LCD Class Action Suit: Join If You Are One Of The Consumers Of LCD Screens

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Zelle Hofmann Voelbel & Mason LLP and the Alioto Law Firm for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Did you know that consumers of LCD Flat Screen TVs, Monitors and Laptops can share in a $1.1 billion settlement fund? Ten leading electronics manufacturers have settled lawsuits involving an illegal conspiracy to raise prices for the LCD flat panel screens used in televisions, monitors, and laptop computers.

Eligible consumers will be able to collect $25, $100, $200 or more by answering a few simple questions about the number of LCD flat screen TVs, monitors and laptops they bought from 1999 to 2006.

The exact amount of each payment will depend upon the number of products purchased and the number of claims filed. No receipts or other documents are required for small claims, and consumers have until December 6, 2012 to file a claim.

Also check out www.LCDclass.com for more details.

Set ScrollViewer Height With Screen Height In Windows Phone

Frankly, this gave me a ton of a headache. I thought when using the Grid container’s RowDefinition attribute’s height to auto, it will set the height according to the screen’s height.

As I found out, it does not. What happened was that I placed component after component and the Grid‘s height kept on expanding to the point that its height went beyond that of the screen’s overall height.

Naturally, I attached a ScrollViewer so that I could scroll down to see the other contents but what happened was that once I released my finger upon scrolling down, it snapped back to its original position (top).

I read in forums that setting the ScrollViewer height should do the trick but that even that is not a viable solution since who knows in the future Microsoft may have smart phones with different screen size.

My XAML looks like this. Grid > Grid > ScrollViewer > contents.

Now, the solution is not really to place any static height within the ScrollViewer but to make sure that your root Grid has a height value of its RowDefinition to * and not auto.

See example.

<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot">
	<Grid.RowDefinitions>
		<RowDefinition Height="*"/>
	</Grid.RowDefinitions>   
 
	<Grid x:Name="ContentPanel" Grid.Row="1" Margin="12,0,12,0">
		<ScrollViewer>
			...
		</ScrollViewer>
	</Grid>
</Grid>

Now you can scroll to the bottom most part of the ScrollViewer.

Why OLED Smartphones Backgrounds Are Black By Default

While reading an e-book about Windows Phone programming, I came across a paragraph that caught my attention. From Microsoft Press’ e-book titled Programming Windows Phone 7, it stated that:

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OLEDs are different from flat displays of the past in that power consumption is proportional to the light emitted from the display. For example, an OLED display consumes less than half the power of an LCD display of the same size, but only when the screen is mostly black. For an all-white screen, an OLED consumes more than three times the power of an LCD.

Because battery life is extremely important on mobile devices, this characteristic of OLED displays implies an aesthetic of mostly black backgrounds with sparse graphics and light-stroked fonts. Regardless, Windows Phone 7 users can choose between two major color themes: light text on a dark background, or dark text on a light background.

>>>

This tidbit is very informative. This could be why the default background color of smart phones is black. What do you think?

(photo taken from the EPMM website).