Author: Liew Voon Kiong

A database management system typically deals with storing, modifying, and extracting information from a database. It can also add, edit and delete records from the database. However, a DBMS can be very difficult to handle by ordinary people or business men who have no technological backgrounds. Fortunately, we can create user friendly database applications to handle the aforementioned jobs with the DBMS running in the background. One of the best programs that can create such database application is none other than Visual Basic 2012.

We have written three lessons on creating database applications in Visual Basic 2012, they are

• http://www.vbtutor.net/index.php/visual-basic-2012-lesson-29-working-with-databases-part-1/
• http://www.vbtutor.net/index.php/visual-basic-2012-lesson-30-working-with-databases-part-2/
• http://www.vbtutor.net/index.php/visual-basic-2012-lesson-31-working-with-databases-part-3/

 

Visual Studio 2012 was launched last year and now we are already into the second half of 2013, so you might be wondering whether Microsoft is ready to launch Visual Studio 2013? Yes, Microsoft is nearly prepared to launched the newest version of Visual Studio. I used the word nearly is because Microsoft has only launched the preview versions of Visual Studio 2013, which you can download the various editions and test them out and give feedback to Microsoft if there are bugs.
The link to download the Visual Studio 2013 Preview versions is

http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng/2013-downloads

We have learned how to create a digital dice using Visual Basic 2010 in Visual Basic 2010 Tutorial Lesson 27. Now we wish to create a graphical dice which resembles the real dice instead.

Writing the code to create a graphical dice in Visual Basic 2010 is slightly different from the code in VB6. In VB6, we used the shape control to draw the dots. However, in Visual Basic 2010, there is no built-in shape tool so we use images instead. Therefore, the first step in creating a graphical dice in Visual Basic 2010 is to create six images, each denote one of the faces of the dice. Next, you write a code that load the images randomly, it is that simple.

View the code here.

 

 

 

 

Simple harmonic motion is the motion of a simple harmonic oscillator. The motion is periodic, as it repeats itself at standard intervals in a specific manner with constant amplitude. It is characterized by its amplitude , its period which is the time for a single oscillation, its frequency which is the number of cycles per unit time, and its phase, which determines the starting point on the sine wave. The period, and its inverse the frequency, are constants determined by the overall system, while the amplitude and phase are determined by the initial conditions (position and velocity) of that system. (Wikipedia, 2008).

The general equation describing simple harmonic motion is
x=Acos(2pft+f), where x is the displacement, A is the amplitude of the oscillation, f is the frequency, t is the elapsed time and f is the phase of oscillation.

To create a simple model of simple harmonic motion in Visual Basic , we used the equation x=Acos(wt), and we have assigned a value of 500 to A and a value of 50 to w. In this program, the circular object which we have inserted into the form will oscillate from left to right and vice versa, reaching the maximum speed at the middle of the path.

Learn how to write the code for SHM by following the link below:

http://www.vbtutor.net/VB_Sample/shm.htm

In Visual Basic 2012 , we can write code to perform arithmetic operations using standard mathematical operators. However, for more complex mathematical calculations, we need to use the built-in math functions in Visual Basic 2012. There are numerous built-in mathematical functions in VB 2012 which we introduced them one by one in lesson 14. The syntax of Math functions in Visual Basic 2012 is

Math.Function(argument)

For example, the Abs function returns the absolute value of a number. The syntax is:

Math. Abs (number)

* The Math keyword here indicates that the function belong to the Math class. However, not all mathematical functions belong to the Math class.

Read more about using Math functions in Visual Basic 2012 lesson 14