Category Archives: Windows

Niagara Border Crossing updated for Android and Windows

The Niagara Border Crossing app has been updated to version 2.1 for Android and Windows. This new version fixes a bug with retrieving the wait time data, and also improves support for the newest OS versions.

About Niagara Border Crossing

This app shows the current wait times for all four of the border crossings over the Niagara River between the United States and Canada. These bridges between Western New York and Southern Ontario include the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge, the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge, the Rainbow Bridge, and the Peace Bridge. Separate times are shown for cars, trucks, and also for those using the Nexus lanes.

Links & Information

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Niagara Border Crossing updated for Windows 10

The Niagara Border Crossing App has been updated to version 2.0 in the Windows app store. This app shows wait times for border crossings over the Niagara River between the United States and Canada, and is also available for Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry.

Wait times are shown for all four of the bridges between Western New York and Southern Ontario. These include the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge, the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge, the Rainbow Bridge, and the Peace Bridge. Separate times are shown for cars, trucks, and also for those using the Nexus lanes.

Links & Information

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Weather Beautiful released for Windows 10

The Weather Beautiful app has been released for Windows 10. This weather app is available for both desktops and phones, and is equivalent to the versions for with the Android, BlackBerry, and iOS.

About Weather Beautiful

Weather Beautiful is a simple weather app that displays stunning photography of your surrounding area. In addition to the current temperature and weather conditions, the app also allows you to scroll for a full weekly forecast. While temperatures are shown in Fahrenheit by default, there is an option to switch to Celsius.

Links & Information

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Projectile Physics app updated

shapeitappThe Projectile Physics app has been updated for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone. After this update the app now uses the official ISO value for acceleration due to gravity. Additionally iOS and Android users are now given the option to remove all advertising from the calculator with an in-app purchase.

About Projectile Physics

This app is a projectile physics calculator designed to solve for all of the components of a typical projectile motion problem. The app solves for both the vertical and horizontal components of the distance traveled, the constant acceleration, the initial and final velocity, as well as the time. These factors are solved for in real time in order to help you get back the factors of the equation quicker.

Links & Information

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More levels for Starbeams

phoneStarbeams has been updated to version 2.3 with 10 new levels added. This brings the total number of levels in the game up to 230.

About Starbeams

The object of the game is to assign colors to each star in order to ensure that none of the stars are connected to another star of the same color. The game starts off easy, but quickly gets more complex, adding more colors and seven pointed stars that can not be changed.

Starbeams can be downloaded for free for Windows Phone, Windows 8, Windows 10, and BlackBerry 10 devices. A one time in-app purchase is required in order to play past level 25.

Links & Information

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Xploding Boxes expanded with another 10 levels

z10Version 5.8 of Xploding Boxes has been released, bringing the total number of levels in the game up to 540. This newest version of the game is available in Google Play, the Amazon App Store, BlackBerry AppWorld, Windows 10/Windows Phone App Store.

Starting with this release, the minimum supported OS version for Android has been increased to 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich).

About Xploding Boxes

Xploding Boxes is a strategy game where the goal is to start a chain reaction that will explode all of the boxes on the screen. Each level presents a different look and number of touches, requiring a different strategy to solve.

The game itself, and the first 25 levels are available for free, while a one time in-app purchase can be used to access the rest of the levels for just $2.99 while still maintaining your progress from the free levels.

Links & Information

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Preventing Windows 10 updates from rebooting your computer

By default Windows will download and install updates on your computer without any required interaction. This is great, but the problem is that it will also reboot on its own, closing anything you may have been in the middle of working on. No idea why Microsoft approved of this terrible user experience, but fortunately there is a (very hidden) way of preventing it from happening.

First from the start menu, search and open “gpedit.msc”. Then in the application go to Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Update. Then select the option “No auto-restart with logged on users for scheduled automatic updates installations”, then click “Enable”, and then “Apply”.

This will ensure that your Windows 10 machine will only restart when you want it to.

Another 10 levels for Xploding Boxes

IMG_20150206_175129_cropXploding Boxes has been updated to version 5.7 with 10 new levels. The new version of the app has been updated in Google Play, the Amazon App Store, BlackBerry AppWorld, Windows 10/Windows Phone App Store.

About Xploding Boxes

Xploding Boxes is a strategy game where the goal is to start a chain reaction that will explode all of the boxes on the screen. Each level presents a different look and number of touches, requiring a different strategy to solve.

The game itself, and the first 25 levels are available for free, while a one time in-app purchase can be used to access the rest of the levels for just $2.99 while still maintaining your progress from the free levels.

Links & Information

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Setting up Windows to use ls like dir

After spending a lot of time with the unix command line you can get used to simply using the ls command to list the files in the current directory, it can be annoying when the option is suddenly not there on the Windows. Using the cd command to traverse through directories is the same, so it is a bit jarring when suddenly ls does not work.

Fortunately I was able to find a simple way to fix this from Stack Overflow. This approach maps the ls command to the dir, and is so simple that the file to do so can be created with a single statement on the command line.

echo dir %1 > %systemroot%\system32\ls.bat

This statement will create a new bat file that is always visible and will replace ls with dir behind the scenes. Now you can just use the ls command without having to think about what operating system you are running.

10 more levels for Starbeams

Z10Starbeams has been updated to version 2.2 giving the game a total of 220 levels.

About Starbeams

The object of the game is to assign colors to each star in order to ensure that none of the stars are connected to another star of the same color. The game starts off easy, but quickly gets more complex, adding more colors and seven pointed stars that can not be changed.

Starbeams can be downloaded for free for Windows Phone, Windows 8, Windows 10, and BlackBerry 10 devices. A one time in-app purchase is required in order to play past level 25.

Links & Information

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Writing to a file in a Windows 10 Cordova app

While writing to a file is easy in C# applications, for apps written in JavaScript things are a bit more complicated. Especially if you want to write to a file outside of the app’s sandbox. Fortunately this can be solved using Microsoft’s WinJS libraries.

var exportData = "String of data";
var savePicker = new Windows.Storage.Pickers.FileSavePicker();
savePicker.suggestedStartLocation = Windows.Storage.Pickers.PickerLocationId.documentsLibrary;
savePicker.fileTypeChoices.insert("CSV", [".csv"]);
savePicker.suggestedFileName = "Export.csv";

savePicker.pickSaveFileAsync().then(function (file) {
    if (file) {
        Windows.Storage.CachedFileManager.deferUpdates(file);
        Windows.Storage.FileIO.writeTextAsync(file, exportData).done(function () {
            Windows.Storage.CachedFileManager.completeUpdatesAsync(file).done(function (updateStatus) {
                if (updateStatus === Windows.Storage.Provider.FileUpdateStatus.complete) {
                    //file saved
                } else {
                   //file not saved, failed for some reason
                }
            });
        });
    } else {
        //file not saved, canceled by user
    }
});

This will allow Cordova apps to write out to a part of the operating system where users can easily access the files.

Ebscer highlights of 2015

With 2016 just beginning, I thought it was worth looking at some of the highlights of 2015.

Overall 4 apps were added for BlackBerry, 3 apps for Windows Phone, and 4 apps for Android.

Update released for Xploding Boxes

Nexus4Xploding Boxes has been updated to version 5.6 in BlackBerry World, Google Play, the Amazon app store, the Nook app store, the Windows 8 app store, and the Windows Phone app store. This update adds 10 new levels to the game, giving the game a total of 520 levels.

About Xploding Boxes

Xploding Boxes is a strategy game where the goal is to start a chain reaction that will explode all of the boxes on the screen. Each level presents a different look and number of touches, requiring a different strategy to solve.

The game itself, and the first 25 levels are available for free, while a one time in-app purchase can be used to access the rest of the levels for just $2.99 while still maintaining your progress from the free levels.

Links & Information

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Additional levels for Starbeams

phoneStarbeams has been updated to version 2.1 in order to add 10 new levels to the game. This gives the game a total of 210 levels.

About Starbeams

The object of the game is to assign colors to each star in order to ensure that none of the stars are connected to another star of the same color. The game starts off easy, but quickly gets more complex, adding more colors and seven pointed stars that can not be changed.

Starbeams can be downloaded for free for Windows Phone, Windows 8, Windows 10, and BlackBerry 10 devices. A one time in-app purchase is required in order to play past level 25.

Links & Information

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More Levels for Xploding Boxes

ShapeItAppXploding Boxes has been updated to version 5.5 in BlackBerry World, Google Play, the Amazon app store, the Nook app store, the Windows 8 app store, and the Windows Phone app store. This update adds 10 new levels to the game, giving Xploding Boxes 510 levels overall.

About Xploding Boxes

Xploding Boxes is a strategy game where the goal is to start a chain reaction that will explode all of the boxes on the screen. Each level presents a different look and number of touches, requiring a different strategy to solve.

The game itself, and the first 25 levels are available for free, while a one time in-app purchase can be used to access the rest of the levels for just $2.99 while still maintaining your progress from the free levels.

Links & Information

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