Tuesday, August 11, 2009

RPGDX Side-Scrolling Mini-RPG Summer 2009 Competition

2009-RPGDX-Summer-Competition

For anyone who is interested, RPGDX is holding a 48 hour Side-Scrolling Mini-RPG Summer 2009 Competition, which begins this Saturday, August 15, 2009. Anyone is welcome to participate.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Warhammer 40K – Let the Galaxy Burn

Warhammer 40K - Let the Galaxy Burn

I am currently reading Let the Galaxy Burn, a collection of short stories set in the Warhammer 40K universe.

Amazon describes the book as follows:

By popular demand, we've gathered up the best science fiction short stories ever written for the Black Library into one massive volume, and added some brand new tales! Warhammer 40,000 fans will be keen to get their hands on classic stories that have been unavailable for a while, and all readers will enjoy the range and variety on offer in this high-value volume.

The stories I have read so far have been very well written, action-packed, and highly descriptive. I strongly recommend this book for anyone who likes science fiction or Warhammer 40K.

Sprint Commercial

I generally record shows using Windows Media Center in Windows Vista Ultimate and skip the commercials during playback, but this Sprint advertisement caught my eye:

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Walmart has lost my business and my respect

Last week Melissa and I purchased a piece of furniture and a DVD from Walmart. When we unpacked the furniture we could see it had been repackaged and had a large scratch on the front, which was disappointing since we believed we were buying a new, pristine piece of furniture. We then tried to play the DVD in three different DVD players, but were unsuccessful (I double checked the DVD to make sure the region was correct and tried other DVDs, which all played properly).

Today after work, Melissa and I went to Walmart to return the defective items. When we arrived, we loaded the furniture and DVD in a shopping cart and proceeded to the customer service  counter where after waiting in line, we had the pleasure of speaking with Nina, an extremely rude and unprofessional “customer service” representative. She informed us that we didn't have the necessary “yellow stickers” and could not return the items. In a condescending tone, she demanded we return to the entrance to get the stickers. We informed her there was no one at the entrance when we arrived, to which she replied in an extremely sarcastic tone, "There is always someone there!". She then mumbled something that sounded inappropriate and walked away, which left us standing at the customer service counter wondering if she was coming back.

After a few minutes I took the items back to the entrance and waited for the person who was supposed to be "watching" the door to finish flirting with a woman in the Subway restaurant (near the entrance). When Richard finally came over he said, "You must have stolen this because the box isn't cold." By this time, I was rather upset having just been accused of stealing the items in the cart (even though I had the receipt in my hand and several people had seen Melissa and I enter the store). I told him I was going to call the police and we could review the security tapes together if he didn't believe me. After several minutes of discussion another employee came over and told him to give me the stickers.

I took the stickers and returned to the customer service desk where a quality customer service representative politely assisted us with the return of the items.

As a direct result of being treated so poorly, Melissa asked to speak with a manager. When the manager arrived, two strangers who were also waiting in the long customer service line took the opportunity to tell the manager about the situation and how poorly Melissa and I had been treated. When they finished telling him what they observed, the manager asked us to tell him what happened. During our entire conversation with the manager he did not make eye contact with Melissa or me, nor did he apologize for the employees’ inexcusable behavior or attempt to rectify the situation.

As a result of this debacle, Walmart has officially lost my business and more importantly, my respect.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Microsoft Excel Workbook Links

Opening certain Excel or Comma Separated Value (CSV) files in Excel may (correctly or incorrectly) produce the following error message:

This workbook contains one or more links that cannot be updated.

Depending on how the file was opened (either through the GUI or programmatically), the following message box may appear:

image

Clicking the "Edit Links..." button opens the following window:

image

Selecting just about any option continues loading the file; however, if the files was accessed programmatically, user intervention is required through the GUI (even when the application has set Application.DisplayAlerts = false).

To disable the automatic update of Workbook links in Microsoft Excel 2007, which suppresses the prompt:

  • Open Excel
  • Click on the Microsoft Office button (in the upper left corner of the application)
  • Click "Excel Options" near the bottom of the menu
  • Select "Trust Center" tab
  • Click the "Trust Center Settings..." button
  • Select "External Content" tab
  • Select "Disable automatic update of Workbook Links"
  • Click "OK" button to close the "Trust Center" window
  • Click "OK" button to close the "Excel Options" window

Addition information pertaining the issue is available through Microsoft's support website:

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Visualizing Numerical Data

I was looking into visualizing numerical data and came across the following website:

Overall, MIX Online does an impressive job of allowing an average user to quickly and easily understand complex three dimensional data: time, space, and value.

Based on the visualization, it was interesting to see that the number of obese people in most U.S. states has approximately doubled since 1994. It was also interesting that the research does not take into account people who are underweight.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Bookmarklet - View Rendered HTML Source Code

Developing DHTML applications can be challenging, often the rendered HTML source code is dynamically assembled via JavaScript or AJAX and is dramatically different than the original source code of the Web page.

To view the raw rendered source code of an HTML page, save the following link as a bookmark, then navigate to the HTML page and click the bookmark.

javascript:document.write('<pre>' + document.body.innerHTML.replace(/</g,'&lt;').replace(/>/g,'&gt;') + '</pre>');

Friday, January 23, 2009

Change Remote Desktop Port

To change the default port for Windows Remote Desktop:

  1. Start Registry Editor ("RegEdit.exe")
  2. Locate and the following registry key:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TerminalServer\WinStations\RDP-Tcp\PortNumber

  3. On the Edit menu, click Modify, and then click Decimal
  4. Type the new port number, and then click OK
  5. Exit Registry Editor

See Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 306759 for additional details.

Classic ASP Permanent Redirect

In Classic ASP, the Response.Redirect method causes the server to send a temporary redirect code (302) in the response header.

To send a permanent redirect code (301) in the response header, use the following code instead:

Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location", "/new-page.asp"
Response.End

Replace "/new-page.asp" with the absolute or relative URL of the destination page.

Sunday, January 04, 2009

Website Analytics Investment in 2009

Web Analytics Demystified conducted a poll during a webcast in December of 2008. The poll asked about planned website analytics investment in 2009. Based on 251 responses, the results were as follows:

  • 36% said spending on website analytics would increase in 2009
  • 50% said spending on website analytics would not change in 2009
  • 14% said spending on website analytics would decrease in 2009

Saturday, January 03, 2009

MySQL Detailed Table Information

Use the following query to view detailed information about each table in the specified database:

SHOW TABLE STATUS FROM `database`;

Explanation

The SHOW TABLE STATUS command will show the following information about each table in the specified database:

  • Name
  • Engine
  • Version
  • Row Format
  • Rows
  • Average Row Length
  • Data Length
  • Max Data Length
  • Index Length
  • Data Free
  • Auto Increment
  • Create Time
  • Update Time
  • Check Time
  • Collation
  • Checksum
  • Create Options
  • Comment

Replace database with the name of your database.

MySQL ISNULL() Function

If you are familiar with Microsoft SQL you may have used the ISNULL() function; the equivalent function in MySQL is IFNULL().

In Microsoft SQL, the syntax is as follows:

SELECT ISNULL(NULL, 'Some Value')

In MySQL, the syntax is as follows:

SELECT IFNULL(NULL, 'Some Value')

Xbox 360 - Left 4 Dead - Game Design

Lately I have been playing Left 4 Dead on the Xbox 360 console and one thing that really impresses me is how smoothly multi-player gaming works. From a game design perspective, I think the following features are really nice:

  • Players can join or leave games at anytime (even during a campaign)
  • Players who are inactive (idle) for too long are seamlessly controlled by the computer until they return and press a button (which means people can take breaks without significantly impacting the other players)
  • Left 4 Dead is heavily focused on cooperative play, to the extent that your team must "rescue" players in many situations; this greatly enhances the overall experience and raises the intensity level as players strive to reach teammates before they are killed
  • Voice chat works really well and is almost mandatory to survive on the more challenging difficulty settings
  • Players can see silhouettes of their teammate through walls and other obstacles, which greatly reduces people asking "Where are you?" and makes it much easier to rejoin the group if players get separated
  • Players can see their teammates health bars at all times, as well as a partial inventory of what they are carrying
  • Players can heal their teammates

Many of these techniques have been implemented in other games, but Left 4 Dead does a great job of blending them all together in a cohesive and fun experience.