If you are an Outlook user, this is the tool (below) that can be helpful if you use Facebook. Now you can update your Facebook statuses, and stay updated with your friend activities right from your Outlook. (Without having to open a browser).

FBLook - Outlook + Facebook

• Update your Facebook status directly from Outlook.
• Set your status to the name of the song you're playing in iTunes or WMP.
• See your friend statuses.
• See notifications of new Friend Requests, Messages, Invites, Pokes, etc..

Free Download|More info

*Not working with Outlook Express.

PDFsharp is the Open Source library that easily creates PDF documents from any .NET language.

The same drawing routines can be used to create PDF documents, draw on the screen, or send output to any printer.

Here are just a few highlights:

• Creates PDF documents on the fly from any .Net language
• Easy to understand object model to compose documents
• One source code for drawing on a PDF page as well as in a window or on the printer
• Modify, merge, and split existing PDF files
• Images with transparency (color mask, monochrome mask, alpha mask)
• Newly designed from scratch and written entirely in C#
• The graphical classes go well with .Net
• Includes MigraDoc Lite for high level text layouting (you can use both PDFsharp and MigraDoc Lite in one document)

// Create a new PDF document
PdfDocument document = new PdfDocument();
 
// Create an empty page
PdfPage page = document.AddPage();
 
// Get an XGraphics object for drawing
XGraphics gfx = XGraphics.FromPdfPage(page);
 
// Create a font
XFont font = new XFont("Verdana", 20, XFontStyle.Bold);
 
// Draw the text
gfx.DrawString("Hello, World!", font, XBrushes.Black,
  new XRect(0, 0, page.Width, page.Height),
  XStringFormat.Center);
 
// Save the document...
string filename = "HelloWorld.pdf";
document.Save(filename);
// ...and start a viewer.
Process.Start(filename);

The result is this:

Today, Google released their Chart API. Basically, the Google Chart API allows you to dynamically generate charts for use in your web applications. All you do is pass your data in the querystring and an image is returned. This isn't really a service to get too excited about, but it is pretty simple to use and it's Free.

Here is a bit about this:

The Google Chart API lets you dynamically generate charts. To see the Chart API in action, open up a browser window and copy the following URL into it:

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&chd=s:hW&chs=250x100&chl=Hello|World

Press the Enter or Return key and - presto! - you should see the following image:

I decided to code up a small ASP.NET Server Control that uses the Google Chart API to put simple line graph charts on a page.

How to use this control:

Put the Chart control on the page:

<GoogleAPI:Chart runat="server" id="Chart1" 
   Width="200" Height="150" LineColor="ff0000"
   BackgroundColor="efefef"
   ToolTip="Hello World">
</GoogleAPI:Chart>

In the page load event define the values to be charted:

And, that's all you have to do to put a Chart on your page using the control.

The result is this:

Download the example / source code here: GoogleChartAPI.rar (3.33 KB)