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  • Fight for your rights as a video gamer.

    - by Chris Williams
    Soon, the U.S. Supreme Court may decide whether to hear a case that could have a lasting impact on computer and video games. The case before the Court involves a law passed by the state of California attempting to criminalize the sale of certain computer and video games. Two previous courts rejected the California law as unconstitutional, but soon the Supreme Court could have the final say. Whatever the Court's ruling, we must be prepared to continue defending our rights now and in the future. To do so, we need a large, powerful movement of gamers to speak with one voice and show that we won't sit back while lawmakers try to score political points by scapegoating video games and treating them differently than books, movies, and music. If the Court decides to hear the case, we're going to need thousands of activists like you who can help defend computer and video games by writing letters to editors, calling into talk radio stations, and educating Americans about our passion for and appreciation of computer and video games. You can help build this movement right now by inviting all your friends and fellow gamers to join the Video Game Voters Network. Use our simple tool to send an email to everyone you know asking them to stand up for gaming rights: http://videogamevoters.org/movement You can also help spread the word through Facebook and Twitter, or you can simply forward this email to everyone you know and ask them to sign up at videogamevoters.org. Time after time, courts continue to reject politicians' efforts to restrict the sale of computer and video games. But that doesn't mean the politicians will stop trying anytime soon -- in fact, it means they're likely to ramp up their efforts even more. To stop them, we must make it clear that gamers will continue to stand up for free speech -- and that the numbers are on our side. Help make sure we're ready and able to keep fighting for our gaming rights. Spread the word about the Video Game Voters Network right now: http://videogamevoters.org/movement Thank you. -- Video Game Voters Network

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  • How to change speed without changing path travelled?

    - by Ben Williams
    I have a ball which is being thrown from one side of a 2D space to the other. The formula I am using for calculating the ball's position at any one point in time is: x = x0 + vx0*t y = y0 + vy0*t - 0.5*g*t*t where g is gravity, t is time, x0 is the initial x position, vx0 is the initial x velocity. What I would like to do is change the speed of this ball, without changing how far it travels. Let's say the ball starts in the lower left corner, moves upwards and rightwards in an arc, and finishes in the lower right corner, and this takes 5s. What I would like to be able to do is change this so it takes 10s or 20s, but the ball still follows the same curve and finishes in the same position. How can I achieve this? All I can think of is manipulating t but I don't think that's a good idea. I'm sure it's something simple, but my maths is pretty shaky.

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  • Are certification courses worth it?

    - by Bill Williams
    I'm planning on getting certification in Database Development for SQL Server (MSTC - 70-433). I'm a junior level report writer at a new job and the company is offering to pay the majority, if not all, of training course fees. The course is five days. I noticed that MS has a self-paced training kit (book) that I could use. I'm wondering if this would be a better option because it will allow me to go as quick as possible. I've also heard about video training sessions (Lynda.com) but they seem to go at slow pace. My questions are: What should I expect at a certification course? Is it hands-on training? Small classes with personal feedback or not? Would I be better off learning at my own pace using the training kit? (I'd rather this not turn into a certifications are pointless discussion..)

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  • Randomly placing items script not working - sometimes items spawn in walls, sometimes items spawn in weird locations

    - by Timothy Williams
    I'm trying to figure out a way to randomly spawn items throughout my level, however I need to make sure they won't spawn inside another object (walls, etc.) Here's the code I'm currently using, it's based on the Physics.CheckSphere(); function. This runs OnLevelWasLoaded(); It spawns the items perfectly fine, but sometimes items spawn partway in walls. And sometimes items will spawn outside of the SpawnBox range (no clue why it does that.) //This is what randomly generates all the items. void SpawnItems () { if (Application.loadedLevelName == "Menu" || Application.loadedLevelName == "End Demo") return; //The bottom corner of the box we want to spawn items in. Vector3 spawnBoxBot = Vector3.zero; //Top corner. Vector3 spawnBoxTop = Vector3.zero; //If we're in the dungeon, set the box to the dungeon box and tell the items we want to spawn. if (Application.loadedLevelName == "dungeonScene") { spawnBoxBot = new Vector3 (8.857f, 0, 9.06f); spawnBoxTop = new Vector3 (-27.98f, 2.4f, -15); itemSpawn = dungeonSpawn; } //Spawn all the items. for (i = 0; i != itemSpawn.Length; i ++) { spawnedItem = null; //Zeroes out our random location Vector3 randomLocation = Vector3.zero; //Gets the meshfilter of the item we'll be spawning MeshFilter mf = itemSpawn[i].GetComponent<MeshFilter>(); //Gets it's bounds (see how big it is) Bounds bounds = mf.sharedMesh.bounds; //Get it's radius float maxRadius = new Vector3 (bounds.extents.x + 10f, bounds.extents.y + 10f, bounds.extents.z + 10f).magnitude * 5f; //Set which layer is the no walls layer var NoWallsLayer = 1 << LayerMask.NameToLayer("NoWallsLayer"); //Use that layer as your layermask. LayerMask layerMask = ~(1 << NoWallsLayer); //If we're in the dungeon, certain items need to spawn on certain halves. if (Application.loadedLevelName == "dungeonScene") { if (itemSpawn[i].name == "key2" || itemSpawn[i].name == "teddyBearLW" || itemSpawn[i].name == "teddyBearLW_Admiration" || itemSpawn[i].name == "radio") randomLocation = new Vector3(Random.Range(spawnBoxBot.x, -26.96f), Random.Range(spawnBoxBot.y, spawnBoxTop.y), Random.Range(spawnBoxBot.z, -2.141f)); else randomLocation = new Vector3(Random.Range(spawnBoxBot.x, spawnBoxTop.x), Random.Range(spawnBoxBot.y, spawnBoxTop.y), Random.Range(-2.374f, spawnBoxTop.z)); } //Otherwise just spawn them in the box. else randomLocation = new Vector3(Random.Range(spawnBoxBot.x, spawnBoxTop.x), Random.Range(spawnBoxBot.y, spawnBoxTop.y), Random.Range(spawnBoxBot.z, spawnBoxTop.z)); //This is what actually spawns the item. It checks to see if the spot where we want to instantiate it is clear, and if so it instatiates it. Otherwise we have to repeat the whole process again. if (Physics.CheckSphere(randomLocation, maxRadius, layerMask)) spawnedItem = Instantiate(itemSpawn[i], randomLocation, Random.rotation); else i --; //If we spawned something, set it's name to what it's supposed to be. Removes the (clone) addon. if (spawnedItem != null) spawnedItem.name = itemSpawn[i].name; } } What I'm asking for is if you know what's going wrong with this code that it would spawn stuff in walls. Or, if you could provide me with links/code/ideas of a better way to check if an item will spawn in a wall (some other function than Physics.CheckSphere). I've been working on this for a long time, and nothing I try seems to work. Any help is appreciated.

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  • Twin Cities Code Camp 8 (EIGHT?!?)

    - by Chris Williams
    Yep, Twin Cities Code Camp EIGHT is just around the corner (11 days from this writing.) We've got some great sessions lined up, and a mini-mountain of swag to give away. If you haven't registered yet, we're ALMOST at capacity... so don't delay. See you there...

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  • links worth clicking&hellip;

    - by Chris Williams
    Scanning my Twitter feed almost always proves to be fruitful when looking for cool/interesting links to share. Here are a few of the highlights: I read this blog post from Justin Angel today, pretty interesting stuff: Windows Phone 7 – Unlocked ROMs  Looks like there’s a lot of good stuff floating just under the surface in the latest build of the WP7 Emulator. (Courtesy of @JustinAngel) Next up is this video titled Game Design Tutorials: From Seconds to Hours of Gameplay. If you’re into Indie Game Development, or just like watching videos… this one is pretty short at 5 minutes, but contains some good information about increasing the duration of fun gameplay in your game. (Courtesy of @Kei_tchan) If you are a Firefly (or Castle, or Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog) fan, check out this Facebook campaign to get Nathan Fillion to host SNL: http://tinyurl.com/2dh5m67  It worked for Betty White, so why not, right? (Courtesy of @DGalloway42)

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  • Is SharpDX mature enough to adopt yet or should I just start using SlimDX right now?

    - by Gavin Williams
    I'm about to stop my game-project in XNA because from what I can gather it's development is coming to an end (and it's already behind current technology). Therefore, I need to adopt a new framework or API. I have just spent 2 days looking at C++ and decided it's really not for me - however I do find the raw access to DirectX appealing. SharpDX sounds like a good place to start, but it has no documentation and no code comments. I feel like it's not quite ready for use. I'm interested in the opinions of people that have used either or both of these frameworks, to help me decide for sure which one I should learn? Thanks for any advice.

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  • Keeping the camera from going through walls in a first person game in Unity?

    - by Timothy Williams
    I'm using a modified version of the standard Unity First Person Controller. At the moment when I stand near walls, the camera clips through and lets me see through the wall. I know about camera occlusion and have implemented it in 3rd person games, but I have no clue how I'd accomplish this in a first person game, since the camera doesn't move from the player at all. How do other people accomplish this?

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  • Twin Cities Fragathon II - Electric Fragaloo - Halo 3 ODST Tournament

    - by Chris Williams
    If you're in the Twin Cities and play Halo 3 ODST, or like to watch other people play, or enjoy smack talk, or pizza, or just have nothing better to do... well then you're in luck!! The Twin Cities XNA User Group (www.twincitiesxnausergroup.com) is hosting the 2nd (slightly longer than annual)  Charity Fragathon!! This time around we're doing a Food Drive for Second Harvest, so you have your choice of paying cash or bringing food. The event is Saturday April 17, 2010 and the doors open at 5pm. For more details, and to register, please visit www.CharityFragathon.com today!

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  • Clickworthy tweets, the sequel&hellip;

    - by Chris Williams
    Twitter moves fast, and if you don’t stay on top of it, you can miss a lot. I don’t follow a ton of people, but I combine it with topic searches. Here are a few things I’ve found that are worth your time and attention, especially if you’re into video games… development or playing: The 15 Greatest Sci-Fi/Horror Games for the Commodore 64 - http://moe.vg/bovATG  (via @jlist)  Practical Tactics for Dealing with Haters! - http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/05/18/tim-ferriss-scam-practical-tactics-for-dealing-with-haters/ (via @The_Zman) Assassin’s Creed 2 + $10 Video Game Credit + $5 MP3 Credit - $24.99 on Amazon.com – http://amzn.to/bvRI9h (via @Assassin10k) Make Small Good – A design article about not trying to compete with ginormous AAA multimillion dollar titles. - http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/AlexanderBrandon/20100518/5067/Make_Small_Good.php (via @Kei_tchan) (CW: Excellent article, I do this a lot in my roguelike games!) Purposes for Randomization in Game Design – http://bit.ly/cAH7PG  (via @gamasutra)

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  • Parent variable inheritance methods Unity3D/C#

    - by Timothy Williams
    I'm creating a system where there is a base "Hero" class and each hero inherits from that with their own stats and abilities. What I'm wondering is, how could I call a variable from one of the child scripts in the parent script (something like maxMP = MP) or call a function in a parent class that is specified in each child class (in the parent update is alarms() in the child classes alarms() is specified to do something.) Is this possible at all? Or not? Thanks.

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  • Cannot mount one usb disc, although other mounts automatically after 12.10 upgrade

    - by Allen Williams
    Since upgrading to 12.10, switching on or attempting to mount one of my usb hard drives gives this error message: Error mounting system-managed device /dev/sdg1: Command-line `mount "/mnt/usb-ST350041_8AS_60CAFFFFFFFF-0:0-part1"' exited with non-zero exit status 32: mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdg1, missing codepage or helper program, or other error In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg | tail or so dmesg | tail gives (inter alia): [ 1080.727830] sdg: sdg1 [ 1080.732003] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdg] Attached SCSI disk [ 1081.383633] FAT-fs (sdg1): Unrecognized mount option "x-gvfs-show" or missing value [ 1871.160973] sdg: sdg1 The drive cannot be mounted, but is recognized by the system as a "place". I am not a technical bod; I cannot take this further myself and any help would be much appreciated.

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  • Misadventures at Radio Shack

    - by Chris Williams
    While I'm waiting for my Arduino kits to show up, I started reading the Getting Started With Arduino book from O'Reilly (review coming later) and I'm about 40 pages in when I get to a parts list for one of the first projects. Looks pretty straightforward, and even has Radio Shack part numbers next to almost everything. So on my lunch today, I decided to run out to "The Shack" (seriously, that's their rebranding?) to pick up some basics, like a couple resistors, a breadboard, a momentary switch and a pack of pre-cut jumper wires. I found the resistors without any difficulty, and while they didn't have the exact switch I wanted, it was easy enough to find one that would do. That's where my good luck abruptly ended. I was surprised that I couldn't find a breadboard or any jumper wires, so while I was looking around, a guy came up and asked me if I needed some help. I told him I did, explained what I needed and even gave him the Radio Shack part number for the pack of jumper wires. After a couple minutes he says he can't find anything in the system, which was unfortunate but not the end of the world.  So then I asked him about the breadboard, and he pointed me to some blank circuitboards (which are not the same thing) and I said (nicely) that those weren't breadboards and attempted to explain (again) what I needed, at which point he says to me "I don't even know what the hell you're looking for!" I stood there for a moment and tried to process his words. About that time, another salesperson came up and asked what I was trying to find. I told her I needed a breadboard, and she pointed to the blank circuit boards and said "they're right in front of you..." After seeing the look on my face, she thought for a minute and said... "OH! you mean those white things. We don't have those anymore." I thanked her, set everything down on the counter and left. (I wasn't going to buy only half the stuff I needed.. and I was pretty sure I was never going to be buying ANYTHING at that particular location ever again.) Guess I'll be ordering more stuff online at this point. It's a shame really, because I used to LOVE going to Radio Shack as a kid, and looking through all the cool electronics components and stuff, even if I didnt understand what most of them were at the time. Seems like the only thing they carry in any quantity/variety now is cell phones and random stereo connectors.

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  • INETA NorAm Component Code Challenge

    - by Chris Williams
    Want to win a trip to TechEd 2011? INETA NorAm is hosting a contest with our partners to see who can build an .NET application making effective use of reusable components to solve a problem. The Rules: Any .NET Application (WinForms, ASP.NET, WPF, Silverlight, Windows Phone 7, etc.) built in the last year (since 1/1/2010) using at least 1 component from at least 1 approved vendor. Then make a 3 - 5 minute Camtasia video showing your entry and describing what component(s) you used and why your application is cool. Our judges will review the submissions and the best two will win a scholarship to Tech·Ed 2011, May 16-19 in Atlanta GA including airfare, hotel, and conference pass. The Judging: Entries will be judged on four criteria: Effective use of a component to solve a problem/display data Innovative use of components Impact using components (i.e. reduction in lines of code written, increased productivity, etc.) Most creative use of a component. Timeline: Hurry! The submission deadline is March 15, 2011 at Midnight Eastern Standard Time. More information can be found on the INETA Component Code Challenge page: http://ineta.org/CodeChallenge/Default.aspx

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  • Almost time to hit the road again

    - by Chris Williams
    I’ve had a few months of not much traveling, but now that the weather is improving… conference season is starting up again. That means it’s time for me to start hitting the road. In June, I have Tech Ed 2010 in New Orleans, LA. I lived in New Orleans for several years, both as military and civilian and I have a few friends still down there. I haven’t been there since before Hurricane Katrina, so I have mixed feelings about returning… but I am still looking forward to it. Also in June, I have Codestock in Knoxville, TN. Codestock is one of my favorite events, primarily because of the excellent people that speak there and also attend sessions. It’s a great mix of people and technologies. Sometime in July or August, I’m headed to Austin, TX for a couple days. I don’t know the exact date yet, but if you have an event down there in that timeframe, let me know and maybe we can sort something out. In September, I’m heading to Seattle for my first PAX (Penny Arcade Expo.)  I’m going strictly as an attendee and it looks like a LOT of fun. Really excited to check it out. Also in September, I’m headed to Omaha for the Heartland Developers Conference. This is a FANTASTIC event, and certainly one of my local favorites. (I guess local is relative, it’s about a 6 hour drive.) In addition to speaking on WP7, I’ll be doing a series of hands on labs on XNA they day before the conference starts, so that should be a lot of fun as well.   In addition to all this stuff, I have my own XNA User Group to take care of. In August, Andy “The Z-Man” Dunn is coming to speak and check out the various food on a stick offerings at the Minnesota State Fair!

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  • Animate from end frame of one animation to end frame of another Unity3d/C#

    - by Timothy Williams
    So I have two legacy FBX animations; Animation A and Animation B. What I'm looking to do is to be able to fade from A to B regardless of the current frame A is on. Using animation.CrossFade() will play A in reverse until it reaches frame 0, then play B forward. What I'm looking to do is blend from the current frame of A to the end frame of B. Probably via some sort of lerp between the facial position in A and the facial position in the last frame of B. Does anyone know how I might be able to accomplish this? Either via a built in function or potentially lerping of some sort?

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  • Hide Grub menu and keystroke to reveal

    - by Logan Williams
    How do you have the grub appear on a key combination, but have windows boot default. I'm running ubuntu 11.10 and grub 2.0. Here is my current /etc/default/grub # If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update # /boot/grub/grub.cfg. # For full documentation of the options in this file, see: # info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration' GRUB_DEFAULT=0 GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0 GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true GRUB_TIMEOUT=10 GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian` GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=" quiet vga=769" Thanks! And here is my /boot/grub/grub.cfg http://pastebin.com/HbDBe8xz

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  • Learning Electronics & the Arduino Microcontroller

    - by Chris Williams
    Lately, I've had a growing interest in Electronics & Microcontrollers. I'm a loyal reader of Make Magazine and thoroughly enjoy seeing all the various projects in each issue, even though I rarely try to make any of them. I've been reading and watching videos about the Arduino, which is an open source Microcontroller and software project that the people at Make (and a lot of other folks) are pretty hot about. Even the prebuilt hardware is remarkably inexpensive , although there are kits available to build one from the base components. (Full disclosure: I bought my first soldering iron... EVER... just last week, so I fully acknowledge the likelihood of making some mistakes. That's why I'm not trying to do the "build it yourself" kit just yet. It's also another reason to be happy the hardware is so cheap.) There are a number of different Arduino boards available, but the two that have really piqued my interest are the Arduino UNO and the NETduino. The UNO is a very popular board, with a number of features and is under $35 which means I won't hurl myself off a bridge when I inevitably destroy it. The NETduino is very similar to the Arduino UNO and has the added advantage of being programmable with... you guessed it... C#. I'm actually ordering both boards and some miscellaneous other doodads to go with them.  There are a few good websites for this sort of thing, including www.makershed.com and www.adafruit.com. The price difference is negligible, so in my case, I'm ordering from Maker Shed (the Make Magazine people) because I want to support them. :) I've also picked up a few O'Reilly books on the subject which I am looking forward to reading & reviewing: Make: Electronics, Arduino: A Quick Start Guide and Getting Started With Arduino (all three of which arrived on my doorstep today.) This ties in with my "learn more about robotics" goals as well, since I'll need a good understanding of Electronics if I want to move past Lego Mindstorms eventually.

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  • Dark Sun Dispatch 001.5 (a review of City Under The Sand)

    - by Chris Williams
    City Under The Sand - a review I'm moderately familiar with the Dark Sun setting. I've read the other Dark Sun novels, ages ago and I recently started running a D&D 4.0 campaign in the Dark Sun world, so I picked up this book to help re-familiarize myself with the setting. Overall, it did accomplish that, in a limited way. The book takes place in Nibenay and a neighboring expanse of desert that includes a formerly buried city, a small town and a bandit outpost. The book does a more interesting job of describing Nibenese politics and the court of the ruling Sorcerer King, his templars and the expected jockeying for position that occurs between the Templar Wives. There is a fair amount of combat, which was interesting and fairly well detailed. The ensemble cast is introduced and eventually brought together over the first few chapters. Not a lot of backstory on most of the characters, but you get a feel for them fairly quickly. The storyline was somewhat predictable after the first third of the book. Some of the reviews on Amazon complain about the 2-dimensional characterizations, and yes there were some... but it's easy to ignore because there is a lot going on in the book... several interwoven plotlines that all eventually converge. Where the book falls short... First, it appears to have been edited by a 4th grader who knows how to use spellcheck but lacks the attention to detail to notice the frequent occurence of incorrect words that often don't make sense or change the context of the entire sentence. It happened just enough to be distracting, and honestly I expect better from WOTC. Second, there is a lot of buildup to the end of the story... the big fight, the confrontation between good and evil, etc... which is handled in just a few pages and then the story basically just ends. Kind of a letdown, honestly. There wasn't a big finish, and it wasn't a cliffhanger, it just wraps up neatly and ends. It felt pretty rushed. Overall, aside from the very end, I enjoyed it. I really liked the insight into that region of Athas and it gave me some good ideas for fleshing out my own campaign. In that sense, the book served its purpose for me. If you're looking for a light read (got a 5-6 hour flight somewhere?) or you want to learn more about the Dark Sun setting, then I'd recommend this book.

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  • Developing For Windows Phone 7 Series with XNA 4.0

    - by Chris Williams
    I have a talk submitted to the Heartland Developers Conference. It's called: Developing For Windows Phone 7 Series with XNA 4.0 Here's a description: Forget Droid, Windows Phone 7 Series is the iPhone killer. If you want to learn to build killer touch-based apps for this next generation mobile device then this is the session for you. We’ll go over phone specific features and how to leverage those features with XNA 4.0 and C# I need your votes in order to give this talk. Please go here: http://www.heartlanddc.com/?p=273 and give the talk a nice high rating to indicate interest. Thanks a bunch!!

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  • Collision detection with entities/AI

    - by James Williams
    I'm making my first game in Java, a top down 2D RPG. I've handled basic collision detection, rendering and have added an NPC, but I'm stuck on how to handle interaction between the player and the NPC. Currently I'm drawing out my level and then drawing characters, NPCs and animated tiles on top of this. The problem is keeping track of the NPCs so that my Character class can interact with methods in the NPC classes on collision. I'm not sure my method of drawing the level and drawing everything else on top is a good one - can anyone shed any light on this topic?

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  • My First 5K

    - by Chris Williams
    So… yesterday I registered for my first 5K event. It’s in Eden Prairie this weekend. It’s a pretty major milestone for me, especially since I absolutely hate running with a passion. Still, I have to admit I’m rather excited about it. Given that this is my first event, I have no illusions about winning. My immediate goal is simple… don’t come in last. I’ll let you know how it goes.

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  • My First 5K, the recap.

    - by Chris Williams
    It was a nice day to be outside (and trust me, those aren't words you'll hear from me often.) I got to the site around 7:45, hit the pre-reg table and got my number along with a goody bag full of coupons for racing gear, a water bottle and a tshirt. Oh and a map. Stashed all that stuff in the jeep, emptied my pockets of everything but my iPhone and my jeep key, and proceeded to walk around for a bit as people started showing up and signing in. It was fairly breezy, and there was definitely a storm coming... but it was anyone's guess on when it would actually arrive. It was interesting to see everyone who was participating. If I had to guess, I would say the event was 60-70% women, with a pretty broad distribution of age... as young as 13 to well over 60 (in both genders.) I don't know exactly how many folks were there, but it was well over 300. Eventually it was time to kick things off, and everyone made their way to the start line. All of the 5k and 10k runners were mixed together, starting at the same time. All the walkers and the people with strollers or dogs were in the back. It was pretty chaotic at first, once things started, but it thinned out fairly quickly. The 10k people and the hardcore runners sped ahead of everyone else and the walkers gradually lagged behind. The 5K course was pretty nice, winding around a lake down in Eden Prairie. The 10K course overlapped most of ours, but branched off a couple times too. I didn't run the whole time, but I started the race running and I ended it running, and did a mix of walking and running along the way. I met my goals, which were a) don't ever stop and b) don't be last. The weather managed to hold out for the entire race. It never got too hot, there was a nice breeze and it was mostly overcast. Pretty much perfect in my book. About 20-30 minutes after I left, the rain came down pretty hard. I had a good time, and will most likely do more of them. We'll see.

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  • Travelling at Magenic

    - by Chris G. Williams
    I occasionally get asked if we travel "a lot" at Magenic. Sometimes the question comes from job candidates. Other times it's clients, recruiters or friends. To give a simple yes or no answer would be a disservice to the person asking the question. So here is my standard answer:It depends.(That was the short version.  Here's the long version...)We do have some guys that are more "national" in focus, and they can travel a fair amount. They also receive a little extra in compensation for doing so. It's a balancing act, and not necessarily a one-size-fits-all situation. Not everyone is well suited to constant travel. Some folks enjoy it and some folks hate it.With our local guys, our general policy is to TRY and keep them close to home whenever possible, but sometimes the needs of the client will dictate otherwise. (As Spock would say... the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.)In most cases though, we really do try to avoid sending our guys on extended travel gigs (i.e. every week for 6 months) when a simple kickoff trip and occasional visit will do. This depends on the nature of the gig, of course. Some types of work lend themselves to this model better than others. Additionally, this can and does vary by office. If one office is having trouble staffing a gig (not enough available bodies) and another office has a few too many folks on the bench, well... you can connect the dots. But again, we try to keep that to a minimum.Lastly, we all have our own thresholds for what we consider "a lot" of travel. There are two parts to this threshold:Half of it is whatever you're accustomed to already. The other half is being honest with yourself about how much you [like/hate] dealing with airports, car rentals, taxis, hotels, disruptions to your workout schedule, time away from friends/family, etc.Knowing a bit about yourself will definitely help you decide how much travel is too much for you.

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  • Thoughts (on Windows Phone 7) from the MVP Summit

    - by Chris Williams
    Last week I packed off to Redmond, WA for my annual pilgrimage to Microsoft's MVP Summit. I'll spare you all the silly taunting about knowing stuff I can't talk about, etc... and just get to the point. I'm a XNA/DirectX MVP, an ASP Insider and a Languages (VB) Insider... so I actually had access to a pretty broad spectrum of information over the last week. Most of my time was focused on Windows Phone 7 related sessions, and while I can't dig deep into specifics, I can say that Microsoft is definitely not out of the fight for Mobile. The things I saw tell me that Microsoft is listening and paying attention to feedback, looking at what works & what doesn't and they are working their collective asses off to close the gap between Google and Apple. Anyone who has been in this industry for a while can tell you Microsoft does their best work when they are the underdog. They are currently behind, and have a lot of work ahead of them, but this is when they bring all their resources together to solve a problem. After the week I spent in Redmond, and the feedback I heard from other MVPs, and the technological previews I saw... I feel confident in betting heavily on Microsoft to pull this off.

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