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• Live Debugging

  - by Daniel Moth

  Based on my classification of diagnostics, you should know what live debugging is NOT about - at least according to me :-) and in this post I'll share how I think of live debugging. These are the (outer) steps to live debugging Get the debugger in the picture. Control program execution. Inspect state. Iterate between 2 and 3 as necessary. Stop debugging (and potentially start new iteration going back to step 1). Step 1 has two options: start with the debugger attached, or execute your binary separately and attach the debugger later. You might say there is a 3rd option, where the app notifies you that there is an issue, referred to as JIT debugging. However, that is just a variation of the attach because that is when you start the debugging session: when you attach. I'll be covering in future posts how this step works in Visual Studio. Step 2 is about pausing (or breaking) your app so that it makes no progress and remains "frozen". A sub-variation is to pause only parts of its execution, or in other words to freeze individual threads. I'll be covering in future posts the various ways you can perform this step in Visual Studio. Step 3, is about seeing what the state of your program is when you have paused it. Typically it involves comparing the state you are finding, with a mental picture of what you thought the state would be. Or simply checking invariants about the intended state of the app, with the actual state of the app. I'll be covering in future posts the various ways you can perform this step in Visual Studio. Step 4 is necessary if you need to inspect more state - rinse and repeat. Self-explanatory, and will be covered as part of steps 2 & 3. Step 5 is the most straightforward, with 3 options: Detach the debugger; terminate your binary though the normal way that it terminates (e.g. close the main window); and, terminate the debugging session through your debugger with a result that it terminates the execution of your program too. In a future post I'll cover the ways you can detach or terminate the debugger in Visual Studio. I found an old picture I used to use to map the steps above on Visual Studio 2010. It is basically the Debug menu with colored rectangles around each menu mapping the menu to one of the first 3 steps (step 5 was merged with step 1 for that slide). Here it is in case it helps: Stay tuned for more... Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

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• The secret anti-spam checkbox in BlogEngine.net?

  - by Latest Microsoft Blogs

  I’ve been under a bit of a spam deluge recently here on my blog.  I have to hand it to those spammers, their comments are getting more human-like everyday, with their text relating directly to the post in question. Before today I’ve tried some options Read More......(read more)

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• IE9 Beta

  - by Daniel Moth

  I've been using Internet Explorer 8 since the early pre-release bits, but I never tried IE9 until today – the day the Beta is available. I downloaded it from here: http://www.beautyoftheweb.com/ The download took longer than what I expected, but I was doing other stuff, so no bother. After coming down, it asked me to reboot my computer. Really hate when apps do that, but I did it anyway. The first time I launched it, it prompted me with a list of add-ons I should disable including the start-up time that I could save fore each one. It even let me configure the prompt so, for example, it won't prompt me again unless an add-on contributes to more than 1 second of the startup time. Cool. First thing I noticed is that the search bar had gone and, as you'd expect, you have to search from the address box. I totally despise this feature. The first thing I've been doing with all versions of IE is to turn off the automatic searching from the address bar and now I have no way of searching if I do that. Ridiculous. The second thing I notice is that the tabs are next to the address bar and cannot be moved to go below it. One word for that decision: appalling (and, no, I didn't accidentally drop an 'e' and added an 'l' in the previous word). The third thing I notice to the right is the favorites button (star icon) and when I click on it, it brings up the favorites explorer under it on the right; then I pin the explorer and it jumps to the left(!). Why move the entry point to this feature to the right instead of leaving it on the left is beyond me (other than wanting to retrain me on what I've been used to for all this time), but the fact that pinning it makes it jump sides is… an "astonishing" design decision. As I browse I notice a little annoying pop up in the bottom left every time I hover over a link; there is no status bar. I correctly guessed to right click at the top and turn on the status bar (which also got rid of the popup thereafter) and while I am at it, I bring back my favorites bar which was hidden by default (and am pleased to see that all my favorites are still there). The next thing I notice, I like: IE9 is fast. No joke, I visit sites and they seem to be loading visibly much faster – try it! Beyond the speed, I am interested to find out what else is new. I searched and found a few good links: What's new in Internet Explorer 9 Internet Explorer 9 Features (check out the links under "Clean") Top Features If you are a developer, check out IE's msdn home for many articles, e.g. this section on Canvas and SVG. Either way: wherever you are, get IE9 Beta now and judge for yourself. If you don't like it, you can always uninstall (which auto-restores the previous version). Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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• A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune) [Super Retro Classic Sci-Fi Video]

  - by Asian Angel

  If you are into retro sci-fi movies, then you will definitely want to have a look at this French classic from 1902. This silent movie is only 10.5 minutes long, but is well worth watching and makes for a fun romp through the early days of sci-fi. From YouTube: A Trip to the Moon (French: Le Voyage dans la lune) is a 1902 French black and white silent science fiction film. It is loosely based on two popular novels of the time: From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne and The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells. The film was written and directed by Georges Melies, assisted by his brother Gaston. The film runs 14 minutes if projected at 16 frames per second, which was the standard frame rate at the time the film was produced. It was extremely popular at the time of its release and is the best-known of the hundreds of fantasy films made by Melies. A Trip to the Moon is the first science fiction film, and utilizes innovative animation and special effects, including the iconic shot of the rocketship landing in the Moon’s eye. A Trip to the Moon / Le Voyage dans la lune – 1902 [via 20 best designs in sci-fi movies - Page 3 (Creative Bloq)] How to Use an Xbox 360 Controller On Your Windows PC Download the Official How-To Geek Trivia App for Windows 8 How to Banish Duplicate Photos with VisiPic

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• Dynamic Environment Creation

  - by Jack

  I was wondering, I'm thinking on a more small-scale, abstracted level, but how does one create a dynamic environment a la Minecraft? In specific, I'm thinking of the world as a 3 dimensional array of block objects, how is it made so that large features such as oceans are created? The language isn't important, I'm thinking on a conceptual level, but if it helps, I use C# or C++. Thanks for any help!

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• What changes were made to a document

  - by Daniel Moth

  Part of my job is writing functional specs. Due to the inevitable iterative and incremental nature of software design/development, these specs need to be updated with additions/deletions/changes over a period of time. When the time comes for a developer to implement features or update their design document (or a tester to test the feature or update their test specs) they need to be doing that against the latest spec. The problem is that if they have reviewed this document already, they need a quick way to find the delta from the last time they reviewed it to see what changes exist and how their existing plans may be affected (instead of having to read the entire document again). Doing that is very easy assuming your Word documents are hosted on SharePoint. 1. Every time you review a document note the SharePoint version and/or date (if it is a printed copy, make sure your printout includes the date in the footer – all my specs do) 2. When you need to see what changed, open the document (make sure you are not using a cached or local offline copy) and on the ribbon go to the "Review" tab and then  click on the "Compare" button. 3. Click on the "Specific Version…" option. In the dialog that pops up pick the last version you reviewed and click the "Compare" button. [TIP for authors: before checkin of your document, always compare against the "Last Version" on the SharePoint so you can add appropriate more complete check in comments] 4. What you see now is that in addition to the document you have open, two other documents just opened up. One is in the background (flashing on your task bar) – close that one as it is the old version. 5. The other document is in the foreground and contains all the changes between the old version and the latest one. Be sure not to make edits to this document, use it only for reading the changes. To find all the changes, on the ribbon under the "Review" tab, click on the "Reviewing Pane" to open the reviewing pane on the left. You can now click on each pink change to see what it is. 6. When you are done reviewing changes close the document and don't save any changes (remember if you want to make edits/additions/comments make them in the original document which is still open). And now I have a URL to point to people that keep asking about this – enjoy  :-) Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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• The Fantastic 4 Meets the Moleman, Parts 1 and 2 [Classic Radio Show from 1975]

  - by Asian Angel

  Are you ready for a Marvel super hero blast from the past? Then sit back and get ready to enjoy twenty-two minutes of classic radio show goodness from 1975 as the Fantastic 4 meets the Moleman! Special Note: Bill Murray plays the part of the Human Torch in this two part episode. You can enjoy more of these classic Fantastic 4 radio episodes by visiting the videos search query page linked below: Fantastic 4 Radio Shows – MrWaltherppk1 [YouTube] HTG Explains: What Is Windows RT and What Does It Mean To Me? HTG Explains: How Windows 8′s Secure Boot Feature Works & What It Means for Linux Hack Your Kindle for Easy Font Customization

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• Growing Plants that have been Exposed to Lunar Soil [Video]

  - by Asian Angel

  Lunar soil was brought back to Earth during the days of NASA’s Apollo program and scientists eagerly started conducting experiments with it. This short video discusses some of the research and results when plants from Earth were exposed to soil from the Moon. You can read more about these experiments by visiting the blog post linked below. The blog post also contains additional links related to the research. Gardening on the Moon [BoingBoing] Growing Plants in Moon Dirt [YouTube] HTG Explains: What Is Two-Factor Authentication and Should I Be Using It? HTG Explains: What Is Windows RT and What Does It Mean To Me? HTG Explains: How Windows 8′s Secure Boot Feature Works & What It Means for Linux

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• Should I use procedural animation?

  - by user712092

  I have started to make a fantasy 3d fps swordplay game and I want to add animations. I don't want to animate everything by hand because it would take a lot of time, so I decided to use procedural animation. I would certainly use IK (starting with simple reaching an object with hand ...). I also assume procedural generation of animations will make less animations to do by hand (I can blend animations ...). I want also to have a planner for animation which would simplify complex animations; those which can be split to a sequence - run and then jump, jump and then roll - or which are separable - legs running and torso swinging with sword -. I want for example a character to chop a head of a big troll. If troll crouches character would just chop his head off, if it is standing he would climb on a troll. I know that I would have to describe the state ("troll is low", "troll is high", "chop troll head" ..) which would imply what regions animation will be in (if there is a gap between them character would jump), which would imply what places character can have some of legs and hands or would choose an predefined animation. My main goal is simplicity of coding, but I want my game to be looking cool also. Is it worthy to use procedural animation or does it make more troubles that it solves? (there can be lot of twiddling ...) I am using Blender Game Engine (therefore Python for scripting, and Bullet Physics).

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• Why You never see a Sonic Screwdriver in Action Movies [Video]

  - by Asian Angel

  This video takes a humorous look at why you never see a sonic screwdriver in all those action movies. After all, having one would just ruin all of the ‘fun’ for everyone! Note: Video contains some language that may be considered inappropriate. Sonic Screwdriver [via Geeks are Sexy] How to See What Web Sites Your Computer is Secretly Connecting To HTG Explains: When Do You Need to Update Your Drivers? How to Make the Kindle Fire Silk Browser *Actually* Fast!

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• Make Your Own Paper-Craft Enigma Machine [DIY Project]

  - by Asian Angel

  If you love tinkering around with ciphers and want a fun DIY project for the upcoming weekend, then we have just the thing for you. Using common household items you can construct your own personal Enigma machine that will be completely compatible with all the settings of a real Enigma machine (models I, M1, M2 and M3). Visit the second link below for the step-by-step instructions and enjoy putting together this awesome DIY project! PDF Templates for the Enigma Machine Note: This is a direct link for the PDF file itself and the templates are sized for printing on 2 A4 sheets of paper. Enigma/Paper Enigma Instruction Homepage [via BoingBoing] HTG Explains: What Is RSS and How Can I Benefit From Using It? HTG Explains: Why You Only Have to Wipe a Disk Once to Erase It HTG Explains: Learn How Websites Are Tracking You Online

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• Procedural terrains in 3D: what has been done ? Are there common algo and/or theories about it ?

  - by jokoon

  Besides programming, modeling an environment takes a great deal of time. I don't know about the work time involved, for example, in a WoW dungeon level, or other beautiful city-like, future environment, jungles, fantasy, etc, but this kind of work is made from scratch by artists. What are the techniques involved in the TorchLight level randomizer, and does other titles have similarities with this ? Is there a family name for such techniques ?

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• Fair dice over network w/o trusted 3rd party

  - by Kay

  Though it should be a pretty basic problem, I did not find a solution for it: How to play dice over a network without a trusted third party? The M players shall roll N dice, one player after another. No player may "cheat", i.e. change the outcome to his advantage, or "look into the future" before the next roll. Is that possible? I guess the solution would be something like public key crypto, where each player turns in an encrypted message. After all messages were collected you exchange the keys to decode the messages. Then the sha1(joined string of all decrypted messages) mod 6 + 1 is used to determine the die. The major problem I have: since the message [c/s]hould be anything, I don't know how to prevent tampering with the private keys. Esp. the last player to turn in his key could easily cheat (I guess). The game should even stay fair, if all players "conspire" against one player.

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• Visit the Museum of Endangered Sounds for a Bit of Nostalgic Sound-Based Fun

  - by Asian Angel

  Are you ready for a trip down memory lane? Then you will definitely want to visit the Museum of Endangered Sounds where you can have fun listening to the classic sounds of yesteryear! Enjoy listening to the sound of dial-up, the login sound of Windows 95, that classic Nokia ringtone, and more at the Museum. Click on a picture to play the sound, then click on the picture again to stop it. The sounds will continue to play until you click on the chosen picture… Museum of Endangered Sounds [via Neatorama] Browse on over to another of our ETC posts for more nostalgic sound fun: Hack Your Kindle for Easy Font Customization HTG Explains: What Is RSS and How Can I Benefit From Using It? HTG Explains: Why You Only Have to Wipe a Disk Once to Erase It

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• Games for the Brain [Brain Teasers Game Site]

  - by Asian Angel

  Are you looking for a great collection of fun games to play at work or home? Then the ‘Games for the Brain’ website is definitely worth bookmarking in your favorite browser! This terrific collection of brain teasers is the perfect way to relax, have fun, and each one only take a few minutes to complete (if you are pressed for time). Games for the Brain Game Homepage [via StumbleUpon] 8 Deadly Commands You Should Never Run on Linux 14 Special Google Searches That Show Instant Answers How To Create a Customized Windows 7 Installation Disc With Integrated Updates

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• Having troubles with LibNoise.XNA and generating tileable maps

  - by Jon

  Following up on my previous post, I found a wonderful port of LibNoise for XNA. I've been working with it for about 8 hours straight and I'm tearing my hair out - I just can not get maps to tile, I can't figure out how to do this. Here's my attempt: Perlin perlin = new Perlin(1.2, 1.95, 0.56, 12, 2353, QualityMode.Medium); RiggedMultifractal rigged = new RiggedMultifractal(); Add add = new Add(perlin, rigged); // Initialize the noise map int mapSize = 64; this.m_noiseMap = new Noise2D(mapSize, perlin); //this.m_noiseMap.GeneratePlanar(0, 1, -1, 1); // Generate the textures this.m_noiseMap.GeneratePlanar(-1,1,-1,1); this.m_textures[0] = this.m_noiseMap.GetTexture(this.graphics.GraphicsDevice, Gradient.Grayscale); this.m_noiseMap.GeneratePlanar(mapSize, mapSize * 2, mapSize, mapSize * 2); this.m_textures[1] = this.m_noiseMap.GetTexture(this.graphics.GraphicsDevice, Gradient.Grayscale); this.m_noiseMap.GeneratePlanar(-1, 1, -1, 1); this.m_textures[2] = this.m_noiseMap.GetTexture(this.graphics.GraphicsDevice, Gradient.Grayscale); The first and third ones generate fine, they create a perlin noise map - however the middle one, which I wanted to be a continuation of the first (As per my original post), is just a bunch of static. How exactly do I get this to generate maps that connect to each other, by entering in the mapsize * tile, using the same seed, settings, etc.?

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• Alternative to NV Occlusion Query - getting the number of fragments which passed the depth test

  - by Etan

  In "modern" environments, the "NV Occlusion Query" extension provide a method to get the number of fragments which passed the depth test. However, on the iPad / iPhone using OpenGL ES, the extension is not available. What is the most performant approach to implement a similar behaviour in the fragment shader? Some of my ideas: Render the object completely in white, then count all the colors together using a two-pass shader where first a vertical line is rendered and for each fragment the shader computes the sum over the whole row. Then, a single vertex is rendered whose fragment sums all the partial sums of the first pass. Doesn't seem to be very efficient. Render the object completely in white over a black background. Downsample recursively, abusing the hardware linear interpolation between textures until being at a reasonably small resolution. This leads to fragments which have a greyscale level depending on the number of white pixels where in their corresponding region. Is this even accurate enough? ... ?

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• Motion Sickness – What is It? [Video]

  - by Asian Angel

  Experiencing motion sickness is unpleasant and frustrating, but have you ever wondered what causes you to feel it? This video from AsapSCIENCE explains what causes you to feel motion sickness and shows some ‘events’ you might avoid that can trigger it… Motion Sickness – What is it? [via Neatorama] 8 Deadly Commands You Should Never Run on Linux 14 Special Google Searches That Show Instant Answers How To Create a Customized Windows 7 Installation Disc With Integrated Updates

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• How do history generation algorithms work?

  - by Bane

  I heard of the game Dwarf Fortress, but only now one of the people I follow on Youtube made a commentary on it... I was more than surprised when I noticed how Dwarf Fortress actually generates a history for the world! Now, how do these algorithms work? What do they usually take as input, except the length of the simulation? How specific can they be? And more importantly; can they be made in Javascript, or is Javascript too slow? (I guess this depends on the depth of the simulation, but take Dwarf Fortress as an example.)

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• Hash Algorithm Randomness Visualization

  - by clstroud

  I'm curious if anyone here has any idea how the images were generated as shown in this response: Which hashing algorithm is best for uniqueness and speed? Ian posted a very well-received response but I can't seem to understand how he went about making the images. I hate to make a new question dedicated to this, but I can't find any means to ask him more directly. On the other hand, perhaps someone has an alternative perspective. The best I can personally come up with would be to have it almost like a bar graph, which would illustrate how evenly the buckets of the hash table are being generated. I have a working Cocoa program that does this, but it can't generate anything like what he showed there. So the question is two fold I suppose: A) How does one truly interpret the data he shows? Is it more than "less whitespace = better"? B) How does one generate such an image based on some set of inputs, a hash, and an index? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding entirely, but I really would like to know more about this particular visualization technique. Or maybe I'm mis-applying this to hash tables rather than just hashes in general, but in that case I don't know how it would be "bounded" for the image.

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• Is there a (family of) monotonically non-decreasing noise function(s)?

  - by Joe Wreschnig

  I'd like a function to animate an object moving from point A to point B over time, such that it reaches B at some fixed time, but its position at any time is randomly perturbed in a continuous fashion, but never goes backwards. The objects move along straight lines, so I only need one dimension. Mathematically, that means I'm looking for some continuous f(x), x ? [0,1], such that: f(0) = 0 f(1) = 1 x < y ? f(x) = f(y) At "most" points f(x + d) - f(x) bears no obvious relation to d. (The function is not uniformly increasing or otherwise predictable; I think that's also equivalent to saying no degree of derivative is a constant.) Ideally, I would actually like some way to have a family of these functions, providing some seed state. I'd need at least 4 bits of seed (16 possible functions), for my current use, but since that's not much feel free to provide even more. To avoid various issues with accumulation errors, I'd prefer the function not require any kind of internal state. That is, I want it to be a real function, not a programming "function".

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• How Would a Single Laptop Affect the Past? [Infographic Comic]

  - by Asian Angel

  What kind of impact could a single laptop have if it were introduced to people during key periods in Western history? This infographic comic provides some speculation on what the results could be like… View the Full-Size Version Crave asks: How would you change the past with a laptop? [CNET - Crave] The HTG Guide to Hiding Your Data in a TrueCrypt Hidden Volume Make Your Own Windows 8 Start Button with Zero Memory Usage Reader Request: How To Repair Blurry Photos

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• The Internet – Then and Now (1996 versus 2011) [Infographic]

  - by Asian Angel

  Use the link below to view the entire infographic. Keep in mind that it may take a few moments for it to load due to its large size. True Hollywood Story: Bipeds and the World Wide Web [infographic] [via TinyHacker] How to See What Web Sites Your Computer is Secretly Connecting To HTG Explains: When Do You Need to Update Your Drivers? How to Make the Kindle Fire Silk Browser *Actually* Fast!

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• How to divide hex grid evenly among n players?

  - by manabreak

  I'm making a simple hex-based game, and I want the map to be divided evenly among the players. The map is created randomly, and I want the players to have about equal amount of cells, with relatively small areas. For example, if there's four players and 80 cells in the map, each of the players would have about 20 cells (it doesn't have to be spot-on accurate). Also, each player should have no more than four adjacent cells. That is to say, when the map is generated, the biggest "chunks" cannot be more than four cells each. I know this is not always possible for two or three players (as this resembles the "coloring the map" problem), and I'm OK with doing other solutions for those (like creating maps that solve the problem instead). But, for four to eight players, how could I approach this problem? As always, any and all help is appreciated. :)

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• Camera placement sphere for an always fully visible object

  - by BengtR

  Given an object: With the bounds [x, y, z, width, height, depth] And an orthographic projection [left, right, bottom, top, near, far] I want to determine the radius of a sphere which allows me to randomly place my camera on so that: The object is fully visible from all positions on this sphere The sphere radius is the smallest possible value while still satisfying 1. Assume the object is centered around the origin. How can I find this radius? I'm currently using sqrt(width^2 + height^2 + depth^2) but I'm not sure that's the correct value, as it doesn't take the camera into account. Thanks for any advice. I'm sorry for confusing a few things here. My comments below should clarify what I'm trying to do actually.

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