I was trying out Google’s own code repository Google Code today, finally delving into some SVN knowledge with Subclipse and was starting to wonder if there is actually an explaination about all those Open Source Licenses which is understandable for non-lawyers. A quick googling gave me this useful ZDNet link … HOWTO: Pick an open source license where the editor describes some of the most common licenses like GPL, MIT, BSD, Apache etc. in a more concise and clear way. It makes it much easier than digging through all those license text at opensource.org.
I’m currently developing a role-playing game in AS3.0 (non-fantasy themed!!) in my spare time. This has been and still is in the design phase since a while and I’m pondering whether to use isometric graphics or an orthogonal view (that has a slight tilt but still is fully orthogonal. If you remember Jagged Alliance you get the idea). Though orthogonal view would make things easier I feel that isometric view gives more visual freedom so I will probably end up with that.
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I must have been temporally mind absent when I strolled through Akihabara some days ago and went into a Computer Shop to buy this cute little – but ridiculously overpriced –
Happy Hacking Keyboard!
Not only doesn’t it have Letters, it also has no cursor keys and no function keys! Well ok mine is dark gray and has black letters on it that can only be seen with enough light in the back. It”s a 66 keys Keyboard and all special keys can be accessed with the Fn key. It means you have to press two keys to use Cursor keys or Function Keys and if you want to press Shift+F1 you have to hold three keys at once. Quite a finger acrobatic trainer isn’t it? Not to mention that I also have to get used to the American layout.
I somehow feel back at the C64 where double and triple layered keys were the daily thing. This little black devil meanwhile went into my shelf to be replaced with my ten year old trusty Cherry Keyboard … three times by now! Finally I accepted to give it a longer try! Sure, Its masochism but the quality and feeling of the keys is so irresistible! Plus I got a lot more space free on my desk suddenly (you should know … space is the most expensive thing around here!)
Being that old hardware DIY’er that I am (it started long ago with changing the kernel of my C64) I’ve so far always bought parts and built my PCs up by myself. This time I was pondering with buying the new Dell XPS 700 just because it’s case design is so ultra slick (around 100.000 times more slick than a Mac G5 Park Waste Bin ever could be if you ask me) but I’ve changed my mind after realizing once more that Dell’s sale policy sucks. That is because here in Japan the XPS is not available as customizable as in the US! While in the US the minimum parts required are the CPU and memory, here at Dell Japan you have to buy an almost fully rigged machine.
So instead of buying an XPS 700 with a flatscreen, DVD, keyboard, mouse and Windows XP Home, all stuff that I don’t need I’ve decided to go again and choose all required parts from the ground up by myself. Here is how my next PC will look like …
Antec P180B Case (looks like a mini frigde but is very quiet and cool inside)
Antec Neo HE 550 PSU
Asus P5B Deluxe Motherboard
Pentium D 945 CPU (3.4 GHz)
Zalman CNPS9500 LED CPU Cooler (have to double check if it fits on the mobo without probs!)
2x Corsair XMS2 2GB (2x 1GB) 800 (PC2 6400) (4GB)
Leadtek Winfast PX7900 GTX TDH (more silent and cooler than comparable Radeon cards)
2x HITACHI Deskstar T7K250 250GB 7200RPM SATA
… Not only is it cheaper (though still quite steep) but it also means more memory and quite a bit more silence in our room than with the XPS. My last mainboard was an Asus P4C800-E Deluxe and I’m totally satisfied with it since it is running stable for about two years now. I think I’ll turn the old water-cooled Pentium4 into our Linux Server after this.
… Ok, a bit of exaggeration here but it comes pretty close! In case you missed it, Andre Michelle has written a RealTime Synth with ActionScript 3.0 that immitates an analogue synth not unlike the famous 303. The Userinterface is slick and the knobs are turning linear when dragged with the mouse. The sound is very good for that it is calculated! Try playing around with the Filter, Cutoff and ADSR curves and you will see (hear) that it sounds pretty much like a real synth. Heads up to Andre for being such an Innovator!
So after about six months of absence I’ve decided to subscribe for a month back into SWG to see if things changed for the better (and to see if my stuff still exists). I spawned inside my house where I left the game last November and decided to bring my char to level 90 so I did many of the quests that I still had open. After all quests are almost the only way currently to gain XP quickly.
The game is basically still the same since I left it! Many of the same old bugs and a gameplay that has only distantly something to do with RPG. Examples: Tried to continue the ‘Secret of the Syrens’ quest but the Black Sun Bunker at the waypoint never spawns,I want to call my mount pet inside the Kashyyk Hunting Grounds but it doesn’t spawn, I want to attack that imperial trooper that permanently shoots at me but I can’t because he’s stuck inside a wall … the list could go on for a while.
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The “Crappiest Corporate Site of the Week” Award goes to Dell Japan for not being able to have a Shop website that runs on current Browsers! When I try to get onto their XPS 700 Customization page I get a simple Access Denied, telling me that I need to use Internet Explorer 4.0 or Netscape 4.6! The site doesn’t work on FireFox and not on MSIE 6 and neither on Netscape 8! Congratulations Dell! You suck immensely!
I’m actually wondering how do you sell your PCs in Japan!
In my book “How to become a Flash Game Developer of World Class” I surely will not forget to mention this useful tool … FreeMind, a Mind Mapping tool that is not only free but also very intuitive! It is written in Java and therefore available for all common Platforms. Where other Mind Mapping tools or even MS Visio fails with being intuitive, FreeMind comes to the rescue!
You can lay out all imaginal hierarchical structures, be it your shopping list, you time plan or the story concept for your next game. After creating a new document with FreeMind, it has one root node. From now on you can add child nodes with the Insert Key, add sibling nodes below with the Enter key or above with Shift+Enter. This way it becomes a breeze to create a large tree structure of your project.
You can assign different color and font styles to your nodes. Another useful feature is the ability to link two nodes together with a bezier line. The tool has a MinMap and a Browse Mode and you can even browse your harddisks file structure with it if you want. You can also link files to nodes.
This is the number one tool I would recommend for brainstorming but it is very useful to lay out projects in more detail as well. There is also a FreeMind Document Reader that has been written with Flash, though I’m not sure if it can be downloaded and used offline.
Found these today on my daily dose of Stumble Upon random links … Proggy Programming Fonts! Still coding with Courier? Maybe it’s time for a change?!
Centered Selection is a simple but neat little JavaScript for Photoshop CS+ that can be used to create a rectangular or elliptical centered selection while maintaining the aspect ratio (i.e. width and height of the selection stay the same). Several options can be changed like the feather amount and the padding around the selection, whether using Antialias or not, creating an inverse selection and if an alpha channel should be created from the selection. This script can save a lot of hassle when trying to create a centered selection (imagine all that shift-, control- and space-holding and pressing to resize and drag around the selection)! As always a screenshot says more than thousand words.
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I’ve updated Alcon (ActionScript Logging Console) to v1.0.8! The only thing that has been added in this version is a Debug Class for use with ActionScript 3.0, everything else hasn’t been changed. The AS3.0 Debug Class can be found in the com.hexagonstar.util.debug package.
Note that you must use Debug.trace() since I’m not even sure if it’s somehow possible with the MXMLC to redirect to a custom trace method (like it is possible with MTASC). If you got any hints on this, please let me know! The new version can be found as always on it’s page at the Flash Game Programming Wiki! Enjoy!
The creator over at e-phonic.com seemingly has created the first realtime synth in Flash with AS3.0. Realtime in the meaning that it creates the produced sound completely by itself and not relying on predefined samples. He used the ByteArray and the Loader class (Loader.loadBytes) based on an idea and first experiment from David at Robots /w Lasers.
The synth consists of a simple, white emptyness in where you have to click with the mouse and it plays generated sounds depending on the coordinates. The sounds might be still a bit awkward but hey, it’s a milestone in Flash history, isn’t it?! 
