Ramblings of a Coder

Brainfarts of an idle mind.

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Time passing.

Saturday 20 February 2010 at 4:09 pm

Yea, so much for that update. Its not quite done yet to my satisfaction, Can't seem to get the graphics just how i picture them in my head. But I am progressing to that point, just slightly slower than i hoped.

 

Also been working on a few other projects, some using the Microchip's PIC range of MCU's. One I'm really enjoying that morduun and Shadee though of the concept for, Lots of learning in that one and I've been going REALLY slow on it, mostly because i keep stopping to finish coursework and stuff. But i do keep returning to it.

Also i little side project from the PIC one is putting the PIC C compiler into Visual Studio 2010, Which using the build environment stuff I've managed to-do to some extent. Now I'm working on a add-in for Visual Studio itself to control the programmer directly from within the IDE. Just a time saver and because i never have actually wrote an extension for Visual Studio in my life. So its another learning experience for me. Microchip themselves give C# code on there website for the PicKit 2 Programmer Software. So that side is much easier than I'd initially expected.

 

Also got some work on doing Updates to certain websites, slow going as always with these. Awaiting feedback etc.. i hate that part.

And course the Degree work, Still working away on that. Just purchased previous exam papers for my end of year exam, Bought the past 5 years. Got them in the mail. no solutions, wtf? Kind of useless without solutions really. I did plan on using them as Mock Exams, sticking to the time limits and materials of the actual exam. But that's kind of pointless now as i can't grade them when I'm finished. Wish I'd know that before buying them.

 

That's basically what's going on in my life at the moment, Mix in a unhealthy amount of TV and that's it exactly. I must say though, Loving Caprica.  I wasn't to eager about it because of the whole C-Span/BBC Parliament in space that was the Battlestar Galactica remake. But i think they've hit it spot on with Caprica.

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | | default | No comments

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Update Coming… Very Soon

Wednesday 10 February 2010 at 11:40 pm

Not posted in a while, I've no real reason for it. Just haven't really had anything much to say.  Been working on that update i mentioned in my last post, Finally getting somewhere withblogupdate it (read as finally got off my arse and did something), and I'm hopeful that I'll be finished with it within the week. Unless something else comes up before then. And i certainly do have stuff to post about now, so expect some updates once I've migrated over to the new design.

 

The image is a VERY ROUGH draft of the template i'm creating, The colours aren't anywhere near correct i just picked them for the shock value to instantly see layout problems while designing it. But I'm happy with the entries layout so far, Just have to fix the headers, footers and side bars to my liking but i have ideas for that also. Anyway must get back, Kirsty kindly picked up Assassin's Creed II for me today and i think I hear it calling my name in the background. 

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | | default | Two comments

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Blogging Update

Sunday 23 August 2009 at 6:28 pm

Going to be updating my blog in the next week or two, so if it suddenly vanishes for a few days you'll know why. After that i will be posting more often in it... i promise :P

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Pole-attics

Sunday 21 June 2009 at 8:02 pm

Yes, its misspelt. And intentionally so. Why not make fun of the whole institution?

Lets look at some simple facts. Here we are fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq and supposedly if the Iranian government was to be believed, getting mixed up in the middle of the Iranian election. And all in the name of "Supporting the choice of the People".

The simple statement itself coming from the Current UK government does absolutely nothing but make me almost wet myself from laughing. We're talking about a government who is headed by a Prime Minister who WAS NOT elected by the public, Has suffered a complete and utter loss at the lasted European and Local elections and has ignored numerous calls to Stand aside and let the UK actually vote for someone of our choosing to lead OUR country.

At which point do we the public draw the line? Why is no one in the media drawing these clearly obvious conclusions? Do we have to take up arms and wrestle power from the cesspool of corruption that is Westminster and perform our own wire brush and bleach cleaning of the halls by whatever means necessary to give US the PEOPLE power back?

 

Maybe our news channels should focus internally for a while and help us remove those in power from there seat. Instead of getting in the middle of an Election that frankly has nothing to-do with us and should have nothing to-do with us!

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | | default | Two comments

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Snow finally comes!

Monday 02 February 2009 at 5:31 pm

As per the BBC have been going on about all day, the UK finally got some decent snow. And most people are complaining, but not me. Its a great time to be out in the garden with Garion and having a blast. as i have been. Snowball fights a plenty and a perfectly aimed snowball to the lug for Kirsty, I even managed to get a shot that went behind her Glasses. ROCKIN!
Course she wasn't happy about that, but no one that gets smacked with a well aimed snowball ever is.

 

I even managed to get lots of photo's and some "Artistic" shots which is very very rare for me. my photo's are usually blurry and shakey and just plain bad. but i like these two. One taken with my Digital camera and the other taken by my Nokia N70 phone. Hope you like them.

 

More snow is on the way supposedly with the worst due tonight and tomorrow. which is great as we got about 1ft this morning and a i'd say probably about another foot this afternoon. though its hard to tell cos the drifts and the fact we've been in and out all day with Garion playing in the snow.

 

Anyway, Enjoy it if you've got it folks!

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | | default | One comment

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Merry Kissmyarse to one and all

Thursday 25 December 2008 at 5:48 pm

Topic basically states it, Its Christmas day. All the gifts have been opened. The toy's played with and some tidied away. Dinners Digesting as i type this and in 10minutes or so the Christmas Special of Doctor Who starts. So i decided to take this time to post and say Happy Holidays to everyone.

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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

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Dual Guitars

Wednesday 18 June 2008 at 3:13 pm

Few days ago, After much bashing and clanging of my own acoustic guitar but Garion we Music-downbowdecided maybe it was time for him to have his own. Anything to save him destroying mines really. So out I went and picked a cheap 1/2 size Junior acoustic guitar up for him, didn't cost much. No garion_guitarpoint in spending a lot of money on one for Garion as most likely it will end up accidentally broken. But as its a cheap one we can use it to teach him to be careful when using it and if it does get broken its easily replaced. Anyway got it home in its tiny little guitar bag, and amazingly he loves it. Keeps dragging my own acoustic out wanting me to play (While he bashes his about in a really bad attempt at copying me). Fun going for both of us, He's starting to get to grips with holding it. But still tends to get completely muddled up, Seems he has a left hand tendency though. Which is not surprising as with a lot of things I also tend to be left handed, But not with the guitar. Maybe because I've only ever played a right hand guitar. But might restring his guitar to left handed if he continues to have problems and see how it goes for him.two_guitars

Not bothering trying to actually teach him how to play it right now, just to get him comfortable with it and actually holding it correctly. I plan on spending at least 15mins a day with him on the guitars and see how he progresses. Long as he's still having fun with it, its all good.

Personally, this also gives me more motivation to increase my own knowledge of the instrument. and written music in garion_drivergeneral. Hoping I'm not taking to much on my own shoulders, But I don't see it being so... yet.

Besides that, Garion has been attending his Primary school for the past few weeks. To get him used to the building and the people in it, definitely a requirement for most kids, makes that first day run a bit smoother I suppose if the kids already know the school and the teacher. Bit different for Garion as we have to make the school part of his schedule and make sure he's comfortable with the staff inside it, Or it would just be an absolute nightmare come august and his first day of school. Photo's aren't allowed inside school's these days (Crazy Big Brother state can video us 24/7 though, but you cant take photo's of your own child inside a school?) but I did get a few snaps of him attempting to steal my car. Shame he cant reach the pedals or I think he'd be off down the street in it. He seems to like school so far, but we will have to wait and see how he reacts for real once the term starts.

I also seem to have lost a few entries and/or comments, in the past few days. Working on fixing this. *Sorry Shadee one of the comments to go missing was yours*

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | | default, Education | One comment

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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.

pong pong2

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

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Firefox Addons

Wednesday 12 March 2008 at 6:19 pm

Seen a lot of talk lately on-line about "Needed" or "unknown" firefox add-ons. So i thought I'd share me list of them that i personally use.  I wouldn't call any of them required add-ons though. I can and do get by without them on occasion (i.e. after i format and cant remember what something was called)

Adblock Plus
British English Dictionary
Chatzilla
DownThemAll!
Firebug
FireShot
Fission
Google Browser Sync
Google Toolbar for Firefox
Hyperwords
IE Tab
PicLens
Snap Links
Tab Scope
Web Developer

As you can clearly see i use a few, the only problem lately with addons and any browser is. Igoogle, i find myself reading a lot from my numerous tabs in igoogle that some days i dont even have to leave google itself for my hit of news etc.
I use the google browser sync find it a great little addon, but you have to be careful with it. spend a lot of time reorganising your bookmarks and it can be all reverted back if one of the other computers running it syncs first. Quite frustrating when someone's on the other computer and you dont know. Only unsure side of it is that it saves saved passwords and logins, and it'll save them from any website at all. Which is great for small forums etc etc, but have to be careful with stuff like on-line banking etc (just thought I'd throw that warning in)

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Downtime

Tuesday 21 November 2006 at 11:14 am

Really, lots of downtime lately from my PC. well as much as possible.

still working on a redesign of the site, came up with a few nice idea's im gonna try out.
not much else really that i'd blog about,

mmm need to fix it so i can embed video's from photobucket etc..

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | | default | One comment

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Free Time Again

Tuesday 19 September 2006 at 2:33 pm

Lately, I've noticed i've let my hobbies slide a lot.

I Havnt really done any programming just for myself, I've done almost no electronic work at all. And most obvious i dont really blog that much anymore either. Its not that things dont happen because they do, i just dont feel a need to blog about them.

The Blog was great for getting stuff off my chest last year when everything was happening with my grandpa, but now i dont really post anything besides screenshots of WoW.

But thats going to change, With Kirsty out working now. And myself looking after Garion all day i find myself looking for stuff todo and my hobbies are all slowly coming back into the picture which is great cos i have some nice idea's on things i'd like to try-out. and still have the old idea's and goals i had before my hobbies started to slip on me.

Overall and basically it means that i think i'll redo the main section of my personal website, taking the focus away from it being solely a blog and expand it to include sections on my hobbies and stuff. Not totally sure yet.

Maybe i'll start with the plans i've drawn up for remaking both my computer space and also a little hobby/workspace i've designed for garion.  Also working on plans for redoing my Kitchen and living area of my house too.. so with the plans about perhaps that is a good start to refocusing my website, and will certainly give me more reason to blog too.

We Shall see, until later folks.

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | | default | Three comments

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Invisible Cow

Wednesday 26 July 2006 at 6:40 pm

Playing WoW the other day, and i logged into my PVP character, and was greeted by the strangest character select screen..



Which was kinda funny for a moment, then i logged in and was pleasantly suprised that the character select screen had been 100% correct






Which IMO is kinda funny, watching a hat and shoulder pats running around.

On other news, Waiting on the volvo i got coming back from the garage, its been in there 2 weeks coming on friday which is pretty disappointing but its just been delay after delay, but its all good.  Just hope i get it back before the really good weather goes away.

My Ford is sitting outside my house, havnt even started it up in like 3 or 4 weeks, just waiting on getting my volvo then i'll phone a scrap yard up to come drag it away.  Not that it was a bad car it run fine, didnt cost me much to keep on the road. and was there when i needed it, I just didnt like the "feel" or it.  And i cant be bothered to hold onto it to find a privare buyer, So its going to the scrap yard.

Anyway, Im off to melt some more in this blistering heat.

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | | default | One comment

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RAG DOWN

Sunday 11 June 2006 at 07:10 am

last night, in WoW after many weeks of failing. my guild and the other guilds of our HLC alliance finally downed Rag



Very happy moment celebrated with some stupidity :) how it should be!

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Doo Doo (cant think of a title)

Tuesday 09 May 2006 at 5:23 pm

So whats been happening? Not a whole lot again, Got my pad out again and im making really crap sketches and my minds coming back to creating my own games, instead of playing others. But i wont say much more on that, people seem to expect something to look at when i talk about it.

lets see in WoW, i aint really played my Hunter Gindaeg in a while. Been playing my Druid Spekis a lot more. he's getting to see more stuff than Gin.





and course




Rag and Nef not bad for a lowly Druid really hehe, and course it wouldnt be a screenshot session without Ony


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Fun and Games

Tuesday 28 March 2006 at 09:03 am

Lots of.. well from people reading this's viewpoint nothing has happened :)

I caught some illness two weeks ago, which has me atm near deaf in my left ear, and my right ear constantly sounds like im listing to things from underwater.. its disconcerning, highly annoying but doesnt actually bother me that much in the wider sence.  Sure i miss things when people talk to me sometimes, but i did anyway lol. Im not the worlds best listener when it comes to someone talking to me. I often get distracted and bored when people dont just get to the point. Its not like a value my words and use them sparingly, its just i hate it when someone goes on and on and on without actually getting to the point.  Specially when there telling you a story about someone you dont even know, ya know what im talking about, and they go off on trying to explain who it is.. I HATE THAT, I DONT KNOW THEM. I PROBABLY DONT WANNA KNOW THEM, AND WELL GET TO THE POINT ALREADY.

pet hate there :) people who drone on and on...

Dunno how my dads doing, aint spoken with him in about 3 weeks. But well im sure someone will say if he aint well again. Back to life as usual on that front, He's there; Im here  We know where each other are if we wanna get in contact.

Work front, yes i've been as lazy as possible. But does anyone expect anything else of me really? I do as little work as possible always, Its me. Get used to it if you aint already.  Im most likely never gonna be filthy rich cos well i refuse to work myself into the group to get there. Life's to short to spend to much time working to collect money. Live it :) dont need money to live yer life, just gotta know how much you can survive on happily.  I also hate that, recently had a long term good friend from my view get very lax on work front. not bad lax just like they've got other stuff on there mind and stuff involving me is an after thought. I dont mind being an afterthough but if im say meeting with people i do require a few days warning, Comeon i work from home. i spent time with my family i DO require that warning so we can prepair for me not being at home. I dont expect people to drop everything for me at a few hours notice, and i wouldnt do it for anyone else. Its really that plain and simple Work ALWAYS comes way down the line for me. i gotta prepair for meeting, getting the suit washed (probably been sitting in a heap in the suit bag since i last wore it) actually make sure my car is up to it (I hardly ever use the thing, battery was dead the other day when i went to start it, just cos it'd been sitting so long), Make sure K is gonna be available to watch the boy cos me being at home all the time makes me a prime candidate for being at home with my son. Things like that stop you being able to just drop everything. thats how i live my life, and how i enjoy living my life ;) i aint gonna change anytime soon.

Only other thing thats been getting on my nerves recently is my computer, that cool and quiet crap from AMD keeps switching itself on in my bios and slowing my CPU fan down to 1200RPM, which trips the bios alarm for low CPU fan.. highly annoying :) specially as the fan only usually runs about 2300RPM

Thats the stuff thats annoying me lately :) other than that life's actually quite good. I somehow got myself into a stupid sleeping pattern too which im gonna have to try and break but thats not annoying just a bit stupid.

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | | default | Two comments

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Long Time!

Tuesday 28 February 2006 at 06:52 am

yea its been a while now,

Aint that nothing has been happening, quite the opposite, but nothing that'd i'd blog about has been happening :)

Dad recovered from his brush with Death, He got to know me a bit more in the process and vice verse, so something good came outta it at least.

Been working away steadily on a new commercial project and could see the light at the end of the tunnel until about 30mins ago, when i noticed i'd made a huge mistake in the database design at the start of the project.... so im having to backtrack and i tried to correct my mistake but it was just to much of a mess, instead i've dumed part of the database structure and im re-designing the part which i fucked up, Hopefully catch up with myself in the next few days with it, So if you message me or something and i dont reply.. tis probably cos im off hiding on my laptop working away like a harbour whore the night the ships hit home port.

Also still dealing with the lawyer stuff from my grandpa got another appointment today, just wish we could put it to rest at this point and basically say goodbye correctly, instead its being dragged on for.. well no fucking reason at all sept greed. but they just cant get it, there's nothing else to give, they got it.

Been using a Small roll tracking addon in WoW for ages, added my own customisations to it over quite a bit of time now, and went to add a few more the other day, and actually noticed just how much i've changed the thing. So im gonna rewrite it completely from scratch and release it, means it'll be all my code and should be easier for me to update and add to in the future.

I'd like to say i'd post more, but well lots of stuff happening but you gotta keep part of yerself private aint ya.

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | | default | One comment

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Throwing Shit

Tuesday 07 February 2006 at 7:36 pm

Yes. the past 12 months of so... life has decided to throw shit at me.. and it seems to stick

This morning i got a phone call from my dads wife, saying he'd been rushed into hospital last night. I didnt really get much info from her she was a little distraught. So i phoned up the rest of the family to let them know, telling them i'll contact em again when i know more etc then heading down to the hospital.

Got there, couldnt getting into the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) to start with, so i waited about for an hour or so, still not really knowing what the fuck was going on. Finally got in to see my dad, he's sitting there, more tubes that a rocket engine coming outta him, Turns out he got a kidney infection which he sorta ignored, so it got to the point where his kidney's and bowl etc basically stopped working, causing his body to go into some sort of shock. Dropping his blood pressure to dangerous levels, mixed with the shock and shit it was touch and go for him, And on top of that he's breathing faltered.. soo it was very close for him.

They spent the day giving him blood transfusions and fitting in a drain to his kidney's, he should come of the drugs and shit they have him on to make him breath tonight and hopefully by tomorrow or the next day he'll be moved outta the ICU..

See just shows ya though, can think you just have a wee bug then WHAM something like that happens.  Just another experiance for me for the past 12months though.. maybe life will stop throwing shit at me for a while ... maybe.. probably wont.

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | | default | Two comments

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Legal Rights

Sunday 22 January 2006 at 11:26 am

As anyone who has been reading my blog know, my grandfather passed away a few months ago. And we had problems with family members at the time. Well its now 6 months on and after a quiet period and basically everyone accepting the money and stuff. My three aunts, my mothers sisters,  Have decided they wish to claim there "legal right" to my grandpa's estate, So basically Will's aint worth any money in the UK so dont bother writing or paying for one.  Anyway there claiming there "Legal Right" to a 1/4 of the estate... even though they already got that amount. So its confusion and anger for me atm, confused cos i dont have a fucking clue what else they want, And anger because well 2 of them hadnt been near in over 20 years and the other in england refused to come up to scotland and help care for my grandpa when things started going wrong for him.  All of them are complete waste's of space and i know one of them has read from this very website, and if your reading now. I wish you a long and painful death. but before that happens i hope you get to watch your family waste away painfully and slowly like me, my family and my mother had to do with our grandpa while the three of you's sat back and did fuckall living your "important" life's. But hey now there's money involved so your father is now important.. nothing but greedy bastards.

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | | default | Two comments

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Stolen from Morduun's Blog

Thursday 12 January 2006 at 11:46 pm

Yes... well i stole the idea from shadee, who stole it from morduun :D

Southpark Specis

Charles McCrimmon (Specis) | | default | Two comments

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