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• How to create a "retro" pixel shader for transformed 2D sprites that maintains pixel fidelity?

  - by David Gouveia

  The image below shows two sprites rendered with point sampling on top of a background: The left skull has no rotation/scaling applied to it, so every pixel matches perfectly with the background. The right skull is rotated/scaled, and this results in larger pixels that are no longer axis aligned. How could I develop a pixel shader that would render the transformed sprite on the right with axis aligned pixels of the same size as the rest of the scene? This might be related to how sprite scaling was implemented in old games such as Monkey Island, because that's the effect I'm trying to achieve, but with rotation added. Edit As per kaoD's suggestions, I tried to address the problem as a post-process. The easiest approach was to render to a separate render target first (downsampled to match the desired pixel size) and then upscale it when rendering a second time. It did address my requirements above. First I tried doing it Linear -> Point and the result was this: There's no distortion but the result looks blurred and it loses most of the highlights colors. In my opinion it breaks the retro look I needed. The second time I tried Point -> Point and the result was this: Despite the distortion, I think that might be good enough for my needs, although it does look better as a still image than in motion. To demonstrate, here's a video of the effect, although YouTube filtered the pixels out of it: http://youtu.be/hqokk58KFmI However, I'll leave the question open for a few more days in case someone comes up with a better sampling solution that maintains the crisp look while decreasing the amount of distortion when moving.

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• What are the factors affecting a new programming language?

  - by Saurav Sengupta

  I am developing a new general-purpose programming language of my own design. It's currently my own personal project. I have read of some experts saying that new languages do not usually survive (unfortunately I can't find a reference to that right now). What are the most substantial problems that a new language faces? The language syntax is similar to C/Python families, it does not use S-expressions, and it is an imperative language, but I'm doing first-class functions in it to provide the facilities of currying. In particular, I am concentrating on translating the source language to an intermediate language for execution by an interpreter, but I'm not in a position to translate to native code yet. What would be the issues with that? I've not personally used many non-native code languages, so I'm not well aware of the performance issues on today's machines. I also can't decide upon a lexer and parser generator. What would be the pros and cons of Flex and Yacc vs. hand-made? And what benefits will LLVM provide? I need to get the interpreter ready as quickly as possible. Finally, what factors will affect the language's use post release? I am planning a small library of essentials and full documentation for the first phase.

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• Google Sky Map Turns Your Android Phone into a Digital Telescope

  - by ETC

  Whether you’re an astronomy buff or just somebody looking for a perfect “look how sweet my smartphone is!’ application, Google’s Sky Map application for Android phones is a must have app. If all the application did was show you detailed views of the night sky it would be pretty awesome based on that alone. Where Sky Map dazzles, however, is in linking together the GPS and tilt-sensors on your phone to turn your phone into a sky-watching window. Whatever you point the phone at, the screen displays. Want to see what stars are directly above you despite it being the middle of the day? Point the phone up. Curious what people on the opposite side of the word are seeing? Point the phone down and take a peek right through the Earth. Check out the video below to see the application in action: Google Sky Map is free and works wherever Android does. Google Sky Map [AppBrain] Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Enable User-Specific Wireless Networks in Windows 7 How to Use Google Chrome as Your Default PDF Reader (the Easy Way) How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop Ask How-To Geek: How Can I Monitor My Bandwidth Usage? Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware The Citroen GT – An Awesome Video Game Car Brought to Life [Video] Final Man vs. Machine Round of Jeopardy Unfolds; Watson Dominates Give Chromium-Based Browser Desktop Notifications a Native System Look in Ubuntu Chrome Time Track Is a Simple Task Time Tracker Google Sky Map Turns Your Android Phone into a Digital Telescope Walking Through a Seaside Village Wallpaper

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• How can we make agile enjoyable for developers that like to personally, independently own large chunks from start to finish

  - by Kris

  We’re roughly midway through our transition from waterfall to agile using scrum; we’ve changed from large teams in technology/discipline silos to smaller cross-functional teams. As expected, the change to agile doesn’t suit everyone. There are a handful of developers that are having a difficult time adjusting to agile. I really want to keep them engaged and challenged, and ultimately enjoying coming to work each day. These are smart, happy, motivated people that I respect on both a personal and a professional level. The basic issue is this: Some developers are primarily motivated by the joy of taking a piece of difficult work, thinking through a design, thinking through potential issues, then solving the problem piece by piece, with only minimal interaction with others, over an extended period of time. They generally complete work to a high level of quality and in a timely way; their work is maintainable and fits with the overall architecture. Transitioning to a cross-functional team that values interaction and shared responsibility for work, and delivery of working functionality within shorter intervals, the teams evolve such that the entire team knocks that difficult problem over. Many people find this to be a positive change; someone that loves to take a problem and own it independently from start to finish loses the opportunity for work like that. This is not an issue with people being open to change. Certainly we’ve seen a few people that don’t like change, but in the cases I’m concerned about, the individuals are good performers, genuinely open to change, they make an effort, they see how the rest of the team is changing and they want to fit in. It’s not a case of someone being difficult or obstructionist, or wanting to hoard the juiciest work. They just don’t find joy in work like they used to. I’m sure we can’t be the only place that hasn’t bumped up on this. How have others approached this? If you’re a developer that is motivated by personally owning a big chunk of work from end to end, and you’ve adjusted to a different way of working, what did it for you?

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• SQL SERVER – ORDER BY ColumnName vs ORDER BY ColumnNumber

  - by pinaldave

  I strongly favor ORDER BY ColumnName. I read one of the blog post where blogger compared the performance of the two SELECT statement and come to conclusion that ColumnNumber has no harm to use it. Let us understand the point made by first that there is no performance difference. Run following two scripts together: USE AdventureWorks GO -- ColumnName (Recommended) SELECT * FROM HumanResources.Department ORDER BY GroupName, Name GO -- ColumnNumber (Strongly Not Recommended) SELECT * FROM HumanResources.Department ORDER BY 3,2 GO If you look at the result and see the execution plan you will see that both of the query will take the same amount of the time. However, this was not the point of this blog post. It is not good enough to stop here. We need to understand the advantages and disadvantages of both the methods. Case 1: When Not Using * and Columns are Re-ordered USE AdventureWorks GO -- ColumnName (Recommended) SELECT GroupName, Name, ModifiedDate, DepartmentID FROM HumanResources.Department ORDER BY GroupName, Name GO -- ColumnNumber (Strongly Not Recommended) SELECT GroupName, Name, ModifiedDate, DepartmentID FROM HumanResources.Department ORDER BY 3,2 GO Case 2: When someone changes the schema of the table affecting column order I will let you recreate the example for the same. If your development server where your schema is different than the production server, if you use ColumnNumber, you will get different results on the production server. Summary: When you develop the query it may not be issue but as time passes by and new columns are added to the SELECT statement or original table is re-ordered if you have used ColumnNumber it may possible that your query will start giving you unexpected results and incorrect ORDER BY. One should note that the usage of ORDER BY ColumnName vs ORDER BY ColumnNumber should not be done based on performance but usability and scalability. It is always recommended to use proper ORDER BY clause with ColumnName to avoid any confusion. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Give Chromium-Based Browser Desktop Notifications a Native System Look in Ubuntu

  - by Asian Angel

  Desktop notifications from Chromium-based browsers are an awesome feature, but they do not blend in well at all with the native system theming in Ubuntu. Now you can fix that small problem using the wonderful Chromify-OSD extension created by Marco Ceppi. Once you get the extension installed you can give it a quick test run using the link and information we have listed below. As you can see in the image above the new notification style looks absolutely wonderful. Chromify-OSD (Chrome Web Store) [via OMG! Ubuntu!] You can test the new look of the notifications for yourself using the following webpage. Keep in mind that the extension needs to be installed first before this will work though. Note: Enter the following image URL into the Icon Blank (http://www.rgraph.net/images/logo.png) or the URL for an appropriate image, otherwise the notification may not work properly during your test. Chromify Sample HTML5 Notification Test Page The wallpaper shown in the screenshot above can be downloaded here: anime sport [DesktopNexus] Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Enable User-Specific Wireless Networks in Windows 7 How to Use Google Chrome as Your Default PDF Reader (the Easy Way) How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop Ask How-To Geek: How Can I Monitor My Bandwidth Usage? Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware The Citroen GT – An Awesome Video Game Car Brought to Life [Video] Final Man vs. Machine Round of Jeopardy Unfolds; Watson Dominates Give Chromium-Based Browser Desktop Notifications a Native System Look in Ubuntu Chrome Time Track Is a Simple Task Time Tracker Google Sky Map Turns Your Android Phone into a Digital Telescope Walking Through a Seaside Village Wallpaper

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• Unit and Integration testing: How can it become a reflex

  - by LordOfThePigs

  All the programmers in my team are familiar with unit testing and integration testing. We have all worked with it. We have all written tests with it. Some of us even have felt an improved sense of trust in his/her own code. However, for some reason, writing unit/integration tests has not become a reflex for any of the members of the team. None of us actually feel bad when not writing unit tests at the same time as the actual code. As a result, our codebase is mostly uncovered by unit tests, and projects enter production untested. The problem with that, of course is that once your projects are in production and are already working well, it is virtually impossible to obtain time and/or budget to add unit/integration testing. The members of my team and myself are already familiar with the value of unit testing (1, 2) but it doesn't seem to help bringing unit testing into our natural workflow. In my experience making unit tests and/or a target coverage mandatory just results in poor quality tests and slows down team members simply because there is no self-generated motivation to produce these tests. Also as soon as pressure eases, unit tests are not written any more. My question is the following: Is there any methods that you have experimented with that helps build a dynamic/momentum inside the team, leading to people naturally wanting to create and maintain those tests?

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• Project Corndog: Viva el caliente perro!

  - by Matt Christian

  During one of my last semesters in college we were required to take a class call Computer Graphics which tried (quite unsuccessfully) to teach us a combination of mathematics, OpenGL, and 3D rendering techniques.  The class itself was horrible, but one little gem of an idea came out of it.  See, the final project in the class was to team up and create some kind of demo or game using techniques we learned in class.  My friend Paul and I teamed up and developed a top down shooter that, given the stringent timeline, was much less of a game and much more of 3D objects floating around a screen. The idea itself however I found clever and unique and decided it was time to spend some time developing a proper version of our idea.  Project Corndog as it is tentatively named, pits you as a freshly fried corndog who broke free from the shackles of fair food slavery in a quest to escape the state fair you were born in.  Obviously it's quite a serious game with undertones of racial prejudice, immoral practices, and cheap food sold at high prices. The game itself is a top down shooter in the style of 1942 (NES).  As a delicious corndog you will have to fight through numerous enemies including hungry babies, carnies, and the corndog serial-killer himself the corndog eating champion!  Other more engaging and frighteningly realistic enemies await as the only thing between you and freedom. Project Corndog is being developed in Visual Studio 2008 with XNA Game Studio 3.1.  It is currently being hosted on Google code and will be made available as an open source engine in the coming months.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, March 11, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, March 11, 2011Popular ReleasesMobile Device Detection and Redirection: 1.0.0.0: Stable Release 51 Degrees.mobi Foundation has been in beta for some time now and has been used on thousands of websites worldwide. We’re now highly confident in the product and have designated this release as stable. We recommend all users update to this version. New Capabilities MappingsTo improve compatibility with other libraries some new .NET capabilities are now populated with wurfl data: “maximumRenderedPageSize” populated with “max_deck_size” “rendersBreaksAfterWmlAnchor” populated ...Composite C1 CMS: Composite C1 2.1 (2.1.4087.22991): .ASP.NET MVC Project Awesome, jQuery Ajax helpers (controls): 1.7.3: A rich set of helpers (controls) that you can use to build highly responsive and interactive Ajax-enabled Web applications. These helpers include Autocomplete, AjaxDropdown, Lookup, Confirm Dialog, Popup Form, Popup and Pager added interactive search for the lookupWPF Inspector: WPF Inspector 0.9.7: New Features in Version 0.9.7 - Support for .NET 3.5 and 4.0 - Multi-inspection of the same process - Property-Filtering for multiple keywords e.g. "Height Width" - Smart Element Selection - Select Controls by clicking CTRL, - Select Template-Parts by clicking CTRL+SHIFT - Possibility to hide the element adorner (over the context menu on the visual tree) - Many bugfixes??????????: All-In-One Code Framework ??? 2011-03-10: http://download.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=1codechs&DownloadId=216140 ??，????。??????????All-In-One Code Framework ???，??20?Sample！！????，?????。http://i3.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=1code&DownloadId=128165 ASP.NET ??： CSASPNETBingMaps VBASPNETRemoteUploadAndDownload CS/VBASPNETSerializeJsonString CSASPNETIPtoLocation CSASPNETExcelLikeGridView ....... Winform??： FTPDownload FTPUpload MultiThreadedWebDownloader...Rawr: Rawr 4.1.0: Rawr is now web-based. The link to use Rawr4 is: http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.phpThis is the Cataclysm Release. More details can be found at the following link http://rawr.codeplex.com/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=237262 As of the 4.0.16 release, you can now also begin using the new Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!This is a Release of the WPF version, most of the general issues have been resolved. If you have a problem, please follow the Posting Guidelines and put it into the Issue Tracker. Whe...PHP Manager for IIS: PHP Manager 1.1.2 for IIS 7: This is a localization release of PHP Manager for IIS 7. It contains all the functionality available in 56962 plus a few bug fixes (see change list for more details). Most importantly this release is translated into five languages: German - the translation is provided by Christian Graefe Dutch - the translation is provided by Harrie Verveer Turkish - the translation is provided by Yusuf Oztürk Japanese - the translation is provided by Kenichi Wakasa Russian - the translation is provid...TweetSharp: TweetSharp v2.0.0: Documentation for this release may be found at http://tweetsharp.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=UserGuide&referringTitle=Documentation. Beta ChangesAdded user streams support Serialization is not attempted for Twitter 5xx errors Fixes based on feedback Third Party Library VersionsHammock v1.2.0: http://hammock.codeplex.com Json.NET 4.0 Release 1: http://json.codeplex.comMicrosoft All-In-One Code Framework - a centralized code sample library: Visual Studio 2008 Code Samples 2011-03-09: Code samples for Visual Studio 2008Office Web.UI: Version 2.4: After having lost all modifications done for 2.3. I finally did it again... Have a look at http://www.officewebui.com/change-log Also, the documentation continues to grow... http://www.officewebui.com/category/kb ThanksmyCollections: Version 1.3: New in version 1.3 : Added Editor management for Books Added Amazon API for Books Us, Fr, De Added Amazon Us, Fr, De for Movies Added The MovieDB for Fr and De Added Author for Books Added Editor and Platform for Games Added Amazon Us, De for Games Added Studio for XXX Added Background for XXX Bug fixing with Softonic API Bug fixing with IMDB UI improvement Removed GraceNote Added Amazon Us,Fr, De for Series Added TVDB Fr and De for Series Added Tracks for Musi...patterns & practices : Composite Services: Composite Services Guidance - CTP2: This is the second CTP of the p&p Composite Service Guidance.Python Tools for Visual Studio: 1.0 Beta 1: Beta 1You can't install IronPython Tools for Visual Studio side-by-side with Python Tools for Visual Studio. A race condition sometimes causes local MPI debugging to miss breakpoints. When MPI jobs on a cluster fail they don’t get cleaned up correctly, which can cause debugging to stall because the associated MPI job is stuck in the queue. The "Threads" view has a race condition which can cause it not to display properly at times. VS2010 shortcuts that are pinned to the taskbar are so...DotNetAge -a lightweight Mvc jQuery CMS: DotNetAge 2: What is new in DotNetAge 2.0 ? Completely update DJME to DJME2, enhance user experience ,more beautiful and more interactively visit DJME project home to lean more about DJME http://www.dotnetage.com/sites/home/djme.html A new widget engine has came! Faster and easiler. Runtime performance enhanced. SEO enhanced. UI Designer enhanced. A new web resources explorer. Page manager enhanced. BlogML supports added that allows you import/export your blog data to/from dotnetage publishi...Kooboo CMS: Kooboo CMS 3.0 Beta: Files in this downloadkooboo_CMS.zip: The kooboo application files Content_DBProvider.zip: Additional content database implementation of MSSQL,SQLCE, RavenDB and MongoDB. Default is XML based database. To use them, copy the related dlls into web root bin folder and remove old content provider dlls. Content provider has the name like "Kooboo.CMS.Content.Persistence.SQLServer.dll" View_Engines.zip: Supports of Razor, webform and NVelocity view engine. Copy the dlls into web root bin folder t...IronPython: 2.7 Release Candidate 2: On behalf of the IronPython team, I am pleased to announce IronPython 2.7 Release Candidate 2. The releases contains a few minor bug fixes, including a working webbrowser module. Please see the release notes for 61395 for what was fixed in previous releases.Minemapper: Minemapper v0.1.6: Once again supports biomes, thanks to an updated Minecraft Biome Extractor, which added support for the new Minecraft beta v1.3 map format. Updated mcmap to support new biome format.Sandcastle Help File Builder: SHFB v1.9.3.0 Release: This release supports the Sandcastle June 2010 Release (v2.6.10621.1). It includes full support for generating, installing, and removing MS Help Viewer files. This new release is compiled under .NET 4.0, supports Visual Studio 2010 solutions and projects as documentation sources, and adds support for projects targeting the Silverlight Framework. This release uses the Sandcastle Guided Installation package used by Sandcastle Styles. Download and extract to a folder and then run SandcastleI...AutoLoL: AutoLoL v1.6.4: It is now possible to run the clicker anyway when it can't detect the Masteries Window Fixed a critical bug in the open file dialog Removed the resize button Some UI changes 3D camera movement is now more intuitive (Trackball rotation) When an error occurs on the clicker it will attempt to focus AutoLoLYAF.NET (aka Yet Another Forum.NET): v1.9.5.5 RTW: YAF v1.9.5.5 RTM (Date: 3/4/2011 Rev: 4742) Official Discussion Thread here: http://forum.yetanotherforum.net/yaf_postsm47149_v1-9-5-5-RTW--Date-3-4-2011-Rev-4742.aspx Changes in v1.9.5.5 Rev. #4661 - Added "Copy" function to forum administration -- Now instead of having to manually re-enter all the access masks, etc, you can just duplicate an existing forum and modify after the fact. Rev. #4642 - New Setting to Enable/Disable Last Unread posts links Rev. #4641 - Added Arabic Language t...New ProjectsCrockford Base32 Encoder: A .NET encoder/decoder implementation of http://www.crockford.com/wrmg/base32.html Great for URLs and humans.David's Diploma: I'm doing this project for my final paper at the University in Budapest. (BME) Keeping the sources safe and the paper versioned, and to be accessed by anyone.fashion: fashion - shop [ 11/03/2011 ]FMA Human Body- Analysis Services 2008 Cube: The Foundational Model of Anatomy ontology (FMA) is OPEN SOURCE and available for use. This Project is a conversion to a MSAS 2008 cube. It is intended to be used for quick study by Med Students. Link for project: http://sig.biostr.washington.edu/projects/fm/AboutFM.htmlHtml Laundry: Cleans html with a whitelist for tags and attributes. Filters attributes with regex. It has a Model Binder for MVC 3 that detects UIHint attribute on model's properties and cleans those properies' value before the action method. It is a good tool to regularize posted in html.KnikkerKnal: Remake for schoolLastfmNet: LastfmNet is a .NET wrapper for the Last.fm API It's developed in C# and usable from any .NET language. The API of the library is focused on ease of use and intuitiveness.NEvent: A simple-to-use, flexible, queue-independent enterprise service bus that offers a Fluent coding interface and easy configuration. placekitten Image: An Image ASP.NET server control that uses placekittenSharePoint Field Groups To Users: SharePoint custom field that lists Groups which filters of lists of Users for selection. See More Here: http://heroesmode.comSplyn's Projects: ????,????????SQL Process Viewer: View all of the processes (that you have security to see) currently running on a SQL database.StarcraftBuildPlanner: How to build a collection of units for starcraft in the shortest time possible.StreamHelper: You want to make replaycasts or -streams for starcraft 2? Then you have to take a look on this programm. Download it and make your first replay, without a lot of knowledge or something else. Only you need a program, which capture your screen.Umbraco on Azure: Umbraco on Azure contains resources and documentation that helps putting an Umbraco website on Windows AzureZune Data Viewer: A library and sample Windows Phone 7 application that allows developers to access the undocumented Zune web API.

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• Trying to install Canon iP7250 printer

  - by Chris Burmajster

  I'm trying to install my Canon iP7250 printer on a fresh install of 13:10 64bit. Last time I installed it successfully via http://handytutorial.com/install-canon-printer-driver-for-ubuntu-13-04-12-10-12-04 which entailed adding a repository via the terminal and then updating it. I then opened Synaptic and searched for my printer model and Synaptic then installed everything. This time round I added the repositories but the update failed with the following error: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/michael-gru...amd64/Packages 404 Not Found Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/michael-gru...-i386/Packages 404 Not Found Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead. An internet search failed to find another way of installing this printer so I'm stuck. My laptop also runs 64 bit 13:10 and the printer works, as I installed it months ago. Is there any way I can take something off that to use on this new machine? Thank you all in advance P.S. I have just found and downloaded the official Canon driver from the Canon website and extracted it, but I don't know how to install it.

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• Sun2Oracle: Upgrading from DSEE to the next generation Oracle Unified Directory - webcast follow up

  - by Darin Pendergraft

  Thanks to all of the guest speakers on our Sun2Oracle webcast: Steve from Hub City Media, Albert from UCLA and our own Scott Bonell. During the webcast, we tried to answer as many questions as we could, but there were a few that we needed a bit more time to answer.  Albert from UCLA sent me the following information: Alternate Directory EvaluationWe were happy with Sun DSEE. OUD, based on the research we had done, was a logical continuation of DSEE.  If we moved away, it was to to go open source. UCLA evaluated OpenLDAP, OpenDS, Red Hat's 389 Directory. We also briefly entertained Active Directory. Ultimately, we decided to stay with OUD for the Enterprise Directory, and adopt OpenLDAP for the non-critical edge directories.HardwareFor Enterprise Directory, UCLA runs 3 Dell PowerEdge R710 servers. Each server has 12GB RAM and 2 2.4GHz Intel Xeon E5 645 processors. We run 2 of those servers at UCLA's Data Center in a semi active-passive configuration. The 3rd server is located at UCLA Berkeley. All three are multi master replicated. At run time, the bulk of LDAP query requests go to 1 server. Essentially, all of our authn/authz traffic is being handled by 1 server, with the other 2 acting as redundant back ups.

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• My Thoughts on Reinventing the Wheel

  - by Matt Christian

  For awhile now I've known that XNA Game Studio contains built-in scene management however I still built my own for each engine.  Obviously it was redundant and probably inefficient due to the amount of searching and such I was required to do.  And even though I knew this, why did I continue to do it? I've always been very detail oriented, probably part of my mild OCD.  But when it comes to technology I believe in both reinventing the wheel and not reinventing it all at the same time.  Here's what I imagine most programmers doing.  When they pick up XNA, they're typically focused on 'I want to make a game with as little code as possible'.  This is great and XNA GS is a great tool, but what will it do for programmers that want to make games with XNA?  If they don't have any prior experience with other tools they will probably not ever learn scene management. So is it better to leverage code and risk not learning valuable techniques, or write it all yourself and fight through the headaches and hours of time you may spend on something already built?

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• Unity scaling instantiated GameObject at Start() doesn't "keep"

  - by Shivan Dragon

  I have a very simple scenario: A box-like Prefab which is imported from Blender automatically (I have the .blend file in the Assets folder). A script that has two public GameObject fields. In one I place the above prefab, and in the other I place a terrain object (which I've created in Unity's graphical view): public Collider terrain; public GameObject aStarCellHighlightPrefab; This script is attached to the camera. The idea is to have the Blender prefab instantiated, have the terrain set as its parent, and then scale said prefab instance up. I first did it like this, in the Start() method: void Start () { cursorPositionOnTerrain = new RaycastHit(); aStarCellHighlight = (GameObject)Instantiate(aStarCellHighlightPrefab, new Vector3(300,300,300), terrain.transform.rotation); aStarCellHighlight.name = "cellHighlight"; aStarCellHighlight.transform.parent = terrain.transform; aStarCellHighlight.transform.localScale = new Vector3(100,100,100); } and first thought it didn't work. However later I noticed that it did in fact work, in the sense where the scale was applied right at the start, but then right after the prefab instance came back to its initial scale. Putting the scale code in the Update() methods fixes it in the sense where now it stays scaled all the time: void Update () { aStarCellHighlight.transform.localScale = new Vector3(100,100,100); //... } However I've noticed that when I run this code, the object is first displayed without the scale being applied, and it takes about 5-10 seconds for the scale to happen. During this time everything works fine (like input and logging, etc). The scene is very simple, it's not like it has a lot of stuff to load or anything (there's a Ray cast from the camera on to the terrain, but that seems to happen without such delays). My (2 part) question is: Why doesn't it take the scale transform when I do it at the beginning in the Start() method. Why do I have to keep scaling it in the Update() method? Why does it take so long for the scale to "apply/show up".

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• How should I take being told that I was wrong?

  - by Chris

  On a fairly important project with short timelines I decided to use SubSonic for straight forward data access. I wired up a handful of forms, created matching database tables and POCO's for each and used SubSonic's simple repository mode for the data access. Everything worked well and I was able to bang these forms out pretty quickly and I moved on to other things. Since that time I have heard that using SubSonic was a 'cowboy move' and that it was implemented 'incorrectly' and that 'the person who used it, didn't even know how to use SubSonic'. What I would like to know is, how should I take this? There were and still are no standards for data access at this company, so there is no violation of a standard. The forms worked exactly as requested and saved the data to the database correctly. And with only spending a few days on the forms instead of weeks, saved a lot of time which was used for other functionality in the project. So in light of all of this, I am confused as to what was 'incorrect'. Am I missing something here? Thanks for your answers.

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• Bot strategy in an arena

  - by joulesm

  I am writing the player's behavior for an arena game, and I'm wondering if you could offer some strategies. I'm writing it in Python, but I'm just interested in the high level game play. Here are the game aspects: Arena is a circle of a given size. The arena's size shrinks every round to help break any ties. Players are much smaller circles, and can be on teams of 1 or 2 players. Players attack by colliding with other players, and based on the physics of the collision (speed of both players, angle), one could force another player out of the arena. Once a player is out of the arena, they are out of the game (for that round). The goal is to be on the only team with players left in the arena. All other players have been pushed (through collisions or mistakes) out of the arena. It is possible for there to be no winner if the last two players exit the arena at the same time. Once the player has been programmed, the game just runs. There is no human intervention in the game. I'm thinking it's easiest to implement a few simple programmatic rules for my player to follow. For example, stay close to center of the arena, attack opponents from the inner side of the arena, etc. Are there any good simple game strategies? Would adding a random aspect to the game help? For example, to avoid predictability by the other team or something. Thanks in advance.

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• What are some arguments AGAINST using EntityFramework?

  - by Rachel

  The application I am currently building has been using Stored procedures and hand-crafted class models to represent database objects. Some people have suggested using Entity Framework and I am considering switching to that since I am not that far into the project. My problem is, I feel the people arguing for EF are only telling me the good side of things, not the bad side :) My main concerns are: We want Client-Side validation using DataAnnotations, and it sounds like I have to create the client-side models anyways so I am not sure that EF would save that much coding time We would like to keep the classes as small as possible when going over the network, and I have read that using EF often includes extra data that is not needed We have a complex database layer which crosses multiple databases, and I am not sure EF can handle this. We have one Common database with things like Users, StatusCodes, Types, etc and multiple instances of our main databases for different instances of the application. SELECT queries can and will query across all instances of the databases, however users can only modify objects that are in the database they are currently working on. They can switch databases without reloading the application. Object modes are very complex and there are often quite a few joins involved Arguments for EF are: Concurrency. I wouldn't have to code in checks to see if the record was updated before each save Code Generation. EF can generate partial class models and POCOs for me, however I am not positive this would really save me that much time since I think we would still need to create the client-side models for validation and some custom parsing methods. Speed of development since we wouldn't need to create the CRUD stored procedures for every database object Our current architecture consists of a WPF Service which handles database calls via parameterized Stored Procedures, POCO objects that go to/from the WCF service and the WPF client, and the WPF client itself which transforms POCOs into class Models for the purpose of Validation and DataBinding.

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• What to watch out for when writing code at an Interview?

  - by Philip

  Hi, I have read that at a lot of companies you have to write code at an interview. On the one hand I see that it makes sense to ask for a work sample. On the other hand: What kind of code do you expect to be written in 5 minutes? And what if they tell me "Write an algorithm that does this and that" but I cannot think of a smart solution or even write code that doesn't semantically work? I am particularly interested in that question because I do not have that much commercial programming experience, 2 years part-time, one year full-time. (But I am interested in programming languages since nearly 15 years though usually I was more concentrated in playing with the language rather than writing large applications...) And actually I consider my debugging and problem solving skills much better than my coding skills. I sometimes see myself not writing the most beautiful code when looking back, but on the other hand I often come up with solutions for hard problems. And I think I am very good at optimizing, fixing, restructuring existing code, but I have problems with writing new applications from scratch. The software design sucks... ;-) Therefore I don't feel comfortable when thinking about this code writing situation at an interview... So what do the interviewers expect? What kind of information about my code writing are they interested in? Philip

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• How to fix bad Collada produced by FBX?

  - by David

  I tried to use the FBX SDK (2011.3.1) to load FBX files and save them as Collada files in order to be able to import FBX files in Panda3D. Unfortunately the resulting Collada files are not usable for several reasons, among them: There's a Maya specific extra technique diffuse <diffuse> <texture texture="Map__2-image" texcoord="CHANNEL0"> <extra> <technique profile="MAYA"> <wrapU sid="wrapU0">TRUE</wrapU> <wrapV sid="wrapV0">TRUE</wrapV> <blend_mode>ADD</blend_mode> </technique> </extra> </texture> </diffuse> It assigns a texcoord channel name that isn't referenced anywhere else in the file (in the previous code sample, no geometry uses "CHANNEL0"...) Every polygon is exported twice, a first time with a basic material (only diffuse color, specular color, etc.) and a second time with a textured material -- this doubles the number of polygons of each model without any valuable reason Anyway, the resulting Collada file cannot be opened correctly either with OpenCOLLADA or Panda3D's "dae2egg". Anyone has any experience on how to "fix" it and make it understandable by common and well-reputed Collada importers such as OpenCOLLADA?

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• Need game development sandbox like Etoys to do 2D games prototyping

  - by Dimitry Tato

  I am new to game development, and currently working on development a mobile 2D game (for android). As the part of the development process, I need to build a prototype and playtest it, to see if the game mechanics and user interaction is ok For example: if I have a starship shooting at ememies, I need to see what's the best size for my starship. what trajectories should the enemy ships fly and what velocity. Should the enemy ships be coming only from left to right, or also from top Should the enemy ships form a 'flock' or just fly by themselves what's the best 'powerup' pickup mechanics: to shoot it, or to pick it with the ship etc Implementing these details directly in Java (Android) is time consuming and as many of the 'hypotheses' will be rejected, I also don't want to invest a lot of time to code thigs, majority of which gonna be rejected. I found 'tool' Etoys http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34cWCnLC5nM&feature=related and official website http://www.squeakland.org/ which helps to build 'prototype' quickly, but Etoys is meant for children learning programming and is too basic. SO MY QUESTION IS: Is there any prototyping tool, as simple as Etoys and with better prototype quality?

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• Should one generally develop a client library for REST services to help prevent API breakages?

  - by BestPractices

  We have a project where UI code will be developed by the same team but in a different language (Python/Django) from the services layer (REST/Java). The code for each layer exits in different code repositories and which can follow different release cycles. I'm trying to come up with a process that will prevent/reduce breaking changes in the services layer from the perspective of the UI layer. I've thought to write integration tests at the UI layer level that we'll run whenever we build the UI or the services layer (we're using Jenkins as our CI tool to build the code which is in two Git repos) and if there are failures then something in the services layer broke and the commit is not accepted. Would it also be a good idea (is it a best practice?) to have the developer of the services layer create and maintain a client library for the REST service that exists in the UI layer that they will update whenever there is a breaking change in their Service API? Conceivably, we would then have the advantage of a statically-typed API that the UI code builds against. If the client library API changes, then the UI code won't compile (so we'll know sooner that there was a breaking change). I'd also still run the integration tests upon building the UI or services layer to further validate that the integration between UI and the service(s) still works.

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• ASP.NET hosting: better, faster, cheaper

  - by Fabrice Marguerie

  After seven years with webhost4life, it was time to move on. Especially because of all the troubles with webhost4life due to their internal migration to a new hosting environment (the company has been bought out).I've just moved all my websites elsewhere. I'm now using Arvixe and OrcsWeb.I use OrcsWeb for metaSapiens.com. OrcsWeb kindly offers me free ASP.NET hosting because I'm a Microsoft MVP. I'd like to publicly thank OrcsWeb for this, and I invite you to have a look at what they have to offer.I use Arvixe for all my other websites, the major ones being SharpToolbox.com, JavaToolbox.com, AxToolbox.com, Proagora.com, LinqInAction.net, ClairDeBulle.com, and madgeek.com.Moving all my websites wasn't a walk in the park, but it was well worth it. Let's consider what I get with Arvixe:Unlimited diskspaceUnlimited data transferUnlimited domainsDedicated application poolsUnlimited POP3 and IMAP mailboxesUnlimited SQL Server 2008 databasesUnlimited MySQL 5 databases.NET 1.1, 2, 3.5 and 4Full trustIIS 7Daily backups A powerful and easy to use control panelAnd more!All of this for $8 per month. If you don't need all of the above features, you can even get an offer as cheap as $5 per month.You can even get better rates if you use coupon codes, such as TOPHOST (30% discount) or MVCHOSTING (20% discount).All in all, I paid only $134 for two years for a great hosting service!Maybe it's time for you to move too?Disclaimer: the links to OrcsWeb and Arvixe are affiliate links that may bring me some money home if you sign up.

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• How can we make agile enjoyable for developers that like to personally, independently own large chunks from start to finish

  - by Kris

  We’re roughly midway through our transition from waterfall to agile using scrum; we’ve changed from large teams in technology/discipline silos to smaller cross-functional teams. As expected, the change to agile doesn’t suit everyone. There are a handful of developers that are having a difficult time adjusting to agile. I really want to keep them engaged and challenged, and ultimately enjoying coming to work each day. These are smart, happy, motivated people that I respect on both a personal and a professional level. The basic issue is this: Some developers are primarily motivated by the joy of taking a piece of difficult work, thinking through a design, thinking through potential issues, then solving the problem piece by piece, with only minimal interaction with others, over an extended period of time. They generally complete work to a high level of quality and in a timely way; their work is maintainable and fits with the overall architecture. Transitioning to a cross-functional team that values interaction and shared responsibility for work, and delivery of working functionality within shorter intervals, the teams evolve such that the entire team knocks that difficult problem over. Many people find this to be a positive change; someone that loves to take a problem and own it independently from start to finish loses the opportunity for work like that. This is not an issue with people being open to change. Certainly we’ve seen a few people that don’t like change, but in the cases I’m concerned about, the individuals are good performers, genuinely open to change, they make an effort, they see how the rest of the team is changing and they want to fit in. It’s not a case of someone being difficult or obstructionist, or wanting to hoard the juiciest work. They just don’t find joy in work like they used to. I’m sure we can’t be the only place that hasn’t bumped up on this. How have others approached this? If you’re a developer that is motivated by personally owning a big chunk of work from end to end, and you’ve adjusted to a different way of working, what did it for you?

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• Declarative View Objects (VOs) for better ADF performance

  - by Shay Shmeltzer

  Just got back from ODTUG's kscope13 conference which had a lot of good deep ADF content. In one of my session I ran out of time to do one of my demos, so I wanted to share it here instead. This is a demo of how Declarative View Objects can increase your application's performance. For those who are not familiar with declarative VOs, those are VOs that don't actually specify a hard coded query. Instead ADF creates their query at runtime, and it does it based on the data that is requested in your UI layer. This can be a huge saver of both DB resources and network resources. More in the documentation. Here is a quick example that shows you how using such a VO can automatically switch to a simpler SQL instead of a complex join when needed. (note while I demo with 11.1.2.* the feature is there in 11.1.1.* versions also). The demo also shows you how you can monitor the SQL that ADF BC issues to the database using the WebLogic logging feature in JDeveloper. As a side note, I would have loved to see more ADF developers attending Kscope. This demo was part of the "ADF intro" track at Kscope, In the advanced ADF track you would have been treated to a full tuning session about ADF with lots of other tips. Consider attending Kscope next year - it is going to be in Seattle this time.

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• TEAM Webinar - WebCenter Sites Connector

  - by kellsey.ruppel

  TEAM Webinar - WebCenter Sites Connector Connect WebCenter Sites 11g to WebCenter Content Thursday, June 21st, 2012 10AM CDT & 5PM CDT Register Now! WebCenter Sites (formerly FatWire) is an innovative web engagement platform that is creating considerable buzz within the Oracle community, especially with the latest release, Sites 11g. Have you been wondering whether Sites is right for your organization? Did you know that you can utilize the power of WebCenter Sites right now alongside your existing WebCenter Content (UCM) implementation? Attend this webinar to learn how the TEAM WebCenter Sites Connector (learn more) allows you to leverage the Oracle WebCenter Content enterprise content management platform and deliver centrally-managed content to all your WebCenter Sites 11g deployments. Furthermore, the Digital Asset Management (DAM) capabilities in WebCenter Content allow your web marketers to spend less time creating manual renditions for multimedia files and more time on achieving your web marketing goals. If you would like to see how you can enrich your web experience using the only WebCenter Sites connector on the market, this webinar is right for you!  Agenda * What's new in WebCenter Sites 11g?  * How can WebCenter Content enhance the Sites experience?  * Leverage centrally-managed content in Sites  * Why should I get started with the TEAM Sites Connector?  * Q & A session  To learn more about TEAM's WebCenter Sites Connector, register for one of our two sessions today: Session One: 10AM CDT Session Two: 5PM CDT TEAM WebCenter Sites Connector 

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• Looking for a comfortable Laptop Cooling Pad? Repurpose a pillow as a Laptop Cooling Pad

  - by Gopinath

  Update: This idea sucks as using a pillow blocks laptop cooling fans and air flow, which in turn would damage the laptop. Thanks Vijay I’ve a HP Pavilion laptop which turns hot quickly and most of the time I would not be able to keep it on my lap after 30 minutes of usage. It’s the same case with my DELL laptop and not to blame any specific brand or model. Most of the budget laptops generate lot of heat and tough to keep them on laps for a long time. They burn skin and the irritation sense leaves me with no option other than throwing them away. While searching for options to beat the heat I found Laptop Cooling Pads on Amazon.They attach to the base of laptops and act like a heat shield/sink to protect thighs from the heat generated by laptops. They are available from around $7 and goes up to $100 depending on the features they offer. After reading reviews I selected a trendy looking and comfortable laptop cooling pad and it was around $25 before shipping and taxes. I’m going to buy one of the cooling pads from Amazon. On a second thought I started searching for options to repurpose any of the house hold items as a laptop cooling pad and save money. The option suggested by wife is to repurpose an old pillow as a laptop cooling pad.  Here is my laptop cooling pad Wow! That is a nice suggestion which saved my thighs from laptop heat as well my wallet from spending $25. Even if I’ve to buy a new pillow I would be able to pickup cheap one from Wal-Mart store for as low as $2.  Also I find it is very comfortable to use a pillow as a Laptop Cooling Pad as they are flexible and automatically adjust to the shape of my body.

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