Ramblings of a Coder

Merry Kissmyarse to one and all

Thursday 25 December 2008 at 5:48 pm

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | ¶ | default | One comment

Education Software

Tuesday 16 December 2008 at 9:48 pm

Few people have asked me recently what software i use while working my course, so i thought i'd make a quick entry about it. Save me being asked again.

First off, while working on my coursework i boot into my Linux install. Why? because i find that when im on windows i have WAY to many distractions like Warcrack and numerous other things i have installed over on that one. And while i also have all the same distractions working on Linux i tend not to use them so much. I'm currently using Kubuntu 8.10 with KDE 4.1 because.. No reason really i felt like a change from Gentoo for a bit. 

I use the FirstClass 9.10 beta Linux Client to deal with the Community parts of the coursework. even though the discussion sections are pretty much dead in the water. Combined with good old Vim for the "Coding" stuff that I've had todo so far, which isnt very much at all. The supplied software though is Notepad++ or something nothing fancy.

I use the standard Eluminate Live V9 on linux for the Virtual Classroom stuff, of which I've only attended one so far. Mostly because i constantly forget about them due to them being on a Sunday early evening.Had a lot of problems setting up the Microphone with this one, took a long time to get it working and have to repeat the same process every time i change distro's which is quite a pain in the arse. Mostly because i completely forget that just because you set the volume of your Mic and Mic boost in linux doesnt mean you've actually set it to capture the sound from your Mic, you need todo this manually.

I'm supposed to use Mathcad 2001i Pro for the mathematical stuff obviously. but I've had to use it a grand total of ZERO times so far. Which im very glad of cos the last time i tried to load it in Wine it did nothing but crash on me. *And a quick test shows, it still does nothing but crash*

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | ¶ | Education | Two comments

Assessments and Warcrack

Monday 17 November 2008 at 8:00 pm

Turned in my assessment today, phew glad that's past now. Content was mostly ok but ya know how it is with assessments ya start to worry you've missed something or misunderstood a questions or some crap. Not to mention Wrath of the lich king was released just a few days before my cut off date. That could have been nasty.

I wasn't actually going to buy the expansion right off. Was standing off waiting on a version I could just buy online cos ya know I play on the US servers from the UK. But I logged in on the day of release and my good friend Dave greeted with me a welcome of "You need a cd key?" to which I replied "Yup, waiting on blizzard putting the digital version up for sale" and his reply was "I have a spare, let me finish this instance"

So 30mins later there I was with my account upgraded and downloading the 1.9Gb update. Good times to be had in Northrend! Bad side was I waited till today to go over my assessment and noticed I'd only partially answered a question! mad rush to get that finished and turned in which if I'd done what I've done everyday since release. Which is sit down and load warcraft. I would have missed it.

Anyway, Northrend calls. FOR DUN MOROGH, FOR THE ALLIANCE!

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | ¶ | Education, Gaming | One comment

Assignments

Monday 22 September 2008 at 12:36 am

So my courses have started in earnest now, Computing one seems to be pretty straight forward as i thought it was going to be. but the Maths one.... jeez :)

Its not that its hard, its more along the lines of knowing you already know the stuff but have forgotten it. Not to mention the prepratory assignments covers just so much material. Already feeling kind of snowed under just with them. But i've had a quick skim accross the next stuff and it doesnt seem to be so full on. So just get my head down and get through these two assignments which are due by the end of the week.

It'd probably be helpful if the course book to go along with it was a bit clearer, i've found myself going to the two maths books i bought from ebay and going "AAAHHHH why didnt it just say that", and in one case a 5min video on google sorted a subject out for me in quick time that had been puzzling me for about an hour.  Thats the bright side i suppose if the course material isnt making sense to me i can fall back on the books and if that fails the internet comes in real handy.  Anyway time to grab some sleep before hiting the books again tomorrow morning!

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | ¶ | Education | One comment

Mathematics Course

Friday 15 August 2008 at 7:05 pm

I actually sat down today and started my first Preparation test for my maths course, and OMG its amazing how much I've actually forgotten since doing any sort of maths related formal education. Brief moment of panic later and a quick look at the next few revision chapters and i could breath easily as they cover everything in the test again. Its ironic though that I have a shit load of Engineering qualifications that revolve around a firm base in maths, but some of these simple things threw me.

But on the flip side it, Its actually what I was hoping for. some real work required on my part to study and actually learn before taking exams, Unlike nearly all the last sets of qualifications I did where I goofed off and messed around. Did absolutely no study and walked in and passed the exams. Ah well I have 8 preparation modules to do before the official start of my course, which means I need to-do 2 a week right now roughly.   Which will be all fine and dandy come Monday when Garion starts his Formal Education. Will have to wait and see how this goes as we've already hit a stumbling block yesterday with the school wanting G to start 30minutes after all the other kids on his first day because of his "Disability", I hit that nail on the head right off the bat. Garion will not be discriminated against on someone's half baked notion of what his disability is or how he may or may not react. The school didn't seem pleased when they heard that Garion will start at the same time as all the other kids and that's it. He's never had a problem with First days noise and stress for the past three years at nursery. And kids starting nursery for the first time get as upset as kids on there first day of school. But if the school had bothered to ask that instead of just making an assumption on there own about Garion they would have got a perfectly clear answer.  Least now I've also made my position perfectly clear, I spent the last year fighting against the education board getting him into main stream school. I wont roll over and let them segregate him from the "Mainstream" kids because of his disability unless its absolutely warranted.

So yea, as you can probably guess. With all the above going on. Plus trying to finalize our move to Skye (Which should happen in October) and a few other major things like minor surgery for myself, Life is a bit crazy and hectic for me right now. Hence why my usual online presence is rather diminished and probably will be till at the least after the move.

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | ¶ | Education | One comment

Graphic Calculator

Sunday 27 July 2008 at 6:18 pm

I'm supposed to get a graphic calculator for my maths course, and the one the recommend is the TI-84. Which looks like a sweet. calculator but ya know I'm tight when it comes to money and I just cant bring myself to spend £80+ on a calculator when I have computers. its a bit insane really.

I checked out some Graphing/Graphic Calculator software and the ones I actually checked out seemed way to overly complex or just plain looked like shit. So interesting situation, Maybe I'll just invest in a cheap one for the moment and continue to look for other software versions.

Anyway I encountered a joke that made me laugh while doing some random browsing and though I'd share it.

Anyway, ENT Appointment in last entry came and went. Back on more meds and another appointment. frustrating but wait and see how it goes.

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | ¶ | Education | One comment

Pre-Course work

Tuesday 15 July 2008 at 3:00 pm

So, finally someone decided to list there old course books for Maths on ebay.co.uk. I'm glad I held of on purchasing them now as I won the auctions and got them for a lot cheaper than it would have cost me to buy then brand new.

Got myself the most important books though (Countdown to Mathematics 1 and Countdown to mathematics 2)along with numerous others. Waiting on that one arriving so I can really get stuck into all the pre-course work and get it all finished so I can get a heads start on the actual course work topics. I see no problems at all with the pre-course work as its basically all the stuff I learned while at Secondary School and i passed all that with flying colours and full marks. But it has been almost 12 years now since that and a refresher for me would go down very well.

I'll keeps it updated on how the pre-course work goes.

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | ¶ | default | One comment

Breaking promises to myself

Monday 30 June 2008 at 10:51 pm

But anyway over the weekend I noticed a little trailer on the MSN Live popup annoying window when you login, a new X-Files movie due out in August! cant wait! Looks good, to me anyway.

Lots of news from Blizzard and the Upcoming Diablo 3 over the weekend to, which I'm looking forward to also. But its probably a good way off right now.

Only other thing was the Airing of Part 1 of the season finale of Doctor Who, which was just amazing. couldn't have asked for a better start to the final.

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | ¶ | Random | One comment

C# and “Global Variables”

Thursday 19 June 2008 at 8:41 pm

So, much to lots of people's pleasure I haven't used Delphi in a long time now. I've been using C# and one thing that has annoyed me is the lack of Global Variables, Now i know this is completely against the whole OO design but god I still miss them, course you can get around this short coming by using a class with static members. But it still defeats the point, sure it works but now all your Objects are dependant on that Global object being present.  Needless to say I've still found myself doing this little cheat.

   1:  static class GlobalSettings

   2:  {

   3:      private static Rectangle internal_screenbounds = new Rectangle(0, 0, 0, 0);

   4:      /// <summary>

   5:      /// screenbounds is the drawable area on screen/window

   6:      /// </summary>

   7:      public static Rectangle screenbounds

   8:      {

   9:          get{ return internal_screenbounds; }

  10:          set{ internal_screenbounds = value; }

  11:      }

  12:  }

All that so I could have a global screenbounds rectangle to use within the paddle and ball, I could just grab them on creation of each object. But in a something larger than pong, that *could* be a lot of copied information which is really a waste of space. Why a static class? Because that way I don't have to worry about creating it, its already there. its got something to-do with the instantiation principle or so the book Object Orientated Programming book I read a while ago lead me to believe. Not that I understood it anyway, I remember that chapter being boring and only getting skimmed. But that phrase kind of stuck with me.

I also use the get and set method, makes easier reading. But actually coding everything in that style is nothing but a pain in the arse really. But it was a small example so yay?

Bright side though with XNA is the sheer fact of actually being able to make each entity an individual object entirely. It's something that I really am enjoying about it all from my earlier attempts with Blitz3d, Borland Delphi and Irrlicht.net, GLScene etc.

I've also noticed I keep going to program in an none OO style and having to force myself to rethink the section of code I'm writing or have written. I guess its really just something you have to get used to.

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | ¶ | Coding | Two comments

More Active

Tuesday 17 June 2008 at 2:09 pm

Yea, with the last post about education. I decided maybe it was time for me to be a tad more active with my blog itself, Kind off get into the spirit of doing stuff. Not quite sure what I will mostly be posting about but I'm going to aim for at least 3 decent posts a week covering more than "I played WoW today lolz" which seems to have been my standard thus far.

I'll probably go along the path of my adventures in XNA and starting to learn how to program again from scratch, For no reason that I constantly feel like I skip basic topics in some languages because of my understanding of them in others. At times both a blessing and a curse, Anyway I created a pong clone in XNA (Gotta start with pong) and had massive problems porting it over to the 360 itself. Mostly due to aspect ratio's and the XNA book I was reading citing the Safe zone to be 3%, Which is a complete falsehood and/or misprint as the safe zone is in actuality 30% at worst. Quite a difference between 3 and 30.

Another problem i encountered was the console itself returning the backbuffer size as 800x600 and the console actually running in 640x480 or various other resolutions depending on if I'd selected Pal-50 or Pal-60 and widescreen etc in the actual console settings (Same code running on both screenshots above, only difference was ones on the PC, others on the Console). This caused all sorts of scaling nightmares for me somehow that took me forever to fix. Mostly because my onscreen text was always correctly positioned centre screen, Where as my paddles where just all over the place. Turned out to be because in my Paddle Object i was basing the safe screen zone of the client window size. and the On-screen text of the actual backbuffer size. The console itself scales the back buffer to the correct size for display. But you can imagine i was using a safe zone of 640x480 (and various others) on a 800x600 canvas. the correct text was what probably caused me to take so long solving the problem but was also the solution for me in the end. After I'd ripped absolutely everything else out the game.

So that was my first venture into the land of XNA and the Xbox360 development. I will finish the pong game and upload it in the coming week/weeks, Especially now that I installed VC# 2005 and XNA onto the laptop and don't have to walk between rooms to test deployments to the console.

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | ¶ | default, Coding | No comments

"Multiboxing"

Saturday 17 May 2008 at 8:51 pm

"Multiboxing" yes i use the term very loosely, because i am not actually using more than one Computer just two seperate instances of Warcraft and a Keysending application to send specific keys to the other instance of Warcraft.

Anyway with that part over i resurrected my other half's account to try this out, and because basically i was bored of playing World of Warcraft and thought it might add a new dimension to it. It did, Its quite fun to play both characters at once. What I did notice though was that playing a Gnome Warrior in Un'goro can get a bit confusing as gnome's easily get lost in the foliage of the game in un'goro

Besides doing this i havnt done much more, Garion passed on some other nasty little infection to me *Typically for kids aint it* which wouldnt be much of a problem sept that it combined with the problems i already have with my throat can make it a challenge to breath at times.

So for the rest of the weekend I plan on either sweating this infection out or I'll be around online playing both characters at once and hoping to remember that the second character can actually do damage

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | ¶ | Gaming | One comment

Smashing

Monday 28 April 2008 at 2:09 pm

Interesting weekend the past one it seems for my Little block of houses. Unknown to us in this house on Friday evening the other houses were plagued with someone constantly Buzzing them between 12 Midnight and 4 am. Really strange because i was still awake and heard nothing. But On Saturday Evening / Sunday morning the trouble came to my house it seems when some twat/Bastard decided to throw something at my Kitchen window and break at at 3am. Again i was still awake and heard the almighty *CRACK*. Didn't see anyone though. Course you have to phone the police so you can get an incident number to give to the council. But that was also the strange part. I encounter a "All lines are busy" message from 999 (UK version of 911 for you US'ers).. wtf eh?

Ah well strange weekend for sure and i got left with look at this every time i go into my kitchen (Least till the glass comes in and we get it replaced)

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | ¶ | Random | One comment

Ears nose and throat

Friday 25 April 2008 at 12:09 am

Finally, after all these months! I got to see the ENT specialist. He did the normal stuck the wooden stick in my mouth looked about, went hmmm. Then stuck a little camera up my nose to see my throat and went hmmm. Then didnt really say anything besides giving me more meds to take and come back in 3 months. OO yea and that i can have my tonsil's removed if i wish to get rid of the Tonsil Stones i have.

Well it was a bit more productive than that, Seems im suffering an alergic reaction to *something* just dont know what, But it also could be a result of the Stones + the infection i had months ago causing it to just never get better.
Hopefully find out more in 3 months when i return. Least i've been told its safe to go ahead and remove the stones myself. Which i partially did tonight with a toothbrush and lots of gagging.

Anyway besides that i've been playing Assassin's Creed and Need for Speed Most Wanted and course the old Favourite World of Warcraft

Slow life sometimes :P

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | ¶ | Gaming, Random | One comment

Cleanup

Monday 17 March 2008 at 7:58 pm

So as per i posted a few days ago, I stopped raiding. And with this stoppage i no longer need to spend countless hours within Warcraft grinding gold, mats etc for consumables and all the really unfun side of raiding. But what todo with all that "extra" time. I have lots of plans but i decided to start by cleaning up house a bit first. For the past i dunno 9 years I've been making backups of my stuff on my computer before i format, Which i do pretty regularly. That is a lot of CD-R's/DVD's trust me. And sometimes i couldn't be bothered to label them correctly or even at all. So I've been spending today and probably the next few days going through each and every one of those CD's and removing stuff that i actually want to keep so i can trash all them.

So far i've found some interesting "What the hell was i thinking when i wrote this" stuff, and some really really bad attempts at artwork on my part. But nothing worth sharing with the world even for laughs purposes. What im really searching for is the past 10 years of photo's of me, kirsty and Garion. I've always had a camera for the PC in some shape or form since i met my other half. So there should be a lot of photo's about in here to sort through and Store correctly. Atm i haven't found any. But i still have LOTS of disc's to look through.

Elsewhere on my PC while i wait on CD and CD accessing i've been unable to break my habit as yet of reading all the Warcraft related websites i checked daily. And i've noticed something, Lots of people out there are stupid, I keep seeing lots of posts relating to St Patrick's day today. don't any of them that actually celebrate the holiday know that it wasn't on the 17th this year. it was on the 15th because with it being a religious holiday and well it being basically the most holiest of holy weeks this week in said religion that it isn't celebrated because of that?

Now people having a celebration is all well and good, but god if your going to celebrate least check and make sure its on the correct day!

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | ¶ | Random | One comment

Raiding in World of Warcraft

Friday 14 March 2008 at 03:18 am

For a long, long long time i've been a raider in World of Warcraft, in a small guild called Conviction. It is a great little guild and mostly it was a fun experiance. Course i played on the US realms so i was raiding at 1am to 5am.
I cant say it was ever a bad thing besides the 16 hours a week time sink. But damn it was fun. But alas! tonight i decided enough was enough and gave up my much coveted raid spot on my 70 Hunter Gindaeg. I loved clearing Mount Hyjal and Black temple was amazing too (All pre Attunement Nerf)

I just want my 16 hours a week raiding time back todo other stuff, like work on my Game that i've been working of for many many years. I want to finally finish it. Plus some other really cool stuff in the not so distant future :D

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | ¶ | Gaming | Two comments

This years TV shows

Tuesday 04 March 2008 at 11:23 pm

I watch some TV, not to much but enough. And this years TV has been ok what with that whole writers strike thing in the US. the new Flash Gordon series absolutely rocked, start was very shakey but it developed and the final episode was just amazing. Cant wait for series 2 of that one. Torchwood returned, even though its now in the mainstream BBC2. So less sex and violence but they've covered that up with throwing in as much gay snogging as they can. Still a great Series though so far. We had like 8 episodes of Bionic woman, which were ok but i can see why it's vanished. It wasnt anywhere near consistant at all between episodes. Reaper was funny but as the series went on it just got old. We had the new Knightrider move which was soo cheesy it was brilliant, sept they fucked up the theme song. What is it with these people you dont take a cult classic theme then try to remake it in a completely new style. Leave it alone!

But my favourite TV show from this year has got to be Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. First 8 episodes where abolutely blindingly good. then they aired Episodes 9... and i dont know what went wrong, It just felt rushed and disjointed. It felt like they just took the entire rest of the series (possible 23 episodes?) and threw it into one hour, and didnt bother to make sure any of it made sense or even followed along. Most disappointing Final episode ever.

But even besides this, There's something else thats coming up in the next few weeks that im eagerly awaiting. and shockingly its not US TV. a 2 episodes TV movie. The adaption of Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, Its going to air over the Easter Weekend and i'll definatly be setting my Sky+ (DVR) to capture this in all its glory, Especially as there Adaption of Hogfather rocked too.

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | ¶ | Random | Five comments