Tzah 2.0

I just finished reading Alex Yakhnin’s post about generic control creation for WinForms. This is an excellent article  for those whishing to know how to use some of C# 3.0 neatest features like Lambda Expressions, Extension Methods and Object Initializers.

Alex demonstrate how, using these features, nerd developers like us can make their code more readable and as a result – maintainable. Basically, he used Extension methods to extends Control class functionality to create inherited controllers. One of the arguments used in the extension method is Func<Control, T> build.  This is a in fact a nice way to say that ‘build’ is a function that accepts an argument of  Control type, and has a return a value of type T.

Next, he uses Lambda expression to present the function in an elegant way. The expression is in fact, a constructor for the control we wish to build. As a final ingredient in this wonderful code soup, he used Object Initializers for the constructor.

Last month’s MoMo TLV event introduced 6 finalist in its peer awards. One of them was Cellogic that demo their product FlyScreen. Though not the winner, I’m very excited about this innovative product. It’s one of those ideas that you think to yourself “damn! that’s an ingenious idea”.

Pop-quiz, how many times a day do you take your mobile out of your pocket to do something other than making a call or sending SMS? Zero, you say? Think again. Remember all those times you check the time with it? how about looking at it thinking you might have missed an important call or got an SMS without noticing it? not to mention it’s a semi sub-conscious way to signal someone you’re talking to (face to face) you’re not really  interested in continue a conversation with him.

Well, the guys at Cellogic thought to themselves that with all that time you’re looking at your phone’s screen, you might as well see something interesting and meaningful. Their product downloads content of your choosing and display it on the phone’s screen. Users can watch news headlines, check-out RSS feeds from their favorite sites and arrange other widgets right on their mobile’s screen.

The product is still in alpha stage and currently supported only on some of Nokia Smartphones but  Cellogic’s working on versions for the other usual suspect: Android, iPhone, windows-mobile and Blackberry.