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• Turn Based Event Algorithm

  - by GamersIncoming

  I'm currently working on a small roguelike in XNA, which sees the player in a randomly generated series of dungeons fending off creeps, as you might expect. As with most roguelikes, the player makes a move, and then each of the creeps currently active on screen will make a move in turns, until all creeps have updated, and it return's to the player's go. On paper, the simple algorithm is straightforward: Player takes turn Turn Number increments For each active creep, update Position Once all active creeps have updated, allow player to take next turn However, when it comes to actually writing this in more detail, the concept becomes a bit more tricky for me. So my question comes as this: what is the best way to handle events taking turns to trigger, where the completion of each last event triggers the next, when dealing with a large number of creeps (probably stored as an array of an enemy object), and is there an easier way to create some kind of engine that just takes all objects that need updating and chains them together so their updates follow suit? I'm not asking for code, just algorithms and theory in the direction of objects triggering updates one after the other, in a turn based manner. Thanks in advance. Edited: Here's the code I currently have that is horrible :/ if (player.getTurnOver() && updateWait == 0) { if (creep[creepToUpdate].getActive()) { creep[creepToUpdate].moveObject(player, map1); updateWait = 10; } if (creepToUpdate < creep.Length -1) { creepToUpdate++; } else { creepToUpdate = 0; player.setTurnOver(false); } } if (updateWait > 0) { updateWait--; }

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• Hosting and scaling of a facebook application on cloud?

  - by DhruvPathak

  We would be building a facebook application in django(Python), but still not sure of where to host it economically,and with a good provision to scale in case the app gets viral. Some details about the app: i) Would be HTML based like a website,using django as a framework. ii) 100K is the number of expected pageviews in a day,if the app is viral. iii) The users will not generate any media content,only some database data will be generated by them. It would be great if someone with more experience can guide on following points: A) Hosting on google app engine or Amazon EC2 or some other cloud like RackSpace : Preferable points found in AppEngine were ease of deployment,cost effectiveness and easy scaling. For EC2: Full hold of the virtual machine,Amazon NoSQL and RDMBS database services in case we decide to use them. B) Does backend technology affect monthly cost ? eg. would CPU and memory usage difference of Django over , for example , PHP framework like CodeIgnitor really make remarkable difference in running costs. ( Here is the article that triggered this thought process : http://journal.dedasys.com/2010/01/12/rough-estimates-of-the-dollar-cost-of-scaling-web-platforms-part-i#comments) C) Does something like Heroku , which provides additional services over Amazon EC2, prove to be better than raw cloud management ? It is not that we are trying for premature scaling, we just want to have a good start so that we are ready to handle unpredicted growth and scale.

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• Java Magazine: Growing on Open

  - by Tori Wieldt

  The November/December issue of Java Magazine is now out, with several great Java stories, including: Growing on Open AgroSense provides an all-Java open source platform for sustainable farming and precision agriculture. An Engine for Big Data Hadoop uses Java for large-scale analytics. JavaFX in SpringStephen Chin shows you why to use the Spring framework on the client. JCP Executive Q&A: Mike MilinkovichThe Eclipse Foundation’s executive director assesses the state of Java and the JCP. Exploring Lambda Expressions for the Java Language and the JVMBen Evans, Martijn Verburg, and Trisha Gee help you get ready for lambda expressions in Java SE 8. Get Started with Java SE for Embedded Devices on Raspberry PiWe walk you through getting Linux and Java SE for Embedded Devices to run on the Raspberry Pi in less than an hour. Java NationGet the news from JavaOne 2012 in San Francisco. Java Magazine is a bi-monthly online publication. It includes technical articles on the Java language and platform; Java innovations and innovators; JUG and JCP news; Java events; links to online Java communities; and videos and multimedia demos. Subscriptions are free. Do you have feedback about Java Magazine? Send a tweet to @oraclejavamag.

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• Leveraging NuGet as a central repository for PowerShell modules

  - by cibrax

  We have been working a lot lately with PowerShell as part of our star product at Tellago Studios, “Moesion”. One of the main features we provide in Moesion is the ability to execute PowerShell commands remotely in a given server using a web mobile interface (You can read more in my previous post about Moesion). One of the things we realized in all this time is that PowerShell lacks of a central repository where IT guys or we, the developers, can easily grab and reuse commands.  All the commands or modules are basically spread across multiple places or websites, like personal blogs, TechNet or CodePlex projects to name a few making the search of them very hard. You are usually limited to use your favorite search engine and copy what you find. In addition, there is not an easy way to reuse, extend or version these commands, which also limits any contribution that you could make to the community.  My friend Jose wrote a great post the other day about the importance of reusing PowerShell modules, and what is the mechanism to reuse them. Jose, however, based his post in a custom implementation using a GIT repository for storing the modules. We have NuGet in the .NET platform for sharing and reusing existing libraries or code, so why can’t just leverage it for reusing PowerShell modules as well ?. Some teams in Microsoft are using NuGet for distributing libraries and binaries so it would be a great thing for all of us if they also distribute the scripting interfaces in PowerShell using NuGet. This applies to the .NET OS community as well. In fact, it looks like Andrew Nurse had the same idea and implemented a project for this in BitBucket, PsGet.

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• Is there a canonical source supporting "all-surrogates"?

  - by user61852

  Background The "all-PK-must-be-surrogates" approach is not present in Codd's Relational Model or any SQL Standard (ANSI, ISO or other). Canonical books seems to elude this restrictions too. Oracle's own data dictionary scheme uses natural keys in some tables and surrogate keys in other tables. I mention this because these people must know a thing or two about RDBMS design. PPDM (Professional Petroleum Data Management Association) recommend the same canonical books do: Use surrogate keys as primary keys when: There are no natural or business keys Natural or business keys are bad ( change often ) The value of natural or business key is not known at the time of inserting record Multicolumn natural keys ( usually several FK ) exceed three columns, which makes joins too verbose. Also I have not found canonical source that says natural keys need to be immutable. All I find is that they need to be very estable, i.e need to be changed only in very rare ocassions, if ever. I mention PPDM because these people must know a thing or two about RDBMS design too. The origins of the "all-surrogates" approach seems to come from recommendations from some ORM frameworks. It's true that the approach allows for rapid database modeling by not having to do much business analysis, but at the expense of maintainability and readability of the SQL code. Much prevision is made for something that may or may not happen in the future ( the natural PK changed so we will have to use the RDBMS cascade update funtionality ) at the expense of day-to-day task like having to join more tables in every query and having to write code for importing data between databases, an otherwise very strightfoward procedure (due to the need to avoid PK colisions and having to create stage/equivalence tables beforehand ). Other argument is that indexes based on integers are faster, but that has to be supported with benchmarks. Obviously, long, varying varchars are not good for PK. But indexes based on short, fix-length varchar are almost as fast as integers. The questions - Is there any canonical source that supports the "all-PK-must-be-surrogates" approach ? - Has Codd's relational model been superceded by a newer relational model ?

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• How to manage Areas/Levels in an RPG?

  - by Hexlan

  I'm working on an RPG and I'm trying to figure out how to manage the different levels/areas in the game. Currently I create a new state (source file) for every area, defining its unique aspects. My concern is that as the game grows the number of class files will become unmanageable with all the towns, houses, shops, dungeons, etc. that I need to keep track of. I would also prefer to separate my levels from the source code because non-programmer members of the team will be creating levels, and I would like the engine to be as free from game specific code as possible. I'm thinking of creating a class that provides all the functions that will be the same between all the levels/areas with a unique member variable that can be used to look up level specifics from data. This way I only need to define level/area once in the code, but can create multiple instances each with its own unique aspects provided by data. Is this a good way to go about solving the issue? Is there a better way to handle a growing number of levels?

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• Precise: Evolution laggy due to IMAP -profile or due to some odd Sync -issue?

  - by Izzy

  I'm fighting with Evolution. Basically it's working fine -- but it is very slow to react in certain situations. There is apparently some problem with syncing and IMAP. Helper questios Could be that changing away from Bonobo has to do with slowing-down? There might be some trouble with the new engine and "asynchronous actions". What to do about it? I want to get the previous "working mood" back. How can I speed this thing up? Different scenarios when sending a mail, the composer window hangs there inactive for a couple of seconds, everything grayed out. Though there is a green check mark saying it's sent, I'm not sure a) why it's still blocking everything and b) whether I could simply close it without "breaking"/"losing" anything. In earlier versions, the composer window was closing pretty fast, and one could see the message being stored into the local "outbox" until it was sent, and one could immediately continue with the next task. I prefer that behaviour over the current. switching between modules. Coming from mail and switching to the address book takes a couple of seconds. Same for switching to the calendar. I read about different "possible causes" and tried a few things: I only have 3 local address books, so no networking should be involved here. To make sure, I switched to offline mode and then tried to access the address book. No noticeable difference. I use 3 Google Calendars. Switching to offline mode made a minor difference, but so minor that it also could be "imagination" since one might have expected this in this case according to some reports, disabling the tasks should help. Well, it didn't in my case, as I don't use them regularly (just two local items stored here)

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• Displaying a Grid of Data in ASP.NET MVC

  One of the most common tasks we face as a web developers is displaying data in a grid. In its simplest incarnation, a grid merely displays information about a set of records - the orders placed by a particular customer, perhaps; however, most grids offer features like sorting, paging, and filtering to present the data in a more useful and readable manner. In ASP.NET WebForms the GridView control offers a quick and easy way to display a set of records in a grid, and offers features like sorting, paging, editing, and deleting with just a little extra work. On page load, the GridView automatically renders as an HTML <table> element, freeing you from having to write any markup and letting you focus instead on retrieving and binding the data to display to the GridView. In an ASP.NET MVC application, however, developers are on the hook for generating the markup rendered by each view. This task can be a bit daunting for developers new to ASP.NET MVC, especially those who have a background in WebForms. This is the first in a series of articles that explore how to display grids in an ASP.NET MVC application. This installment starts with a walk through of creating the ASP.NET MVC application and data access code used throughout this series. Next, it shows how to display a set of records in a simple grid. Future installments examine how to create richer grids that include sorting, paging, filtering, and client-side enhancements. We'll also look at pre-built grid solutions, like the Grid component in the MvcContrib project and JavaScript-based grids like jqGrid. But first things first - let's create an ASP.NET MVC application and see how to display database records in a web page. Read on to learn more! Read More >

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• SEO and links content

  - by AntonAL

  For usability purposes, entire article thumbnail is wrapped to a link. <a href="/some_article"> <h2>Article title</h2> <div class="summary">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet</div> </a> User needs to click on any place of a thumb and it will be redirected to article. Does this approach have some negative effect to SEO ? Another question: What is more valueable for Search Engine ? Just a link to article in articles list <a href="/article1">Article 1</a> <a href="/article2">Article 2</a> <a href="/article3">Article 3</a> Or h2, wrapped to link: <a href="/article1"><h2>Article 1</h2></a> <a href="/article2"><h2>Article 2</h2></a> <a href="/article3"><h2>Article 3</h2></a>

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• Most suited technology for browser games?

  - by Tingle

  I was thinking about making a 2D MMO which I would in the long run support on various plattforms like desktop, mac, browser, android and ios. The server will be c++/linux based and the first client would go in the browser. So I have done some research and found that webgl and flash 11 support hardware accelerated rendering, I saw some other things like normal HTML5 painting. So my question is, which technology should I use for such a project? My main goal would be that the users have a hassle free experience using what there hardware can give them with hardware acceleration. And the client should work on the most basic out-of-the-box pc's that any casual pc or mac user has. And another criteria would be that it should be developer friendly. I've messed with webgl abit for example and that would require writing a engine from scratch - which is acceptable but not preferred. Also, in case of non-actionscript, which kind language is most prefered in terms of speed and flexability. I'm not to fond of javascript due to the garbage collector but have learned to work around it. Thank you for you time.

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• What is a Coding Dojo?

  - by huwyss

  Recently i found out that there is a thing called "coding dojo". The point behind it is that software developers want to have a space to learn new stuff like processes, methods, coding details, languages, and whatnot in an environment without stress. Just for fun. No competition. No results required. No deadlines.Some days ago I joined the Zurich coding dojo. We were three programmers with different backgrounds.We gave ourselves the task to develop a method that takes an input value and returns its prime factors. We did pair programming and every few minutes we switched positions. We used test driven development. The chosen programming language was Ruby.I haven't really done TDD before. It was pretty interesting to see the algorithm develop following the testcases.We started with the first test input=1 then developed the most simple productive program that passed this very first test. Then we added the next test input=2 and implemented the productive code. We kept adding tests and made sure all tests are passed until we had the general solution.When we improved the performance of our code we saw the value of the tests we wrote before. Of course our first performance improvement broke several tests.It was a very interesting experience to see how other developers think and how they work. I will participate at the dojo again and can warmly recommend it to anyone. There are  coding dojos all over the world.Have fun!

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• Advice on choosing a book to read

  - by Kioshiki

  I would like to ask for some recommendations on useful books to read. Initially I had intended on posting quite a long description of my current issue and asking for advice. But I realised that I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to ask. One thing that is clear to me is that my knowledge in various areas needs improving and reading is one method of doing that. Though choosing the right book to read seems like a task in itself when there are so many books out there. I am a programmer but I also deal with analysis, design & testing. So I am not sure what type of book to read. One option might be to work through two books at the same time. I had thought maybe one about design or practices and another of a more technical focus. Recently I came across one book that I thought might be useful to read: http://xunitpatterns.com/index.html It seems like an interesting book, but the comments I read on amazon.co.uk show that the book is probably longer than it needs to be. Has anyone read it and can comment on this? Another book that I already own and would probably be a good one to finish reading is this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Code-Complete-Practical-Handbook-Construction/dp/0735619670/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309438553&sr=8-1 Has anyone else read this who can comment on its usefulness? Beyond these two I currently have no clear idea of what to read. I have thought about reading a book related to OO design or the GOF design patterns. But I wonder if I am worrying too much about the process and practices and not focusing on the actual work. I would be very grateful for any suggestions or comments. Many Thanks, Kioshiki

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• XboxMP Helps You Find Multiplayer Games for the Xbox

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Searching for the perfect versus or cooperative Xbox multiplayer game can be challenging–the game publisher says it plays four but what exactly does that mean? XboxMP catalogs games with detailed breakdowns of what the multiplayer experience actually entails. You can search first generation Xbox games, Xbox 360 games, and Xbox Live Arcade games with a variety of detailed criteria including the number of players it supports for local, system link, and online play (it may be a deal breaker, for example, that the only way to play the game with 4 players is to have two Xboxes or an Xbox live account). In addition to the multiplayer game data each game listing also includes addition information about the general game play including peripheral support and other features. Hit up the link below to check it out and, for more help finding multiplayer cooperative games, make sure to check out previously reviewed Co-Optimus. XBoxMP What Is the Purpose of the “Do Not Cover This Hole” Hole on Hard Drives? How To Log Into The Desktop, Add a Start Menu, and Disable Hot Corners in Windows 8 HTG Explains: Why You Shouldn’t Use a Task Killer On Android

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• The Home Stretch: NetBeans IDE 7.1 Release Candidate

  - by TinuA

  The first release candidate build of NetBeans IDE 7.1 is live and available for download, which means the big release (GA) is expected any day soon.NetBeans IDE 7.1 delivers support for JavaFX 2.0, enabling the full compile, debug and profile development cycle for JavaFX 2.0 applications and keeping developers in sync with the latest from the Java platform. Beyond JavaFX support, 7.1 also provides significant Swing GUI Builder enhancements, CSS3 support, and visual debugging tools for JavaFX and Swing user interfaces. And Git--a much anticipated featured--has been integrated into the IDE."The entire NetBeans team is tremendously excited about this release, which provides developers with more state-of-the-art tools for building front-end clients," says NetBeans Engineering Director John Jullion-Ceccarelli. "Whether you are doing JavaFX, HTML5, Swing, or JSF, NetBeans 7.1 will let you quickly and easily develop great-looking and full-featured clients for your Java or PHP-based applications."But there's one more task to check off before the general availability: The NetBeans team has launched a Community Acceptance Survey to get user feedback about the release candidate. Download the RC build, test it and take the survey to let the team know if NetBeans IDE 7.1 is ready for its debut!

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• How can I stop a process from moving to the background?

  - by Alex

  I have a machine running Ubuntu server version 12.04.3 LTS. On it, I'm attempting to run a node.js server that needs to stay up and running at all times. I'm running into an issue, however, where periodically I see this happen: [1]+ Stopped sudo node server.js When this happens, I have to manually bring it back with fg, which works fine, at least until it stops again. As far as I can tell, it isn't functioning properly while stopped, since I get no log files in those windows of time. So my question is this: Is there a way to prevent it from being stopped like that? I'm running it in a tmux window, if that changes anything. Also, to address the question before it gets asked: I'm running it as sudo due to some ecryptfs issues I've been having. I was originally running it in my home directory, but when it was left alive for too long things would get out of sync and the file writes it has to do would just stop working. To mitigate that, I moved it out of my home directory, but its new location requires me to use sudo permissions for everything to work correctly. Hopefully that isn't related to the whole background task thing. (sudo and tmux tags included in case one or both turn out to actually be relevant to the solution.)

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• How to implement "bullet time" in a multiplayer game?

  - by Tom

  I have never seen such a feature before, but it should provide an interesting gameplay opportunity. So yes, in a multiplayer/real-time environment (imagine FPS), how could I implement a slow motion/bullet time effect? Something like an illusion for the player that's currently slo-mo'ed. So everybody sees him "real-time", but he sees everything slowed down. Update A sidenote: keep in mind that a FPS game has to be balanced in order for it to be fun. So yes, this bullet time feature has to be solid, giving a small advantage to the "player", while not taking away from other players. Plus, there is a possibility that two players could activate their bullet time at the same time. Furthermore: I'm going to implement this in the future no matter what it takes. And, the idea is to build a whole new game engine for all this. If that gives new options, I'm more then interested in hearing the ideas. Meanwhile, here with my team we're thinking about this too, when our theory will be crafted, I'm going to share it here. Is this even possible? So, the question on "is this even possible" has been answered, now it's time to find the best solution. I'm keeping the "answer" until something exceptionally good comes up, like a prototype theory with something close to working pseudo code.

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• I've inherited 200K lines of spaghetti code -- what now?

  - by kmote

  I hope this isn't too general of a question; I could really use some seasoned advice. I am newly employed as the sole "SW Engineer" in a fairly small shop of scientists who have spent the last 10-20 years cobbling together a vast code base. (It was written in a virtually obsolete language: G2 -- think Pascal with graphics). The program itself is a physical model of a complex chemical processing plant; the team that wrote it have incredibly deep domain knowledge but little or no formal training in programming fundamentals. They've recently learned some hard lessons about the consequences of non-existant configuration management. Their maintenance efforts are also greatly hampered by the vast accumulation of undocumented "sludge" in the code itself. I will spare you the "politics" of the situation (there's always politics!), but suffice to say, there is not a consensus of opinion about what is needed for the path ahead. They have asked me to begin presenting to the team some of the principles of modern software development. They want me to introduce some of the industry-standard practices and strategies regarding coding conventions, lifecycle management, high-level design patterns, and source control. Frankly, it's a fairly daunting task and I'm not sure where to begin. Initially, I'm inclined to tutor them in some of the central concepts of The Pragmatic Programmer, or Fowler's Refactoring ("Code Smells", etc). I also hope to introduce a number of Agile methodologies. But ultimately, to be effective, I think I'm going to need to hone in on 5-7 core fundamentals; in other words, what are the most important principles or practices that they can realistically start implementing that will give them the most "bang for the buck". So that's my question: What would you include in your list of the most effective strategies to help straighten out the spaghetti (and prevent it in the future)?

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• Unity, changing gravity game & stopping character when he hit a wall.

  - by Sylario

  i am currently working on a 2d puzzle game in the unity engine. One of the aspect of this game is the possibility to rotate the level of 90°. It also rotate the gravity. The main character is not directly controlled by the player, but instead fall when the level is rotated. When the main character hit a wall, he should stop to move. If i do not stop it, it kind of blink ans shake against the wall. To stop it i detect collision and depending on the current rotation state, the player will stop at "vertical" or "horizontal" tags when a OnCollisonEnter occurs. I must do that because when the player fall on his relative ground, He must not stop like if he had touch a wall. My problem is the 'side' of platform, or the 'top' of wall, they use the same tag and thus do not give the correct tag to my character. I tried to put a very small invisible box on top/side of elements but the collision occurs nevertheless. It seems when the player falls and hit something he go through a bit before being replaced at correct position by unity. Is there a way : 1 ) to doesn't stop my character but to make it appear immobile on screen 2 ) To detect a "i cannot move anymore" collision other than by using collision?

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• How to implement behavior in a component-based game architecture?

  - by ghostonline

  I am starting to implement player and enemy AI in a game, but I am confused about how to best implement this in a component-based game architecture. Say I have a following player character that can be stationary, running and swinging a sword. A player can transit to the swing sword state from both the stationary and running state, but then the swing must be completed before the player can resume standing or running around. During the swing, the player cannot walk around. As I see it, I have two implementation approaches: Create a single AI-component containing all player logic (either decoupled from the actual component or embedded as a PlayerAIComponent). I can easily how to enforce the state restrictions without creating coupling between individual components making up the player entity. However, the AI-component cannot be broken up. If I have, for example, an enemy that can only stand and walk around or only walks around and occasionally swing a sword, I have to create new AI-components. Break the behavior up in components, each identifying a specific state. I then get a StandComponent, WalkComponent and SwingComponent. To enforce the transition rules, I have to couple each component. SwingComponent must disable StandComponent and WalkComponent for the duration of the swing. When I have an enemy that only stands around, swinging a sword occasionally, I have to make sure SwingComponent only disables WalkComponent if it is present. Although this allows for better mix-and-matching components, it can lead to a maintainability nightmare as each time a dependency is added, the existing components must be updated to play nicely with the new requirements the dependency places on the character. The ideal situation would be that a designer can build new enemies/players by dragging components into a container, without having to touch a single line of engine or script code. Although I am not sure script coding can be avoided, I want to keep it as simple as possible. Summing it all up: Should I lob all AI logic into one component or break up each logic state into separate components to create entity variants more easily?

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• Purpose oriented user accounts on a single desktop?

  - by dd_dent

  Starting point: I currently do development for Dynamics Ax, Android and an occasional dabble with Wordpress and Python. Soon, I'll start a project involving setting up WP on Google Apps Engine. Everything is, and should continue to, run from the same PC (running Linux Mint). Issue: I'm afraid of botching/bogging down my setup due to tinkering/installing multiple runtimes/IDE's/SDK's/Services, so I was thinking of using multiple users, each purposed to handle the task at hand (web, Android etc) and making each user as inert as possible to one another. What I need to know is the following: Is this a good/feasible practice? The second closest thing to this using remote desktops connections, either to computers or to VM's, which I'd rather avoid. What about switching users? Can it be made seamless? Anything else I should know? Update and clarification regarding VM's and whatnot: The reason I wish to avoid resorting to VM's is that I dislike the performance impact and sluggishness associated with it. I also suspect it might add a layer of complexity I wish to avoid. This answer by Wyatt is interesting but I think it's only partly suited for requirements (web development for example). Also, in reference to the point made about system wide installs, there is a level compromise I should accept as experessed by this for example. This option suggested by 9000 is also enticing (more than VM's actually) and by no means do I intend to "Juggle" JVMs and whatnot, partly due to the reason mentioned before. Regarding complexity, I agree and would consider what was said, only from my experience I tend to pollute my work environment with SDKs and runtimes I tried and discarded, which would occasionally leave leftovers which cause issues throught the session. What I really want is a set of well defined, non virtualized sessions from which I can choose at my leisure and be mostly (to a reasonable extent) safe from affecting each session from the other. And what I'm really asking is if and how can this be done using user accounts.

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• Bust Out these 13 Spooky Games for Halloween

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Looking for a suitably spooky board game for Halloween? This roundup includes everything from the light-hearted to the dark and challenging. Over at GeekDad they’ve rounded up 13 horror/Halloween themed board games to help you fill your holiday board gaming quota. The list includes classics like the in-depth and atmospheric Arkham Horror to more recent and kid-friendly GeistesBlitz. Although we think their list is rock solid and includes some great titles, we’re disappointed to see that Witch of Salem, a great lighter-weight alternative to Arkham Horror for those nights you want some cooperative H.P. Lovecraft inspired play without the massive setup and game length, didn’t make the list. To check out the full GeekDad list hit up the link below, for more boardgame-centric reading we highly recommend the excellent board gaming site BoardgameGeek. 13 Spooky Board Games for Your Halloween Game Night [GeekDad] What Is the Purpose of the “Do Not Cover This Hole” Hole on Hard Drives? How To Log Into The Desktop, Add a Start Menu, and Disable Hot Corners in Windows 8 HTG Explains: Why You Shouldn’t Use a Task Killer On Android

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• Which approach is the most maintainable?

  - by 2rs2ts

  When creating a product which will inherently suffer from regression due to OS updates, which of these is the preferable approach when trying to reduce maintenance cost and the likelihood of needing refactoring, when considering the task of interpreting system state and settings for a lay user? Delegate the responsibility of interpreting the results of inspecting the system to the modules which perform these tasks, or, Separate the concerns of interpretation and inspection into two modules? The first obviously creates a blob in which a lot of code would be verbose, redundant, and hard to grok; the second creates a strong coupling in which the interpretation module essentially has to know what it expects from inspection routines and will have to adapt to changes to the OS just as much as the inspection will. I would normally choose the second option for the separation of concerns, foreseeing the possibility that inspection routines could be re-used, but a developer updating the product to deal with a new OS feature or something would have to not only write an inspection routine but also write an interpretation routine and link the two correctly - and it gets worse for a developer who has to change which inspection routines are used to get a certain system setting, or worse yet, has to fix an inspection routine which broke after an OS patch. I wonder, is it better to have to patch one package a lot or two packages, each somewhat less so?

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, June 26, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, June 26, 2011Popular ReleasesDroid Builder: Droid Builder - 1.0.4194.38898: Support new type of patch package. Support plugin framework.Mosaic Project: Mosaic Alpha build 254: - Added horizontal scroll by mouse in fullscreen mode - Widgets now have fixed size - Reduced spacing between widgets - Widgets menu is scrollable by mouse now and not overlapping back button on small screens.Net Image Processor: v1.0: Initial release of the library containing the core architecture and two filters. To install, extract the library to somewhere sensible then reference as a file from your project in Visual Studio.Usage Agent: Usage Agent 9.0.8: Latest release. Changes include: - Fixes for Optus - Usage Delta statistic for BigPond - Eliminated the need for UAC prompt at every startupjQuery List DragSort: jQuery List DragSort 0.4.3: Fix item not dropping correctly on Chrome and jQuery 1.6KinectNUI: Jun 25 Alpha Release: Initial public version. No installer needed, just run the EXE.TerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v3.3 [v1.0.5 Compatible]: I have added support for all the new items in Terraria v1.0.5. I have also added the ability to put your character in hardcore mode or take them out via a simple checkbox on the stats tab. If you come across any bugs, please let me know immediately.Media Companion: MC 3.409b-1 Weekly: This weeks release is part way through a major rewrite of the TVShow code. This means that a few TV related features & functions are not fully operational at the moment. The reason for this release is so that people can see if their particular issue has been fixed during the week. Some issues may not be able to be fully checked due to the ongoing TV code refactoring. So, I would strongly suggest that you put this version into a separate folder, copy your settings folder across & test MC that...Terraria World Viewer: Version 1.5: Update June 24th Made compatible with the new tiles found in Terraria 1.0.5Kinect Earth Move: KinectEarthMove sample code: Sample code releasedThis is a sample code for Kinect for Windows SDK beta, which was demonstrated on Channel 9 Kinect for Windows SKD beta launch event on June 17 2011. Using color image and skeleton data from Kinect and user in front of Kinect can manipulate the earth between his/her hands.NetOffice - The easiest way to use Office in .NET: NetOffice Release 0.9b: Changes: - fix critical issue 262334 (AccessViolationException while using events in a COMAddin) - remove x64 Assemblies (not necessary) Includes: - Runtime Binaries and Source Code for .NET Framework:......v2.0, v3.0, v3.5, v4.0 - Tutorials in C# and VB.Net:..............................................................COM Proxy Management, Events, etc. - Examples in C# and VB.Net:............................................................Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access - COMAddi...MiniTwitter: 1.70: MiniTwitter 1.70 ???? ?? ????? xAuth ?? OAuth ??????? 1.70 ??????????????????????????。 ???????????????? Twitter ? Web ??????????、PIN ????????????????????。??????????????????、???????????????????????????。Total Commander SkyDrive File System Plugin (.wfx): Total Commander SkyDrive File System Plugin 0.8.7b: Total Commander SkyDrive File System Plugin version 0.8.7b. Bug fixes: - BROKEN PLUGIN by upgrading SkyDriveServiceClient version 2.0.1b. Please do not forget to express your opinion of the plugin by rating it! Donate (EUR)SkyDrive .Net API Client: SkyDrive .Net API Client 2.0.1b (RELOADED): SkyDrive .Net API Client assembly has been RELOADED in version 2.0.1b as a REAL API. It supports the followings: - Creating root and sub folders - Uploading and downloading files - Renaming and deleting folders and files Bug fixes: - BROKEN API (issue 6834) Please do not forget to express your opinion of the assembly by rating it! Donate (EUR)Mini SQL Query: Mini SQL Query v1.0.0.59794: This release includes the following enhancements: Added a Most Recently Used file list Added Row counts to the query (per tab) and table view windows Added the Command Timeout option, only valid for MSSQL for now - see options If you have no idea what this thing is make sure you check out http://pksoftware.net/MiniSqlQuery/Help/MiniSqlQueryQuickStart.docx for an introduction. PK :-]HydroDesktop - CUAHSI Hydrologic Information System Desktop Application: 1.2.591 Beta Release: 1.2.591 Beta Releasepatterns & practices: Project Silk: Project Silk Community Drop 12 - June 22, 2011: Changes from previous drop: Minor code changes. New "Introduction" chapter. New "Modularity" chapter. Updated "Architecture" chapter. Updated "Server-Side Implementation" chapter. Updated "Client Data Management and Caching" chapter. Guidance Chapters Ready for Review The Word documents for the chapters are included with the source code in addition to the CHM to help you provide feedback. The PDF is provided as a separate download for your convenience. Installation Overview To ins...DropBox Linker: DropBox Linker 1.3: Added "Get links..." dialog, that provides selective public files links copying Get links link added to tray menu as the default option Fixed URL encoding .NET Framework 4.0 Client Profile requiredDotNetNuke® Community Edition: 06.00.00 Beta: Beta 1 (Build 2300) includes many important enhancements to the user experience. The control panel has been updated for easier access to the most important features and additional forms have been adapted to the new pattern. This release also includes many bug fixes that make it more stable than previous CTP releases. Beta ForumsBlogEngine.NET: BlogEngine.NET 2.5 RC: BlogEngine.NET Hosting - Click Here! 3 Months FREE – BlogEngine.NET Hosting – Click Here! This is a Release Candidate version for BlogEngine.NET 2.5. The most current, stable version of BlogEngine.NET is version 2.0. Find out more about the BlogEngine.NET 2.5 RC here. If you want to extend or modify BlogEngine.NET, you should download the source code. To get started, be sure to check out our installation documentation. If you are upgrading from a previous version, please take a look at ...New Projects6_6_6_w_m_s_open: jwervxsdfcfcf: cfcfChairforce hackathon project: project for hackathonDot Net Nuke Ajax Modules: This is a small collection of modules I think on once in a while which intend to improve a little dnn's user experience.Gnosis Game Engine: A simple game engine for the XNA 4.0 frame work that I am working on, mostly as a learning experience. I found that XNA game engines either require you to pay or are XNA 4.0 incompatible, and so this is my solution to that problem.KA_WindowsPhone7_Samples: Sample Code for Windows Phone 7 from http://kevinashley.comKinect MIDI Controller: This tool allows you to use a Kinect Sensor as a MIDI Controller for your Digital Audio Workbench. The tool is written in C#, and uses Microsoft Kinect SDK. Mosaic Project: Mosaic is an application that brings Metro UI to your desktop by live widgets.Movie Gate: A movie database that is also able to play the movies with your favorit media player.Musical Collective: An open-source web service that enables Musicians to collaborate on songs. Written in ASP.NET MVC (C#).NcADS-MVC: Clasificados MVCPokeTD: Ein kleines 2D Pokemon Tower-Defense Spiel. Es ist in C# und XNA geschrieben.PRO-TOKOL: PRO-TOKOL Server is a Programmable Logic Controller communication driver. The project is 100% coded in .NET Managed code. So, the dll can be included in any .NET project. The project uses the Microsoft Workflow Foundation to implement the DF1 Receiver and Transmitter logic.ShumaDaf: small project for display movies info directly from file structure using mymovies.xml. program create one simple xml file and display it!Silverlight Policy Service: The windows service act as a server and listens on TCP port 943 using IPv4 and IPv6. The socket policy included in the project allows all silverlight client applications to connect to TCP ports 4502-4506.SkinObject Module Wrapper: The SkinObject Module Wrapper is a DotNetNuke module that will allow you to add any DNN SkinObject to a page dinamically as if it was a DNN Module. Without any skin modification you can now inject new SkinObjects to you pages, configure the properties and change them on the fly.SkyNet0.3: Program that one should not be able to close.Team Zero Game One: SVN for the personal project(s) of Team Zero - Game One. We are creating a free game in HTML5 canvas using the CAKE api, found here: http://code.google.com/p/cakejs/ The game is about programming a small robot to move through a maze, sneaking past guards and other obstacles, using event-based programming. We've seen a number of games that allow you to "program" a character, and thought it would be interesting to do a different take on it. The game is still in early production, and actively ...Test-Driven Scaffolding (TDS): TDS helps developers of C# function members (methods, indexers, etc.) to quickly write drivers for code under development; these can easily be converted later to NUnit tests. TDS consists of C# code that can be pasted into a new or existing project and removed when no longer needed.Usage Agent: The Usage Agent toolset is designed to help manage your ISP data usage without having to log into your ISP usage page. It can optionally monitor your network card throughput and produce reports on usage. Developed in VB.NET.

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• ODBC in SSIS 2012

  - by jamiet

  In August 2011 the SQL Server client team published a blog post entitled Microsoft is Aligning with ODBC for Native Relational Data Access in which they basically said "OLE DB is the past, ODBC is the future. Deal with it.". From that blog post:We encourage you to adopt ODBC in the development of your new and future versions of your application. You don’t need to change your existing applications using OLE DB, as they will continue to be supported on Denali throughout its lifecycle. While this gives you a large window of opportunity for changing your applications before the deprecation goes into effect, you may want to consider migrating those applications to ODBC as a part of your future roadmap.I recently undertook a project using SSIS2012 and heeded that advice by opting to use ODBC Connection Managers rather than OLE DB Connection Managers. Unfortunately my finding was that the ODBC Connection Manager is not yet ready for primetime use in SSIS 2012. The main issue I found was that you can't populate an Object variable with a recordset when using an Execute SQL Task connecting to an ODBC data source; any attempt to do so will result in an error:"Disconnected recordsets are not available from ODBC connections." I have filed a bug on Connect at ODBC Connection Manager does not have same funcitonality as OLE DB. For this reason I strongly recommend that you don't make the move to ODBC Connection Managers in SSIS just yet - best to wait for the next version of SSIS before doing that.I found another couple of issues with the ODBC Connection Manager that are worth keeping in mind:It doesn't recognise System Data Source Names (DSNs), only User DSNs (bug filed at ODBC System DSNs are not available in the ODBC Connection Manager)  UPDATE: According to a comment on that Connect item this may only be a problem on 64bit.In the OLE DB Connection Manager parameter ordinals are 0-based, in the ODBC Connection Manager they are 1-based (oh I just can't wait for the upgrade mess that ensues from this one!!!)You have been warned!@jamiet

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• What to Return with Async CRUD methods C#

  - by RualStorge

  While there is a similar question focused on Java, I've been in debates with utilizing Task objects. What's the best way to handle returns on CRUD methods (and similar)? Common returns we've seen over the years are: Void (no return unless there is an exception) Boolean (True on Success, False on Failure, exception on unhandled failure) Int or GUID (Return the newly created objects Id, 0 or null on failure, exception on unhandled failure) The updated Object (exception on failure) Result Object (Object that houses the manipulated object's ID, Boolean or status field to with success or failure indicated, Exception information if there was one, etc) The concern comes into play as we've started moving over to utilizing C# 5's Async functionality, and this brought the question up of how we should handle CRUD returns large-scale. In our systems we have a little of everything in regards to what we return, we want to make these returns standardized... Now the question is what is the recommended standard? Is there even a recommended standard yet? (I realize we need to decide our standard, but typically we do so by looking at best practices, see if it makes sense for us and go from there, but here we're not finding much to work with)

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