Those reading this who know me personally will know I’ve not been 100% myself recently. This was due to an infection in my throat that attacked my tonsils and glands within that area. Fucking hurt like hell, I tell ya. I am, however, recovering and not a moment too soon.

I’ve got a couple of projects lined up, which will require a lot of my time and energy, and will be on-going for quite some time. One project involves the design and build of a completely new site for news, blog, and random posts. This shouldn’t be too hard in itself, but there are a few other features needed that will not be so pleasant to code in. -.- Ah well, it shall be done nonetheless.

The other project is to do with games development. I’m planning to go to University in 2010 to study Games Development. This course will hopefully teach me everything I need to design, build, and market a game. What I wanted to do before I went was have a couple of small games created so that I could go into the course with some experience under my belt. This would be a wise move, as I already know the games engine they’re going to be using on the course, and I can actually buy the license to this games engine without any trouble. Excellent stuff or what?

I have a few other little projects lined up. Nothing major or time consuming. Just stuff like tweak the design to this blog, a friend’s blog, and write a couple of artciles/stories, etc. :)

All good now I’m on the recovery path.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Okay, so I haven’t updated wordpress for a while, and in not doing so I have missed a couple of major revisions… apparently.

The whole back-end looks crazy. Things all organised and stuff. I don’t like this! I like disorder and chaos. :(

Also I don’t like this Typograph theme. It will need modifications. Not enough awesomeness for my liking.

Popularity: 5% [?]

I was recently tagged by stratos, friend and fellow Brucey. So I have to write a few points – seven to be exact – about myself that no-one else knew. Then I tag a few people and maybe they’ll do something similar. Maybe.

So, let’s get to it:

• I have a short attention span – I like change. A lot of change. Staying in one place, job, or activity leaves me wanting to move easily. This is why, as yet, I’ve not been in a single salary job for more than 2 years and find myself looking for new frontiers often.
• I love to travel – I think most people do, too, but I thought it worth a mention. It’s not always the place I’m going to that is the main appeal. I actually like the travelling part, whether it be in a car, train or air.
• I’m fascinated by human behaviour – I’m a people-watcher. I like to sit in a public place like a coffee shop, or a mall, and watch the world go by. The amount of things you spot in other people is interesting. How they react to certain situations, like a homeless person asking them for money, or someone calling their name unexpectedly.
• I dislike politics – Nuff said really. I stay clear of it.
• I’m a Buddhist – Most people don’t realise this. I don’t come across as religious, apparently, but that may be because I don’t reference everything I do and see to a piece of text. Also, I do not force my dogma onto others.
• I dislike dairy – I don’t eat much dairy
• Technology scares me – Now this may be a strange thing to admit, considering my profession is current in the field of technology, and also my spare time relies heavily on it. There is, however, a certain amount of concern I harbour towards how intrusive some technology can be. Satellites tracking your phone’s location, computer security that can help you trace stolen property. Big brother is watching.

The nominations!

A list of people I will now tag. Go go!

Sofi – Another fellow Brucey
Maja – Yet another fellow Brucey
Tom – Good friend and wheelchairjihadist!!
Stu – Also a wheelchairjihadist!
James – Good friend and motivation to achieve more of myself! :)

Popularity: 5% [?]

These past few days has seen the best bit of snow that England has seen in quite a long time. I think I heard somewhere that it’s the best in the last 20 years. It’s certainly the best I remember though that isn’t saying much seeing as I can’t remember a lot. :)

Today was by far the worst (or best; depends on your perspective) of it. Main roads up and down the country were closed. The A14 road near my home town of Kettering was closed completely by all accounts, which meant that many schools and businesses were also closed. I, however, had to work. I’m not too bitter about this, but it would have been nice to enjoy the rare weather with everyone else.

I walked past a local playground and fields on my lunch break today, and I saw a score of people – old and young – playing in the snow. Several large balls of snow were being made, presumably into snowmen (or roadblocks, as commonly seen over the last couple of days). One group of four men, in their thirties I would say, were doing something original though. They were building an igloo spacious enough for 5 people inside. Awesome sight. The had build the main base with a gap for the doorway when I walked past on my way to get some lunch. By the time I was walking back (40 minutes later) they had doubled the height of their wall and had made a very solid archway for a small door.

It was good to see people having fun despite the economic situation of the world. The snow came at the perfect time, amidst the doom and gloom, and gave people something to do. Also with most companies and schools being closed, the numbers gathered at the parks were large and all in all it was a good atmosphere. It made me smile to watch these people enjoying themselves. :)

I love snow. It’s great for your spirits.

Popularity: 4% [?]

It’s strange, when you’re away for a few days from your extra curricular tasks for a while – you know, stuff like online communities, contacts, writing projects, programming projects, web projects; basically anything you do on the computer where a decent amount of time has to be invested. I’ve been away for a short period of time, as you may have guessed, and it’s disorientating to come back to a mountain of things to do and catch up on when you’re not getting paid to do it.

I feel overwhelmed with the amount of things I’ve missed over the space of four days, that I’m afraid to be away from my extra duties more than that. Very strange indeed. Well, I shouldn’t be away for that length of time for too much longer now, but who knows?

Shit, I’ve fallen behind on two major projects and one ‘fun’ project. It’s useless to try to catch up though, when things get this way, as I’ve found out because I’ve achieved nothing this evening and I’ve been at my computer for a fair few hours. Time flies when you have none.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Last updated: 23rd January 2009 – 12:41pm

Report any broken links, syntax errors, or any general spelling/grammar to dade | deadbadger | org. Some information may not be 100% correct in terms of technical specifications or explanations – I will accept criticism and corrections on those points also, as long as you have a valid argument and verifiable facts.

Thanks,
dade-



As my job as an IT professional, working for a Microsoft reseller and distributor of computer systems and components, it’s a necessity to be up-to-date with my knowledge of the software I’m selling. To this end I acquired the beta of Windows 7 and will be writing a few articles over the next few weeks and months about it. So, here goes.

At a glance Windows 7 is like its predecessor – Windows Vista – in many ways. For the OEM user, installation of Windows 7 is identical in pretty much every way, except from what I saw of the speed of installation. The setup steps, login screens, and user icons are what we’ve seen from Vista and should be familiar territory for those who install Vista on a regular basis. Added to this there is the Aero theme, with its transparent borders and taskbar, is all very similar to that of Vista’s.

This should come as no surprise, as the Vista architecture was an earlier version of Windows 7’s and many similarities remain. Windows 7, however, is very polished and despite being in beta still it seems a very complete OS.

The main improvements, or rather the more important ones from my perspective, is not so obvious at a glance. These changes are within the hood of the operating system. The times for booting up the OS and shutting it down has been improved immensely from what I’ve seen so far. Also, program installation seems to be a lot quicker than I remember Vista ever being even on a fresh installation. There has, apparently, been an improvement in the kernel also. This, however, I cannot verify as I do not know the specifics of it.

The most noticeable difference that users will see is the taskbar. The quicklaunch bar now acts as part of the main task bar itself, where programs and files (documents, movies, music) can be pinned to the bar for quick access. For instance, you can pin a bookmark to the taskbar/quicklaunch bar which will ‘Open with…’ your default web browser. All you then need to do is right-click the browser pin on your quicklaunch bar and select the bookmark.

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This makes organisation extremely user friendly when you’re going to a particular website, opening a file, or selecting a playlist that you use often.

Another change with the taskbar is the management of currently opened windows. If you have several web pages open, even in tabs, you are able to mouseover the program in question (in the case of the images below, Internet Explorer) and see the currently opened windows or tabs. By moving your mouse over each icon shown in the preview, all other windows become a transparent panel with an outline showing only the page or window you are currently mousing over. The following thumbnails show this better.

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Core Windows Programs :: MSPaint, WordPad, and beyond

I was almost tempted not to open MSPaint when first I started writing this, as I expected it to be a complete utter pile of crap; however, I’m supposed to be providing people with information so I had to brace myself for it and get it over and done with quickly. I was pleasantly surprised.

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Paint has been revamped, and has a very similar style of menus as the Microsoft Office 2007 suite. There are a few brushes to help with some simple artwork, and the effects are pretty good for something that is essentially free with the OS. Not to mention the quality of the saved files is much better than I remember in previous version, with PNG files being the standard format. I’m suitably impressed, and all these screenshots you see on these articles were edited in MSPaint. :)

WordPad is now a fully fledge Word Processing tool. This also has been made to look very ‘Office 2007′ with regards to its menus. It does what you would expect from a simple Word Processor, with the added extra of being able to save in .rtf (Rich Text), .docx (Office 2007 file extension), .txt (Notepad), and .odt (OpenOffice.org format). It’s what I’m currently using to write this overview.

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One of my favourite bundled pieces of software has to be SnippingTool though. It allows you take draw a box across your screen, taking a capture of the selected area ‘as is’ and creates a picture that you can annotate, highlight, and mark out points of interest. It’s a brilliant tool for creating picture-driven tutorials, and I may find myself using this for future articles!

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Driver Support :: 64-bit of a pain in the ass?

As I am running the 64-bit version of the Windows 7 OS, I thought I’d try the driver compatibility. Long have drivers been the bane of 64-bit Windows, dating back to XP, and so I wanted to see if this bane still thwarts us.

Windows 7 driver support uses the same architecture and idea that Vista – and indeed XP to an extent – used. When a new device is detected for the first time, 7 will search its drivers database and install the most up-to-date and compatible driver. NIC’s are generally not a problem and 7 will find most, if not all, NIC’s along with USB adapters and sound drivers.

Having used Vista, I was dubious about the driver support of some select pieces of hardware. Most importantly I was sceptical about it finding the right video drivers form my graphics card. I am running ATi 4870 512MB, and checked the latest drivers on ATi’s website to check the versions. The version that was installed on there after a fresh install and no prompt to update: 8.53.2.12. The version that was installed after a Windows driver update prompt: 8.56.1.4. The version from ATi’s website is 8.561.0.0. That’s quite impressive for a straight-off-the-disc installation, and certainly a vast improvement from Vista’s driver management when it came to graphics cards.

In answer to the question in the heading: No it’s not a pain in the ass. It’s actually very good.

Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) :: Should I even bother?

If you’re an avid FireFox user then you’re unlikely to be persuaded to switch back to using IE, but it at least warrants a quick test play. After all, they have changed a lot and improved several parts behind the scenes to make things just that little bit more user friendly.

For instance:

There is the use of Accelerators, which allows you to open up a list of options once a set of text has been highlighted. These options range from translation to posting the highlighted snippet onto your Live Spaces blog page.

InPrivate browsing, which works very similarly to Google Chrome’s Incognito mode. Your browser works in a one-night-stand mode where all site history, cookies, and logins/passwords are automatically removed once the InPrivate session has ended.

My favourite feature so far with the new IE8 is the automatic crash recovery. Upon reading more into the mechanics of IE8, I’ve discovered that the frame is run on a different processing thread to each tab. In the same way, each tab of the browser is run on a separate process to each other. What this effectively does is in the case where a page would make previously released browsers crash and stop responding, IE8 is able to isolate the problem to the specific tab and force it to kill that process before rebooting again. A fantastic idea, though it does create more of a stress load on the system by making it run several processes. While some criticise this as being a bad point, I would say it was a good point for smoother browsing.

Conclusion

Considering this is a beta version of the software, currently in Build 7000 when this article was written, it is a very stable piece of software. It has a *lot* of potential. I sell computer systems, components, software, and the main OS that is supplied in my workplace is Windows. In the years I’ve used Windows I’ve not seen a version that has been this stable on release date, let alone in beta.

Windows 7 has a few problems here and there, but that’s to be expected. For the nay-sayers claiming Vista is a terrible OS, you need to understand that Vista was a filler to give 7 time to be developed. It feels like Vista in many ways while being so much better in many others, which is also to be expected as Vista was built using a similar (if not the same) architecture. The improvements with speed and efficiency is down to 7’s algorithms – at least that’s what I’d imagine, having previously studied some algorithms for running time in computing – and I will bet that most people will notice the decrease in boot sequence times, shutdown times, and a few of those people may even notice the software installation speeds.

I realise I haven’t covered a lot of areas that some people might wish to know about Windows 7, but I’ve yet to test everything extensively and put together my opinions. However, this isn’t my last piece of literature on Windows 7. I will be releasing more in-depth look at visual customisation, and running a few other performance and stability tests shortly.

Popularity: 19% [?]

I’m sure most people, if not all that have stumbled upon this site, have heard of XBox360, XBox Live, and the achievement system there. You get points, ranks, and e-kudos for achievements obtained in games. Recently, though, some friends of mine and I have come up with some real life achievements to try. This started out mainly as a bit of fun; however, since then it has escalated into a rather large, and constantly growing list of achievements. The list isn’t set in stone, and as such releasing them is not an option at the minute but we’re having great fun setting it all up for people to try their hand.

Each achievement gives a certain amount of pre-defined points that we conjure up, and when we think about how to spread this to other people with ‘official’ ranks and points, some pit-falls were encountered.

Verification
This is the hardest to overcome. How to handle verification. Most of the achievements can be verified with photographic evidence, but some will need to be videos, sound files, or achieved in front of a moderator. This also means that moderators are needed to verify each achievement. In short, this could be a lot of work and this pit-fall we’re currently still trying to work out fully. So far the ideas we’re coming up with are being reviewed, and seemingly they all have their ups and downs to them.

Attainability
We’ve got a whole range of achievements – ranging from the simple, to the practised, to the out-right insane. Some are even near impossible for a normal person, but still attainable to a certain extent. The points gained obviously reflect the difficulty and likelihood of someone completing said achievement, but we believe that most of these are within most people’s attainable field.

When the list and website is released in the beta stages this will become more apparent, but the achievements are not all to do with being daring or sporty. We feel that there is at least a category or multiple categories that just about anyone can complete. Some of it are skills and abilities that you need to practise, others are things that require some money, others are things that you may only do once. You’ll all see soon.

Popularity
We all think that this is a good idea, and there are some good achievements in the list to accomplish. However, we’re still uncertain about the popularity that this could potentially gain. Hopefully it can become something big that a lot of people get involved in, because not only is it fun it’s also good for personal motivation. We’ll be setting up a website soon where you can view and start to achieve some of the things we’ve already listed, but also you can add your own goals into the profile that you can track for personal use. This will then help you achieve your own missions and wants in life. Hopefully. :)

More information will be released about this soon, so stay tuned.

Popularity: 3% [?]

For most, Birthdays are a joyous, happy time of remembrance. You look back over the years that have past and think of all the good things you have done, and have yet to do in your years ahead. You have close friends and family nearby to celebrate it with you, and you enjoy the time together.

I, on the other hand, do not do that; indeed cannot. My Birthday is today, 2nd December, and I have the bad luck of a terrible immune system that leaves me down with the sickness this time every bloody year. Without fail. So my birthdays are spent coughing, spluttering, and generally feeling shitty. Oh well, at least the cough medicine tastes good and the Lemsip capsules give me a little buzz. x)

Popularity: 1% [?]

As this is only a demo of the game that I’m playing, due to the fact that it’s not yet released properly, I can only give a brief overview of what I’ve seen so far.

Instantly on playing the game you’re given an animated cut-scene that explains things from the perspective of a runner. Runners are what you are; carriers of messages and packages to be delivered without the spying eyes of the government. There is something indescribable about Faith’s voice in the chapter narratives, and the words used, that instantly makes you one of them. Puts you into their shoes, and makes you want to run along rooftops to see the same flow that Faith describes – or maybe that’s just me?

The line that caught my attention the most was: “Runners see the city in a different light; see the flows. Rooftops become pathways and conduits. Possibilities. Ways of escape. The flow is what keeps us running. Keeps us alive.”

The city you’re placed in is a gleaming place. The rooftops are clean and white; the sterility becoming a reminder that the city is unnatural and almost unwelcoming. Though not a police state, certain freedoms have been relinquished in favour of a safer but controlled society. Those who did not conform to the ideals were seen as enemies, and that’s where the runners come in. Carrying items and documents that the clients do not want the government to see, people afraid that their information will be intercepted by the police.

Enter Faith. This is your character throughout the game. A normal runner, though well trained, she is not a super hero. However, circumstances push ordinary people to performs extraordinary feats, and from what I’ve see this is how Faith’s story pans out.

Having taken a fall recently, Faith was out of action and although agile and strong she is required to run through some training. A nice way to ease us, the players, in gently.

The mechanics of the game are spot-on target. Movement is fluid and pathways present themselves the more you play. This is where the line about seeing the flow really comes into its own. Even without the runner vision (which turns certain objects bright red to colour your path) the more you play the more you see. New routes form in your mind and you want to try them, to improve efficiency and speed.

Though the demo is only short and can be completed in a matter of minutes, the re-playability keeps you coming back every so often to try something new. I’m already excited for the full release of the game in November.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Firstly, you want to have your HTML code ready and waiting. For this, you will need a simple table. You can use this one I have if you wish, or make your own with a similar structure:

<html>
	<head>
		<title>Zebra Striping the jQuery Way</title>
		<script src="http://jquery.com/src/jquery.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
		<script type="text/javascript">
 
		</script>
	</head>
 
	<body> 
		<table class="myList"> 
			<thead> 
				<tr> 
					<th>Name</th> 
					<th>E-Mail</th> 
					<th>Phone</th>
				</tr> 
			</thead>
			<tbody>
				<tr>
					<td>Test User</td>
					<td>email@mailserver.com</td>
					<td>1234567890</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>Test User</td>
					<td>email@mailserver.com</td>
					<td>1234567890</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>Test User</td>
					<td>email@mailserver.com</td>
					<td>1234567890</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>Test User</td>
					<td>email@mailserver.com</td>
					<td>1234567890</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>Test User</td>
					<td>email@mailserver.com</td>
					<td>1234567890</td>
				</tr>
				<tr>
					<td>Test User</td>
					<td>email@mailserver.com</td>
					<td>1234567890</td>
				</tr>
			</tbody>
		</table>
	</body>
</html>

Now You want to add the CSS into it. You can either add this to a separate file, or you can place the code into style tags in the head section of your page. That’s what I’ll do this time around.

<html>
	<head>
		<!-- your script integration goes here -->
		<style type="text/css">
			body {
				background: #fff;
			}
			table {
				border-collapse: collapse;
				width: 50%;
				margin: 20px;
				font-size: 0.8em;
				font-family: Verdana;
			}
			th {
				background: #aa6;
				color: #fff;
				font-weight: bold;
				padding: 2px 5px;
				text-align: left;
				border-right: 1px solid #aa6;
				line-height: 1.2;
			}
			td {
				padding: 6px 5px;
				border: 1px solid #aa6;
				vertical-align: top;
			}
			td * {
				padding: 6px 11px;
			}
			tr.zebra td {
				background: #aa6;
			}
			tr:hover td {
				background: #cc6;
			}
		</style>
	</head>
	etc.....

I’m going to assume that you know basic HTML so I won’t go into any detail about this part. The jQuery part is the focus here, so let’s get to it. Take a look first over your HTML code. You will see that the table class is called “myList”. Remember this part of it. In your Javascript section of the head, you will notice that I added a blank Javascript block. This is where we’ll enter our zebra striping code.

$(document).ready(function() {
	$(".myList tr:even").addClass("zebra");
});

Let’s analyse this quickly. As I mentioned in my previous article jQuery :: A brief glimpse, the $(document).ready waits for the HTML document to finish loading and be ready for manipulation. When this is done, it runs the script that precedes it. In this case our code does the following.

$(“.myList tr:even”) – Sets a number for each tr tag under the element with class ‘myList’, then takes all ‘even’ tr elements (i.e. the second, fourth, sixth) within this class.
.addClass(“zebra”) – adds the ‘zebra’ class from our CSS making the code into <li class=”zebra”> for all ‘even’ numbered tr.

Simple, eh? That’s pretty much it.

Credits to Jack Born for his tutorial which inspired me to re-write into my own tutorial. You can find the original work here!

Popularity: 6% [?]