NoteMe

Windows programming over my head:

News Image - NoteMe My Tags: Technocrati Tags: Published: 15.11.2006 by Øyvind Østlund
I have used Visual Studio 2005 for a while now. Liked it from the start, like every other VS version I have tried. Of course it used a bit more resources then it predecessors, but it also added lots of great functionality I these days can`t live for out.

But it didn`t take me long to get my first problem. At the time I was playing with Managed DirectX to see if it could have any advantages over my daily DirectX programming. But after installing the Platform SDK problems thorned up. And for some reason they where in the Platform SDK it self, and I couldn`t understand why. Lots of lines like this was spewed out in the console window.


c:Program FilesMicrosoft Platform SDKincludewinnt.h(222) : error C2061: synt
ax error : identifier `PVOID64`
c:Program FilesMicrosoft Platform SDKincludewinnt.h(222) : error C2059: synt
ax error : `;`



So off to find a solution it seemed at first to be no official fix to this, but editing this line: 

C++ code:
typedef void * POINTER_64 PVOID64;



in winnt.h to: 

C++ code:
typedef void * POINTER_64;

typedef void * PVOID64;



seemed to do the trick at first, and I forgot about the whole thing. Until today.

Firefox has for a long time been my favorite browser, even though I use Opera quite a lot too. And one of my "Internet friends" (Ryan Jones) have for a while been using lots of his spare time to patch bugs in Firefox. And I felt it was my time to spend some of my time to give something back for a wonderful project.

But after setting up a development environment and starting to compile Firefox for the first time, errors started to pop out. And again it was in the winnt.h file. 2 seconds later and I remembered what I had done a few months ago. Changing it back the way it was did the trick, and Firefox was happy. What should a poor man do!


PS: I am very aware that half the links on my page is still not working. I`ll get to that too, but there is just too many interesting things in the world that gets in my way..:)

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Way too many security alerts:

News Image - NoteMe My Tags: Technocrati Tags: Published: 01.06.2006 by Øyvind Østlund
I have for a long time read articles about the annoying amount of security alerts in Windows Vista, without paying much attention to it. I guessed they where similar to those you get in IE today where you get an option to turn them off, and they where not that anoying. But after looking at this attempt to delete a shortcut , I think I have to reconsider. Wow.
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DirectPython gives access to DX9 from Python:

News Image - NoteMe My Tags: Technocrati Tags: Published: 02.05.2006 by Øyvind Østlund
I remember before DirectX 7 came out, there was a lot of different wrappers for DirectX 6 that Visual Basic programmers could use. I used my self a wrapper called DirectX C and had a lot of fun with it. But that is a long time ago, and after DX 7 came Visual Basic was supported, and then dropped again when DX 9 came out, but in stead replaced with .NET languages like VB.NET and C#.

Now it looks like it is happening again. I just stumbled over a SourceForge project that makes a DX9c wrapper for Python. Just like the old wrappers for Visual Basic.

The project is really in the beginning stage, but there is already about 15 samples on their homepage, and more is commming. So we just have to wait and see what the response from the Python community will be.

On the other hand, if you are not a big DirectX fan, you can always make simple games with for example PyGame and LiveWire . Might not be as impressive as DirectX games can be, but should get you let you have an easy start in the right direction if you want to start with game programming.
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"Dear Visual Studio Express users":

News Image - NoteMe My Tags: Technocrati Tags: Published: 20.04.2006 by Øyvind Østlund
That was the message I woke up to today, and the sun was shining outside. I have for a long time been a Visual Studio users. I touched Visual Basic for the first time when I was about 14, and after that I have been using all major parts of the Visual Studio family.

It has not been a big problem this year, since I got pay for my work here at CERN since we have licens for Visual Studio, and most of the time I am not in Windows after all, so no need for it. But I am still a student, and in a couple of months, there is no more work here, but probably a master degree waiting for me at a University somewhere in Europe. And then the money question will come up again, and I am back on a budget.

So that was why I was smiling so much this morning when I found out that Visual Studio Express will from now on be permanently free . That is great news. It was only ment to be free for one year, but since the community have helped making it a hit like it is today, the developers wants to give something back.

But not only that. They are also giving away a lot of free well documented Starter Kits . You can now easy controll your Lego Mindstorms or add functionality to Skype easily with Visual Studio Express. And it is all free. So if you don`t already have Visual Studio in one or an other form on your computer. I would recomend you to jump over to Microsoft and download Visual Studio Express right away.
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Virus found bug on Linux:

News Image - NoteMe My Tags: Technocrati Tags: Published: 19.04.2006 by Øyvind Østlund
I had to laugh a bit when I started reading up about the new consept virus that has been in the media so much lately. Well in theory this sounds very interesting, or mayb scary, but it wasn`t before I read an article at NewsForge yesterday the fun began.

They got a hold of the virus and started testing. But for some reason they couldn`t make it work in some of the newer Linux kernels. And a mail to Linus Torvalds was sendt to see if he had any idea why the virus did not work.

And today the answer came. It seemed like a bug in the kernel that made it not work. An error that higher level language compilers never had found. Linus Torcalds made a patch, and new testing now shows that the virus is now also working on newer Linux kernels. So in the end, no one should blame Linux for not beeing fast at patching up errors in it`s code :)
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Firefox extension tool:

News Image - NoteMe My Tags: Technocrati Tags: Published: 31.03.2006 by Øyvind Østlund
I have for a long time wanted to do this. And now I have done it. In the simplest way possible, but at least done it. Made a small tool to pack up and unpack the extension I have been working on for a while now. It has been a lot of packing and un packing, and finaly it can be done automaticaly with a pack script and an unpack script.

At the moment it only works on Linux machines with ZIP, and Python installed. And I am not going to change that for a while I think, since I am only using Linux to develop the extension. And at the moment some of the names are hardcoded for the files, so right out of the box it will only work for this extension. But it should be easy to change the names like vbf.jar to something that you use, and vbf.xpi to what your extension is called. And if you have any problems using it, then please just give me a wink.

If you just want to have a look at the code, here is the pack script: 

Python code:


#!/usr/bin/python



import os

import sys 





os.chdir("chrome/")



os.system("zip -r vbf.jar *")

os.system("mv vbf.jar ../")

os.system("rm -r *")

os.system("mv ../vbf.jar .")



os.chdir("..")



os.system("zip vbf.xpi -r chrome install.rdf")

os.system("rm ./install.rdf")

os.system("rm -r ./chrome")



And here you have the unpack script. 

Python code:


#!/usr/bin/python



import os

import sys 





os.system("unzip ./vbf.xpi")

os.system("rm ./vbf.xpi")



os.chdir("chrome/")



os.system("unzip vbf.jar")

os.system("rm vbf.jar")




How you use them:
Unpack: Leave the vbf.xpi file in the same folder as the unpack script, run the script and it is unpacked.
Pack: Leave the script in the same folder as the "chrome" folder and the "install.rdf" file, and run it. And it is packed again.

Enjoy. And please give me feedback if you need any help what so ever to use it. And just as a note, from the next version of the vBulleting extension these scripts will be in the vbf.xpi file.

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What is happening with XNA:

News Image - NoteMe My Tags: Technocrati Tags: Published: 27.03.2006 by Øyvind Østlund
I haven’t had much time to work on game programming the last half year, and at least not with DirectX. But now suddenly there is a lot of changes going on at the same time. And I wish I had more time for it right now.

First I read that Tom Miller quits the Managed DirectX team. Well, it is more of a switch really. He will now be working on the XBox team (and the XNA team specifically). So in the end it might not be that bad.

XNA has for a long time been just a word that came up from nowhere, and then disappeared again just as fast. A philosophy, a tool, a package, what was it really? Then after a lot of work from Microsofts side this years GDC marked an exciting milestone for XNA. All attendees received a copy of the Microsoft XNA Build March 2006. And now you can even download it for your self . I have downloaded it my self, and it already looks promising. Really looking forward to the finished tool.

Then if not that was enough, Alberto Ho starts up his own blog at Microsoft and writes a very interesting post about what to expect for Managed DirectX2. Something that looks really interesting. What do you say to write manage code on your XBox?

I could be writing about this for days right now, and I now feel again that I am really looking forward to finish up my work here, so I can get more time for game programming again. Only 3 more months now.
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Your next OS online?:

News Image - NoteMe My Tags: Technocrati Tags: Published: 20.03.2006 by Øyvind Østlund
It is a lot of talk about Web 2.0 and all the whistles and bells it adds to web pages these days. Social bookmarks, tags and semantic web both here and there. But does it really change something?

Google has made a real hog in the internet market, and changed the way we look at a lot of web applications. Rumors has constantly been swirling about them making their own Browser, their own OS, and all other sorts of things. And when they came with their own chat client, then one of my friends only words was “It was inevitable” .

But in all these rumors I got the idea about an online OS. Why had no one seriously tried to make an online OS? Did no one think about it? No one dare to see if it could work? Or was the web just not ready for it yet?

I kept thinking about the idea for a couple of more months. I was thinking how handy it would be to be able to have all documents online, to be able to compile source code, or Latex, and just in general have a life without a local hard drive and a USB pen with me all the time.

Then thoughts kept on running wild and I thought about all the visions the Flock developers have. And I expanded their vision to add tight integration to an online OS. All these ideas seemed so nice, but then work took over and I totally forgot about it. Until I stumbled over eyeOS today.

My thought about an online world was back and swirling as ever before. I downloaded it and did some tests, and even if it is a bit slow on my web server, I am pretty impressed. It is a good start on my idea, even if it is far away from an online life style as I had imagined. I don’t think that will ever be possible before a bandwidth will be much higher, and maybe a browser vendor dares to pick up on it. Maybe Flock will be the browser to do something about it. You never know.
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IBM to go Linux:

News Image - NoteMe My Tags: Technocrati Tags: Published: 08.03.2006 by Øyvind Østlund
Andreas Pleschek from IBM (Germany) announced that IBM will not upgrade their machines to Windows Vista, but in stead go over to Linux. If this means that only IBM Germany will do the switch or all of IBM is still unknown, but no matter what it will make a difference for other companies, and especially Microsoft. IBM is a big costumer, and losing them is not in Microsoft`s best interest.
Microsoft`s office pack looks like it will be replaced with the free Open Office package and can mark a big change in the whole market. If Vista will be the extra push that Linux needs to get one step closer is yet unknown. But the signs looks promising.
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NoteMe - Øyvind Østlund