorial will focus on C#, but the code samples can be easily converted into Visual Basic®.NET or your favourite .NET language. You’ll also need a bot SDK (Software Development Kit). These consist of libraries and tools that create a wrapper around the Messenger service, saving you the trouble of worrying about messaging protocols and instead allowing you to focus on the functionality of your bot. Robot Invaders has teamed up with three SDK providers – Akonix, Colloquis and Incesoft. Each SDK is different: Akonix comes in a quite heavy download and uses a web-based administration system, Colloquis provides powerful natural language processing at the cost of increased complexity, and Incesoft supplies a small yet simple SDK.

For this tutorial, we’ll be using the Incesoft SDK. However, when you move out of experimentation and begin to put your bot into production, you may wish to consider one of the other SDKs. This is because Incesoft does not provide ‘provisioning’ – bot hosting. This means that for your bot to work, the computer it runs on must be permanently switched on and connected to the Internet. However, its small size and easy to learn interface make it a good choice when getting started.

First, you’ll need to create a new MSN Hotmail, MSN Messenger, or Microsoft Passport account; this will be the address that the bot uses on Messenger. Once you’ve done this, sign up for the Incesoft SDK at http://sp.incesoft.com/. They’ll send you a confirmation message with details for downloading the SDK. Once you’ve received your username and password, login on the Incesoft website. From the menu on the left-hand side, choose ‘MSN account management’.

Getting Started

Choose ‘Add new account’ and enter the address and password for your bot. Once this is done, choose ‘Sign In’ to connect the bot to the Messenger service. If you wish, you can edit other bot settings from this page, including display name, picture, etc. Once you’ve finished, you can now add the bot to your Messenger contact list. Right now, you’ll see that it is ‘Away’ and that any attempts to talk to it will result in the message ‘service provider offline’. This is because Incesoft acts as a proxy between the Messenger service and the computer running the bot – marshalling Messenger commands into their SDK equivalent and vice-versa. At the moment, your computer hasn’t connected to the Incesoft service, so the generic ‘service provided offline’ message is returned instead.

After downloading the SDK, unzip the contents to a suitable directory. You’ll notice that there’s a sample project included with the SDK; this sample is extremely useful for learning about the SDK’s features. However, for this tutorial, we’re going to create a project from scratch. Start Visual Studio and create a new Windows Forms project called ‘Robot’. Copy ‘BotPlatformSDK.dll’ from the ‘Lib’ directory of the SDK to the ‘bin’ directory of your project and add a reference to it within the project; this DLL is the wrapper described earlier.

During this project, controls are left with their default names for easy referral. You’re encouraged to name them sensibly, though! Also, best practises and exception handling are left by the wayside so that the amount of code you have to copy is lower.

Add a StatusStrip onto the form and add a StatusLabel to that, ensuring that its Text property is empty. Add a SplitContainer onto the form and set its Orientation to Horizontal. Size the top panel so that it takes up about ¼ of the available height. Set the FixedPanel property of the SplitContainer to Panel1 (or whatever the top panel is called) to ensure that it maintains its size whereas the bottom panel resizes to fill the available space. Add another SplitContainer into the bottom panel and add a DataGridView into each of these, ensuring that Adding, Editing and Deleting is disabled and that they are both docked. Also set AutoSizeColumnsMode to Fill on both of these: this will ensure that the columns resize automatically with the window.

Add other controls as necessary so that your form design matches that below:

Giving your Bot a Memory

Next, create two XML files in the same directory as your executable (usually ‘bin/Debug’). ‘memory.xml’ will be used to store the actual facts requested, whereas ‘log.xml’ will store debugging information that allows you to follow the bot’s activities.

Add the following test content to ‘log.xml’:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<log>

</log>

And the following (or something similar if you’re not too fond of squashed bananas) to ‘memory.xml’:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

</memories>

Now, enter the following code within the definition of your form class:

public static string logFile = System.IO.Path.Combine(Application.StartupPath, "log.xml");

public static string memoryFile = System.IO.Path.Combine(Application.StartupPath, "memory.xml");

public Form1()

{

InitializeComponent();

this.Load += new EventHandler(Form1_Load);

}

private void bindXMLData(string xmlFile, string dataMember, DataGridView dataGridView)

{

DataSet ds = new DataSet();

ds.ReadXml(xmlFile);

BindingSource bs = new BindingSource();

bs.DataSource = ds;

bs.DataMember = dataMember;

dataGridView.DataSource = bs;

}

private void updateLog()

{

bindXMLData(logFile, "event", this.dataGridView1);

}

private void updateMemory()

{

bindXMLData(memoryFile, "memory", this.dataGridView2);

}

public void updateXML()

{

updateLog();

updateMemory();

}

private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

updateXML();

}

Now, when you run your application, the DataGridViews will be bound to the two XML files that you have just created:

Now that you have the ability to display the contents of the log file, you need to be able to write log entries. Add a new class to your project called ‘Logger’ and enter the following code for it:

using System;

using System.Xml;

namespace Robot

{

public class Logger

{

public Logger () { }

public static void Log(string source, string message)

{

try

{

XmlDocument logFile = new XmlDocument();

logFile.Load(Form1.logFile);

XmlElement Event = logFile.CreateElement("event");

XmlAttribute Source = logFile.CreateAttribute("source");

Source.Value = source;

Event.Attributes.Append(Source);

XmlAttribute Message = logFile.CreateAttribute("message");

Message.Value = message;

Event.Attributes.Append(Message);

logFile.GetElementsByTagName("log").Item(0).AppendChild(Event);

logFile.Save(Form1.logFile);

}

catch (Exception)

{

return;

}

Now, calling the ‘Log’ method with a message and message source will cause a log entry to be written to ‘log.xml’. Next, you’ll need to add memory functionality to the project. Users will need to be able to add memories under a given key and recall those memories. For simplicity, the bot will not check whether a specific memory exists before overwriting it nor provide the ability to forget memories, but this may be functionality that you wish to add. The bot must be able to cope with many users, therefore the add and recall methods will need to take a user parameter.

Add a new class to your project called ‘Memory’ and enter the following code for it:

using System;

using System.Xml;

namespace Robot

{

class Memory

{

public Memory() { }

public static void Remember(string user, string key, string value)

{

try

{

XmlDocument memoryFile = new XmlDocument();

memoryFile.Load(Form1.memoryFile);

XmlElement Memory = memoryFile.CreateElement("memory");

XmlAttribute Key = memoryFile.CreateAttribute("key");

Key.Value = key;

Memory.Attributes.Append(Key);

XmlAttribute Value = memoryFile.CreateAttribute("value");

Value.Value = value;

Memory.Attributes.Append(Value);

XmlAttribute User = memoryFile.CreateAttribute("user");

User.Value = user;

Memory.Attributes.Append(User);

memoryFile.GetElementsByTagName("memories").Item(0).AppendChild(Memory);

memoryFile.Save(Form1.memoryFile);

}

catch (Exception)

{

return;

}

public static string Recall(string user, string key)

{

try

{

XmlDocument memoryFile = new XmlDocument();

memoryFile.Load(Form1.memoryFile);

/* Selects nodes from the memory file according to an XPath expression that reads:

* Get all 'memory' nodes from the root node 'memories' whose 'user' attribute is equal

* to the 'user' parameter. */

XmlNodeList userMemories = memoryFile.SelectNodes("/memories/memory[@user='" + user + "']");

foreach (XmlNode memory in userMemories)

{

if (memory.Attributes["key"].Value.ToLower() == key.ToLower())

return memory.Attributes["value"].Value;

}

return null;

}

catch (Exception)

{

return null;

}

Now, calling the ‘Remember’ method with a memory, key and user will cause a memory to be written to ‘memory.xml’. Calling ‘Recall’ with a key and user will cause that memory to be read from ‘memory.xml’ if it exists; ‘null’ will be returned if not.

Connecting to the Service

Next, add the functionality to connect and disconnect your bot server to Incesoft’s server. Add the following ‘using’ statements at the top of the form code:

using Incesoft.BotPlatform.SDK;

using Incesoft.BotPlatform.SDK.Interface;

Add the following variables to the form:

private string address = "msnbot.incesoft.com";

private Int16 port = 6602;

private IRobotServer server;

These contain the address of Incesoft’s server and the port to connect to. A bot server is also declared. Next, amend the form’s constructor so that it reads as follows:

public Form1()

{

InitializeComponent();

this.Load += new EventHandler(Form1_Load);

this.button1.Click += new EventHandler(button1_Click);

this.button2.Click += new EventHandler(button2_Click);

this.toolStripStatusLabel1.Text = "Server Offline";

server = RobotServerFactory.Instance.createRobotServer(address, port);

}

This adds event handlers for the buttons and sets the status bar text to indicate that the server is currently offline. The bot server is also instantiated by a factory. Add the following event handlers to the form’s code:

void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

this.server.login(this.textBox1.Text, this.textBox2.Text);

}

void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

this.server.logout();

}

This causes the bot server to log on or off when the buttons are clicked. Notice that when the buttons are clicked the online or offline text on the status bar is not changed, you’ll find out why in a minute! Also, you’ll notice that, while the bot’s status is now ‘Online’, attempts to communicate with it either time out, or result in “service provider offline”.

IRobotConnectionListener and IRobotHandler

The SDK provides two interfaces, ‘IRobotConnectionListener’ and ‘IRobotHandler’, which, when implemented, allow you to respond to bot events. Create classes in the ‘Robot’ namespace that implement these interfaces, similar to the following:

public class RobotConnectionListener : IRobotConnectionListener

{

public void serverConnected(IRobotServer server)

{

}

public void serverDisconnected(IRobotServer server)

{

}

public void serverLoggedIn(IRobotServer server)

{

}

public void serverReconnected(IRobotServer server)

{

}

public class RobotHandler : IRobotHandler

{

public void activityAccepted(IRobotSession session)

{

}

public void activityRejected(IRobotSession session)

{

}

public void exceptionCaught(IRobotSession session, Exception cause)

{

}

public void messageReceived(IRobotSession session, IRobotMessage message)

{

}

public void nudgeReceived(IRobotSession session)

{

}

public void sessionClosed(IRobotSession session)

{

}

public void sessionOpened(IRobotSession session, int OpenMode)

{

}

‘IRobotConnectionListener’ contains definitions for connection-related events, such as the server being connected, disconnected, logging on and reconnecting (by default, the server attempts to reconnect automatically when disconnected). ‘IRobotHandler’, however, contains definitions for Messenger events, such as when a message is received, a session is opened, etc.

Next, make moderate adjustments to the connection listener class. First, add a constructor that takes a ‘Form1’ argument and stores it locally. This will allow access to the status bar on the form, allowing the connection status of the server to be reported, as well as the ‘updateXML’ method. Your code should look something like the following:

private Form1 containingForm;

public RobotConnectionListener(Form1 containingForm)

{

this.containingForm = containingForm;

}

Do the same for the robot handler class. Add the following lines to the bottom of the form’s constructor to associate instances of your new connection listener and robot handler classes with the server:

server.addConnectionListener(new RobotConnectionListener(this));

server.addRobotHandler(new RobotHandler(this));

Reporting Server State

Now you’ll want to update the status bar label reporting the current online status of your robot. ‘serverConnected’, ‘serverDisconnected’ and ‘serverReconnected’ should set the status bar label to “Server Offline”. “Server Online” should be set only when ‘serverLoggedIn’ occurs. While updating the status of the label, you may wish to add log entries corresponding to the events. Also, when the server automatically reconnects, you’ll need to have it log in again.

The code to do all this will be similar to the following:

(In Form1)

public void UpdateStatusLabel(bool status)

{

this.toolStripStatusLabel1.Text = "Server " + (status ? "Online" : "Offline");

}

(In ConnectionListener)

public void serverConnected(IRobotServer server)

{

Logger.Log(this.GetType().ToString(), "Server connected...");

containingForm.UpdateStatusLabel(false);

}

public void serverDisconnected(IRobotServer server)

{

Logger.Log(this.GetType().ToString(), "Server disconnected...");

containingForm.UpdateStatusLabel(false);

}

public void serverLoggedIn(IRobotServer server)

{

Logger.Log(this.GetType().ToString(), "Server logged in...");

containingForm.UpdateStatusLabel(true);

}

public void serverReconnected(IRobotServer server)

{

Logger.Log(this.GetType().ToString(), "Server reconnected...");

containingForm.UpdateStatusLabel(false);

/* Log back in to the server */

server.login(

containingForm.Controls.Find("TextBox1", true)[0].Text,

containingForm.Controls.Find("TextBox2", true)[0].Text);

}

Still following? Great! You’ll find that even though you’ve added log entries, the XML displays do not update. However, having your form updated with the current XML data is somewhat more of a challenge than it may first seem. After adding a log entry within the ConnectionListener, it is not possible to update the DataGridViews directly, nor is it possible to call a public method within the form that causes an update. This is because the ConnectionListener operates on a separate thread; attempting to update the DataGridViews from a thread other than the main UI thread causes an exception.

To get around this, add a delegate to the declaration section of the form, as follows:

public delegate void ConnectionListenerDelegate();

public ConnectionListenerDelegate updateXMLDelegate;

Now, in the form’s constructor, add the following:

updateXMLDelegate = this.updateXML;

This ties the delegate to the ‘updateXML’ method. Next, invoke the delegate whenever the XML data needs to be updated, as follows:

(e.g.)

public void serverConnected(IRobotServer server)

{

Logger.Log(this.GetType().ToString(), "Server connected...");

containingForm.UpdateStatusLabel(false);

containingForm.BeginInvoke(containingForm.updateXMLDelegate);

}

Now, the display of the XML data will be updated after each new entry.

Into the Heart of the Robot

Now that connecting and disconnecting are taken care of, you can actually get to grips with the main functionality of the robot. In the ‘sessionOpened’ method of the ‘RobotHandler’, add the following:

session.send("Hello, welcome to RememberBot!");

Logger.Log(this.GetType().ToString(), "Session opened " + session.getUser().ID);

containingForm.BeginInvoke(containingForm.updateXMLDelegate);

The addition of one line of code results in the following when you first talk to your bot:

You’ll also see that a log entry has been added detailing the user who’s talked to your bot.

The only other method that you’re going to program against during this tutorial is the ‘messageReceived’ event. However, the SDK provides the ability to react to nudges (perhaps by sending your own back!), send and respond to activities (see the SDK documentation for more details) and deal with exceptions.

Enter the following code for the ‘messageReceived’ method:

public void messageReceived(IRobotSession session, IRobotMessage message)

{

Logger.Log(this.GetType().ToString(), "Message received " + session.getUser().ID);

string[] splitMsg = message.getString().Split(new string[1] { " " }, StringSplitOptions.None);

if (splitMsg[0].ToLower().Equals("remember"))

{

string key = splitMsg[1];

string value = message.getString().Replace("remember " + key + " ", String.Empty);

Memory.Remember(session.getUser().ID, key, value);

session.send("I remembered \"" + value + "\" as \"" + key + "\".");

}

else if (splitMsg[0].ToLower().Equals("recall"))

{

string memory = Memory.Recall(session.getUser().ID, splitMsg[1]);

if (memory != null)

{

session.send(memory);

}

else

{

session.send("Sorry " + session.getUser().FriendlyName + ", I don't remember \"" + splitMsg[1] + "\".");

}

else

{

session.send("I don't understand what you want me to do.");

}

containingForm.BeginInvoke(containingForm.updateXMLDelegate);

}

At first glance, that might seem quite complex (at least it did to me!), so let’s go through it step by step:

1. A log entry indicating that a message was received is added. The user’s ID (email address) is added to the entry,

2. An array containing each word of the original message is created using Split,

3. If the first word of the message is ‘remember’:

a. The key of the memory is the second word of the message,

b. ‘remember’ plus the key are removed from the message to give the value,

c. ‘Remember’ is called with the user’s email address to save the memory,

d. The user is told what was remembered.

4. If the first word of the message is ‘recall’:

a. ‘Recall’ is called with the user’s email address and the key (second word of the message),

b. If the memory is found, the user is told what was recalled,

c. If not, the user is informed that the memory could not be found.

5. If the first word of the message is anything else, the user is told that the robot does not understand.

So, to save “Eggs, Beans, Bacon” under “shopping list”, the user would enter:

Remember shoppinglist Eggs, Beans, Bacon

And would enter:

Recall shoppinglist

To retrieve it. The following is an example session with the bot, and the corresponding form display:

One thing that you may notice is that if you send a greeting to the bot as your first message (such as “Hi Robot!”), you’ll receive “Hello, welcome to RememberBot!” and will then be told "I don't understand what you want me to do." To get around this, you can set a Boolean flag indicating whether this is the first message from the user and bypass sending ‘I don’t understand’ for the first message. However, because the bot could potentially deal with hundreds of users, you’ll need to keep a flag for each one. This could be accomplished using a private member variable (‘Dictionary<string, bool>’), which is added to when the session is opened and removed from when the session is closed. Adding this functionality is left as an exercise for you!

Conclusion

Phew, so that’s the bot! It’s hardly the most functional of creations, and it’s unlikely to win any prizes, but hopefully it’s served as a springboard for your more interesting designs. Best of luck in creating your bot, and of course in the competitions.

If you need any assistance creating your bot, each SDK provider has an excellent set of forums where you can chat to other ‘botficionados’. You can also email me on ukstuzin@microsoft.com.

Until next time, Matt.

ATTACK! ATTACK! Robots ahoy...

ukstudentzine — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 12:37:00 GMT

Though not necessarily in name, robots have fascinated man for years. Just to make sure I wasn’t rambling on with nonsensical idiosyncratic nonsense, it seemed like a good idea to find a definition of the word “Robot”. From a quick search around and the dismissal of definitions that were too computer science specific an answer came from the depths of a Canadian Business School.

[Quote url="http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~rsexty/business1000/glossary/R.htm"]
Robot:
a machine that can automatically do tasks normally controlled by humans and mostly is used to perform repetitive tasks on an assembly line.
[/Quote]

Wow, wasn’t that just a perfect definition of what a robot is? I thought so too :D. So onwards. So who are we to thank for the idea behind robots, surprisingly enough the Greeks [1,2]! So from these beginnings an industry was sprung. Why put together car after car after car when you can get a huge machine that has no feelings emotions and can work around the clock to do it? Once again human ingenuity, creativeness and the desire to as a little work as possible prevailed!

While(Year.date != 2006)
{
Year.GetNext();
}

So what is a computer science equivalent of a bot? Something that we use most days and provides the human races with an indescribable amount of knowledge would be nigh on impossible without bots. And what pray tell am I speaking of? Search engines. Search engines use crawler bots[3] to grab pages in the internet, to some extent this is done in a brute force manner hitting every webpage possible grabbing and parsing the information.
Where lies good, lurks evil. Bots are not only used for the better good of man. Distributed bot nets, which constitute collections of owned [4] computers that are used to perform such this as Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS [5]) attacks on servers throughout the world. To bots that help players of online poker cheat! Though how these bots deal with inherent randomness in the nature of humans and cards is another question unto itself!

So in conclusion bots are pretty damn neat, and provide the means to accomplish a lot of menial or repetitive tasks that would take a lifetime to perform by hand.

Oh yeah, and by the way there is some compettition, check out Mark Johnstons blog to find out more!

http://blogs.msdn.com/markjo/default.aspx

Links and junk and stuff:

[1] What is a robot and a good level of history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot
[2] The guy who came up with the idea of robots: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmus
[3] All about search engine crawlers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_crawler
[4] Owned: A computer that is owned is one that is under access, often remote, of someone other than its original owner.

[Article(".NET Attributes")]

ukstudentzine — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 16:52:00 GMT

There have been many articles on Attributes, so rather than go through the rigmarole of re-hashing a subject I have will give a quick introduction. After that I have knocked up a quick demo which will hopefully get you moving in the right direction! At the end is a list of useful resources.

What are these attribute tags?
Fig 1.1 Example of Attribute defined on a method:

[Fig 1.1]

[Attribute("argument")]
private void Foo() { }

[/Fig 1.1]

Attributes are a declarative way of defining some functionality associated with a method, types, fields or even properties. Put simply attributes allow a definition of specific meta data against code. The .NET model of compilation model is to take source code and compile it down to Intermediate Language (IL) which is then run by the Common Language Runtime (CLR). For those who have not come across IL before, IL is similar to machine code, but retains extra information about the code, making the IL a damn sight easier to read that x86 assembler!

Enough with the talk, show us some code!

Lab
For this quick introduction we are going to be looking at the conditional attribute. This attribute is defined in the System.Diagnostics namespace.

Looking at code 1.1. we see that there are two methods define in our Program class. FillArray which populates our generic integer list with random integers. The second method called DebugPrint prints out all the items in the list with the items index number and the value that is stored. A very useful little function for debugging an integer list. In the Main method we call the DebugPrint statement twice. Before the list is sorted and afterwards. This is all fine and dandy, until we come till the time when we no longer want to release code with debug statements in, but rather a release build without.

[code 1.1]

class Program
{
    internal static void Main(string[] args)
   {
        List<int> digits = new List<int>();

        //Fill array with random digits
        FillArray(digits);

//What have we got in the array?
DebugPrint(digits);

//Sort the array
digits.Sort();

//Is it sorted?
DebugPrint(digits);

Console.ReadLine();
}

  internal static void FillArray(List<int> digits)
     {
       Random rand = new Random();

       for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
       {
          digits.Add(rand.Next(0, 100));
       }
  }

internal static void DebugPrint(List<int> digits)
{
Console.WriteLine("[BEGIN Debug Print]");

        for (int i = 0; i < digits.Count; i++)
         {
              Console.WriteLine("{0} \t=>\t {1}",i,digits[i]);
         }

         Console.WriteLine("[END Debug Print]\n\n");
   }
}

[/code 1.1]

Personally coming from the school of C the obvious solution to this problem is to surround the DebugPrint method with a compiler directive (code 1.2). What a simple solution, unfortunately if the code is built the compiler will have a small problem as there are calls to this method, which in the opinion of the compiler, does not exist! To solve this problem every call to DebugPrint() needs to be surrounded by the same compiler directive.

[code 1.2]

#IF DEBUG

   internal static void DebugPrint(List<int> digits)
   {
          Console.WriteLine("[BEGIN Debug Print]");

         for (int i = 0; i < digits.Count; i++)
         {
               Console.WriteLine("{0} \t=>\t {1}",i,digits[i]);
         }

         Console.WriteLine("[END Debug Print]\n\n");
   }

#ENDIF

[/code 1.2]

Far from ideal, in real terms this means remembering to surround all the calls and changing the token that is used to define debugging will require a change in all these compiler directives. From a semantic point of view it also makes our code that little bit harder tounderstand. So does a simpler solution exist? Well if there didn’t I probably wouldn’t be writing this! Cue drum rolls and enter stage right attributes. In the System.Diagnostics there is a class ConditionalAttribute. This class is explained as giving the following functionality, “Indicates to compilers that a method is callable if a specified pre-processing identifier is applied to the method.” Code 1.3 defines this class as a Attribute above the DebugPrint method. The class is passed an argument “DEBUG” which in turn is passed to the ConditionalAttribute constructor. This sets the class up such that if this compiler directive is defined in the correct scope this method is callable otherwise it is not. Note that I have not said that the method is removed, it is merely not callable. Compile this code in debug mode, and everything is fine and dandy with our lovely debug message printing. Drop it into release mode and it compiles first time with the method calls in place, and our DebugMethod is no longer called, compiler directives for free?

[code 1.3]

      [Conditional("DEBUG")]
   internal static void DebugPrint(List<int> digits)
   {
          Console.WriteLine("[BEGIN Debug Print]");

         for (int i = 0; i < digits.Count; i++)
         {
               Console.WriteLine("{0} \t=>\t {1}",i,digits[i]);
         }

         Console.WriteLine("[END Debug Print]\n\n");
   }

[/code 1.3]

Let’s try find out what the C# pre-processor is doing here. Time for ILDASM (not used ILDASM before? Click here)! Looking at Fig 1.2 (the debug build) all the methods are in the assembly as they should be. Browsing through the MSIL output of the main function (Code 1.4) the calls to DebugPrint are there. Great! Moving to the release build, open ILDASM something most peculiar has happened, the method DebugPrint is still in the assembly, uh oh. Something must have gone wrong. Before panicking too much let’s take a gander at the Main method (code 1.5) the calls to DebugPrint have been removed. Suddenly it all makes sense. The pre-processor is not removing the function from the class just the ability to call it (removes the calls to the function). “But Mr Ian Saunders”, you all cry, what happens if the function returns a number that is used in another statement, or pass the array using the out key word? For exactly these reasons the Conditional Attribute does not allow the method to return a value or take an out parameter.

[Fig 1.2]

[/Fig 1.2]

[Code 1.4]
.method assembly hidebysig static void Main(string[] args) cil managed
{
.entrypoint
// Code size       42 (0x2a)
.maxstack 1
.locals init ([0] class [mscorlib]System.Collections.Generic.List`1<int32> digits)
IL_0000: nop
IL_0001: newobj     instance void class [mscorlib]System.Collections.Generic.List`1<int32>::.ctor()
IL_0006: stloc.0
IL_0007: ldloc.0
IL_0008: call       void Attributes.Program::FillArray(class [mscorlib]                                               System.Collections.Generic.List`1<int32>)
IL_000d: nop
IL_000e: ldloc.0
IL_000f: call       void Attributes.Program::DebugPrint(class [mscorlib]                                               System.Collections.Generic.List`1<int32>)
IL_0014: nop
IL_0015: ldloc.0
IL_0016: callvirt   instance void class [mscorlib]System.Collections.Generic.List`1<int32>::Sort()
IL_001b: nop
IL_001c: ldloc.0
IL_001d: call       void Attributes.Program::DebugPrint(class [mscorlib]                                            System.Collections.Generic.List`1<int32>)
IL_0022: nop
IL_0023: call       string [mscorlib]System.Console::ReadLine()
IL_0028: pop
IL_0029: ret
} // end of method Program::Main

[/Code 1.4]

[Fig 1.3]

[/Fig 1.3]

[Code 1.5]
.method assembly hidebysig static void Main(string[] args) cil managed
{
.entrypoint
// Code size       25 (0x19)
.maxstack 1
.locals init ([0] class [mscorlib]System.Collections.Generic.List`1<int32> digits)
IL_0000: newobj     instance void class [mscorlib]System.Collections.Generic.List`1<int32>::.ctor()
IL_0005: stloc.0
IL_0006: ldloc.0
IL_0007: call       void Attributes.Program::FillArray(class [mscorlib]
                                                System.Collections.Generic.List`1<int32>)
IL_000c: ldloc.0
IL_000d: callvirt   instance void class [mscorlib]System.Collections.Generic.List`1<int32>::Sort()
IL_0012: call       string [mscorlib]System.Console::ReadLine()
IL_0017: pop
IL_0018: ret
} // end of method Program::Main

[/Code 1.5]

Summary:

Attributes provide a powerful way of adding extra functionality to your code, in a simple seamless way, covering up the complexity and the constraints applied to the code. The example I have used is a tad contrived, though I daresay will be very useful in university projects when debug code is about 60% of what is written ;). Why stop there the .NET namespaces provides hundreds of built in attributes that can be used straight out of the box? If the provided functionality doesn’t quite float your boat why not create your own attribute? It’s really not as complicated as you think and there is a wealth of knowledge on how to do this on the internet.

Regards,
Ian Saunders

About the resources: As there are so many attributes and all located in varying namespaces in can be difficult to know if there are any attributes that apply to the domain of your problem. In my experience it appears the best way is to crack open your favourite search engine or MSDN and search for either the namespace you are playing with or the general concept you are looking at. Hope that is helpful!

Resources:

The code I used is attached to this article.

MSDN article on Attributes: This article gives a very good and thourough explanation of attributes using VB .NET as a base language. Also provides an introduction to creating custom Attribute classes.

Thorough introduction to Attributes in VB .NET with an authortive O’Reilly Book

Attributes in VB .NET: An introduction to attributes as well as a step by step guide to creating a custom attribute class.

Definition of System.Attribute namespace from MSDN:

Using Attributes for creating .NET code that can work with COM

Attributes in Business Objects: A great article in VB .NET and C# on how to use attributes in your own custom business objects
Part 1: http://www.spaanjaars.com/QuickDocId.aspx?quickdoc=390
Part 2 :http://www.spaanjaars.com/QuickDocId.aspx?quickdoc=391

Using Attributes for debugging: Invaluable resource for customizing and refining the debugging experience in Visual Studio 2005

Another Slightly in-depth article about using Attributes to improve code debugging:

World Cup Madness - Soccer Scorecard

ukstudentzine — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 11:28:00 GMT

Here's a little thursday fun for you to share with your friends and family.

Follow your favorite teams and players during the FIFA World Cup tournament with Microsoft Soccer Scoreboard. This fun program allows you to access all the latest tournament news and information with the click of a button! Live game data allow you to monitor your favorite teams progress in real-time. Want more? Check out your team’s fixture (schedule), standing, and news as they advance through the tournament. If you are a soccer fan, don’t miss a minute of the action. Download Microsoft Soccer Scoreboard today!

Customize your experience with RSS

Do you have a favorite web news feed? Microsoft Soccer Scoreboard acts as a RSS reader. Enter your favorite sports-related RSS feed into the application and watch it display the news headlines all on its own.

All times local

The Microsoft Soccer Scoreboard displays all dates and times according to your Windows XP’s time zone setting. No more calculating start times only to find out you are off by an hour or more.

Available in multiple languages

Microsoft Football Scoreboard is available in Arabic, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Czech, Dutch, English, Farsi, French, German, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish, Spanish (Latin America), Swedish, Thai, and Ukrainian.

Download

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=df6a6e6e-21af-4786-ad1d-a38e8bfda82f&DisplayLang=en

UK student? Want to be a Student Rep? Read on...

ukstudentzine — Mon, 08 May 2006 18:16:00 GMT

By signing up to be a Microsoft Representative you won’t just get to find out about the best technology out there, you’ll actually get hold of it! Not only will you receive unique access to the representative portal that’ll keep you up-to-date with the latest technology – Windows Vista, Windows Mobile, Expression and loads more – but you’ll also be able to chat, exchange ideas and solve problems with other Reps and Microsoft Student Partners, get hold of the latest software betas and find out about what Microsoft has on offer for students, who like you are mad about technology!

Simply by completing activities on the portal you’ll earn points that tally up over time. The activities are all technology related and include things like promoting the Imagine Cup or talking about the technology you love (maybe a blog!). Get enough points and you could win one of the cool prizes we have on offer. Even one of three Xbox 360 premium packs just for registering.

So what have you got to lose? Follow the link to sign up:

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/academia/students/studentrep.mspx

Paint Brushes out!

ukstudentzine — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 11:57:00 GMT

Are you interested in the next wave of designer tools and want to get the low-down on what is happening with the industry? Creative Arts Magazine are holding an event on the 10th of May in Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Paul Newman, Senior Editor of Computer Arts magazine will be hosting the day. There will also be speakers from other creative industry companies.

Check out www.computerarts.co.uk for further details!

The Ghost

{Games++} - Games Development Day

ukstudentzine — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 11:49:00 GMT

It’s finally here, Games Development Day has become {Games++} and we can now confirm the date and venue:

// Wednesday 17th May 2006, from 10:00am to 5:00pm
// Leeds University Union's Conference Auditorium

Leeds Game Development Society (http://gdsleeds.com/) and Microsoft have joined forces to bring you a jam packed day of game playing, industry speakers and free food. In between playing and learning about the latest games there will be plenty of chances to win some really cool prizes.

Nick Burton and Simon Craddick from Rare will be talking about their experiences as games developers and will give an insight into how to get into the games industry. Phil Mundy of Creative North will be talking about mobile games development and how he started his games company.

If you and your friends want to come along please send us an e-mail outlining how many places you require and we will send back confirmation: ukcclubs@Microsoft.com

If you would like to drum up some further interest at your university please download the {Games++} poster here: http://www.studentpartner.com/gpp/ or check out our Flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/48538768@N00/

Make sure you’re there!

Mark, Toby and Ian

It’s an Online Treasure Hunt!!!!!!!!!!

ukstudentzine — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 11:40:00 GMT

Q1 :

Clue: What planes do…

Riddle:
Looked far and wide,
Around the bend,
Over the hill,
And back again.

One word was used,
First Highlighted Blue,
Used to be Funk and Wagnalls Encyclopedia,
Synonyms could be right too…

Q2:
a) An interesting craft…
b) Ties in with Question 1
c) Search for it using electricity.
d) Ignore header, only read description
e) One word
f) Result: 3!
g) Word: 4! / 3!

Solution:
String.Format(http://www.studentpartner.com/gpp/{0}.htm”,q2 );

Ian ( flickr += gamesplusplus )

Imagine Cup on The Register

ukstudentzine — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 13:17:00 GMT

As you may or may not know, the winners of the UK Imagine Cup are blogging about their trials and tribulation on The Register-Developer (http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/imagine_cup/). It’s been interesting so far to see what the boys have been up-to and we have got a lot out of it.

So waht about the other imagine cup teams from around the world? Have you guys got blogs/websites? If so, what are they?! Post Answers in the comments if you know of any.

Ian

Academic Papers and Search

ukstudentzine — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 11:51:00 GMT

When you start researching projects for university; or even when you have a question on some arcane titbit of knowledge that a research in the deepest darkest chad has discovered and there is no way that you can contact him - what better way than to get your hands on the knowledge than search it down?

Roll-in Microsofts very own academic paper search page, this new Windows Live service offers the potential to search hundreds and thousands of academic papers simple and quickly.

Probably my one favourite feature on the Windows Live Search in comparison to competitors offerings is the preview pane on the right hand side. Which offers an overview (including abstract) and BibTeX/EndNote output.

The search quality is excellent, and I even managed to track down a few papers on Klingons!

Link to the search engine!

A Personal Review of F# by Adnan Osmani Microsoft Student Partner

ukstudentzine — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 11:57:00 GMT

When I first heard about F# - the new functional programming language from Microsoft, I thought it was going to be yet another deviation of Haskell. Haskell is one of those languages developers rarely use again once they’ve left University. However, having finally gotten around to using F#, I think some of you may be pleasantly surprised to see what it can offer.

Why F#
The problem with trying to solve a functional solution in a language like C# or C++ is that you’re often left handling a lot of different constructs – making it difficult for developers to properly model their problems. Haskell isn’t bad, but often simple exercises demand a lot from even the best of programmers. F# differs from all of those by offering simple, yet efficient constructs – meaning that I can model whilst still having the benefits of C# and the .NET framework at my disposal.

Language Benefits

Internally, F# very closely resembles some of the traditional higher level functional languages out there. So why do I prefer it to Haskell?

• F# allows me to update variables later on in the development process – so its easier for me to treat it like a normal language
• It lets me focus on debugging my problem, rather than having to worry about trivial things like typed-formatting – one of the biggest problems with Haskell
• F# WinForms allows me to create an easy interface for my F# code – the same thing can’t be said for our old friend Haskell

Those are only a few of it’s benefits, and I would already use F# over Haskell any day – like any functional language, it still allows me to focus on solving a problem through a math-like code structure, but doesn’t give you anywhere near as much stress as Haskell!.

What else makes F# different

Outside of the core language, F# allows you to code parts of your application in an existing .NET language like C#. This allows you for the first time ever to merge a functional and standard programming language without needing to use any third party interfaces. You can also easily convert between F and C# without too much hassle, and even more importantly, we’re provided with near complete access to all of the .NET libraries, like DirectX and Quartz.
Shortcomings
The official F# team claim that it’s meant to “bridge the best of the functional, imperative, object-oriented and typed-classed languages” – from what I’ve seen it’s well on its way to achieving that, but its not quite there yet. Object support could be improved, as well as proper integration into Visual Studio.
As F# is partially based on C# and OCaml, it’s difficult to classify it. It’s not a complete functional language, nor a standard development environment, so some developers might want to see more widespread usage before diving into yet another programming language.
Final words
For the moment, only the most enthusiastic functional programmers are jumping into the F# boat. If you’re ready to join them, make sure you bring a life jacket, because it looks like it may be a bumpy ride before F# makes it’s mark on the development world – but I think it may just happen.

Watch this space!.

To get started using F#, head over to Microsoft.com/Research.