Monthly Archives: April 2014

Amazon Web Services & Visual Studio Support

In this post we are going to discuss how we can install and configure AWS access from Visual Studio. Here we are using Visual Studio 2013. Amazon has provided a Visual Studio extension for this purpose. We can either download it from Extension & Updates dialog from Tools menu or directly from Visual Studio Gallery. It is also available directly from Amazon Web Services page.

Visual Studio Extension

The extension also includes AWS SDK for .Net. The SDK includes project templates for creating new projects. It also has class libraries which can be referenced in existing projects. It can be used to develop applications using Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, Amazon Elastic Beanstalk (EB) and Amazon DynamoDB. It also includes AWS tools for Windows PowerShell. It seems that we can also download the SDK separately.

AWS_VisualStudio

We can find three project templates in the create project dialog for Visual Studio. The dialog is available when we create a new project. The available templates can be used to create AWS web client and console projects. There is also a template to create empty project. It adds the assembly reference and App config without any significant code added to Program.cs file. Additionally, there are various samples available as project templates. You can use them to learn different features of SDK.

ProjectTemplates

Selecting a project templates for a project shows an additional dialog if we don’t already have specified our credentials. If we want to add the security info later on, we can select skip here.

AccessCredentials

A sample AWS console application has a reference for AWSSDK assembly. Additionally, it has some required configurations added to App.config file. Here AWSAccessKey and AWSSecretKey configuration settings are automatically used by the default factory to create IAmazonEC2 client instance.

ConsoleAppProject

AWS Explorer

AWS Explorer is available under View menu in Visual Studio. Selecting the menu item should open AWS explorer. Like other tool windows, this is a dockable windows so we can keep them with Solution explorer window.

OpenAWSExplorer

Now we need to enter credentials to connect with our AWS account. The security credentials info can be found under My Account section in your only AWS view.

SecurityCredentialAWS

We can add multiple accounts to AWS Explorer. Just hit the Add button alongside the account list to add a new account and the following dialog is displayed. You need to create access keys from the page.

securitycredentials_aws

Add the information from Security credentials page. The other required details are also found on the same page.

AddAccount

After providing the above details, we should be able to see the services list as follows:
AWSExplorerServices

Eclipse Plugin for AWS

There is also an Eclipse plugin for Amazon AWS.

aws_eclipse

Google Glass – Options for Development

In this post we will be trying to explore different options for developing Google applications. Google’s term for applications running on the Glass are Glasswares.

For C# Developers

If you are a C# developer, Xamarin has already made Android and iOS development for you by introducing their MonoTouch and Mono for Android platforms. Here we are using free tier for Xamarin subscriptions. Please remember that for any serious development using Xamarin tools, you would need to upgrade to a paid subscription. The details of available plans can be found here [Xamarin plans]. Let’s first download Xamarin tools.

DownloadXamarin

Alongside all the required tools, it should also install its dependencies. Please remember that for starter plan, you have a trial period for Visual Studio extension for Xamarin.

ToolsInstallations

Visual Studio & Glassware Development

There is also a Visual Studio 2012 / 2013 extension available for developing Glasswares in C#. You need to install Xamarin tools before doing any development using this extension. The extension is developed by Chris Hardy. You can find him on Twitter [@Chrisntr].

GoogleGlassTemplate

It installs Project template to develop Glassware. Just select ‘Create New Project’ after installation of the extension using Extension and Updates from Tools menu. You should be able to find the following project template:

GoogleGlassProjectTemplate

Glasswares & Xamarin Studio

If you don’t have Visual Studio extension for Xamarin [Starter plan] then you can always use Xamarin Studio. The similar add-in is also available here. You can install the add-ins from Tools -> Add-in Manager.

XamarinStudioGlassExtension

And now you should have the template to develop Glassware in Xamarin Studio.

GlassXamarinStudio

Developing Glasswares with Eclipse

Since glasswares are android apps, we can use all the tools used for developing android apps.

The easiest option is to download ADT bundle. This bundle has all the necessary requirements for developing android apps. This includes Eclipse with ADT plugin, SDK and platform tools, android platform & tools and latest system image for emulator.

ADTDownload

You can always download eclipse separately:

EclipseDownload

Android Studio

And finally you can use Android Studio for developing Android apps, now supported on Glass. Android Studio is still in EAP (Early Access Program) stage. This is directly from google and has extended features compared to Eclipse Android Development Tools (ADT). The tool can be downloaded from here:

AndroidStudioDownload

APIs for Glass Development

Currently there are a few options for Glassware development. They are as follows:

  1. Mirror API
  2. Glassware Development Kit (GDK)

Initially, there was only one option to develop Glassware, which was Mirror API. The GDK option was announced in November last year (2013). It is still a sneak peek version of the API, so they might change it upside down without even apologizing :). The Glasswares built with GDK run locally on Glass, so it seems that it can have the offline experience for your applications which is currently missing in the ones developed using Mirror API. The GDK is the Android SDK plus a number of add-ons including voice, gestures detectors and cards. It was not released with a Glass Emulator so that should add to the time testing your app during development.

Unlike Microsoft where GDK is for Game Development Kit, here it means Glass Development Kit.

The GDK is provided as a component in Xamarin Studio.
GlassDevelopmentKitXamarinComponent