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May 17, 2009 Articles
So, after a long wait, I’m finally working on a totally new setup! And all for the low cost 700AUD. And to top it all off, I got a copy of Windows 7 RC1 to put on it.
I must say I have grown extremely biased against Microsoft products, but it is hard to dismiss their continuing relevance in our everyday use of our systems. I still cannot drop Live Messenger to keep in contact with friends, nor can I stop using Microsoft Office for documents despite all the rave reviews about Open Office. Similarly, I still cannot get rid of Windows as a result of my work.
This does not mean I’m a total pushover when it comes to what I need. I was not pleased with Vista, just as I was disgusted by Windows ME. What is strange, though, is that most of the time, it is hard to identify the things I disliked about either of them. But most people still manage to express either positive or negative impressions despite being unable to elaborate on their position. This is my attempt.
Read More..
Recent Entries
Jan 19, 2009 Articles
Today I spent a little of my spare time playing with Papervision3D, in order to participate in a Papervision3D Competition. I quickly ran into a problem, to which I couldn’t find the solution the usual way (i.e. Google). However, I finally got it working, and I’m glad to write up my findings here for those of you who might face the same problem.
The Problem
The problem I faced was simple. I downloaded a few Collada files from Google 3D Warehouse, expecting it to work in my project out of the box. It did work, but it gave me a completely untextured model, like so.
After a little looking around, I spotted a post which suggested looking inside the DAE file, to check if its materials are pointing to the right locations!
Read More..
Jan 14, 2009 Articles
I’ve been trying to show my most active posts on my site (for the purposes of driving more traffic) for the past few days, and the plugins that I tried just didn’t seem to work.
That is when I realised I had already installed the Wordpress.com Stats plugin. Unfortunately, the plugin is purely for the administration area (consisting of a widget and a full section), so I decided to hack the code to leverage on a plugin I already had.
The Hack
The code I wanted is found inside “stats.php”, where you find the code that displays the admin widgets and page statistics. From there it was just a short search for the function in question (in this case, we need “stats_get_csv()”). Once I figured out what the parameters meant, I was able to integrate it into my page.
The Code
<ul>
<?php
$active_posts = stats_get_csv( 'postviews', 'days=7&limit=5');
foreach($active_posts as $post){
?>
<li>
<?php printf('%s (%s Views)',
'<a href="' . get_permalink( $post['post_id'] ) .
'">' . get_the_title( $post['post_id'] ) .
'</a>', number_format_i18n( $post['views'] ) ); ?>
</li>
<?php } ?>
</ul>
In the code above, “stats_get_csv” simply gets a list of Posts, and we can simply use them to display the information that we want.
Hopefully this might be helpful for anyone out there who is using Wordpress.Com Stats, and don’t wish to use another redundant plugin.
Jan 12, 2009 Articles
Ed Bott over at ZDNet seems fairly confident that Windows 7 is scheduled for a release before August 1st, 2009. This comes from a single line in the Beta release notes that says,
When the Beta expires on August 1, 2009, you’ll need to reinstall a released version of Windows to keep using your computer.
While this is purely speculation, I would definitely support such an early release date, but only if it was guaranteed to be stable, secure, and able to encourage adoption amongst customers. If it achieves that, at least I will still have a job for a while yet, and thankfully be able to skip past Vista.
Jan 5, 2009 Articles
I am in the beginning phases of familiarising myself with an internal project at my company, and what I saw really shocked me. It certainly isn’t your typical “Student Project”; in fact, it would probably fail the more advanced courses.
In some sense, I feel quite disillusioned: surely what I have learnt (and in most cases, taught) in University would see some application in the real world. However, it seems that what I have learnt in uni is “How to do it Right“. In many real-world projects, including this one, the focus is on “Getting it Done“.
The project I am current assigned to is an excellent example.
The System
The System is a relatively featureful Time Tracking System. Employees log in, log the number of hours they worked on a specific project, and log out. Yet for something this simple, the System itself is broken is more than 1 way:
There is a list of “projects” on the left, which Employees can click to add a particular project to the current week’s timesheet. However, “projects” can also be sorted into “categories” and “clients”. Since the list control treats every single item as an item, Employees were able to add “categories” and “clients” as projects as well. While not exactly a critical issue, it is obvious that this is not the intended behaviour of the System.
Another problem was the “comments” mechanism that was built into the system. Aside from entering in the number of hours worked (into a textfield, no less), a small input area is overlayed next to it, allowing the Employee to enter in a small comment about that particular entry. However, the Javascript involved is strictly IE6 only. Meaning, it broke on all the other browsers that employees wanted to use.
Lets Be Realistic
This is not the first time I have experienced this “mentality” in my company. When estimating deadlines for a project, it is done with the intention of keeping cost low (cost being calculated as a rate by the hour). Thus, the mindset of the programmer is always to “get it done as soon as possible”. Is this what you’d call “Agile Programming”? Or is this just irresponsible coding?
Or perhaps it is simply impossible to “do it right” in the real world.
Dec 21, 2008 Articles
For the last couple of weeks, I have been spending time learning C# (the mongrel offspring of Java and C++, as I like to describe it). So far, I haven’t had much trouble, thanks to my strong background in Java, and I think I have done enough in a week to be able to compare the two languages and talk about the parts I like and the parts I don’t. Perhaps these will grow on me in the future, or it may not.
This is not a rant about ASP.NET, which I have also been learning at the same time. That will come in time. Read More..
Dec 9, 2008 Articles
Not to long ago I was searching for an Internship position as part of my degree requirements. I have since been offered an opportunity at a relatively small company, which I have great impressions of so far. This article talks about the experiences I’ve gone through in my search, which I hope will provide any insights to any who read this.
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Dec 5, 2008 Miscellanous
In a recent Article, I discussed a little about the impact original IP could have for companies.
Here’s another article I came across today, about the Electronic Arts process for creating new IP (something which they have been pushing for a few years) which I think ties in very nicely with that discussion.
Nov 27, 2008 Articles
Auditorium is a game which, while not completely unique, blends complex particle physics together with beautiful colours and great music together to create a addictive experience for the player. The particle physics is quite similar to another Flash game Speck Oppression, however Auditorium takes it a step further by introducing other unique features like colours, and different ways to manipulate the direction of the particles.
The game is simple enough. There are multiple “meters” positioned around the game area, which gains power as particles flow over it. However the particle colour must match the meter’s colour. There are also circles on the game area which changes the colour of the particles. The player must then position various manipulates to direct particles in the right direction. There isn’t much else I can say about the gameplay, other than you should play it to find out!
The link currently only shows a short 4 act demo, amounting to over 20 levels. but I think the game is quite promising, and I look forward to the full version.
Nov 27, 2008 Articles
During the symposium, a session was held by Derek Robertson (Learning and Teaching Scotland), with a very interesting topic.
He is the “National Advisor for Emerging Technologies” in Scotland, and during his session he discusses the current (and growing) use of games as a tool for educating children. (To see some of the great innovative stuff happening over there, click here) Although I was already familiar with educational titles, having played them myself as a child, what Derek presents to us is the use of existing mainstream titles like Nintendogs, and even Guitar Hero as a tool for motivating and encouraging students to participate and excel in activities.
As an example, Derek shows us how students poor in mathematics use Brain Training (by Dr Kawashiwa) as a tool to “practise doing their sums”, as well as clips of the students stating that the game actually helped them improve. Further on, we also see clips of students taking care of a Nintendog in groups, while keeping a detailed diary of their activities.
What we see here is the effective use of games to motivate students. And here are the reasons why I think it works. Read More..
