visualbasic
Latest
An 'XCOM' game in Excel beats playing with spreadsheets
Who said that spreadsheet apps had to be dry and boring? Certainly not Reddit user Crruzi. As a test of Visual Basic skills, the budding programmer wrote and released an XCOM game, EXLCOM, for Microsoft Excel. That's right -- the same software you use to create charts and graphs will also let you fight invading aliens. It's not what you'd call visually rich (just about everything on the map is represented by crude squares), but it's a surprisingly thorough recreation of the game's tactical battles, complete with unique character stats and terrain you can blow up. There's even a basic level editor.
JailbreakMe hacker Comex let go by Apple after failing to respond to offer letter
After developing JailBreakMe, cracking such devices as the iPad 2 or iPhone 4 and finally scoring a paying intern gig with his nemesis, hacker Comex tweeted that he's no longer working at Apple. Also known as Nicholas Allegra, the talented coder's Cupertino situation apparently came asunder when he failed to respond to an email offer to re-up with the company, though he also told Forbes that the situation was more complicated than that. He added that "it wasn't a bad ending," and that he has fond memories of his Apple experience, but if you're hoping the Brown University student will have an iOS 6 jailbreak soon, don't hold your breath -- he's concentrating strictly on his studies, for now.
Getting to know you: Comex, the boy behind iOS' JailbreakMe
See that kid above? That's Nicholas Allegra. He's the hackdom Harry Potter to Apple's Ye-Who-Shall-Not-Jailbreak-Our-Wares, and Forbes managed to sniff him out for a little bold-faced exposé. The 19-year old hero of the iOS community, better known as Comex, got his self-taught start with Visual Basic when he was still in single digits. After graduating through a venerable online forum education, the precocious coding lad set his smarts to homebrew Wii development, and the rest is JailbreakMe history. The self-described Apple fanboy admits his background is atyipcal of the cybersecurity industry, but with a former National Security Agency analyst praising his work as years ahead of his time, we don't think he should worry. For all the trouble his code has caused Cupertino, Allegra's not trying to be the embedded thorn in Jobs' side. Rather, the iPhone hacker claims "it's just about the challenge" and plans to keep on keeping ol' Steve on his billion dollar toes.
Office 2004 mainstream support extended to January '12
As you probably recall, Microsoft dropped Visual Basic from Office for the Mac with Office 2008. At the time, I was working for a company that had a huge investment in systems that relied on Visual Basic, and that change was a real blow. In fact, we didn't upgrade past Office 2004 just to avoid trouble and plan our next step.If anyone else is using Office 2004 for that reason, here's a thin shard of hope for you. This week, Microsoft's Office for Mac Team announced that mainstream support or Office '04, scheduled to end on October 13, 2009, will be extended through January 10, 2012. Why extend support? As the blog post notes, Visual Basic support will return in the next major release of Office for the Mac, scheduled to hit the stands in 2010. This way, folks reliant on VB will be able to hold on until that new release is available. This is good news for anyone who was wondering how to migrate from a slew of mission-critical scripts.
MacTech re-releases VBA to AppleScript Transition Guide
As someone who spent months hand-crafting Visual Basic scripts in Microsoft Office, only to have Microsoft pull the rug out from under me with the release of Office 2008 (they abandoned VB support for the Mac. Grrr.), I'm very grateful to MacTech magazine and longtime AppleScript guru Paul Berkowitz.MacTech has re-released Paul's 150-page guide for making the transition from VBA to AppleScript (originally printed in the April 2007 issue of the magazine, and also available in modified form on the Microsoft Mac BU site). It's highly detailed, with step-by-step instructions. It looks like I know what I'll be reading next week (and if I run into trouble I can always bug Cory for help).You can download the guide as a PDF for $9.95US, or get the PDF plus a hardcover version for $19.95US. Both options include a free subscription to MacTech magazine, which is a great bonus for anyone who likes to dig into the underside of Mac OS X. If your wallet is a bit light, you can read the entire thing online for free.
No Visual Basic in Office 2008? No thanks.
MacWindows.com recently polled readers on their willingness to upgrade to Office 2008 for Mac, which will not include Visual Basic for macros and automation (as noted on this MacBU developer blog). Several readers said they won't upgrade to 2008 because they depend on VB cross-platform support.Where I work, we have an intricate system in place that manages and analyzes loads of data on a daily basis-a system that is dependent on homemade VB scripts. So, there's no way we're upgrading. Good job, Microsoft. By the way, if you're left in a jam by this, check out MacTech Magazine's guide for moving from VB to Applescript, which will be available soon.
Mono Allows .NET and VB Apps on the Mac
Mono is an interesting Open Source Project, sponsored by Novell, that "provides the necessary software to develop and run .NET client and server applications on Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, Windows, and Unix." The most recent version, 1.2.3, adds support for a Visual Basic 8.0 compiler meaning that Visual Basic applications can now be run on the Mac. The Mono project has an active Mac community already, and if you're looking to investigate you might start with this Xcode tutorial. Now, of course, the question of whether it's a good thing that it is easy to compile a VB application for the Mac is something else entirely. Nonetheless, Mono now seems to represent an inexpensive alternative to REALbasic for writing cross-platform applications.[Via MacNN]
