Topics

26

Living Room / Mid-range DSLR Camera Recommendations

« on: January 31, 2013, 10:34 AM »

My family is looking to replace our small digital camera with something more robust. We were previously the owners of a Canon EOS 50d but found that to be overkill for our needs. We are looking for a good mid-range DSLR camera. We are not very picky on what features it has, just that pictures are of decent quality and there is a good lens selection available should our needs change as we progress. Additionally, we would like to see an HD movie recording mode for short snippets while out and about.

Oh donationcoder gurus, we reach out to you!

27

Living Room / Doom 3 Source Code - The neatest code I've ever seen

« on: January 16, 2013, 06:56 PM »

This is a story about Doom 3's source code and how beautiful it is. Yes, beautiful. Allow me to explain.

After releasing my video game Dyad I took a little break. I read some books and watched some movies I'd put off for too long. I was working on the European version of Dyad, but that time was mostly waiting for feedback from Sony quality assurance, so I had a lot of free time. After loafing around for a month or so I started to seriously consider what I was going to do next. I wanted to extract the reusable/engine-y parts of Dyad for a new project.

When I originally started working on Dyad there was a very clean, pretty functional game engine I created from an accumulation of years of working on other projects. By the end of Dyad I had a hideous mess.
In the final six weeks of Dyad development I added over 13k lines of code. MainMenu.cc ballooned to 24,501 lines. The once-beautiful source code was a mess riddled with #ifdefs, gratuitous function pointers, ugly inline SIMD and asm code—I learned a new term: "code entropy." I searched the internet for other projects that I could use to learn how to organize hundreds of thousands of lines of code. After looking through several large game engines I was pretty discouraged; the Dyad source code wasn't actually that bad compared to everything else out there!

Unsatisfied, I continued looking, and found a very nice analysis of id Software's Doom 3 source code by the computer expert Fabien Sanglard.

Source URL

28

Living Room / Java debugging in Eclipse

« on: January 01, 2013, 11:01 AM »

OK, crazy question, but is there some trick to debugging a project in Eclipse? Ideally, I would like to start my code in debug mode and step through it without the need for breakpoints. Right now, when I set a breakpoint, some applications generate "Class Not Found Exceptions" and others generate "Thread.exit() not found" at the close of the application, despite running fine when executed normally, with appropriate results.

Is there some trick to debugging in Eclipse?

29

General Software Discussion / Good coding conventions - Discussion

« on: December 30, 2012, 11:02 AM »

OK, a little background on the reason behind this post.

I have recently started teaching myself Java in an effort to start dabbling in Android development. I am using the Eclipse IDE in combination with the Sam's Teach Yourself Java in 21 days - Covering Java 7 and Android book.

As a course of habit, I find myself skimming each chapter so that I can see what things I might possibly miss by assuming I knew all of the material (yes, even variable types. I actually learned something reading through the types). This is where the discussion I want to have arises from.

When coding, I know common coding conventions such as coding indentation for readability, CONST/Finals being written in ALL CAPS in order to identify them as such. I was wondering, what other practices do each of you follow as you code and which are considered industry best practice?

30

General Software Discussion / The first rule of kernel maintenance: YOU DO NOT BREAK USER SPACE!

« on: December 28, 2012, 08:41 PM »

Warning: NSFW Language

A pretty harsh attack at a kernel maintainer, as written by Linus Torvalds.

31

Community Giveaways / Bit.trip runner - Free copy to first commenter (STEAM)

« on: December 22, 2012, 10:17 AM »

To whomever posts first, I have a copy of bit.trip runner to give away. My steam user ID is Metshrine.

Ready....GO!

Store Page

32

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Configurable Backup Utility

« on: December 16, 2012, 01:22 PM »

OK, the idea behind this is quite simple. Many applications lack a proper backup facility for their application-specific settings. This application will take a configuration file, possibly developed by the community, and use it to backup the application's settings. For example, one could make a vlc.xml file and this application will be able to load this, and produce a backup of the configuration settings based on the paths stored in the xml file. The utility will have an interface that will allow for a single profile to be loaded and run, or multiple at once, and have the results stored in a zip file. Ideally, the user can load multiple files into the application before a backup is performed.

The community would be the driving force behind such an application as it would allow each user to develop an xml file for any application that does not have a proper backup facility.

What do you think?

33

Living Room / Free E-book: 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10

« on: December 02, 2012, 03:23 PM »

This book takes a single line of code—the extremely concise BASIC program for the Commodore 64 inscribed in the title—and uses it as a lens through which to consider the phenomenon of creative computing and the way computer programs exist in culture. The authors of this collaboratively written book treat code not as merely functional but as a text—in the case of 10 PRINT, a text that appeared in many different printed sources—that yields a story about its making, its purpose, its assumptions, and more. They consider randomness and regularity in computing and art, the maze in culture, the popular BASIC programming language, and the highly influential Commodore 64 computer.

E-Book Website

Needless to say, this is a very good read and gives an insight into early programming and randomization.

34

Site/Forum Features / MOVED: ~Gri to App103~

« on: November 28, 2012, 08:39 PM »

This topic has been moved to The Basement.

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=33056.0

35

Site/Forum Features / MOVED: ~Gri to App103~

« on: November 28, 2012, 08:28 AM »

This topic has been moved to The Basement.

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=33045.0

36

Site/Forum Features / MOVED: ~Gri to Mouser~

« on: November 27, 2012, 03:31 AM »

This topic has been moved to The Basement.

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=33018.0

37

Living Room / Disney acquires Lucasfilm for 4.05 billion dollars. Star Wars Ep VII due in 2015

« on: October 31, 2012, 07:14 AM »

10:15PM EDT October 30. 2012 - Luke Skywalker and Han Solo are joining Mickey Mouse, Buzz Lightyear and Iron Man in Disney's roster of heroes.

Disney is buying Lucasfilm for $4 billion, adding the legendary Star Wars franchise to the entertainment giant's stable of characters. Lucasfilm is 100% owned by founder George Lucas. The purchase culminates a one and a half year pursuit of the Lucas empire, Disney's CEO said.

MORE: Reaction to the news

Lucas, who receives 40 million Disney shares from the deal, will be the second-largest non-institutional shareholder of Disney, Bloomberg News says, behind the trust of deceased Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

The 68-year-old Lucas will serve as a creative consultant but plans to retire.

"For the past 35 years, one of my greatest pleasures has been to see Star Wars passed from one generation to the next," said Lucas, chairman and CEO of Lucasfilm, in a statement. "It's now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers."

Said Disney CEO Robert Iger: "This is one of the great entertainment properties of all time, one of the best branded and one of the most valuable, and it's just fantastic for us to have the opportunity to both buy it, run it and grow it."

Source

<Dr. Evil laugh>
That's right, 4.05 Billion dollars
</Dr. Evil laugh>

Am I the only one who says....NO!!!!!!!!!

38

General Software Discussion / Neowin reviews Windows 8 - Leave your pre-conceived notions at the door

« on: October 24, 2012, 08:48 AM »

Before you read another word of this review, I need you to do something very important. Take all of your preconceived notions about what Windows is today and what you are familiar with, and put them aside. It’s time to reinvent the desktop OS and Microsoft is leading the charge.

At the end of this review, you will see three scores. One score is for using Windows 8 with a keyboard and mouse, one is for using Windows 8 as a touch-based platform and the final is a combined score. The reasoning for this is that each input method offers two distinct experiences and to combine them into a single score would not accurately reflect the true value of the product; the summary score is made up of the two independent scores.

Source

Like Neowin says, take Windows 8 for what it is. Do not try and compare it to the past versions of Windows. While some will oppose this change, those that I know who run Windows 8 are actually enjoying it once getting past the new "Metro Screen".

On a side note, I have been running Windows 8 for over a month and love every aspect of it. Once I get a touch screen laptop (next month or two), I can see a lot of this new functionality being VERY useful.

39

Living Room / How to tell if the Universe is a computer simulation

« on: October 11, 2012, 06:34 AM »

Saw this, thought of our admin mouser who was an aspiring AI researcher.

It's a famous question among academic philosophers and drunken college students alike: how can we be sure we're not living in a gigantic computer simulation? Fortunately, researchers from the University of Bonn in Germany think they've cracked it.

Their reasoning is pretty straightforward, according to Technology Review: if the cosmos is just a numerical simulation, calculated on some insanely powerful supercomputer tucked away in another world, there should be clues around us that can reveal the truth. Glitches in the system, if you like, that give the game away.

Moving from that reasoning to the science required to find those clues isn't quite so easy. To kick things off, the team of researchers from Bonn have speculated that the problem with all simulations is that they're discretized: to model a physical phenomenon, the real world has to be represented by separate points in time and 3D space. Sure you can make the distance between those points reeeeeeally small—but you still have to have this kind of grid.

Source

40

Living Room / Chrome Subtabs Extension - Does this exist?

« on: October 05, 2012, 01:39 PM »

I had been doing some looking for an extension that performs a certain set of functions for organizational purposes within chrome.

If you are like me, you have a bunch of tabs open, even multiple for the same site. What I am looking for is a "subtabs" extension that will take any tab and allow them to be grouped under a single parent tab. Upon navigation to the parent, the children tabs are expanded and placed under the parent, in a second row of tabs.

In a similar fashion, I would like the extension to be able to perform "smart grouping" that automatically puts children tabs under a parent of the same root domain (google.com, microsoft.com, donationcoder.com, etc.).

Does anyone know of such a concoction?

41

Living Room / Remote Android Control Solution?

« on: September 29, 2012, 07:59 PM »

I am looking for a tool that I am sure exists, but I have yet to find. I want to be able to remotely control an android-based device (tablet, phone, etc). I want to be able to "view" the screen or to take full control. I would like to be able to control key aspects such as enabling or disabling things like data networks or GPS, turning on and off the front/rear camera, and doing other tasks from a central console.

Does anyone know if such a solution exists?

42

Living Room / Ubuntu will now have Amazon ads pre-installed

« on: September 22, 2012, 08:45 AM »

Amazon shopping results have been integrated into the Unity Dash of Ubuntu 12.10.

The feature comes a day after news that Ubuntu were adding Amazon and Ubuntu One Music web-apps as default items on Unity launcher.

Canonical says that the feature ‘extends what was already introduced in the Music and Video Lenses’ by offering ’a “more suggestions” results category …to searches performed from the home dash.’

The boon for them is that they get a small % cut from every purchase made through the Dash (or the web-app mentioned yesterday), as Oliver Ries explained on the Ubuntu Development mailing list yesterday:

“…if a user clicks the item and purchases it, it will generate affiliate revenue that we can invest back into the project (in a similar way to how we generate revenue from the Firefox search
bar).

We have found affiliate revenue to be a good method of helping us to continue to invest in maturing and growing Ubuntu.”

Source

43

Find And Run Robot / New CPanel alias discussion and suggestions

« on: September 21, 2012, 09:25 PM »

To all that are interested in the new CPanel alias mentioned here, please post any comments or suggestions to this thread. If you find any missing applets (not vendor specific such as NVidia or AMD, or ones that come with a utility such as sisoft sandra or everest), please post them here and what OS you are running.

44

Living Room / ipv6-capable Linux/BSD firewall distribution

« on: September 19, 2012, 04:43 AM »

All,

I am looking to repurpose my old media server (old p4 system) into a make-shift firewall appliance. One of my key requirements is to have ipv6 deployed internally. This would require a dhcpv6 implementation along with related ipv6 services.

Right now, I have an older machine running Windows 2008 Server acting as a firewall. I would like to re-purpose this machine to server as a secondary domain controller for Windows Server 2012 so I can test out NAP and a few other new features.

Any help is appreciated!
Josh

45

Post New Requests Here / MOVED: DONE: Batch-create shortcuts from a CSV file

« on: September 12, 2012, 10:26 PM »

This topic has been moved to Finished Programs.

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=32217.0

46

Finished Programs / DONE: Batch-create shortcuts from a CSV file

« on: September 12, 2012, 07:26 PM »

Hello all,

Here is what I want to achieve. I need to create around 80-90 shortcuts. I have a CSV file that is formatted as such:

Code: Text [Select]

1. Shortcut Title, Command

Is there a tool that can take this csv file and create shortscuts titled "Shortcut Title" and points to the "Command" executable or path?

47

Find And Run Robot / Long delay when using file system browsing

« on: September 12, 2012, 07:52 AM »

I am experiencing large delays when browsing the file system using FARR. I have performed a clean installation and only have about 5 plugins installed (services control, env variables, farrprocs, farruninstall, and processkill).

Scenario: I want to browse for and launch a file in the c:\temp folder.

Execution:

1. I begin by typing c:\. At this point, FARR is trying to pull up the resources in the root of the C Drive. There is a slight delay, about 1-2 seconds, while this list is populated.
2. I start typing "temp". As soon as I type a character, FARR begins searching the FS. This can result in a 200-300ms delay per character typed.
3. I finish typing temp. At this point, depending on the number of files in c:\temp, there is a noticeable delay after typing the final letter or the corresponding \ "c:\temp\".
4. After this delay, the same issue appears from item 2.

Is this the norm? I do not remember the delay being as large when FARR initially received FS browsing, but I could be mistaken. This is on Windows 8 Pro.

48

Living Room / Google releases "Course Builder" for the online learning crowd (LMS)

« on: September 11, 2012, 08:25 PM »

That's right, it looks like Google is taking a step in another direction with this project. They now provide you with a tool to develop and implement courseware online. Stanford, UC San Diego and Indiana University are ccurrently evaluating the tool for use in their respective schools.

Perhaps this could be a way to breath life into the Programming school here at DoCo?

Google Course Builder

49

Living Room / Windows system "aliases"?

« on: September 10, 2012, 09:09 AM »

Here is something I have been wanting for a while. I know this can be done with batch files, but I wanted to see if there was another way to handle this.

What I want to do is generate a set of aliases that execute commands I use on a routine basis, for example launching certain pages in internet explorer. Is there a way to do this so I can execute these commands from the start menu or the run dialog?

For example, I type cpanel into the run dialog, hit enter and it opens my Google apps control panel.

Thoughts?

50

General Software Discussion / Windows 8 WINKEY+X customization?

« on: September 06, 2012, 07:15 AM »

As an avid Windows 8 fan, I must say the new OS has continued to impress me. One of the recent articles, mentioned on DoCo, by Scott Hanselman alerted me to the new WINKEY+X hotkey which provides access to some really useful and frequently used features.

My question is this....Does anyone know of a way to customize this menu?