Develop Reference

How can I get a thumbnail from a video that a user has uploaded to mySQL database?

I'm working on a video sharing website where people can upload their own videos and I want the most recent uploads to be shown on the index page, but not as videos but thumbnails, so that when you click on the thumbnail you get to the video page. You guys all know how youtube's index looks/works - that's what I'm trying to simulate.
I read about ffmpeg but it seems to me it would only work if you have ffmpeg installed on your computer. I want this to be an automated process though without the user having to first install something on their pc.
Is there a way I can code this? Or do i have to use some kind of framework or CMS? Could this problem be solved by simply getting ffmpeg hosting (example)?
If there is no manual way to do this in c#, is there way using c# asp.net?
Fyi, my website is written in c# and i use image to display the thumbnail of the video .
Please note that I want to get a thumbnail from a video that's been uploaded on MYSQL database and not a youtube or vimeo thumbnail.

Delete uploaded image if user goes from the page

I develop web application functionality sending message with attached image to another user. User can see preview of the image and make some crop before sending.
So at first I upload the image to the server and than show this image for user for preview. But what if user just close browser or go to another page, then there will be unused image file on the server. How to handle it? Or maybe there is better approach that don't need to upload image to the server at all?

This is something that can be done using JavaScript's FileReader. You can edit the image on the client side without having to upload the image to the server. Then you can perform the upload only when the user opts to send the message. This article has an example of such functionality: http://www.aspsnippets.com/Articles/Crop-and-Upload-Image-with-Thumbnail-using-jQuery-and-HTML5-in-ASPNet.aspx

To provide a good user experience a website should give him a welcome back. So in your case you can use the AnonymousIdentification to keep track of your returned users even if the browser is crashed or the tab is closed.
You can keep the information related to that specific anonymous user and keep track of them with their activities including the Image uploading (in your case). Then if the doesn't come back for a specific time of period you can delete that uploaded image.
Or maybe there is better approach that don't need to upload image to the server at all?
Yes it can be achieved via HTML5 features for file handling and canvas feature.
See these links for details:
Html5_ImageUploader
Drag&Drop with Crop via Ajax

I have built this before with a timestamp, after the crop you remove the timestamp in the table.
Have a service that runs say every 15 minute and looks for unconfirmed images and then delete from the server. This obviously still gives the data transfer but works quite well. I don't know how to handle EACH client close (even browser crashes....)

this plugins http://fengyuanchen.github.io/cropper/
http://deepliquid.com/content/Jcrop.html will crop image without upload to server.

Launch IE from metro app and send post data to the website

I want to launch a website in IE from my metro app. While launching the website post data also need to be send.
I tried using Windows.System.Launcher.LaunchUriAsync(uri);
I am facing two issues here.
one, i am not able to send post data to the website. Second, the IE is taking only 50% of the screen. I want it to consume the entire screen.
How can i possibly do that?

How to add photo to iPhone from desktop?

Recently, i want to create an application to sync photos between iphone and desktop by using C# language. I use Manzana library to copy image from PC to iphone.
As my understanding, the image file should be put under to /private/var/mobile/Media/PhotoData/Sync folder. But this does not work, i cannot see imported file when browse iphone photos although the file is copy to the location correctly.
Then i try to update the database file /private/var/mobile/Media/PhotoData/Photos.sqlite. To add a new entry to represent the imported photo file. Then i can see photo in iphone, but without thumbnails. And i have to restart the album application (close the application and start it again) so that to see the new imported photo.
But i found other tools can sync photo to iphone and can see the change immediately without restart the album application.
I want to know how this function is implemented?
Manzana is a C# wrapper of iTunesMobileDevice.dll. the main functionality is deal with iphone file system. and this is quite a old library which is not updated for a long time. I am not sure if there are any APIs to allow user to select an folder or photo file and sync it to iphone just like we do it in itunes, so that we don't need to process the db and thumbnails.
Does anyone have such experience before?

Im using desktop Dropbox as a buffer between mobile app and desktop.
Before this, you need a DropBox registered account and install the application.
After that, simple create a new folder from desktop Dropbox, drag-and-drop all
your photos into the new folder
Then, return to your iphone and retrieve them from DropBox mobile app.

Windows Form application run on Windows hosting service

I've created a Windows Forms application that basically contains an HttpListener which launch a Form for each request. I have to show forms server side because I have to take a snapshot of what it's shown on the screen to send it to the client.
I've also made a asp.net web application in which I show those images sent from the HttpListener who act as a server.
Everything works fine on my machine but now that I must deploy it on my company's website I dont know how to do it, anyone has a solution? I haven't remote control on server, I can just upload files inside using FTP.
What if I create a page inside my web application to launch the exe file? Any suggestion is really welcome!

I'm definitely no OpenGL expert but I believe that its possible to use OpenGL to render a scene without displaying it to a screen. Some preliminary research indicates that "pbuffers" allow you to render an image to a texture (which would presumably then allow for programatic access).
Can i save an OpenGL scene as an image without showing it?
Note that using OpenGL probably depends on the server machine having a suitable graphics card. As most servers don't come with very capable graphics card (some servers don't come with any graphics card) this is definitely something that you should check beforehand.