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• Physics like asteroides

  - by user2933016

  I try to make a ship that has the physic properties like asteroides. I have this for now(All in Java): Ship.class public class Ship { public static final float sMaxHealth = 0.1F; public static final float sMaxMoveVelocity = 5.0F; public static final float sMaxAngleVelocity = 20.0F; public static final float sRadius = 1.0F; public static final float sMoveDeceleration = 10.0F; public static final float sMoveAcceleration = 2.0F; public static final float sAngleDeceleration = 15.0F; public static final float sAngleAcceleration = 20.0F; private float mHealth; private float mXVelocity; private float mYVelocity; private float mAngleVelocity; private float mX; private float mY; private float mAngle; } (I let the getter and setter away for now) Controller code // Player input if(Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.UP)) { mPlayer.setXVelocity(mPlayer.getXVelocity() + (float) Math.cos(mPlayer.getAngle()) * Ship.sMoveAcceleration); mPlayer.setYVelocity(mPlayer.getYVelocity() + (float) Math.sin(mPlayer.getAngle()) * Ship.sMoveAcceleration); } if(Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.LEFT)) { mPlayer.setAngleVelocity(mPlayer.getAngleVelocity() + Ship.sAngleAcceleration * pDeltaTime); } if(Gdx.input.isKeyPressed(Keys.RIGHT)) { mPlayer.setAngleVelocity(mPlayer.getAngleVelocity() - Ship.sAngleAcceleration * pDeltaTime); } // X velocity if(mPlayer.getXVelocity() < 0) { if(-mPlayer.getXVelocity() > Ship.sMaxMoveVelocity) { mPlayer.setXVelocity(-Ship.sMaxMoveVelocity); } mPlayer.setXVelocity(mPlayer.getXVelocity() + Ship.sMoveDeceleration * pDeltaTime); if(mPlayer.getXVelocity() > 0) { mPlayer.setXVelocity(0); } } else if(mPlayer.getXVelocity() > 0) { if(mPlayer.getXVelocity() > Ship.sMaxMoveVelocity) { mPlayer.setXVelocity(Ship.sMaxMoveVelocity); } mPlayer.setXVelocity(mPlayer.getXVelocity() - Ship.sMoveDeceleration * pDeltaTime); if(mPlayer.getXVelocity() < 0) { mPlayer.setXVelocity(0); } } // Y velocity if(mPlayer.getYVelocity() < 0) { if(-mPlayer.getYVelocity() > Ship.sMaxMoveVelocity) { mPlayer.setYVelocity(-Ship.sMaxMoveVelocity); } mPlayer.setYVelocity(mPlayer.getYVelocity() + Ship.sMoveDeceleration * pDeltaTime); if(mPlayer.getYVelocity() > 0) { mPlayer.setYVelocity(0); } } else if(mPlayer.getYVelocity() > 0) { if(mPlayer.getYVelocity() > Ship.sMaxMoveVelocity) { mPlayer.setYVelocity(Ship.sMaxMoveVelocity); } mPlayer.setYVelocity(mPlayer.getYVelocity() - Ship.sMoveDeceleration * pDeltaTime); if(mPlayer.getYVelocity() < 0) { mPlayer.setYVelocity(0); } } // Angle velocity if(mPlayer.getAngleVelocity() < 0) { if(-mPlayer.getAngleVelocity() > Ship.sMaxAngleVelocity) { mPlayer.setAngleVelocity(-Ship.sMaxAngleVelocity); } mPlayer.setAngleVelocity(mPlayer.getAngleVelocity() + Ship.sAngleDeceleration * pDeltaTime); if(mPlayer.getAngleVelocity() > 0) { mPlayer.setAngleVelocity(0); } } else if(mPlayer.getAngleVelocity() > 0) { if(mPlayer.getAngleVelocity() > Ship.sMaxAngleVelocity) { mPlayer.setAngleVelocity(Ship.sMaxAngleVelocity); } mPlayer.setAngleVelocity(mPlayer.getAngleVelocity() - Ship.sAngleDeceleration * pDeltaTime); if(mPlayer.getAngleVelocity() < 0) { mPlayer.setAngleVelocity(0); } } mPlayer.setX(mPlayer.getX() + mPlayer.getXVelocity() * pDeltaTime); mPlayer.setY(mPlayer.getY() + mPlayer.getYVelocity() * pDeltaTime); mPlayer.setAngle(mPlayer.getAngle() + mPlayer.getAngleVelocity() * pDeltaTime); Why the ship does not behave like in asteroides ? What do I wrong?

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• Can Kind People Finish First?

  - by Oracle Accelerate for Midsize Companies

  by Jim Lein, Oracle Midsize Programs In an earlier post, I expressed my undying love for KIND Snacks' products. This month's Oracle Profit magazine features an interview with KIND Healthy Snacks Founder and CEO Daniel Lubetzky entitled "Better Business". Lubetzky expresses his vision for making KIND a "not for profit only" company.  All great companies start with a good idea. In this case, that one great idea was to offer a healthy snack with ingredients you can "see and pronounce". That's one of things I really like about this company--that coupled with the fact that their snacks taste great. They compete in an over crowded playing field but I've found that it's rare to find an energy snack that both tastes good and is good for you.  A couple of interesting facts I learned from reading this article: Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} 9 out of 10 consumers who try a KIND bar will purchase a KIND product again and recommend it to others KIND has the highest Net Promoter Score among the top 10 brands in the nutritional bar category (I confess I've never heard about this rating before but now that I have it's pretty cool) KIND's coporate mantra, "Do the Kind Thing" both encourages people to do random acts of kindness and provides easy mechanisms for doing so. Not coincidentally, I think, KIND is indeed a story about how nice guys can finish first. KIND has doubled in size every year for the last ten  years and now employees over 300 people, with sales exceeding $120M annually. Growth Applies Pressures One thing I know for certain from interacting our with fast growing customers over the last fifteen years is that growth applies myriad pressures across the organization--resources, processes, technology systems, and leadership agility. And it's easy to forget that Oracle was once an entrepreneurial startup and experienced all those same pressures that other growing companies are experiencing today. When asked by Profit Editor in Chief Aaron Lazenby, " What sort of pressure does KIND"s growth and success place on operations?", Lubetzky responded, "We have a demand planning process right now that is manual to a significant extent, and it just takes so much management time. It takes us days and sometimes weeks to produce information that is critical to our business—and by the time we get the results, we need revised data. Our sales leadership could go out selling, but instead they’re talking to our team about forecasts." Hitching Your Wagon to Oracle Lubetzky and his team selected Oracle for what I believe is our company's greatest strength: hitch your wagon to Oracle and you can trust that we will be there for the long run with the solutions you need and financial staying power. In Lubetzky's words, "The KIND philosophy requires you to have a long-term view of things; taking shortcuts may be the fastest way to get things done, but in the long term that can come back and bite you. Oracle is the type of company—and has the kind of platform—that is here for the long term. It’s not going to go away tomorrow. And Oracle is going to invest all the necessary resources into staying ahead of the game and improving." o next time you're in the supermarket or an REI (my favorite store in the world) or any of the other 80,000 locations that carry KIND, give one a try. Maybe some day you'll want to become a KIND Brand Ambassador.   Looking for more news and information about Oracle Solutions for Midsize Companies? Read the latest Oracle for Midsize Companies Newsletter Sign-up to receive the latest communications from Oracle’s industry leaders and experts Jim Lein I evangelize Oracle's enterprise solutions for growing midsize companies. I recently celebrated 15 years with Oracle, having joined JD Edwards in 1999. I'm based in Evergreen, Colorado and love relating stories about creativity and innovation whether they be about software, live music, or the mountains. The views expressed here are my own, and not necessarily those of Oracle.

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• How do I use setFilmSize in panda3d to achieve the correct view?

  - by lhk

  I'm working with Panda3d and recently switched my game to isometric rendering. I moved the virtual camera accordingly and set an orthographic lens. Then I implemented the classes "Map" and "Canvas". A canvas is a dynamically generated mesh: a flat quad. I'm using it to render the ingame graphics. Since the game itself is still set in a 3d coordinate system I'm planning to rely on these canvases to draw sprites. I could have named this class "Tile" but as I'd like to use it for non-tile sketches (enemies, environment) as well I thought canvas would describe it's function better. Map does exactly what it's name suggests. Its constructor receives the number of rows and columns and then creates a standard isometric map. It uses the canvas class for tiles. I'm planning to write a map importer that reads a file to create maps on the fly. Here's the canvas implementation: class Canvas: def __init__(self, texture, vertical=False, width=1,height=1): # create the mesh format=GeomVertexFormat.getV3t2() format = GeomVertexFormat.registerFormat(format) vdata=GeomVertexData("node-vertices", format, Geom.UHStatic) vertex = GeomVertexWriter(vdata, 'vertex') texcoord = GeomVertexWriter(vdata, 'texcoord') # add the vertices for a flat quad vertex.addData3f(1, 0, 0) texcoord.addData2f(1, 0) vertex.addData3f(1, 1, 0) texcoord.addData2f(1, 1) vertex.addData3f(0, 1, 0) texcoord.addData2f(0, 1) vertex.addData3f(0, 0, 0) texcoord.addData2f(0, 0) prim = GeomTriangles(Geom.UHStatic) prim.addVertices(0, 1, 2) prim.addVertices(2, 3, 0) self.geom = Geom(vdata) self.geom.addPrimitive(prim) self.node = GeomNode('node') self.node.addGeom(self.geom) # this is the handle for the canvas self.nodePath=NodePath(self.node) self.nodePath.setSx(width) self.nodePath.setSy(height) if vertical: self.nodePath.setP(90) # the most important part: "Drawing" the image self.texture=loader.loadTexture(""+texture+".png") self.nodePath.setTexture(self.texture) Now the code for the Map class class Map: def __init__(self,rows,columns,size): self.grid=[] for i in range(rows): self.grid.append([]) for j in range(columns): # create a canvas for the tile. For testing the texture is preset tile=Canvas(texture="../assets/textures/flat_concrete",width=size,height=size) x=(i-1)*size y=(j-1)*size # set the tile up for rendering tile.nodePath.reparentTo(render) tile.nodePath.setX(x) tile.nodePath.setY(y) # and store it for later access self.grid[i].append(tile) And finally the usage def loadMap(self): self.map=Map(10, 10, 1) this function is called within the constructor of the World class. The instantiation of world is the entry point to the execution. The code is pretty straightforward and runs good. Sadly the output is not as expected: Please note: The problem is not the white rectangle, it's my player object. The problem is that although the map should have equal width and height it's stretched weirdly. With orthographic rendering I expected the map to be a perfect square. What did I do wrong ? UPDATE: I've changed the viewport. This is how I set up the orthographic camera: lens = OrthographicLens() lens.setFilmSize(40, 20) base.cam.node().setLens(lens) You can change the "aspect" by modifying the parameters of setFilmSize. I don't know exactly how they are related to window size and screen resolution but after testing a little the values above seem to work for me. Now everything is rendered correctly as long as I don't resize the window. Every change of the window's size as well as switching to fullscreen destroys the correct rendering. I know that implementing a listener for resize events is not in the scope of this question. However I wonder why I need to make the Film's height two times bigger than its width. My window is quadratic ! Can you tell me how to find out correct setting for the FilmSize ? UPDATE 2: I can imagine that it's hard to envision the behaviour of the game. At first glance the obvious solution is to pass the window's width and height in pixels to setFilmSize. There are two problems with that approach. The parameters for setFilmSize are ingame units. You'll get a way to big view if you pass the pixel size For some strange reason the image is distorted if you pass equal values for width and height. Here's the output for setFilmSize(800,800) You'll have to stress your eyes but you'll see what I mean

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• Unity GUI not in build, but works fine in editor

  - by Darren

  I have: GUITexture attached to an object A script that has GUIStyles created for the Textfield and Buttons that are created in OnGUI(). This script is attached to the same object in number 1 3 GUIText objects each separate from the above. A script that enables the GUITexture and the script in number 1 and 2 respectively This is how it is supposed to work: When I cross the finish line, number 4 script enables number 1 GUITexture component and number 2 script component. The script component uses one of number 3's GUIText objects to show you your best lap time, and also makes a GUI.Textfield for name entry and 2 GUI.Buttons for "Submit" and "Skip". If you hit "Submit" the script will submit the time. No matter which button you press, The remaining 2 GUIText objects from number 3 will show you the top 10 best times. For some reason, when I run it in editor, everything works 100%, but when I'm in different kinds of builds, the results vary. When I am in a webplayer, The GUITexture and the textfield and buttons appear, but the textfield and buttons are plain and have no evidence of GUIStyles. When I click one of the buttons, the score gets submitted but I do not get the fastest times showing. When I am in a standalone build, the GUITexture shows up, but nothing else does. If I remove the GUIStyle parameter of the GUI.Textfield and GUI.Button, they show up. Why am I getting these variations and how can I fix it? Code below: void Start () { Names.text = ""; Times.text = ""; YourBestTime.text = "Your Best Lap: " + bestTime + "\nEnter your name:"; //StartCoroutine(GetTimes("Test")); } void Update() { if (!ShowButtons && !GettingTimes) { StartCoroutine(GetTimes()); GettingTimes = true; } } IEnumerator GetTimes () { Debug.Log("Getting times"); YourBestTime.text = "Loading Best Lap Times"; WWW times_get = new WWW(GetTimesUrl); yield return times_get; WWW names_get = new WWW(GetNamesUrl); yield return names_get; if(times_get.error != null || names_get.error != null) { print("There was an error retrieiving the data: " + names_get.error + times_get.error); } else { Times.text = times_get.text; Names.text = names_get.text; YourBestTime.text = "Your Best Lap: " + bestTime; } } IEnumerator PostLapTime (string Name, string LapTime) { string hash= MD5.Md5Sum(Name + LapTime + secretKey); string bestTime_url = SubmitTimeUrl + "&Name=" + WWW.EscapeURL(Name) + "&LapTime=" + LapTime + "&hash=" + hash; Debug.Log (bestTime_url); // Post the URL to the site and create a download object to get the result. WWW hs_post = new WWW(bestTime_url); //label = "Submitting..."; yield return hs_post; // Wait until the download is done if (hs_post.error != null) { print("There was an error posting the lap time: " + hs_post.error); //label = "Error: " + hs_post.error; //show = false; } else { Debug.Log("Posted: " + hs_post.text); ShowButtons = false; PostingTime = false; } } void OnGUI() { if (ShowButtons) { //makes text box nameString = GUI.TextField( new Rect((Screen.width/2)-111, (Screen.height/2)-130, 222, 25), nameString, 20, TextboxStyle); if (GUI.Button( new Rect( (Screen.width/2-74.0f), (Screen.height/2)- 90, 64, 32), "Submit", ButtonStyle)) { //SUBMIT TIME if (nameString == "") { nameString = "Player"; } if (!PostingTime) { StartCoroutine(PostLapTime(nameString, bestTime)); PostingTime = true; } } else if (GUI.Button( new Rect( (Screen.width/2+10.0f), (Screen.height/2)- 90, 64, 32), "Skip", ButtonStyle)) { ShowButtons = false; } } } }

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• Platform jumping problems with AABB collisions

  - by Vee

  See the diagram first: When my AABB physics engine resolves an intersection, it does so by finding the axis where the penetration is smaller, then "push out" the entity on that axis. Considering the "jumping moving left" example: If velocityX is bigger than velocityY, AABB pushes the entity out on the Y axis, effectively stopping the jump (result: the player stops in mid-air). If velocityX is smaller than velocitY (not shown in diagram), the program works as intended, because AABB pushes the entity out on the X axis. How can I solve this problem? Source code: public void Update() { Position += Velocity; Velocity += World.Gravity; List<SSSPBody> toCheck = World.SpatialHash.GetNearbyItems(this); for (int i = 0; i < toCheck.Count; i++) { SSSPBody body = toCheck[i]; body.Test.Color = Color.White; if (body != this && body.Static) { float left = (body.CornerMin.X - CornerMax.X); float right = (body.CornerMax.X - CornerMin.X); float top = (body.CornerMin.Y - CornerMax.Y); float bottom = (body.CornerMax.Y - CornerMin.Y); if (SSSPUtils.AABBIsOverlapping(this, body)) { body.Test.Color = Color.Yellow; Vector2 overlapVector = SSSPUtils.AABBGetOverlapVector(left, right, top, bottom); Position += overlapVector; } if (SSSPUtils.AABBIsCollidingTop(this, body)) { if ((Position.X >= body.CornerMin.X && Position.X <= body.CornerMax.X) && (Position.Y + Height/2f == body.Position.Y - body.Height/2f)) { body.Test.Color = Color.Red; Velocity = new Vector2(Velocity.X, 0); } } } } } public static bool AABBIsOverlapping(SSSPBody mBody1, SSSPBody mBody2) { if(mBody1.CornerMax.X <= mBody2.CornerMin.X || mBody1.CornerMin.X >= mBody2.CornerMax.X) return false; if (mBody1.CornerMax.Y <= mBody2.CornerMin.Y || mBody1.CornerMin.Y >= mBody2.CornerMax.Y) return false; return true; } public static bool AABBIsColliding(SSSPBody mBody1, SSSPBody mBody2) { if (mBody1.CornerMax.X < mBody2.CornerMin.X || mBody1.CornerMin.X > mBody2.CornerMax.X) return false; if (mBody1.CornerMax.Y < mBody2.CornerMin.Y || mBody1.CornerMin.Y > mBody2.CornerMax.Y) return false; return true; } public static bool AABBIsCollidingTop(SSSPBody mBody1, SSSPBody mBody2) { if (mBody1.CornerMax.X < mBody2.CornerMin.X || mBody1.CornerMin.X > mBody2.CornerMax.X) return false; if (mBody1.CornerMax.Y < mBody2.CornerMin.Y || mBody1.CornerMin.Y > mBody2.CornerMax.Y) return false; if(mBody1.CornerMax.Y == mBody2.CornerMin.Y) return true; return false; } public static Vector2 AABBGetOverlapVector(float mLeft, float mRight, float mTop, float mBottom) { Vector2 result = new Vector2(0, 0); if ((mLeft > 0 || mRight < 0) || (mTop > 0 || mBottom < 0)) return result; if (Math.Abs(mLeft) < mRight) result.X = mLeft; else result.X = mRight; if (Math.Abs(mTop) < mBottom) result.Y = mTop; else result.Y = mBottom; if (Math.Abs(result.X) < Math.Abs(result.Y)) result.Y = 0; else result.X = 0; return result; }

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• XNA RenderTarget2D Sample

  - by Michael B. McLaughlin

  I remember being scared of render targets when I first started with XNA. They seemed like weird magic and I didn’t understand them at all. There’s nothing to be frightened of, though, and they are pretty easy to learn how to use. The first thing you need to know is that when you’re drawing in XNA, you aren’t actually drawing to the screen. Instead you’re drawing to this thing called the “back buffer”. Internally, XNA maintains two sections of graphics memory. Each one is exactly the same size as the other and has all the same properties (such as surface format, whether there’s a depth buffer and/or a stencil buffer, and so on). XNA flips between these two sections of memory every update-draw cycle. So while you are drawing to one, it’s busy drawing the other one on the screen. Then the current update-draw cycle ends, it flips, and the section you were just drawing to gets drawn to the screen while the one that was being drawn to the screen before is now the one you’ll be drawing on. This is what’s meant by “double buffering”. If you drew directly to the screen, the player would see all of those draws taking place as they happened and that would look odd and not very good at all. Those two sections of graphics memory are render targets. All a render target is, is a section of graphics memory to which things can be drawn. In addition to the two that XNA maintains automatically, you can also create and set your own using RenderTarget2D and GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget. Using render targets lets you do all sorts of neat post-processing effects (like bloom) to make your game look cooler. It also just lets you do things like motion blur and lets you create mirrors in 3D games. There are quite a lot of things that render targets let you do. To go along with this post, I wrote up a simple sample for how to create and use a RenderTarget2D. It’s available under the terms of the Microsoft Public License and is available for download on my website here: http://www.bobtacoindustries.com/developers/utils/RenderTarget2DSample.zip . Other than the ‘using’ statements, every line is commented in detail so that it should (hopefully) be easy to follow along with and understand. If you have any questions, leave a comment here or drop me a line on Twitter. One last note. While creating the sample I came across an interesting quirk. If you start by creating a Windows Game, and then make a copy for Windows Phone 7, the drop-down that lets you choose between drawing to a WP7 device and the WP7 emulator stays grayed-out. To resolve this, you need to right click on the Windows Phone 7 version in the Solution Explorer, and choose “Set as StartUp Project”. The bar will then become active, letting you change the target you which to deploy to. If you want another version to be the one that starts up when you press F5 to start debugging, just go and right-click on that version and choose “Set as StartUp Project” for it once you’ve set the WP7 target (device or emulator) that you want.

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• The Apple iPad &ndash; I&rsquo;m gonna get it!

  - by Sahil Malik

  Ad:: SharePoint 2007 Training in .NET 3.5 technologies (more information). Well, heck, here comes another non-techie blogpost. You know I’m a geek, so I love gadgets! I found it RATHER interesting to see all the negative news on the blogosphere about the iPad. The main bitch points are - No Multi tasking No Flash Just a bigger iPhone. So here’s the deal! My view is, the above 3 are EXACTLY what I had personally hoped for in the Apple iPad. Before the release, I had gone on the record saying - “If the Apple Tablet is able to run full fledged iTunes (so I can get rid of iTunes on my desktop, I don’t like iTunes on Windows), can browse the net, can read PDFs, and will be under $1000, I’ll buy it”. Well, so, the released iPad wasn’t exactly like my dream tablet. The biggest downer IMO was it’s inability to run full iTunes. But, really, in retrospect, I like the newly released iPad. And here is why. No Multi tasking and No Flash, means much better battery life. Frankly, I rarely multi task on my laptop/desktop .. yeah I know my OS does .. but ME – I don’t multi task, and I don’t think you do either!! As I type this blogpost, I have a few windows running behind the scenes, but they are simply waiting for me to get back to them. The only thing truly running and I am making use of, other than this blogost, is media player playing some music – which the iPad can do. Also, I am logged into IM/Email – which again, iPad can do via notifications. It does the limited multitasking I need, without chewing down on batteries. Smart thinking, precisely the reason I love the iPhone. I don’t want a bulky battery consuming machine. Lack of flash? Okay sure, I can’t see Hulu on my iPad. That’s some loss. I can see youtube. Also, per Adobe I can’t see some porn sites, which I don’t want to see on my iPad. But, Flash is heavy. Especially flash video. My dream is to see silverlight run on the iPhone and iPad. No flash = not such a big loss. Speaking of battery life – 10 hours is plenty. I haven’t been away from electricity for that long usually, so I’m okay with charging it up when it runs low. It’s really not such a big deal honestly. Finally, eBook functionality – wow! I went on the record saying, eBook readers are not for me, but seriously, the iPad is perfect for my eBook needs at least. And as far it being just a bigger iPhone? I’ve always wanted a bigger iPhone, precisely for the eBook reading experience. I love my iPhone, I love the apps on it. The only thing that sucks about the iPhone is battery life, but other than that, it is the best gadget I have ever bought! And something that runs on mobile chips, is that thin, and those newly written apps .. mail, calendar .. I am very very excited to get my iPad, which will be the 64gig 3G version. The biggest plus in an iPad ……… no contract on data. I am *hoping*, this means that I can buy a SIM card in Europe, and use the iPad here. That would be killer awesome! But hey, if I had to pick downers in the iPad, they would be - - I wish they had a 128G Version. Now that we have a good video viewing machine, I know I’d chew up space quickly.- Sync over WIFI, seriously Apple.  Both for iPhone and iPad.- 3 month wait!!- Existing iPhone users should get a discount on the iPad data plan. Comment on the article ....

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• Use your own domain email and tired of SPAM? SPAMfighter FTW

  - by Dave Campbell

  I wouldn't post this if I hadn't tried it... and I paid for it myself, so don't anybody be thinking I'm reviewing something someone sent me! Long ago and far away I got very tired of local ISPs and 2nd phone lines and took the plunge and got hooked up to cable... yeah I know the 2nd phone line concept may be hard for everyone to understand, but that's how it was in 'the old days'. To avoid having to change email addresses all the time, I decided to buy a domain name, get minimal hosting, and use that for all email into the house. That way if I changed providers, all the email addresses wouldn't have to change. Of course, about a dozen domains later, I have LOTS of pop email addresses and even an exchange address to my client's server... times have changed. What also has changed is the fact that we get SPAM... 'back in the day' when I was a beta tester for the first ISP in Phoenix, someone tried sending an ad to all of us, and what he got in return for his trouble was a bunch of core dumps that locked up his email... if you don't know what a core dump is, ask your grandfather. But in today's world, we're all much more civilized than that, and as with many things, the criminals seem to have much more rights than we do, so we get inundated with email offering all sorts of wild schemes that you'd have to be brain-dead to accept, but yet... if people weren't accepting them, they'd stop sending them. I keep hoping that survival of the smartest would weed out the mental midgets that respond and then the jumk email stop, but that hasn't happened yet anymore than finding high-quality hearing aids at the checkout line of Safeway because of all the dimwits playing music too loud inside their car... but that's another whole topic and I digress. So what's the solution for all the spam? And I mean *all*... on that old personal email address, I am now getting over 150 spam messages a day! Yes I know that's why God invented the delete key, but I took it on as a challenge, and it's a matter of principle... why should I switch email addresses, or convert from [email protected] to something else, or have all my email filtered through some service just because some A-Hole somewhere has a site up trying to phish Ma & Pa Kettle (ask your grandfather about that too) out of their retirement money? Well... I got an email from my cousin the other day while I was writing yet another email rule, and there was a banner on the bottom of his email that said he was protected by SPAMfighter. SPAMfighter huh.... so I took a look at their site, and found yet one more of the supposed tools to help us. But... I read that they're a Microsoft Gold Partner... and that doesn't come lightly... so I took a gamble and here's what I found: I installed it, and had to do a couple things: 1) SPAMfighter stuffed the SPAMfighter folder into my client's exchange address... I deleted it, made a new SPAMfighter folder where I wanted it to go, then in the SPAMfighter Clients settings for Outlook, I told it to put all spam there. 2) It didn't seem to be doing anything. There's a ribbon button that you can select "Block", and I did that, wondering if I was 'training' it, but it wasn't picking up duplicates 3) I sent email to support, and wrote a post on the forum (not to self: reply to that post). By the time the folks from the home office responded, it was the next day, and first up, SPAMfighter knocked down everything that came through when Outlook opend... two thumbs up! I disabled my 'garbage collection' rule from Outlook, and told Outlook not to use the junk folder thinking it was interfering. 4) Day 2 seemed to go about like Day 1... but I hung in there. 5) Day 3 is now a whole new day... I had left Outlook open and hadn't looked at the PC since sometime late yesterday afternoon, and when I looked this morning, *every bit* of spam was in the SPAMfighter folder!! I'm a new paying customer After watching SPAMfighter work this morning, I've purchased a 1-year license, and I now can sit and watch as emails come in and disappear from my inbox into the SPAMfighter folder. No more continual tweaking of the rules. I've got SPAMfighter set to 'Very Hard' filtering... personally I'd rather pull the few real emails out of the SPAMfighter folder than pull spam out of the real folders. Yes this is simply another way of using the delete key, but you know what? ... it feels good :) Here's a screenshot of the stats after just about 48 hours of being onboard: Note that all the ones blocked by me were during Day 1 and 2... I've blocked none today, and everything is blocked. Stay in the 'Light!

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• Remote Workers...We're Not That Bad!

  - by user12601034

  I work from home a lot – my team is located in different cities and countries, my manager is in a different city, and most of our work is done via conference calls, email and collaboration through Oracle Social Network. We’ve figured out how to be effective and involve team members, regardless of where we are all located. When I mention that I work from home, a lot of my friends will laugh, roll their eyes or use their fingers to make quotation marks around “work from home.” Their belief is that I’m sitting at home, eating bon-bons and watching television. The attempts at humor only multiply when they know that my husband also mostly works from home. So, it was with great joy that I read the Lifehacker article Why Remote Workers Are More (Yes, More) Engaged. I’m not going to re-write the article for you, but four highlights from the article include: Proximity breeds complacency –because communicating with employees sitting next to you is so easy, you may not do it well. Absence makes people try harder to connect – because you have to make an effort to connect to your team, you tend to pay better attention when you do connect Leaders of virtual team make better use of tools – when working remotely, you will use technology (many different forms of it) to connect with your team. This daily use of the tools makes you more proficient with those tools Leaders of far-flung teams maximize the time spent together – getting together takes effort, time and money, so leaders tend to filter out distractions when teams do get together. These points made me happy because I’ve seen the same things play out in my team located around the world. And I’m not saying that a virtual team is more effective than a co-located team – but my virtual team doesn’t have the option of filing into a conference room for a face-to-face meeting whenever we want. Instead, we have to figure out how to work effectively without meeting face-to-face. Am I more engaged as a remote worker? I’d like to think that I am. I’ve been on calls with colleagues at 3am – this would never happen if my only option was to be in the office. I can leave my “office” to pick up my kids from school…and I’m willingly back online after kids are in bed to finish up anything I need to. Oracle Social Network lets me use my iPad to engage with my teammates when I’m waiting at music lessons, the doctor’s office or any place else with a network connection. I feel like I’m more connected with my team, and I feel like I’m more connected with my family life. So yes, I am a remote worker, and I am engaged. If you lead a virtual team, I challenge you to increase the ways that you communicate to effectively engage your team. If you are on a virtual team, I challenge you to think about how you might interact with team members to keep both them and yourself engaged in your work. And if you have some great ideas on how to make virtual teams (and workers) effective and engaged, please share those ideas in the comments! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go get a bon-bon...   :) Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Blink-Data vs Instinct?

  - by Samantha.Y. Ma

  In his landmark bestseller Blink, well-known author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell explores how human beings everyday make seemingly instantaneous choices --in the blink of an eye--and how we “think without thinking.”  These situations actually aren’t as simple as they seem, he postulates; and throughout the book, Gladwell seeks answers to questions such as: 1.    What makes some people good at thinking on their feet and making quick spontaneous decisions?2.    Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others consistently seem to stumble into error?3.    Why are some of the best decisions often those that are difficult to explain to others?In Blink, Gladwell introduces us to the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on a few minutes of observing a couple; the tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; the antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance. Ultimately, Blink reveals that great decision makers aren't those who spend the most time deliberating or analyzing information, but those who focus on key factors among an overwhelming number of variables-- i.e., those who have perfected the art of "thin-slicing.” In Data vs. Instinct: Perfecting Global Sales Performance, a new report sponsored by Oracle, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) explores the roles data and instinct play in decision-making by sales managers and discusses how sales executives can increase sales performance through more effective  territory planning and incentive/compensation strategies.If you are a sales executive, ask yourself this:  “Do you rely on knowledge (data) when you plan out your sales strategy?  If you rely on data, how do you ensure that your data sources are reliable, up-to-date, and complete?  With the emergence of social media and the proliferation of both structured and unstructured data, how do you know that you are applying your information/data correctly and in-context?  Three key findings in the report are:•    Six out of ten executives say they rely more on data than instinct to drive decisions. •    Nearly one half (48 percent) of incentive compensation plans do not achieve the desired results. •    Senior sales executives rely more on current and historical data than on forecast data. Strikingly similar to what Gladwell concludes in Blink, the report’s authors succinctly sum up their findings: "The best outcome is a combination of timely information, insightful predictions, and support data."Applying this insight is crucial to creating a sound sales plan that drives alignment and results.  In the area of sales performance management, “territory programs and incentive compensation continue to present particularly complex challenges in an increasingly globalized market," say the report’s authors. "It behooves companies to get a better handle on translating that data into actionable and effective plans." To help solve this challenge, CRM Oracle Fusion integrates forecasting, quotas, compensation, and territories into a single system.   For example, Oracle Fusion CRM provides a natural integration between territories, which define the sales targets (e.g., collection of accounts) for the sales force, and quotas, which quantify the sales targets. In fact, territory hierarchy is a core analytic dimension to slice and dice sales results, using sales analytics and alerts to help you identify where problems are occurring. This makes territoriesStart tapping into both data and instinct effectively today with Oracle Fusion CRM.   Here is a short video to provide you with a snapshot of how it can help you optimize your sales performance.  

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• Minecraft style XNA game collision?

  - by Levi

  I've been trying to get this working for ages now, I can detect if there's a solid block at any place on the map and I can check how far something is inside of it, but I don't understand how to fix the collision. I've tried loads of ways and all of them end up by the player getting stuck, glitching around, incorrect responses and I really have no idea how to go about this :/. int Chnk = Utility.GetChunkFromPosition(origin); if (Chnk == -1) return; Vector3 Pos = Utility.GetCubeVectorFromPosition(origin); if (GlobalWorld.LoadedChunks[Chnk].Blocks[(byte)Pos.X, (byte)Pos.Y, (byte)Pos.Z] != 0) { isInIllegalState = true; if (velocity.Y < 0f) velocity.Y = 0f; } while (isInIllegalState) { if (GlobalWorld.LoadedChunks[Chnk].Blocks[(byte)Pos.X, (byte)origin.Y, (byte)Pos.Z] != 0) origin.Y = (int)(origin.Y + 1); else isInIllegalState = false; } if (origin.Y < Chunk.YSize - 2 && GlobalWorld.LoadedChunks[Chnk].Blocks[(byte)Pos.X, (byte)(origin.Y + playerHeight.Y), (byte)Pos.Z] != 0) { velocity.Y = 0f; //Acceleration.Y = 0f; origin.Y = (int)origin.Y;// -0.5f; } for (int x = -1; x <= 1; x+=2) { for (int z = -1; z <= 1; z += 2) { Vector3 CornerPosition = new Vector3(boundingSize * x, 0, boundingSize * z); bool CorrectX = false; bool CorrectZ = false; Vector3 RoundedOrigin = Utility.RoundVector(origin); Vector3 RoundedCorner = Utility.RoundVector(origin + CornerPosition); byte BlockAdjacent = Utility.GetCubeFromPosition(origin + CornerPosition); if (BlockAdjacent == 0) continue; if (RoundedCorner.X != RoundedOrigin.X && RoundedCorner.Z != RoundedOrigin.Z) { CorrectX = true; CorrectZ = true; } if (RoundedCorner.Z != RoundedOrigin.Z && RoundedCorner.X == RoundedOrigin.X) CorrectZ = true; if (RoundedCorner.X != RoundedOrigin.X && RoundedCorner.Z == RoundedOrigin.Z) CorrectX = true; if (CorrectX && CornerPosition.X > 0) { if (origin.X > 0f) origin.X = (int)(origin.X + 1) - boundingSize; else origin.X = (int)origin.X - boundingSize; } else if (CorrectX && CornerPosition.X < 0) { if (origin.X > 0f) origin.X = (int)(origin.X) + boundingSize; else origin.X = (int)(origin.X - 1) + boundingSize; } if (CorrectZ && CornerPosition.Z > 0) { if (origin.Z > 0f) origin.Z = (int)(origin.Z + 1) - boundingSize; else origin.Z = (int)origin.Z - boundingSize; } else if (CorrectZ && CornerPosition.Z < 0) { if (origin.Z > 0f) origin.Z = (int)(origin.Z) + boundingSize; else origin.Z = (int)(origin.Z - 1) + boundingSize; } } }

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• Animation Trouble with Java Swing Timer - Also, JFrame Will Not Exit_On_Close

  - by forgotton_semicolon

  So, I am using a Java Swing Timer because putting the animation code in a run() method of a Thread subclass caused an insane amount of flickering that is really a terrible experience for any video game player. Can anyone give me any tips on: Why there is no animation... Why the JFrame will not close when it is coded to Exit_On_Close 2 times My code is here: import java.awt.; import java.awt.event.; import javax.swing.*; import java.net.URL; //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TFQ public class TFQ extends JFrame { DrawingsInSpace dis; //========================================================== constructor public TFQ() { dis = new DrawingsInSpace(); JPanel content = new JPanel(); content.setLayout(new FlowLayout()); this.setContentPane(dis); this.setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE); this.setTitle("Plasma_Orbs_Off_Orion"); this.setSize(500,500); this.pack(); //... Create timer which calls action listener every second.. // Use full package qualification for javax.swing.Timer // to avoid potential conflicts with java.util.Timer. javax.swing.Timer t = new javax.swing.Timer(500, new TimePhaseListener()); t.start(); } /////////////////////////////////////////////// inner class Listener thing class TimePhaseListener implements ActionListener, KeyListener { // counter int total; // loop control boolean Its_a_go = true; //position of our matrix int tf = -400; //sprite directions int Sprite_Direction; final int RIGHT = 1; final int LEFT = 2; //for obstacle Rectangle mega_obstacle = new Rectangle(200, 0, 20, HEIGHT); public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) { //... Whenever this is called, repaint the screen dis.repaint(); addKeyListener(this); while (Its_a_go) { try { dis.repaint(); if(Sprite_Direction == RIGHT) { dis.matrix.x += 2; } // end if i think if(Sprite_Direction == LEFT) { dis.matrix.x -= 2; } } catch(Exception ex) { System.out.println(ex); } } // end while i think } // end actionPerformed @Override public void keyPressed(KeyEvent arg0) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub } @Override public void keyReleased(KeyEvent arg0) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub } @Override public void keyTyped(KeyEvent event) { // TODO Auto-generated method stub if (event.getKeyChar()=='f'){ Sprite_Direction = RIGHT; System.out.println("matrix should be animating now "); System.out.println("current matrix position = " + dis.matrix.x); } if (event.getKeyChar()=='d') { Sprite_Direction = LEFT; System.out.println("matrix should be going in reverse"); System.out.println("current matrix position = " + dis.matrix.x); } } } //================================================================= main public static void main(String[] args) { JFrame SafetyPins = new TFQ(); SafetyPins.setVisible(true); SafetyPins.setSize(500,500); SafetyPins.setResizable(true); SafetyPins.setLocationRelativeTo(null); SafetyPins.setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE); } } class DrawingsInSpace extends JPanel { URL url1_plasma_orbs; URL url2_matrix; Image img1_plasma_orbs; Image img2_matrix; // for the plasma_orbs Rectangle bbb = new Rectangle(0,0, 0, 0); // for the matrix Rectangle matrix = new Rectangle(-400, 60, 430, 200); public DrawingsInSpace() { //load URLs try { url1_plasma_orbs = this.getClass().getResource("plasma_orbs.png"); url2_matrix = this.getClass().getResource("matrix.png"); } catch(Exception e) { System.out.println(e); } // attach the URLs to the images img1_plasma_orbs = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getImage(url1_plasma_orbs); img2_matrix = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getImage(url2_matrix); } public void paintComponent(Graphics g) { super.paintComponent(g); // draw the plasma_orbs g.drawImage(img1_plasma_orbs, bbb.x, bbb.y,this); //draw the matrix g.drawImage(img2_matrix, matrix.x, matrix.y, this); } } // end class enter code here

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• Arcball Problems with UDK

  - by opdude

  I'm trying to re-create an arcball example from a Nehe, where an object can be rotated in a more realistic way while floating in the air (in my game the object is attached to the player at a distance like for example the Physics Gun) however I'm having trouble getting this to work with UDK. I have created an LGArcBall which follows the example from Nehe and I've compared outputs from this with the example code. I think where my problem lies is what I do to the Quaternion that is returned from the LGArcBall. Currently I am taking the returned Quaternion converting it to a rotation matrix. Getting the product of the last rotation (set when the object is first clicked) and then returning that into a Rotator and setting that to the objects rotation. If you could point me in the right direction that would be great, my code can be found below. class LGArcBall extends Object; var Quat StartRotation; var Vector StartVector; var float AdjustWidth, AdjustHeight, Epsilon; function SetBounds(float NewWidth, float NewHeight) { AdjustWidth = 1.0f / ((NewWidth - 1.0f) * 0.5f); AdjustHeight = 1.0f / ((NewHeight - 1.0f) * 0.5f); } function StartDrag(Vector2D startPoint, Quat rotation) { StartVector = MapToSphere(startPoint); } function Quat Update(Vector2D currentPoint) { local Vector currentVector, perp; local Quat newRot; //Map the new point to the sphere currentVector = MapToSphere(currentPoint); //Compute the vector perpendicular to the start and current perp = startVector cross currentVector; //Make sure our length is larger than Epsilon if (VSize(perp) > Epsilon) { //Return the perpendicular vector as the transform newRot.X = perp.X; newRot.Y = perp.Y; newRot.Z = perp.Z; //In the quaternion values, w is cosine (theta / 2), where //theta is the rotation angle newRot.W = startVector dot currentVector; } else { //The two vectors coincide, so return an identity transform newRot.X = 0.0f; newRot.Y = 0.0f; newRot.Z = 0.0f; newRot.W = 0.0f; } return newRot; } function Vector MapToSphere(Vector2D point) { local float x, y, length, norm; local Vector result; //Transform the mouse coords to [-1..1] //and inverse the Y coord x = (point.X * AdjustWidth) - 1.0f; y = 1.0f - (point.Y * AdjustHeight); length = (x * x) + (y * y); //If the point is mapped outside of the sphere //( length > radius squared) if (length > 1.0f) { norm = 1.0f / Sqrt(length); //Return the "normalized" vector, a point on the sphere result.X = x * norm; result.Y = y * norm; result.Z = 0.0f; } else //It's inside of the sphere { //Return a vector to the point mapped inside the sphere //sqrt(radius squared - length) result.X = x; result.Y = y; result.Z = Sqrt(1.0f - length); } return result; } DefaultProperties { Epsilon = 0.000001f } I'm then attempting to rotate that object when the mouse is dragged, with the following update code in my PlayerController. //Get Mouse Position MousePosition.X = LGMouseInterfacePlayerInput(PlayerInput).MousePosition.X; MousePosition.Y = LGMouseInterfacePlayerInput(PlayerInput).MousePosition.Y; newQuat = ArcBall.Update(MousePosition); rotMatrix = MakeRotationMatrix(QuatToRotator(newQuat)); rotMatrix = rotMatrix * LastRot; LGMoveableActor(movingPawn.CurrentUseableObject).SetPhysics(EPhysics.PHYS_Rotating); LGMoveableActor(movingPawn.CurrentUseableObject).SetRotation(MatrixGetRotator(rotMatrix));

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• What is Happening vs. What is Interesting

  - by Geertjan

  Devoxx 2011 was yet another confirmation that all development everywhere is either on the web or on mobile phones. Whether you looked at the conference schedule or attended sessions or talked to speakers at any point at all, it was very clear that no development whatsoever is done anymore on the desktop. In fact, that's something Tim Bray himself told me to my face at the speakers dinner. No new developments of any kind are happening on the desktop. Everyone who is currently on the desktop is working overtime to move all of their applications to the web. They're probably also creating a small subset of their application on an Android tablet, with an even smaller subset on their Android phone. Then you scratch that monolithic surface and find some interesting results. Without naming any names, I asked one of these prominent "ah, forget about the desktop" people at the Devoxx speakers dinner (and I have a witness): "Yes, the desktop is dead, but what about air traffic control, stock trading, oil analysis, risk management applications? In fact, what about any back office application that needs to be usable across all operating systems? Here there is no concern whatsoever with 100% accessibility which is, after all, the only thing that the web has over the desktop, (except when there's a network failure, of course, or when you find yourself in the 3/4 of the world where there's bandwidth problems)? There are 1000's of hidden applications out there that have processing requirements, security requirements, and the requirement that they'll be available even when the network is down or even completely unavailable. Isn't that a valid use case and aren't there 1000's of applications that fall into this so-called niche category? Are you not, in fact, confusing consumer applications, which are increasingly web-based and mobile-based, with high-end corporate applications, which typically need to do massive processing, of one kind or another, for which the web and mobile worlds are completely unsuited?" And you will not believe what the reply to the above question was. (Again, I have a witness to this discussion.) But here it is: "Yes. But those applications are not interesting. I do not want to spend any of my time or work in any way on those applications. They are boring." I'm sad to say that the leaders of the software development community, including those in the Java world, either share the above opinion or are led by it. Because they find something that is not new to be boring, they move on to what is interesting and start talking like the supposedly-boring developments don't even exist. (Kind of like a rapper pretending classical music doesn't exist.) Time and time again I find myself giving Java desktop development courses (at companies, i.e., not hobbyists, or students, but companies, i.e., the places where dollars are earned), where developers say to me: "The course you're giving about creating cross-platform, loosely coupled, and highly cohesive applications is really useful to us. Why do we never find information about this topic at conferences? Why can we never attend a session at a conference where the story about pluggable cross-platform Java is told? Why do we get the impression that we are uncool because we're not on the web and because we're not on a mobile phone, while the reason for that is because we're creating $1000,000 simulation software which has nothing to gain from being on the web or on the mobile phone?" And then I say: "Because nobody knows you exist. Because you're not submitting abstracts to conferences about your very interesting use cases. And because conferences tend to focus on what is new, which tends to be web related (especially HTML 5) or mobile related (especially Android). Because you're not taking the responsibility on yourself to tell the real stories about the real applications being developed all the time and every day. Because you yourself think your work is boring, while in fact it is fascinating. Because desktop developers are working from 9 to 5 on the desktop, in secure environments, such as banks and defense, where you can't spend time, nor have the interest in, blogging your latest tip or trick, as opposed to web developers, who tend to spend a lot of time on the web anyway and are therefore much more inclined to create buzz about the kind of work they're doing." So, next time you look at a conference program and wonder why there's no stories about large desktop development projects in the program, here's the short answer: "No one is going to put those items on the program until you start submitting those kinds of sessions. And until you start blogging. Until you start creating the buzz that the web developers have been creating around their work for the past 10 years or so. And, yes, indeed, programmers get the conference they deserve." And what about Tim Bray? Ask yourself, as Google's lead web technology evangelist, how many desktop developers do you think he talks to and, more generally, what his frame of reference is and what, clearly, he considers to be most interesting.

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• 2D Tile based Game Collision problem

  - by iNbdy

  I've been trying to program a tile based game, and I'm stuck at the collision detection. Here is my code (not the best ^^): void checkTile(Character *c, int **map) { int x1,x2,y1,y2; /* Character position in the map */ c->upY = (c->y) / TILE_SIZE; // Top left corner c->downY = (c->y + c->h) / TILE_SIZE; // Bottom left corner c->leftX = (c->x) / TILE_SIZE; // Top right corner c->rightX = (c->x + c->w) / TILE_SIZE; // Bottom right corner x1 = (c->x + 10) / TILE_SIZE; // 10px from left side point x2 = (c->x + c->w - 10) / TILE_SIZE; // 10px from right side point y1 = (c->y + 10) / TILE_SIZE; // 10px from top side point y2 = (c->y + c->h - 10) / TILE_SIZE; // 10px from bottom side point /* Top */ if (map[c->upY][x1] > 2 || map[c->upY][x2] > 2) c->topCollision = 1; else c->topCollision = 0; /* Bottom */ if ((map[c->downY][x1] > 2 || map[c->downY][x2] > 2)) c->downCollision = 1; else c->downCollision = 0; /* Left */ if (map[y1][c->leftX] > 2 || map[y2][c->leftX] > 2) c->leftCollision = 1; else c->leftCollision = 0; /* Right */ if (map[y1][c->rightX] > 2 || map[y2][c->rightX] > 2) c->rightCollision = 1; else c->rightCollision = 0; } That calculates 8 collision points My moving function is like that: void movePlayer(Character *c, int **map) { if ((c->dirX == LEFT && !c->leftCollision) || (c->dirX == RIGHT && !c->rightCollision)) c->x += c->vx; if ((c->dirY == UP && !c->topCollision) || (c->dirY == DOWN && !c->downCollision)) c->y += c->vy; checkPosition(c, map); } and the checkPosition: void checkPosition(Character *c, int **map) { checkTile(c, map); if (c->downCollision) { if (c->state != JUMPING) { c->vy = 0; c->y = (c->downY * TILE_SIZE - c->h); } } if (c->leftCollision) { c->vx = 0; c->x = (c->leftX) * TILE_SIZE + TILE_SIZE; } if (c->rightCollision) { c->vx = 0; c->x = c->rightX * TILE_SIZE - c->w; } } This works, but sometimes, when the player is landing on ground, right and left collision points become equal to 1. So it's as if there were collision coming from left or right. Does anyone know why this is doing this?

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• Using two joysticks in Cocos2D

  - by Blade

  Here is what I am trying to do: With the left joystick the player can steer the figure and with the right joystick it can attack. Problem is that the left joystick seems to get all the input, the right one does not even register anything. I enabled multipletouch after the eagleView and gone thoroughly over the code. But I seem to miss something. I initiliaze both sticks and it shows me both of them in game, but like I said, only the left one works. I initialize them both. From the h. file: SneakyJoystick *joystick; SneakyJoystick *joystickRight; And in m.file I synthesize, deallocate and initialize them. In order to use one for controlling and the other for attacking I put this: -(void)updateStateWithDeltaTime:(ccTime)deltaTime andListOfGameObjects:(CCArray*)listOfGameObjects { if ((self.characterState == kStateIdle) || (self.characterState == kStateWalkingBack) || (self.characterState == kStateWalkingLeft) || (self.characterState == kStateWalkingRight)|| (self.characterState == kStateWalkingFront) || (self.characterState == kStateAttackingFront) || (self.characterState == kStateAttackingBack)|| (self.characterState == kStateAttackingRight)|| (self.characterState == kStateAttackingLeft)) { if (joystick.degrees > 60 && joystick.degrees < 120) { if (self.characterState != kStateWalkingBack) [self changeState:kStateWalkingBack]; }else if (joystick.degrees > 1 && joystick.degrees < 59) { if (self.characterState != kStateWalkingRight) [self changeState:kStateWalkingRight]; } else if (joystick.degrees > 211 && joystick.degrees < 300) { if (self.characterState != kStateWalkingFront) [self changeState:kStateWalkingFront]; } else if (joystick.degrees > 301 && joystick.degrees < 360){ if (self.characterState != kStateWalkingRight) [self changeState:kStateWalkingRight]; } else if (joystick.degrees > 121 && joystick.degrees < 210) { if (self.characterState != kStateWalkingLeft) [self changeState:kStateWalkingLeft]; } if (joystickRight.degrees > 60 && joystickRight.degrees < 120) { if (self.characterState != kStateAttackingBack) [self changeState:kStateAttackingBack]; }else if (joystickRight.degrees > 1 && joystickRight.degrees < 59) { if (self.characterState != kStateAttackingRight) [self changeState:kStateAttackingRight]; } else if (joystickRight.degrees > 211 && joystickRight.degrees < 300) { if (self.characterState != kStateAttackingFront) [self changeState:kStateAttackingFront]; } else if (joystickRight.degrees > 301 && joystickRight.degrees < 360){ if (self.characterState != kStateAttackingRight) [self changeState:kStateAttackingRight]; } else if (joystickRight.degrees > 121 && joystickRight.degrees < 210) { if (self.characterState != kStateAttackingLeft) [self changeState:kStateAttackingLeft]; } [self applyJoystick:joystick forTimeDelta:deltaTime]; [self applyJoystick:joystickRight forTimeDelta:deltaTime]; } Maybe it has something to do with putting them both to time delta? I tried working around it, but it did not work. So I am thankful for any input you guys can give me :)

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• What common interface would be appropriate for these game object classes?

  - by Jefffrey

  Question A component based system's goal is to solve the problems that derives from inheritance: for example the fact that some parts of the code (that are called components) are reused by very different classes that, hypothetically, would lie in a very different branch of the inheritance tree. That's a very nice concept, but I've found out that CBS is often hard to accomplish without using ugly hacks. Implementations of this system are often far from clean. But I don't want to discuss this any further. My question is: how can I solve the same problems a CBS try to solve with a very clean interface? (possibly with examples, there are a lot of abstract talks about the "perfect" design already). Context Here's an example I was going for before realizing I was just reinventing inheritance again: class Human { public: Position position; Movement movement; Sprite sprite; // other human specific components }; class Zombie { Position position; Movement movement; Sprite sprite; // other zombie specific components }; After writing that I realized I needed an interface, otherwise I would have needed N containers for N different types of objects (or to use boost::variant to gather them all together). So I've thought of polymorphism (move what systems do in a CBS design into class specific functions): class Entity { public: virtual void on_event(Event) {} // not pure virtual on purpose virtual void on_update(World) {} virtual void on_draw(Window) {} }; class Human : public Entity { private: Position position; Movement movement; Sprite sprite; public: virtual void on_event(Event) { ... } virtual void on_update(World) { ... } virtual void on_draw(Window) { ... } }; class Zombie : public Entity { private: Position position; Movement movement; Sprite sprite; public: virtual void on_event(Event) { ... } virtual void on_update(World) { ... } virtual void on_draw(Window) { ... } }; Which was nice, except for the fact that now the outside world would not even be able to know where a Human is positioned (it does not have access to its position member). That would be useful to track the player position for collision detection or if on_update the Zombie would want to track down its nearest human to move towards him. So I added const Position& get_position() const; to both the Zombie and Human classes. And then I realized that both functionality were shared, so it should have gone to the common base class: Entity. Do you notice anything? Yes, with that methodology I would have a god Entity class full of common functionality (which is the thing I was trying to avoid in the first place). Meaning of "hacks" in the implementation I'm referring to I'm talking about the implementations that defines Entities as simple IDs to which components are dynamically attached. Their implementation can vary from C-stylish: int last_id; Position* positions[MAX_ENTITIES]; Movement* movements[MAX_ENTITIES]; Where positions[i], movements[i], component[i], ... make up the entity. Or to more C++-style: int last_id; std::map<int, Position> positions; std::map<int, Movement> movements; From which systems can detect if an entity/id can have attached components.

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• Basic collision direction detection on 2d objects

  - by Osso Buko

  I am trying to develop a platform game for Android by using ANdroid GL Engine (ANGLE). And I am having trouble with collision detection. I have two objects which is shaped as rectangular. And no change in rotation. Here is a scheme of attributes of objects. What i am trying to do is when objects collide they block each other's movement on that direction. Every object has 4 boolean (bTop, bBottom, bRight, bLeft). For example when bBottom is true object can't advance on that direction. I came up with a solution but it seems it only works on one dimensional. Bottom and top or right and left. public void collisionPlatform (MyObject a, MyObject b) { // first obj is player and second is a wall or a platform Vector p1 = a.mPosition; // p1 = middle point of first object Vector d1 = a.mPosition2; // width(mX) and height of first object Vector mSpeed1 = a.mSpeed; // speed vector of first object Vector p2 = b.mPosition; // p1 = middle point of second object Vector d2 = b.mPosition2; // width(mX) and height of second object Vector mSpeed2 = b.mSpeed; // speed vector of second object float xDist, yDist; // distant between middle of two object float width , height; // this is average of two objects measurements width=(width1+width2)/2 xDist=(p1.mX - p2.mX); // calculate distance // if positive first object is at the right yDist=(p1.mY - p2.mY); // if positive first object is below width = d1.mX + d2.mX; // average measurements calculate height = d1.mY + d2.mY; width/=2; height/=2; if (Math.abs(xDist) < width && Math.abs(yDist) < height) { // Two object is collided if(p1.mY>p2.mY) { // first object is below second one a.bTop = true; if(a.mSpeed.mY<0) a.mSpeed.mY=0; b.bBottom = true; if(b.mSpeed.mY>0) b.mSpeed.mY=0; } else { a.bBottom = true; if(a.mSpeed.mY>0) a.mSpeed.mY=0; b.bTop = true; if(b.mSpeed.mY<0) b.mSpeed.mY=0; } } As seen in my code it simply will not work. when object comes from right or left it doesn't work. I tried couple of ways other than this one but none worked. I am guessing right method will include mSpeed vector. But I have no idea how to do it. I really appreciate if you could help. Sorry for my bad english.

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• Collaborative Organizations build Organizational Culture

  “A Collaborative organization builds its culture based on the idea of the family or an athletic team.”(Hoefling, 2001) As I grew up, I participated in many different types of clubs, civic organizations, and sports teams.  Now looking back at the more successful undertakings, I can see three commonalities amongst them. They all shared a defined purpose or goal, defined functional roles, and a shared sense of responsibility to the group. Defined Purpose or Goal In order to unit people to work together, they must share a common goal or have a common purpose. An example of this would be the Lions Club International Foundation. There purpose is to help everyone to lead healthier and more productive lives, nurtures the potential of youth, promotes health, serves the elderly, empowers the disabled and helps victims of disasters. This organization holds localized meetings across the world and works in conjunction with other localized clubs within there organization along with other organizations to promote common goals. If there are no common goals for the group, then there is nothing that binds people to the group, and nothing will be done. Defined Functional Roles In order for an organization to work and function as a team, they must have defined roles and everyone must know how their roles are interdependent on each other. Lets shed light on this subject by looking at a football team’s offense.  Each player has an assigned role to play each time the ball is snapped. The offensive line blocks for the running back or quarterback, the quarterback passes the ball to the wide receiver or hands it off to the running back and the running back and wide receivers run with the ball towards the goal line. Each member of this team shares a common goal of scoring a touchdown, but if each team member does not fulfill their assigned roles the offences will collapse and the team will lose yards. This will provide a set back to the teams goal of scoring a touchdown because they potential are then farther away from the goal line.  In addition, if all the players do not know their roles and how they are part of a larger team then even larger yard losses can occur. Shared Sense of Personal Responsibility to the Group Shared responsibility comes with the shared common goals. Each person in the organization must do their part to promote the common shared goal or purpose based on their abilities. A prime example of this is a wrestling team competing in a match. Points are awarded to the team based on how many wins the team achieves in the meet and of that how many wins where won by decision or by pin. If a wrestler pins his opponent the teams will receive 2 points for the win, but if the wrestler wins by decision, then the team only gets one point for the win. So it is the responsibility of each person on the team to not get pinned if they are unable to win the match. If the team member gets pinned then the other team receives an additional point for the win. References: Hoefling, T. (2001). Working Virtually: Managing People for Successful Virtual Teams and Organizations. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, LLC.

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• MVC Communication Pattern

  - by Kedu

  This is kind of a follow up question to this http://stackoverflow.com/questions/23743285/model-view-controller-and-callbacks, but I wanted to post it separately, because its kind of a different topic. I'm working on a multiplayer cardgame for the Android platform. I split the project into MVC which fits the needs pretty good, but I'm currently stuck because I can't figure out a good way to communicate between the different parts. I have everything setup and working with the controller being a big state machine, which is called over and over from the gameloop, and calls getter methods from the GUI and the android/network part to get the input. The input itself in the GUI and network is set by inputlisteners that set a local variable which I read in the getter method. So far so good, this is working. But my problem is, the controller has to check every input separately,so if I want to add an input I have to check in which states its valid and call the getter method from all these states. This is not good, and lets the code look pretty ugly, makes additions uncomfortable and adds redundance. So what I've got from the question I mentioned above is that some kind of command or event pattern will fit my needs. What I want to do is to create a shared and threadsafe queue in the controller and instead of calling all these getter methods, I just check the queue for new input and proceed it. On the other side, the GUI and network don't have all these getters, but instead create an event or command and send it to the controller through, for example, observer/observable. Now my problem: I can't figure out a way, for these commands/events to fit a common interface (which the queue can store) and still transport different kind of data (button clicks, cards that are played, the player id the command comes from, synchronization data etc.). If I design the communication as command pattern, I have to stick all the information that is needed to execute the command into it when its created, that's impossible because the GUI or network has no knowledge of all the things the controller needs to execute stuff that needs to be done when for example a card is played. I thought about getting this stuff into the command when executing it. But over all the different commands I have, I would need all the information the controller has, and thus give the command a reference to the controller which would make everything in it public, which is real bad design I guess. So, I could try some kind of event pattern. I have to transport data in the event. So, like the command, I would have an interface, which all events have in common, and can be stored in the shared queue. I could create a big enum with all the different events that a are possible, save one of these enums in the actual event, and build a big switch case for the events, to proceed different stuff for different events. The problem here: I have different data for all the events. But I need a common interface, to store the events in a queue. How do I get the specific data, if I can only access the event through the interface? Even if that wouldn't be a problem, I'm creating another big switch case, which looks ugly, and when i want to add a new event, I have to create the event itself, the case, the enum, and the method that's called with the data. I could of course check the event with the enum and cast it to its type, so I can call event type specific methods that give me the data I need, but that looks like bad design too.

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• Pantech Link II, Ubuntu and Virtual XP

  - by user85041

  Okay this is my problem. I have a Pantech Link II, dmesg states: [ 896.072037] usb 2-3: new high-speed USB device number 3 using ehci_hcd [ 896.258562] cdc_acm 2-3:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device [ 896.260039] usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_acm [ 896.260042] cdc_acm: USB Abstract Control Model driver for USB modems and ISDN adapters Have it installed through wine (pc suite and driver) and it doesn't see it. Virtual XP through VMWare Player sees my device, knows it needs a driver. The removable devices says Curitel Pantech USB Device (Maybe Driver). I have PC Suite installed in XP, I install the driver through the executable.. it says problem with installing hardware, and then it disappears. Ubuntu sees it after restart, but if I start XP with that driver installed, it disappears from both and I get these errors in dmesg: [ 1047.760555] /dev/vmmon[2882]: PTSC: initialized at 3093322000 Hz using TSC, TSCs are synchronized. [ 1048.174033] /dev/vmmon[2882]: Monitor IPI vector: 0 [ 1055.293060] /dev/vmnet: open called by PID 3163 (vmx-vcpu-0) [ 1055.293074] /dev/vmnet: port on hub 8 successfully opened [ 1055.293088] /dev/vmnet: open called by PID 3163 (vmx-vcpu-0) [ 1055.293094] /dev/vmnet: port on hub 8 successfully opened [ 1072.446305] /dev/vmnet: open called by PID 3163 (vmx-vcpu-0) [ 1072.446316] /dev/vmnet: port on hub 8 successfully opened [ 1072.446328] /dev/vmnet: open called by PID 3163 (vmx-vcpu-0) [ 1072.446334] /dev/vmnet: port on hub 8 successfully opened [ 1072.856024] usb 1-1: reset high-speed USB device number 2 using ehci_hcd [ 1079.292024] usb 1-1: reset high-speed USB device number 2 using ehci_hcd [ 1079.732024] usb 1-1: reset high-speed USB device number 2 using ehci_hcd [ 1127.743034] NET: Registered protocol family 39 [ 1127.749320] [3163]: VMCI: IOCTL_VMCI_QUEUEPAIR_ALLOC (cid=1522210225,result=4). [ 1144.104031] usb 2-3: reset high-speed USB device number 3 using ehci_hcd [ 1144.412031] usb 2-3: reset high-speed USB device number 3 using ehci_hcd [ 1155.889976] ehci_hcd 0000:00:13.2: force halt; handshake ffffc90000642024 00004000 00000000 -> -110 [ 1155.889980] ehci_hcd 0000:00:13.2: HC died; cleaning up [ 1155.890008] usb 2-3: USB disconnect, device number 3 [ 1155.890013] usb 2-3: usbfs: usb_submit_urb returned -110 [ 1658.310777] [3163]: VMCI: IOCTL_VMCI_QUEUEPAIR_DETACH (cid=1522210225,result=3). [ 1658.392018] NET: Unregistered protocol family 39 [ 1666.546438] /dev/vmnet: open called by PID 3163 (vmx-vcpu-0) [ 1666.546450] /dev/vmnet: port on hub 8 successfully opened [ 1666.546462] /dev/vmnet: open called by PID 3163 (vmx-vcpu-0) [ 1666.546467] /dev/vmnet: port on hub 8 successfully opened [ 1671.431383] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device USB2.0 Camera (1871:0101) [ 1671.432533] input: USB2.0 Camera as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.2/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.0/input/input13 lessa@X:~$ dmesg|tail [ 1155.890008] usb 2-3: USB disconnect, device number 3 [ 1155.890013] usb 2-3: usbfs: usb_submit_urb returned -110 [ 1658.310777] [3163]: VMCI: IOCTL_VMCI_QUEUEPAIR_DETACH (cid=1522210225,result=3). [ 1658.392018] NET: Unregistered protocol family 39 [ 1666.546438] /dev/vmnet: open called by PID 3163 (vmx-vcpu-0) [ 1666.546450] /dev/vmnet: port on hub 8 successfully opened [ 1666.546462] /dev/vmnet: open called by PID 3163 (vmx-vcpu-0) [ 1666.546467] /dev/vmnet: port on hub 8 successfully opened [ 1671.431383] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device USB2.0 Camera (1871:0101) [ 1671.432533] input: USB2.0 Camera as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.2/usb1/1-1/1-1:1.0/input/input13 I have tried uninstalling, and installing manually from the device manager update driver while it's still has the warning sign.. it doesn't see the drivers as valid. No idea how to fix this.. would prefer to not have to go to another computer. I'm not trying to do anything but get the pictures off of it. I have to restart ubuntu, plug in device, for ubuntu to see it correctly again. I am like a month and a half old linux newbie so I have no idea the commands I could use for this, and I don't have a memory card in the phone to mount.

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• What Counts for a DBA: Skill

  - by drsql

  “Practice makes perfect:” right? Well, not exactly. The reality of it all is that this saying is an untrustworthy aphorism. I discovered this in my “younger” days when I was a passionate tennis player, practicing and playing 20+ hours a week. No matter what my passion level was, without some serious coaching (and perhaps a change in dietary habits), my skill level was never going to rise to a level where I could make any money at the sport that involved something other than selling tennis balls at a sporting goods store. My game may have improved with all that practice but I had too many bad practices to overcome. Practice by itself merely reinforces what we know and what we can figure out naturally. The truth is actually closer to the expression used by Vince Lombardi: “Perfect practice makes perfect.” So how do you get to become skilled as a DBA if practice alone isn’t sufficient? Hit the Internet and start searching for SQL training and you can find 100 different sites. There are also hundreds of blogs, magazines, books, conferences both onsite and virtual. But then how do you know who is good? Unfortunately often the worst guide can be to find out the experience level of the writer. Some of the best DBAs are frighteningly young, and some got their start back when databases were stored on stacks of paper with little holes in it. As a programmer, is it really so hard to understand normalization? Set based theory? Query optimization? Indexing and performance tuning? The biggest barrier often is previous knowledge, particularly programming skills cultivated before you get started with SQL. In the world of technology, it is pretty rare that a fresh programmer will gravitate to database programming. Database programming is very unsexy work, because without a UI all you have are a bunch of text strings that you could never impress anyone with. Newbies spend most of their time building UIs or apps with procedural code in C# or VB scoring obvious interesting wins. Making matters worse is that SQL programming requires mastery of a much different toolset than most any mainstream programming skill. Instead of controlling everything yourself, most of the really difficult work is done by the internals of the engine (written by other non-relational programmers…we just can’t get away from them.) So is there a golden road to achieving a high skill level? Sadly, with tennis, I am pretty sure I’ll never discover it. However, with programming it seems to boil down to practice in applying the appropriate techniques for whatever type of programming you are doing. Can a C# programmer build a great database? As long as they don’t treat SQL like C#, absolutely. Same goes for a DBA writing C# code. None of this stuff is rocket science, as long as you learn to understand that different types of programming require different skill sets and you as a programmer must recognize the difference between one of the procedural languages and SQL and treat them differently. Skill comes from practicing doing things the right way and making “right” a habit.

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• Windows Phone 8 Launch Event Summary

  - by Tim Murphy

  Today was the official coming out party for Windows Phone 8.  Below is a summary of the launch event.  There is a lot here to stay with me. They started with a commercial staring Joe Belfiore show how his Windows Phone 8 was personal too him which highlights something I think Microsoft has done well over the last couple of event: spotlight how Windows Phone is a different experience from other smartphones.  Joe actually called iPhone and Android “tired old metaphors" and explained that the idea around Windows Phone was to “reinvent the smartphone around you” as “the most personal smartphone operating system”.  The is the message that they need to drive home in their adds. The only real technical aspect we found out was that they have optimized the operating system around the dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon chip set.  It seems like all of the other hardware goodies had already been announced.  The remainder of the event was centered around new features of the OS and app announcements. So what are we getting?  The integrated features included lock screen live tile, Data Sense, Rooms and Kids corner.  There wasn’t a lot of information about it, but Joe also talked about apps not just having live tiles, but being live apps that could integrate with wallet and the hub. The lock screen will now be able to be personalized with live tile data or even a photo slide show.  This gives the lock screen an even better ability to give you the information you want to know before you even unlock the phone. The Kids Corner allows you as a parent to setup an area on your phone that you kids can go into an use it without disturbing your apps.  They can play games or use apps that you have designated and will only see those apps.  It even has a special lock screen gesture just for the kids corner. Rooms allow you to organize your phone around the groups of people in your life.  You get a shared calendar, a room wall as well as shared notes beyond just being able to send messages to a group.  You can also invite people not on the Windows Phone platform to access an online version of the room. Data Sense is a new feature that gives you better control and understanding of your data plan usage.  You can see which applications are using data and it can automatically adjust they way your phone behaves as you get close to your data limit. Add to these features the fact that the entire Windows ecosystem is integrated with SkyDrive and you have an available anywhere experience that is unequaled by any other platform.  Your document, photos and music are available on your Windows Phone, Window 8 device and Xbox.  SkyDrive also doesn’t limit how long you can keep files like the competing cloud platforms and give more free storage. It was interesting the way they made the launch event more personal.  First Joe brought out his own kids to demo the Kids Corner.  They followed this up by bringing out Jessica Alba to discuss her experience on the Windows Phone 8.  They need to keep putting a face on the product instead of just showing features as a cold list. Then we get to apps.  We knew that the new Skype was coming, but we found out that it was created in such a way that it can receive calls without running consistently in the background which would eat up battery.  This announcement was follow by the coming Facebook app that is optimized for Windows Phone 8.  As a matter of fact they indicated that just after launch the marketplace would have 46 out of the top 50 apps used by all smartphone platforms.  In a rational world this tide with over 120,000 apps currently in the marketplace there should be no more argument about the Windows Phone ecosystem. For those of us who develop for Windows Phone and weren’t on the early adoption program will finally get access to the SDK tomorrow after an announcement at Build (more waiting).  Perhaps we will get a few new features then. In the end I wouldn’t say there were any huge surprises, but I am really excited about getting my hands on the devices next month and starting to develop.  Stay tuned. del.icio.us Tags: Windows Phone,Windows Phone 8,Winodws Phone 8 Launch,Joe Belfiore,Jessica Alba

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• Windows 8/Surface Lunch Event Summary

  - by Tim Murphy

  Today was a big day for Microsoft with two separate launch event.  The first for Windows 8 and all of it’s hardware partners.  The second was specifically to introduce the Microsoft Windows 8 Surface tablet.  Below are some of the take-aways I got from the webcasts. Windows 8 Launch The three general area that Microsoft focused on were the release of the OS itself, the public unveiling of the Windows Store and the new devices available from its hardware partners. The release of the OS focused on the fact that it will be available at mid-night tonight for both new PCs and for upgrades.  I can’t say that this interested me that much since it was already known to most people.  I think what they did show well was how easy the OS really is to use. The Windows Store is also not a new feature to those of us who have been running the pre-release versions of Windows 8 or have owned Windows Phone 7 for the past 2 years.  What was interesting is that the Windows Store launches with more apps available than any other platforms store at their respective launch.  I think this says a lot about how Microsoft focuses on the ability of developers to create software and make it available.  The of course were sure to emphasize that the Windows Store has better monetary terms for developers than its competitors. The also showed off the fact that XBox Music streaming is available for to all Windows 8 user for free.  Couple this with the Bing suite of apps that give you news, weather, sports and finance right out of the box and I think most people will find the environment a joy to use. I think the hardware demo, while quick and furious, really show where Windows shine: CHOICE!  They made a statement that over 1000 devices have been certified for Windows 8.  They showed tablets, laptops, desktops, all-in-ones and convertibles.  Since these devices have industry standard connectors they give a much wider variety of accessories and devices that you can use with them. Steve Balmer then came on stage and tried to see how many times he could use the “magical”.  He focused on how the Windows 8 OS is designed to integrate with SkyDrive, Skype and Outlook.com.  He also enforced that they think Windows 8 is the best choice for the Enterprise when it comes to protecting data and integrating across devices including Windows Phone 8. With that we were left to wait for the second event of the day. Surface Launch The second event of the day started with kids with magnets.  Ok, they were adults, but who doesn’t like playing with magnets.  Steven Sinofsky detached and reattached the Surface keyboard repeatedly, clearly enjoying himself.  It turns out that there are 4 magnets in the cover, 2 for alignment and 2 as connectors. They then went to giving us the details on the display.  The 10.6” display is optically bonded to the case and is optimized to reduce glare.  I think this came through very well in the demonstrations. The properties of the case were also a great selling point.  The VaporMg allowed them to drop the device on stage, on purpose, and continue working.  Of course they had to bring out the skate boards made from Surface devices. “It just has to feel right” was the reason they gave for many of their design decisions from the weight and size of the device to the way the kickstand and camera work together.  While this gave you the feeling that the whole process was trial and error you could tell that a lot of science went into the specs.  This included making sure that the magnets were strong enough to hold the cover on and still have a 3 year old remove the cover without effort. I am glad that they also decided the a USB port would be part of the spec since it give so many options.  They made the point that this allows Surface to leverage over 420 million existing devices.  That works for me. The last feature that I really thought was important was the microSD port.  Begin stuck with the onboard memory has been an aggravation of mine with many of the devices in the market today. I think they did job of really getting the audience to understand why you want this platform and this particular device.  Using personal examples like creating a video of a birthday party and being in it or the fact that the device was being used to live blog the event and control the lights and presentation.  They showed very well that it was not only fun but very capable of getting real work done.  Handing out tablets to the crowd didn’t hurt either.  In the end I really wanted a Surface even though I really have no need for one on a daily basis.  Great job Microsoft! del.icio.us Tags: Windows 8,Win8,Windows 8 Luanch

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• What do you need to know to be a world-class master software developer? [closed]

  - by glitch

  I wanted to bring up this question to you folks and see what you think, hopefully advise me on the matter: let's say you had 30 years of learning and practicing software development in front of you, how would you dedicate your time so that you'd get the biggest bang for your buck. What would you both learn and work on to be a world-class software developer that would make a large impact on the industry and leave behind a legacy? I think that most great developers end up being both broad generalists and specialists in one-two areas of interest. I'm thinking Bill Joy, John Carmack, Linus Torvalds, K&R and so on. I'm thinking that perhaps one approach would be to break things down by categories and establish a base minimum of "software development" greatness. I'm thinking: Operating Systems: completely internalize the core concepts of OS, perhaps gain a lot of familiarity with an OSS one such as Linux. Anything from memory management to device drivers has to be complete second nature. Programming Languages: this is one of those topics that imho has to be fully grokked even if it might take many years. I don't think there's quite anything like going through the process of developing your own compiler, understanding language design trade-offs and so on. Programming Language Pragmatics is one of my favorite books actually, I think you want to have that internalized back to back, and that's just the start. You could go significantly deeper, but I think it's time well spent, because it's such a crucial building block. As a subset of that, you want to really understand the different programming paradigms out there. Imperative, declarative, logic, functional and so on. Anything from assembly to LISP should be at the very least comfortable to write in. Contexts: I believe one should have experience working in different contexts to truly be able to appreciate the trade-offs that are being made every day. Embedded, web development, mobile development, UX development, distributed, cloud computing and so on. Hardware: I'm somewhat conflicted about this one. I think you want some understanding of computer architecture at a low level, but I feel like the concepts that will truly matter will be slightly higher level, such as CPU caching / memory hierarchy, ILP, and so on. Networking: we live in a completely network-dependent era. Having a good understanding of the OSI model, knowing how the Web works, how HTTP works and so on is pretty much a pre-requisite these days. Distributed systems: once again, everything's distributed these days, it's getting progressively harder to ignore this reality. Slightly related, perhaps add solid understanding of how browsers work to that, since the world seems to be moving so much to interfacing with everything through a browser. Tools: Have a really broad toolset that you're familiar with, one that continuously expands throughout the years. Communication: I think being a great writer, effective communicator and a phenomenal team player is pretty much a prerequisite for a lot of a software developer's greatness. It can't be overstated. Software engineering: understanding the process of building software, team dynamics, the requirements of the business-side, all the pitfalls. You want to deeply understand where what you're writing fits from the market perspective. The better you understand all of this, the more of your work will actually see the daylight. This is really just a starting list, I'm confident that there's a ton of other material that you need to master. As I mentioned, you most likely end up specializing in a bunch of these areas as you go along, but I was trying to come up with a baseline. Any thoughts, suggestions and words of wisdom from the grizzled veterans out there who would like to share their thoughts and experiences with this? I'd really love to know what you think!

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