Those mentions have put me off them, but I'm wondering if anyone's had any good experience with them?
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Noir Consulting - really?
Over the last four years, I've heard several people mention Noir Consulting - the name seems always to come up in the context "I sent them my CV and heard nothing back".
It is an error to use a section registered as allowDefinition='MachineToApplication' beyond application level.
If you see this problem using ASP.Net Publish then try:
del "$(ProjectDir)\obj\Debug\Package\PackageTmp\web.config" Wasted ages on this... gggggggggrrrrrrrrr!
Friday, May 27, 2011
If you install Azure SDK 1.4 and then your web roles say System.TypeLoadException for System.ServiceModel.Activation.HttpModule in ASP.NET 4
If you install Azure SDK 1.4 and then your web roles say System.TypeLoadException for System.ServiceModel.Activation.HttpModule in ASP.NET 4, then follow this advice
and run:
aspnet_regiis -iru
in a "run as admin" command prompt
Thursday, May 26, 2011
The ViewData item that has the key 'XXX' is of type 'System.Int32' but must be of type 'IEnumerable'.
If you're using ASP.Net MVC and you get this message using a DropDownList...
... then check whether the IEnumerable you think you are passing in actually exists in your ViewBag/ViewData
Saturday, May 21, 2011
A value shared across entities or associations is generated in more than one location.
If you're using EntityFramework and you see this error -
A value shared across entities or associations is generated in more than one location.
Then what it means is: you've set up inheritance using multiple tables and you've left the key autogenerated in one of the derived types.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Linq Dreams - GroupAndAggregate
public static
IEnumerable<KeyValuePair<TKey, TOutput>>
GroupAndAggregate<TElement, TKey, TOutput>
(this IEnumerable<TElement> source, Func<TElement, TKey> keyMapping,
Func<TElement, TOutput> firstElementMapping,
Func<TElement, TOutput, TOutput> subsequentElementMapping)
{
Dictionary<TKey, TOutput> dictionary = new Dictionary<TKey, TOutput>();
foreach (TElement element in source)
{
TKey key = keyMapping(element);
TOutput output = default(TOutput);
if (dictionary.TryGetValue(key, out output))
{
output = subsequentElementMapping(element, output);
}
else
{
output = firstElementMapping(element);
}
dictionary[key] = output;
}
return dictionary;
}
IEnumerable<KeyValuePair<TKey, TOutput>>
GroupAndAggregate<TElement, TKey, TOutput>
(this IEnumerable<TElement> source, Func<TElement, TKey> keyMapping,
Func<TElement, TOutput> firstElementMapping,
Func<TElement, TOutput, TOutput> subsequentElementMapping)
{
Dictionary<TKey, TOutput> dictionary = new Dictionary<TKey, TOutput>();
foreach (TElement element in source)
{
TKey key = keyMapping(element);
TOutput output = default(TOutput);
if (dictionary.TryGetValue(key, out output))
{
output = subsequentElementMapping(element, output);
}
else
{
output = firstElementMapping(element);
}
dictionary[key] = output;
}
return dictionary;
}
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
IronRuby is alive and kicking!
This is a brief response to
http://word-puzzle.blogspot.com/2011/03/what-next-for-microsoft-ironruby.htmlwhich seems to put quite a dampner on the IronRuby status.
I can't deny that IronRuby's not in the vibrant state yet of it's JRuby counterpart - the number of contributors is much lower.
However, now that IronRuby and IronPython are integrated within Mono, and now release 1.1.2 is out there in the wild, things are very much looking positive
Real projects are being built - and there are as diverse as website using Rails, mobile apps like iron7, and lots of sysops and devops scripts using Rake.
I'm very much positive that IronRuby will continue to build forwards.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Help fund ironruby wp7 development - vote for iron7 in WP7Comp
If you like IronRuby development on WP7, and if you've got a moment then please:
- go to iron7 on WP7Comp and leave a LIKE and a positive comment.
Winning $10000 would greatly assist with my further development of this product!
Also, if you don't know what Iron7 is, then check out this video - it will give you a good idea:
Monday, March 14, 2011
WP7 - the effect of being a recommended app
Here's what happened to RunSat sales (trial and paid) as a result of being on the front page of the MarketPlace (not sure if this was internationally on the front page or just in the UK)
Saturday, March 05, 2011
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
WP7 apps that developers love... WP7Comp
There are some stunning apps entered for WP7Comp from RedGate - www.WP7Comp.com
These are in no particular order of preference - instead they're in order of entry into the competition.
You'll be glad to know that the fart app entry hasn't made my favourite list!
Phonealytics:
by Luke
I like this app:
- because it has lots of charts and nice effects
- because it targets google analytics which lots of developers use
- because Luke has blogged about how some of the key parts of the app were made - e.g. http://lukencode.com/2010/12/09/windows-phone-7-charts
Iron7 - Ruby scripting on Windows Phone 7
by me (disclaimer!)
I like this app:
- because it's something that can't be done on iPhone, Blackberry, etc
- because it has so many samples and these are shared online using script.iron7.com
- because the power of those samples is so large - GPS, videos, touch and even Tetris!
Scratch Pad
by Matt Lacey
This is less of an app, more of a concept/proof of principle. I like it
- because it thinks outside the box about one of the limitations of WP7.0.0.4 - see http://mrlac.eu/i5eyXm for how its done
Pocket C#
by Mark Rendle
This app has been in the competition since December but hasn't yet made it through to the marketplace. When it does, I'll like it:
- because it shows a good use of web services in combination with apps
- because like iron7 it promises to share produced scripts online
- to make it ideal, I'd love to see it compile to include functionality from the phone - there aren't many (any?) pure-computational console apps I want to write.
zTop Analytics
by sorokoletov (Alex?)
I like this app:
- mainly because I like the website - I use http://sorokoletov.com/ztop/ regularly for tracking my apps
- because the MS AppHub functionality is still lacking in function
- because ztop integrates really well with other services - like http://wp7reviews.tomverhoeff.com
Overflow7
by me (disclaimer!)
I like this:
- because StackOverflow is such a great resource for developers
- because the app is a great demo of how to use an app to improve content for mobile (make access quick and present it for the mobile screen)
- because its an app I use several times a day (if not an hour!)
DataHub
by cronos labs
I like this app:
- because the concept is so flexible - its a bit like an old school VB3 form designer!
- because it makes good use of data services - Dropbox
- because I think its got plenty of room to grow for developers - especially if developers can start sharing forms for their daily tasks
by Sigurd Snorteland
I like this app:
- because Channel9 is a genuinely useful resource for developers
- because sometimes I like watching videos (and because the youtube support on WP7 isn't that strong yet)
- because Sigurd has been top rate in blogging about this - http://sigurdsnorteland.wordpress.com/2010/11/04/mychannel9-upgraded-and-released-on-codeplex/
Thursday, February 10, 2011
DDDHack - XNA mods
My XNA app mods are uploaded to: http://slodge.com/dddhack/ChangedFiles.zip
The changes are definitely "a ddd hack" :)
Some #DDDHack Action
Following on from the excellent DDD9, I thought I'd take up the challenge of the DDDHack - to take the sample apps from @paulfo and see what I could do with them.
I started at a gallop, downloading both sample apps straight away, building the XNA game and fixing the RSS reader to work in the post-CTP world.
However, then work and life got in the way... :)
Still it is supposed to be a hack... so now at the eleventh hour, let's have a play.
XNA XNA XNA
I've already built several Silverlight apps - Iron7, Overflow7, Translate-A-Bull, Xylophone, PocketPiano, ... so I decided to only do the XNA - everyone should learn a foreign language :)
Hack #1 change the UI into a car racing game
My first attempt at hacking was to try to change the UI - especially to add some different .x and .fbx models - picking up free ones from http://turbosquid.com.
However, this proved to be a little more problematic than I'd hoped - I think mainly because I was trying to download some of the flashier models with embedded images and all sorts of extras.
Actually, looking at the thumbstick.png in the project, maybe there's something wrong with the texture importing anyway... just a bit confused at present.
To cut a long story short... I failed... just couldn't get the content project to like my new models.
I did manage to change the colour of the floor....
Never mind... I like space ships... so on with the hacking!
Hack #2 Out of control
The first thing I noticed when playing with the game was that the controls were horrible - there are two virtual sticks on the screen, both of which are used for steering - plus both of which are used for thrust/acceleration too.
So... wouldn't it be nicer if this could be done using the built-in accelerometer? Let's do it.
We want to get steering from the left-right pitch of the phone
... and we want to get thrust from the forwards/backwards tilt of the phone.
To get the accelerometer working, the excellent Rob Miles helped with this post - http://www.robmiles.com/journal/2010/3/22/windows-phone-accelerometer-support-in-xna.html
Sadly this post is out of date (the API changed after this early CTP post), but getting the accelerometer included was pretty easy.
1. Add a reference to Microsoft.Devices.Sensor
2. Add this static class:
public class WrappedAccelerometer
{
static Accelerometer accelerometer;
static AccelerometerReadingEventArgs lastSeenAcceleration;
static WrappedAccelerometer()
{
accelerometer = new Accelerometer();
accelerometer.Start();
accelerometer.ReadingChanged += new System.EventHandler<AccelerometerReadingEventArgs>(accelerometer_ReadingChanged);
lastSeenAcceleration = null;
}
static void accelerometer_ReadingChanged(object sender, AccelerometerReadingEventArgs e)
{
lastSeenAcceleration = e;
}
public static AccelerometerReadingEventArgs GetState()
{
return lastSeenAcceleration;
}
}
3. Replace the old VirtualThumbsticks class with this new much simpler version:
public static class VirtualThumbsticks
{
static VirtualThumbsticks()
{
}
/// <summary>
/// Gets the value for steering.
/// </summary>
public static double Steering
{
get
{
var accelerometerState = WrappedAccelerometer.GetState();
// if there is no accelerometer state, then return a value of 0.0
if (null == accelerometerState)
return 0.0;
// because we are in landscape...
// we have to use accerometer state
return accelerometerState.Y;
}
}
/// <summary>
/// Gets the value for acceleration.
/// </summary>
public static double Thrusters
{
get
{
var accelerometerState = WrappedAccelerometer.GetState();
// if there is no accelerometer state, then return a value of 0.0
if (null == accelerometerState)
return 0.0;
// calculate the scaled vector from the touch position to the center,
// scaled by the maximum thumbstick distance
// this conversions sets normalised from the Z value:
// accelerometerState.Z will be -1.0 when the phone is flat down
// accelerometerState.Z will be 0.0 when the phone is upright
// we convert that to thrust ratio using:
var thrust = -2.0 * accelerometerState.Z - 1.0;
if (thrust > 1.0)
thrust = 1.0;
if (thrust < -1.0)
thrust = -1.0;
// this actually works quite nicely thanks to trigonomics :)
//System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(string.Format("Z is {0:0.00}, N is {1:0.00}", accelerometerState.Z, thrust));
return thrust;
}
}
/// <summary>
/// Updates the virtual thumbsticks based on current touch state. This must be called every frame.
/// </summary>
public static void Update()
{
// do nothing for now
}
}
4. Modify the code in Ship.cs, so that steering and thrust are picked up from the accelerometer instead of from the old VirtualThumbsticks code:
// Determine rotation amount from input
rotationAmount.X = (float)VirtualThumbsticks.Steering;
// Scale rotation amount to radians per second
rotationAmount = rotationAmount * RotationRate * elapsed;
// ...
// Determine thrust amount from input
float thrustAmount = (float)VirtualThumbsticks.Thrusters;
// Calculate force from thrust amount
Vector3 force = Direction * thrustAmount * ThrustForce;
5. That's it!
Although you will need a phone to test it (or you'll need to use something like http://www.codeproject.com/KB/windows-phone-7/WP7AccelerometerEmulator.aspx)
And... I guess maybe the way I use the accelerometer is a bit resource-unfriendly - the accelerometer uses battery power, so should really be careful to switch it off sometime.
Also... there is one bug in my implementation - I've not taken account yet of the "Up" direction of the phone - so the acceleration works backwards if you hold the phone upside down!
Hack #3 But now I have these spare thumbs...
So the steering looked nice, and I liked the thrusters... but that left the screen with no purpose.
So I wondered about making the game a little more 3 dimensional - to see if I could add height to the game.
Hack #3.1 I feel sick!
My first attempt at this was to use a left thumb press for "pitch up" and a right thumb press for "pitch down".
To do this, I put some of the old VirtualThumbsticks code back in, and then added a new static property, PitchAdjustment to the class.
I then used this PitchAdjustment in the Update method of Ship.cs - something a little like:
// Create rotation matrix from rotation amount
Matrix rotationMatrix =
Matrix.CreateFromAxisAngle(Right, rotationAmount.Y) *
Matrix.CreateRotationY(rotationAmount.X) *
Matrix.CreateRotationX(rotationAmount.Z);
This worked OK, the ship certainly started to head up and down according to touch.
However, whilst visually it looked nice, it was incredibly hard to control - a bit like so many flight simulators are!
I needed something simpler...
Hack #3.2 Flash Classic
Inspiration came from the old Flash game http://www.helicoptergame.net/
In this game, all you do is, press a button to go up... otherwise gravity will slowly bring you down.
So that's what my code did too:
1. In Update in VirtualThumbsticks.cs, just detect if there are any touches at all
TouchCollection touches = TouchPanel.GetState();
touchActive = touches.Count;
2. Map this to a VerticalAcceleration property:
public static double PitchAcceleration
{
get
{
if (touchActive)
return 1.0;
return -1.0;
}
}
3. Use this VerticalAcceleration in the Ship.cs class:
// modify the Altitude
Position.Y += AltitudeStep * (float)VirtualThumbsticks.PitchAcceleration;
4. To provide some variation in height, set some constants in Ship.cs:
private const float MinimumAltitude = 100.0f;
private const float MaximumAltitude = 6000.0f;
private const float AltitudeStep = 50.0f;
5. To make the environment a bit more interesting, change the altitude values of our prizes and enemy ships in the main game file. e.g.
// Two arrays that define the location of obstacles and collection items.
// these could be loaded per level giving different level designs
Vector3[] coords = new Vector3[] { new Vector3(45000, 50, 57000),
new Vector3(-45000, 2000, 57000),
new Vector3(57000, 1500, -45000),
new Vector3(-57000, 4000, -45000),
new Vector3(8000f, 3000, 0f),
new Vector3(-8000f, 2000, 0f),
new Vector3(21500, 1000, 32500),
new Vector3(-21500, 3000, 21500),
new Vector3(21500, 2000, -21500),
new Vector3(-21500, 400, -21500) };
Vector3[] treecoords = new Vector3[] { new Vector3(-18000f, 1200f, 0f),
new Vector3(0f, 2400f, 18000f),
new Vector3(0f, 3600f, -18000f),
new Vector3(57000f, 1200f, 0f),
new Vector3(-57000f, 2400f, 0f),
new Vector3(0f, 3600f, 57000f),
new Vector3(0f, 1200f, -57000f),
new Vector3(32500f, 2400f, 32500f),
new Vector3(-32500f, 3600f, 32500f),
new Vector3(32500f, 1200f, -32500f),
new Vector3(-32500f, 1200f, -32500f) };:
Hack #4 Moving enemies
So the game's working... but it's a bit static... so next up was to hack into the main game loop and to give the enemies some motion...
To do this, I took each existing Enemy tree (currently just a sphere) and replaced them with an object:
public class EnemyShip
{
private static float MaxSpeed = 80.0f;
private static float AccelerationConstant = 10.0f;
public BoundingSphere Sphere;
public BoundingSphere OriginalSphere;
public Vector3 CurrentSpeed;
public EnemyShip(BoundingSphere sphere)
{
OriginalSphere = sphere;
Reset();
}
public void Reset()
{
Sphere = new BoundingSphere(OriginalSphere.Center, OriginalSphere.Radius);
CurrentSpeed = new Vector3();
}
public void AccelerateTowards(Vector3 Position)
{
var accerlationDirection = Position - Sphere.Center;
accerlationDirection.Normalize();
CurrentSpeed += AccelerationConstant * accerlationDirection;
var currentLength = CurrentSpeed.Length();
if (currentLength > MaxSpeed)
{
CurrentSpeed = CurrentSpeed * MaxSpeed / currentLength;
}
}
public void UpdatePosition()
{
Sphere.Center += CurrentSpeed;
}
}
then each time around the loop, I call AccelerateTowards() and UpdatePosition on each of these enemies.
Result...
- the enemies definitely come chase
- the enemies also quite often collide with each other - I should add some sort of protection to stop them overlapping...
- when you crash into an enemy it's also quite hard to escape again afterwards!
To cope with the overlapping... I added System.Linq, changed the update to
public void UpdatePosition(System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable<BoundingSphere> DoNotMoveWithin)
{
var enlargedSphere = new BoundingSphere(Sphere.Center + CurrentSpeed, Sphere.Radius * 3);
if (DoNotMoveWithin.Any(x => x.Intersects(enlargedSphere)))
return;
var candidateNewSphere = new BoundingSphere(Sphere.Center + CurrentSpeed, Sphere.Radius);
Sphere = candidateNewSphere;
}
and called this using:
enemyShip.UpdatePosition(enemyShips.Where(x => x != enemyShip).Select(x => x.Sphere));
This kind of works.... but it also leads to some problems - e.g. once the enemy ships have moved together they don't move apart again.
I guess I could add some code that means each enemy has to stay within X of its starting location.... another day... another hack...
public void UpdatePosition(System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable<BoundingSphere> DoNotMoveWithin)
{
var newCenter = Sphere.Center + CurrentSpeed;
if ((newCenter - OriginalSphere.Center).Length() > MaxDistanceFromOriginal)
return;
var enlargedSphere = new BoundingSphere(newCenter, Sphere.Radius * 3);
if (DoNotMoveWithin.Any(x => x.Intersects(enlargedSphere)))
return;
var candidateNewSphere = new BoundingSphere(newCenter, Sphere.Radius);
Sphere = candidateNewSphere;
}
Out of time
So that's it... out of time.
What have I learnt from my hack?
- XNA's pretty easy to pick up - it's C# and .Net - you can use Linq :)
- The contents projects look easy - but there's some gotchas in there when importing models - I'm sure if I play with these some more, then they will just work.
- The 3D and Vector code in XNA is *lovely* - it's great to just be able to write code that adds and subtracts Positions and Vectors - and the Matrix code for Rotation is likewise very clean to read - love it.
- Making a 3D model that works nicely on the screen takes work and thought!
- Making a "fly-through" model playable is difficult - even with my "helicopter game" shortcut, then the spaceship was still sometimes hard to control. From a playability perspective, 2D still has lots of advantages which might be why games like Annoyed Avians are selling so well.
- Using the accelerometer in XNA is easy - and it does provide a very immersive experience for a gamer
- Using "virtual buttons" on the screen is also pretty easy in XNA - but user feedback for these buttons is definitely needed...
- The processors on WP7 phones (CPU and GPU) are stunningly quick - the amount of maths going on and the speed its done at is simply awesome.
- I don't think I day gos by when I don't love using Linq - it's magic too.
- I've still got plenty more to learn.... and plenty more hacking to do...
If anyone wants my code then I'll post it somewhere for you all to enjoy :)
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