Some of the new features besides the already existing Trace Command and File Loggers are a Memory Consumption and Frames-Per-Second Monitor, a completely new and improved Object Inspector that is finally useful for Debugging, an Options dialog to comfortably configure Alcon, proper AS2 support and a couple of other minorities here and there.

The progress moves on quick enough that I dare to say that the release date is only a few weeks away from now so sit tight, it’ll be there in a heartbeat.

In case you’re wondering what happened on this site besides that it has been visually overhauled … two of my older blogs have now been merged with Hidden Resource. One, Dataleak, was my very first blog that I used for mainly writing about computer games, especially old ones. However Dataleak turned more and more into a abandoned net corpse and because there were quite some articles on it which I found have nostalgic value I decided to take them over to HDRS. Then there was Vista Tweaking, a blog I’ve started to post tweaks for Windows Vista. The few postings from that site have been consolidated into HDRS as well. I also had the idea on the back burner about starting an audio blog since audio production is one of my many interests. But a man has only so much time and maintaining three or four blogs is clearly a chore. Just think about all the updates, handling Spam etc.

>> Continue reading "Dude, where is my blog?"

In this tutorial I will explain how to create a relatively realistic looking galaxy with Photoshop. I was searching the web up- and downwards to find any tutorials that could tell me how to get a similar fantastic result. There are like 100.000 planet tutorials out there and the few tutorials which were about creating a galaxy where either very basic or the result looked like everything but a realistic galaxy. The galaxy I wanted should have looked massive and intricate … just like the real ones but with a slightly more artistic touch. I’ve needed a galaxy that I could use as a star map for a space-themed roleplaying game design and the image you see above is a part of the result. Let’s go try to do such one …

>> Continue reading "Creating a Galaxy in Photoshop"

Kore 2 from Native Instruments is probably every sound organizer’s wet dream with sugar on top. Not only  can it control a multitude of Softsynths but it’s database makes it easy to organize sounds and find them quickly when needed. I’ve purchased this nice tool last December and what’s better than telling a few details on how I put it’s features to good use?!

>> Continue reading "Using Kore 2 more efficiently with User Tags"

A while back I’ve created a custom skin for Ableton Live with this handy freeware skin editor. The editor dates back to Live 6 but it seems that skins made with it work just fine in Live 7. Live’s approach to UI design is very minimalistic which I think is a step into the right direction but the default color palettes are not everyone’s taste. I’ve been using this skin since a couple of months and it works nicely so here is Dark2008, a dark - but readable - theme for Ableton Live 6 and 7.

>> Continue reading "Facelift for Ableton Live"

In game development randomness is often necessary for certain tasks, be it the random distribution of graphic tiles, a random factor in NPC AI or random stats in a roleplaying game. Especially for the latter purpose the static Dice class provides a set of methods to roll dice as it is common in a Role-playing game, to be exact four-, six-, eight-, ten-, twelve-, twenty-sided and percentile dice.

>> Continue reading "ActionScript3 Dice Class"

Makes me wonder why nobody else has yet written anything about this bug … when using any container component like for example a Panel or TitleWindow with a different borderStyle than the default, e.g. borderStyle: solid all your contents of that container reach into the the chrome of the Panel/Window/etc. pretty much messing up your layout. How could this escape the eyes of Adobe’s Flex devs? Here’s the thread at Adobe’s Flex forum. This is bad because it sort of prevents me from writing any Flex/AIR applications until this issue has been fixed, I’m using a custom theme for all my projects that use a solid borderStyle (similar to the one used in the Flex Style Explorer). The marvels of open beta software pushed by corporations for mere publicity purpose!

>> Continue reading "Animated Bitmap Class"

FDT 3.0 is pure coding comfort indeed! After using it you’ll agree that the Flex ActionScript editor looks like a poor excuse compared to FDT! There are all the features for ActionScript 3.0 that also were in FDT 1 and a lot of new stuff. Luxurious syntax coloring and semantic syntax highlighting, code templates,my number one favorite feature Mark Occurences, code formatter, quick fixes, Flash IDE and Flex compiler support, limited refactoring and more.

Now all I wish for is that FDT works flawlessly together with Flex/AIR projects but that will probably come at a later date since getting a stable release is more important now. It kind of feels awkward if you have to go back to the Flex AS editor once you used FDT!

>> Continue reading "Alcon"

The tool uses the same calculations like the ones from the links mentioned above plus it stores your values so you don’t have to enter them again every time. Version 1.0 features hourly rate calculation, a project pricing wizard and an option to change the visual theme of the tool. It also resides nicely on your desktop or wherever you put it and is there whenever you need to make an estimation.

>> Continue reading "FEAT (Freelancer’s Estimation Assistance Tool)"

Normally when Vista’s User Account Control (UAC) asks the user for a consent when launching an application that is deemed insecure, the desktop will fade dark while the consent window is shown. While I recommend to always leave UAC turned on, this desktop dimming can get annoying very quickly.
Fortunately this behavior can be disabled so that the consent window is still shown without dimming the whole desktop. To turn this off follow these steps …

>> Continue reading "Vista Tweak 7: Disabling the secured (dimmed) desktop during UAC consent prompt"

By default Vista adds installed games to the Vista Games Folder when they are started for the first time. However there are many games that are not added automatically. It is possible to drag and drop a shortcut icon of a game onto the Game Window but only the icon is displayed then without any box art or additional information.
There is a workaround to add your own games to the Game Window completely with box art and other infos. This is more of a hack since it is not officially supported and since you have to tamper around in the Registry you should know what you are doing. Also you have to repeat the following steps for every game that you want to add which can be tiresome if you want to add many. Here’s the step-by-step guide to add your games …

>> Continue reading "Vista Tweak 6: Adding Games to the Vista Game Folder that are not added automatically"

Despite there seems to be no visible option to turn Autologin on in Vista it is still possible to activate it. The feature is a bit hidden and not directly accessible through the Control Panel. If you ever are the only person using your computer there is no purpose in always having to log into your account. Here are the steps to turn on Autologin …

>> Continue reading "Vista Tweak 5: Autologin on Vista"