Recent Posts

1601

Developer's Corner / Re: c++ resources for the VB programmer

« Last post by tinjaw on February 04, 2007, 02:26 PM »

Booma-Booma,

Those are good reasons. Good luck with your studies. It sounds like you are on the right track.

1602

Developer's Corner / Re: c++ resources for the VB programmer

« Last post by tinjaw on February 04, 2007, 12:54 PM »

Python Rocks! [attach=#1][/attach]

I'm going to jump in and ask you why you are learning C++? Each language has its own advantages and disadvantages. And depending on what you are coding, some languages may be better suited to the task than others. So, why C++?

1603

General Software Discussion / Re: laptop died. Need to troubleshoot it in a record time. Installing winXP from

« Last post by tinjaw on February 04, 2007, 12:42 PM »

You can also get a linux distro that runs off of a USB drive. Boot up to that and mount the HDD. Then delete the offending files and try booting in safe mode again.

1604

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Staff rotation tool

« Last post by tinjaw on February 04, 2007, 09:12 AM »

Work has begun. 

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1605

Developer's Corner / The wxAUI Library

« Last post by tinjaw on February 03, 2007, 11:30 AM »

wxAUI is an open-source advanced user interface library that aims to make it easy to implement "cutting-edge" interface usability and design features for wxWidgets applications.

I was poking around this morning looking at various bits of Python stuff and I came across wxPython's wrapper around wx.aui. I am a fan of Eclipse RCP and this looks like an attempt to build something similar via wxWidgets. wxAUI uses the concept of a "perspective" in a manner similar to RCP. There are panels which can easily be dragged and repositioned. I'm going to try using it on one of my smaller apps.

wx.aui is similar to wxDockIt.

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1606

Found Deals and Discounts / FolderMatch on Bits du Jour Today Only 50% Off

« Last post by tinjaw on January 31, 2007, 08:40 AM »

I have used FolderMatch in the past and was very happy with it. I have only stopped using it because I now own Beyond Compare thanks to a DonationCoder discount. If you don't need the extra functionality of Beyond Compare, I highly recommend picking up a copy of FolderMatch today from Bits du Jour.

1607

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Mini-Review: Altiris SVS

« Last post by tinjaw on January 31, 2007, 08:13 AM »

I have been playing with SVS on and off over the past six months. With the announcement from Symantec, I too have uninstalled it and thrown it in the "could have been a contender" pile.

1608

Macromedia Flash / Re: What is needed?

« Last post by tinjaw on January 31, 2007, 08:09 AM »

If you want to build a GUI in Flash you could use an open source alternative like AsWing.

I have used OpenLaszlo with some success in the past. You may want to look into for building GUIs.

OpenLaszlo programs are written in XML and JavaScript and transparently compiled to Flash and, with OpenLaszlo 4, DHTML. The OpenLaszlo APIs provide animation, layout, data binding, server communication, and declarative UI. An OpenLaszlo application can be as short as a single source file, or factored into multiple files that define reusable classes and libraries.

1609

Accessibility Game Contest / Re: Games[CC] recruiting programmers

« Last post by tinjaw on January 31, 2007, 08:04 AM »

If you are a programmer with experience in C++, XNA and databases this could be a fantastic project for the both of us.

-Reid (January 31, 2007, 01:10 AM)

Hello Reid and welcome to the site. Although I have done some work in C++, I try to avoid it. :-) And XNA looks interesting. I plan on playing with Garage Games XNA version of Game Builder ASAP. However, I have been slowly sliding into the role of DonationCoder's resident Python zealot, and will be tackling pygame this weekend. Let's keep in touch and I will do my best to try and get anything you do wrapped and available in pygames. You can start by contacting me directly at [email protected] and providing me pointers to anything that currently exists and I will see what I can do to wrap that for pygame as well.

1610

Developer's Corner / Re: Writing Arinoid using pyGame (4 ShowMeDo videos)

« Last post by tinjaw on January 30, 2007, 09:27 PM »

Thank you for your kind words.

Asteroids of Orion was built using Garage Games Torque Game Builder. I am going to need to learn how to do things myself with pygame. I have it loaded up and tested it and I am going to be playing with it this weekend while working on my current project. I am going to watch your videos, with coffee, early this weekend to get me started.

1611

Living Room / Re: try my new experiment with HotOrNot pictures!

« Last post by tinjaw on January 30, 2007, 06:01 PM »

Well, I made it from start to finish in Firefox 2 with no problems.

I am assuming this is still in alpha mode, so I also assume you won't put all participants though it in the manner it is in now. If it wasn't for a DC buddy, I would have stopped about 1/4 of the way through.

1612

General Software Discussion / Re: creating SQL from excel, soft at bitsdujour today. Worth it?

« Last post by tinjaw on January 30, 2007, 09:18 AM »

I bought it, but not for myself. I have some friends that have the data I need to get into MySQL. They can use Excel but not MySQL. So I will loan them my laptop and have them create the stuff in Excel, and then I will get into MySQL.

As for visual tools, I suggest two.

• MySQL's own GUI tools
• Toad for MySQL

1613

Living Room / Re: Android 207 - Cool Stop-motion Movie Short for AI and Game Fans

« Last post by tinjaw on January 30, 2007, 07:40 AM »

That was neat. Thank you for sharing.

1614

Developer's Corner / Re: Debugging gems: runtime code profiling in Linux - KCacheGrind

« Last post by tinjaw on January 30, 2007, 07:24 AM »

That's a pretty sweet find. Thanks for pointing it out.

1615

Accessibility Game Contest / Re: --> Results of the Accessibility Game Programming Contest Are Now Posted !!!

« Last post by tinjaw on January 29, 2007, 10:59 AM »

All prizes should be processed this week - i'll be in touch to get your (shipping) info, etc.

-mouser (January 28, 2007, 09:42 PM)

I was asking for hints on next year's gaming contest! The way I procrastinate, I probably should have started last week. 

1616

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Mini-Review: Rasterbator

« Last post by tinjaw on January 29, 2007, 07:33 AM »

Personally, I wish he'd stop with the mini-reviews. He's making me feel guilty about not doing some of my own. 

Again, great review cthorpe. I hereby christen thee c++thorpe!

1617

General Software Discussion / Re: TeamTime, handy for IRC chat

« Last post by tinjaw on January 29, 2007, 07:08 AM »

I've put this at the end of my list to code after I get done with things like the staff rotation tool. If somebody wants to start and IDEA thread in the coding snacks so people can start adding their suggestions, that would be great.

1618

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Mini-Review: Poisson Rouge (Red Fish) {kids and adults}

« Last post by tinjaw on January 28, 2007, 06:11 PM »

Excellent review cthorpe! I have enjoyed all of your reviews and it is great to see some kid's stuff in here for a change. I'll have to go out and adopt a kid to check this site out!.  Do they sell them at New Egg?

1619

Living Room / Re: My father's WinXP Home computer won't boot...

« Last post by tinjaw on January 28, 2007, 06:08 PM »

If it keeps going to the BIOS setup, it is 99.9% certain you have a hardware issue. However, the good news is that it is probably something as innocuous as a dead CMOS battery. If he unplugs the computer and takes the cover off, it should be easy enough to find. It will look like a shinny quarter. Have him take it to Radio Shack, to buy a new one, but also so they can test it. If it tests good, hmm, need to look at something shorting out. If it tests bad, stick the new one in and boot up. It will go to the BIOS the first time, but then should reboot just fine.

1620

Accessibility Game Contest / Re: --> Results of the Accessibility Game Programming Contest Are Now Posted !!!

« Last post by tinjaw on January 28, 2007, 06:01 PM »

Any hints? I'd like to get a good head start on things. 

1621

General Software Discussion / Re: How to clone large HDDs?

« Last post by tinjaw on January 28, 2007, 02:19 PM »

That is standard. Any disk cloning software will do the trick. [/url].

-tinjaw (January 28, 2007, 01:02 PM)

Really? Cool - I only knew Imaging tools, which do it "one partion to one big binary file" way. Thanks - I will try DriveImage XML

-crono (January 28, 2007, 01:12 PM)

I guess I should elaborate, as I wasn't too clear on that. Depending on what software you use, it may require to make an intermediate file. I'm not sure if it holds true, but I consider cloning to be making an exact copy, regardless of the method used, be that directly disk to disk or via an intermediate file. DriveImage XML is one of the later. Ghost will do both. There are plenty of others.

However, let me say that I prefer the latter because this way I have an image of the drive if I every need to recover from a crash. I figure that if I am going to spend the time cloning it, I might as well keep a copy.

1622

General Software Discussion / Re: How to clone large HDDs?

« Last post by tinjaw on January 28, 2007, 01:02 PM »

That is standard. Any disk cloning software will do the trick. A low-level copy doesn't care what is on the drive. If the laptop also has linux you can just use dd and copy it. If you don't have copy software and are looking for free, try DriveImage XML.

1623

Developer's Corner / Educational Videos on JavaScript from Yahoo

« Last post by tinjaw on January 28, 2007, 07:10 AM »

If you are thinking about getting started with JavaScript programming, there are a series of videos of presentations made at Yahoo. The ones by Douglas Crockford will give you a good overview of JavaScript and then watch the one about Firebug when you are ready to start coding yourself. Firebug is an awesome tool and another fine example of free software being the best of breed.

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1624

Developer's Corner / Tao Framework

« Last post by tinjaw on January 28, 2007, 06:31 AM »

The Tao Framework should be a great deal of help for .NET and Mono game developers.

What is the Tao Framework?

The Tao Framework provides .NET and Mono bindings to various native libraries, including OpenGL, SDL, Cg, DevIL, ODE, OpenAL, Lua, and more.

• The Tao Framework is useful. It provides a number of libraries to help you produce your application quickly and effectively, whether you're creating a cutting-edge game, a graphics demo, a data visualization application, or an audio application, there's something for every developer.
• The Tao Framework is easy to use. Tao provides bindings for a number of well-known libraries. All the examples and documentation available for the native libraries is valid when using Tao. Now you can develop with these libraries in the managed code environment.
• The Tao Framework is standard. The libraries provided in the Tao Framework include Cg, DevIL, FreeGLUT, ODE, OpenAL, OpenGL, and SDL. Each of these is well-known and widely used. Tao strives to bring you the exact functionality provided in these libraries, with the same syntax and usage, within the manged code environment.
• The Tao Framework is open source. All source code for the libraries and examples is freely available and licensed under the very liberal MIT license.
• The Tao Framework is language-neutral. The Tao libraries work with any .NET language, including C# and Visual Basic .NET, amongst many others.
• The Tao Framework is cross-platform. Tao works with the .NET and Mono platforms. As such, Tao Framework applications can run on a variety of operating systems.
• The Tao Framework is supported. There are a number of developers working with and working on the Tao Framework. Development has proceeded for a couple of years and continues to move forward.

Tao Framework
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1625

General Software Discussion / Re: TeamTime, handy for IRC chat

« Last post by tinjaw on January 28, 2007, 05:47 AM »

Well, I had grand plans for this application, but it is buggy as all get up.  It is *extremely* temperamental and will not accept your input most of the time. I tried multiple combinations of entries and it only took once. It is obvious this is coded with no error handling or validation. If it doesn't like what you entered, it just throws it into the bit bucket and ignores you. 

For example, it won't let you add members that aren't part of a group. I tried to make a DonationCoder file with members, but I had to make a Group 1 in order to add anybody.

The install is also not user friendly. It doesn't let you determine if or where the start menu group goes or let you opt out of having an icon placed on your desktop.