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  • Looking Back at MIX10

    - by WeigeltRo
    It’s the sad truth of my life that even though I’m fascinated by airplanes and flight in general since my childhood days, my body doesn’t like flying. Even the ridiculously short flights inside Germany are taking their toll on me each time. Now combine this with sitting in the cramped space of economy class for many hours on a transatlantic flight from Germany to Las Vegas and back, and factor in some heavy dose of jet lag (especially on my way eastwards), and you get an idea why after coming back home I had this question on my mind: Was it really worth it to attend MIX10? This of course is a question that will also be asked by my boss at Comma Soft (for other reasons, obviously), who decided to send me and my colleague Jens Schaller, to the MIX10 conference. (A note to my German readers: An dieser Stelle der Hinweis, dass Comma Soft noch Silverlight-Entwickler und/oder UI-Designer für den Standort Bonn sucht – aussagekräftige Bewerbungen bitte an [email protected]) Too keep things short: My answer is yes. Before I’ll go into detail, let me ask the heretical questions whether tech conferences in general still make sense. There was a time, where actually being at a tech conference gave you a head-start in regard to learning about new technologies. Nowadays this is no longer true, where every bit of information and every detail is immediately twittered, blogged and whatevered to death. In the case of MIX10 you even can download the video-taped sessions shortly after. So: Does visiting a conference still make sense? It depends on what you expect from a conference. It should be clear to everybody that you’ll neither get exclusive information, nor receive training in a small group. What a conference does offer that sitting in front of your computer does not can be summarized as follows: Focus Being away from work and home will help you to focus on the presented information. Of course there are always the poor guys who are haunted by their work (with mails and short text messages reporting the latest showstopper problem), but in general being out of your office makes a huge difference. Inspiration With the focus comes the emotional involvement. I find it much easier to absorb information if I feel that certain vibe when sitting in a session. This still means that I have put work into reviewing the information later, but it’s a better starting point. And all the impressions collected at a (good) conference combined lead to a higher motivation – be it by the buzz (“this is gonna be sooo cool!”) or by the fear to fall behind (“man, we’ll have work on this, or else…”). People At a conference it’s pretty easy to get into contact with other people during breakfast, lunch and other breaks. This is a good opportunity to get a feel for what other development teams are doing (on a very general level of course, nobody will tell you about their secret formula) and what they are thinking about specific technologies. So MIX10 did offer focus, inspiration and people, but that would have meant nothing without valuable content. When I (being a frontend developer with a strong interest in UI/UX) planned my visit to MIX10, I made the decision to focus on the "soft" topics of design, interaction and user experience. I figured that I would be bombarded with all the technical details about Silverlight 4 anyway in the weeks and months to come. Actually, I would have liked to catch a few technical sessions, but the agenda wasn’t exactly in favor of people interested in any kind of Silverlight and UI/UX/Design topics. That’s one of my few complaints about the conference – I would have liked one more day and/or more sessions per day. Overall, the quality of the workshops and sessions was pretty high. In fact, looking back at my collection of conferences I’ve visited in the past I’d say that MIX10 ranks somewhere near the top spot. Here’s an overview of the workshops/sessions I attended (I’ll leave out the keynotes): Day 0 (Workshops on Sunday) Design Fundamentals for Developers Robby Ingebretsen is the man! Great workshop in three parts with the perfect mix of examples, well-structured definition of terminology and the right dose of humor. Robby was part of the WPF team before founding his own company so he not only has a strong interest in design (and the skillz!) but also the technical background.   Design Tools and Techniques Originally announced to be held by Arturo Toledo, the Rosso brothers from ArcheType filled in for the first two parts, and Corrina Black had a pretty general part about the Windows Phone UI. The first two thirds were a mixed bag; the two guys definitely knew what they were talking about, and the demos were great, but the talk lacked the preparation and polish of a truly great presentation. Corrina was not allowed to go into too much detail before the keynote on Monday, but the session was still very interesting as it showed how much thought went into the Windows Phone UI (and there’s always a lot to learn when people talk about their thought process). Day 1 (Monday) Designing Rich Experiences for Data-Centric Applications I wonder whether there was ever a test-run for this session, but what Ken Azuma and Yoshihiro Saito delivered in the first 15 minutes of a 30-minutes-session made me walk out. A commercial for a product (just great: a video showing a SharePoint plug-in in an all-Japanese UI) combined with the most generic blah blah one could imagine. EPIC FAIL.   Great User Experiences: Seamlessly Blending Technology & Design I switched to this session from the one above but I guess I missed the interesting part – what I did catch was what looked like a “look at the cool stuff we did” without being helpful. Or maybe I was just in a bad mood after the other session.   The Art, Technology and Science of Reading This talk by Kevin Larson was very interesting, but was more a presentation of what Microsoft is doing in research (pretty impressive) and in the end lacked a bit the helpful advice one could have hoped for.   10 Ways to Attack a Design Problem and Come Out Winning Robby Ingebretsen again, and again a great mix of theory and practice. The clean and simple, yet effective, UI of the reader app resulted in a simultaneous “wow” of Jens and me. If you’d watch only one session video, this should be it. Microsoft has to bring Robby back next year! Day 2 (Tuesday) Touch in Public: Multi-touch Interaction Design for Kiosks & Architectural Experiences Very interesting session by Jason Brush, a great inspiration with many details to look out for in the examples. Exactly what I was hoping for – and then some!   Designing Bing: Heart and Science How hard can it be to design the UI for a search engine? An input field and a list of results, that should be it, right? Well, not so fast! The talk by Paul Ray showed the many iterations to finally get it right (up to the choice of a specific blue for the links). And yes, I want an eye-tracking device to play around with!   The Elephant in the Room When Nishant Kothary presented a long list of what his session was not about, I told to myself (not having the description text present) “Am I in the wrong talk? Should I leave?”. Boy, was I wrong. A great talk about human factors in the process of designing stuff.   An Hour with Bill Buxton Having seen Bill Buxton’s presentation in the keynote, I just had to see this man again – even though I didn’t know what to expect. Being more or less unplanned and intended to be more of a conversation, the session didn’t provide a wealth of immediately useful information. Nevertheless Bill Buxton was impressive with his huge knowledge of seemingly everything. But this could/should have been a session some when in the evening and not in parallel to at least two other interesting talks. Day 3 (Wednesday) Design the Ordinary, Like the Fixie This session by DL Byron and Kevin Tamura started really well and brought across the message to keep things simple. But towards the end the talk lost some of its steam. And, as a member of the audience pointed out, they kind of ignored their own advice when they used a fancy presentation software other then PowerPoint that sometimes got in the way of showing things.   Developing Natural User Interfaces Speaking of alternative presentation software, Joshua Blake definitely had the most remarkable alternative to PowerPoint, a self-written program called NaturalShow that was controlled using multi-touch on a touch screen. Not a PowerPoint-killer, but impressive nevertheless. The (excellent) talk itself was kind of eye-opening in regard to what “multi-touch support” on various platforms (WPF, Silverlight, Windows Phone) actually means.   Treat your Content Right The talk by Tiffani Jones Brown wasn’t even on my planned schedule, but somehow I ended up in that session – and it was great. And even for people who don’t necessarily have to write content for websites, some points made by Tiffani are valid in many places, notably wherever you put texts with more than a single word into your UI. Creating Effective Info Viz in Microsoft Silverlight The last session of MIX10 I attended was kind of disappointing. At first things were very promising, with Matthias Shapiro giving a brief but well-structured introduction to info graphics and interactive visualizations. Then the live-coding began and while the result was interesting, too much time was spend on wrestling to get the code working. Ending earlier than planned, the talk was a bit light on actual content, but at least it included a nice list of resources. Conclusion It could be felt all across MIX10, UIs will take a huge leap forward; in fact, there are enough examples that have already. People who both have the technical know-how and at least a basic understanding of design (“literacy” as Bill Buxton called it) are in high demand. The concept of the MIX conference and initiatives like design.toolbox shows that Microsoft understands very well that frontend developers have to acquire new knowledge besides knowing how to hack code and putting buttons on a form. There are extremely exciting times before us, with lots of opportunity for those who are eager to develop their skills, that is for sure.

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  • Keep a Window on top with a handy AutoHotkey script

    - by Matthew Guay
    Are you tired of shuffling back and forth between windows to get your work done?  Here’s a handy tool that lets you keep any window always on top when you need it. There are many ways to use multiple windows efficiently, but sometimes it seems you need to keep a smaller one in front of a larger window and they never quite fit right.  Whether you’re trying to use Calculator and a web form at the same time, or see what music is playing while you’re catching up on your news, there’s many scenarios where it can be useful to keep one window always on top.  There are many utilities to do this, but they are often needlessly complicated and bloated.  Here we look at a better solution from Amit, our friend at Digital Inspiration. Always on Top Thanks to AutoHotkey, you can easily always keep any window on top of all the others on your screen.  You can download this as a small exe and run it directly, or can create it with a simple script in AutoHotkey.  For simplicity, we simply downloaded the application and ran it directly. To do this, download Always on Top (link below), and unzip the file. Once you’ve launched it, simply select the window you want to keep on top and press Ctrl+Space.  This program will now stay in front, even when it is not the active window.  Here’s a screenshot of a Hotmail signup dialog in Chrome with Notepad kept on top.  Notice Notepad isn’t the active application, but it is still on top. If you wish to un-pin the window from being on top, simply select the window and press Ctrl+space again.  You can keep multiple windows pinned at once, too, though you may clutter your desktop quickly! Always on Top will keep running in your system tray, and you can exit or suspend it by right-clicking on its tray icon and selecting exit or suspend, respectively. Create Your Own Always on Top Utility with AutoHotkey If you’re a fan of AutoHotkey, you can create your own AutoHotkey script to keep windows on top simply and easily with only one line of code: ^SPACE:: Winset, Alwaysontop, , A Simply create a new file, insert the code, and save it as plaintext with the .ahk file extension.  If you have AutoHotkey installed, simply double-click this file for the exact same functionality as the premade version. Conclusion This is a great way to keep a window handy, and it can be beneficial in many scenarios.  For instance you can use it to copy data from a PDF or image into a form or spreadsheet, and it saves a lot of clicks and time.  Links: Download Always on Top from Digital Inspiration Download AutoHotkey if you want to make it yourself Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Get the Linux Alt+Window Drag Functionality in WindowsGet Mac’s Hide Others (cmd+opt+H) Keyboard Shortcut for WindowsAdd "Run as Administrator" for AutoHotkey Scripts in Windows 7 or VistaKeyboard Ninja: Pop Up the Vista Calendar with a Single HotkeyKeyboard Ninja: Assign a Hotkey to any Window TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional OutSync will Sync Photos of your Friends on Facebook and Outlook Windows 7 Easter Theme YoWindoW, a real time weather screensaver Optimize your computer the Microsoft way Stormpulse provides slick, real time weather data Geek Parents – Did you try Parental Controls in Windows 7?

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  • Oracle Social Network Developer Challenge: Fishbowl Solutions

    - by Kellsey Ruppel
    Originally posted by Jake Kuramoto on The Apps Lab blog. Today, I give you the final entry in the Oracle Social Network Developer Challenge, held last week during OpenWorld. This one comes from Friend of the ‘Lab and Fishbowl Solutions (@fishbowle20) hacker, John Sim (@jrsim_uix), whom you might remember from his XBox Kinect demo at COLLABORATE 12 (presentation slides and abstract) hacks and other exploits with WebCenter. We put this challenge together specifically for developers like John, who like to experiment with new tools and push the envelope of what’s possible and build cool things, and as you can see from his entry John did just that, mashing together Google Maps and Oracle Social Network into a mobile app built with PhoneGap that uses the device’s camera and GPS to keep teams on the move in touch. He calls it a Mobile GeoTagging Solution, but I think Avengers Assemble! would have equally descriptive, given that was obviously his inspiration. Here’s his description of the mobile app: My proposed solution was to design and simplify GeoLocation mapping, and automate updates for users and teams on the move; who don’t have access to a laptop or want to take their ipads out – but allow them to make quick updates to OSN and upload photos taken from their mobile device – there and then. As part of this; the plan was to include a rules engine that could be configured by the user to allow the device to automatically update and post messages when they arrived at a set location(s). Inspiration for this came from on{x} – automate your life. Unfortunately, John didn’t make it to the conference to show off his hard work in person, but luckily, he had a colleague from Fishbowl and a video to showcase his work.    Here are some shots of John’s mobile app for your viewing pleasure: John’s thinking is sound. Geolocation is usually relegated to consumer use cases, thanks to services like foursquare, but distributed teams working on projects out in the world definitely need a way to stay in contact. Consider a construction job. Different contractors all converge on a single location, and time is money. Rather than calling or texting each other and risking a distracted driving accident, an app like John’s allows everyone on the job to see exactly where the other contractors are. Using his GPS rules, they could easily be notified about how close each is to the site, definitely useful when you have a flooring contractor sitting idle, waiting for an electrician to finish the wiring. The best part is that the project manager or general contractor could stay updated on all the action (or inaction) using Oracle Social Network, either sitting at a desk using the browser app or desktop client or on the go, using one of the native mobile apps built for Oracle Social Network. I can see this being used by insurance adjusters too, and really any team that, erm, assembles at a given spot. Of course, it’s also useful for meeting at the pub after the day’s work is done. Beyond people, this solution could also be implemented for physical objects that are in route to a destination. Say you’re a customer waiting on rail shipment or a package delivery. You could track your valuable’s whereabouts easily as they report their progress via checkins. If they deviated from the GPS rules, you’d be notified. You might even be able to get a picture into Oracle Social Network with some light hacking. Thanks to John and his colleagues at Fishbowl for participating in our challenge. We hope everyone had a good experience. Make sure to check out John’s blog post on his work and the experience using Oracle Social Network. Although this is the final, official entry we had, tomorrow, I’ll show you the work of someone who finished code, but wasn’t able to make the judging event. Stay tuned.

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  • Spotlight on an office - Denmark

    - by jessica.ebbelaar(at)oracle.com
    Hi, my name is Michael. I work as an Intern at the Danish office in Ballerup. My job is a part-time position beside my bachelor study in International Business at Copenhagen Business School. I joined Oracle end of February last year, and what a thrilling ride it has been! Last year, when I was offered the position, there was no doubt that I wanted to go for it. Back then, I only had little idea about Oracle as a company and what kind of exciting assignments lay ahead of me. My main role is internal communications, i.e. editor of a monthly employee’s news letter; Newszone. It is an interesting task, since it requires that I am updated on the different activities that take place within the Oracle Denmark office. I try to bring interesting articles, which are relevant and interesting news to my colleagues and it allows me to interact with many different persons at the office and to learn from their experience, which give me great inspiration and ideas for the magazine. Besides being the editor of Newszone, I also make sure that other communication flow freely at the Oracle Denmark office. I do this through our LCD screen channels. I update the internal channel with the latest information and important messages for employees, and on the external channel I circulate marketing videos featuring Oracle products and customer reference stories. In addition to this, I have the responsibility acting as a content manager of the Local Communication Denmark site on MyOracle (UCM). These are more or less my usual work assignments. On top of these I take care of various ad hoc assignments such as updating the GCM database, renew newspaper subscriptions etc. The Oracle Denmark office Being part of the local employees club I also assist with arranging social events outside working hours – e.g. evenings at the theater or cinema or by attending many of the sportsactivities;such as our running club, cycling club, food club and book club. These activities have indeed helped me grow my personal network within Oracle.  The office is packed with engaging, high-paced and motivated people who manage to take time off to spend a day attending Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, one of them being GVD (Global Volunteer Day) with approximately 40 employees attending. This proofs some of the social responsible aspects of Oracle. I was positively surprised on how the office (named O-Zone) is designed. The office is designed into three distinct zones, namely Call zone, Project and Dialogue zone and Quiet zone, having different working environments for different job roles. The other thing which I like is that you do not have your own desk, which means you get to sit next to different people every day, getting new ideas and inspiration as well as getting to know more people in the organization you work in. To sum up: If you are considering pursuing an intern or a career after graduation in Oracle, do it! You will not regret it. It has given me many relevant practical experiences beside my study, and I am sure many great experiences will await you too.   Want to know more about the current vacancies in Denmark? Check http://campus.oracle.com for all of our vacancies.

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  • Problem with my Jquery loading in my Codeigniter views

    - by sico87
    Hello, I am working on a one page website that allows the users to add and remove pages from there navigation as and when they would like too, the way it works is that if the click 'Blog' on the main nav a 'Blog' section should appear on the page, if they then click 'News' the 'News' section should also be visible, however the way I have started to implement this it seems I can only have one section at a time, can my code be adpated to allow multiple sections to shown on the main page. Here is my code for the page that has the main menu and the users selections on it. <!DOCTYPE html> <head> <title>Development Site</title> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/media/css/reset.css" media="screen"/> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/media/css/generic.css" media="screen"/> <script type="text/javascript" src="/media/javascript/jquery-ui/js/jquery.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/media/javascript/jquery-ui/development-bundle/ui/ui.core.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/media/javascript/jquery-ui/development-bundle/ui/ui.accordion.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> $(document).ready(function() { $('a.menuitem').click(function() { var link = $(this), url = link.attr("href"); $("#content_pane").load(url); return false; // prevent default link-behavior }); }); </script> </head> <body> <li><a class="menuitem" href="inspiration">Inspiration</a></li> <li><a class="menuitem" href="blog">Blog</a></li> <div id="content_pane"> </div> </body> </html>

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  • Best program for keeping track of Time (motor racing)

    - by Krazy_Kaos
    I need a program to control time, I need the time to go forth and back (for me to choose) and I insert the staring time. I also need a program to control lap times. If anyone know any program for these stuff (racing stuff), I would apreciate it, even if there only are paid solution, I still would like to take a look at them (I staring to make a program in python and it could be good for inspiration)

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  • Funny/clever/creative HTTP error pages

    - by David
    I'm sure many of us have seen or heard of amusing ways to express the standard HTTP errors, like "404 Lost in Cyberspace" instead of "404 File Not Found". What are some of the funniest/cleverest/most creative error pages or error messages you've seen, or can think of? (Somewhat similar to this question on StackOverflow) I know this isn't a specific question with a single answer but it is relevant to site admins who want to keep their visitors happy (or terrified, if you prefer ;-) I'll certainly be looking for inspiration for my own website's error pages.

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  • Support-Tool (SDK): Capture system information (Registry, Memory, etc.), Make a screenshoot, send an

    - by Robert
    I have the task to find or develop a support tool which has some very common (?) features: Send the following data as a email or to ticket system, after clicking a button like "get system summary" or "create ticket" Screen shoot System Summary Registry Log-Files Question(s): Are their any tools which have a similar functionality already (to buy or for inspiration). I their some kind of commercial or open source framework or tool set, which I can use as starting point or to customize?

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  • is there a tool that will let me take 'functional screenshots'?

    - by subpixel
    It's one thing to grab screenshots of web sites and return to them for design and interface ideas and inspiration. But increasingly I've found that when I want to examine something that previously caught my eye, the actual web site has since been altered, so I can no longer learn from the code. I wonder: is there a tool available that would allow me to save interfaces in a format that would retain the html/css? Thanks

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  • Coming up with manageable game ideas as a hobbyist game developer

    - by Kragen
    I'm trying to come up with ideas for games to develop - as per the advice on this question I've started jotting down and brainstorming my ideas as I get them, and it has worked relatively well - I now have a growing collection of ideas that I think are relatively original. The trouble is that I'm a solo hobbyist developer so my time is limited (and I have short attention span!) I've decided to set myself a limit of 1 working week (i.e. 35-40 hours) to develop / prototype my game, but all of the ideas that really spark my imagination are far too complex to be achievable in that sort of time (e.g. RTS or RPG style gameplay), and none of my simpler ideas really strike me as being that good (and whenever I get a flash of inspiration I invariably end up making things more complicated!) Am I being too picky - should I just take one of my simpler ideas and have a go?

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  • New Web Comic: Code Monkey Kung Fu

    - by Dane Morgridge
    It’s been something I’ve wanted to do for quite some time and decided it was finally time. Yesterday, I launched a new web comic “Code Monkey Kung Fu”. After being a programer for more than ten years, I’ve come across quite a few hilarious situations and will be drawing on them for inspiration. I also have a four kids, so they will probably produce a lot as well. My plan is to release on Tuesdays with additional comics mixed in on occasion. I hope you enjoy! http://www.codemonkeykungfu.com

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  • MUD source code

    - by Tchalvak
    I haven't been able to find a lot of the old, open source mud source codes. I find the way they did things very applicable to text-based/browser based games, and I'd love to be able to skim through parts of 'em for inspiration. For instance, we have this huge list of muds and the relationships between them, but little by way of access to source code. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD_trees Often (I'm looking at you, dikumud, http://www.dikumud.com/links.aspx ) the sites of the mud itself doesn't even have a working link to the source. https://github.com/alexmchale/merc-mud has a copy of merc that I found, which certainly contains other works within it's history, but the pickings seems sparse. Does anyone have better resources for gaining access to MUD source code than these?

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  • Microsoft recognizes me as Most Valuable Professional (MVP)

    - by Tanzim Saqib
    Just wanted to share a good news with you. For my valuable contribution to the ASP.NET community worldwide, Microsoft recognizes me as an exceptional technology community leader by awarding “Most Valuable Professional” (MVP) in ASP.NET. I am honored to serve the community. I will continue to blog, write articles, speak in the seminars and stay active in the open source projects. This award is going to be the source of immense inspiration for rest of my life for what I do for the community. :) Here...(read more)

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  • SOLVED - 'srcDomainMulti' is not declared. It may be inaccessible due to its protection level

    When converting a project from C# to VB I ran into this compiler error which stopped me in my tracks for about 15 minutes. Just when I gave up and decided to rebuild the page by hand inspiration hit and I found my solution... The scenario I had just put the finishing touches to a domain whois tool and I was ready to convert it over to a VB project. I'm not a very strong VB.net coder but the project required the final deliverable in VB so I opted to make it all in C# first and then convert it over...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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  • Does Bad Weather Affect Cloud Computing? [Humor]

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Indian government official Vishwa Bandhu Gupta deserves a Master Class Troll Lifetime Achievement Award for his performance in this five minute video and complete bamboozling of a poor reporter. Before we ridicule the reporter for buying Gupta’s spiel, keep in mind that 51% of Americans think cloud computing actually has something to do with clouds. Cloud Computing Is Great, But What If It Rains? [via Digital Inspiration] HTG Explains: Why Do Hard Drives Show the Wrong Capacity in Windows? Java is Insecure and Awful, It’s Time to Disable It, and Here’s How What Are the Windows A: and B: Drives Used For?

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  • How to make a battle system in a mobile indie game more fun and engaging

    - by Matt Beckman
    I'm developing an indie game for mobile platforms, and part of the game involves a PvP battle system (where the target player is passive). My vision is simple: the active player can select a weapon/item, then attack/use, and display the calculated outcome. I have a concept for battle modifiers that affect stats to make it more interesting, but I'm not convinced the vision is complete. I've received some inspiration from the game engine that powers Modern War/Kingdom Age/Crime City, but I want more control to make it more fun. In those games, you don't have the option to select weapons or use items, and the "battling" screen is simply 3D eye candy. Since this will be an indie game, I won't be spending $$$ on a team of professional 3D artists/animators, so my edge needs to be different. How would you make a battle system like this more fun and engaging?

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  • Alternative ways to make a battle system in a mobile indie game more fun and engaging

    - by Matt Beckman
    I'm developing an indie game for mobile platforms, and part of the game involves a PvP battle system (where the target player is passive). My vision is simple: the active player can select a weapon/item, then attack/use, and display the calculated outcome. I have a concept for battle modifiers that affect stats to make it more interesting, but I'm not convinced this by itself will add enough of a fun factor. I've received some inspiration from the game engine that powers Modern War/Kingdom Age/Crime City, but I want more control to make it more fun. In those games, you don't have the option to select weapons or use items, and the "battling" screen is simply 3D eye candy. Since this will be an indie game, I won't be spending $$$ on a team of professional 3D artists/animators, so my edge needs to be different. What are some alternatives to expensive eye candy that you or others have used to make a non-3D PvP game more fun and engaging? Did the alternative concepts survive the release?

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  • Awarded Visual Studio ALM MVP for 2012!

    - by Jakob Ehn
    Today I received an email from Microsoft stating that: Dear Jakob Ehn, Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2012 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in Visual Studio ALM technical communities during the past year.   This is incredibles news and I really want to thank both the people at Microsoft who nominated me and some of the (now) fellow MVP’s that I have worked with over the last year, both as part of the Visual Studio ALM Rangers program and as part of the TFS Build Extensions community project, in particular Mike Fourie and of course my colleague and main source of inspiration Terje Sandström    I’m really looking forward to this year, it’s going to be a blast!

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  • Cool examples of procedural pixel shader effects?

    - by Robert Fraser
    What are some good examples of procedural/screen-space pixel shader effects? No code necessary; just looking for inspiration. In particular, I'm looking for effects that are not dependent on geometry or the rest of the scene (would look okay rendered alone on a quad) and are not image processing (don't require a "base image", though they can incorporate textures). Multi-pass or single-pass is fine. Screenshots or videos would be ideal, but ideas work too. Here are a few examples of what I'm looking for (all from the RenderMonkey samples): PS - I'm aware of this question; I'm not asking for a source of actual shader implementations but instead for some inspirational ideas -- and the ones at the NVIDIA Shader Library mostly require a scene or are image processing effects. EDIT: this is an open-ended question and I wish there was a good way to split the bounty. I'll award the rep to the best answer on the last day.

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  • Is Paypal the best solution for payment gateway for a website?

    - by Pennf0lio
    I have a realty website that needs a payment gateway for their property reservation. The reservation fee range from $500-$600 and about 5-6 people per month. I was wondering if Paypal is the best solution for accepting Payment. What will be the Pros and Cons using Paypal. Paypal was my first choice because It's easy to integrate on my existing website and I wouldn't be minding so much on the security. P.S. It's not a part of the question, But If you can site some realty website that accept payment and would be a good inspiration. It would be highly appreciated. Thanks!

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  • It's noisy in ubuntu,why?

    - by Jinx
    I just installed an ubuntu on my pc(Dell Inspiration I560SR-358, with CPU E5700 3GHz, 4G memory, and NVIDIA GeForce G310). The pc becomes noisy before that it's quiet with a windows 7 on it. How come? How to set it to be quiet again in unbuntu 10.04. One of the two cpu usage is always 100%. I think that is the reason. //re-edit Everything gets ok after I restart the computer.But the fan is still running which makes it noisy, if i switch to windows 7, it becomes quiet again.

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  • Asciifi Is a Lightening Fast Web-Based ASCII Converter

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    If you have a hankering from some old-school ASCII artwork, Asciifi is a free and lightening fast HTML5 ASCII converter. Despite the simplicity of ASCII images (pictures created not out of a grid of colored pixels like a standard digital photograph but out of a grid of text characters) many ASCII converters are rather slow. Asciifi speeds up the process by rendering your images on the fly with a snappy HTML5-based converter. Visit the site, drag and drop your image, and almost instantaneously you’ll see the results. The output can be further tweaked by adjusting the line width and the character set used. Hit up the link below to take it for a test drive. Asciifi [via Digital Inspiration] HTG Explains: Understanding Routers, Switches, and Network Hardware How to Use Offline Files in Windows to Cache Your Networked Files Offline How to See What Web Sites Your Computer is Secretly Connecting To

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