Search Results

Search found 2177 results on 88 pages for 'children'.

Page 49/88 | < Previous Page | 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56  | Next Page >

• Bone creation in XNA Content Pipeline

  - by cod3monk3y

  I'm trying to manually create a ModelContent instance that includes custom Bone data in a custom ContentProcessor in the XNA Content Pipeline. I can't seem to create or assign manually created bone data due to either private constructors or read-only collections (at every turn). The code I have right now that creates a single triangle ModelContent that I'd like to create a bone for is: MeshContent mc = new MeshContent(); mc.Positions.Add(new Vector3(-10, 0, 0)); mc.Positions.Add(new Vector3(0, 10, 0)); mc.Positions.Add(new Vector3(10, 0, 0)); GeometryContent gc = new GeometryContent(); gc.Indices.AddRange(new int[] { 0, 1, 2 }); gc.Vertices.AddRange(new int[] { 0, 1, 2 }); mc.Geometry.Add(gc); // Create normals MeshHelper.CalculateNormals(mc, true); // finally, convert it to a model ModelContent model = context.Convert<MeshContent, ModelContent>(mc, "ModelProcessor"); The documentation on XNA is amazingly sparse. I've been referencing the class diagrams created by DigitalRune and Sean Hargreaves blog, but I haven't found anything on creating bone content. Once the ModelContent is created, it's not possible to add bones because the Bones collection is read-only. And it seems the only way to create the ModelContent instance is to call the standard ModelProcessor via ContentProcessorContext.Convert. So it's a bit of a catch-22. The BoneContent class has a constructor but no methods except those inherited from NodeContent... though now (true to form) maybe I've realized the solution by asking the question. Should I create a root NodeContent with two children: one MeshContent and one BoneContent as the root of my skeleton; then pass the root NodeContent to ContentProcessorContext.Convert? Off to try that now...

  Read the article

• WPF or WinForms for Game Development and learning resources?

  - by Stephen Lee Parker

  I'm looking to create a game framework for my own personal use... I want to use WPF, but I'm unsure if that is a wise choice... The games I will be writing should not require high performance graphics, so I am hoping to build on native classes... I do not want to rely on external DLL's unless I generate them myself. The games will be for young children, say 4 to 8. Most will be learning puzzles or simple shooters. The most advanced will be a platform game (non-scrolling screen like the old Atari Miner 2049er game). I think I know how to write something like the old Atari Chopper Command (partially written and my 4 year old loves it, but I used WinForms and GDI), Pac-Man, Tetris, Astroids, Space Invaders, Slider Puzzle, but I do not really know how to write the platform game... In my mind, I'm getting caught in collision detection and how to make a character jump and how to make a character walk up a slope or steps... Can anyone point me to information on developing a platform game in C#? Would you suggest WinForms or WPF for game development? I'm not looking for great graphics and speed, just entertaining game play...

  Read the article

• New META TAGS with positive effects for seo ranking in 2011 and beyond

  - by Sam

  Hi all, im trying to make an up to date chart of meta tags, for all of us, with their purposes, their use and their good (or bad) effects on search engines/being found. Also any body knows new/promising meta tags? I will add yours into my list so this chart is a result of live discussion and up to date. Also, it would be creative to invent your own useful meta, because we are the ones making the web, or aren't we? LEGEND P PURPOSE? What does this meta tag do in 2011, if anything N NECESSARY? Does every site really needs it or not? G GOOD wether it will have a good effect for your site to be found I INVENTED meta tag, who knows it will be accepted in a year! META "METANAME" = PURPOSE? - NECESSARY? - GOOD EFFECT? #### important meta "title" = P consice summary + teaser - N very - G extremely meta "description" = P description + teaser - N yes - G very meta "robots" = P if needed, to skip default dmoz/yahoodir listing - N no - G? #### new & promising! Thanks for input (John, ) meta "original-source" P url of whoever broke the news gets credits - N? - G? meta "syndication-source" P url for syndication of published news - N? - G? meta "canonical" P? - N? - G? #### seems obsolete meta "keywords" = P some keywords - N+G not for google but yahoo likes them meta "language" = P overrule guesswork by defining language - N no - G? meta "page-topic" = P topic/theme - N? - G? meta "abstract" = P short summary - N? - G? meta "copyright" = ? #### invented by me meta "audience" = P filteres audience: "+seniors, +parents, -children, -youth" meta "mood" = P specifies textual style: "discussion, informative, commercial, sexual, fictional, scientific, romantic, therapeutic, technical"

  Read the article

• Clean Code Developer & Certification in IT - MSCC 21.09.2013

  It was a very busy weekend this time, and quite some hectic to organise the second meetup on a Saturday for the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community (MSCC) but it was absolutely fun. Following, I'm writing a brief summary about the topics we spoke about and the new impulses I got. "What a meetup... I was positively impressed. At the beginning I thought that noone would actually show up but then by the time the room got filled. Lots of conversation, great dialogues and fantastic networking between fresh students, experienced students, experienced employees, and self-employed attendees. That's what community is all about!" Above quote was my first reaction shortly after the gathering. And despite being busy during the weekend and yesterday, I took my time to reflect a little bit on things happened and statements made before writing it here on my blog. Additionally, I was also very curious about possible reactions and blogs from other attendees. Reactions from other craftsmen Let me quickly give you some links and quotes from others first... "Like Jochen posted on facebook, that was indeed a 5+ hours marathon (maybe 4 hours for me but still) … Wohoo! We’re indeed a bunch of crazy geeks who did not realise how time flew as we dived into the myriad discussions that sprouted. Yet in the end everyone was happy (:" -- Ish on MSCC meetup - The marathon (: "And the 4hours spent @ Talking drums bore its fruit..I was doing something I never did before....reading the borrowed book while walking....and though I was not that familiar with things mentionned in the book...I was skimming,scanning & flipping...reading titles...short paragraphs...and I skipped pages till I reached home." -- Yannick on Mauritius Software Craftsmanship 1st Meet-up "Hi Developers, Just wanted to share with you the meetups i attended last Saturday - [...] - The second meetup is the one hosted by Jochen Kirstätter, the MSCC, where the attendees were Craftsman, no woman, this time - all sharing the same passion of being a developer - even though it is on different platforms(Windows - Windows Phone - Linux - Adobe(yes a designer) - .Net) - but we manage to sit at the same table - sharing developer views and experience in the corporate world - also talking about good practice when coding( where Jochen initiated a discussion on Clean Coding ) i could not stay till the end - but from what i have heard - the longer you stay the more fun you have till 1600. Developers in the Facebook grouping i invite you to stay tuned about the various developer communities popping up - where you can come to share and learn good practices, develop the entrepreneurial spirit, and learn and share your passion about technologies" -- Arnaud on Facebook More feedback has been posted on the event directly. So, should I really write more? Wouldn't that spoil the impressions? Starting the day with a surprise Indeed, I was very pleased to stumble over the existence of Mobile Monday Mauritius on LinkedIn, an association about any kind of mobile app development, mobile gadgets and latest smartphones on the market. Despite the Monday in their name they had scheduled their recent meeting on Saturday between 10:00 and 12:00hrs. Wow, what a coincidence! Let's grap the bull by its horns and pay them an introductory visit. As they chose the Ebene Accelerator at the Orange Tower in Ebene it was a no-brainer to leave home a bit earlier and stop by. It was quite an experience and fun to talk to the geeks over there. Really looking forward to organise something together.... Arriving at the venue As the children got a bit uneasy at the MoMo gathering and I didn't want to disturb them too much, we arrived early at Bagatelle. Well, no problems as we went for a decent breakfast at Food Lover's Market. Shortly afterwards we went to our venue location, Talking Drums, and prepared the room for the meeting. We only had to take off a repro-painting of the wall in order to have a decent area for the projector. All went very smooth and my two little ones were of great help. Just in time, our first craftsman Avinash arrived on the spot. And then the waiting started... Luckily, not too long. Bit by bit more and more IT people came to join our meeting. Meanwhile, I used the time to give a brief introduction about the MSCC in general, what we are (hm, maybe I am) trying to achieve and that the recent phase is completely focused on creating more awareness that a community like the MSCC is active here in Mauritius. As soon as we reached some 'critical mass' of about ten people I asked everyone for a short introduction and bio, just in case... Conversation between participants started to kick in and we were actually more networking than having a focus on our topics of the day. Quick updates on latest news and development around the MSCC Finally, Clean Code Developer No matter how the position is actually called, whether it is Software Engineer, Software Developer, Programmer, Architect, or Craftsman, anyone working in IT is facing almost the same obstacles. As for the process of writing software applications there are re-occurring patterns and principles combined with some common exercise and best practices on how to resolve them. Initiated by the must-read book 'Clean Code' by Robert C. Martin (aka Uncle Bob) the concept of the Clean Code Developer (CCD) was born already some years ago. CCD is much likely to traditional martial arts where you create awareness of certain principles and learn how to apply practices to improve your style. The CCD initiative recommends to indicate your level of knowledge and experience with coloured wrist bands - equivalent to the belt colours - for various reasons. Frankly speaking, I think that the biggest advantage here is provided by the obvious recognition of conceptual understanding. For example, take the situation of a team meeting... A member with a higher grade in CCD, say Green grade, sees that there are mainly Red grades to talk to, and adjusts her way of communication to their level of understanding. The choice of words might change as certain elements of CCD are not yet familiar to all team members. So instead of talking in an abstract way which only Green grades could follow the whole scenario comes down to Red grade level. Different story, better results... Similar to learning martial arts, we only covered two grades during this occasion - black and red. Most interestingly, there was quite some positive feedback and lots of questions about the principles and practices of the red grade. And we gathered real-world examples from various craftsman and discussed them. Following the Clean Code Developer Red Grade and some annotations from our meetup: CCD Red Grade - Principles Don't Repeat Yourself - DRY Keep It Simple, Stupid (and Short) - KISS Beware of Optimisations! Favour Composition over Inheritance - FCoI Interestingly most of the attendees already heard about those key words but couldn't really classify or categorize them. It's very similar to a situation in which you do not the particular for a thing and have to describe it to others... until someone tells you the actual name and suddenly all is very simple. CCD Red Grade - Practices Follow the Boy Scouts Rule Root Cause Analysis - RCA Use a Version Control System Apply Simple Refactoring Pattern Reflect Daily Introduction to the principles and practices of Clean Code Developer - here: Red Grade As for the various ToDo's we commonly agreed that the Boy Scout Rule clearly is not limited to software development or IT administration but applies to daily life in general. Same for the root cause analysis, btw. We really had good stories with surprisingly endings and conclusions. A quick check about who is using a version control system brought more drive into the conversation. Not only that we had people that aren't using any VCS at all, we also had the 'classic' approach of backup folders and naming conventions as well as the VCS 'junkie' that has to use multiple systems at a time. Just for the records: Git and GitHub seem to be in favour of some of the attendees. Regarding the daily reflection at the end of the day we came up with an easy solution: Wrap it up as a blog entry! Certifications in IT This is kind of a controversy in IT in general. Is it interesting to go for certifications or are they completely obsolete? What are the possibilities to get certified? What are the options we have in Mauritius? How would certificates stand compared to other educational tracks like Computer Science or Web Design. The ratio between craftsmen with certifications like MCP, MSTS, CCNA or LPI versus the ones without wasn't in favour for the first group but there was a high interest in the topic itself and some were really surprised to hear that exam preparations are completely free available online including temporarily voucher codes for either discounts or completely free exams. Furthermore, we discussed possible options on forming so-called study groups on a specific certificates and organising more frequent meetups in order to learn together. Taking into consideration that we have sponsored access to the video course material of Pluralsight (and now PeepCode as well as TrainSignal), we might give it a try by the end of the year. Current favourites are LPIC Level 1 and one of the Microsoft exams 40-78x. Feedback and ideas for the MSCC The closing conversations and discussions about how the MSCC is recently doing, what are the possibilities and what's (hopefully) going to happen in the future were really fertile and I made a couple of mental bullet points which I'm looking forward to tackle down together with orher craftsmen. Eventually, it might be a good option to elaborate on some issues during our weekly Code & Coffee sessions one Wednesday morning. Active discussion on various IT topics like certifications (LPI, MCP, CCNA, etc) and sharing experience Finally, we made it till the end of the planned time. Well, actually the talk was still on and we continued even after 16:00hrs. Unfortunately, we (the children and I) had to leave for evening activities. My resume of the day... It was great to have 15 craftsmen in one room. There are hundreds of IT geeks out there in Mauritius, and as Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community we still have a lot of work to do to pass on the message to some more key players and companies. Currently, it seems that we are able to attract a good number of students in Computer Science... but we have a lot more to offer, even or especially for IT people on the job. I'm already looking forward to our next Saturday meetup in the near future. PS: Meetup pictures are courtesy of Nirvan Pagooah. Thanks for sharing...

  Read the article

• Custom Gesture in cocos2d

  - by Lewis

  I've found a little tutorial that would be useful for my game: http://blog.mellenthin.de/archives/2012/02/13/an-one-finger-rotation-gesture-recognizer/ But I can't work out how to convert that gesture to work with cocos2d, I have found examples of pre made gestures in cocos2d, but no custom ones, is it possible? EDIT STILL HAVING PROBLEMS WITH THIS: I've added the code from Sentinel below (from SO), the Gesture and RotateGesture have both been added to my solution and are compiling. Although In the rotation class now I only see selectors, how do I set those up? As the custom gesture found in that project above looks like: header file for custom gesture: #import <Foundation/Foundation.h> #import <UIKit/UIGestureRecognizerSubclass.h> @protocol OneFingerRotationGestureRecognizerDelegate <NSObject> @optional - (void) rotation: (CGFloat) angle; - (void) finalAngle: (CGFloat) angle; @end @interface OneFingerRotationGestureRecognizer : UIGestureRecognizer { CGPoint midPoint; CGFloat innerRadius; CGFloat outerRadius; CGFloat cumulatedAngle; id <OneFingerRotationGestureRecognizerDelegate> target; } - (id) initWithMidPoint: (CGPoint) midPoint innerRadius: (CGFloat) innerRadius outerRadius: (CGFloat) outerRadius target: (id) target; - (void)reset; - (void)touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event; - (void)touchesMoved:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event; - (void)touchesEnded:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event; - (void)touchesCancelled:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event; @end .m for custom gesture file: #include <math.h> #import "OneFingerRotationGestureRecognizer.h" @implementation OneFingerRotationGestureRecognizer // private helper functions CGFloat distanceBetweenPoints(CGPoint point1, CGPoint point2); CGFloat angleBetweenLinesInDegrees(CGPoint beginLineA, CGPoint endLineA, CGPoint beginLineB, CGPoint endLineB); - (id) initWithMidPoint: (CGPoint) _midPoint innerRadius: (CGFloat) _innerRadius outerRadius: (CGFloat) _outerRadius target: (id <OneFingerRotationGestureRecognizerDelegate>) _target { if ((self = [super initWithTarget: _target action: nil])) { midPoint = _midPoint; innerRadius = _innerRadius; outerRadius = _outerRadius; target = _target; } return self; } /** Calculates the distance between point1 and point 2. */ CGFloat distanceBetweenPoints(CGPoint point1, CGPoint point2) { CGFloat dx = point1.x - point2.x; CGFloat dy = point1.y - point2.y; return sqrt(dx*dx + dy*dy); } CGFloat angleBetweenLinesInDegrees(CGPoint beginLineA, CGPoint endLineA, CGPoint beginLineB, CGPoint endLineB) { CGFloat a = endLineA.x - beginLineA.x; CGFloat b = endLineA.y - beginLineA.y; CGFloat c = endLineB.x - beginLineB.x; CGFloat d = endLineB.y - beginLineB.y; CGFloat atanA = atan2(a, b); CGFloat atanB = atan2(c, d); // convert radiants to degrees return (atanA - atanB) * 180 / M_PI; } #pragma mark - UIGestureRecognizer implementation - (void)reset { [super reset]; cumulatedAngle = 0; } - (void)touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event { [super touchesBegan:touches withEvent:event]; if ([touches count] != 1) { self.state = UIGestureRecognizerStateFailed; return; } } - (void)touchesMoved:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event { [super touchesMoved:touches withEvent:event]; if (self.state == UIGestureRecognizerStateFailed) return; CGPoint nowPoint = [[touches anyObject] locationInView: self.view]; CGPoint prevPoint = [[touches anyObject] previousLocationInView: self.view]; // make sure the new point is within the area CGFloat distance = distanceBetweenPoints(midPoint, nowPoint); if ( innerRadius <= distance && distance <= outerRadius) { // calculate rotation angle between two points CGFloat angle = angleBetweenLinesInDegrees(midPoint, prevPoint, midPoint, nowPoint); // fix value, if the 12 o'clock position is between prevPoint and nowPoint if (angle > 180) { angle -= 360; } else if (angle < -180) { angle += 360; } // sum up single steps cumulatedAngle += angle; // call delegate if ([target respondsToSelector: @selector(rotation:)]) { [target rotation:angle]; } } else { // finger moved outside the area self.state = UIGestureRecognizerStateFailed; } } - (void)touchesEnded:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event { [super touchesEnded:touches withEvent:event]; if (self.state == UIGestureRecognizerStatePossible) { self.state = UIGestureRecognizerStateRecognized; if ([target respondsToSelector: @selector(finalAngle:)]) { [target finalAngle:cumulatedAngle]; } } else { self.state = UIGestureRecognizerStateFailed; } cumulatedAngle = 0; } - (void)touchesCancelled:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event { [super touchesCancelled:touches withEvent:event]; self.state = UIGestureRecognizerStateFailed; cumulatedAngle = 0; } @end Then its initialised like this: // calculate center and radius of the control CGPoint midPoint = CGPointMake(image.frame.origin.x + image.frame.size.width / 2, image.frame.origin.y + image.frame.size.height / 2); CGFloat outRadius = image.frame.size.width / 2; // outRadius / 3 is arbitrary, just choose something >> 0 to avoid strange // effects when touching the control near of it's center gestureRecognizer = [[OneFingerRotationGestureRecognizer alloc] initWithMidPoint: midPoint innerRadius: outRadius / 3 outerRadius: outRadius target: self]; [self.view addGestureRecognizer: gestureRecognizer]; The selector below is also in the same file where the initialisation of the gestureRecogonizer: - (void) rotation: (CGFloat) angle { // calculate rotation angle imageAngle += angle; if (imageAngle > 360) imageAngle -= 360; else if (imageAngle < -360) imageAngle += 360; // rotate image and update text field image.transform = CGAffineTransformMakeRotation(imageAngle * M_PI / 180); [self updateTextDisplay]; } I can't seem to get this working in the RotateGesture class can anyone help me please I've been stuck on this for days now. SECOND EDIT: Here is the users code from SO that was suggested to me: Here is projec on GitHub: SFGestureRecognizers It uses builded in iOS UIGestureRecognizer, and don't needs to be integrated into cocos2d sources. Using it, You can make any gestures, just like you could, if you whould work with UIGestureRecognizer. For example: I made a base class Gesture, and subclassed it for any new gesture: //Gesture.h @interface Gesture : NSObject <UIGestureRecognizerDelegate> { UIGestureRecognizer *gestureRecognizer; id delegate; SEL preSolveSelector; SEL possibleSelector; SEL beganSelector; SEL changedSelector; SEL endedSelector; SEL cancelledSelector; SEL failedSelector; BOOL preSolveAvailable; CCNode *owner; } - (id)init; - (void)addGestureRecognizerToNode:(CCNode*)node; - (void)removeGestureRecognizerFromNode:(CCNode*)node; -(void)recognizer:(UIGestureRecognizer*)recognizer; @end //Gesture.m #import "Gesture.h" @implementation Gesture - (id)init { if (!(self = [super init])) return self; preSolveAvailable = YES; return self; } - (BOOL)gestureRecognizer:(UIGestureRecognizer *)gestureRecognizer shouldRecognizeSimultaneouslyWithGestureRecognizer:(UIGestureRecognizer *)otherGestureRecognizer { return YES; } - (BOOL)gestureRecognizer:(UIGestureRecognizer *)recognizer shouldReceiveTouch:(UITouch *)touch { //! For swipe gesture recognizer we want it to be executed only if it occurs on the main layer, not any of the subnodes ( main layer is higher in hierarchy than children so it will be receiving touch by default ) if ([recognizer class] == [UISwipeGestureRecognizer class]) { CGPoint pt = [touch locationInView:touch.view]; pt = [[CCDirector sharedDirector] convertToGL:pt]; for (CCNode *child in owner.children) { if ([child isNodeInTreeTouched:pt]) { return NO; } } } return YES; } - (void)addGestureRecognizerToNode:(CCNode*)node { [node addGestureRecognizer:gestureRecognizer]; owner = node; } - (void)removeGestureRecognizerFromNode:(CCNode*)node { [node removeGestureRecognizer:gestureRecognizer]; } #pragma mark - Private methods -(void)recognizer:(UIGestureRecognizer*)recognizer { CCNode *node = recognizer.node; if (preSolveSelector && preSolveAvailable) { preSolveAvailable = NO; [delegate performSelector:preSolveSelector withObject:recognizer withObject:node]; } UIGestureRecognizerState state = [recognizer state]; if (state == UIGestureRecognizerStatePossible && possibleSelector) { [delegate performSelector:possibleSelector withObject:recognizer withObject:node]; } else if (state == UIGestureRecognizerStateBegan && beganSelector) [delegate performSelector:beganSelector withObject:recognizer withObject:node]; else if (state == UIGestureRecognizerStateChanged && changedSelector) [delegate performSelector:changedSelector withObject:recognizer withObject:node]; else if (state == UIGestureRecognizerStateEnded && endedSelector) { preSolveAvailable = YES; [delegate performSelector:endedSelector withObject:recognizer withObject:node]; } else if (state == UIGestureRecognizerStateCancelled && cancelledSelector) { preSolveAvailable = YES; [delegate performSelector:cancelledSelector withObject:recognizer withObject:node]; } else if (state == UIGestureRecognizerStateFailed && failedSelector) { preSolveAvailable = YES; [delegate performSelector:failedSelector withObject:recognizer withObject:node]; } } @end Subclass example: //RotateGesture.h #import "Gesture.h" @interface RotateGesture : Gesture - (id)initWithTarget:(id)target preSolveSelector:(SEL)preSolve possibleSelector:(SEL)possible beganSelector:(SEL)began changedSelector:(SEL)changed endedSelector:(SEL)ended cancelledSelector:(SEL)cancelled failedSelector:(SEL)failed; @end //RotateGesture.m #import "RotateGesture.h" @implementation RotateGesture - (id)initWithTarget:(id)target preSolveSelector:(SEL)preSolve possibleSelector:(SEL)possible beganSelector:(SEL)began changedSelector:(SEL)changed endedSelector:(SEL)ended cancelledSelector:(SEL)cancelled failedSelector:(SEL)failed { if (!(self = [super init])) return self; preSolveSelector = preSolve; delegate = target; possibleSelector = possible; beganSelector = began; changedSelector = changed; endedSelector = ended; cancelledSelector = cancelled; failedSelector = failed; gestureRecognizer = [[UIRotationGestureRecognizer alloc] initWithTarget:self action:@selector(recognizer:)]; gestureRecognizer.delegate = self; return self; } @end Use example: - (void)addRotateGesture { RotateGesture *rotateRecognizer = [[RotateGesture alloc] initWithTarget:self preSolveSelector:@selector(rotateGesturePreSolveWithRecognizer:node:) possibleSelector:nil beganSelector:@selector(rotateGestureStateBeganWithRecognizer:node:) changedSelector:@selector(rotateGestureStateChangedWithRecognizer:node:) endedSelector:@selector(rotateGestureStateEndedWithRecognizer:node:) cancelledSelector:@selector(rotateGestureStateCancelledWithRecognizer:node:) failedSelector:@selector(rotateGestureStateFailedWithRecognizer:node:)]; [rotateRecognizer addGestureRecognizerToNode:movableAreaSprite]; } I dont understand how to implement the custom gesture code at the start of this post into the rotateGesture class which is a subclass of the gesture class written by the SO user. Any ideas please? When I get 6 more rep I'll add a bounty to this.

  Read the article

• London Hotel Gives iPad For Guest During Their Stay

  - by Gopinath

  The Brits are still waiting for the launch of iPad but a luxurious hotel, The Berkeley, located in London is offering its guest an iPad during their stay in the luxurious suites. The iPads are pre-loaded with a range of customized apps designed by the hotel for enriching the London experience of their guests.  The hotel explains From Le Monde to the Wall Street Journal, your local newspaper will be available at breakfast and quickly checking the opening times of Christian Louboutin on Motcomb Street has never been more convenient. A wide range of games, videos and comic books is available for children and our experienced Concierge team has created their personal Top 5 of must-visit places – shops, exhibitions, local attractions and some hidden gems – which are clearly mapped so that you can plan your itinerary. The Berkeley hotel is enjoying the free publicity it’s getting across the globe as they are the first one to introduce iPads in London hotels. And the Apple too, for being a symbol of luxurious gadgets. By the did I tell you that each night stay at the luxurious suites of the hotel costs around $2804? This money seems to be far more than the required  to travel to US, grab an iPad and return back home. Join us on Facebook to read all our stories right inside your Facebook news feed.

  Read the article

• Using XML as data storage

  - by Kian Mayne

  I was thinking about the XML format and the following quote: “XML is not a database. It was never meant to be a database. It is never going to be a database. Relational databases are proven technology with more than 20 years of implementation experience. They are solid, stable, useful products. They are not going away. XML is a very useful technology for moving data between different databases or between databases and other programs. However, it is not itself a database. Don't use it like one.“ -Effective XML: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your XML by Elliotte Rusty Harold (page 230, Part 4, Item 41, 2nd paragraph) This seems to really stress that XML should not be used for data storage and should only be used for program to program interoperability. Personally, I disagree and .NET's app.config file that's used to store a program's settings is an example of data storage in an XML file. However for databases rather than configurations etc XML should not be used. To develop my point, I will use two examples: A) Data about customers with fields that are all on one level i.e. there are a number of fields all relating to one customer with no children B) Data about configuration of an application where nested fields and properties make a lot of sense So my question is, Is this still a valid statement and is it now acceptable to store data using XML? EDIT: I've sent an email to the author of that quote to ask for his input/extra context.

  Read the article

• Need game development sandbox like Etoys to do 2D games prototyping

  - by Dimitry Tato

  I am new to game development, and currently working on development a mobile 2D game (for android). As the part of the development process, I need to build a prototype and playtest it, to see if the game mechanics and user interaction is ok For example: if I have a starship shooting at ememies, I need to see what's the best size for my starship. what trajectories should the enemy ships fly and what velocity. Should the enemy ships be coming only from left to right, or also from top Should the enemy ships form a 'flock' or just fly by themselves what's the best 'powerup' pickup mechanics: to shoot it, or to pick it with the ship etc Implementing these details directly in Java (Android) is time consuming and as many of the 'hypotheses' will be rejected, I also don't want to invest a lot of time to code thigs, majority of which gonna be rejected. I found 'tool' Etoys http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34cWCnLC5nM&feature=related and official website http://www.squeakland.org/ which helps to build 'prototype' quickly, but Etoys is meant for children learning programming and is too basic. SO MY QUESTION IS: Is there any prototyping tool, as simple as Etoys and with better prototype quality?

  Read the article

• Silverlight 4 Twitter Client &ndash; Part 6

  - by Max

  In this post, we are going to look into implementing lists into our twitter application and also about enhancing the data grid to display the status messages in a pleasing way with the profile images. Twitter lists are really cool feature that they recently added, I love them and I’ve quite a few lists setup one for DOTNET gurus, SQL Server gurus and one for a few celebrities. You can follow them here. Now let us move onto our tutorial. 1) Lists can be subscribed to in two ways, one can be user’s own lists, which he has created and another one is the lists that the user is following. Like for example, I’ve created 3 lists myself and I am following 1 other lists created by another user. Both of them cannot be fetched in the same api call, its a two step process. 2) In the TwitterCredentialsSubmit method we’ve in Home.xaml.cs, let us do the first api call to get the lists that the user has created. For this the call has to be made to https://twitter.com/<TwitterUsername>/lists.xml. The API reference is available here. myService1.AllowReadStreamBuffering = true; myService1.UseDefaultCredentials = false; myService1.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(GlobalVariable.getUserName(), GlobalVariable.getPassword()); myService1.DownloadStringCompleted += new DownloadStringCompletedEventHandler(ListsRequestCompleted); myService1.DownloadStringAsync(new Uri("https://twitter.com/" + GlobalVariable.getUserName() + "/lists.xml")); 3) Now let us look at implementing the event handler – ListRequestCompleted for this. public void ListsRequestCompleted(object sender, System.Net.DownloadStringCompletedEventArgs e) { if (e.Error != null) { StatusMessage.Text = "This application must be installed first."; parseXML(""); } else { //MessageBox.Show(e.Result.ToString()); parseXMLLists(e.Result.ToString()); } } 4) Now let us look at the parseXMLLists in detail xdoc = XDocument.Parse(text); var answer = (from status in xdoc.Descendants("list") select status.Element("name").Value); foreach (var p in answer) { Border bord = new Border(); bord.CornerRadius = new CornerRadius(10, 10, 10, 10); Button b = new Button(); b.MinWidth = 70; b.Background = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Black); b.Foreground = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Black); //b.Width = 70; b.Height = 25; b.Click += new RoutedEventHandler(b_Click); b.Content = p.ToString(); bord.Child = b; TwitterListStack.Children.Add(bord); } So here what am I doing, I am just dynamically creating a button for each of the lists and put them within a StackPanel and for each of these buttons, I am creating a event handler b_Click which will be fired on button click. We will look into this method in detail soon. For now let us get the buttons displayed. 5) Now the user might have some lists to which he has subscribed to. We need to create a button for these as well. In the end of TwitterCredentialsSubmit method, we need to make a call to http://api.twitter.com/1/<TwitterUsername>/lists/subscriptions.xml. Reference is available here. The code will look like this below. myService2.AllowReadStreamBuffering = true; myService2.UseDefaultCredentials = false; myService2.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(GlobalVariable.getUserName(), GlobalVariable.getPassword()); myService2.DownloadStringCompleted += new DownloadStringCompletedEventHandler(ListsSubsRequestCompleted); myService2.DownloadStringAsync(new Uri("http://api.twitter.com/1/" + GlobalVariable.getUserName() + "/lists/subscriptions.xml")); 6) In the event handler – ListsSubsRequestCompleted, we need to parse through the xml string and create a button for each of the lists subscribed, let us see how. I’ve taken only the “full_name”, you can choose what you want, refer the documentation here. Note the point that the full_name will have @<UserName>/<ListName> format – this will be useful very soon. xdoc = XDocument.Parse(text); var answer = (from status in xdoc.Descendants("list") select status.Element("full_name").Value); foreach (var p in answer) { Border bord = new Border(); bord.CornerRadius = new CornerRadius(10, 10, 10, 10); Button b = new Button(); b.Background = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Black); b.Foreground = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Black); //b.Width = 70; b.MinWidth = 70; b.Height = 25; b.Click += new RoutedEventHandler(b_Click); b.Content = p.ToString(); bord.Child = b; TwitterListStack.Children.Add(bord); } Please note, I am setting the button width to be auto based on the content and also giving it a midwidth value. I wanted to create a rounded corner buttons, but for some reason its not working. Also add this StackPanel – TwitterListStack of the Home.xaml <StackPanel HorizontalAlignment="Center" Orientation="Horizontal" Name="TwitterListStack"></StackPanel> After doing this, you would get a series of buttons in the top of the home page. 7) Now the button click event handler – b_Click, in this method, once the button is clicked, I call another method with the content string of the button which is clicked as the parameter. Button b = (Button)e.OriginalSource; getListStatuses(b.Content.ToString()); 8) Now the getListsStatuses method: toggleProgressBar(true); WebRequest.RegisterPrefix("http://", System.Net.Browser.WebRequestCreator.ClientHttp); WebClient myService = new WebClient(); myService.AllowReadStreamBuffering = true; myService.UseDefaultCredentials = false; myService.DownloadStringCompleted += new DownloadStringCompletedEventHandler(TimelineRequestCompleted); if (listName.IndexOf("@") > -1 && listName.IndexOf("/") > -1) { string[] arrays = null; arrays = listName.Split('/'); arrays[0] = arrays[0].Replace("@", " ").Trim(); //MessageBox.Show(arrays[0]); //MessageBox.Show(arrays[1]); string url = "http://api.twitter.com/1/" + arrays[0] + "/lists/" + arrays[1] + "/statuses.xml"; //MessageBox.Show(url); myService.DownloadStringAsync(new Uri(url)); } else myService.DownloadStringAsync(new Uri("http://api.twitter.com/1/" + GlobalVariable.getUserName() + "/lists/" + listName + "/statuses.xml")); Please note that the url to look at will be different based on the list clicked – if its user created, the url format will be http://api.twitter.com/1/<CurentUser>/lists/<ListName>/statuses.xml But if it is some lists subscribed, it will be http://api.twitter.com/1/<ListOwnerUserName>/lists/<ListName>/statuses.xml The first one is pretty straight forward to implement, but if its a list subscribed, we need to split the listName string to get the list owner and list name and user them to form the string. So that is what I’ve done in this method, if the listName has got “@” and “/” I build the url differently. 9) Until now, we’ve been using only a few nodes of the status message xml string, now we will look to fetch a new field - “profile_image_url”. Images in datagrid – COOL. So for that, we need to modify our Status.cs file to include two more fields one string another BitmapImage with get and set. public string profile_image_url { get; set; } public BitmapImage profileImage { get; set; } 10) Now let us change the generic parseXML method which is used for binding to the datagrid. public void parseXML(string text) { XDocument xdoc; xdoc = XDocument.Parse(text); statusList = new List<Status>(); statusList = (from status in xdoc.Descendants("status") select new Status { ID = status.Element("id").Value, Text = status.Element("text").Value, Source = status.Element("source").Value, UserID = status.Element("user").Element("id").Value, UserName = status.Element("user").Element("screen_name").Value, profile_image_url = status.Element("user").Element("profile_image_url").Value, profileImage = new BitmapImage(new Uri(status.Element("user").Element("profile_image_url").Value)) }).ToList(); DataGridStatus.ItemsSource = statusList; StatusMessage.Text = "Datagrid refreshed."; toggleProgressBar(false); } We are here creating a new bitmap image from the image url and creating a new Status object for every status and binding them to the data grid. Refer to the Twitter API documentation here. You can choose any column you want. 11) Until now, we’ve been using the auto generate columns for the data grid, but if you want it to be really cool, you need to define the columns with templates, etc… <data:DataGrid AutoGenerateColumns="False" Name="DataGridStatus" Height="Auto" MinWidth="400"> <data:DataGrid.Columns> <data:DataGridTemplateColumn Width="50" Header=""> <data:DataGridTemplateColumn.CellTemplate> <DataTemplate> <Image Source="{Binding profileImage}" Width="50" Height="50" Margin="1"/> </DataTemplate> </data:DataGridTemplateColumn.CellTemplate> </data:DataGridTemplateColumn> <data:DataGridTextColumn Width="Auto" Header="User Name" Binding="{Binding UserName}" /> <data:DataGridTemplateColumn MinWidth="300" Width="Auto" Header="Status"> <data:DataGridTemplateColumn.CellTemplate> <DataTemplate> <TextBlock TextWrapping="Wrap" Text="{Binding Text}"/> </DataTemplate> </data:DataGridTemplateColumn.CellTemplate> </data:DataGridTemplateColumn> </data:DataGrid.Columns> </data:DataGrid> I’ve used only three columns – Profile image, Username, Status text. Now our Datagrid will look super cool like this. Coincidentally,  Tim Heuer is on the screenshot , who is a Silverlight Guru and works on SL team in Microsoft. His blog is really super. Here is the zipped file for all the xaml, xaml.cs & class files pages. Ok let us stop here for now, will look into implementing few more features in the next few posts and then I am going to look into developing a ASP.NET MVC 2 application. Hope you all liked this post. If you have any queries / suggestions feel free to comment below or contact me. Cheers! Technorati Tags: Silverlight,LINQ,Twitter API,Twitter,Silverlight 4

  Read the article

• XNA Quadtree with LOD

  - by Byron Cobb

  I'm looking to create a fairly large environment, and as such would like to implement a quadtree and use LOD on it. I've looked through numerous examples and I get the basic idea of a quadtree. Start with a root node with 4 vertices covering the whole map and divide into 4 children nodes until I meet some criteria(max number of triangles) I'm looking for some very very basic algorithm or explanation with respect to drawing the quadtree. What vertices need to be stored per iteration? When do I determine what vertices to draw? When to update indices and vertices? Hope to integrate the bounding frustrum? Do I include parent and child vertices? I'm looking for very simple instruction on what to do. I've scoured the internet for days now looking, but everyone adds extra code and a different spin without explanation. I understand quadtrees, but not with respect to 3d rendering and lod. A link to an outside source will probably have been read by myself already and won't help. Regards, Byron.

  Read the article

• Can't use the hardware scissor any more, should I use the stencil buffer or manually clip sprites?

  - by Alex Ames

  I wrote a simple UI system for my game. There is a clip flag on my widgets that you can use to tell a widget to clip any children that try to draw outside their parent's box (for scrollboxes for example). The clip flag uses glScissor, which is fed an axis aligned rectangle. I just added arbitrary rotation and transformations to my widgets, so I can rotate or scale them however I want. Unfortunately, this breaks the scissor that I was using as now my clip rectangle might not be axis aligned. There are two ways I can think of to fix this: either by using the stencil buffer to define the drawable area, or by having a wrapper function around my sprite drawing function that will adjust the vertices and texture coords of the sprites being drawn based on the clipper on the top of a clipper stack. Of course, there may also be other options I can't think of (something fancy with shaders possibly?). I'm not sure which way to go at the moment. Changing the implementation of my scissor functions to use the stencil buffer probably requires the smallest change, but I'm not sure how much overhead that has compared to the coordinate adjusting or if the performance difference is even worth considering.

  Read the article

• Clipping polygons in XNA with stencil (not using spritebatch)

  - by Blau

  The problem... i'm drawing polygons, in this case boxes, and i want clip children polygons with its parent's client area. // Class Region public void Render(GraphicsDevice Device, Camera Camera) { int StencilLevel = 0; Device.Clear( ClearOptions.Stencil, Vector4.Zero, 0, StencilLevel ); Render( Device, Camera, StencilLevel ); } private void Render(GraphicsDevice Device, Camera Camera, int StencilLevel) { Device.SamplerStates[0] = this.SamplerState; Device.Textures[0] = this.Texture; Device.RasterizerState = RasterizerState.CullNone; Device.BlendState = BlendState.AlphaBlend; Device.DepthStencilState = DepthStencilState.Default; Effect.Prepare(this, Camera ); Device.DepthStencilState = GlobalContext.GraphicsStates.IncMask; Device.ReferenceStencil = StencilLevel; foreach ( EffectPass pass in Effect.Techniques[Technique].Passes ) { pass.Apply( ); Device.DrawUserIndexedPrimitives<VertexPositionColorTexture>( PrimitiveType.TriangleList, VertexData, 0, VertexData.Length, IndexData, 0, PrimitiveCount ); } foreach ( Region child in ChildrenRegions ) { child.Render( Device, Camera, StencilLevel + 1 ); } Effect.Prepare( this, Camera ); // This does not works Device.BlendState = GlobalContext.GraphicsStates.NoWriteColor; Device.DepthStencilState = GlobalContext.GraphicsStates.DecMask; Device.ReferenceStencil = StencilLevel; // This should be +1, but in that case the last drrawed is blue and overlap all foreach ( EffectPass pass in Effect.Techniques[Technique].Passes ) { pass.Apply( ); Device.DrawUserIndexedPrimitives<VertexPositionColorTexture>( PrimitiveType.TriangleList, VertexData, 0, VertexData.Length, IndexData, 0, PrimitiveCount ); } } public static class GraphicsStates { public static BlendState NoWriteColor = new BlendState( ) { ColorSourceBlend = Blend.One, AlphaSourceBlend = Blend.One, ColorDestinationBlend = Blend.InverseSourceAlpha, AlphaDestinationBlend = Blend.InverseSourceAlpha, ColorWriteChannels1 = ColorWriteChannels.None }; public static DepthStencilState IncMask = new DepthStencilState( ) { StencilEnable = true, StencilFunction = CompareFunction.Equal, StencilPass = StencilOperation.IncrementSaturation, }; public static DepthStencilState DecMask = new DepthStencilState( ) { StencilEnable = true, StencilFunction = CompareFunction.Equal, StencilPass = StencilOperation.DecrementSaturation, }; } How can achieve this? EDIT: I've just relized that the NoWriteColors.ColorWriteChannels1 should be NoWriteColors.ColorWriteChannels. :) Now it's clipping right. Any other approach?

  Read the article

• Including BLOB images in your PDF Reports

  - by thatjeffsmith

  Earlier this year we walked through how to work with BLOBs in Oracle SQL Developer. So you already know how to INSERT, UPDATE and view the BLOBs stored in your tables. But now I want to show you how to include those images in your PDF reports. You know how to work with SQL Developer reports, right? No? OK, let’s do a quick run down memory lane then: How to Build a Bar Chart Child reports – click on parent record for on-the-fly children records Alright, so if you have a GRID report that contains a BLOB column, you have the option of including the BLOB contents when you create a PDF export: At design time, specify how you want the BLOB content to be treated when you export to PDF Note that you must specify the treatment of the BLOBs in the report design. You won’t be prompted when you launch the Export wizard dialog. When you open your PDF, there will be a link to the image. Click it. Click then confirm. It will launch the default image viewer on your machine. I hope your pictures are more excited than mine.

  Read the article

• Any language where every class instance is a class too?

  - by Dokkat

  Taking inspiration from Javascript prototypes, I had the idea of a language where every instance can be used as a class. Before I potentially reinvent the wheel, I would like to ask if there is a language already using this concept: //To declare a Class, extend the base class (in this case, Type) Type(Weapon,{price:0}); //Same syntax to inherit; simply extend the parent: Weapon(Sword,{price:3}); Weapon(Axe,{price:4}); Sword(Katana,{price:7}); Sword(Dagger,{price:3}); //And the same to create an instance: Katana(myKatana,{nickname:"Leon"}); myKatana.price; // 7 myKatana.nickname; // Leon // An operator to return children of a class; Sword_; // [Katana, Dagger] // An operator to return array of descendants; Sword__; // [Katana, Dagger, myKatana] // An operator to return array of parents; Sword^; // Weapon // Arrays can be used as elements Sword__.price += 1; //increases price of Sword's descendants by 1 mySword.price; //8 // And to access specific element (using its name instead of index) var name = "mySword" Katana_[name]; // [mySword] Katana_[name].nickname; // Leon Has this kind of approach been already studied/implemented?

  Read the article

• In a Tower defense game, how to do buffs/debuffs

  - by Gabe

  The question is at the very bottom. If you understand Buffs/Debuffs in tower defense games then you should skip the bulk of this question and go to the bottom (seperated with the long line) I plan on making an IPhone TD game. The fact that its an iPhone game isn't relevant but I am coding in Objective-c with Cocos2D. I am relatively inexperienced in the field of game design so I'm looking for some advice from someone experienced in this field. In tower defense, there are two things that are relevant to my question: towers/enemies (both have their own classes/children). They each have stats like hp, damage, speed, etc. I want to add buffs/defuffs, for instance: Towers A,B and C each have 15 base damage. Tower D would be a buff tower with no damage, a tower with an AOE(area of effect) aura that gives 10% damage to all towers in range. Tower E might slow enemies in its AOE, a debuff. Stuff like that. The same could go for enemies. Enemy A is a boss that has a slow aura that affects towers and slows their base attack speed or something along those lines. So the question is, what would be the most effective way to implement this? If it was just towers then I would just mess around with the tower classes, but since tower classes and enemy classes are both affected, should I make a buff class? TD games can consume quite a bit of memory with large amounts of creeps and towers, and buffs I feel like would also consume quit a bit... So I'm trying to be as effective as possible.

  Read the article

• What is the best way to restrict access to adult content on Ubuntu?

  - by Stephen Myall

  I bought my kids a PC and installed 12.04 (Unity) on it. The bottom line is, I want my children to use the computer unsupervised while I have confidence they cannot access anything inappropriate. What I have looked at: I was looking at Scrubit a tool which allows me configure my wifi router to block content and this solution would also protect my other PC and mobile devices. This may be overkill as I just want the solution to work on one PC. I also did some Google searches and came across the application called Nanny (it seems to look the part). My experience of OSS is that the best solutions frequently never appear first on a Google search list and in this case I need to trust the methods therefore my question is very specific. I want to leverage your knowledge and experience to understand “What is the best way to restrict adult content on 12.04 LTS” as this is important to me. It maybe a combination of things so please don't answer this question "try this or that", then give me some PPA unless you can share your experience of how good it is and of course if there are any contraints. Thanks in advance

  Read the article

• Customizing the NUnit GUI for data-driven testing

  - by rwong

  My test project consists of a set of input data files which is fed into a piece of legacy third-party software. Since the input data files for this software are difficult to construct (not something that can be done intentionally), I am not going to add new input data files. Each input data file will be subject to a set of "test functions". Some of the test functions can be invoked independently. Other test functions represent the stages of a sequential operation - if an earlier stage fails, the subsequent stages do not need to be executed. I have experimented with the NUnit parametrized test case (TestCaseAttribute and TestCaseSourceAttribute), passing in the list of data files as test cases. I am generally satisfied with the the ability to select the input data for testing. However, I would like to see if it is possible to customize its GUI's tree structure, so that the "test functions" become the children of the "input data". For example: File #1 CheckFileTypeTest GetFileTopLevelStructureTest CompleteProcessTest StageOneTest StageTwoTest StageThreeTest File #2 CheckFileTypeTest GetFileTopLevelStructureTest CompleteProcessTest StageOneTest StageTwoTest StageThreeTest This will be useful for identifying the stage that failed during the processing of a particular input file. Is there any tips and tricks that will enable the new tree layout? Do I need to customize NUnit to get this layout?

  Read the article

• Space-efficient data structures for broad-phase collision detection

  - by Marian Ivanov

  As far as I know, these are three types of data structures that can be used for collision detection broadphase: Unsorted arrays: Check every object againist every object - O(n^2) time; O(log n) space. It's so slow, it's useless if n isn't really small. for (i=1;i<objects;i++){ for(j=0;j<i;j++) narrowPhase(i,j); }; Sorted arrays: Sort the objects, so that you get O(n^(2-1/k)) for k dimensions O(n^1.5) for 2d and O(n^1.67) for 3d and O(n) space. Assuming the space is 2D and sortedArray is sorted so that if the object begins in sortedArray[i] and another object ends at sortedArray[i-1]; they don't collide Heaps of stacks: Divide the objects between a heap of stacks, so that you only have to check the bucket, its children and its parents - O(n log n) time, but O(n^2) space. This is probably the most frequently used approach. Is there a way of having O(n log n) time with less space? When is it more efficient to use sorted arrays over heaps and vice versa?

  Read the article

• FULL LIST Difference Edubuntu over Ubuntu

  - by Richard Kemp

  I have always used Edubuntu rather than Ubuntu because I have many children including home educated ones who casually use the education offerings. I appreciate many but not all of the extra offerings. I never got beyond 8.04.4 LTS, so am considering updating. I note now with Edubuntu 12.04 it is 2GB i.e.4 times bigger, even apparently using squashfs. I do now have to consider whether the extra resources are worth it in each computer in my household. I am sick of reading over and over again 'Edubuntu is Unbuntu with extras such as blah blah', and in a different place the same thing but with a different blah blah. I downloaded Edubuntu 12.04 and ran it 'live'. Can't say I got on at all with the Unity Interface (this can be changed when installed), but the apparent education stuff seemed quite small and pathetic, I am obviously not finding it. Is there anywhere a FULL LIST of what Edubuntu has pre-installed has over Ubuntu, so a sensible decision can be made whether to go for it, or just add packages that look relevant to me to Ubuntu. Is there truly no other difference between Unbuntu/Edubuntu but the extra educational packages? (I for example have no school server, but if I understood exactly what is involved, with the number of computers in the house, it may be worth creating one!) Please advise. Thank You.

  Read the article

• How to manage focus for a small set of simple widgets

  - by Christoph

  I'm developing a set of simple widgets for a small (128x128) display. For example I'd like to have a main screen with an overlay menu which I can use to toggle visibilty of main screen elements. Each option would be an icon with a box around it while it is selected. Button (left, up, right, down, enter) events should be given to the widget that has "focus". Focus is a simple thing to understand when using a GUI, but I'm having trouble implementing this. Can you suggest a simple concept for managing focus and input events? I have these simple ideas: Only one widget can have focus, so I need a single pointer to that widget. When this widget gets some kind of "cycle" input (as in "highlight the next item in this list"), the focus is given to a different widget. a widget must have a way of telling the application which widget the focus is given to next. if a widget cannot give a "next focus" hint, the application must be able to figure out where the focus should go. Widgets are currently structured like this: A widget can have a parent, which is passed to the constructor. Widgets are created statically, as I want to avoid dynamic memory allocation (I only have 16kB of RAM and I'd like to have control over that). widgets have siblings, implemented as an intrusive linked list (they have a next member). A parent has a pointer to the head of its list of children. Input events are arguments to the widgets buttonEvent methods which can accept or ignore that event. If it ignores the event, it can pass the event to its parent. My Questions: How can I manage focus for these widgets? Am I making this too complicated?

  Read the article

• Getting the relational table data into XML recursively

  - by Tom

  I have levels of tables (Level1, Level2, Level3, ...) For simplicity, we'll say I have 3 levels. The rows in the higher level tables are parents of lower level table rows. The relationship does not skip levels however. E.g. Row1Level1 is parent of Row3Level2, Row2Level2 is parent of Row4Level3. Level(n-1)'s parent is always be in Level(n). Given these tables with data, I need to come up with a recursive function that generates an XML file to represent the relationship and the data. E.g. <data> <level levelid = 1 rowid=1> <level levelid = 2 rowid=3 /> </level> <level levelid = 2 rowid=2> <level levelid = 3 rowid=4 /> </level> </data> I would like help with coming up with a pseudo-code for this setup. This is what I have so far: XElement GetXMLData(Table table, string identifier, XElement data) { XElement xmlData = data; if (table != null) { foreach (row in the table) { // Get subordinate table Table subordinateTable = GetSubordinateTable(table); // Get the XML Data for the children of current row xmlData += GetXMLData(subordinateTable, row.Identifier, xmlData); } } return xmlData; }

  Read the article

• Use Your Android Phone to Comparison Shop: 4 Scanner Apps Reviewed

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  A smart phone in your pocket is great for on the go news, web browsing, and—of course—mobile gaming. It’s also fantastic for comparison shopping. Today we take a look at four Android scanners and price comparison engines. It’s quite a neat time to be a consumer. Historically if you wanted to do serious price comparisons you had to haul yourself around town, gather flyers from the newspapers, and otherwise invest way too much energy into potential savings that might not even break into double digits. Now you can comparison shop with an ease that borders on magic: by simply pulling out your smart phone and scanning the barcode or typing in the name of the item you wish to compare. Today we’re taking a look at some of the more popular and powerful barcode scanners and price comparison engines available for the Android platform. Before we get to that, a word on our methodology. To test the barcode scanners and the resulting search results we wandered around and rounded up some relatively random items from around the How-To Geek offices. This included a children’s graphic novel, a Wii game, a board game, a pack of razors, a box of tea, and a bottle of nail polish. It’s a decent spread of consumer items that covers several genres. For each application we scanned all the items, looked for the best price at the time, and noted any other relevant benefits of using one scanner over another. It’s worth noting that our primary focus was on the speed and ease of use. You may find that certain scanners have specific features that best suit your needs. What we focused on was how fast you could scan, compare prices, and purchase items if you desired. Since all the scanners are free-as-in-beer, feel free to download them all and run your own tests to confirm our conclusions. Use Your Android Phone to Comparison Shop: 4 Scanner Apps Reviewed How to Run Android Apps on Your Desktop the Easy Way HTG Explains: Do You Really Need to Defrag Your PC?

  Read the article

• Benefits of Masters of Engineering Professional Practice for the lowly (yet aspiring) programmer

  - by Peter Turner

  I've been looking into in state online degree programs 'to fit my busy lifestyle' (i.e. three children, wife and hour and a half commute). One interesting one I've found is that Master of Engineering in Professional Practice. It looks more useful and practical than a MBA in project management. I'll contact the admission dept there about the specifics. But here I'm just asking in general. Do the courses in this degree apply to software engineering/development in even an abstract sense. The university I'm looking at does not have a Software Engineering major in the school of engineering. I'm not interested in architecture astronomy, but I am interested in helping my company succeed and being able to communicate technical information at a high and effective level as well as being able to lead my co-programmers toward a more robust end product. So my multipart question is: What might be the real benefit to me and my brain and How do I convince my boss (the owner of the company, who does do some tuition reimbursement) that just because it doesn't say anything about software that it might still do us some good? Oh, and how do I get past the fact that a masters degree would make me more qualified to be the project manager than... the project manager? (who is my supervisor)

  Read the article

• PanelCollection Confusion ... or, what is an event root ?

  - by frank.nimphius

  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-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; 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; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} A command button added to the toolbar of a Panel Collection component does not cause field validation in a form when pressed. While this appears confusing it works as designed. Instead of a full page re-rendering, ADF Faces events and components can trigger partial page refresh, in which only portions of a page are refresh upon a request. In addition, some components - including the af:popup and af:subForm - represent event roots. Event roots don't propagated event notification outside of the component tag boundary, which means that the ADF Faces lifecycle only executed on components that are children of the event root component. The PanelCollection component is an event root and therefore only validates and refreshes data of its child components.

  Read the article

• Business Intelligence (BI) Defined

  CIO.com defines Business Intelligence (BI) as a generic reference to a collection of applications that are used to analyze raw organizational data. Typical BI activities include data mining, online analytical processing, querying and reporting. They further explain that the primary reason why a company would utilize BI is to make their more data accessible. The more accessible data is to the users the faster they can identify ways to reduce business cost, discover new business opportunities, and react quickly to adjust prices based on current supply and demand. One area in which a hospital system could use BI derived from a data warehouse can be seen in the Emergency Room (ER) in regards to the number of doctors and nurse they have working during a full moon for each ER location. In order determine this BI needs to determine a trend in the number of patients seen on a full moon, further more they also need to determine the optimal number of staff members working during a full moon be determining the number of employees to patients ration needed to meet standard patient times and also be the most cost effective for the hospital.  This will allow the hospital system to estimate the number of potential patients they will have on the next full moon and adjust their staff schedules accordingly to ensure that patient care is not affected in any way do the influx or lack of influx of patients during this time while also ensuring that they are only working the minimum number of employees to ensure that they still making a profit. Another area where a hospital system could use BI data regards their orders paced to drug and medical supply companies. BI could define trends in prescriptions given to patients, this information could be used for ordering new supplies and forecasting the amount of medicine each hospital needs to keep on site at a given time. For example, a hospital might want to stock up on materials need to set bones in a cast prior to the summer because their BI indicates that a majority of broken bones occur during the summer due to children being out of school and they have more free time.

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56  | Next Page >