Sunday, 21 September 2008
OU Update
I've just got my final TMA results back for M257, I managed to score 99%, which is the second time I've got the score. Just one exam to sit and I'll have finished the course. Already the study material for my next course has arrived M263 Building Blocks of Software.
Thursday, 18 September 2008
Messy Room
My room is a horrible state. My girlfriend is coming back from holiday tomorrow and I promised I would tidy up for her. Here's a quick description of the kind of filth that litters my tiny room: Numerous plastic bags (mainly from Morrison's. Why I haven't got rid of them is a mystery); A plethora of old clothing clutters the floor punctuated by the occasional odd shoe rising like a lone island from the sea of chaos. Fixed in for good measure is my Watchmen issues that I bought off E-bay ages ago, and numerous bits of papers and unopened letters - some of which contain mysterious phone numbers scribbled in my awful handwriting.
My desk is covered with hundreds of cheap Biros and drawing materials; a couple of packets of Bean Boozled jelly beans that I am really starting to regret buying (really, who would want to eat a vomit flavoured bean?). Time sheets for my job litter my desk from where I dumped them after cleaning out my backpack the other day. They are the reminders of the hard labour I have put in to the thankless task of filing at my local hospital. Among this debris is digital camera, hair brush and deodorant that I really should use more. A number of slowly moulding cups border my desk. It really horrible site let me tell you.
Worst of all the house vacuum cleaner, should I ever use it, excretes a terrible smell that defiles the air and worst of all my nostrils. Basically it is a sight that would make the Nurgle Chaos god (At least in Warhammer 40k anyway) of despair - personified by stagnation, entropy and disease - feel very sick.
My desk is covered with hundreds of cheap Biros and drawing materials; a couple of packets of Bean Boozled jelly beans that I am really starting to regret buying (really, who would want to eat a vomit flavoured bean?). Time sheets for my job litter my desk from where I dumped them after cleaning out my backpack the other day. They are the reminders of the hard labour I have put in to the thankless task of filing at my local hospital. Among this debris is digital camera, hair brush and deodorant that I really should use more. A number of slowly moulding cups border my desk. It really horrible site let me tell you.
Worst of all the house vacuum cleaner, should I ever use it, excretes a terrible smell that defiles the air and worst of all my nostrils. Basically it is a sight that would make the Nurgle Chaos god (At least in Warhammer 40k anyway) of despair - personified by stagnation, entropy and disease - feel very sick.
The End Of Two Era's
It's a little late but the forum I regularly post on has closed it door. The GamesRadar UK forum, that was my online home for quite a while, has gone; fortunately a few long time members made a quick switch to GRcade which is where I shall be moving my occasional comments to.
Also sad news over at 1up with Jeff Green's departure last week and now quick on his heels Sean Elliot has made for the door to work at Take 2 Boston. It appears that GFW Radio is over.
Also sad news over at 1up with Jeff Green's departure last week and now quick on his heels Sean Elliot has made for the door to work at Take 2 Boston. It appears that GFW Radio is over.
Wednesday, 17 September 2008
Ubuntu Wirless Nightmare
Well I finished my course work a while ago, instead of turning my attentions back to my development project I decided to spent some time trying to set up Ubuntu. When I intalled my computer the last time, shortly after buying windows vista, I reinstalled XP and added Ubuntu 8.04 to my machine but since I couldn't quickly get the wireless connectivity working I gave up. Now I have spend two long evenings amounting to around eight hours of my time, that could be used much better, failing to get my wireless cards working under Ubuntu. It's quite annoying because I wanted to compare Ubuntu to Windows Vista but without any internet connection it would be pretty pointless and I would be forced to conclude that Windows Vista was massively superior to Ubuntu.
My wireless setup includes one Asus 167-g USB dongle, a Belkin PCI wireless card that doesn't work with Ubuntu without Ndiswrapper. The main router is a BT home hub the 1.5 version and my spare is a 3 com office connect router.
From boot I was able to see my wireless network from the network manager, I was able to click on the network and set my password information, the internet connection I use is encrypted with a 64 bit hex key. Needless to say the connection failed, I decided to try and get the wireless connected to a spare router as other people use the same router for internet accesses and I didn't want to keep repeatable kicking them off. Playing around with the settings I managed to the router to connect with both WPA and no encryption although the connection percentage never quite reached 100% and I couldn't get any kind of connection using WEP. While my other house mates were out I tried fiddling around with the main routers encryption type and I eventually managed to get an intermittent connection which is where I had to leave my attempts.
Searching through the Asus website I found a driver binary for my wireless dongle with some tampering I set up my machine to compile the binaries, sadly the compile failed and I my un informed attempts to fix what was wrong failed. In-between I went through and manually configured my network card which failed to connect. Finally I install WICD which didn't help although why would it. At times I even had problems connecting to my test router. Throughout the process I had numerous periods where I had trouble with my spare router.
I'm hoping that the new Ubuntu release that coming next move will resolve my problems the other solution is to by a new wireless card that is better supported by the operating system although I'm not sure if either of these will help, me on my quest to have a usable Ubuntu operating system.
My wireless setup includes one Asus 167-g USB dongle, a Belkin PCI wireless card that doesn't work with Ubuntu without Ndiswrapper. The main router is a BT home hub the 1.5 version and my spare is a 3 com office connect router.
From boot I was able to see my wireless network from the network manager, I was able to click on the network and set my password information, the internet connection I use is encrypted with a 64 bit hex key. Needless to say the connection failed, I decided to try and get the wireless connected to a spare router as other people use the same router for internet accesses and I didn't want to keep repeatable kicking them off. Playing around with the settings I managed to the router to connect with both WPA and no encryption although the connection percentage never quite reached 100% and I couldn't get any kind of connection using WEP. While my other house mates were out I tried fiddling around with the main routers encryption type and I eventually managed to get an intermittent connection which is where I had to leave my attempts.
Searching through the Asus website I found a driver binary for my wireless dongle with some tampering I set up my machine to compile the binaries, sadly the compile failed and I my un informed attempts to fix what was wrong failed. In-between I went through and manually configured my network card which failed to connect. Finally I install WICD which didn't help although why would it. At times I even had problems connecting to my test router. Throughout the process I had numerous periods where I had trouble with my spare router.
I'm hoping that the new Ubuntu release that coming next move will resolve my problems the other solution is to by a new wireless card that is better supported by the operating system although I'm not sure if either of these will help, me on my quest to have a usable Ubuntu operating system.
Thursday, 28 August 2008
What's Happening?
I have kind of put a temporary halt to development while I finish a piece of course work for my OU course which has to be finished by the fourth of September. The course work is based around Threads and server applications. I completed everything but the last question which is based around servers and is worth 45% of the total mark for the piece. I'm already having trouble with this course work, one of the thread questions has completely thrown me and, although I have managed to answer it, my answer is an incredibly ugly solution.
While I'm on the subject, I thought I would have a quick dig at the Open University. I'm finding a lot of their programming courses very easy. At the moment I have studied M150, M255 and am studying towards M257 and am thinking about studying M263 Building blocks of software which seems like the easiest course of the three mandatory level two courses (which isn't really what I want to do). If I had my choiceI would skip M263 and save the thirty points for another course that would teach me something else more complicated, as at this point doing the course seems like a step backwards.
My other problem is that the Java courses are all based around small programming exclusively, which gives the student no experience at larger scale development. I would like one larger Java course worth more points - say 90 or 120 - that was based around developing one large program.
Another major problem is that the OU courses seem to be centred around Java programming and rarely look at other languages. I have done one course that was based on C++ but did not go into any depth on any of the more advanced aspects of the languages (pointers, for example). Ideally I would like to learn Java, C++ and some assembly language stuff.
I know the level three courses are a lot harder but they are still based heavily on Java and I have the maths courses to look forward to. I am actually quite scared of doing maths stuff as I'm rubbish at it. At the moment I am working through all of necessary computing courses and then I plan to jump across to the maths based stuff once I've finished.
A quick jump back to the development: I've added more menus (although I'm worried about the way I built the class). My solution will only be useful inside my program and I'm tempted to spend some time developing a full blown re-usable class that would lay out menus in the way I want. Also I've begun thinking about mouse support and how I am going to accomplish it. Another problem is that two use multiple menus and I have implemented numerous keyboard listeners to deal with them all (which I think I'm going to get rid of, although I'm going to still have two: one for inside the game and a second for all the menus).
The menu problems got me thinking about my objectives for this project. I have two main objectives: The first objective is to develop a piece of software that I can use to show my programming skills for potential jobs and bragging rights; the second is just to have a functioning program and as an exercise to see if I can make a full blown functioning program. They objectives don't seem to run parallel - the first objective pulls me towards taking my time and planning out each stage carefully and working out the specifics of my program before starting; the second just causes me to brute force everything and work as quickly as possible. At the moment I am sticking with the second.
While I'm on the subject, I thought I would have a quick dig at the Open University. I'm finding a lot of their programming courses very easy. At the moment I have studied M150, M255 and am studying towards M257 and am thinking about studying M263 Building blocks of software which seems like the easiest course of the three mandatory level two courses (which isn't really what I want to do). If I had my choiceI would skip M263 and save the thirty points for another course that would teach me something else more complicated, as at this point doing the course seems like a step backwards.
My other problem is that the Java courses are all based around small programming exclusively, which gives the student no experience at larger scale development. I would like one larger Java course worth more points - say 90 or 120 - that was based around developing one large program.
Another major problem is that the OU courses seem to be centred around Java programming and rarely look at other languages. I have done one course that was based on C++ but did not go into any depth on any of the more advanced aspects of the languages (pointers, for example). Ideally I would like to learn Java, C++ and some assembly language stuff.
I know the level three courses are a lot harder but they are still based heavily on Java and I have the maths courses to look forward to. I am actually quite scared of doing maths stuff as I'm rubbish at it. At the moment I am working through all of necessary computing courses and then I plan to jump across to the maths based stuff once I've finished.
A quick jump back to the development: I've added more menus (although I'm worried about the way I built the class). My solution will only be useful inside my program and I'm tempted to spend some time developing a full blown re-usable class that would lay out menus in the way I want. Also I've begun thinking about mouse support and how I am going to accomplish it. Another problem is that two use multiple menus and I have implemented numerous keyboard listeners to deal with them all (which I think I'm going to get rid of, although I'm going to still have two: one for inside the game and a second for all the menus).
The menu problems got me thinking about my objectives for this project. I have two main objectives: The first objective is to develop a piece of software that I can use to show my programming skills for potential jobs and bragging rights; the second is just to have a functioning program and as an exercise to see if I can make a full blown functioning program. They objectives don't seem to run parallel - the first objective pulls me towards taking my time and planning out each stage carefully and working out the specifics of my program before starting; the second just causes me to brute force everything and work as quickly as possible. At the moment I am sticking with the second.
Friday, 15 August 2008
Quiet Update
I've started to see the beginnings of my program coming together, although my code is becoming more complicated and I am getting to the point where I seriously need to write some comments for my code. Also my main class that deals with setting up everything else and getting everything running is a big mess - this is mainly because every change I make usually ends up changing the main classes code and now I have countless commented out code chunks.
Coding wise I've got to the point where I can open my program into full screen or windowed mode and change the resolution, colour depth and refresh rate by using command line arguments or by editing a text file. I've started to put in the code to move through phases of the game, meaning I will be able to have more than one screen. I'm going to try and add an option menu next that will allow me to change all the screen information inside the game. I also need to add a method or modify an existing method to update my text file so my game options have persistence.
Coding wise I've got to the point where I can open my program into full screen or windowed mode and change the resolution, colour depth and refresh rate by using command line arguments or by editing a text file. I've started to put in the code to move through phases of the game, meaning I will be able to have more than one screen. I'm going to try and add an option menu next that will allow me to change all the screen information inside the game. I also need to add a method or modify an existing method to update my text file so my game options have persistence.
Thursday, 7 August 2008
Setting Path Environment Variables In Vista
This is a quick tutorial explaining how to set Path Environment Variables in Windows Vista. It will take you through a step by step guide that will allow you to run all the Java SDK programs from the windows command line.
1. Locate your Java SDK. It will normally be located in a directory such as:
C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_07\bin
If you are using the 64 bit version of Windows Vista it will be located in the Program Files (x86) folder.
If you can't locate your Java director it can be found by opening your control panel and double clicking on the Java icon. Go to the Java tab and then click on the either of the buttons marked 'view'. In the location tab is the path to your Java director although you have to add '\bin' to the end.
2. Next open the control panel and then system. Click on the Advanced System Settings. You should now see the System Properties window and be under the Advanced tab. Right at the bottom you should see a button marked “Environment Variables”. Click on the button.
You should now see the Environmental Variables tab. This window is divided into two sections. The bottom section is called 'System Variables'. Scroll down until bottom list until you find a Variable called 'path'. Select it and then click on the lower edit button. You will get yet another window. Now, under the Variable Value box, add the path of your Java director to the end of the line. The end the line should read something like:
;C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre1.6.0_07\bin
3. Reset your computer.
4. When Windows opens hit the Windows button and then type 'CMD' into the search bar. This will launch the command line. Type 'java -version' into the command line. This should hopefully bring up information about the version of Java your using.
1. Locate your Java SDK. It will normally be located in a directory such as:
C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_07\bin
If you are using the 64 bit version of Windows Vista it will be located in the Program Files (x86) folder.
If you can't locate your Java director it can be found by opening your control panel and double clicking on the Java icon. Go to the Java tab and then click on the either of the buttons marked 'view'. In the location tab is the path to your Java director although you have to add '\bin' to the end.
2. Next open the control panel and then system. Click on the Advanced System Settings. You should now see the System Properties window and be under the Advanced tab. Right at the bottom you should see a button marked “Environment Variables”. Click on the button.
You should now see the Environmental Variables tab. This window is divided into two sections. The bottom section is called 'System Variables'. Scroll down until bottom list until you find a Variable called 'path'. Select it and then click on the lower edit button. You will get yet another window. Now, under the Variable Value box, add the path of your Java director to the end of the line. The end the line should read something like:
;C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre1.6.0_07\bin
3. Reset your computer.
4. When Windows opens hit the Windows button and then type 'CMD' into the search bar. This will launch the command line. Type 'java -version' into the command line. This should hopefully bring up information about the version of Java your using.
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