Visual studio 2005 culture problem

Ok, I admit that it isn't a "problem". While working on our project "geekers", every time we update our project folder from subversion, we get this change to visual studio project file of the visual studio:


Ok, it's a desirable feature to have culture-specific data types in the xml streams. But do we really deserve this situation in this screenshot? I think we don't. :)
It remembers me a great article of Joel Spolsky, on "leaky abstractions."

Microsoft's another investment

As you can see on this page, microsoft is giving some of its products (visual studio, xna, windows server) to the students in UK for free. I've learned from Euan from our games project. I've already got those products thanks to MSDN membership of my university in Izmir, and many universities do.

An article I've read on 'Joel on software' claims that microsoft indeed would love to give its development products for free. Because the value of an operating system is dependent on the various software it has on it, and windows (with office) is the flagship product of microsoft. -- not visual studio --

I've never thought about it this way, and it really sounds smart.

Visual Studio SP1: Installation source for this product is not available

While trying to install Visual Studio 2005 SP1, I've encountered this error message: "Installation source for this product is not available".

After spending my whole day on this problem, I've found this blog entry:
http://dotnetslackers.com/...is_not_available.aspx

And this MSDN knowledge base entry & patch:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/925336

And it managed to solve my problem. What a sunday!

Sun buys MySQL

It is not unreasonable, but it was unexpected; just like Serkan agreed. And in the digg post, the submitter's comment is: "Didn't see that one coming" :)

I can understand it, because the current commercial-opensource hybrid status of java is just like how MySQL is running for years. Probably, sun has foreseen more profit in this kind of work model.

Through a software guy's eye, I can tell that MySQL will strenghten its connections with Java, and it will implement/stabilize features which java used to supply from Oracle. Because of their strong relationship in the industry, this is something important for Oracle, as well.

DirectX Demo Project

Here is my DirectX demo project for Games Programming course at Abertay.

It makes use of:
- A point light and a directional light
- Shadows (planar)
- Animated meshes



And it's the url:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI8r653mX4U

Now I'm going to start to study for my Maths exam :)

How to print text in directx

First, you need to create a RECT object to set the area on screen, ID3DXFont object, and a D3DCOLOR object:

RECT lineRect;
ID3DXFont * pDefaultFont;
D3DCOLOR defaultFontColor;

This is how to initialise them:

A rectangle which has a height of 50px, on top of screen:
lineRect.left = 0;
lineRect.top = 0;
lineRect.right = 1024;
lineRect.bottom = 50;

How to create a font
D3DXCreateFont(Device, 30/*fontHeight*/,
0, FW_BOLD, 0, FALSE,
DEFAULT_CHARSET, OUT_DEFAULT_PRECIS,
DEFAULT_QUALITY, DEFAULT_PITCH | FF_DONTCARE,
TEXT("Calibri"), &pDefaultFont );

I'm not going to deal with the details of D3DXCreateFont method, but you can find the reference here:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb172773.aspx

How to set the color:
defaultFontColor = D3DCOLOR_ARGB(255, 255, 255, 255);

Now you can write your text:
pDefaultFont->DrawTextA(NULL, "My Text Here", -1, &lineRect, DT_RIGHT, defaultFontColor);

Sometimes I strongly miss the VB6 times:
Print "my text here"
But of course, they're "incomparable" in terms of speed :)

from the 'Scratchware Manifesto'

It's a very-must-read for all the game developers, and also a must-read for other developers. So, please read it in its entirety.

What are the characteristics of vampires? Well, they’re immortal. Strangely enough, a corporation can live forever, too. Morgan Bank, Ford Motors, and General Electric - they can go on and on and on. Another characteristic of vampires? They live by sucking blood. You know the feeling you get when you boot up a new game and it crashes five times in the first 15 minutes? That’s your blood being sucked. The corporation exists for one reason only (and don’t let them tell you otherwise) - to make as much money as it possibly can. It’s like we’re cattle, kept alive for the greedy bloodsuckers to get as much profit as they can out of us. (They treat the Earth the same way, too - ever seen a clear-cut forest? Corporate vampires in action!) Vampires are notoriously hard to kill, and so are corporations. Exxon spilled oil all over Alaska - but it’s still going. Union Carbide killed thousands in Bhopal, India, but it’s still trucking. You can try and sue a corporation, but they have millions of dollars and thousands of lawyers to make sure their evil undead masters remain in control. Bridgestone/Firestone made a bunch of shitty tires, which killed a whole bunch of people in their SUVs. They might get in some trouble, but you can be sure that the corporation will go on. (An interesting fact: many of the faulty tires were made in the Decatur Illinois plant, where the regular workers were on strike. The tires were made by ‘replacement workers’, also known as scabs. Vampires and scabs? Some coincidence.) Vampires also have nests; usually the basement of some dusty castle. The vampires who run America have a nest, too, but theirs is called Wall Street. Vampires have a dark charisma; corporations spend billions on advertising.