SADev

A long time ago I built a simple Excel spread sheet which worked out if an ID number was valid or not. Since then I have had a bunch of feedback on it, most about how it works. However a week ago Riaan contacted me and pointed out a bug in it so I took this as an opportunity to rebuild it.

Not only does the new version check the validity of the ID number, it tells you where the person was born, gender and birthdate.

Something else that I wanted to do was clean up the calculations. So now they have been moved to their own (non-hidden) tab and are fully documented. So if you are implementing your own checker you can clearly see exactly what is going on and how it all comes together.

Finally for those who wish to do a lot of checking, the third sheet of the Excel spread sheet contains that functionality where the checks are inline so that you can apply them to multiple ID numbers.

I want to extend a massive thanks to Riaan Pretorius, not only for pointing out the bug but also running the new version through it’s paces and finding some issues in it. The fact this one is much better is owed to him, I just typed the code

You can download the Excel file below!

Did you know that there is a mobile version of the Visual Studio website? I stumbled across it recently and it is fantastic resource to have on your phone.

One of the really great parts is the Crack the Code game, which gives you four snippets of code (2x C#, 1x F#, 1x VB.NET) and asks you to figure out how many errors there are. If you work out correctly you get access to wallpapers for your mobile device and if you get all four correct you get a limited edition Visual Studio 2010 Window 7 theme!

To access the site go to http://mobile.microsoft.com/visualstudio (note the mobile in the URL) on your mobile device!

This post provides a way for you to find more posts in this series. If there is a component in Pull which is not covered, and you would like it to be covered, please contact me.

• Part I – Introduction
• Part II – What? You’re not using TFS!
• Part III – Get on the bus!
• Part IV – Talking to myself, using memory mapped files for communication.
• Part V – You are a DB server with SQLite
• Part VI – A simple download manager
• Part VII – PLINQ, not as easy as first assumed
• Part VIII – Protocol handlers
• Part IX – Windows User Account Control
• Part X – Visual Studio Rulesets
• Part XI – Talking to yourself is ok, answering back is a problem. Why IMPF destroyed CPUS?
• Part XII - Parsing feeds (ATOM & RSS) in .NET

The management at Nokia have scored a big point today with the big announcement in the UK yesterday where they have made Nokia Turn-by-turn FREE. This has solved the headache of paying Nokia for convenience and also showed Nokia is aware and dealing of the moves of the big players like Google.

Seems that in the last week, and just in time for me to be in Canada where they have bandwidth, that a bunch of things have become available for download which deserve your attention:

VS 2010 Quick Reference Guidance is now out!

Plus hotfix 1 for it

Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 Upgrade Guidance is now out!

The new Nokia 5800 firmware (40.0.0.5) is out – which brings it up to the level of the X6 in features now!

Lastly, and sneakily at the end of this post, my latest open source tool is out. Now I am not going to tell you what it is, but it is for presenters (mostly) and requires .NET 4.0 Beta 2 and Windows 7. Hopefully the name will entice you to check out Rule 18!

I was answering a question on World Cup 2010 Dizcus and found an amazing feature on Google Maps. I was looking for maps of cities in SA, and I stumbled across this cool more info link.

More info takes you to a portal for the city with information on the time & timezone, a high view map of the area, photos and videos of the town, popular places and related maps. This is a great resource when you are looking for information on a city that you have never been too! Below is a screen shot from my home town of Johannesburg.

The Nokia 5800 I have runs on the Symbian S60 5th Edition operating system and it seems to be a decent OS, but built into it is the most interesting anti-piracy system I have seen. So how does it work? Note: I am not an expert in this, this is my view after a few weeks looking into it, so I may be wrong.

If you do not live in South Africa, you cannot imagine the excitement what next years soccer world cup is generating. In my view it will be one of the top defining moments for South Africa, up there with the ‘94 elections and '’95 Rugby World Cup. To that end I have been doing my little bit as a local to help out people with sharing knowledge on all things world cup at the Dizcus World Cup website.

If you know StackOverflow/ServerFault/SuperUser then this site follows the same design as them except focused on a non-computer topic. For the rest of you readers, it is just an easy to use website where people post questions and others answer. If you successfully answer a question or answer a question very well you get points.

So Mathew, the site owner, put up a challenge about a month ago where he said the top 5 people, based on points, would get a South African Soccer Jersey! Well I was in the top 5 (I think number 2) and so I got the email today saying I had won a jersey! Thanks Mathew for the jersey and the great website!